Linkspam

For those of you who haven't read it yet, this is a powerful piece on what it is to be a woman raised as a boy. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, don't read it if you're not in a safe place right now. But please, do read it, do share it. The rest of Little Light's posts are just as good, but I was just reminded of this one and of how much it hit me the first time to read it.

Beyond orientation

One of the well-known but seldom discussed effects of HRT is that it can change your orientation. Jenny Boylan discusses this in her memoir She's not There, where her endocrinologist states that of trans women who were only interested in women pre-HRT, about a third remain that way, a third switch to only liking men, and a third become asexual. I have no citations for these numbers, but it's certainly something that's common enough that my endocrinologist made sure to mention it before I began HRT. And it's something folks talk about on reddit.

While I do not claim the label, I'm perhaps best described as pansexual; that is, I'm not just interested in men and women (as bisexuals are), but also interested in androgynous, agender, genderqueer, third-gender, and non-binary folks. In short: sexy people are sexy. If anything, I'm more drawn to non-standard genders. Though that could just be selection bias, since folks with non-standard genders seem more likely to embrace other ideologies I admire.

But the interesting thing, the reason for this post, is that I have always felt the pull of multiple orientations— even when the target of that desire is the same. While I like everyone, I especially like women. Sometimes that attraction has the feel of a man liking women; sometimes it has the feel of a woman liking women. To me, those two desires are completely different. The sense of fulfillment they bring, the sort of activities they evoke, the overall mode of my involvement with those desires and activities; all are different. Just to be clear, this sort of orientation switching is orthogonal to the top/bottom switching you get in kink and gay circles. It's not about who's in charge, or who's doing what to whom; it's something else. In my experience of top/bottom switching, I have a fair deal of control over which I'm in the mood for at any given point; whereas with the orientation/desire switching, it's something outside of my control.

Since starting HRT I've noticed the balance of those two orientations changing. They're both still there, so far, but the gap between them is growing; they feel even more different now than they did before. In addition, those "straight" desires have greatly diminished. And, like many trans women, I am extremely grateful for that. It's so much easier to live life when you don't have to constantly police those desires. So much easier to avoid unintentionally acting like a jackass. On the other hand, while the "straight" desires have been receding, my lesbian desires have only gotten stronger. I have always identified as lesbian, even before recognizing myself as trans. As a teenager, cis guys often made jokes about being "a lesbian trapped in a man's body"; and I was always offended by their jests, because it always felt so true for me.

All this fits into a larger theme I've been pondering lately. In particular, I think the sex/gender/orientation framework taught in Queer Theory 101 is deeply flawed. The reasons why, I'll cover in later posts. But what can "orientation" mean once we take into account the fact that HRT can change people's orientation? or the fact that people can simultaneously experience multiple orientations towards the same target of desire?