This isn’t for a crusade, I’m not asking for money, phone calls, or anything of that nature. I just need for you to read this diary and respond to it to help explain some things to me.
EPIC DISCLAIMER: I may express some opinions/ideas that you find silly, outdated or downright offensive, if so they are a result of my ignorance and not of any malice on my part, please be as patient as you can be with me.
Please find out why I need your help below the fold...
First, a little background about myself and why I find this diary necessary.
I am a 26 year old straight white male, I am married to a wonderful woman who is 33 and is just now figuring out that she may in fact be a transgendered gay male. Due to this our engagement/involvement in the LGBT community has become more than merely academic.
Now while this is a wonderful journey of self discovery for my spouse and she (he?) is fully ‘into’ the whole thing. I’m understandably (at least to my way of thinking) a little bit lost. Ok, a lot lost.
Now don’t despair, I’m not some meatheaded jock cretin with no respect for anything different from me. I’ve got a bisexual sister and at least one cousin who is gay (as well as having dated a bisexual girl in the past) so it’s not like I’m completely new to the ‘scene’ as it were. My concern is more that I honestly don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do. Again, don’t get me wrong, I donated to the ‘no on prop 8’ folks, I argue with my fundamentalist Christian parents about whether or not being gay is a choice and am a generally standard liberal as far as the gay rights platform goes.
But none of that really helps me beyond understanding the abstract issues that face the LGBT community as a whole. When it comes to the personal level I’m completely lost.
I love my spouse, I love her more than anything in this world, and there’s nothing I want more than to see her happy. However, taking her transformation to it’s logical conclusion leaves me with a couple of rather distinctive problems that I’m unsure of how to deal with.
For one thing, I’m not really attracted to men, so if ‘she’ becomes a ‘he’ what happens then? Once all the operations etc. are completed ‘she’ is no longer a ‘she’ she’s a ‘he’. I’m not physically attracted to ‘he’s’, but as he’s gay he will still be attracted to me (or so I’m assured). Now that isn’t saying that I’m not still in love with my spouse (using spouse here because the gender switching is messing with my head), nor does it mean I don’t find my spouse beautiful. But it does mean that the attraction switches from being physical, mental and emotional to just mental and emotional. How the hell do you deal with that?
Next thing: Having to deal with being the constant 3rd wheel. Now I deal with this already by proxy. Due to the fact that my spouse is who she (he) is, my spouse is VERY into gay culture. I don’t (for the most part) mind this except for the fact that it is mutually exclusive. My spouse is part of a culture that I have to struggle just to understand the basic principles of, and it’s a culture that oftentimes (to me at least) seems that it WANTS to disinclude me specifically because I am not one of the "US" I am instead of the hated "THEM".
What do I mean by this? I will use a satirical TV example. There’s an episode of Will and Grace ( I only know this due to my spouse watching obsessively but there you go) where Matt Damon is a straight guy pretending to be gay so he can go on a trip with the gay men’s choir. Jack sets out on a mission to prove that Matt Damon is straight so as to show him up as the dirty liar he is and deny him the trip to Europe.
Now I know that it’s just a TV show and that exact scenario didn’t happen. But I also know firsthand that it’s very possible to be excluded from something based on your sexuality, and I don’t mean because you’re gay. (and yes I know gay folks are banned from things due to their sexuality, but just as racism doesn’t make reverse racism right so it goes for the sexes).
So many times, I’ve heard gay people disdainfully refer to straight folks as "breeders" in flippant conversation.
These are folks who knew I was straight, who were friendly with me and who knew I could HEAR THEM.
Honestly it really is all I can do when I hear the snotty, head thrown back nose straight up remark of "breeder" to not jump in that persons face and ask how they like getting F****t thrown at them.
It’s almost like I had to reflect the arguments right back at people who I thought ‘got it’. "I can’t help my sexuality, I’m attracted to who I’m attracted to, I’m sorry if that isn’t the same as who you’re attracted to." Does it sound familiar?
Look.
I’m not trying to be antagonistic. Hell, I’m not even trying to be mildly annoying. I’m just trying to figure things out.