Transgender and Gay are Very Different – It’s NOT About SEX

I have NEVER claimed to speak for the entire LGBTQ (Eee Eye Eee Eye Oh) community. I can’t. I can ONLY speak to my own experience and how I can understand how those in a similar situation might feel. When other claim to speak for me, they’re usually wrong.

There is a POLITICAL alliance among the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Queer activist community because there is strength in numbers. I’m not a part of that community. I can honestly say I don’t know a single other transgender person. I know OF transgender people and have emailed with maybe two of them (only ONE comes to mind), but to say here where I live – face to face I know another one? Nope. That’s not where I live. I just live in the same world you do.

Being transgender is about WHO you are. IF you were born with a male or female body and you are totally comfortable and feel “normal” in your male or female body – well, you’re just fine. You are what would be defined as “cis-gender” (“cis” is a Latin prefix that means “SAME”) meaning your BODY matches your IDENTITY (who you are.)

TRANS-gender is when your body DOESN’T match your identity (in my case having a boy’s body but everything inside you is a girl.)

Being Gay or Lesbian (Homosexual if you will) is about who you are attracted to sexually and/or romantically. You can be born a boy and totally comfortable with yourself as a man, yet be SEXUALLY attracted to men – that’s being gay. The same goes for a woman being attracted to another woman – she’s a lesbian. It has NOTHING to do with who they see themselves as, it’s about who the object of their attraction is.

Am I transgender BECAUSE I’m gay? Perfectly appropriate question. With the “benefit” of testosterone coursing through my body and probably because of cultural pressure, I WAS attracted to women, and I was even MARRIED in an attempt to be “normal” (that’s another article.) But the ENTIRE TIME, even when I was married to a woman, I wanted to BE a woman. Now that I am, I’m really appreciating men. A handsome man really does something for me.

I’ve learned that being heterosexual before and AFTER transition is not unusual. I love having girlfriends to talk to and confide with, but I don’t see them in a sexual way at all. Even really attractive women – I may be envious (and ok, may hate them just a little for being so freakin’ beautiful and making the rest of us look so bad) but there is no sexual component at all. Being transgender had NOTHING to do with HAVING SEX. NOTHING. Don’t know how I can say it in a more plain manner. If it’s hard for you to understand – THAT I get. Wrapping your head around something as foreign as this can take some time, but here you are – faced with reality. It can suck for all of us at some time or another.