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There
was a piece in The New York Times last weekend about the debate
in the queer community—particularly in the lesbian community—over
gender-reassignment surgery. Lots of formerly butch lesbians
now identify as “transmen.”
The strangest revelation was that after one member of a lesbian
couple became a man, they were able to get legally married
in California. I thought California didn’t allow gay marriage.
Doesn’t the fact that a marriage is legal if one partner gets
a sex change kind of turn all the anti-gay-marriage arguments
on their head? I mean, how do you think the bible-thumping
Republicans would take to that argument? “No, you can’t get
married—well, I guess if one of you has a sex change it’ll
be okay.” That’s pretty fucked up, no?
—Loyal
Reader
Didn’t
you get the memo, LR? I’m supposed to lay off the gay-marriage
issue for a while. But quickly . . .
Yeah it’s fucked up, particularly when you read all of Paul
Vitello’s piece [“The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack,” Aug.
20] and learn that many transmen don’t bother getting their
genitals swapped out. Building a reasonably functional penis
is a hell of a lot more complicated than building a reasonably
functional vagina—so there’s not much incentive for transmen
to get an “ersatz penis,” to use Vitello’s term. Which means
there are lots of double-vagina marriages in California and
other states.
Still, it’s not as fucked up as you might think. Gender isn’t
just about genitals—the mind is gendered, and some male minds
are born into female bodies and vice-versa. While denying
civil marriage to same-sex couples is an injustice, a fully
transitioned transman—meaning he’s got an “M” on his driver’s
license now, not an “F”—and a woman-born woman are an opposite-sex
couple, penis or no penis. If society is going to reserve
civil-marriage rights exclusively for opposite-sex couples,
then you have to let transmen marry their female partners.
But a lesbian couple being able to legally marry and keep
on grinding their glazed donuts—as long as one of the women
gets a double mastectomy, a few hormone shots, and a soul
patch—only goes to show how absurd our marriage laws are.
Another small absurdity: Vitello’s piece focuses on the debate
in the lesbian community over transmen. Are they traitors
to the cause? Abandoning their community in order to access
male privilege? I’ll let the ladies and ex-ladies duke that
one out, but I would like to weigh in on the fact that, as
Vitello writes, “there is no apparent parallel imbroglio in
the gay community toward men who become women . . . ”
The reason there’s no parallel imbroglio in the gay community
is because adult gay men rarely, if ever, decide to change
their gender. I’ve been out of the closet for more than two
decades now (since I was 7 years old), and in all that time
I’ve never known a single adult gay man who decided—particularly
in midlife—to run off and become a woman. The only men I’ve
known who changed their gender as adults were heterosexually
identified men who now identify as lesbians.
However, I’ve known lots of lesbians who later decided that
they were and always had been men, and many more lesbians
who decided they were and always had been heterosexual. At
the risk of being burned in effigy at the next dyke march,
the fluidity of female sexual identity sure does make me appreciate
the solidity of male sexual identity. While I have to worry
about my boyfriend leaving me for another man (he assures
me that my worries are irrational—but he would, wouldn’t he?),
I don’t have to worry about him walking into the kitchen one
day and announcing that he’s always been a woman, or that
he’s only just realized that he’s straight. A guy that’s sucking
cock at 18 will be still be sucking cock at 28, 38, and 108—but
it seems that a woman can be eating pussy at 18, sucking cock
at 28, and having her cock sucked at 38.
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My sister has a client with a very unusual problem. When
the client and his wife divorced, he agreed to pay maintenance
(alimony) for 10 years or until she remarries. She is now
in a lesbian relationship. They have exchanged rings, portray
themselves as married, and she lists her partner as “spouse”
on her child’s school records. This man believes he should
have the right to terminate maintenance based upon his ex-wife’s
“remarriage.” But marriage between two women is not legally
recognized in this state, therefore there is a great deal
of doubt as to how he would fare in front of a judge.
So which side of the fence do you fall on, Mr. Savage? Doesn’t
this strike you as a major double standard that this woman
can flaunt her lesbian, non-legal “marriage” with impunity
while she fucks her ex-husband royally?
—Double
Standards For Everyone
I
suppose it’s a double standard, DSFE, but it’s not one I’m
prepared to get exercised about. While I agree that this woman
has an ethical obligation to turn down money that she’s entitled
to on a legal technicality, the fact remains that she is not
married in the eyes of the law. That sucks for her, it sucks
for her partner, and it sucks royally for your friend’s royally
fucked client. I hope he’s directing his anger not just at
his ex-wife (she certainly deserves a share), but also at
the federal government, bigoted judges, and irrational fears
that keep his ex-wife from legally marrying her “spouse.”
I’m an 18-year-old girl, going off to college in September,
and I’m not sure how to identify myself to people I’m meeting
for the very first time. I started at my school in kindergarten,
and stayed there until I graduated last week. Everyone there
knew I liked both girls and boys, probably because I was kissing
them from about third grade on.
I can’t say I’m a lesbian because it’s inaccurate, and I’m
certainly not straight. If given the choice between Brad and
Angelina, I’d definitely go for her. I don’t want to tell
people I’m bisexual because 95 percent of the “bisexual” 18-year-old
girls I’ve met were drunk straight chicks. So what do I say?
“I’m a dyke, but I’ll do boys, too”? “I’m bisexual, but not
one of those bisexuals”? Or should I just flirt with
hot people and forget about labels?
—Not
One Of Those Bisexuals
Lots
of young gay men run around telling people—particularly straight
people—that they’re “not like other gay people.” What they
mean is, “I’m not a skeezy slut.” Some young lesbians insist
they’re “not like other lesbians,” meaning they’re not man-hating,
pit-hair-braiding, makeup-fearing bulldykes. These stereotypes
are not without foundation, of course. There are lots of skeezy
gay sluts out there and tons of man-hating bulldykes. But
just as it’s unfair for straights to believe that all gay
men are skeezy sluts and that all dykes are man-haters, it’s
unwise for young queers to confirm heterosexual prejudices
by implying that they’ve just had the pleasure of meeting
the one and only gay man on earth who isn’t a skeezy slut
or the one and only lesbian who isn’t a man-hater.
Don’t play this idiotic game, NOOTB, unless you want to mark
yourself as an immature, shallow young queer. You can tell
people you’re bisexual without adding the self-hating bi-phobic
qualifier. And then, through your behavior, you can demonstrate
that you—like most bisexual girls—aren’t just some drunk straight
chick.
A nod to heterosexual marriage: Happy anniversary Matt and
Amy! Keep your head down in Iraq, Matt.
mail@savagelove.net
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