18 Comments

Another fascinating essay on the inconvenient “ancestors” of fetishistic transvestites. UB hits it out of the park here.

Agree with the parallels you draw between AGPs & women like Sheila/Lou. Exposure to internet pornography has only created more of these women. This is something more feminists need to grapple with—a lot of us have assumed that it’s only boys who are having their brains scrambled by porn now, but it’s girls, too. (Look up Louise Perry’s interview with Helen Joyce last month on her podcast, on fanfic communities & how focused on gay male sex they are. For old normies like me this is a very weird world.)

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About 20 years ago I spent some time on a Buffyverse fan site. A lot of the women wrote fanfic of the "slash" (homoerotic) variety, and after hearing them go on and on about it, and after holding my nose and reading a bit, it struck me that these straight women just didn't understand male-male relationships *at all*.

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This is exactly what my gay male friends say!

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Jul 17
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Check out PITT: Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans for loads of stories about girls (friends, sisters, etc.) who cheer on a vulnerable young man to trans. It's a horror story, with the cheerleaders leading the "be kind" brigade. (But of course, they will never be his girlfriend or partner, never be there in the long run for him.)

I can't imagine the agony of a parent losing all their children to the trans cult--one who transes, and the others who cheer him on and viciously police the parents' language and reactions to the trans-ID'd child. There are many such stories at PITT, and the cheerleaders--while sometimes brothers--are overwhelmingly sisters or friends. Trans is acid to family ties, kinship, solidarity, the building blocks of society. It dissolves everything.

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A few years ago, when I was still trans-identified, I was frenemies with a fellow "trans boy." One day, we were talking about our fictional crushes, and to my shock and confusion, she said she was into guys. Only guys. This rattled my little sapphic teen brain so hard, I stopped the conversation and asked her with a deadpan look, "If you're not into girls, what's the point? Just cut your hair and move on." The irony.

From that day though, I began to realize just how many "trans boys" were just straight girls. (Further, how many so-called "queer" girls are also just straight.) They always made me uneasy in their own chronically-online adorkable way.

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If you are into girls, what's the point of transitioning? Did you think it would let you date straight girls or was it something else?

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I was totally trying to date straight girls. My view on lesbians (and being a woman in general) was hilariously narrow-minded at the time and based on a ton of negative stereotypes, so I figured that being a man would've been easier. My delusional self thought I'd become like, a modern Cary Grant or something after transitioning.🤦‍♀️

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I've been saying this for years, that many "transmen" are just het women. What a way to go...

But it's patriarchy, where most worship males...

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So interesting! I found myself nodding along with the bit about her craving to feel oppressed. My hunch is that it features prominently in today’s ROGD straight (but not hypersexual) girl, at least in the US.

You also taught me something about university gender clinics in the last century— like that they existed outside of Johns Hopkins. Where can I learn more about that?

Thanks for being a treasure trove of odd untold stories!

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Some of the books I draw on for that era are Sex Science Self by Bob Ostertag, How Sex Changed by Joanne Meyerowitz, and Changing Sex by Bernice Hausman. Meyerowitz in particular is deferential to trans narratives but the research seems sound.

Yes, the university clinics are so interesting and I want to go deeper into them myself at some point. There's probably a story there about universities' power in the 1960s and 1970s. They somehow decided to enter this ridiculous, risky field; then they succeeded in normalizing it for the broader culture.

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My gosh, some ladies in the neighborhood and I were just talking about a FtM (mastectomy/on T/wearing a fake penis) now only wanting to date gay men. When she first started down this rabbit hole, she was a masc/lesbian and didn't like penises. This is ALL too weird for me to take in. I had to read your post slowly so that I could understand! This whole "trans" movement is about fetishists and deviants just like it was back in the 70's....we just have social media now to spread it faster, farther and wider. When will people come right out and say that Queer Theory is the underlying cause of all this madness?

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I've been saying for years that many "transmen" are just het women. As a Lifelong Lesbian and Butch, I hate how most assume it's Butches who want to be men. I also hate us being called "masculine" when we are the females who most say no to male rules and are closer to what all females would be without patriarchy. I have always loved other girls when I was a girl, and then women, but never, ever wanted to be a man.

What a way to go... But it's patriarchy, where most worship males...

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What you're saying makes sense to me, but I think a lot of younger lesbians unfortunately blur together the concepts of masculine, butch, and trans man.

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Except that's what the younger Lesbians I know think. The differences are very clear. First, there are no "trans" anyone, so no "transmen."

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“If you think of Sullivan as an oppressed gay trans man, then her determination to put her fetishes into the historical record is noble. If you think of her as a fetishist, then her determination to put her oppression into the historical record is narcissistic.”

I will condemn Sullivan’s aggressive attempts to insert himself into gay male spaces, but I don’t have a problem with the above. The documentation of niche fetishes contributes to human knowledge and advances the field of sexology. If anything, I would like to see more candid case studies, not less.

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There are two genders. Men can’t get pregnant. Surgical mutilation and chemical castration for children isn’t healthcare. Men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports.

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This poor woman was obviously mentally ill. I wonder if anyone ever suggested she get psychiatric help? Or did they all just affirm her madness?

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This is too disgusting to read ! She obviously should have been in a mental asylum!

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