Between Us
Clinical studies, unsurprisingly, are silent on a topic that comes up in much of the rest of literature on trans people's intimate lives: sexual relations with other transgender and transsexual persons.
In my experience, such partnerships are extremely common -- I've encountered at least half a dozen just in Seattle, and many more elsewhere. But such relationships have scarcely been mentioned, much less documented and studied, in the professional literature. Recall, however, that about 40% of the NWC women report a strong attraction to other transsexual women in general; half had had actual sexual experience with another transsexual; nearly half had had a past abusive relationship with another transsexual; and about 70 percent would have liked to have sex with someone present at the conference. If these women are at all representative of the broader transsexual community, or even of its non-androphilic component, then it is no wonder that partnerships between transsexuals are commonplace. (Lawrence 1997)
Even Benjamin's book mentions one case of "a reversal of roles with the wife becoming the husband and the former husband becoming the wife" (Benjamin 1966:151). Two of Bolin's MTF subjects were in a relationship and were married in a gay church (Bolin 1988:166-7). Two of Daskalos's (1998) MTF subjects dated male transvestites they had met through support groups. The only large studies to bother asking found that eight percent of MTFs had had sex with trans partners, as had fifteen percent of FTMs (Clements-Nolle et al 2001:917-8), and 13% of an undifferentiated sample (mostly MTFs, some FTMs) had had a trans sex partner in the last six months (Sykes 1999).
Frequent trans-trans liaisons are to be expected, if only because transpeople are likely to meet each other through support groups, trans or queer community events, political activity and friendship networks. Furthermore, transpeople, having done the work of recoding their own bodies and sexualities in ways congruent with their gender identity, may be more likely to accept a trans partner's gendered sexual identity. Some may also find that through their process of self-acceptance and socialization within trans social networks that they come to eroticize genderqueerness and be especially attracted to other transpeople.
"What is it when a transfag and a transdyke get together and make magic together with their bodies and hearts?" asks C. Jabob Hale (quoted in Cromwell 1999:133). "It's beauty and delight and peacefulness and excitement and....Whatever else it is, it isn't lesbian or gay or bisexual or heterosexual, because all of those miss the crucial fact that his transsexuality and queerness, her transsexuality and queerness, are a major part of what gets them together in the first place and keeps it fun and exciting and hot and lets it pass into beauty."
Pat Califia describes trans-trans liaisons as a response to the dilemmas of finding full accepting from a non-trans partners, and as a "revolutionary strategy, which opposes the assumption that a transsexual needs to have his or her gender identity bolstered by intimate affirmation from someone whose self-image is consistent with his or her genetic sex" (Califia 1997:217). (See Footnote 4) Cromwell dismisses this characterization and asserts that these relationships are simply "one of the multiple ways in which transpeople have relationships"(1999:134). Indeed, it would be a mistake to read trans-trans liaisons as a utopian alternative, as the mixed experiences of Devor's participants demonstrate.
Devor (1997) observed a number of trans-trans liaisons in a sample of 47 FTMs. Two participants reported serious pre-transition relationships with other transpeople, one with a male cross-dresser and another with a pre-op MTF transsexual. Of the former, Devor reported that "her transgendered lover allowed Alan to further explore her incipient transsexual identity" (280); the latter, on the other hand, reported feeling "'manipulated,' 'taken advantage of,' and 'disgusted' after allowing herself to be sexually stimulated manually by her transsexual friend," and ultimately regretted the entire year-long relationship (279). Devor spoke with another transman in the process of transition "who was still smarting from being rejected ... by a male-to-female transsexual whom he had been dating" because he lacked a penis (1997:476). One transman had a casual sexual relationship after his transition with a pre-op MTF, which "started out being fun, but it turned into counseling, very quickly" (482).
Finally, one participant reported relationships with several other transsexuals; first long-term relationship was with an MTF, with whom he lived for three years and whose surgery he financed.
Their sexual contacts, however, were minimal both before and after the woman's surgery. Before the surgery, both partners felt very ambiguous about using the women's penis, and subsequently, sex reassignment surgery destroyed the woman's erotic sensations. Darren also reported that the woman had never expressed much interest in touching Darren in explicitly sexual ways. In addition, their sexual life was further stymied by the woman's traditional views on how sexuality should transpire. (481)
Darren also reported living with an FTM lover, and it was in this relationship that he first experienced nakedness with a partner, oral sex, and orgasm, and began to enjoy female sexual role-playing and other forms of sexual experimentation (506; interestingly, this relationship ended after his partner cheated on him with their MTF roommate). Darren's most recent partner was an MTF transsexual, and they were happily married at the time of the study. "We're very comfortable with each other, in terms of dressing, undressing, touching, sex, and all that," and "he further explained [writes Devor] that unlike his previous ... partner, this woman did not want him to acquire or simulate a penis for their lovemaking because she saw him entirely as a man without on and she knew the dangers of genital surgery" (482).
4 - Not long after that sentence was published, Califia (who, incidentally, also wrote one of the first books on lesbian sex -- see Califia 1980) changed his name to Patrick, started on hormones, and had a child with his FTM lover (see Califia-Rice 2000, Califia 2002).
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