"Real Girls"

[hankhavelock]

Originally Posted by orion

Hence my dislike for the term "Admirer" .. I wish there were some practical way of separating the two ...

Mizzy B and I tried here at this forum to find other terms... unsuccesfully...

1. "Admirer" is a little bit too much like a kinky, ugly grease ball in the proverbial rain coat...

2. "Tranny-Chaser" sounds like a drink... "Can I have two Buds and a Tranny-Chaser on the side... make it a double, will ya. Be generous on the spunk...?"

3. "Tranny-lover" is also cheasy... a guy secretly jerking off to his fascination...

4. "Tranny-chaser"... he goes to Bangkok twice a year and keeps it hidden... but he makes little dots in his bed every time he beds a little tranny down...

My sweet Fey once called me a "shemale-collector" and a "shemale-protector", but I doubt that applies either...

So what is the term for us hideous, abnormal perverts?

I dunno - "a guy like me who likes a girl like her..." ? That's still the best, though, a highly user-unfriendly and impractical term...

H

[smc]

Hank writes,

Originally Posted by hankhavelock

I dunno - "a guy like me who likes a girl like her..." ? That's still the best, though, a highly user-unfriendly and impractical term...H

This is hardly "user-unfriendly and impractical". Rather, it is almost perfect in that it avoids creating a label, and labels are -- as we can read throughout this forum -- the source of so much angst and asinine thought.

[hankhavelock]

Originally Posted by smc

Hank writes,



This is hardly "user-unfriendly and impractical". Rather, it is almost perfect in that it avoids creating a label, and labels are -- as we can read throughout this forum -- the source of so much angst and asinine thought.

It's still impractical...

Question: "Hey Hank, are you gay or str8?"

Answer: "I'm a tranny-lover"

versus

Question: "Hey Hank, are you gay or str8?"

Answer: "I'm a guy like me who likes a girl like her..."

Question: "What is that?"

Answer: "My girlfriend is transsexual"

Question: "Oh, why didn't you say so to my first question...?"

[smc]

Hank poses the following imaginary conversation to support that his phrase is "impractical":

Originally Posted by hankhavelock

Question: "Hey Hank, are you gay or str8?"

Answer: "I'm a guy like me who likes a girl like her..."

Question: "What is that?"

Answer: "My girlfriend is transsexual"

Question: "Oh, why didn't you say so to my first question...?"

How about this answer:

What difference does it make?

[hankhavelock]

Originally Posted by smc

Hank poses the following imaginary conversation to support that his phrase is "impractical":



How about this answer:

What difference does it make?

That's basicly what I answer... but it still would be easier if guys like me who like girls like her could have a more prudent label...

[smc]

I'm sure you realize that I'm not really arguing with you. I just wish so much that we all would stop worrying about labels. The endless threads asking about being gay make me want to scream.

Of course, I blame seriously skewed social mores, and the fact that (especially in the United States) "morality" is about matters sexual and rarely about truly amoral things like poverty and war, rather than the individuals who keep posing these questions and fretting over how others will judge their sexual preferences.

[Bionca]

Originally Posted by smc

I'm sure you realize that I'm not really arguing with you. I just wish so much that we all would stop worrying about labels. The endless threads asking about being gay make me want to scream.

For various reasons I hate those questions too. I'll bet for different reasons than the majority here. Labeling won't go away - which is why I think you all should suss out a name for what you are, if the existing ones don't work. Or embrace them if they do. While working for a society that abandons the need sort people out into easy to digest groups.

[Bionca]

I like how this has turned into a discussion of labels as they apply to the cis* folks who date gals like me.

It is a mark of privilege to be able to say that labels don't matter. The reality is, to society at large, they DO matter. A cis* person does not have basic choices and aspects of their identity and life routinely questioned, discounted, and invalidated. A heterosexual person does not have their relationships routinely belittled and called perverted. A white person is not told that race is the most important part of who they are.

You can go on and believe that labels don't matter. The reality is, you will be labeled and probably incorrectly at that. Even amongst the Trans* community, you guys are labeled as "chasers" and "admirers" (at best) - neither of these are particularly flattering. Both of them apply to a large segment of guys who are attracted to trans* women.

Chaser - has a connotation of someone eternally looking to move on. Chasing one girl after another, never satisfied with who he has.

Admirer - Is passive, where Chaser is active. A guy who lurks in the shadows, has dirty secrets and then slinks back to his life with no investment (other than economic) and no ties.

These are the roles set for you guys to work with. You can either be comfortable with them, work against them, or come up with something else. The benefit of having a label, a name, an identity is to claim the ability to self-definition. Self-determination is the first step to liberation for all of us.

[smc]

Bionca is absolutely correct when she writes, "It is a mark of privilege to be able to say that labels don't matter." So, I want to clarify: it's not that I think they do not matter -- obviously, if we are to live in a society in which we are all labeled, it is something with which we must constantly deal -- but that I long for the time when the will not matter. Getting there is most likely a process that involves a combination of finding the "correct" or "best" label that frees us from the stigmas associated with ones previously used, and vigilantly speaking out against labeling.

It is abhorrent that anyone should "have basic choices and aspects of their identity and life routinely questioned, discounted, and invalidated," as Bionca writes. It is true that people "will be labeled and probably incorrectly at that." I am just suggesting some ways to deal with this by those of us who, as Bionca so correctly notes, are not as often victimized by such actions.

Vigilance demands that we never fail to notice when it is happening and take every opportunity to speak out against it.

Last night, I watched the film "Milk." I was struck by Harvey Milk's strategy for building opposition to the anti-gay Proposition 6 in California back in 1978. He encouraged every gay man and lesbian in the state to come out to their friends, families, neighbors, work colleagues, etc. His argument was that once everyone realized that they knew someone who would be victimized by the passage of the proposition, it would turn a lot of minds away from voting yes. That same concept informs my approach to dismissing labels.

So, while at the same time we must live with them, and their is value in finding "better" ones, I strongly encourage everyone to take the most simple approach -- whenever possible -- and simply refuse to be labeled, in whatever way one can. Both are part of the "self-determination" that Bionca so aptly identifies as "the first step to liberation for all of us."

[transjen]

Labels labels labels all these labels and the reason is as human's we need to put everything into neat tidy little groups and truth be told it can't be done but we try anyway Jennifer

[hankhavelock]

Originally Posted by smc

Hank writes,



This is hardly "user-unfriendly and impractical". Rather, it is almost perfect in that it avoids creating a label, and labels are -- as we can read throughout this forum -- the source of so much angst and asinine thought.

But I do agree totally with your point. I think that we're all more comfortable with labels, however, the fact that it is even almost impossible to find a describing label for "a guy like me who likes a girl like her" is thought-provoking... maybe we simply don't exist??? There are terms for so many things - but not for a tranny-lover...

You can be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual... but where does that leave me?

The entire problem is, that the term "sexual" is misplaced. A homosexual is someone who is sexually attracted to her or his own sex... a transsexual is someone who identifies as her or his opposite gender. Nothing to do with sexual orientation here.

And it all comes down to the fact that transgenderism is minority and no need to take us seriously. We're just so much freaks that the hetero-laymen (or homo-laymen, for that matter) cannot even label us correctly...

:-)

[ila]

I don't see a need to give a label or a term to anybody. I am just me. Instead of agonizing or contemplating over what others may call you, call yourself what you want to be known as. I am a man and that's all that is required.

[aa2239]

Originally Posted by ila

I don't see a need to give a label or a term to anybody. I am just me. Instead of agonizing or contemplating over what others may call you, call yourself what you want to be known as. I am a man and that's all that is required.

My thoughts exactly, let's keep it nice and simple.... there is such a thing as over-analysis! Makes for very interesting forum discussion though :-)