Maybe STATUS is feeling leery about dating another trans man with a vagina because he’s so caught up in the implications of having sex (including vaginal sex) on his status as a gay man. Perhaps STATUS rationalized seeing a trans man as a one off thing, and if he had any internal doubts, he focused on the uniqueness of that one person. However, if he keeps having sex with different vagina-having trans men, then his rationalizations start feeling suspect in is own mind.

Perhaps STATUS needs to start by asking himself why is he worried about his status? Is this internal pressure or something external? And what would be the ramifications of STATUS no longer being unequivocally gay, however he is defining that term?

If STATUS can come to realize he doesn’t need to satisfy anyone’s criteria for being gay, he may come to the realization that he can have sex with any number of trans men without jeopardizing his sexual identity. And at that point, he’ll find himself open to doing so again.

God bless you, Dan: you combine just the right amount of compassion and calling-out-the-bullshit when you see it, and gentle mockery, and hard-headed realism, and reassurance, and information.
Sometimes I think you blow it, but sometimes you absolutely nail it. This is an example of the latter.

It strikes me that this is a much more serious aspect of the "I'm a dog's dad"/"you aren't a dog's dad" debate--but the stakes are much higher.

Two lessons stand out:

1. Don't let other people define you.
2. Don't believe in a hierarchy: if you know you're gay, you're gay. 'Nuff said. As for the rest: Platinum, Schmatinum.

Good answers, Dan.

LW: honey, you can date whoever the fuck you want to date. If people talk shit about you for having touched a bajingo, forget them; they weren't really your friends anyway and their prejudices are a hot heap of trash.
Gay men worrying about whether sleeping with a trans man makes them less gay is at least as dumb as straight men worrying about whether sleeping with a trans woman makes them more gay. Date whichever willing unrelated adult makes you happy, labels be damned.

Now, I don't endorse your worrying (as a neurotic myself I kinda got to take a hardline stance against this type of anxious self-second-guessing) but the motive behind it is admirable. It's good of you to monitor your behavior just in case there's some kind of latent transphobia affecting how you treat people, but don't psych yourself out in so doing. Just remember to be decent to others and give people a chance.

Exactly, LW. What venomlash said. Everybody’s talking bout platinum, come in him, gold star and porn star, vages and badges and free jizz and penis, venus and status and standards and slanders and what about the testes, hairy hairy testes....

All we are saying, is give peeps a chance.

@5: John Lennon---um, I mean, LateBloomer--I fucking love you. Marry me Thursday. I need a day to get the license and reserve the hall.

We keep insisting a trans woman is a woman to neutralize straight men's fears, this is the first time I've seen this situation inverted.

I think Dan is right, the anti-trans vibe is probably just a post break-up vibe. STATUS is being mindful and owning his feelings that are normal.

It doesn't make you gay for sleeping with a (trans) woman, and it doesn't make you straight for sleeping with a (trans) man. It's hilarious that men of either preference fear the same situation.

Actually, I'm hearing "Platinum Gays," as a David Bowie song, sung to the tune of "Golden Years":

Run from the pussy,
Run from the pussy
For these Platinum Gays."

First world problems

@8—the one playing in my head doesn’t quite scan:

Plat’num gays...
Ooo they'll pass you by,
Plat’num gays,
In the wake of an orgasmic cry...

Okay, I’m stretching now.

@6–Fine. I’ll bring the car. ; )

Ugh. Platinum Star, grow up.

It probably makes me a bad person, but I wouldn't want to date a trans person. And no one should date someone that isn't into them, so it's for the best, really. LW, you should probably feel that way too. Trans dudes aren't missing out on anything because you aren't into dating them, they're probably better off dating someone who's into what they bring to the table.

Platinum Star gays were still inside a woman, for a good nine months, and because they were born via a c section it's got more clout than a gay man who came out via a vagina. Geez, that is a stretch.
Seriously LW, get over yourself.

Platinum star to Dan for this excellent answer! And a gold star to Late @5 for the excellent lyrical take! :)

Had Mr Miller written this response, I could have put this on the level of FTWL. The part of the response about privates is perhaps irreproachable.

As for his ruminations on being gay, Mr Savage isn't technically incorrect, but I'd call his position incomplete. It comes off as slightly defensive; perhaps that's unavoidable. What disturbs me is his inviting the inference that there is nothing admirable about never having yielded to societal pressure, and that heeding one's vocation from the beginning in the face of great disapproval does not show any particular strength of character.

That might be okay in a way, except that this used to be a two-way street. My friends back in the eighties admired my not getting caught in the Wainthropp trap; I admired them for escaping it. And people are still getting credit for the latter. Where I see this heading is a parallel to Mr Savage on pot, where eventually people will be looking at gays who never had sex with women and thinking something's wrong with them for a horseshoe of the old reason.

I am inferring from the comment consensus that nobody sees anything admirable in my having defeated conversion therapy, but I give most of the assembled company the credit of assuming that inference was not deliberately invited.

This will be easier to understand for anyone who's read In This House of Brede.

@6 @10: Dammit! Nocute beat me to it! Late, how do you feel about bigamy?

I mean, I'm sortof already married, but we're thinking of starting a Heinlein-style line marriage anyway...

Mr. Ven, I disagree with you. On the contrary, I think it very admirable of you that you defeated/resisted forced conversion therapy.

Now, as a straight person, I realize I'm not part of the community that gets to make these rules, but I don't see a value in having rankings (of pretty much anything), when the point of those rankings seems to be to make some people feel smugly superior to others and many people inadequate or inferior or not up to scratch.
I don't care for any groups or institutions that are based on exclusion and elitism: fraternities/sororities and the like.

I also don't think that a gay cis man who has sex with a gay trans man has in any way betrayed his gayness. I don't think others should get to judge and evaluate the purity of his gayness. Some gay people may have had sex with the opposite gender out of "yielding to societal pressure," but perhaps some people don't have such a clear knowledge of who they are and what they want until later in life, after they have had a sexual experience or two (or 200), and I don't see what could be good about classing them as lower forms of gay men for having realized or decided to come to grips with their homosexuality after having had heterosexual contact.

Why does everything have to be a contest? Whose business is it how other people have journeyed through life, so long as no one was hurt? (I exclude deeply-closeted, self-hating gay men who inflict pain on other gay men, by physical assault, hateful words/taunting/bullying, preaching from pulpits, or writing legislation. That's a different thing.) And who gets to be the arbiter of the purity of other people's character: someone who came out before puberty? Dan's right: there will always be a shiftable point of contact with a female body that will taint a man: maybe only gay men (who came out as young children) who were conceived via artificial insemination of a surrogate, born by cesarean section to two gay fathers will be allowed to be the high priests of gaydom.

I guess I am rankled by the inherent misogyny invited by the inference that a platinum star gay has never touched a disgusting gross vagina in an way.

@17: * in any way.

Isn't that whole deal pretty biphobic?

- signed a happy pansexual

Everyone I fuck turns Platinum.
I don't know what the problem is for all you other motherfuckers.

@16–“Line marriage.” I’d never heard the term before I looked it up, all I could think of was you and a bunch of partners in cowboy hats and flannel shirts, thumbs hooked into your pockets, all shuffling around in some kind of choreographed marriage hell...

Sure, sign me up! Marriage to multiple people, what could possibly go wrong...

Can we also acknowledge that the idea of a platinum gay is weirdly misogynist? Given that the term refers specifically to birth via c-section. It's not about having never touched a vagina in a sexual manner, or even with conscious thought and choice. It's literally equating a natural human process (BIRTH FFS!) with some aspect of one's sexual orientation. If you ask a completely sexually inexperienced cis straight dude born vaginally if he's ever touched a vagina, odds are high he's going to say "no." Because most people are going to interpret that sexually, and there's nothing sexual for a baby about coming out of a vagina. To have any sexual associations with birth to me just reeks of a basic sense of "vagina ewwww!" And (because I'm not THAT familiar with how this actually plays in gay male culture), does anyone actually take pride in being a "platinum gay?" Because that's like saying, "I have a colostomy bag and don't have to wipe my own ass," and drawing some sense of self specifically from your lack of ass wiping.

I don't have an issue with the use of "gold star," though I've really only heard it in a lighthearted manner, not an actual real sense of gayness. But to @15's point, sure there's something to be said for your conscious choices, but gold star doesn't automatically equate to that. People who legit don't realize they're gay until they're older weren't necessarily caving to pressure by having hetero sex before that realization, and some gays may end up with gold star status despite trying to bed an opposite sex partner in high school. So it's a term that means nothing in terms of someone's credibility/quality as a gay person and may or may not have anything to do with their conscious choices.

TL;DR: vaginas are a normal part of many human bodies and are not inherently gross. The gender of who you've fucked in the past should have no bearing on your credibility or worthiness regarding who you want to fuck now and how YOU identify yourself. Want a term for someone who consciously fought hard to stay true to themselves in the face of crazy pressure (maybe even conversion therapy)? That sounds like a Platinum Spine.

@23

Not TL, definitely worth the R.

@17. Nocutename. The 'platinum' is a joke about resisting the pervasiveness of heteronormative pressures, when young, hot, hung, hopefully psychically untroubled--and quite possibly more emotionally literate or seasoned (and so more attractive to some young women) than many straight men that age.... Dan acknowledged this ('bankshot'); and it is a joke....

But ... in many ways I'd be on your side of the debate, in not seeing the mainstreaming of queerness (in respect to both gender and sexuality), in many liberal circles, as any kind of de-gaying. So -- yes, STATUS is still gay, despite having been with a trans guy in a relationship that might more readily be understood as queer.

He shouldn't maybe generalize the sticking-points he had with his ex to all trans men ... but beyond that, how could he be free of some degree of wariness, preconception or bias?

This whole star system is part utter silliness and part insidious exclusionary snobbery. To the trash bin with it and brief momentary shame be cast upon all those foolish and shallow enough to buy into it.

@25 Except not. Re: "The 'platinum' is a joke about resisting the pervasiveness of heteronormative pressures, when young, hot, hung, hopefully psychically untroubled--and quite possibly more emotionally literate or seasoned (and so more attractive to some young women) than many straight men that age...."

Gold star, sure. But platinum has nothing to do with making it out of our young hot years without trying the hetero pool. It's about how you were born. Literally HOW.

That's not about resisting pressure. That's about thinking there is something wrong or gross etc about vaginas.

I've always heard the gay guy never having sex with a woman referred to as an "A-Gay".

Ms Cute - It's not a question of ranking; I could certainly make the case that it is just as difficult to escape from the Wainthropp trap as it is to avoid it entirely, and it doesn't make anyone either more or less gay. It's a separate issue that I do think Mr Savage acted very badly in his young adulthood in a way that I didn't. I acted badly in ways he presumably didn't, just in different regards. It's that one sort of journey is being dishonoured when it is practically outright being stated that the Prodigal is a better son than the faithful older brother, and that self-knowledge is being degraded as worthless.

To be clear, I totally accept LW and his trans partner as both 100% gay before, during and after their relationship, regardless of what they did or didn't do. I am, though, formulating an idea that many people probably won't like, that, while status of participants may be inviolable, acts themselves may be better considered as being on a spectrum; I am trying to formulate something that will accommodate gender, orientation and biology, which seems better suited to accommodate mixed-orientation and cross-orientation behaviour.

I know I've explained myself poorly, but it's very clearly laid out in the conversation between Philippa and Cecily about the orchard, which I don't think necessarily glamourizes either path above the other. Alas, I've no time to go into this any deeper.

M? Tempur - A-gays are generally understood to my knowledge to be the dinner-party set in Mr Maupin's Tales of the City series.

@27. Sassy. Clearly the gays have had a vagina bypass and the womynists a sense-of-humor bypass.

@29. Venn. Maybe your middle paragraph is reaching out for a term like ... 'queer'?

I think some people take this 'phobic' thing too far. Just because something isn't a personal preference doesn't mean a person is afraid of or hateful towards those people.

Suppose I ever took hubby up on his offer that I could have a pass to explore my bi desires. I wouldn't be into a trans women, or butch women, or women who are completely flat-chested. It's just not what excites me. There's a world of difference between saying, "I am attracted to certain traits and not others," and actual fear/loathing.

Re point 2: I once went out with a total nitwit who had curly hair. Ever since that, can't face going out with a guy with curly hair. Which is annoying, since I actually quite like curly hair. Our minds do play strange tricks on us.

What percentage of trans men are gay? What percentage of trans women are lesbian? Has this been fairly steady over time? Don't know what the best resources are (GLAAD?) since apparently the government is actively trying to make this harder to know.

Thanks, Dan, for bringing your wicked humor to a silly notion. In college (the '80s) I was supposed to visit my best friend (he's gay), who had graduated and moved to another city where he was renting a room from an older gay man. When I got there I learned I wasn't welcome because the landlord hated women. Spent the week on the floor of my friend's boyfriend's grungy apartment, a stranger. He was a very nice host, even if his bathroom had a 1 inch layer of soap scum and pubes. At least he didn't hold my second X chromosome against me. You can clean house, but I don't think there's anything to cleanse toxic misogyny. If you hate women so much that the idea of having passed through a female's birth canal squicks you out, you have a problem.

I'm curious to know if the LW discovered just how fantastically awesome eating pussy can be -- if nothing else, he has a unique perspective informed by much more than most gay mens' knee-jerk position (a la Dan) of "Eew, gross - pussies!"

...that is, it just took the right man to convince him how great vagina can be...

So I'm guessing a Silver Gay is one born via the vagina and who greedily sucked tit for sustenance. Titty Milk Boys.

@40: I infer that a Double-Elite Platinum Lesbian would be conceived via artificial insemination in the womb of a lesbian mother, and so is Certified Penis-Free(tm) for at least two generations by the Exclusionary Homosexual Designation & Registration Board ...

DC270 @ 36
There are so many variants, identities and perspectives to your questions. Do you only count “legals”? What level of hormonal and other procedures does one need to go through, if any at all, to be considered “trans?” Are nonbinarians qualify even if they’re only “part-timers?”

Btmom @ 37
I think this total avoidance of the opposite camp is more of a result of some trauma as opposed to body-parts dislike a la carte.
I don’t know if it helps, but when you were in college I was visiting a former girlfriend who shared a women-only house. I was told I can’t stay there since some of them don’t want any men around. “You wouldn’t believe what they had to go through to feel that way,” said the ex.
I stayed with some of her friends and made it to her house on occasion. One time a woman I’ve never seen before opened the door, didn’t even wait for me to finish, “Hi is Maryanne here?” and just slammed the door in my face while saying, “Oh, I can’t be bothered.”
Hope that helps.

I think Nocute nailed this. Platinum Gay not only seems misogynistic, apparently being born somehow strips one of gayness but also seems to be created solely to look down on other people. I mean a gay a man is somehow 'lesser' because he was pushed out of a vagina at birth?

That's dumb.

And while there is something admirable about people who were honest about their identities, even if that came at a cost, that doesn't mean it's okay to look down on those who played along.

Sure some of them may have been lazy but everyone fights their own battles and has their own motives. Some may have believe they loved their straight partners, and others may have feared for their lives if they didn't. They don't deserved to be looked down because of that. Or viewed as lesser by the people who should be supporting them.

@CMD: I respectfully disagree. I've met women--some lesbians, many not--who hate men because of really horrible experiences they've had with men (like your college friend, apparently). I think that is a silly example of #notallmen.

But I've met misogynistic gay men, and as far as I can tell, their attitude wasn't grounded in bad experiences, but was more "Ewwww! Vaginas: Gross! Fucking Breeders!"

Nocute@ 44
My comment was not about #notallmen and my apologies if it came across that way.
The time frame I alluded to was the decade btmom’s went to college, not me nor my ex girlfriend, who back then shared a house with other women. Some of her housemates didn’t want any men around and she told me it’s because of some bad experiences they had, which she did not elaborate. She was not one of the traumatized ones despite dating me a year prior.

My gay men friends back then and now often share a house and/or other interests and social activities with men and women alike
I’m not disputing your observation regarding misogynist gay men, I’m sure they exist, I still remember reading some pretty offensive vagina comments right here in the not-so-distance past.
I still think there is a difference between such comments and a total objection to have a person of the opposite gender staying in your house for few days. I assume such attitude has to go deeper, beyond a dislike of body parts.

@9 EVERYTHING in Savage Love is a first world problem.

@Harriet, that's not really fair. It's a humor based on a historic cruel stereotype- one that has been used to shame plenty of women- that vaginas are gross. I know that this isn't upfront and center of the Platinum thing and I'll give it a pass in conversation. But that is at the core of it, even if the joker himself doesn't intend it. It's just like the joke about "my asshole is exit only" which straight men use to defend themselves against being gay. Yes perhaps they just mean to say something funny about biology, but it's based on a "buttsex is yuck" obsession with gay people that is very common among homophobes and used to shame gay people. Girls grow up endlessly exposed to "jokes" about how gross their vaginas are so it's no wonder they don't have a sense of humor about it. When gay men (and in my experience this tends to be mostly older gay men) crack "vagina ewww" jokes, they are playing around with misogyny. I give them a pass when it's not intended because I know that they are ALSO playing around with concepts of masculinity- straight men are supposed to be so obsessed with pussy that it's funny to hear gay men reject it outright. And I'm willing to go so far as the Platinum thing arising innocently out of this- ha ha, I've never fucked a woman, I've never even touched a vagina, not even when I was a baby! But note there is not a similar thing for breasts despite the fact that this is a body part that gay men who've never fucked women may also have never touched and that also could be about when they were babies, say if they were bottle-fed. And the reason is partially because there isn't a harmful cultural "joke" about how disgusting breasts are.

BTW one thing I think this is something that has changed with the recent generation. While I have no doubt there are still plenty of misogynistic gay men (just like there are plenty of -ists in any group of people), I can't remember the last time I heard some sort of "eww vagina" comment from gay men younger than me. Who knows how people talk when they aren't in mixed company, but it seems like this was a more common thing in my experience some 15 years ago and more. The humor then seemed to be less misogynistic (though as I said I think that's there at the core even if it's not intentional) and more about the shock value which had an element of identity-pride to it, as if the man were saying, "I am a man and I openly reject this thing that supposedly defines manhood". At the time, I thought of it sort of as an over-compensation similar to the way you hear people who choose not to have children say things for shock value about "breeders" (calling kids crotch droppings and the like) or the way atheists say supposedly shocking things about religion (pointing out absurdities like "well do you have an altar where you sacrifice lambs in your home?"). It's all rather stupid, but it's coming from a wholesale rejection of what has been fed to you as a dominant culture (you will get married, have kids, be a good Christian or whatever), and in my opinion, it also says more about the person expressing such things- that they still feel the power of that dominant culture judging them and then get such a thrill for saying funny statements against it. But it feels really adolescent at best.

My point is that I don't mean to belabor the point about misogyny here as I'm pretty sure it's not usually intended. But I also don't think you can dismiss the way it's absolutely not funny to women who have been told their whole lives how gross and unclean and shameful their bodies are. I grew up with people who were not even allowed to touch kitchen tools if they were menstruating, so I can be pretty damn thin-skinned about these sorts of jokes in the same way that someone like Venn who was abused with conversion therapy might be thin-skinned about jokes that have a basis in homophobia. So I don't see why I should have a sense of humor about it. It's damaging to people. What I think I need is to be able to distinguish intent and not judge someone wholesale but rather within context which I think I generally do OK with. But being told I should also have a sense of humor about it? Nah, fuck that. How about just stop cracking jokes about women's bodies being gross?

@45 CMD for someone to take such an extreme reaction as to actually restrict people from a particular gender from entering their homes, then yes probably there is some deeper trauma that they have come to extend to an entire group of people or else they are wrapped up in some hateful and fundamentalist ideology- which can take many forms. People can get sucked into really strong beliefs about any group of "others" and it does not always require trauma or harm or abuse. There are plenty of white supremacists who've never really even known a non-white person. Likewise some of the most deeply misogynistic cultures (the ones that actually require separation of the sexes in every aspect of life) are bolstered up and followed by people who have not had any harm done to them by women. It's a similar thing with homophobia- one thing the LGBT rights movement demonstrated is that people become LESS homophobic as they interact with gay people in their daily life. Most people who would restrict their rights or their presence from their communities have not been harmed by them.

So while I agree hypothetically that it could be the case in any individual case, it's certainly not a conclusion or a likelihood that the man who restricts women from his home has been harmed by women. He could just be an asshole. And sure, the same thing can be said about any individual women who might do a similar thing -a woman who restricts all men from her home might be responding to trauma, but she might just as well be an asshole with some crazy fundamentalist bias in her head.

(Just as caveat to the above, I'm referring to individuals who restrict entire groups from their home or practice that sort of segregation in other aspects of their lives- which is what the examples above were about- not of groups of people who might sometimes in certain settings make similar restrictions for perfectly practical reasons.)

@45: Sorry, I was unclear. I know you weren't referring to #notallmen; I meant that I think it is wrong for women who have had negative experiences with some men to project that onto all men.

Emma Liz- While hoping assholes are who they are due to some semi-forgivable past experiences, one must acknowledge that some times assholes are indeed nothing but plain, trauma-free assholes.

I have to admit, I'm not that taken with vaginas, and I've got one. And the maze before you even get there.
I'm so glad there are men out there who enjoy pussy. I enjoy the feel of my own, I do see where the sensual pleasure comes from, luscious wet folds. Visually, wtf is that design. Intense. Then the vagina has all that blood coming out of it. Over and over. Sometimes even babies and then their breasts turn into milk bars.
Male genitalia, what you see is what you get.

Doveling @19: You're right. This "gold/platinum star" system is biphobic, transphobic AND misogynist. I'm pretty sure it's meant light-heartedly, but it seems stupid on so many levels.

Victorian @34: That's ok, I probably wouldn't fancy you either ;)
I see what you are saying, but including "trans" among physical characteristics one does not find attractive is in fact transphobic to some extent because it presupposes that all trans people share #physical characteristic, which is not the case. You could say, "I don't like trans men because they are short," but not all trans men are short. You could say "I don't like trans women because I don't like penises," but not all trans women have penises. There are huge variations in the physical characteristics of trans people -- just like cis people -- and by assuming, for instance, that all trans women would be too tall and too masculine for you, you're stereotyping them. There might, in fact, be a 5'5", very feminine looking, post-op trans woman in existence that you could find attractive. There's a difference between "I am not generally attracted to people with certain physical characteristics" and "I would never date a trans person."

Roseanne @35: I know, right? Due to relationships gone wrong in a painful manner I now hold irrational prejudices against anyone from Bristol or France...

BTMom @37: Ah, the 80s... I remember when gay men referred to women as "fish." Misogyny indeed.

CT @41: LOL!

Also, anyone else's teeth on edge at the numerous commenters referring to STATS as STATUS?? Or is it just me?

@46. EmmaLiz. I don't think it's like 'my asshole is an exit only' because it's kicking up, not down. The people making the joke, gay men, are more stigmatised in the matter of the joke, reproduction, than the butt (sorry) of the joke, straight women. Also, 'platinum' is surely a joke directed at gay men themselves.

When gay men make jokes about straight culture, their straight female allies must surely accept they'll be laughing at them, too?

Ms Fan @54 - Would you accept, "I wouldn't partner a trans person because I want to have biological children with my partner?" Perhaps not a sentiment either of us would admire, but it seems to meet the FTWL standard.

Ms Cute - I have settled on something that feels rather like the Klein scale. It looks at:

Who one is
What one does
How one does it

which also takes into account such things as SS couples who function as Husband and Wife.

It's still in the formative stages, but thank you for pushing.

I can better clarify what I found incomplete about the original response. It didn't build a wall to protect the Freedom From aspect that so many non-SS people dislike about certain LGs, but may not like to criticize in lesbians. In failing to do so, it facilitates taking another step towards a world in which gays are expected to be knowledgeable and even enthusiastic performers of same-gender-OS sex acts.

@48 no penises was kind of a thing among the older granola new agers in the nineties. My mom fell in with them for a time. I think it was regular old social conditioning. One or two people had an idea, and convinced those around them that it was a serious idea and they could structure their lives around it, no trauma required. Consider the debate over punching Nazi's - it hasn't centered on Judaism at all, it seems the #1 nazi punching supporters are white, protestant-raised people. No trauma required.

@57. Venn. A ciswoman partnering a trans man may get another throw of the dice. We know this has happened.

That's a weird comparison Sporty. I don't know why we are leaping from people excluding others based on their gender or ethnicity or sexuality to people responding physically to someone whose politics they find abhorrent. I don't even see what the two have in common? But in the larger debate about Nazi punching, how many Nazis have actually been punched? 10? Maybe fewer? I haven't kept up with either the punchers and the punchees so I couldn't give you a breakdown in terms of race or religion, but a) white protestant-raised people are the majority in the country, b) how do you know the punchers' religion?, c) the guys that punched the nazi in Seattle and the guy who leaped into a nazi space in SC to take the confederate flag were all black. But again, this is a bizarre tangent to go down in this conversation so I don't know what you are trying to do here.

As for your mom being a part of a no-dick granola thing- do you mean they actually excluded men from their homes or they just decided not to have sex with men? If it's the first, then it sounds like the sort of exclusion that we were talking about for sure. Did that exclusion include you?

@54 BDF I disagree with that. I get what you are saying regarding other physical characteristics, but the one thing that transmen do in fact all have in common is that they were not born with a dick. And unless I'm very behind the times (which is possible) then it is still impossible to extremely rare for transmen to have a reconstructed penis that functions and looks just like a cis dick. My sexuality is very dick oriented, period. I'd be far more likely to have a sexual relationship with a transwoman with a penis than I would a transman without even though I would not find her attractive at all and would probably not want more than a friendship with her outside of the bedroom and I'd have to avoid breasts. But I could see myself sucking a transwoman's cock way before I could ever imagine even non-penetrative sex with a transman. I like dick. Therefore, I don't have sex with transmen. And even if this is becoming less true (medical advancements and all- I think penis transplants are becoming a reality and maybe one day they will function that way), it is still overwhelmingly the truth right now.

@EmmaLiz that's similar to my thinking. I just wouldn't be interested in anything other than a natural vagina, as it would be the whole point of finally exploring the fantasy of being with a woman.

EL @ 61
I think Sporty is alluding to separatist feminists, which have been around since the late 1960’s. The bizarre Nazi analogy is not the only part he got wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatist…

And yet his prose is once again an inspiration for some more erasure poetry. A very short one this time, in line with the subject matter:
penises fell old
a serious trauma
centered supporters required

I just published an anthology on this very topic, it is called Trans Homo...Gasp! Gay FTM and Cis Men on Sex and Love. This book has the cis perspective and explores some of the common fears felt by gay men while dating and having sex with trans men. Often they fear that others will see them as bisexual. But trans men are not men, they are men, with possibly different anatomy. Ask the cis men who have bed one or more trans men, they will confidently be able to discern how sex is different with trans men vs cis women--the smell, taste, body, and experience. If you know you are having sex with a cis or trans man, and identify as male, then proudly retain your gay card, and I would argue if you really wanted to keep your misoginist Gold Star Card, you could too.

@CMD that's very interesting, thanks. And I like your poem. I'd actually like to hear more about what it was like to be the son of a woman who was temporarily caught up in a gender segregationist movement if you'd like to share, Sporty.

Wait a minute...Platinum Star?
Is that a motherfucking JOJO REFERENCE???