Fitting in with queer culture

Post Reply New Topic

Another topic here got me to thinking about how completely awkward it is to date / have relationships / sex as a gender divergent person. Not that I'm ready to go racing out and dating anytime soon, but I'm not discounting it in the future completely. How does everyone navigate this?
- does a lesbian transwoman go to lesbians clubs and events without worry? What about the risk of "womyn born womyn" telling her she is unacceptable / really a man? Is she even welcome in lesbian spaces? Does it depend on her surgical status - aka she is welcome if she has had vaginoplasty, but if she had retained her penis, no way? Is it contingent on how well she "passes"? Should she restrict herself to bisexual women who may have less issues with her history and / or anatomy, and run the gauntlet of being used by bi curious women who just want to experiment, and see her as half way? Is she obliged to disclose immediately, and risk being continually rejected or hassled? The same scenario could be applied to transmen.
- what about straight transmen and transwomen? What is it like to have your partners constantly question their own sexuality as possibly gay just by being with you? What about their relationship with you potentially costing them friends / relatives who then see them as gay when you see yourselves as a straight couple? What about the nasty fetishisation of straight transwomen, and the invalidation of transmen?
- what about gay transmen who, due to cost, risk, and questionable results of phalloplasty / metoidioplasty, still have a vagina? Does this knock them out of a sometimes very cock-centric culture? Do they constantly get gay men asserting they "don't have sex with women" and insist that because he has a vaginal opening, he is no different? Would a gay man attracted to such a transman question his own sexuality, or get backlash from other gay men over his inclusion of transmen, be called a poser, faker, bi, otherwise not actually gay, etc?
- what about a straight transman looking for relationships with queer women? It's not like he would be welcome in a lesbian bar or club, or immediately attractive to gay women, even if he has a vagina. The masculine way he looks may not interest gay women. How do such transmen find partners? Does he try to skate by with straight women, and risk some of them freaking out when they are inevitably faced with his trans status, as they may never have had any contact with queer culture before?
- should a straight transperson immediately discount themselves if interested in a straight person of the opposite sex, assuming this person would not want them because they're not cis? Not man or woman enough? Automatically assume any straight person of the opposite sex will have a problem with their history and / or genitalia and not be interested?
- and then of course, what about the genderqueer hurdles? Where do genderqueer people find partners without giving the impression they're binary? A feminine presenting genderqueer may get away with attending women's events, regardless of their anatomy, but then they would be assumed to be female. What happens when it comes out this is not the case? Same with a masculine presenting genderqueer in a men's space, gay or otherwise.
- Would a male bodied, non-op genderqueer individual who is attracted to men just force themselves to go to men's queer spaces and put up with being treated like men, in order to meet guys? Would a female bodied genderqueer attracted to girls do the same? Would that end up with invalidation, because their partner met them in a gay single sex setting, and always see them coloured by that, regardless of anything that happens after?
- what if you're trans in the medical sense, but genderqueer identity? Especially if you are physically genderqueer, and do not conform to binary gender in any way, right down to atypical genitalia? What kind of partner is going to be able to deal with that? Where would you even look for such a person?
- what about intersex folk? Are people going to be freaked out by someone who was not born male or female? What if they were not parentally assigned in infancy, and allowed to grow up intersex? What if the assigned gender was the wrong one, and they are intersex and trans? Or intersex genderqueer and trans?
- what about the dreaded "conversation"?
- would a bisexual genderqueer feel pressured to fulfil certain gender roles dependent on the sex of their partner? Would they be expected to "be the man" or "be the woman" dependent on the shifting sexes of their partners and themselves? Would bisexual genderqueer transfeminine people have to deal with always wondering if they're being regarded as men by female partners, and as women by male partners? Reverse for bisexual genderqueer transmasculine folks?
Seems to me that nowadays, gay relationships and finding gay partners is by and large easy enough in the broad sense. It's easy for everyone to understand what is going on here, what the other person is, what to expect, the social rules involved.
But trans? To me it just seems awfully awkward and complicated and fraught with all sorts of things that can go haywire way too easily. Unless you hook up with someone who is pansexual and genderblind and just doesn't care about genders by pure dumb luck, it seems to me it's always going to be a thing that not even gay couples have to think about.
And that's not even getting into what happens with everything if you're already a couple and one of you transitions.
How does all this work?

I'm only bumping this because I think this is a worthy discussion.

I'm a straight man, so I really can't offer anything worthwhile.

I find the bit involving pubs and noise very difficult, and long since decided there were more interesting things in life.

Then I found the Kink scene, where the music is played more quietly, people treat alcohol with a lot more care and respect and I found I could do these events and enjoy them.

the currency among pop gay culture is to be young and fit, hip and attractive in general, it seems at any who don't fit this paradigm are marginalized at best.

These are great questions; in a way the straight/gay labels don't work as well here as being attracted to a gender format - like gyneromantic/androromantic or something.

The cultural conventions of the gay community can be daunting. When I was more deeply involved in it even as a cis, I found the demands about how you look and act to be rather formulaic. I lived in SF, so there was the Castro scene, the Bear/leather scene, the Radical Faery scene.... Goddess forbid you don't look right or are too old.

Maybe it's calmed down since back then... But as a spectrum person it's hard to navigate and get "real" with someone as yourself.

You are over thinking this dude.

I'm straight but my younger brother is a friend of dorothy so we usually go to a gay club when having a night out as it's more comfortable for him and I don't mind.

I think it's beautiful seeing men just drop the pretense and be the wonderful flamboyant gay men that they are.

Get yourself to the gay clubs, meet lesbos , as many gays as you want or as little.

Relax. Just like Frankie said.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood--the group that did "Relax."

Find a place to hangout where anything and everyone goes.

They exist. I party at one of them. It's called VAL (Vancouver Arts & Leisure) and this Pride they hosted their first ever Trans Pride Art Showcase night. It was fun & entertaining - trans dancers, singers, drag queens, dj's etc. But during their regular series of gay parties, all of these people are welcome to come party in a safe environment with the rest of us. It's at a place like this that I'd imagine such genderqueer folks might just meet someone they click with vs. at mainstream clubs and gay bars.

_________________
No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

i fit nowhere with nobody, except with my square pegs aspie group.