Er, I'm not sure I understand what you mean, erika?

t eta: just like coming out as gay, it's often a complicated process for some people. Becuase being trans is even less accepted in our society than being gay, it's even MORE complicated and fraught, for many people. And, just like being gay, for some people it's very clear at a very young age, and something they just can't fight against, and for other people it takes time and acceptance for themselves, or may be something they've known for a long time, but just not fully explained to friends/family/the bigger world. There are degrees of "outness" for transpeople, too, and degrees of what you can do to "be" trans--whether you go for hormones, surgery, etc.

Well, okay, maybe I don't either. (Obviously, more than the mean pinheads pretending they were hoping to find economic news on TMZ, but that's another topic.) So, she still likes girls, but she doesn't feel like he is one,right?(Sorry to say it in such dumb terms, but it probably is a relatively dumb question. I guess I don't get how one...crosses the line or whatever from "like a guy"(maybe) to thinking that one might actually *be* a guy. But I guess I'm fortunate to never know that particular confusion...I imagine it's not easy, to put it mildly. And I have used a ton of words to say: Transexuals...huh. I don't get it. And you are probably thinking "Nobody asked you, dumbass." and wondering how deep the brain damage really goes. ETA: And I took so long to type I missed Meara's thought...it really scares some people to think that something like gender ID or even orientation could be so mutable, huh?

I dunno erika. I've asked the same questions. In my head, being a man in a woman's body is a very different thing than being a lesbian, but I don't know how that would translate to another person's experience of the two.

Does anyone else think that the teacher looks a lot like ita's friend Colin?

Yes.

Well, I mean...as you're saying, as a "man in a woman's body"...you're still liking who you like. It's about who YOU are, not who you like.

(Though, even that has been known to change, sometimes, given that it's a big life change, and when you add testosterone, which is a HUGE hormone change....but....)

I think for a lot of people, erika, it takes some work to understand that sexuality and gender identity are separate. But when you think of it as: this is who I'm attracted to, and this is how I feel in my body it's a little easier to get.

People that have gender dysphoria don't feel right with their biological package of sex organs. You may have issues with your body but you're fine with having girly bits.

At some point (I think) it's difficult to describe it all as a series of binary choices. It's not nearly as simple as Chastity was a lesbian and now wants to be a man. Both sexuality and gender identity can be kind of fluid and evolving anyway.

Heh. And it's kinda hard for me to explain cause it all seems so normal to me--those are the people I date, for whom gender identity tends to be kind of a grey line anyway. :)

The speech I sorta ended up giving a friend when she asked about why the hell a girl she knew identified as a "queer femme" rather than as a "lesbian", and so on:

A lot of my friends are people who....well, they straddle a lot of gender lines. They're not really "she" but they're not really "he" either. Sure, they might've been born female, but now they use gender neutral names, avoid pronouns, may have had their breasts removed (or just strap them down a lot, or may just not have hardly any tits to start with). Some may have taken testosterone, or they may just look pretty slim and guyish to start with. They get mistaken for guys a heck of a lot. Mostly teenage guys. Some identify as trans. Some don't like to ID. Some date women. Some date other trans guys. Some date gay men. Some date men who identify as "queer". Most of them choose to identify as "queer". Me, I look like a girl, and no one thinks I'm a guy, but...these are my people. And this is why I don't, at the heart of it, identify as a "lesbian", but rather as "queer".

Yeah, I think everything is where it should be. It's just wired like a Fiat. That's probably true, Hec.(I over-simplified a bunch, but I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to drink the haterade or anything...whatever he needs to do to feel okay is probably fine with me.) It's just that, contrary to what the sitcoms show, I didn't have anyone to ask about this in my graduating class.

I think it's sometimes easier if you've hung out with trans men and women to have it make sense? I have a hard time explaining it, like meara does, but they just are who they are, and when you meet them/hang with them, it clicks. I know trans and otherwise non-cisgendered people who were born female who date women, some who date men, some who are fluid. I know trans and otherwise non-cisgendered people who were born men, and same thing. Some dated one gender before transition, and another after. We humans are complex!

ION, the baseball draft concluded but not without another gem of a baseball name: Dexter Bobo.

You can't make this shit up! (cf., Coco Crisp, Dusty Napoleon, Dante Love, Sequoyah Stonecipher and Damien Magnifico.)

Glad you asked, erika. I don't have any problems accepting things like Chasity knowing he is Chav -- because coming to that conclusion - in the face of all the cultural issues is not easy. However, acceptance isn't the same as understanding, and any information helps