People are often fascinated by my physical body, but it is usually in a way that strips away any sexuality that I have. When people ask me questions about surgeries, it is rarely because they find it attractive or appealing. These questions are usually asked with freakish and desexualized overtones. Often, others try to reduce my identity to my physical body and sexed characteristics, specifically to whether or not I have a penis. After all, how can I even consider myself a “man” (or, at least, “not woman”) when I don't have a dick? Even when these questions are asked with the implication of finding my non-binary body attractive, it is often in a fetishistic way – reducing me and my body to a fantasy waiting to be fulfilled. In the first case, I am stripped of having any sexuality; in the second, I become only a sexual object. Where is the happy medium?

Even as a transperson I am supposed to see my own body as non-attractive and deny my own sexuality, according to the traditional medical discourse. As Jason Cromwell argues in his essay “Queering the Binaries,” “Within the narratives made available through the medico-psychological literature (and, for that matter, through published autobiographies), both MTF and FTM transsexuals are disgusted by and hate their genitalia, and, by implication, sexual acts of any kind are considered equally disgusting and abhorrent” (515). However, this model of self-repulsion hardly reflects my own experiences.

Before I started transitioning, I was admittedly less comfortable with my body. Rather than really thinking about my identity and its relation to my physical self, I survived by ignoring my physical body altogether. As I began exploring my gender identity, I started questioning my investment in my physical self. I began to really look at my body to see what it had to offer and what I wished to change. When I began testosterone injections, the gradual physical changes gave me a heightened sense of self-awareness that bordered on narcissistic. This obsession with my newly discovered body was spurred on by my testosterone-induced leap in libido. I became fixated on exploring my sexuality.

While I had an aversion to vaginal penetration before starting to transition, it fascinated me once I moved into a more male-identified gender. I had never slept with men as a woman, but I was more than ready to explore that territory with queer men with my altered body. My experience was similar to that of author and activist David Harrison: “The whole point of my gender transition was to free myself up. If something feels good to me, I'm not going to stop doing it because it doesn't fit someone else's notion of what a man is” (132). I had found a way to feel more comfortable and present in my body, and I was going to explore that in every way that I could.

I also found it easier to explore relationships and my sexuality once I began to transition. Rather than making it impossible for me to connect with people sexually, changing my body helped me become more confident and comfortable with myself. My confidence and comfort with my body went much further in establishing relationships with people than my discomfort with my strictly female body had allowed me to do.

A challenge in establishing relationships with partners, though, is dealing with labels and identities. By this point, I have dated partners coming from a variety of sexual identities: gay, lesbian, queer, straight, bisexual, and/or something else entirely. While labels can be useful in forming social movements or conceptualizing ideas, they can become an obstacle in forming relationships that aren't easily categorized. If a gay man is in a relationship with me, how does he negotiate his gay identity in relation to his attraction to my body? How much do outside forces, identity politics, and cultural norms play a role in his response to his attraction to me? Sometimes, the outside forces are too much to overcome and the relationship quickly falters. Other times, my partners have been readily accepting of and attracted to my physical body, regardless of the implications toward a specific identity label.

As a person outside of the male vs. female gender binary, I struggle to assert myself in a gay vs. straight world. I prefer fluid and inclusive sexuality labels like “queer,” “pansexual,” or “omnisexual” to describe myself and my sexuality in order to create space for bodies outside of the binary to be visible and desirable. By reclaiming our bodies as attractive through physical alterations that we initiate, we are able to create room for trans bodies to be attractive. I have reconstructed my body through testosterone injections in such a way that I am comfortable in living in it, and presenting my nonconforming body as one that can be sexually desired is a political act within itself. In refusing to assimilate my body into the idea of what a man's body or a woman's body should look like, I am challenging society's ideas of gender and sexuality on a very personal level.

Intersections

Coming out as transgender did not mean that I had to toss out my feminist politics; to the contrary, coming out as trans helped me to become a better feminist by becoming aware of a new layer of gender oppression based around a gender binary system. While some of my actions have been damaging, such as lying to the medical industry in order to reach my personal objectives, I have become aware of the problems with these actions in the perception of transgender people as a whole. Through accurately presenting myself to the medical industry instead of assimilating into a strictly defined role, I continue to complicate and expand any narrow definition of what it means to be transgender.  Rather than choosing to pass as a “man” in all facets of my life, it is important to me that I continue to out myself – to become “posttranssexual” – in order to effectively challenge the oppressive gender system instead of reinforcing it. By claiming ownership of my trans identity and my non-normative body, I am able to become empowered in myself and to reclaim my sexuality.

Even though I may not know precisely where my journey is taking me, it is important for me to continue living my life in a way that feels truthful to how I see myself and to my political beliefs. I have yet to find a place where I feel entirely comfortable, but I have been moving progressively closer since I chose to begin addressing my identity issues. As I navigate my way through different gender expressions, I hope to get closer to that elusive place where my identity, my politics, and my physical self converge... (continue reading)