FTMs - Does nobody talk about the phase when

[Drake]

Does nobody talk about the phase where you're transitioning and you get hit on by both gay and straight men and queer women at the same time? I've only started to socially transition, and what in the hell is this? Also, I'm awkward.

[Ivy]

I think I'd like to get hit on by about anybody.  

(I suspect I'm pansexual)

 

There was one time a guy did try to pick me up in the grocery store parking lot awhile back.  I assume he was gay since he called me "sir" to get my attention, although I was dressed fem as always.

Needless to say, that didn't improve his chances.  

[Jackie C.]

1 hour ago, Jandi said:

think I'd like to get hit on by about anybody.  

(I suspect I'm pansexual)

 

I think that might just be a trans-girl thing. We get so twisted up about how well we "pass" that we're happy when ANYBODY says they like us. Even if we'd never be interested. FtMs get a LOT of unwanted attention that rubs their dysphoria the wrong way.

 

Hugs!

[Ivy]

1 hour ago, Jackie C. said:

FtMs get a LOT of unwanted attention that rubs their dysphoria the wrong way.

Yeah.  I suspect that's different.

[DonkeySocks]

I don't know about the cisgender gay men but I think for the lesbians, early or pre-transition trans men can sometimes read as if they're trying to present as masculine-type cis female lesbians. (So can big, cisgender straight girls who cut their hair short--says my sister.) So they're kind of testing the waters to see if you might swing that way. "Thank you for asking, I'm flattered, but I'm not interested."

 

Trans man isn't the first thing most people think of. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a trans man, which is what I am, until way past high school, sadly. So I remember standing there in the band room looking at all these other kids and thinking, I know there's something different about me. Am I ... lesbian? Nope, not lesbian. Oh well, guess I'm straight then. So it went. I'm a gay trans man. I knew there could be trans women and cross-dressing cis men but I had no idea trans men were even a real thing. So people are cataloguing you based on their social circles, and your glow from beginning to self-actualize attracts them all.

[tracy_j]

I can understand it happening but would perhaps be more unusual in MtF than FtM. I occasionally wonder with both of these if there is a indeterminant point in someone's transition in which they are routinely recognised as either male or female with neither being dominant, this being a somewhat binary world. I would agree though that far fewer people think about FtM.

 

Tracy

[Gabriel]

Oh yes. Not so much hit on as much as read as. I want to think because I'm not socializing that much, if at all. But yes, I know that wherever I go I am read as a butch lesbian. It's been like that since I began socially transitioning, and still going on now I am on T. Definitely awkward and dysphoria triggering, but I deal with it as an inevitable phase of the process. Sadly is exactly what you've all said already - people assing us what they know. No one thinks about FtM because that is not even in their mental scheme. Can't say I blame them, I was the same just a few years ago.

As a gay trans man I guess this might go on for a while, and then I will still have to deal with the gay part of it. Talk about adventures in my 40s.

[Drake]

Oh my goodness YES the whole being mistaken as a butch lesbian all the time is definitely why I keep being hit on my girls, but I think the straight men are the most dysphoria triggering because I know they're there bc they perceive me as a pretty girl. Uncomfortable. I don't necessarily mind the attention, but it is just kind of weird being mid transition with all these people who don't know what to make of you.