This blog is way left of center...
Gender is a grammatical concept that refers to a word being either masculine or feminine (for example EL tio or LA tia). It does not refer to a person being male or female. That would be one's sex.
So Kona, give me a hand with this stuff, and please keep in mind that I'm not an ignorant asshole, I'm just a -3 on the Kinsey Scale here.
So Eddie Izzard, famed comedian:
Eddie is biologically a man.
Eddie is sexually attracted to women
Eddie gender identifies as a woman.
Thus, Eddi is:
A. A lesbian
B. A a straight guy who's identify is more feminine
C. None of the above
So the 2 point kinsey scale that goes left to right, actually would be more accurately depicted as a 4 point scale going up/down to left/right?
Uh. Strike that. Girlfriend has just informed me that Eddie Izzard actually identifies as a man, but just likes wearing women's clothing.
Alright, so gender identify have very little to do with each other?
From one -3 to another, you tell me. 
I just think he looks great in women's clothing!
I think the point I was trying to make here is that analysis of transgender sexual orientation makes labels rather irrelevant.
Sometimes love trumps all the labels. I have known of male-female marriages where the husband comes out as a transexual, has reassignment surgery, and is then a woman. The wife maintains that she is hetero and will always be, but that doesn't stop her from loving the person she married. There are some hard questions some folks must face.
I also know a woman who fell for a woman, and was concerned that maybe she has misunderstood her preference all her life. Then she found out the person she loved was a pre-surgery female-to-male transgender. Then it became clear; she had recognized his inner male personality, which reaffirmed her own heterosexuality.
That's a beautiful contribution Miss Cellania! Thanks.
this is some very interesting stuff. it has always intrigued me that we understand so very little about one of the most primal forces in our lives. thank you kona for taking it on with such respect, and to the commenters for the added insights and experience.
I'll second that! Thanks, kona!
I have known of male-female marriages where the husband comes out as a transexual, has reassignment surgery, and is then a woman.
I have a gut feeling that if my (future?) wife were to have a sex change operation, I'd have a problem coming to grips with that.
In year's past I have lobbied for lgbt rights in NM with my sister, Virginia, all 6'4" of her. Since I am not 5' we were a hilarious couple walking through the halls of the state capitol. I always teased her about the size of her feet and how did she find flats that big. In her presious life, she was a Christian (yes, that kind) minister with children and then decided she needed to be a woman.
But when the homos were concerned that we would lose our "equal rights" if we included my trans sisters and brothers, I was always clear that we all had to get there together. In the end, we all crossed the finish line together and I cannot recall a sweeter day than when Bill Richardson signed a hate crimes bill and non-discrimination bill that was trans inclusive. I am alsways grateful to them for teaching me how to be more comfortable in my own skin.
thanks konagod for ralking abaout this.
That would grateful for talking about this.
I simply can't imagine losing my John Thomas, and I'm not being funny here. I suppose that makes me definitely MALE for gender identity.
I admit to a certain amount of discomfort when dealing with the few trans I've run into. I find it completely alien to my thought and experience.
But I realize that's me. That's just my reaction. It isn't a reflection on others.
What really scares me is the judgemental attitude of those who are secure in their "normal" societal catgories and who feel that gives them the right to hate on the entire LGBT community. I find that even more alien. I honestly feel less like that person than someone who is transgendered.
If a heterosexual man feels strongly that his gender is female and begins to live his life as a female
The problem with your thought process is that this person, in this example, is not and never was a heterosexual man. A transgendered person who strongly identifies as female is not a "man," het or otherwise. That's the whole point.
If you unpack that part, it gets easier.
Obviously, as Miss C. was mentioning, there's the reaction of others to deal with, and that's a whole nother kettle of fish, but the identity and orientation of the inner person exists in the inner person, and is not based on clothing, surgery, or social roles.
So in that example, it is a woman who loves women, and therefore has always been a lesbian.
(I have several transgendered friends and acquaintances. I inadvertently insulted a mtf friend and have been working to educate myself for a couple of years now.)
When I was a cute young boy, I looked great in drag -- really great. I'm blond and have soft (although not really feminine) features. I'm 5'-10" and I weighed about 135 back then. Small hands and feet and no Adam's apple helped, too. I could easily pass for a girl.
Being a drag queen wasn't really my thing, so I didn't dress up too often. Halloween parties and bar contests were about as much as I dared.
One thing that stays with me from those days is how differently I was treated when I looked like a pretty girl. Men paid a great deal of attention to me -- even gay men. Wearing a dress and makeup somehow made me act much differently, too. I think I just naturally assumed the role of a girl because that's what I looked like -- a group/social dynamic thing I suppose. I remember going out and having gorgeous men swarm all over me. Sometimes they were hard to deal with -- wouldn't take no for an answer. I've never had that problem as a man.
Now that I'm close to 50, the male hormones have completely erased any trace of my former "beauty". I'd probably look like Kathleen Turner in drag -- that's not really a bad thing, just not the "ideal" of feminine beauty in this society.
I've talked to other guys who either have done or still do drag and they have similar tales to tell. It is possible to get hooked on adopting a feminine persona -- even if that's not your typical inclination.
Getting older sucks, Fritz! 
I inadvertently insulted a mtf friend and have been working to educate myself for a couple of years now.)
Deborah
Welcome to the club Deborah. It's not hard to do which is one of the reasons I wanted to embark upon this journey.
Konagold,
May I gently say you're perhaps looking at this backwardly? Or maybe I should say that a better way to understand transpeople is to think of yourself backwardly.
Identifying as gay, your starting point now is from the experience that your mind and your body is male. Imagine for a moment your brain and mind is exactly as it is now, but you have a vagina and breasts instead of your penis -- you are just as gay and just as male as you are now on the inside, but what's between your legs doesn't match what's between your ears. The outside world looks at you now as a heterosexual female, but you identify as a gay male.
A gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity is an inside-to-outside look -- sexual orientation is an outward look to what sexed body or what gendered soul you're attracted to. A transsexual identity is an outside-to-inside look at with which sex you identify -- gender identity is an inside look at how the gender you know you are relates to the body you have.
And then, when I say "which sex you identify," throw out the binary concept of just male and female; add to this mix of sex and gender intersexual people (people born with ambiguous genitalia) and genderqueer people (people who may identify as both male and female, neither male nor female, or as somewhere between male and female). How do you define the sexual orientation of someone that isn't easily defined by the terms male or female?
All this to is to say "Sex should be easily definable, but it's not. Our gender identity our profound sense of being male or female is independent from our anatomy.
So think backwardly, and it's easier to imagine the sexuality of transpeople. The sexual orientations of transpeople are at least as diverse as those of people whose sex and gender always have matched.
And btw, thank you for bringing the subject of the T in GLBT -- it's so very appreciated.
Congrats on starting a discussion about gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexuality. My two roommates are "straight", one woman, one male (in the traditional sense). I am constantly surprising them as they learn more about TS's, in particularly me. Their constant education about where people are on the rainbows of gender and orientation has been throughly challenging. Just when they think they have me pegged, I say or do something that just scrambles their old ideas.
It also helps the process because I am constant flux on orientation depending on where I am in my cycle (yes folks, some of us on injections on HRT do cycle). It is interesting that my male roommate knows my other roommate and my cycles better then we do.
I do talks and panel discussions at the local colleges and universities about TS (and by default when alone, on LGB too). I enjoy the Q&A with the young people. The questions tend to be honest, very often naive because transgender/transsexual is never taught in K-12.
There is as much confusion with the under 24's and there is in older peoples. Why is easy; we destroy their preconceptions of what everybody is like. We force an expansion of what is "normal" just by being us. Most importantly is they understand "choice" in life, but they cannot comprehend that often their is no choice in being who you are. If I am having problems getting thru to people the simple question (used by many) is "when did you choose to be hetro? Do you do it everyday? Or, just when you are in public?"
Fritz, wouldn't the world be a better place if EVERYONE could crawl into the skin of the opposite sex for a period of time? Or another race, for that matter. Talk about walking a mile in their moccassins!
Commenting by HaloScan
