Sunday, September 16, 2007

"paraphiliac"

Barring for a second everything stupid that he's asserted, what if J Michael Bailey's thesis in the Man Who Would be Queen- that male-to-female transsexuality is the product either of male-male homosexuality or a paraphilia- were true? Would that impact the day-to-day lives of transsexual women in any way? I feel like, if a paraphilia were so intense that its paraphiliac needed to change their life so drastically (and go through so much gross shit) in order to be okay, then- I mean- who cares?

The question then becomes not about cultural views of transsexuality but cultural views of deviant sexuality, or however you want to frame it.

I just feel like I've known so many folks- myself included, a long time ago- who get so hung up on "What if I'm Just A Pervert And Not Really Trans" that they ultimately lost sight of: regardless of which is the case, you're not gonna squash it and watch it go away. Y'know?

Shame around sexuality is such an asshole, I swear to god.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quoted for motherfuckin' truth.

Actually I didn't quote it, but yeah, it's fucking true.

Anonymous said...

hmm.

i mean, i dunno exactly. which is not an "i disagree with you" i dunno but more of a "my thoughts on this issue are too jumbled to make sense of it all" i dunno. i still remember seeing that book on a shelf and quite literally shaking with anger and frustration and needing a friend to walk me outside before i had a breakdown, etc etc etc blah blah blah.

i have personally always felt that too many (maybe all) discussions of trans phenomena and their cause remain on the "one cause" track and this does a disservice to a lot of people. i do not think there is one cause and i think in any group of trans people one will find a whole lot of different reasons for being trans; some psychological, some biological, some sexual. not everyone transitions or wants to transition for the same reasons, basically.

so i think it should not be so much about "who cares" (for any proposed theory) but about "this could be someones reality so we should support it but still resist the universalization of that reality because it is not everyones reality" etc etc etc. i dunno, i remember going completely the other way in terms of reasons for various procedures and telling people that for me it was "just so I can have sex the way I want" as an unconscious resistance to the "it will make me a woman" stance... only to then realize that I was actually completely wrong about my motivations and that I still have no idea what my actual motivations were, only what they were not.

but heck yeah to shame around sexuality being shittie. especially in a world which - accurately or not in individual cases - views the trans people as a sexual thing rather than a gender thing or whatever. kinda wanna kick it in the lungs.

Alma said...

yeah, your last line i am totally on. however, it ain't quite so simple, because it all ties into other peoples perceptions of your sexuality and it's deviant nature, not just your own. although, i guess, being proud of your own sexuality, irrespective of it's potential culutural deviancy, is one way to aid that deviancy becoming normal. i mean, that's what prides all about, isn't it? so maybe it is simple, but i'm still not so sure....

there is a boundary between personal and imposed perception. the big problem is that we can be personally proud of ourselves no matter what other people think as much as we like, but if we don't bridge that boundary between ourselves and others who are not like us, if we don't get cross-cultural exchanges, it's all pretty doomed to fall in on itself and turn into internal community politics and bikering. so, in that sensem, the opinions of our old pal mikey are very important, because they are being formed from outside our community and while they might not influence us they do influence people who don't share a similar experience.

wow. rant. but, basically, i totally agree with you, although i think it has to be maintained that fighting against asshole white male academics and their own interpretations of our personal narratives is highly important alongside shedding our own internalised sense of shame.

love xx

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