Mistaken identity: How a cis queer identity obscured my trans womanhood

Across the web, various trans-hostile blogs and other outlets have claimed that there is a “reparative therapy” aspect to transness, contending that gender-nonconforming cisgender gays and lesbians are being encouraged to become gender-conforming straight trans men and women. From the outset, this is wholly unsupported by the demographic evidence – a majority or near-majority of trans people identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise queer, and typically, only a minority identify as heterosexual. As a form of “reparative therapy”, this would be one of the least effective methods of producing a heterosexual outcome.

Often, such claims also rely on the unsound assumption that, for instance, trans men are “really” just butch cis lesbians who have somehow been poached from the lesbian community. In fact, that community has no claim to them – because they are trans men, not cis women. Rather, their public existence as trans men was likely artificially suppressed in years past due to the widespread unavailability of transness as an acceptable option that was discussed openly.

Increasing awareness of the complexities of the experience of being transgender means increased opportunities to recognize a better and more suitable self-concept, identity, and model for understanding who one is. To invalidate their gender means selectively applying greater scrutiny to their current declaration of their gender than to their past declaration of their gender. If a person has used a cis queer identity as a stepping stone on the path to a better understanding of who they are, this does not mean that their later discovery of their trans identity is invalid. This also conflates gender expression with gender identity – having a more masculine-appearing gender expression does not therefore entail having a male gender identity. For instance, butch lesbian trans women exist – are they then driven to “become men”? Clearly this is not the case.

For me, the initial assumption of a queer cis male identity was incorrect. This was how I understood myself as a male-assigned individual who was heavily drawn to expressing a great deal of femininity – the only cultural trope I understood at the time was that of the effeminate gay man. And so, because I was quite overtly feminine, I assumed I must be a gay man.

This led not only to a mistaken gender identity for me, but also a mistaken sexual identity. Because I believed that my femininity meant I must like men, I spent years being confused at why I couldn’t feel comfortable relating to men, or find them arousing in the same way that I was attracted to women. Being attached to this identity led me to discount my attraction to women as something not worth considering – something anomalous but insignificant. I brushed that reality aside because it conflicted with the label I had wrongly imposed upon myself. For me, being trans isn’t a state of gender confusion – being cis was.

When I finally transitioned, it only further emphasized and clarified this. Being in a state of untreated gender dysphoria meant being so estranged from my body, from my feelings, from reality itself, that there was no way I could be comfortable being intimate with anyone, men or women. And within a gay male identity, none of it felt right – because having to view myself in a male role in a sexual context, gay or straight, just wasn’t right for me.

After four years of estrogen, I’m more in touch with my body, my attractions, and my emotions than ever before. I’m able to be truly sensual for the first time, so much more present during sex, and so much closer to my partners as a result. This is what it feels like to find the right answer to who I am and who I love: I’ve never felt more true to myself than I do as a lesbian woman. The denial of my trans womanhood only got in the way of finding joy in this most transcendent human experience. It got in the way of my self-fulfillment and my ability to exist comfortably within myself. It got in the way of living my life. Being trans, being a woman, removed these obstructions and made me truly myself at last.