Girlfag

"Girlfag refers to a biologically female individual who feels a strong romantic or erotic attraction towards gay or bisexual men, or their social environment."

I've often joked I was a bear trapped in a woman's body. In fact, the very first person I willfully had sex with was a gay boy. 

Gender identity and sexual identity are two different things, however for me sexuality too is fluid. My sexuality has been presented deliberately ambiguous as I do not want to be categorized as straight, gay/lesbian, or bi as none of those categorizations really fit me exactly well enough to qualify. Technically I'm "hetero-queer". I just learned that phrase the other day and it fits perfectly. 

This person sums it it up well:

Queer heterosexuality typically refers to heterosexual butch women, or heterosexual femme men. Basically, a 'straight' person who has traits of the queer community, whether it's mannerisms, appearance, lifestyle or even drag-performances. 

Not many people realize you can be as queer as a holiday fruitcake without being homosexual, bisexual, lesbian or transgendered.

(More after the jump)

As it is, I prefer men, but I prefer effeminate men specifically; I fancy the ladies too, kinda butch women, which is to say what I like in people are the same features; intelligence, ambiguity and androgyny. My partner considers himself "sissy' and has been very seriously considering transitioning to female [posting with permission]. This is a topic we've undertaken together, I'm 100% encouraging and supportive of his desires to reconfigure himself to suit his ideal self image. Maybe even too encouraging, I may be bordering on pushy however when I've checked in with him on that I'm assured that I'm not being pushy, although I've backed off from my curious, "Why haven't you done this yet?" shifting to, "Whether you're my boyfriend or girlfriend makes no difference, I love you."

The conversation brings up points of consideration for me that are worth talking about to give context to my thoughts on gender identity. As a little kid I was seen as a boy, I was and am a tomboy.  However my tom-boyness has always gone beyond just doing butchy things. Once, in middle school, in the girls locker room (seriously), I initiated a conversation about wanting to be a boy - "just for a day to see what it was like". I was met with immediate hostility and was beat up and bullied by the girls in school from then on. When I got to high school I was met with gay bashing and bullying from fellow students who were expressing their own gender/sexual identity through violence.  I chose to stand up for myself, defending myself as ambiguous. 

I have always hated that I am female, I've especially hated the male gaze and all that it means to be pretty (even though I'm totally guilty of performing the male gaze).  I've had moments of wanting to be a guy. No. A lifetime of wanting to be a guy. And I have always wanted to have a penis (which is different than wanting to be a guy). More than peeing standing up or, not having periods, or feeling safe in the world I've always wanted to experience the feelings of being male bodied. I have never experienced the apparent ecstasy of pleasure my partners have expressed and demonstrated in response to sexual discourse and activities and I want that.  Perhaps it's simply other-envy. Then there is the power.  I want to have the power.  It's not the brutish misogynistic power that I want either, I don't want to be a dick. Power and dominance are different. Dominance is almost easy and anybody can do that. I say almost because there is a part of me that struggles with how inconsiderate dominance can be. I hear that's part of the fun, but it's tough for me to wrap my head around. I realize there are  appropriate tools and alternate approaches for actualizing activities that mimic male role play, I utilize and practice said activities with regularity, but I can't really fully feel the experience and I have always been a little desperate to feel in that way. I do experience an exceptionally gratifying mental pleasure state when topping, it's visually very stimulating and the power shift certainly pushes my buttons, what we're doing is indeed great, no doubt about that but it lacks something.

If I were granted three wishes, one of them would be to be transformed into a man, it has always been one of my wishes. I've thought about being trans and if that would satisfy my mind and body. If I could chose how I walked through this world I would likely mix male bottom and a reduced female top, however I haven't seen evidence that the technology is advanced enough to craft the body image I'd like to have. I understand there are many shades of transexual and there are ways to achieve at least the outward appearance of my ideal self.  I have gone out in drag a few times, it's a very strange, wonderful and liberating experience. (I'mma lady killah pa-pow!). In reality, I'm basically in drag every day except that I don't bind or pack (I would totally pack). Would trying to pass as a guy satisfy me? I don't know. I love that I live in a world where I can even ask these questions out loud. 

I've tried to rectify my thoughts on my physical form, I've tried to convince myself that being a woman is alright and try to be empowered by it. I have tried and don't feel that I've succeeded; I don't think I've failed either, instead what I've come to is that I am who I am, and have decided to give up on tying to fit into the social norm of the female gender role. Asking people to see humans as human is more important to me than beauty or gender or sexuality.

I've blogged about sex, and reclamation of my girl bits as mine rather than belonging to anybody else, sex as currency and briefly touched on my interest in women, but really that's not even the tip of the tip of the iceberg. When I want to talk about sex and sexuality, I have felt that I can't really have "normal" conversations with people when it's a relevant topic in the table. In that way I feel isolated. My friends are mostly binary, either / or, all of them are 'allied' which is awesome. I have an intolerance of intolerance (an ex argued the validity of that statement, pfft, lets just call it a paradox). I have wanted to talk more openly about my desires to be differently gendered, but have always been very uncomfortable about it, although I have written about it, it's not been a conversation. I think this discomfort and hesitation comes from that early middle school experience. Most people don't want to be the opposite sex and can't relate at all. This is changing for me though. I have my partner to talk with who is going through his only mental calisthenics, my roommate is rad, as well I now know that one of my besties is well equipped to talk about this stuff and, I haven't broached it with my therapist yet (primarily because we're talking about other stuff at the mo). However I do want to talk with him about fear of intimacy, which could stem from all of this. I can almost hear A. um-humm-ing as I reread those words.  

At the moment, any talk of me transitioning is totally off the table. Why am I saying anything about at all? On the internet of all places? To express my solidarity, compassion, understanding and to celebrate the amazingly wonderful, magical, transformative experience of being in a relationship with someone who loves me for who I am as I love him for who he is in whatever form that takes. To share in this discourse with my partner has been fantastically liberating and we feel it is creating an opportunity for the most awesome relationship ever. Once Monkey decided to be in a relationship with me he went all in. It's be so crazy awesome! I feel like I've turned a corner in understanding my capabilities to love honestly. And that my friends is the important part!