What To Do If You Are Flat Like A Ken Doll

is to date a menfolk person with a penis. To clarify, when I use the term menfolk I mean people who are men or have an identity that leaves room for a recognizance of the maleness of their experience. For example, I would consider myself to be inside of both the categories menfolk and womenfolk because my identity is recognizant of both the maleness and femaleness of my experience. When I use the term penis, I mean any genitalia that the particular individual who owns it calls or recognizes as including a penis (in the same way that I do not call my genitals a vagina, but I recognize that my genitals include a vagina).

So yeah, menfolk person with a penis.

And I think it’s important that I clarify why this is not fetishizing of menfolk people with penises, because, really, if a person said to me that their new year’s resolution was to date someone of a particular identity or genital configuration, I’d probably call them out on it.

First off, I’m not gonna just date any dude who offers. It’s not about dating absolutely any menfolk person with a penis just so I can try it out and say I did it. It’s about pushing myself to actually try and connect with a guy in a way that I haven’t even attempted to in years.

I’ve known I liked menfolk since I was 4 years old. I started dating menfolk when I was 10, and was certifiably boy crazy by the time I was, we’ll say, 12. And then I discovered womenfolk. I identified as bisexual and then discovered the term queer and used that because I always knew that there was more to it for me than an attraction to men and an attraction to women. I have always, always maintained an identity that spoke to my attraction to a variety of genders and bodies, and as I’ve gotten older, the range of genders and bodies I find attractive has grown and refined. I have always insisted both publicly and internally that I am as open to dating menfolk as I am to womenfolk. Still, every person I have dated from the age of 15 until now (that’s about 5 years)—with the exception of two not-so-enjoyable dates at the very beginning of that era—has been womenfolk. One person came out as trans after we started dating, so obviously ze counts as menfolk as well, but ze was not menfolk when we met, so the thesis that I have not pursued a connection with a menfolk person in a long time still stands. 

These last 5 years have greatly dwarfed the 5 years preceding them in terms of the number of people I’ve dated and how seriously I weigh their impact on me. Despite my declarations to the contrary, I lead an entirely woman-centric life. I’m pretty sure that most people think of me as a person who dates exclusively womenfolk, and that my own image of my dating life typically positions me that way as well. I don’t even really have any friends with penises; I’ve just sort of managed to build a life that didn’t need menfolk in it. And I’ve blamed men for it, but it’s just as much my fault. Sure, the one time I did actually try to date a cisguy he had serious enough qualms about my lack of penis that we never ended up going out, but that’s one time. It’s one dude who needs to work out his own issues. You can’t try one time and then say it’s never gonna happen.

I think it is true that I connect with fewer menfolk, but I think it’s also true that a lot of the time I don’t allow myself to believe that such a connection is possible. There have been a few guys with whom I’ve sort of danced around the idea of liking, but I never gave it the kind of focus that I would have given to a similar situation with a womenfolk person. I think some people would see that as evidence that I’m not really into men, but I just can’t see it that way. Instead, I view it as evidence that I am holding myself back because I’ve stopped seeing menfolk as a real possibility.

So this is not fetishizing because it’s not about the body or the identity so much as it’s about pushing myself to not be a coward anymore. I’m not trying something new, I’m trying to make sure that I do something I’ve always known I wanted to. Realizing that my attraction to men was queer was an important and freeing moment in my life, but that was years ago and I haven’t done anything with the knowledge. It’s time I did something with that freedom.

is to date a menfolk person with a penis. To clarify, when I use the term menfolk I mean people who are men or have an identity that leaves room for a recognizance of the maleness of their experience. For example, I would consider myself to be inside of both the categories menfolk and womenfolk because my identity is recognizant of both the maleness and femaleness of my experience. When I use the term penis, I mean any genitalia that the particular individual who owns it calls or recognizes as including a penis (in the same way that I do not call my genitals a vagina, but I recognize that my genitals include a vagina).

So yeah, menfolk person with a penis.

And I think it’s important that I clarify why this is not fetishizing of menfolk people with penises, because, really, if a person said to me that their new year’s resolution was to date someone of a particular identity or genital configuration, I’d probably call them out on it.

First off, I’m not gonna just date any dude who offers. It’s not about dating absolutely any menfolk person with a penis just so I can try it out and say I did it. It’s about pushing myself to actually try and connect with a guy in a way that I haven’t even attempted to in years.

I’ve known I liked menfolk since I was 4 years old. I started dating menfolk when I was 10, and was certifiably boy crazy by the time I was, we’ll say, 12. And then I discovered womenfolk. I identified as bisexual and then discovered the term queer and used that because I always knew that there was more to it for me than an attraction to men and an attraction to women. I have always, always maintained an identity that spoke to my attraction to a variety of genders and bodies, and as I’ve gotten older, the range of genders and bodies I find attractive has grown and refined. I have always insisted both publicly and internally that I am as open to dating menfolk as I am to womenfolk. Still, every person I have dated from the age of 15 until now (that’s about 5 years)—with the exception of two not-so-enjoyable dates at the very beginning of that era—has been womenfolk. One person came out as trans after we started dating, so obviously ze counts as menfolk as well, but ze was not menfolk when we met, so the thesis that I have not pursued a connection with a menfolk person in a long time still stands. 

These last 5 years have greatly dwarfed the 5 years preceding them in terms of the number of people I’ve dated and how seriously I weigh their impact on me. Despite my declarations to the contrary, I lead an entirely woman-centric life. I’m pretty sure that most people think of me as a person who dates exclusively womenfolk, and that my own image of my dating life typically positions me that way as well. I don’t even really have any friends with penises; I’ve just sort of managed to build a life that didn’t need menfolk in it. And I’ve blamed men for it, but it’s just as much my fault. Sure, the one time I did actually try to date a cisguy he had serious enough qualms about my lack of penis that we never ended up going out, but that’s one time. It’s one dude who needs to work out his own issues. You can’t try one time and then say it’s never gonna happen.

I think it is true that I connect with fewer menfolk, but I think it’s also true that a lot of the time I don’t allow myself to believe that such a connection is possible. There have been a few guys with whom I’ve sort of danced around the idea of liking, but I never gave it the kind of focus that I would have given to a similar situation with a womenfolk person. I think some people would see that as evidence that I’m not really into men, but I just can’t see it that way. Instead, I view it as evidence that I am holding myself back because I’ve stopped seeing menfolk as a real possibility. I’ve somehow allowed menfolk, particularly ones with penises, to be outside of my comfort zone, and I don’t want that anymore.

So this is not fetishizing because it’s not about the body or the identity so much as it’s about pushing myself to not be a coward anymore. I’m not trying something new, I’m trying to make sure that I do something I’ve always known I wanted to. Realizing that my attraction to men was queer was an important and freeing moment in my life, but that was years ago and I haven’t done anything with the knowledge. It’s time I did something with that freedom.

-danika:

nonsensical
wacky
screwy (?)
ridiculous
illogical
ludicrous
preposterous
absurd
silly
unbelievable
incredible
freaky
bizarre
feckless
pointless
futile
outrageous
harebrained (?)
strange
peculiar
weird
impressive
excessive
wild
irrational
funny
unusual

This is so important. I am guilty of using ableist language more often than I am comfortable with. My way of helping people to stop using other slurs is to ask them to think about folks that those words might describe and then to think about what they’re actually trying to communicate, whether those descriptions actually match up, and whether the overlap is empowering. Usually, those individuals are able to see that the connotations for people’s identities are disempowering, and they can almost always tell you exactly what they mean without slurs. My difficulty is that many ableist slurs are so entrenched that I don’t even always know what I actually mean; I have no language besides the language that I’ve just used. Of course, it’s my fault as much as anyone else’s. I have enough resources at my disposal to find better, more accurate words that do not cast negative aspersions on anyone’s abilities or mental state. So, thanks for this list!

-danika:

nonsensical
wacky
screwy (?)
ridiculous
illogical
ludicrous
preposterous
absurd
silly
unbelievable
incredible
freaky
bizarre
feckless
pointless
futile
outrageous
harebrained (?)
strange
peculiar
weird
impressive
excessive
wild
irrational
funny
unusual

This is so important. I am guilty of using ableist language more often than I am comfortable with. My way of helping people to stop using other slurs is to ask them to think about folks that those words might describe and then to think about what they’re actually trying to communicate, whether those descriptions actually match up, and whether the overlap is empowering. Usually, those individuals are able to see that the connotations for people’s identities are disempowering, and they can almost always tell you exactly what they mean without slurs. My difficulty is that many ableist slurs are so entrenched that I don’t even always know what I actually mean; I have no language besides the language that I’ve just used. Of course, it’s my fault as much as anyone else’s. I have enough resources at my disposal to find better, more accurate words that do not cast negative aspersions on anyone’s abilities or mental state. So, thanks for this list!

Last week, I was getting a cold. My voice is not usually all that affected by sickness, but for some reason last week it got really deep. Like, really deep and resonant, and I didn’t even really sound sick, I just sounded like I had a naturally deep voice. Now, I don’t know a lot about how people perceive my voice to be gendered; I’ve had friends with really high voices who sounded entirely male to me and vice versa. I like to hope I’m lucky enough to have a neutral voice, but I also know that I trained myself to speak low in certain circumstances because I often am read as female when I talk. I couldn’t really tell if I sounded like I had a weirdly deep woman’s voice or if maybe, just maybe, I sounded almost entirely male. I’ve been seeing a lot of people who I haven’t spent time with in a while and I could tell they noticed the drastic change and that at least some were wondering what had happened, like maybe I had started T without telling anyone. It was like a fun game.

Having such a deep voice gave me a lot of confidence and joy, and I was kinda sad for it to go. It also kinda threw me off. I don’t like wanting things I don’t have. I don’t like that it made testosterone a glimmering hope in my mind even though realistically I know that hormone therapy is not a good option for me. So now I’m in this icky in-between space of knowing how great I would feel with a deeper voice and knowing that it probably won’t ever happen for me in a stable way. I guess I’m lucky that I already have a really large range on my voice. I just have to hope that I can train it even further down.

Last week, I was getting a cold. My voice is not usually all that affected by sickness, but for some reason last week it got really deep. Like, really deep and resonant, and I didn’t even really sound sick, I just sounded like I had a naturally deep voice. Now, I don’t know a lot about how people perceive my voice to be gendered; I’ve had friends with really high voices who sounded entirely male to me and vice versa. I like to hope I’m lucky enough to have a neutral voice, but I also know that I trained myself to speak low in certain circumstances because I often am read as female when I talk. I couldn’t really tell if I sounded like I had a weirdly deep woman’s voice or if maybe, just maybe, I sounded almost entirely male. I’ve been seeing a lot of people who I haven’t spent time with in a while and I could tell they noticed the drastic change and that at least some were wondering what had happened, like maybe I had started T without telling anyone. It was like a fun game.

Having such a deep voice gave me a lot of confidence and joy, and I was kinda sad for it to go. It also kinda threw me off. I don’t like wanting things I don’t have. I don’t like that it made testosterone a glimmering hope in my mind even though realistically I know that hormone therapy is not a good option for me. So now I’m in this icky in-between space of knowing how great I would feel with a deeper voice and knowing that it probably won’t ever happen for me in a stable way. I guess I’m lucky that I already have a really large range on my voice. I just have to hope that I can train it even further down.

supermattachine:

I’ve been thinking about them a lot recently.  I’m around a lot of transmasculine identified and dyke identified people (all of whom you should follow, because they will make you shimmer with heepers-jeepers glee).  I think this is probably because I ran into them in the course of trying to build community in my various homes and I liked them so now we hang out!  And I love them dearly.  Here is an interesting thing! 

I hear the word “transmasculine” used to describe me sometimes.  This is something that makes me feel weird and uncomfortable and not okay!  I don’t like the way it’s being used to mean people who are female bodied but in some way more male flavored—because while that’s an umbrella I fall under, my identity male—not masculine, and certainly not transmasculine.  I’m actually kind of a femme, though I don’t know about being a femme—I use the word queen more often, because I am an Olde Worlde homosexual.  When I act masculine, which happens every so often when the MOON IS RIGHT, that masculinity isn’t preceded by a “trans”—it’s just masculine, the same way other people in my life act masculine, both women and men, both cis and trans.

In short: “transmasculine” is a bad umbrella term, in my opinion!  WHAT DO YOU THINK, tell me with your KEYBOARD.

In fact, the fact that the word “transmasculine” needs the trans in front of it is interesting to me.  I’m not questioning the way people identify, of course, I just have questions about why these words are the chosen words, and I have to admit that the term “transmasculine” gives me similar willies that the term “transman” or “transguy” does when there’s no space in between.  Is this a different kind of masculinity than the kind of masculinity expressed and/or by cis men?  If not, why not say that one identifies as “masculine” rather than “transmasculine”?  Is it necessary to have the “trans” prefix there to indicate that it’s an identity, rather than just an adjective that describes an aspect of one’s being or presentation?  I’m extremely curious, and I really want to understand this more!

Now let’s talk about dykes!  I have wonderful dyke-identified people in my life (and on my tumblr, woohoo).  But I have frequently had a hard time with the conflation of dykes and trans men in the queer imagination (not to mention the public imagination).  I’m not a dyke!  Not even a little bit of a dyke!  Probably one of the best ways of explaining why not is that I am a fag.  That being said, it’s not enough to say that, is it?  I’ll quote Enoch’s articulate definition of “dyke,” but which I do think gets at the core of dyke-ness, at least as far as I can see as an outside (but fairly immersed) observer.

a) dykes are not necessarily women and they don’t necessarily date exclusively other women, and b) dykes are queer, community-seeking, focused on woman- or female-solidarity, and are politicized by their queerness

I’d like to provide a definition of fag, to go with that.  You can’t have dykes without fags, who will we grab to dance with when the police come to raid the bar?

a) fags are not necessarily men and they don’t necessarily date exclusively other men, and b) fags are queer, somewhat feminine male-centered people, focused on queer male solidarity, and are politicized, willingly or unwillingly, by their queerness.

Ordinarily, terms like these aren’t ones I get too caught up in.  (Admittedly, the term “fag” is close to my heart.)  I’m a DEAL WITH THE ISSUES, SUBSTANTIVE LEGISLATION, PEOPLE ARE DYING WHY ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT TERMS PEOPLE ARE USING IN A SMALL PRESTIGIOUS LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE kind of a guy.  But you know, it important that people feel comfortable!  I try to use language that treats people as much like humans as I possibly can, and this is just one more way I can do that.  (Although I’ll always be going BUT BUT GUYS A PROPERLY INCLUSIVE ENDA AND HUMANE IMMIGRATION DETENTION FOR LATIN AMERICAN TRANS WOMEN IS WAY IMPORTANT, WAY MORE THAN WHETHER WE SAY DYKE OR DYKE-IDENTIFIED.)  And of course I expect the same courtesy.

So I’d like to have a bit of a talk with the lovely people who follow me and whom I follow.  What’s being “transmasculine”?  Is it a word you would use to describe binary-identified trans men like me (um, please not me please!  I don’t like it), or is it just for people who identify as genderqueer but leaning in a male-flavored direction?  What’s being a fag?  What’s being a dyke? Talk to me!  ESPECIALLY if you disagree, because that means we both LEARN with our MINDS and it will be EXCITING for our THOUGHTBRAIN MUSCLES.

EDIT:  I have done THINKING and there will be another POST about what it means to be a FAG and it will be GREAT there will probably be GRAPHICS.

An interesting and apt question! You’ve seen my discourse on dyke as an identity and a term and whatnot, so I won’t enter that again, but I feel ready to tackle transmasculine.

While I do not identify as transmaculine, I recognize that I am a person who can be described as transmasculine if one believes that it is appropriate as an umbrella term. Quite the opposite of what Cohen said in hir post on the subject, I am not, under any circumstances, trans masculine; I am transmasculine. No space. This lack of space represents, for me, that I am only masculine as it relates to my transness. I’ll explain.

I reject the binarism in the idea that folks who are assigned female must be masculine in order to be trans, and that folks who are assigned male must be feminine in order to be trans, that somehow our femaleness or maleness must be negated using femininity or masculinity. I can see how this interpretation of the terms transmasculine and transfeminine can be uncomfortable and make you want to avoid them. To me, it has a slightly different connotation. Rather than describing any internal masculinity I might feel (I feel little to none), I think of it as describing the process of masculinizing that has been at the center of my transition. My transition (and yes, I have transitioned) has been a pursuit of the ability to be interpreted as masculine enough of center that I can express the full extent of my femininity without being interpreted as womanly. My assessment has been that, regardless of where a person falls on the gender globe, if they are female-assigned, they have masculinized their appearance in some way, and if they are male-assigned they have feminized their appearance in some way. Let’s keep in mind that our appearances are our base. We layer the parts of ourselves that we feel are important for people to see on top of that base, and the base can facilitate us being read properly, or it can hinder us. Despite my lack of internal masculinity, I prefer to have a masculinized base.

To me, not using the space is a way of recognizing that if I initially had an appearance that people read as masculine, then I wouldn’t even need to factor that masculinity into my identity. Cisfolks don’t do it. That masculinity is only something people notice because, given the shape of my body, especially the sexed parts of it, I had to construct it myself through transition.

It’s true, though, that I’m not really talking about masculinity, I’m talking about maleness. And even though I don’t identify as male, I identify as male-centered, so here we have a problematic conflation of the concepts of male and masculine. Still, I think it could be said that in my transition, I used the trappings of masculinity, rather than the trappings of maleness—short hair and clothing from the men’s section, and even chest binding are hardly things that most people would say belong only to men anymore, but they are things that people usually attribute to masculine people. Some people do use the trappings of maleness—permanent and medical modifications often give people traits that most of society reserves for men only—but what I like about transmasculine as an umbrella term is it covers all of us, those who take on maleness, or those who take on masculinity as a canvas to display our complete lack of internal masculinity, and those who do other fun things.

That doesn’t mean that it covers you, and I will be careful not to use it to cover you. I hope that we can come up with a less problematic term.

I’m not sure what’s exhausting me, it might be complacency. Sometimes I feel like I’m more at ease with the relentlessness of living in a place where nobody knows me and everybody stares and has questions and I have to talk constantly because people are too timid to find out the things they need to know about me to be able to interact with me safely than in living in a place where everyone is accustomed to my eccentricities and confusions. I’ve become a lot more insular and maybe telling the same stories over and over to the same people is getting to me. I feel very ineffective. 

For a long time now, I’ve done a lot of the talking. Some people will tell you I’ve done all of the talking, but they haven’t been listening properly. I’ve realized that my tendency to talk comes from two major sources in my life. The first is my family. Every single person in my family is loud and outspoken and I grew up thinking that if a person wanted you to know something about them, they would tell it to you. Recently I’ve been around shyer people and I’ve been slow in learning that some people need coaxing and won’t just add their own story to yours. Some people weren’t taught that story-telling is the process of interweaving experiences. We come at it from different perspectives, but mine is louder and wins out and leaves me filling a lot of silence with my own ideas.

The other source is an unabashed awareness that I actually have something to say. There are times when it is best to listen, and there are times when it is best to speak, and I have intentionally placed myself in situations where it is best for me to speak because I can make the most beneficial use of my experience through relating it to people who have never imagined the possibilities I have lived. If I am to make a space safe for myself and for anyone who might be considering playing with concepts of gender, I have to be vocal. I have something to teach and I’m patient and willing to teach it, so I talk a lot.

I’m currently too busy to throw myself into new environments and the stability of my circumstance means that I’m in a place that is, if not done learning from me, at the very least bored of listening to me. It’s time for me to listen and learn from my community here, many of whom, I have found out, do not speak unprompted. I think there was a time that I knew the questions, but I don’t seem to anymore. I don’t know how to invite people to talk about themselves as much as I talk about myself. This is not a matter of not knowing how to interact with people in a way that is truly reciprocal—I know how to listen, and I know how be intimately interested in things that are important to other people—it’s a problem of not knowing how to get that reciprocity started. In my experience, it isn’t a matter of asking the questions you want the answers to so much as it is one of finding what makes a person’s eyes light up, or at the very least helping them to understand that you are always ready to hear when they feel ready to talk. These are skills I wonder if I’ve lost to the folks who indulge me in my self-involvement.

So I’m going to try to talk less for a while, about absolutely everything. I have three weeks left of my semester and I think that’s the right amount of time for a semi-hiatus. In the mean while, I would love it if you, my wonderful followers, would leave me things in my ask box. Tell me about something you are passionate about and then tell me why. Tell me the question you wish someone would ask you. Tell me what makes you feel close to a person. Tell me anything you like, I want to know everything about you so I can learn from you as much as I hope you learn from me.