Yes, I suppose I'm a failed lesbian

Photo via Flickr by by joshbousel

So now that we're more out, when I tell most friends—gay and straight—they inevitably ask me one important, compelling question: will you still be a lesbian? I laugh because I'm asked it so much and it's so obvious and because, well, I don't have an answer. have no idea. R tells me yes, I will still be a lesbian. I tell him that who cares? I've never been a particularly good lesbian. I mean, I've always insisted I was bisexual, even if it's true that I haven't been in a relationship with a man since college and even then, I knew I would prefer to be with a woman. He keeps saying, but I'm a transman. I keep saying, transman or bio-born man, you're still a man. You'll look like a man. You'll act like a man. In fact, you already act like man. You are a man. Right? So if I'm with a man and I'm a woman, I guess that makes me, like, straight or at least a failed lesbian. Yup. D'ja hear about the lesbian who finally found the woman of her dreams and it turned out she was a man? OK, it's not funny without some politically incorrect reference, but you get the point.

So on a serious note, does it matter? I keep telling myself that at this stage in my life, who really cares what people think? Seriously, I've never been one of those women who completely identifies with being a lesbian. Don't get me wrong. I'm out and I know that's how the world labels me. But internally, I've always just felt like me. My friends come in every flavor and I like it like that. So far, no one in my life has said or even hinted at cutting me off. It would surprise me if they did. That did, incidentally, happen when I came out as gay. But I was much younger and it was a totally different era.

Now I joke that the world will see me as just another boring straight person. Sigh. It will probably be weird when we start passing.  When we hold hands publicly, which we do now, nobody will look at us twice. Of course, they don't really do that now. But that's because we live in a gay friendly place where most people really don't care.

But I can't wait for those heterosexual privileges to reign down on me. Where do I pick up the card? I know you get a toaster for being a lesbian. What do you get for being straight?