I doubt that many people completely and totally grasp the concept of transsexuality. Especially if someone is a lesbian transwoman or a gay transman. I keep getting the question “why can’t you just stay a dude?” or something to that effect. Sometimes, I get tired of answering this question over and over again but to sum it up, here’s the brass tacks: sexual orientation is different from gender identity. I could explain my situation, but if you really want to understand the general idea that sexual orientation is different than gender identity, then I would highly recommend reading a page that the Centre for Gender Sanity created on it called the Diagram of Sex and Gender. But some people might not get the idea from this page so I am going to explain it all in a different manner down here.
Gender identity is the maleness or femaleness of one’s personality, mental being and I dare say “soul”. I feel that mentally, I am female and that since beginning transition and going through transition, every success I have had has made me feel better about myself, help me with my self-esteem and ultimately, make me a more well-rounded and happier person. I still have my problems, but I can clearly identify what they are and take them on once I get the power and ability to. Transgender is largely considered an umbrella term of someone willing to subvert the gender continuum and recognize who they are.
Gender Presentation is about how you present yourself to the world. I believe myself to be a femme lesbian and I am seeking another femme lesbian. Since I have gone full-time, my gender presentation is that of a feminine female, with very flowing feminine clothes. True, my voice and mannerisms have not yet been perfected to the point where I am almost undetectable and I have not had facial feminization surgery yet, but I am definitely planning to as soon as humanly possible. I believe my intended gender presentation is unquestionably feminine. A butch lesbian would have a more masculine gender presentation, but this would not contradict her female gender identity one bit.
Sexual Orientation is about who you are attracted to. Put simply, I am a lesbian. On a more technical and descriptive manner, though, I consider myself to be a pansexual woman with a strong lesbian orientation. Some people might consider themselves to be completely gay or completely lesbian and I’d have to say that 99% of my sexual orientation is lesbian, but I guess I am also guilty of day dreams as one of my former or current friends (that were held over from my previous life) as my spouse with myself being their beautiful wife. Of course, these fantasies are few and far between, but not acknowledging them would be self-defeating, wouldn’t you think? Plus, why lie?
Physical sex is the sex you were considered at birth. This is usually due to your genitals but physical sex includes things such as hormones and chromosomes. One can change their genitalia and undergo hormone therapy but they cannot change their chromosomes. Plus, who would really know what the real chromosomes of a transsexual are, as we have not yet completely mapped the human genome and cannot make a concrete way to tell of someone suffers from gender identity disorder from early on. Most of the revelations of gender identity disorder start from a very young age and ultimately remain untreated until after puberty. There are transsexuals which are fortunate enough to receive hormone therapy with the support of their families and the medical profession before a male puberty can begin. These people have my best wishes and my envy. I plan to have the surgery as soon as possible. This could be a year from now, this could even be as soon as next Powerball drawing. But one thing is for certain, I will have the surgery, come hail or high water!
So remember, asking someone who is undergoing transition and has a homosexual orientation to stay as their birth sex is not only self-defeating, it misses the point. Our homosexual orientations due to transsexuality are inherent and are largely unrelated to transition in and of themselves. For me to “stay a dude” would be to deny the most important part of myself and lie continuously about who I am just so someone else could stay comfortable. Absolute lunacy!
