01 September 2008

Transdyke to Watch Out For

(with apologies to Alison Bechdel)

I hear you thinking "What the heck is a transdyke? And, why should I watch out for one?" Fear not, gentle reader, I will answer these questions for you only to probably replace them with many more.

Transdyke refers to a transgender lesbian. Some people find this term offensive. I, however, use it to label myself because I'm transgender and I'm a dyke. If you don't know what transgender means, go to wikipedia or something to find out since that's too long to go into here. As for dyke, I use it for its reclaimed meaning of a strong lesbian since I tend to be strongly opinionated and sometimes even self-assured.

So, basically, I'm saying you should watch out for me. Why? Because I'm sure sooner or later to offend you. At least, if I haven't then I've probably not written well or else you haven't understood what I'm actually saying. Let me start off with the offending by fully labelling myself.

I'm a woman. I'm a transgender woman. I'm a dyke. Other lesbians accept me as a lesbian. I'm queer. I'm a feminist. I am some sort of post modern (pomo)/radical feminist. I am a sex positive feminist meaning I don't find erotica/pornography, sex work/prostitution, BDSM, butch-femme, sex acts or sex toys to be anti-feminist. I like erotica/pornography. I like lesbian erotica/pornography. BDSM is fun. Butches are hot. Femmes are hot. OK, women in general are hot. I have sexual kinks. I'm pro-LGBTQ. I think LGBTQ issues are feminist issues. I think transgender issues are feminist issues. I think that political lesbianism is a theft of lesbian identity and culture. I'm an anti-capitalist socialist more or less. I'm a university student. I'm studying to be an academic. I'm an activist in both feminist and LGBTQ issues. I'm accepted as a woman and a feminist by my university feminist group. I benefited from male privelege for most of my life. I'm a transsexual woman. I only started transitioning a year ago. I'm an agnostic pagan who grew up Christian. My good Christian mother loves me, her transgender daughter. I'm mentally ill. "Gender dysphoria" does not make me mentally ill. I am neither young nor beautiful. I'm overweight/fat. Becoming a femme transdyke does not mean I'm reifying the gender binary. Transmen are men. Asexual, bisexual, genderqueer, pansexual, polysexual, and all sorts of other gender and sexual identities exist and are valid.

That's not everything, but it's a good start for offending people I'm sure. However, I'm not trying to offend just to offend. I'm trying to speak and stop the erasure of my reality, my identity, my very being. So, I hope that you'll stick around even if I've already offended you or even if I've not yet managed it.

8 comments:

  1. hey, welcome to the lurid twilight world of blogging! love the tuxie, btw; my own guy's a tux, more white in front though.

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  2. Looking forward to what you have to say!

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  3. So glad I stopped by.

    BTW, I whacked my blog a few weeks ago, so I don't have an url, but I'm part of the commentariat at both belledame's and little light's places, and a queer trans woman.

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  4. Thanks to everyone for welcoming and dropping by. I don't know how often I'll be adding entries, but I'll certainly be commenting around.

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  5. BRAVO on your amazing intro!

    look forward to reading more...

    blessings
    laura luna

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  6. Glad to find you, girl. I am a transdyke just like you. I don't find that term offense, fact is, it is one of the least offensive terms ever used about me. Unlike you, I am an arch-conservative and a rabbi. But that makes it interesting. I think people get offended way too easily.

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  7. "transdyke"... so that's the term for it... for me.

    Despite being born-as-male, I've always felt not-quite like a "normal" straight dude, and not until recently did I realize it wasn't just in my head. I knew I loved women, but the idea of lesbian-in-a-man's-body never before recently was known to me as a way of describing it. And even when I did know about it, I had no suitable word for it, since, accurate as it was, "male lesbian" still fell short.

    Thank you for expanding my vocabulary... and helping clear out the fog in my head.

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  8. Nice to find some overlap between anti-capitalist and sex-positive tendencies. Sometimes it seems as if some folks are using sex-positivity (think sex-business-positivity) to slide some "libertarian" notions under the rug...

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