This essay was written by Johnathan Scott Arrowsmith about being both a transgender boy and a dyke. This archive was found on the Wayback Machine.Dyke
Page last updated: January 26, 2002
I am guessing the question that is on all your minds is:
So if you are now living as a boy, how are you still calling yourself a dyke?
The answer is: I'm a boydyke.
I identify as a dyke even though I am a boy and I will be legally male in the future. Though this may sound like a contradiction in terms at first, I ask that you please hear me out and open your mind to something new. Everything on this page is MY OPINION, not gospel or something to take to your grave as universal knowledge. I am, however, very strong in my sense of self, and there isn't much point in trying to tell me that I'm not who I say I am, so please don't bother. This is how I see the world and myself, and no one knows me better than me.
First, some technical crap: Sex, gender, and sexual orientation are all different concepts that overlap in the general associations we make about their combinations. For example: most people think that if you are a male, you have to be a boy or a man, and you are either a straight guy/gay guy/bi guy/etc; if you say you are a fag, they will automatically assume that you are both male and a boy/man also. My point is that people will pick one of the 3 and then make general assumptions/connections about the other 2 based on majorities in society (because it was society that set up these "rules"). To establish some definitions in my own terms (I am NO medical dictionary): Sex is the biology and anatomy you were born with (male, female, etc); gender is the outward social expression we label ourselves with that usually correlates to society's views of gender stereotypes (boy, girl, man, woman, etc); sexual orientation has facets of BOTH who you are and who you are attracted to. Just because most people who are male in sex identify with a gender of boy or man doesn't make it impossible for a male to identify as a woman or a girl or something else. Likewise, just because most people who identify as a dyke are female and/or identify as a girl or woman or other similar gender, doesn't make the fact that I identify as a boy (and eventually as a male) and a dyke a contradiction in terms.
I am attracted to women in general, which would lead me to have a sexual orientation geared toward the women-attracted types (usually straight/bi guys, queer women). I am more attracted to queer women, however, than straight women. But just because I identify as a dyke doesn't "make me" a queer woman--the "who I am" part of sexual orientation comes from the fact that the queer woman community (lesbian, dyke, etc community) is my home. (Keep in mind, also, that the transgendered community is also my home. I have my foot in both doors equally, but this page is set up for addressing the one door). It is where I find common understanding, where I am understood, what feels right, where I find connections, etc. I am not some weird guy with a lesbian fetish. When I am in a group of queer women, I feel at home socially; I often forget that I'm not 'just like them' because I have a different gender identity, and that they see me differently because they judge my gender identity without keeping in mind that I do ID as a dyke.
Really the only difference that my gender identity makes involves physicality in my relationships. Yes, I like to be treated as a guy/male/boy in physical contact, and no, I don't think it's wrong for me to ask someone who loves me to respect my feelings and wishes around what makes me happy. I know lots of transguys who are in relationships that originally began as lesbian relationships (when they were identifying as female and/or as girls). Their transition to identifying as a boy did not invalidate their relationship (though I don't know any who identify as a dyke still/now). I get told all the time that no queer woman will want to date me because if she's queer, that means she doesn't want to be in bed with a guy. Fine, that person you're talking about won't date me, but there's someone else out there who will. I think there are enough bisexual or pansexual or just plain queer women out there, and certainly at least one of them would want to love me. I find it so funny that no one really jumps down a straight person's throat if they say that they want to date someone heterosexual of the opposite sex (taking out queer of the opposite sex and both queer and straight of the same sex), yet when I say that I want to date a queer female (eliminating straight females and queer or straight males--the same % theoretically as mentioned in the previous sentence), I often get torn apart. I can't help who I am attracted to, nor can I help who I'm not attracted to. No one can. Part of the reason why we are attracted to whom we are is because we find common understanding there (look at the butch/femme dynamic, for example). It makes perfect sense to me that part of why I'm more attracted to queer women is because I find common understanding there. In fact, aren't most relationships between 2 queer people or 2 non-queer people? Not that there's a problem if it's a queer with a non-queer, I'm just saying that being or not being queer is one level of understanding that I want to have with my partner. It's important to me.
I have received much judgment and unfriendly questioning about my identities since I put up this page, far more for my dyke identity than for my boy identity. Some lesbians I know won't accept me as a dyke for similar reasons that non-trans guys have for rejecting me as a boy. It makes me sad when people won't give me a chance. I can accept their identity, why can't they accept mine? I know myself better than anyone else knows me, so trust me when I say what I am, and I will give you the same respect, trust, and acceptance.
Most of the hostility has come from self-identified dykes who are offended that I am 'taking their identity from them and making it something it's not'. This reminds me of heterosexuals saying that gay marriage threatens their marriage because it redefines it outside its normal lines. My identity doesn't threaten anyone or make anyone else's any less; it's my identity and only I can decide what it is. Just because I identify as a dyke or a boy in my own terms doesn't make it the same by ANY means for anyone else identifying as a dyke or a boy. Everyone's identity is unique; embrace diversity.
Much of my strength in my dyke identity comes from the fact that I identified as a dyke for much of my life already, long before my trans issues arose. I have been attracted to women (consciously) since I was freshly fourteen (that damn high school softball team will get you every time!!). I was out as a gay girl for four years of my life (unfortunately, the same four years I was in high school). I used to have a long shpeel on this page with specifics of my involvement with the lesbian community, but you know what? It's not necessary. I've explored pretty much every facet of the community and I know it's my home.
It was always difficult for me to get accustomed to the term "lesbian" because it sounds so...female. Since then I've started to learn and explore the differences between lesbian, dyke, and queer, though I can't explain it well. The lines between them are very subtle, though existing. To give it the old college try, it seems to me that a lesbian is a stronger woman-identified term than the others, usually in old-fashioned sense of 2 women being together. If you put the terms lesbian, dyke, and queer (women) in a line, the twisting of gender seems to increase if you move from left to right. Kinda like lesbian is "I'm a woman, you're a woman" where dyke is more of "I'm me (usually female), I'm attracted to women, I identify with this community" and queer is "I'm me (female), you're you, let's get together :-)" I've WAY over-simplified this, please mind, but I thought I'd throw this up here anyways.
When I realized I was a boy, I thought that meant that I automatically had to reject my dyke identity and just 'become' a straight guy. I never felt right calling myself straight, nor did I feel comfortable referring to myself as a fag (or a related term) when I dated a transboy in 2001. My eyes still wandered toward queer women; I couldn't deny that the lesbian community felt like my home. Identifying as a dyke (NOT a "lesbian", like I said--"dyke" is different) is something that comes from within me, and denying it never did any good. I can not do it justice in words, nor can I explain it so that every person who reads this will understand. I am proud of my dyke identity just like I am proud of my boy identity. People who really know me can see this in me just like I can see it in myself. It's not about honoring my lesbian past in some sort of obligation; being a dyke in high school felt right for a reason--just because I hadn't worked through my gender issues didn't compromise my dyke identity, and the fact that I've decided I'm a boy now doesn't compromise it either.
Johnathan Scott Arrowsmith © 2002
