Inclusive Female Sexuality

Too often it seems that any discussion of female sexuality either disregards or ignores transgender women (e.g. here ).  If being female is defined by having a female gender identity and not biology, then female sexuality can’t reasonably be defined purely in terms of having a vagina either.

I accept that if transgender female and cisgender female sexuality were completely different, then they’d be a valid reason to treat them seperately, but I don’t think this is the case.  Obviously there are some physical differences in having sex for pre/non-op transgender women but that has little bearing on sexuality in general.  And there are also obvious differences in sex for straight and gay women.

But there is still a great deal in common in experiences of female sexuality regardless of being transgender, or sexual orientation, or any other category you want to use.  To start with, any situation where a transgender woman is stealth  will be treated by society exactly the same as if she were cisgender,  and as such I won’t comment on any further.

It is other situations where society doesn’t (largely) treat a transgender woman as their true gender, namely pre-transition and situations where she is out as transgender, that I’ll focus on.  And despite my earlier criticism, I think that the above linked post made valid points, so will just add a transgender perspective to it.

1) As a female, your sexuality is repressed and/or heavily regulated (I won’t even get into the whys and the hows)

Transgender women are expected to be as unsexual as cisgender women for the same reasons.  Also in accessing hormone therapy and surgery its required to "prove" that you are really a woman and that often involves convincing a (usually middle-aged male) psychiatrist that you are as unsexual as they suppose women "ought to be", and often involves very personal questions about sex, masturbation, etc.

2) As a female having and acting out on sexual desire, you are "shamed" through pejoratives and other degrading remarks.

When pre-transition this clearly is less applicable in as much as such remarks aren’t directed at you, though i’d argue that any degrading remarks aimed at women in general will have an affect on all people who identify female to an extent.  And any pre-transition woman is likely to come across a lot this when reading about transgender online.

Though once you start transition, then having and/or acting on sexual desire results in the additional degrading remarks of "man", "pretend woman", and such like.  The words used against a transgender woman may be different, but it has exactly the same consequence of "shaming".  And there is a certain amount of irony in using "man" in this way, since it is used to deny a male privalege (freely acting on sexual desire).

3) As a female, an expression or discussion of sexuality is an attempt to gain (male heterosexual) attention.

After starting transition, I think this also applies to transgender women, though with less certainty as to whether its about heterosexual or homosexual male attention.

4) As a female, whatever your sexual preferences are, they are undermined as your authentic desires and instead cast as having been shaped by an all-pervasive male sexuality and patriarchal order.

For transgender women this is true with the addition that it is also their own "male sexuality" and "male privalege" that is said to shape their sexual preferences.  This might be true to an extent (as might the cisgender case) particularly pre-transition, but ignores the fact that their sexuality is treated as shameful and lesser than "male sexuality".  Or the exact opposite can be said if a transgender woman chooses to do something opposite to "male sexuality" – that she is being shaped by a reaction to "male sexuality".  Yet this leaves no room for her to sexual preferences.

For example in pornography.  A transgender woman might have enjoyed porn before transition at a time in her life when she wouldn’t have had the same direct discouragements that women face.  In fact an interest in porn might have arisen from an attempt to fit societies perception of her being born male.   So "male sexuality" could be argued to have shaped her decision.  But once she starts transition (or possibly before), these things all change.  There is a pressure to prove herself as "truely female" and her shameful "male" interest in porn would undermine that.  So by this point, even if not the same as a cisgender female, she is not being shaped by anything resembling"male sexuality" (and if anything the precise opposite of it due to "shaming").  Yet still it is the case that she could never actually enjoy porn without the association with her birth-sex.  But nor could she stop enjoying it because that is shaped by a reaction to associations with her birth-sex.

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In saying all this, I am in no way intending to make out that it is exactly the same for transgender and cisgender women, but my point is that the pressures are pretty similar, with similar consequences.  And it could be argued whether or not the differences make one group greater or lesser than the other, but really I think the point is that all women (cisgender and transgender) face a situation with less freedom to express their sexuality than what men do.

And as such, I think it is completely unneccesary and unhelpful to treat transgender female and cisgender female sexuality seperately.  And it is an example of distinguishing transgender women from women in general, reinforcing the notion of not being "proper women", particularly if "female sexuality" is used to exclusively describe cisgender women.

Having said that (and not wanting to end on a negative note) I think disregarding or ignoring transgender women in discussions of female sexuality could very well be a case of ignorance of transgender experiences rather than a willful desire to be exclusive, and I hope that what I have written makes a positive contribution to that.

Jen