I am tired of the whole “not trans enough” debacle that I sometimes see. The gatekeeping done by some people to tell others they haven’t done enough to be considered their identified gender. It just smacks of hypocrisy, and another way the trans community tears itself down in a weird pecking order of who is entitled to be called trans.
Unfortunately I don’t have a source.
Now, Dan Savage is problematic in many ways. He has stuck his foot in his mouth before, and undoubtably will do so again. However what keeps me supporting him is that he appears to learn new information and move on. Unfortunately not all of his guests seem to follow that.
On Savage Lovecast number 577 a caller who still presents visually as a female talks about himself being a trans man and his frustration that he isn’t accepted by gay men intimately. He is pre-T, pre-surgery and is evidently shaped as a female. He is trying to find out why he isn’t being accepted and what he can do.
Now, I am going to put aside the actual question the caller asked, and address the response by Buck Angel, a well known transgender man who came out as a gatekeeper and misgendered the caller.
Buck Angel
Three times during Buck Angel’s response he referred to the caller as “her or she”. He has never known this person, never interacted with them, has heard they identify 100% as a man, yet he still misgendered the caller. He has absolutely no reason to misgender the caller except to be dismissive, its not like he met the caller and had a history with them and accidentally misgendered them.
I was a little stunned at how he could do that, but as Buck continued to talk that was the least offensive thing I found.
He then went on to address how gay men aren’t attracted to feminine presenting people, and I am not disagreeing with that, but he also wasn’t kind about it. He then went on to school the caller about realistic behavior and about how he was more manly and it somehow gave him authority over the situation to pronounce how the caller was wrong to have any expectation to be considered a man by gay men.
Meanwhile Dan Savage did all the right things, except he was dismissive of the caller. However, he never misgendered the caller and never called into question their identity. He suggested they might find a bisexual guy who could appreciate the caller being a man, but who appeared on the outside as woman. Even with that advice though, he allowed Buck to continue and egged him on a bit.
This is when Buck decided to make a dividing line that he was “transexual” meaning he was fulling identifying as male, and how the new “transman” status was blurring the line and causing problems.
From my position, the term transexual is more of an older term that isn’t generally used by someone under the age of 40, and that transman is no less of an identity as being a man then transexual, and in the modern lexicon transman has replaced transexual. In fact I know a lot of trans people who are offended by the term transexual.
My husband is a transman, he is proud about it. I find it very frustrating that the “man with a pussy” (as he likes to call himself) is a gatekeeper because others might not have had top surgery, or look as masculine as him. It doesn’t matter what characteristics you still have, or what status with hormones, to tear apart someone else in your same community is horrific to me.
I wish the community would stop that, there are already enough wolves at the gate and to have to worry about tearing each other apart.
Accidently Gay 
Oh you nailed this so hard! there is in some areas of the trans community a sort of your not trans enough. I found this more so in online communites outside Australia. In Australia acess to surgery for trans men and non binary people is really unatainble for most due to cost and lack of surgeons so there are a lot of trans men that are really femm becasue of this. It also ostracises the non binary communities as well as they transition to somewhere on the spectrum rather than on the binary.
I’m married to bisexual man that loves masculinity and found his attrction to me becasue i was masculine in all my gestures ways of speaking and in bed. After 17 years together I came out as trans because the ability to transition was not available to straight women till just recently so I just settled with a man who treated me like a man. My transition is also towrds androgeny rather than the full hairy bear because thats were i feel at home in the middle. Telling me I cant be an androgynous gay man sux balls becasue a lot of barries to trans people is lack or acces or safe spaces to medically transition.
A really good read about this in a sexy postive light is “trans homo gasp”. https://www.amazon.com/Trans-Homo-Gasp-Gay-Love/dp/0998252131. it talks about the chemistry of sexual attraction and personalities and how trans guys and their gay men and connected and found each other. Sex and love is all about chemistry not your bits and Buck behaving the way he did was really horrid. ANd in some of the stories they men involved haven’t had all the surgeries or T because attraction is so much about the person and their chemistry with you not the body they are born in.
It seems me and your husband probably share a lot in common. I was (and am) attracted to Jello because he is so masculine and it is what I liked about him.
I will check out that book, it is now on my reading list!
Also, you are absolutely right, somewhere in the middle is just as fair and accurate as all the way to the hairy bear. Let me know how things go, I really appreciate the feedback.
Oh, and this is Accidentally Gay using my personal login 🙂
Well we just finished the stupid survey on same sex marriage and the overwhelming response was yes! The nice part has been people coming up to us in public saying we voted yes! The shitty part was trans and non binary people became targets for the No sides hatred and we coped a shit load so I pick a shitty time to come out.
That said Its nice to know there are other men out there that aren’t afraid of their partner changing gender. For my Hubby I feel like a gave him a key back into the gay commnity because sometimes I feel a little rushed into getting on with transition. His wardrobe has gotten super gay like it was when were were first friends. He also loves tutoring me on gay codes of conduct and thinks it hilarious when i have no idea I’ve been hit on. His afirmation with displaying me as top in our coupling also makes me feel pretty awesome.
The biggest change was our sex life. It was always good but i always felt he was holding something back. Turns out hes a super kinky bottom and well that opened up a a whole new world for us and a better intimate connection.
I came out while he was working overseas sending him a picture of myself dressed as dude. What I didn’t expect was for him to be thrilled and we started sexting back forth like we were on Grindr. When he arrived home it was a like when we were getting to know each other all over again. Our kids got constantly kicked out of the house to go see friends or to the movies so we could have alone time.
Interesting you both work in DoD. We met in the army and turns out trans people join the Australian Defence Force at 3x the rate of the general population! Unlike your DoD ours is super LGBTI+ positive and we have a group call DEFGLIS that participates in pride marches and holds a ball each year which is tons of fun!
So far I’m out to my family (they were great as it solved their puzzle on me) but his is another can of worms. His parents dont know hes Bisexual or that his past house mates were boyfriends. His mum was an ardent campaigner against same sex marriage and is homophobic. I’ve avioded her for the last 6 months and have just gone silent on the matter. we aren’t visiting for christmas either. I fear he might be made to choose which sux…..
That is fantastic that ADF is so supportive. I do have to say there are elements of the DoD really trying. I think its because they are finding the same thing, a lot more LGBTI+ join per capita then straight cisgendered folks. Sadly though, we have Trump so we will see how that goes.
I heard about the survey and both Wolsey and I were thrilled with the yes. I am glad that is going well for you guys.
As for the sex life, that is exactly what happened with us. When we first got married 25 years ago he had a huge libido, but over the years things calm down. However now it is back up to start of marriage level and it has been like that for three years. He is so much more comfortable and that makes intimacy so much easier.
I hope he doesn’t have to choose, that really does suck. We were fortunate with my parents. I suspect my sister disagrees but she didn’t want to rock the boat. His parents I don’t think know (we haven’t talked to them since a year before he came out) but I suspect it would not have gone well either.
Although is someone is that close hearted about people, maybe it isn’t so bad he has you :).
I’m so tired of this shit too
We have the same thing going on here in Germany. There are those insisting they are the one and onky true “transsexuals” and every person not claiming that label and interested in a “full” binary transition (including all the surgeries) is just a “fake” in their opinion and harms their cause by “blurring lines”. It’s disgusting.
“only” lol
It definitely seems like it is happening on a global level, I think it will eventually change (for most people) it is just the waiting I hate.
Im a dual german citizen and at one stage i considered going back to germany to transition as we have so little available in Australia if you don’t have money to pay for private health as our otherwise wonderful public health system doesn’t cover transgender affirming care.
I was appalled that if I wanted access to transtion in Germany I had to meet a step by step criteria of hormones, sterilization etc to access gender affirming surgery. I didnt want to have to mutilate myself and be told what i needed to do to be trans. And why does trans always seem to mean I need to remove my reporductive organs? This is changing but so many trans people have to remove reproductive organs to access gender afirming surgery. I don’t hate my body or my bits. I’d like top surgery but my kids need braces so that the priority.
There is talk of trans health making the medicare list after as a sort of olive leaf after the crap the trans community experienced in our political survey on same sex marriage. Part of the reason I wont remove my gonads is I want the back up in case for medical reasons I had to stop T. I also don’t take full dose T as I only want a half way transition to the middle and my family is bear country and I didn’t want that. SOme countries also expect full dose T which would make me the fucking hairest bear and I dont want that.
I prefer a more twink look and androgyny works really well for me as my job sometimes requires travel into spaces that aren’t trans friendly so I can get away with being a very masculine women with a smokers voice if i need to. I wish i didnt need to but I’m smart enough to know when my safety depends on it.
I had heard about the harsh step by step process in Germany but I hadn’t realized it was still there. Ouch, I am sorry for that.
I think over time things will get easier, and eventually most people will understand that gender is a spectrum and it doesn’t matter as a society what an individual wants on that level. Let them have it.
I can’t even understand forcing someone to take a full dose of T. This is why so many people get black market T. The twink/androgyny look is always in. It will hopefully keep you safer.
I do hope that trans health does make the list for you folks. We lucked out to be here for that window, and lucked out that we had enough credit to push it. I get so frustrated when I see others that don’t have that opportunity. I would happily pay more in taxes to get single payer healthcare and to cover that for everyone.