I’m comfortable being a woman with my lady parts. I also like to pretend. I told people I was male (transmasc, specifically) so that I could freely experience attraction to just men without having the “straight” label.
Whatever I was, I did NOT want to be straight, so presenting as a trans guy helped me feel better about myself. I could be a gay man. Then, I was a non-binary demiboy (either gay or bi but would only date men).
I felt like a girl in real life. I still do. I didn’t feel dysphoria nor a desire to transition in any way, neither socially nor physically nor anything. It just felt relieving to be a gay trans guy, but that still made me trans even though I didn’t identify as male nor did I ever see myself as male, right?
(I see myself as a woman and always have, I don’t have dysphoria. I identify as a woman who wants a penis. I think I’m moreso attracted to the idea of having male parts than actually seeing myself as a guy, but like I said, it relieved me to be gay and not straight.)
long story short, I’m a woman slightly attracted to the idea of herself being a trans guy or having a penis.
I’m comfortable being a woman with my lady parts. I also like to pretend. I told people I was male (transmasc, specifically) so that I could freely experience attraction to just men without having the “straight” label.
This is the part people will likely get upset about. I’m not pretending when I say I’m a woman. I am trans. Trans folks have been begging for people to respect their identity. It has nothing to do with sexuality, I did not transition in order to be seen as a lesbian woman or as a straight man. I did it to be seen as a woman. The other labels are added on after.
The way you’ve worded this, it seems like you’ve taken the trans masc identity and the trust that’s been garnered around trans identities and abused it. Your feelings about this are valid, but I really feel you should approach this differently.
If you are feeling uncertain about your gender, then explore that and determine if you truly feel that way. Maybe you are trans masc? Maybe not? If you find yourself struggling with your gender but not rejecting your assigned gender at birth, maybe explore what it means to be genderfluid or nonbinary?
If you feel this is strictly a discomfort with your sexuality labels and perception of them, please find some other ways to convey it that does not involve abusing gender labels.
I don’t feel like a guy now, I just didn’t and don’t like being seen as straight even if I only like guys.
Okay, to bluntly answer your original question then:
People are upset because you lied.
What about being straight or at least having that label is it you dislike?
when ppl pretend to be a gender online because of comfort, it seems to me that they feel more comfortable as that gender
i would do some real reflection about this. you talk about gender dysphoria but you don’t make any mention of gender euphoria. do you know what that is? it’s the other set of traits to look for when considering if you’re trans. one of those is feeling more comfortable in a given gender than your assigned gender at birth. another is feeling a sense of wholeness or happiness when picturing yourself with different sexual characteristics. sometimes that also presents as feeling sexually aroused when picturing yourself with those traits
why did you want to avoid being straight so badly?
i think online spaces are good places for exploring your gender identity and i don’t really think it was wrong or disingenuous. you feel like it was, because it’s pretend for you, but it’s offering you a real sense of warmth and comfort, so i don’t see an issue. obviously, please treat the trust that other people may grant you, given that label, with care. be a good person with it, and if they become close to you, consider explaining your situation to them, before misunderstandings can happen
identities are free to take and wear as you please. you don’t owe anyone dysphoria or a desire to transition to be trans, or to be that identity everywhere at all times. it’s just seems to me that you identify as a man/demiboy/etc online, and that’s cool
First of all, gender expression and being trans is a vast field. While there are a bunch of labels one can use and that fit for many, this doesn’t cover everybody and their experiences.
Second, there are many forms of dysphoria, not all have to do with being uncomfortable in your body.
With understanding this and only having your description from this post, there are signs of both of this (at least some I interpreted that way while reading). As far as my understanding of the demi label goes, one only feels like that gender in certain situations or at certain times. If that is “on the internet” for you, then it isn’t far fetched. While you feel comfortable as a woman, you also said you’d desire male genitalia, which even without any pain from it is still dysphoria. If you want to be perceived as male sometimes or just online, that’s a form of dysphoria too.
I’d recommend to you to do some soul-searching and introspection to find an answer for yourself. It doesn’t sound like you’re trans-masc, but maybe demiboy, genderfluid or non-binary would fit you? Nobody can answer that for you though and it is fine for you to be something that doesn’t have a label.
Now I would say it’s kind of inappropriate to call yourself trans-masc online if you don’t consider yourself that. It might be seen as appropriating an identity or pain you don’t actually have. Many trans people suffer from their dysphoria and taking that label just for the optics is maybe not that nice (similar to how people pretending to be another race isn’t a good thing). Connecting this to my previous point: many trans people do start out pretending to be another gender online to experiment. If it feels comfortable to you, maybe you should think about that a bit
I think people would be upset about dishonesty, particularly if you present yourself as a gay trans man, which most people will take to mean you don’t see yourself as a woman, for example. If they learn you are actually OK with your assigned sex at birth and you were pretending to be a trans man, I could imagine they would be upset because you were dishonest.
I can see why people would think it’s dishonest, but is it actually dishonest, or just unexpected?
I think even a lot of trans people don’t really grasp things like gender fluid and bigender, so it’s easy to do bad reasoning like “different gender in person => lied about gender” under the assumption that people only have 1 gender.
From OP:
I’m comfortable being a woman with my lady parts. I also like to pretend. I told people I was male (transmasc, specifically) so that I could freely experience attraction to just men without having the “straight” label.
From this I get the impression they are being dishonest. The exploring, gender identity, etc. isn’t the issue here, the issue that will upset people is the pretending when it’s not disclosed that it’s pretend. It’s fine to explore and role play, but not in a non-consensual manner when it involves other people.
I agree completely that OP might have some complex gender stuff going on, but that’s not really what makes this dishonest or problematic. Even if OP later realizes they are actually a gay trans man, the point is that they were intentionally presenting themselves as something they don’t think they are now - that’s where the dishonesty is.
I also like to pretend.
My brain just skipped over that the first time, oops.
no worries - I figured you might have missed part of the post or something 😅 I swear as I get older my reading comprehension is slipping (and I make so many typos now too) 😭
I think it kind of smacks as someone who wants to appropriate a struggle that is not their own.
I think most people have known a girl who claimed she was bisexual because she found some actress attractive and she wanted the attention from her friend group but found the idea of sex with women as disgusting and so never ever had a relationship with any women.
It wasn’t too long ago that being gay or lesbian meant you had to hide who you were or who you loved and a lot of older people had to live through that. Some people still do to avoid losing their family. A lot of younger people don’t understand that. So seeing someone who enjoys the privilege of being straight and being able to openly love who they want pretending to be marginalized just feels kind of gross. Kind of feels like Rachel Dolezal. You can look her up.
I’m probably going to be downvoted for this opinion but we were asked to explain why those around OP thought their deception was bad. This is likely why.
Hopefully you agree, but I just want to suggest we should keep an open gate, so to speak. One doesn’t have to suffer or struggle to be gay/bi or trans - that’s just not how that works. OP might still be some kind of trans (or not), that’s not really the issue here.
OP happens to have another post talking about how they identify as bi even though they are hardly attracted to women, so your comments about faux-bi women might come across differently to her, FYI.
In the end, the community respects self-identification - and this is just how that works. It’s not really appropriate to gatekeep identity on a basis like questioning how sincere someone’s capacity for same-sex romance is. There are some biromantic-heterosexual women for example who might find it possible to have a romantic relationship with a woman, but generally wouldn’t want to have sex with a woman. This is part of why it’s pragmatic to respect self-identity, because it’s complicated and we don’t want a gatekeeping culture that victimizes people with less understandable sexualities or identities.
However, that’s not really what’s going on in this post - she said she likes to pretend to be a gay trans man to explore non-straight attraction to men, in this case she isn’t actually identifying as a trans man and she is admitting to pretending. That’s what makes it dishonest and thus problematic.
I understand that the climate today is vastly different than what it was when I was growing up. These days being gay or lesbian doesn’t necessitate a struggle and that’s fine. I am coming to terms with the fact that it’s more important to be okay for people to self-identify these days, despite what I or others may think, since being queer is simply far more widely accepted (in the US). This is true for being the LGB portion of being LGBT to a large degree, but we haven’t gotten there for the trans portion.
I’m just explaining the perspective people who have issues with OP might have and thus why they might have a problem which is what they asked about. Especially as someone who grew up in some of the hard days (i.e. being disowned for being gay, having to fight for my rights to marry my husband, etc.). And also experiencing people in my own journey that claimed they could speak on my behalf or for LGBTQ people as a whole despite having almost no understanding of the struggles we had to go through in the past. The struggles the gay community has faced in the past are being experienced right now though by trans folk perhaps even to a larger degree. Which is why it is more likely to be found problematic to pretend to be trans when you are not.
No worries, I understand you are just trying to help OP understand why they might get some hate for pretending to be trans, and I think you have a good point - it’s more sensitive to pretend to be an oppressed minority than for example to misrepresent yourself as a dominant group, e.g. straight (lots of people are closeted and we don’t think it’s appalling to pretend to be straight, it’s just pragmatic / survival for a lot of people - there is immense pressure to be straight and cis).
I didn’t mean so much to disagree with what you were saying as much as address what you anticipated as getting you hate - I just wanted to show how we might approach a situation like this without gatekeeping, but while being clear-headed about the wrongs here.
We don’t have to gatekeep OP’s identity to acknowledge that OP pretending to be trans is wrong and upsetting.
I can see why people would be suspicious of you because this sounds similar to what a transphobe might do to mock trans men, but as long as you’re doing this in good faith and not using it to overgeneralize anything I think it’s fine.
It reads like you don’t want to be a woman in a “woman” way? I think I get that. I’m transfem and gender fluid and sometimes feel like a man in a non-man way. But I generally don’t tell people that because it might give them the wrong impression and make them treat me in ways I don’t want.
I want to be a woman now, I just didn’t and don’t like the straight label. I only like men but I don’t want to be hetero.
Using gender purely to change how your sexuality is perceived feels icky to me. I believe that’s even a talking point transphobes use to delegitimize trans people’s existence.
You can be straight but not Straight™ though.
Oh really? Thank you. I dunno, I like the attention and closeness of a woman. I also like when women are pretty, popular and have common interests. However, I tend to like women less when they’re clingy, mentally ill, autistic (i just don’t like their behaviors, I respect them though) or lesbians (Can’t relate to lesbians because women HAVE to like men in order for us to be close.)
A great deal of my interests are hot men. I can easily name men I like but not women or other genders. Neither sexually not romantically nor any way.
who said it’s bad?
People online and my friends (not on here)
