Gay man, 34. I dated a trans guy for about a year. Two questions:
1. Can I still claim my platinum gay status? Or did having sex with a trans guy forfeit it?
2. I notice that I’m now much more leery of going out with trans men. Our breakup had nothing to do with him being trans. I’m feeling self-conscious about being transphobic. Is this valid? What should I do?
Sexy Trans Action Terminates Status
1. According to the slang police at Urban Dictionary: “Gold Star” gays are gay men who’ve never had sex with women. “Platinum Star” gays are men who’ve never had sex with women and were C-section births sooooo they’ve “never touched a vagina.”
By this somewhat cracked logic, STATS, the quality or purity of a gay man’s gayness exists in inverse proportion to the number of vaginas he’s touched and/or passed through during his life. (Pity the poor gay male gynecologist!) While mostly said in jest, and while this gold/platinum stuff can be read as a bankshot acknowledgement of the cultural pressures that lead many young gay men to experiment with straight sex before coming out (because they desperately want to be straight and/or they have to at least be seen pursuing girls and some gay dogs catch the lady cars), this gold star/platinum star stuff is nonsense. Gay men who’ve had sex with women and/or touched vaginas aren’t any less gay or any less good at being gay or any less devoted to cock. And there are plenty of gay guys out there who have vaginas, as STATS can attest, and when a cis gay man has sex with a trans gay man who a vagina… those two homos were having hot, crazy, sweaty gay sex.
But, you know, technically speaking…
If the criteria for being a gold star gay is whether or not a gay guy has ever slept with a woman, STATS, then you’re still a gold star gay, STATS. You dated a trans man, trans men are men, you’ve never been with a woman. But this “platinum” nonsense is about genitals, not gender. So if your trans ex-boyfriend had a vagina and you touched it, well, then you’ll have to mail your invisible platinum gay card back to the Imaginary Gay Accreditation Agency, STATS, and someone at the IGAA will pretend to mail you an invisible gold gay card within ninety business days.
2. Humans are prone to find meaning and see patterns where neither exist. To give a benign example: Someone gets sick shortly after eating a particular kind of food (Thai curry, Swedish meatballs, Irish starch) and then feel leery about ever eating that kind of food again because they associate it with bad feelings that may not have been caused by the food itself. To give a less benign example: Someone dates a trans/black/burlesque guy for a year, the relationship goes south for reasons that have nothing to do with transness/blackness/burlesqueness, and then they feel leery about dating another trans/black/burlesque guy because they associate transness/blackness/burlesqueness with bad feelings that had nothing to do with transness/blackness/burlesqueness.
Having an irrational/unkind/bias-influenced-impulse in the wake of a breakup does not make you irredeemably transphobic. Your unconscious mind made this link—”I’m leery of dating trans guys in the wake of this relationship”—and your conscious mind is pushing back. Your conscious mind is saying, “Wait a minute! That’s not valid. That’s bullshit.”
So long as we’re capable of making a conscious effort to push back against our biases and irrational assumptions, STATS, we don’t have to think of ourselves as irredeemable bigots. Just human and fallible and working to be and do better.
Impeach the motherfucker already! Get your ITMFA buttons, t-shirts, hats and lapel pins and coffee mugs at www.ITMFA.org!
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