Art of Transliness

Zak: I don’t know the “right” answer for this or the official answer or anything, but I’ve been thinking about this question for a little while and my personal reasoning for this is that many people don’t use “transgender” as an umbrella term. Whereas “transsexual” used to refer to people that physically transitioned and “transgender” was more of am umbrella term, these days fewer people use those words that way (although there’s recently been more people labeling themselves as transsexual). These days I see a lot of people using the word “transgender” as only referring to people that are mtf or ftm, leaving out those that identify as genderqueer, agender, and so on. So, that’s the reason (in my opinion) behind using the word “trans*,” it is more welcoming and inclusive even if transgender is already technically an umbrella term. 

Zak: In my opinion, the whole point of using the asterisk after “trans” is to be inclusive of people like you that might feel on the margins of the transgender community. In general the community is far less…cohesive than the word “community” might imply. There are people that would not consider you to be part of their community just as there are people that would prefer that they not be included in the community regardless of their gender identity. So, I think you should identify however you identify and not worry about whether or not it is okay or not to identify that way. 

Zak: Haha, no, there is not (to my knowledge anyway) an agenda in proving that cis gay men are assholes. In fact, I personally have had experience dating a cis gay man who certainly isn’t an asshole, was totally accepting of me as a guy, and is now one of my close friends. The reason that we post a lot of depressing stuff about gay trans guys is that there’s a lot of depressing stuff out there. Maybe this reflects reality, but it could also be that people are much more likely to post about their problems online than their positive experiences. The reason we haven’t posted your video is probably that it got buried in our queue or accidentally deleted. It certainly isn’t because we adverse to posting positive depictions of gay cis men and gay trans men together. Anyway, if you want to resend us that video, please do! We’ll make sure to check it out and post it. 

By the way, if you’re looking for more positive stuff by/for gay trans* men, I’d recommend checking out Warren’s videos on youtube. He isn’t making public videos anymore, but he’s a gay trans* guy with a fairly positive outlook who is happily partnered with a cis man. I know a lot of happy gay trans* guys are out there, and many have had great experiences with cis men. We’ll try to make sure we post some more positive stuff. : ) 

Zak: Thanks! Sorry the link didn’t work, I don’t know if that site no longer exists or what happened. :( We’ll look into it. Anyway, there’s UKftm, gendered intelligence (they also have a tumblr), ftmUK forum, and transgenderzone. I’d highly recommend poking around the first two I listed, since they in turn have links to several support groups, personal tumblrs of trans* people in the UK, and websites with info about transitioning on the NHS  and related issues. I know there are more resources out there, but for some reason I’m drawing a blank.