Intimacy and the Transgendered

From my perspective, I can't honestly say what is different about intimacy in relationships that involve transgendered individuals, compared to those relationships that don't involve transgendered individuals.

I've been transgendered all my life, so the only kinds of relationships I've known, are those that involve at least one transgendered individual.

I suppose it might help to define some terminology, as my perspective is one that comes from a specific type of transgendered person - I'm transsexual.

I was born with a stereotypical male body. Though by the time I reached puberty, I was in the grips of a deeply seated feeling that I was not male, despite what my body (and every single person that I encountered) would have me believe. I'll add that some transsexual's experience might differ from my own. Some will say that they've always seen themselves as the "opposite" sex to that of which they were born. That was not my experience, though I will say that I've always known something was wrong, but didn't really identify what that "something" was until I reached puberty.Nexy Jo

A transsexual is a person whose body developed stereotypical gendered attributes that differ from their internal sense of the gender with which they identify. In my specific case, I changed my body both hormonally and surgically to better fit my mental image. Not all transsexuals are in a financial, or even a mental condition to make that change. Some never reach the point where they change their body surgically, or even hormonally. There are other groups of people that are classified under the transgendered heading, but to be perfectly honest, their experiences are different enough from mine, that I don't feel I'm in a position to speak for them.

Up until I was almost 30, I had little experience with intimacy. Because my body was so different than how I saw myself, I could not involve myself with another person intimately. It just didn't seem "right." During the 70's and 80's, there was little accessible information regarding Gender Identity Disorder (GID), the medical term for the condition transsexuals experience. Since I was too dysfunctional to even look into any alternatives, I remained asexual. That, on top of my gender issues, caused quite a bit of turmoil in my life. While I dated quite a bit, especially as a teen, I never allowed the relationship to reach a stage beyond the first stages of intimacy. I should point out that sexual orientation and gender identity are two different things. There is some disagreement on their relationship and dependency, but there are transsexuals who are gay, heterosexual, and bisexual, and from my experience, they are equally distributed among the three orientations. And while I consider myself a bisexual woman, I definitely tend toward heterosexual relationships. And I use the term "heterosexual" from the perspective of my current gender - female. And while sexual orientation and gender identity are different, for me, they've been intimately intertwined for as long as I can remember - all of my erotic fantasies were about men. That was the one of the first clues I had pointing to the fact that I am somewhat different from the mainstream.

Many of the men I've been with seem to see sex - specifically sexual intercourse - as an end in and of itself. They seem driven to simply "have sex," as an end, and not a means. From my perspective, sex is a means to an end - the end being intimacy. Intimacy feeds my soul, and fills an emptiness inside, and I am as happy whether or not sex is involved in attaining the intimacy I crave so dearly. To me, it's an exchange, of energy, of emotion, of the life force itself. It's a powerful force that can drive out loneliness, anger, pain, and almost any kind of negative content.

I've had the unique opportunity to experience intimate relationships from both sides of the gender polarity, at least in terms of the Wiccan definition of "gender polarity." I see gender as a continuum really, but in an intimate relationship, there is most certainly a component of "give and take" - on some level, the concept of a polarity is quite real. As a fully functional woman, the intimate relationships I've experienced are quite different than those I've experienced as a man. The energy flow is different - while opposite doesn't quite describe the difference, it comes close. In "The Spiral Dance" by Starhawk, she says

"The male and female forces represent difference, yet they are not different, in essence: they are the same force flowing in opposite, but not opposed, directions…Each principle contains the other…They are part of a cycle, each dependant on the other."

I have found this to be quite true when it comes to intimate relationships. A woman's body facilitates the concept of "receptiveness," where a man's body facilitates "projectiveness," and I see this manifesting not only on the physical plane, but also on the spiritual and intellectual planes. That's not to say that a man can't be receptive, or a woman projective, as I believe all people have a blend of both components - "Each principle contains the other." Though a physical joining between a man and woman certainly typifies the Wiccan concept of male and female energies. And having experienced both, at least from a physical perspective, I have found this to be true.

By Nexy Jo