Part 2: identity

A truly special old friend said to me the other day that, "any person who grows up in a role never completely leaves that role," regarding my loss of "sorority" in transitioning to male. She went on to say, wisely, "How often do we hear 'men just don't get it.' You get to get it."

And that's what I have to remind myself when I fear the unknown of "manhood."  Yes, I'm going to (eventually) pass as a white male. And yes, that comes with a ton of privilege.  But it also comes with a responsibility to remember where I came from, what made me who I am, and how I use that privilege.

But what made me who I am? And what am I now? So much of my life revolved around being in the lesbian community.  And my partner identifies extremely strongly as a lesbian. Can she be a lesbian if she's with a man?  What if that man is a transman?   Doesn't that make us "queer," in the truest sense of the word?

I definitely think of my identity as "queer."  As a young, newly out, college student, I had a hard time with any word that wasn't the word "gay" to describe me. Lesbian felt funny and awkward in my mouth. And as someone who started to identify as trans* VERY shortly after identifying as gay, being called a lesbian felt awkward and funny, too. But there I was: female bodied and dating women. So obviously I was a lesbian. I awkwardly checked boxes on GLBTQ health studies as "lesbian" and "transgender," which must have made me seem like a lesbian transwoman to researchers, which skewed their results, I'm sure.  But I'm pretty comfortable now with the transman identity.  I've always felt more like one of the guys, than a lesbian, even when surrounded by lesbians.

But if I'm a transman, in a relationship with a lesbian, what does that make her?  It makes her, as she so rightly pointed out, a lesbian in love with a transman. And that's okay. I don't feel like she's invalidating my manhood by claiming her lesbianism and proclaiming it loudly. I feel like we're just two people in love, no matter what our physical makeup.  And I can proudly continue to be queer.