Define Me

One of the best things about having this blog is that I get to not only have a conversation with 'you' but with myself.  I get to think a full thought through where otherwise it's just a fragment in my head that I can nod along with.  For example, for the longest time I referred to Caitlyn as if she were a separate part of me.  An entity in my head that was distinctly NOT me.  Then after writing it out I started talking about her as my feminine side.  I accepted her as a part of me.  And now, more recently, I feel comfortable simply talking about my feminine side.  I don't have a specific part of me that's feminine... I simply have a feminine aspect that waxes and wanes.  Calling that part of me by any name, let alone Caitlyn, feels out of date but I'm going to just go with it for now.


So, this might be a short post.  It might be a long one.  It's one, however, that's not designed for you to read.  It's not necessarily a 'confessional' as Miss Simone recently called an inward thinking piece like this.  What I'm going to try and do is define parts of me.  I've done this a little here and a little there, but in my head I can't really put down what I 'AM'.  I read about and see people fighting for LGBT rights and I know I fit into that somewhere... but am I G?  B?  T?  So, I hope that this look into my conversation can be entertaining... just picture me lying on a couch spilling out inner thoughts to another version of me sitting in a chair, taking notes.

Did you know that in our modern full on inclusionary society that LGBT is now LGBTTQQIAAP?  I heard this on a podcast recently and found it again at Wikipedia.  LGBTTQQIAAP stands for:

• Lesbian
• Gay
• Bisexual
• Transgender
• Transsexual
• Queer
• Questioning
• Intersex
• Asexual
• Ally
• Pansexual

Wow... that's a lot to break down and seems to cover several areas of biology, sexual attraction, and sexual Identity.  Let's actually break down those three definitions as I feel in our meme culture they also get mixed up a lot.  Now, this is what I think they mean.  

Biology;  This is the body we're born with.  Males have a penis and testicles, women have a vagina and ovaries.  We know that bodies can be artificially changed though through surgery or other means, so to go deeper think of it this way:  Biology is the genetic code we're born with.  This is the grade school XY chromosomes.  There are of course some variations like an X0 or XXY, but these are considered abnormalities.  That's not to say people with these conditions or syndromes are something to be feared or shunned, but our genetic code was not set up and/or evolved to be that way.  XX = Female.  XY = Male.  Our current technology cannot change this and it is completely different from anything psychological.  And not to get too deep, but we are still exploring what genetics does to and for us.  For example, we know there is an 'addiction' gene, but we don't understand how it fully presents itself (can you be addicted to something if you're never presented with something to be addicted to?).  

Sexual or Gender Attraction;  This is probably the easiest to conceive of because it doesn't require any scientific knowledge like Biology and it doesn't require the psychological understanding of self identity.  This is simply who a person is attracted to.  Are you attracted to me?  Are you attracted to women?  Are you attracted to both?  Are you attracted to Trans Men or Trans Women?  Are you attracted to some of those but not all?  Are you attracted to all of those?  Are you attracted to none of the above?  Who do you love?  That's all Sexual or Gender Attraction is.  

Sexual or Gender Identity;  This is what we 'feel' we are.  I think this is the hardest for most people to understand because it breaks their world view of what 'normal' is.  Many people, mostly the ones who complain about normal, think that sexual or Gender Identity is directly linked to Biology.  Or at least it should be, and anything outside of that direct link is abnormal and should be changed/shunned/discarded.  The problem is that Gender Identity is internal and has nothing to do with external parts of your body.  It's how our minds perceive ourselves and is practically as unchangeable as biology.  And yes, biology and our perception of ourselves can be in disagreement.  Most people that I talk to can understand the basics of Biology (I have a penis and therefore am a man!), and even if they don't approve of it they can understand sexual attraction (Gay men love men, lesbian women love women).  It's the gender identity that seems to throw them off.  

A little aside, if you ever want to have an open discussion with someone that doesn't understand gender identity as something separate from biology, then try these two lines of discussion that I've found particularly informative and helpful:

• Ask them what they are.  If you're talking to a man you should get the answer 'A Man' back.
• Ask them how they know they are a man outside of their body.  Ask them to define what makes them a man without using anything physical about their body.  The most common responses I've got are either a list of stereotypes (which means you have a far longer discussion in front of you) or an 'ah ha' moment. 
• Ask them if they were to undergo a gender reassignment surgery and were made to be a woman with a vagina, breasts, no penis, and no testicles, would they still think of themselves as a man.  IF you can keep them thinking in the personal sense (this happened to them), it will generally lead to another 'ah ha' moment of biology and gender identity being separate things. 
• Ask them to explain intersex.  Intersex people are born with a combination of male and female chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and/or genitals.  I recently found out that General Pulaski who famously reformed the cavalry in the American Revolution, was Intersex.  Anyway, how does someone that has both male and female hormones and has both male and female genitals decide if they are male or female?  

The short of this part is that the gender you identify as is not related to the body you have, your sexual orientation or the genetics inside of you (at least it's not related to the genetics of X and Y chromosomes).  

And before we move on I should add that in general, "sex" is considered the biological term while "gender" is the cultural or psychological term.  That's why I'll often put them together like sexual or gender identity.  

With those three thoughts now in mind,  a lot of the LGBTTQQIAAP makes more sense.  Some are related to attraction while others are related to identity.  Let's take another look:

• Lesbian
• A woman who is attracted to other women
• Gay
• A man who is attracted to other men
• This one is often non gender specific as you can have 'gay men' and 'gay women'
• Bisexual
• A person who is attracted to both men and women
• Transgender
• A person who's gender identity does not match their biology
• Transsexual
• A person who's gender identity does not match their biology and either wants to or does physically transform from one gender to the other (up to and including gender reassignment surgery)
• Queer
• Umm....
• Questioning
• Umm...
• Intersex
• A person born with a combination of male and female chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and/or genitals. 
• Asexual
• A person without sexual feelings or associations. 
• Ally
• A person who supports LGBTTQQIAAP rights but does not find themselves on any of the included spectrums.
• Pansexual
• A person not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity.  

I think the big problem with Queer and Questioning is that they don't define.  Instead they group people together by a lack of definition.  Through a little research I've done I think the best we to define these are:

• Queer
• A term (formerly pejorative) used by people who don't identify with the binary terms of male and female or gay and straight and do not wish to label themselves by their sex acts.
• Questioning
• A person who is uncertain of their sexual attraction and/or gender identities. 

Okay, so we now have a lot of definitions to play with.  Now, lets start applying them to me and my journey from a boy without thoughts of sex or gender (besides being told I was a boy and therefore to play with GI Joe and Transformer toys), to the current me.  

Late junior high to early high school I defined myself as both male and as straight.  I was attracted to women.  I knew of homosexuals and gays (that's the best way I would have thought of anybody on the LGBTTQQIAAP spectrum back then), and I probably knew about lesbians and bisexuals (although to be honest I don't think they entered into my psyche until college), but I knew that when I looked at attractive girls I was drawn to them and when I looked at any guys (whether they were described as attractive or not), I was not drawn to them.  That's all based on physical feelings.  Emotionally, I was more comfortable paling around with other guys.  

Sometime in highschool (and I'm sure I told this before, but I'll include it here) I found a sex of sexual explicit images on a local BBS.  This was the time of dial up (and well before 56.6K!) so the images loaded up slowly.  The first few were of a blonde man and a black haired woman kissing and him playing with her breasts.  Then the next one loaded and started with her, her head thrown back in obvious ecstasy.  When it got down enough to show what was giving her this pleasure though it was the blonde haired guy with his mouth on her penis.  

Yeah... I was confused.  And turned on.  Those images, saved to a floppy disk, were an often thought in masturbatory fantasies.  But where I'd picture myself in the image as the man before, I was simply a bystander in this.  I couldn't picture myself as either the blonde man or the dark haired woman.  

At that point, I believe I entered the first stage of Questioning.  I wouldn't have admitted it to myself at that time, but I know I was attracted to those images and that attraction lead me to explore other things relating to sex.  

Now, back then most of my sexual explorations on the computer were story based.  They simply loaded faster and it was easier to save a 10k text file rather than a dozen 50k images.  So my stories were mostly 'man meets woman and has kinky sex with her'.  I remember one in particular.  It was the middle part of some longer story but I didn't have the beginning or the end... just this one part.  It involved a man slow dancing with a woman who had her arms bound behind her back.  At one point during the dance he realized her top was falling off and exposing her bare breasts so he pulled her close to offer her temporary cover while he pulled her top back up.  During the dance she said that she had to do whatever the person she was dancing with told her to do (I was learning about bondage and discipline relationships through this and other stories) and that she was scared.  He, not being interested in dominating anybody, agreed to stay with her and therefore protect her from others who would take advantage of her position.  When the dance was done though she realized she had to be sexual with him or get in trouble so when he sat down at the table she went to her knees and crawled between his legs... and then those frustrating words of "To Be Continued".  I didn't have the next part of the story but I imagined (and jacked off to) a scene where I was a man and a bound woman gave me a blowjob under a public table.  

By the way, the fantasy of a woman giving a man a blow job under a table is to this day one of my biggest fantasies, only with me as the woman!  I never really put two and two together, but I'm fairly certain right now that that was the beginning of that particular fantasy.   

Anyway, I had a lot of 'straight' stories like that.  But I also was constantly searching for other fetishes (thats how I thought of anything beyond straight sex).  I looked up homosexual gay male stories but couldn't find any I liked.  I looked up homosexual lesbian female stories but couldn't find any I liked  I found a lot of S&M and B&D stories that were very exciting, but the most exciting ones involved a mistress making her male slave dress as a woman.  The really REALLY exciting ones involved her making her male slave up to be a woman well enough that he could pass and he'd have to fool some other man into thinking he's a woman.  Often with a sexual act (either a blow job or anal sex).  

But through this time (and this extends well into my first run through college), I never considered that as being part of me.  It was a fetish that excited me and at most I imagined telling some future girlfriend about and maybe having her tie me up... but nothing more than that.  

I had gone through several purges between those high school days and moving away to college, so I can't say how many stories like that I had. I can say that the sources I had for finding such images was limited and just didn't have a good selection.  But while away I found... fictionmania.  

OH.  MY.  GOD.  

The width and breadth of stories there sent me over the moon.  From aunty fantasies, to girlfriend revenge, to cross dressing, to magical and/or surgical transformations, to body swapping.... every variation of gender and sex was played with.  It was later that year that I realized I had saved back about 3 or 4 'straight' sex stories compared to my dozen or so fictionmania stories.  I had also saved back quite a few image sets, but they all fit the fictionmania style where I'd picture myself in the feminine role.  It's there that I would have admitted the Questioning phase.  I could see that I was more than attracted to this as just a fetish.  I was attracted about a change in gender and sex.  I am fairly sure at that time I was more questioning if I was Gay and not Transgender, but that's just a lack of understanding on my part.  Like a lot of people I talk to today, I was stuck in the 'normal' and 'abnormal' mindset.  If you weren't a heterosexual man, then you were a gay man.  If you wanted to be a woman then you were a gay man who wanted to be a woman.  

That phase lasted a long LONG time.  That would have been around 1994 or 1995 and my type of Questioning wouldn't have changed until just before I started capping in 2009.  I must have heard of Transgender before that but only by looking at and reading caps that were classified as Transgender did I start to think of that instead of Gay.  And it made sense... Gay meant attracted to men and every single feminine fantasy of mine involved being forced.  Gay also meant a man attracted to men and I was distinctly feminine in those fantasies.  But Transgender meant wanting to be a woman.  

That's the point where I really started to think of sexuality and gender.  About what it really meant to be a woman.  It was difficult to get out of the fantasy side of it though.  I mean, in my fantasies I was always an attractive woman.  Whether that was as a guy made up well enough to pass as an attractive woman or transformed into an actual attractive woman... attractive was as constant as woman.  But I'm not even an attractive man and I don't have anywhere near a female body type.  If I were a woman I'd be the same thing I am now... an unattractive person.  An unattractive woman.  So besides being attractive, what about being a woman attracted me.  

That version of Questioning is what drove me for the next 10 years.  Not whether I was Gay or not, but whether I was Transgender or not.  Whether I really wanted to be a woman or it was just part of a fantasy of being an attractive woman.  I could probably go back and read through a lot of my posts here in this blog or on my 'Masks' blog and help pinpoint at least a year where I made this revelation, but let's just say it was only a few years ago that I realized... it's not whether I wanted to be a woman or not.  That's not what the question should have ever been.  The question should have been AM I a woman... and that has a very simple answer.  

Yes.  I am a woman.  

Now honestly it's NOT that simple because I can also declare with full truth that I am a man.  My discoveries since then have all been about how to mesh those two.  I did realize fairly quickly that I am not Transsexual.  I don't want to physically change my body into that of a woman.  Now if you give me a machine to turn me into some form similar to Faye Reagan (someone I'm both attracted to and imagine myself as), and I'm going to jump into that machine without a seconds thought.  

But at the same time that's more of an attraction to being attractive.   If you give me a machine that turns me into some form similar to Brad Pitt (someone I'm both attracted to and imagine myself as), and I'm going to jump into that machine without a seconds thought.  

So, with all of those definitions where does that put me.  Let's just pull some off the list first.  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, are more about sexual attraction than gender identity so I'm going to nix all of those.  They just don't fit me.  Intersex is a biological condition and I don't have it, so it's gone too.  Transexual is about the change itself and I'm not seeking out a change in my body (again, except for being more attractive!) so that's not me.  That's all of the easy ones.  Let's take the rest one by one and see how it fits (or if it does fit at all).  

Transgender (A person who's gender identity does not match their biology) does work for me.  I can easily identify as both a man and a woman but my body is that of a man.  So at times I'm Transgender.  

Questioning (A person who is uncertain of their sexual attraction and/or gender identities).   Yeah, I can easily admit that I don't have all the answers.  I think I'll always be Questioning and just stop thinking of it as a journey to finish.  It's the journey of my life and it will only end when I end.  

Asexual (A person without sexual feelings or associations).  This one isn't easy as I have obvious sexual feelings.  I mean, how much have I talked about masturbation recently!?  But at the same time I'm not attracted to getting into a relationship and I strongly associate honest to God real sexual intercourse with at least the desire to be in a relationship.  I've heard the term 'Aromantic' before and that might fit me better, but I don't think Asexual fits.  

Ally (A person who supports LGBTTQQIAAP rights but does not find themselves on any of the included spectrums).  Now while I support all LGBTTQQIAAP rights, I DO find myself on several of these (so far Transgender and Questioning), so I can't define myself as an Ally.  

Pansexual (A person not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity).  No.  When I'm feeling more masculine I have a distinct attraction toward women, and when I'm feeling more feminine I have a distinct attraction toward men.  I don't have a regard toward biological sex (you started out as a man and are now a woman?  Then I'm probably able to be attracted to you as a woman), or gender identity (you're a woman who identifies as a man but are attracted to men?  Then I'm probably able to be attracted to you as a man (although long term that wouldn't work out for obvious reasons)).  But I do have that strong preference toward gender itself.  

That leaves the last one.  

Queer (A person who don't identify with the binary terms of male and female or gay and straight and do not wish to label themselves by their sex acts).  YES!!!!!

This is why I love these posts.  When I first started writing this I knew I'd cover the definition of 'queer'.  I had always thought of it as just a catch-all for the larger LGBTQ group.  In general, I don't like catch-alls and would prefer to identify or define myself a little more rigorously.  But "...who don't identify with the binary terms of male and female..."  fits me to a T.  And while you could argue that I identify as straight, it's more complicated because I'm straight and attracted to women while at the same time I'm straight and attracted to men.  So that makes it fit even more.  

How do I define myself?  I could say that I'm truthfully Transgender and Questioning but the more distinct way to say all of that is that I'm Queer.  I imagine it will take a long time before I'm comfortable saying that out loud and even longer before I'm comfortable explaining to someone what that means... but from here on out it's going to be a truth that I hold dear.  

I Am Queer