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| Typical yuoi manga cover. From Houyou Hikken. Note the German title: Your Heart! Yaoi is a global culture. |
What makes women, world wide, write and read comics about men having sex? Crossdreaming, of course!
There are scientists who deny the existence of female to male crossdreamers, that is female bodied persons who get turned on by the idea of being a man. As far as these scientists are concerned only men can be what they consider "paraphiliacs" or "perverts".
Ray Blanchard, who came up with the "autogynephilia" theory, belongs to these researchers.
I have through several blog posts documented that not only are there female to male crossdreamers among us now; we find them in a wide variety of cultures and they have most likely always been here.
In other words: This is not a purely cultural or psychological phenomenon.
The reason the researchers do not see the FTM crossdreamers, is that they do not look for them.
Today I am going to present to you the fascinating world of female to male crossdreaming, and prove to you that there are large numbers of girls who dream about being boys out there.
They have their own thriving crossdreamer and crossdresser culture, in which we find a lot of parallels to their male to female counterparts.
Welcome to the world of Boy's Love and yaoi!
Thanks to Uli Meyer
I am very grateful to the German researcher Uli Meyer. In her article "Hidden in straight sight: Trans'gressing gender and sexuality via BL" in the anthology Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre
she has managed to make the female bodied crossdreamer visible for themselves and for the rest of us.She has put them within a framework that makes sense, not only for the people involved, but also for people like me. I am using that article actively in this post. Do read the original! Her work is going to change our understanding of what it means to be transgender.
Some words about words
When you try to write about female and male bodied crossdreamers at the same time, it is easy to get lost in the terminology, as the inter-gender dynamics are a bit unusual.
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| Rutta to Kodama, yaoi comic presenting a male same sex relationship. Note that both look quite feminine, but the uke to the left more so than the dominant seme to the right. In manga large eyes might signify both child like innocence and femininity. |
FTM means female to male, meaning people with two X chromosomes who fantasize about being men, male being their target sex. FTM crossdreamers might call themselves "girlfags" online, a word most of them do not find offensive.
Some crossdreamers may identify with their target sex, living at the transsexual end of the transgender scale. Unless they have transitioned, these often experience gender dysphoria, a deep unease from not having a body that fits their "inner woman" or "inner man".
Other crossdreamers identify with their biological birth sex, arguing that their fantasies do not entail another sex or gender identity. Most of these do not report dysphoria. Note, however, that there is a lot of denial and repression going around. The crossdreamer's journey may be a trip from one end of the scale to another.
I consider all of these people transgender, in the umbrella term sense of the word.
The terms "inner man" and "inner woman" are metaphors referring to whatever it is that seeks expression through crossdressing and/or crossdreaming. I truly believe there is a biological core to crossdreaming as well as the transsexual condition, but the terms are helpful even if there isn't one.
To avoid confusion as to what the terms "heterosexual" and "homosexual" refer to (birth sex or target sex), I refer to people who are predominantly attracted to women as "gynephilic" and people oriented towards men as "androphilic". Believe me, it is easier this way!
I refer to FTM crossdreamers as women if it is clear that they publicly identify as such, and as men if they tell us that they are men. Transmen are men in my book. End of story!
What is BL and yaoi?
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| An uke is the submissive receptive partner in a yaoi gay male relationship. From the blog Manga Freak. |
Some crossdress. Some explore their female avatar in online gaming. Others write stories or TG captions (illustrations accompanied by ultra short TG transgender stories).
They are all trying to express a side of their own self that the society around them does not accept. These are men who not only dream about being women, but who even would like to have sex as women.
The FTM crossdreamer culture has had a different cultural trajectory and history. At this moment in history their main way of expressing their "inner man" is through Boy's Love and yaoi, which at its core is a genre of Japanese style comics.
Boy's Love, BL or yaoi comics contain stories about gay male relationships. They are written by women, though, and the readership is mainly female. Boy's Love female readers identify with one or both of the male characters in these stories.
Hiding in plain sight
The FTM crossdreamers are hiding in plain sight. Even in Scandinavia I have found science fiction and comics shops with separate shelves devoted to yaoi. No one seems to notice and no one seems to care, but the fact that this store find it profitable to sell yaoi comic books to Scandinavian girls and women, says a lot about how common the yaoi fans are.
It is interesting to see how this predominantly Japanese cultural expression is adopted and absorbed by women in countries as diverse as Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Brazil, Indonesia, and the US. Korea has its own comics tradition, manhwa, out of which yaoi is the best selling sub-genre.
The diversity of cultures also tells me that the enthusiasm for yaoi cannot be understood as a cultural reaction to the oppression of women alone. Such an explanation may make sense in Japan or Korea, but not in the same way for liberated young teenagers in present day Norway, Sweden or Denmark.
Yaoi is an acronym that stands for yama-nashi, ochi-mashi, imi-mashi (no climax, no point, no meaning), meaning episodes lacking any overreaching structure. It is sometimes understood as sub-gendre under Boy's Love. In this post I will use terms BL and yaoi as synonyms.
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| Slash fan art depicting Harry Potter and Severus Snape. Artist: Yukipon. Taken from Wikipedia. |
Slash
Note that there is another genre associated with yaoi called slash. The word slash refers to the forward slash on the keyboard.
Most slash comics and stories are made by fans of existing entertainment franchises. However, they will rewrite characters from popular culture as a homosexual couple, like in Kirk/Spock.
You find female writers writing stories about gay love for a female audience in the slash tradition, as well.
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| Yaoicon cosplayers dressing up as the comic book characters Roxas and Soras. Photo: Agius. I have inserted an image I believe is a fan drawing of the original characters. |
Fans of yaoi and slash will also crossdress. This is called cosplay.
Cosplay involves dressing up as a fictional character, in this context characters from manga or anime (Japanese style animated movies).
You may find such crossdressers at regular comic and manga/anime conventions, but lately there have also been separate yaoi-cons where the female fans dress up as bishonen, the beautiful, androgynous boys of the Boy's Love genre.
It seems to me that the fans may also express their sexuality at these conventions, as they make out with both boys as well as girls dressed up as their favorite male yaoi characters.
The myth that there are no FTM crossdressers is clearly wrong. Again: The FTM crossdreamers are hiding in plain sight. Everyday crossdressing for them would include jeans and a shirt, hardly noticeable even in transphobic communities (Saudi Arabia and the like excluded).
Bars and meeting places
In Japan you will also find BL bars where female customers are served by beautiful feminine or androgynous men.
"Butler cafés such as Café Edelstein actively try to recreate the atmosphere of a BL manga in that it pretends to be a boy's school and its uniformed hosts play the roles of school boys, "
Meyer explains.
There are also bars where "straight" women may rent female to male crossdressing bishonen. As Meyer says: "If the customers wear male costumes themselves, they can engage with the hosts in a male/male constellation bringing BL to life."
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| Butlers at Café Edelstein personify BL manga characters. Photo Tonu Hanai, taken from the Guardian |
The love of gay male sex
But is this truly crossdreaming?
Some researchers (like some of the other authors in the anthology linked to above) have argued that yaoi is really about female empowerment and liberation. The female readers explore the idea of being men to strengthen their own independence, and counter-balance a repressive, paternalistic, culture.
Many of these researchers are schooled in post-structuralist gender theory and women studies, and in their universe everything human is a game of words and symbols, which makes it hard for them to accept any natural or instinctual basis for what is going on here. Because of this they often miss the transgender and sexual dimensions of yaoi.
There may be something to their observations, but theirs cannot be the whole explanation. The focus of most of these stories is on seduction and sex -- explicit sex and even rough sex. So this is definitely about arousal.
It might be that some yaoi readers get aroused by reading such stories in the same way heterosexual non-transgender men get aroused by lesbian porn -- meaning that there is nothing transgender about it.
However, it is also clear that many female bodied yaoi readers get aroused by identifying themselves with the male characters in the story, and that makes this crossdreaming in my book.
Note also that these women dream about being men with men. To the extent the word "sexual orientation" means anything to me anymore, I must say that their sexual orientation is mainly towards men. As women they are heterosexual. As men they are gay.
Again the parallel to male to female crossdreamers is clear, as a majority of male to female crossdreamers consider themselves heterosexual as men, and lesbian as women.
What the yaoi creators say about sex
Meyer refers to Takemiya Keiko, author of Kaze to ki no uta, the first shojo manga that contained gay male sex. She argued that through boy's love it is possible "to express dual personality (feminine and masculine) that is involved in human beings".
Her basic premise therefore seems to be that we are all -- in a sense -- transgender and that the yaoi genre explores this. Meyer, however, interprets this in a different way, arguing that yaoi readers are often girlfags (FTM crossdreamers):
Meyer says:
"BL fans' preoccupation with gay men can be understood better in context of the practice of girlfags and transfags, i.e. female-born persons who eroticize and identify with gay men.
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| "Semes [the proactive sex partner] don't eat cake. Ever." From Junjou Romantica |
"Thus, the transgression of sexuality and gender in BL can be quite literal, enabling its readers/creators to identify or feel with the male characters on a physical level, in a process I call 'creative transvestism'"
The strong focus on sex and intercourse makes it clear that this is more than an exploration of gender roles. Yaoi let its female readers explore the idea of being a sexual male in a man's body.
The "creative transvestism"/"creative crossdreaming" phenomenon reflects the strong psychological need to explore a cross-sexual identity in art and fantasy.
Violating the stereotypes
Much of the current harassment and stigmatization of male to female crossdreamers from the medical establishment (Blanchard & Co) and the extremist separatist HBS transwomen is based on the idea that MTF crossdreamer sexuality is a misdirected masculine form of desire. The same idea is found among totalitarian radical feminists who ;believe that all transsexual women are men who try to rule women completely by taking over their bodies.
The underpinning notion is that women are less sexually driven than men, and that women therefore would never get as obsessed with sexual fantasies as some MTF crossdreamers do. This argument disregards the fact that many crossdreamers and crossdressers do not focus that much on the sexual aspect of being transgender, but let us leave that for the moment.
Historically speaking the idea of the asexual woman appeared in Victorian Britain. Before the women were considered lascivious and emotionally unstable, while men where considered less sexual and more rational. Anyone who lives in places where there have been true female liberation (like in Norway) knows that the idea of the weaker female libido is wrong, but this misunderstanding has been so deeply ingrained in Western culture that it creates prejudices anyway.
The fact that female yaoi fans love what can be described as gay male porn, effectively undermines this notion of the asexual woman Many of the yaoi fangirls may be transsexual men at heart, for sure, but that does not change the importance of their existence. The cultural prejudice is based on the idea that the sexual drive follows the sex of the body, not the sex of the mind. The yaoi culture tells us that female bodied persons can be as sexually motivated as male bodied persons.
Meyer puts it this way:
"The fact that they [BL fans] are eroticizing gay men and acts is often ignored by commentators. By a similar logic, until recently, female-to-gay-male transsexuals (and male-to-lesbian transsexuals) were denied hormones and treatment."
"Girls are brought up with the expectation that they are somehow less sexual than boys. The 'innocent' artwork and design of most shojo manga (girl's manga) reflects this. In comparison, many shonen manga (boy's manga) are full of openly sexual, very physical imagery, while girl's manga frame references to sexuality in symbols and 'emotions'. Boys' manga would never get away with the degree of über-'innocence' that girls' manga display. It would look suspicious because 'everybody knows' that boys are sexually active, but 'everybody' still pretends that girls aren't"
Boy's Love/Yaoi retains some of the "innocent" aesthetics of of regular girl's manga, but the sex is explicit and far from innocent. BL and yaoi proves once and for all that female sexuality may be as aggressive and intense as stereotypical male sexuality.
Study support
Meyer argues that there is yaoi research beyond her own that confirms the sexual nature of yaoi enthusiasm:
"[Björn-Ove] Kamm has shown that yaoi has an explicit sexual function for some German and Japanese fans. [Mikuki] Hashimoto found that about thirty percent of the Austrian and Japanese cosplayers she interviewed (who were also yaoi fans) had sexual fantasies related to yaoi."
Research also shows that there is a considerable overlap between yaoi fans and yaoi creators. That is: The readers will often make their own stories.
As for the motivation of those that do not get aroused by reading and writing yaoi, we will just have to keep an open mind. Personally I find it hard to believe that there is not some kind of repressed or unrecognized sexual component to their fascination, but you never know.
There are male to female readers of TG fiction who will not admit to be sexually excited by reading such stories, and given that such fiction may express wish fulfillment that goes far beyond the sexual, they may be right. I am just having some difficulty clearly distinguishing the sexual from the non-sexual in this respect.
Note that I have selected non-explicit illustrations for this blog posts. Yaoi is often veeeery explicit, to the point that some series have been banned from Amazon.com for being pornographic. They often are.
Domination and submission
As in male to female transgender erotica one theme that reoccurs is domination and submission. Some MTF TG stories are tales of dominant men becoming meek and demure women. The fantasies allow the MTF crossdreamer to explore the idea of an existence where he/she does not have to live up to the cultural ideal of the aggressive and dominant male.
In FTM yaoi you will find beautiful submissive men being dominated by gay men. This has led some observers to believe that the female reader automatically will identify with the submissive feminine uke (the "bottom"), but that is not necessarily the case according to Meyer. Many yaoi fans identify with the dominant seme, or they may shift their identification from one to the other:
"BL idealization and fetishization of male beauty is most extreme in the uke characters. In the sexual scenes of BL, it is mainly the body of the uke that is displayed. He is shown as passive, penetrated, and in the throes of passion, a passion that is derived from receptivity. His arousal and sexual reactions are the focus of the sex scene, in much the same way that women's reactions are the focus of straight pornography. In plots that contain violence or rape, the uke's pain and agony are sadomasochistically fetishized."
Note the comparison with straight cis-male porn. When non-transgender gynephilic men watch porn movies, they focus on the woman. The male character is uninteresting to them, even though they imagine themselves in the role of the male actor. In yaoi the focus is in the submissive uke. If we accept the parallel that would mean that the female reader identify with the proactive and dominant seme.
"BL idealization and fetishization of male beauty is most extreme in the uke characters. In the sexual scenes of BL, it is mainly the body of the uke that is displayed. He is shown as passive, penetrated, and in the throes of passion, a passion that is derived from receptivity. His arousal and sexual reactions are the focus of the sex scene, in much the same way that women's reactions are the focus of straight pornography. In plots that contain violence or rape, the uke's pain and agony are sadomasochistically fetishized."
Note the comparison with straight cis-male porn. When non-transgender gynephilic men watch porn movies, they focus on the woman. The male character is uninteresting to them, even though they imagine themselves in the role of the male actor. In yaoi the focus is in the submissive uke. If we accept the parallel that would mean that the female reader identify with the proactive and dominant seme.
Meyer again:
"It is often assumed that straight female readers of yaoi generally identify with the uke, the 'passive' character in the sex scene, meaning that the seme/uke relationships reflect hetero-sexual dynamics. This is clearly not always the case. I have talked to several fans and done som informal surveys at yaoi forums and groups in Germany and the United States, and many (at least one-third) said that they identify with the seme. In yaoi online and computer games, seme characters are often played by women. The point of view in sex scenes are either voyeuristic or from the seme to the uke, allowing the readers an easy identification with the seme."
"In explaining yaoi's success," yaoi creator Takemiya said, "Yaoi's great because you can adopt both roles."
As Meyer points out it seems doubtful that she meant this is a purely metaphoric sense. Meyer sees a parallel to this in the BOB culture. BOB is another interesting acronym meaning "bend over boyfriend" and refers to pegging, where the female use a strap-on dildo to penetrate the male lover anally.
Meyer doubts that BL is about social and emotional equality, or at least not exclusively:
"It is about the availability of both sexual roles for both women and men, not just about ephemistically 'active' and 'passive' roles, but about who penetrates and who gets penetrated."
Meyer quotes the sex expert Susie Bright, who gives voice to the feelings of the penetrating female to male crossdreamer:
"I would like more women with male lovers to know the pleasure of ravishing their husbands and boyfriends (...) because it's a deep emotional pleasure to be the one who holds the world in her hand, so to speak -- to be on top and going inside. When a man is vulnerable to you in that way, he's not only having physical pleasure from his prostate, he's also giving himself to you in such a completely open way that can't help but be intensely -- dare I use the word -- romantic, in an ultimate, far-out, upside down kind of way."
The most common fantasy among male to female crossdreamers is the exact opposite. They dream of being ravished, of giving in, of letting go, and for them this may also be intensely romantic.
One of the aspects of yaoi that confused me at first was the very feminine aesthetics found in the comics. The male bishonen have all rather feminine features, which also rhymes with the general preference of girlfags for effeminate gay boys.
Mayer puts it this way:
"BL is a medium that fetishizes and objectifies male characters as bishonen, beautiful boys. Their slender bodies are displayed, often in erotic or sex scenes, for the pleasure of the mostly female voyeurs. BL artwork emphasizes the 'feminine' qualities, such as expressive eyes, harmonious features, hairless skin, and sometimes beautiful outfits of the bishonen."
If the girlsfag were the mirror image of the MTF crossdreamer you should -- perhaps -- expect them to idealize the very masculine and muscular alpha guy with the square jaw. After all: The MTF crossdreamers also worship feminine beauty, and they cannot both be looking for the same thing, or...?
There are two possible explanation for this discrepancy. The first is that FTM crossdreamers who identify with the masculine seke would search for his/her counterpart: the effeminate uke. This would mean that the uke's mirror character in the MTF universe would be the emotionally cold and hard dominatrix: the brutal violator of men.
However, there may be another explanation for this, and that is that everyone considers feminine traits to be more beautiful in both men and women.
All the idols of teenage girls look like girls, if you ask me. The boy band members, Justin Bieber, the Twilight stars - they have all delicate feminine features. It would seem the brutalizing effects of testosterone are more aimed at intimidating other men than attracting women.
Meyer argues that BL constantly challenge traditional gender role, and that the genre therefore go beyond a mere presentation of male to male to sex:
"Inversion or 'Third Sex' is ever-present in the forms of sissified boys, male-to-female transsexuals, female-to-male transvestites, 'intersexuals,' and characters who change sex or gender for diverse reasons."
As she points out, in a Japanese context transgender is often interpreted as a kind of "reincarnation accident", where a male soul may indeed be trapped in a woman's body.
Meyer argues, however, that this is not always a matter of being the opposite sex by nature. Sometimes BL tells stories of people who are both genders at the same time, and these fantasies let female bodied persons express a dual personality, being both male and female.
Although I would guess the majority of male to female TG erotica has a complete sex shift as the ultimate goal, there is also a rather big sub genre of stories and captions where the main character may oscillate between being male or female, or where he is transformed into a kind of sexual hybrid: a "shemale".
In Boy's Love this gender blending goes even further. Some comics may combine lesbian, heterosexual and transsexual narratives, while the gay male plot is in the subtext:
"Set in pre-revolutionary France, Chevalier (Le Chevalier D'Eon) features an effeminate young hero being transformed into his sister, who used to dress up in male clothes, and was masculine: the man dresses up as a woman who dresses up as a man."
(The real Chevalier D'Eon, who lived in the 17th century, was a male to female crossdresser).
Some male to female transgender erotica has strong BDSM aspects of forced sex. This is also the case in BL. Stories may be set in all male environments like schools or the Japanese mafia, and may include depictions of rape and abuse.
As always, it is important to note that these are fantasies, not something these readers would like to practice in real life. A parallel is found in the erotic fantasies of non-transgender women. Research indicates that more than 50 percent of women have had erotic fantasies of being taken by force.
In the case of MTF crossdreamers the rape fantasy has been explained a way of relieving guilt associated with the desire of taking the typical female role during sex. This argument clearly does not work for the FTM crossdreamer fantasizing about taking a submissive male by force.
I suspect we are facing the extreme expression of a basic natural inclination towards being receptive or being the penetrator. These roles does not per se imply that one sex partner has to be aggressive and the other submissive, but it may be that repressed longings generate more extreme expressions when they are given room in sexual fantasies and fiction.
Among MTF crossdreamers you will find a separate fiction sub-genre called forced sissyficiation stories. These stories explores the humiliation of a man becoming a woman. As I have noted elsewhere, for the MTF this is the psyches way of reconciling the desire for the forbidden with the taboos of society. "It is not my fault. They forced me to do it!"
Yaoi may also contain stories about turning boys into sissy girl, but here it is clear that the female readers identify with the males dominating them, not the feminized sissy boys.
Meyer says:
"Voluntary or forced sissification, that is, dressing up male characters in women's clothes, is a staple cliché of BL manga....It seems that many BL fans/creators enjoy and fetishize the sissification, or male-to-female transgendering, of BL characters and real life persons such as pop stars, in a technique that resembles that of drag queens who call straight men 'girl', in BL boys and men get simultaneousyly subverted and appropriated as sexual objects."
Please note that most of TG erotica, being that MTF or FTM, is not sadomasochistic in nature. Crossdreaming often have fetishistic aspects, but cannot be reduced to a sado-masochistic fetish.
Meyer believes that many female bodied BL readers and writers are "female-to-male gay" transsexuals.
She refers to the Japanese yaoi-style novelist Sakaibara Shihomi, who suggests that the condition may be quite common among fans of this genre and may in fact be the reason for its existence.
The anthropologis Matt Horn puts it this way.
"Although traditional, essentialist notions of gender were debunked by feminism, feminist formulations of radical constructionism have themselves come under serious scrutiny. Nature and nurture may condition one another in complex ways, and it may be that notions like a 'gay man in woman's body' (or 'lesbian in man's body'), and indeed the concept of 'transsexuality' are awkward attempts to describe manifestations for which we still lack adequate analysis. My own conviction from a decade of researching shôjo manga and yaoi is that such is the case with these fans, although it will require much more to substantiate these claims."
Meyer comes very close to my understanding of crossdreamers when she refers to the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) and his concept of "transvestites".
Hirschfield documented the existence of women who love feminine men and masculine women, who have homosexual relationships with men and who felt they were homosexual men. Hirschfeld used the term "transvestite" for a wide spectrum of gender challenging expressions, crossdreamers included.
Meyer says:
"Hirschfeld's 'Transvestismus' is pretty close to today's umbrella term 'transgender', but as opposed to 'transgender', it emphasizes the 'act' of changing gender, not the internatl 'identity', making the change available for everyone."
The Canadian biologist and linguist Bruce Bagemihl quotes a FTM crossdreamer saying:
"A straight man can look good to me but ... when I know a man is gay, when he's picked up some of the gay male cultural tricks and mannerisms, I don't know, it just turns me on... Since I was 19 or so I've fantasized about being a beautiful boy in a loving relationship with a man." (Quoted after Meyer)
Meyer argues that the difference between a transfag (a female to male transsexual) an a girlfag seems to be one of degree rather than quality:
"A person might strongly identify with and even as a gay man, while still maintaining a female identity."
She refers to transman and transactivist Lou Sullivan, who -- before he transitioned -- considered himself a "heterosexual female transvestite, who was sexually attracted to gay men."
Personally I find it impossible to draw a clear line between transsexual and non-transsexual MTF crossdreamers, in the sense that they are to belong to two completely different species. Far too many transwomen have been both crossdreamers and crossdressers for that to make any sense.
This argument is strengthened when we look at the dynamics in the overall manga and anime culture. There is a huge Japanese entertainment industry targeting MTF crossdreamers, including commercial manga, anime and pornographic movies.
Some MTF crossdreamers come to the yaoi-cons as fans of lesbian manga heroines. Matt Thorn argues that female bodied yaoi fans and male bodied Beautiful Girls fans are two sides of the same coin:
"If, as Sakakibara argues, yaoi fans are gay men in women's bodies, then it might be fair to suggest that many fans of amateur 'Beautiful Girls' manga are, as it were, lesbians in men's bodies, and not simply run-of-the-mill misogynists... In a sense, the two genres mirror each other, and speak to the desires of those who, by choice or circumstance, do not fit neatly into society's prescribed norms of gender and sexuality."
Unfortunately many BL fans look upon "Beautiful Girls" cosplayers and male to female crossdreamers (guydykes and transdykes) as perverts. In the social pecking order of manga fans the MTFs are below the FTMs, apparently.
Another parallel between female to male and male to female crossdreamers can be found in the creative process of writing erotica as a way of expressing both sexuality and alternative identity.
Meyer quotes Sakakibara who says that her creative work is the only possibility of fulfilling her libido. Writing BL manga may therefore be considered a parallel to TG story writing and captioning on the male bodied side.
Meyer argues, like me, that this urge to express sex and gender in creative works is also found in role playing games:
"In 'virtual reality', a process similar to creative transvestism can be observed in the form of people cruising the Internet or engaging in online role-playing games with a gender identity that differs from their everyday gender. Another example would be female-assigned persons who write gay male pornography under a male pseudonym before transitioning from female to male."
In Japan yaoi culture is well know and part of mainstream media. The manga
Tonari no 801-chan (=Tonari no yaoi-chan) tells the story about a boy and his yaoi obsessed girl friend, Yaoi-Chan.
Yaoi's crossdreaming is actually symbolically manifested as a green monster in the series.
There is a movie version as well. Take the time to watch the following clip, In a humorous way it tells the story of a yaoi-fan called Yaoi-Chan and her boy friend.
Yaoi-Chan's urge to draw and read yaoi is symbolized by a green moster who sometimes come between our heroine and her boy friend. There is a close parallell here to the dynamics between MTF crossdreamers and crossdressers and their wives and girl friends. (Again, this is not office material!)
Meyer does not find many Western equivalents to this movie, but argues convincingly that the British science fiction series Torchwood has clear slash and yaoi elements. (Proof here!)
To conclude. The male to female crossdreamers have female bodied brothers who find similar ways of acting out their inner nature, through stories, comics, movies and fantasies. I strongly suspect that both FTM and MTF crossdreamers are victims of some untraditional wiring which finds its expression through the cultural symbols of the day. This is the reason we appear to be mirror images of each other.
I guess there should be room for both learning, co-operation and love here. As it is now, the two groups barely know each other. We should do something about that.
Meyer, Uli. "Hidden in Straight Sight – Trans*gressing Gender and Sexuality via BL." In Levi, Antonia, McHarry, Mark and Pagliassotti, Dru: Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre
, 2010
Dru Pagliasotti: Are women who draw/read yaoi girlfags?
Matt Thorn: "Girls And Women Getting Out Of Hand: The Pleasure And Politics Of Japan's Amateur Comics Community", in Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan (Suny Series in Japan in Transition)
(full text found at Thorn's web site)
Click here for more blogposts about girlfags!
See also:
"It is often assumed that straight female readers of yaoi generally identify with the uke, the 'passive' character in the sex scene, meaning that the seme/uke relationships reflect hetero-sexual dynamics. This is clearly not always the case. I have talked to several fans and done som informal surveys at yaoi forums and groups in Germany and the United States, and many (at least one-third) said that they identify with the seme. In yaoi online and computer games, seme characters are often played by women. The point of view in sex scenes are either voyeuristic or from the seme to the uke, allowing the readers an easy identification with the seme."
Bend over Boyfriend
"In explaining yaoi's success," yaoi creator Takemiya said, "Yaoi's great because you can adopt both roles."
As Meyer points out it seems doubtful that she meant this is a purely metaphoric sense. Meyer sees a parallel to this in the BOB culture. BOB is another interesting acronym meaning "bend over boyfriend" and refers to pegging, where the female use a strap-on dildo to penetrate the male lover anally.
Meyer doubts that BL is about social and emotional equality, or at least not exclusively:
"It is about the availability of both sexual roles for both women and men, not just about ephemistically 'active' and 'passive' roles, but about who penetrates and who gets penetrated."
Meyer quotes the sex expert Susie Bright, who gives voice to the feelings of the penetrating female to male crossdreamer:
"I would like more women with male lovers to know the pleasure of ravishing their husbands and boyfriends (...) because it's a deep emotional pleasure to be the one who holds the world in her hand, so to speak -- to be on top and going inside. When a man is vulnerable to you in that way, he's not only having physical pleasure from his prostate, he's also giving himself to you in such a completely open way that can't help but be intensely -- dare I use the word -- romantic, in an ultimate, far-out, upside down kind of way."
The most common fantasy among male to female crossdreamers is the exact opposite. They dream of being ravished, of giving in, of letting go, and for them this may also be intensely romantic.
I found a relevant following clip from an anime expo. Note that the male bodied person is here playing the role of the uke (the receptive one), while the female bodied person is the aggressive seme. This is definitely yaoi cosplay.
(The scene is public, and the participants have apparently agree to have this posted on YouTube,. This is not office material!)
(The scene is public, and the participants have apparently agree to have this posted on YouTube,. This is not office material!)
Feminine aesthetics
One of the aspects of yaoi that confused me at first was the very feminine aesthetics found in the comics. The male bishonen have all rather feminine features, which also rhymes with the general preference of girlfags for effeminate gay boys.
Mayer puts it this way:
"BL is a medium that fetishizes and objectifies male characters as bishonen, beautiful boys. Their slender bodies are displayed, often in erotic or sex scenes, for the pleasure of the mostly female voyeurs. BL artwork emphasizes the 'feminine' qualities, such as expressive eyes, harmonious features, hairless skin, and sometimes beautiful outfits of the bishonen."
If the girlsfag were the mirror image of the MTF crossdreamer you should -- perhaps -- expect them to idealize the very masculine and muscular alpha guy with the square jaw. After all: The MTF crossdreamers also worship feminine beauty, and they cannot both be looking for the same thing, or...?
There are two possible explanation for this discrepancy. The first is that FTM crossdreamers who identify with the masculine seke would search for his/her counterpart: the effeminate uke. This would mean that the uke's mirror character in the MTF universe would be the emotionally cold and hard dominatrix: the brutal violator of men.
 |
| Spot the girl! Feminine traits are considered more beautiful by both men and women. (From The Twilight Saga). Note the similarity with yaoi aesthetics. |
All the idols of teenage girls look like girls, if you ask me. The boy band members, Justin Bieber, the Twilight stars - they have all delicate feminine features. It would seem the brutalizing effects of testosterone are more aimed at intimidating other men than attracting women.
Ambiguous gender roles
Meyer argues that BL constantly challenge traditional gender role, and that the genre therefore go beyond a mere presentation of male to male to sex:
 |
| Ribon no Kishi or Princess Knight is the story of an unborn girl who swallows a male soul and becomes a male trapped in a female body. The female knight is the one on the left. By Tezuka Osamu 1954 |
As she points out, in a Japanese context transgender is often interpreted as a kind of "reincarnation accident", where a male soul may indeed be trapped in a woman's body.
Meyer argues, however, that this is not always a matter of being the opposite sex by nature. Sometimes BL tells stories of people who are both genders at the same time, and these fantasies let female bodied persons express a dual personality, being both male and female.
Although I would guess the majority of male to female TG erotica has a complete sex shift as the ultimate goal, there is also a rather big sub genre of stories and captions where the main character may oscillate between being male or female, or where he is transformed into a kind of sexual hybrid: a "shemale".
 |
| From Le Chevalier D'Eon |
"Set in pre-revolutionary France, Chevalier (Le Chevalier D'Eon) features an effeminate young hero being transformed into his sister, who used to dress up in male clothes, and was masculine: the man dresses up as a woman who dresses up as a man."
(The real Chevalier D'Eon, who lived in the 17th century, was a male to female crossdresser).
BDSM
Some male to female transgender erotica has strong BDSM aspects of forced sex. This is also the case in BL. Stories may be set in all male environments like schools or the Japanese mafia, and may include depictions of rape and abuse.
As always, it is important to note that these are fantasies, not something these readers would like to practice in real life. A parallel is found in the erotic fantasies of non-transgender women. Research indicates that more than 50 percent of women have had erotic fantasies of being taken by force.
In the case of MTF crossdreamers the rape fantasy has been explained a way of relieving guilt associated with the desire of taking the typical female role during sex. This argument clearly does not work for the FTM crossdreamer fantasizing about taking a submissive male by force.
I suspect we are facing the extreme expression of a basic natural inclination towards being receptive or being the penetrator. These roles does not per se imply that one sex partner has to be aggressive and the other submissive, but it may be that repressed longings generate more extreme expressions when they are given room in sexual fantasies and fiction.
Sissification of men
Among MTF crossdreamers you will find a separate fiction sub-genre called forced sissyficiation stories. These stories explores the humiliation of a man becoming a woman. As I have noted elsewhere, for the MTF this is the psyches way of reconciling the desire for the forbidden with the taboos of society. "It is not my fault. They forced me to do it!"
Yaoi may also contain stories about turning boys into sissy girl, but here it is clear that the female readers identify with the males dominating them, not the feminized sissy boys.
Meyer says:
 |
A common theme in FTM crossdreaming manga
is boys dressed up as girls.
From Josou Shounen Anthology Comic 4v 01
|
Please note that most of TG erotica, being that MTF or FTM, is not sadomasochistic in nature. Crossdreaming often have fetishistic aspects, but cannot be reduced to a sado-masochistic fetish.
Are yaoi-fans basically transsexual?
Meyer believes that many female bodied BL readers and writers are "female-to-male gay" transsexuals.
She refers to the Japanese yaoi-style novelist Sakaibara Shihomi, who suggests that the condition may be quite common among fans of this genre and may in fact be the reason for its existence.
The anthropologis Matt Horn puts it this way.
"Although traditional, essentialist notions of gender were debunked by feminism, feminist formulations of radical constructionism have themselves come under serious scrutiny. Nature and nurture may condition one another in complex ways, and it may be that notions like a 'gay man in woman's body' (or 'lesbian in man's body'), and indeed the concept of 'transsexuality' are awkward attempts to describe manifestations for which we still lack adequate analysis. My own conviction from a decade of researching shôjo manga and yaoi is that such is the case with these fans, although it will require much more to substantiate these claims."
 |
| Magnus Hirschfeld |
Hirschfield documented the existence of women who love feminine men and masculine women, who have homosexual relationships with men and who felt they were homosexual men. Hirschfeld used the term "transvestite" for a wide spectrum of gender challenging expressions, crossdreamers included.
Meyer says:
"Hirschfeld's 'Transvestismus' is pretty close to today's umbrella term 'transgender', but as opposed to 'transgender', it emphasizes the 'act' of changing gender, not the internatl 'identity', making the change available for everyone."
The Canadian biologist and linguist Bruce Bagemihl quotes a FTM crossdreamer saying:
"A straight man can look good to me but ... when I know a man is gay, when he's picked up some of the gay male cultural tricks and mannerisms, I don't know, it just turns me on... Since I was 19 or so I've fantasized about being a beautiful boy in a loving relationship with a man." (Quoted after Meyer)
Meyer argues that the difference between a transfag (a female to male transsexual) an a girlfag seems to be one of degree rather than quality:
"A person might strongly identify with and even as a gay man, while still maintaining a female identity."
 |
| Lou Sullivan |
Personally I find it impossible to draw a clear line between transsexual and non-transsexual MTF crossdreamers, in the sense that they are to belong to two completely different species. Far too many transwomen have been both crossdreamers and crossdressers for that to make any sense.
This argument is strengthened when we look at the dynamics in the overall manga and anime culture. There is a huge Japanese entertainment industry targeting MTF crossdreamers, including commercial manga, anime and pornographic movies.
Some MTF crossdreamers come to the yaoi-cons as fans of lesbian manga heroines. Matt Thorn argues that female bodied yaoi fans and male bodied Beautiful Girls fans are two sides of the same coin:
"If, as Sakakibara argues, yaoi fans are gay men in women's bodies, then it might be fair to suggest that many fans of amateur 'Beautiful Girls' manga are, as it were, lesbians in men's bodies, and not simply run-of-the-mill misogynists... In a sense, the two genres mirror each other, and speak to the desires of those who, by choice or circumstance, do not fit neatly into society's prescribed norms of gender and sexuality."
Unfortunately many BL fans look upon "Beautiful Girls" cosplayers and male to female crossdreamers (guydykes and transdykes) as perverts. In the social pecking order of manga fans the MTFs are below the FTMs, apparently.
Creative crossdreaming
Another parallel between female to male and male to female crossdreamers can be found in the creative process of writing erotica as a way of expressing both sexuality and alternative identity.
Meyer quotes Sakakibara who says that her creative work is the only possibility of fulfilling her libido. Writing BL manga may therefore be considered a parallel to TG story writing and captioning on the male bodied side.
Meyer argues, like me, that this urge to express sex and gender in creative works is also found in role playing games:
"In 'virtual reality', a process similar to creative transvestism can be observed in the form of people cruising the Internet or engaging in online role-playing games with a gender identity that differs from their everyday gender. Another example would be female-assigned persons who write gay male pornography under a male pseudonym before transitioning from female to male."
 |
| In the comic and movie Tonari no 801(Yaoi) Chan, the main character Yaoi-Chan has her crossdreaming desire expressed by a green monster. |
801-chan
In Japan yaoi culture is well know and part of mainstream media. The manga
Tonari no 801-chan (=Tonari no yaoi-chan) tells the story about a boy and his yaoi obsessed girl friend, Yaoi-Chan.
Yaoi's crossdreaming is actually symbolically manifested as a green monster in the series.
There is a movie version as well. Take the time to watch the following clip, In a humorous way it tells the story of a yaoi-fan called Yaoi-Chan and her boy friend.
Yaoi-Chan's urge to draw and read yaoi is symbolized by a green moster who sometimes come between our heroine and her boy friend. There is a close parallell here to the dynamics between MTF crossdreamers and crossdressers and their wives and girl friends. (Again, this is not office material!)
Meyer does not find many Western equivalents to this movie, but argues convincingly that the British science fiction series Torchwood has clear slash and yaoi elements. (Proof here!)
To conclude. The male to female crossdreamers have female bodied brothers who find similar ways of acting out their inner nature, through stories, comics, movies and fantasies. I strongly suspect that both FTM and MTF crossdreamers are victims of some untraditional wiring which finds its expression through the cultural symbols of the day. This is the reason we appear to be mirror images of each other.
I guess there should be room for both learning, co-operation and love here. As it is now, the two groups barely know each other. We should do something about that.
Litterature
Meyer, Uli. "Hidden in Straight Sight – Trans*gressing Gender and Sexuality via BL." In Levi, Antonia, McHarry, Mark and Pagliassotti, Dru: Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre
, 2010Dru Pagliasotti: Are women who draw/read yaoi girlfags?
Matt Thorn: "Girls And Women Getting Out Of Hand: The Pleasure And Politics Of Japan's Amateur Comics Community", in Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan (Suny Series in Japan in Transition)
(full text found at Thorn's web site)Click here for more blogposts about girlfags!
See also:
- The blog Yaoi Research!
- The Yaoi-com site
- Wikipedia on Yaoi fandom
- The blog Tomboy Revolution on being a yaoi fan and/or transgender
There are a lot of sites that host BL manga, yaoi or shonen-ai translated into English. They do not always respect copyright regulations, though:
Other posts about female to male crossdreamers ( and girlfags):
Other posts about female to male crossdreamers ( and girlfags):
- Autoandrophilia, on women who fantasise about having a man's body
- "I am something that does not exist!" (On queer schwulwomen, girlfags and guydykes)
- Autoandrophilia makes it into the DSM-5
- What the sexual fantasies of non-transgender people tells us about the dreams of those who are trans
- The female and male copulation instincts 2
- Girls who will be boys; on F2M crossdreamers, autoandrophiliacs and girlfags
- On Lou Sullivan and what female to male crossdreamers mean for our understanding of autogynephilia and autoandrophilia
- Love between MTF and FTM crossdreamers (See also: Crossdreamer Love)
- The Kama Sutra and the transgender (on girlfags in ancient India)
- The Rayka & Jack Dialogue on Crossdreaming
Thank you for another very interesting article and well researched article, Jack. xx
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mitchell. There is a subtle incompatibility: the girlfag likes feminine MEN - for the girlfag the ultimate masculinity is crucial, while for the mtf crossdreamer that is what they want to get away from. And, from the other side, the guydyke seeks a girlfag rather than a gay man for reasons the girlfag wouldn't like.
I found out it confusing to follow at times jack but thoroughly well explained and documented. Its been a revelation to me that such parallels occurred among females. I am wondering what such females of my generation were doing when I was fantasizing of being in a girl in the 60"s and 70's....
ReplyDelete@Mitchell and Deborah
ReplyDeleteI think you are right about MTF/FTM crossdreamers not being the perfect match. This is the crossdreamer curse: You can never experience the love you are looking for in the body you are born with, and even if you should transition, it is not given that you get what you are looking for. This is most clearly illustrated by the futile attempts of girlfags at attracting gay men. Gay men are looking for different shapes and another type of plumbing.
That being said, a pair of FTM and MTF crossdreamers would at least understand what the other person is all about. Most people will have to make compromises in love. This is an easier one.
Take a look at this post for how such a relationship may be. I realize that only a slightly feminine looking boy or man can become what this girlfag is looking for,
@Joanna
Where were the girlfags in the 1960's and 70's? That is a good question. I know about girlfags from the early 20th century, as Hirschfeld has described them, but apart from Lou Sullivan I know of no one in the period you are describing. I'll ask around.
Thank you jack because those were my formative years and if they were around they certainly hid their presence very well!!
ReplyDeleteJack, rereading this I do note a discrepancy in your attitude to respect for individual's gender self-identification, which I find slightly troubling:
ReplyDelete'I refer to FTM crossdreamers as women if it is clear that they publicly identify as such, and as men if they tell us that they are men. Transmen are men in my book. End of story!'
That's fine by me. For non-dysphorics, though, the individual's self-identification is not quite respected, 'end of story'; instead you 'note, however, that there is a lot of denial and repression going around.'
D xx
@Deborah
ReplyDelete"Objectively" speaking I honestly believe there is a wide spectrum of transgender, from those who are safely anchored in their biological birth sex at the one end, through true gender queer in the middle, to transsexuals at the other.
For me this fits well with the idea that the core (but not the cultural expression) of crossdreaming is biological.
If it is caused, as many scientists believe, by variation in prenatal hormone exposure, this is exactly what you would find: different shades of purple as opposed to a pink/blue binary.
Unless they live somewhere near the middle most people are able to identify as pink or blue, however.
When I meet individual transgender persons, I always respect the identity they express consciously. I have no way of knowing what goes on inside them.
But from what I hear from transgender people and from what I read, it is absolutely clear, however, that many try so hard to adapt to traditional gender values that they are willing to do anything to fit in. This includes deceiving themselves about their true identity. I did this for a long time.
I am sure there are those that deceive themselves among transsexuals as well. Still, from what I hear and read there are amazingly few regretters.
I think the reason is simple: It requires a lot of you to make such a drastic decision as transitioning. Moreover, there are safeguards in place ("real life experience") that make me conclude that most of them are really of the sex they claim to be.
This may be really long seeing as I just found out about this whole...classification? I think I may fit with it, and before I knew about this, I knew about yaoi. Personally, already identifying as bisexual but more leaning towards lesbian, I think I have it a little easier.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people who go to cons, and I myself am hoping to go to Yaoi-con eventually (my friends are already making plans). I've already cosplayed to general anime conventions, and that included going as a male character and having another, random girl dressed as a male character running up and proposing to me (an impromptu act, not real).
I don't talk to this one couple at all anymore (they were friends of my ex and we just didn't keep in touch), but they were both biological girls who dressed as men to almost every convention as well as just casually. In fact, they met when both were dressed as men and said they weren't entirely sure if they considered themselves to be boyfriends or girlfriends.
My ex and also my friend from school have said things that make me think they could be crossdreamers.
Now today I happen to find out that it is in fact an actual thing with a name, and I also hear that many people see it as rare. I'm not even out of high school and I know 4 people at least who would probably qualify as crossdreamers, not including myself, and they're all biologically women. So, if anyone needed any more proof it's pretty common, there it is.
It's been helpful finding out more about it. I myself have always preferred relationships with a dominant woman and submissive man, yet I'm more of a submissive person. Now I think it's that I've always identified as the man. I had considered that, but I didn't really see myself as transgender, because in day-to-day life I'm perfectly happy being female. It's caused me quite a lot of confusion, and I think this article and others have been nice to see.
Still, I think my perfect relationship would be with another woman who also enjoys crossdressing, just because it would be much easier for us to understand each other and why we feel how we do. I've noticed a lot of lesbians who like anime do this, which is partially why I consider myself more of a lesbian than bisexual, because I feel it would be very difficult to find a guy, especially where I live, who would accept or even understand this.
Anyway, that was a long rant but I just felt the need to tell someone and I guess to explain it to myself more, as weird as that sounds. So, just thank you for making this.
@anonymous
ReplyDeleteAh, but it was a good and useful rant ;)
I think your life may serve as an excellent example of the complexity of human sex identity, gender and sexual orientation. This cannot be reduced to simple binaries. We have to embrace that!
I think there's nothing wrong with that, they just need to indicate a viewer discretion in their works. Our imagination is vast, they are just expressing their craft. Maybe some censorship may be done but its art so it depends on the viewer's point of view if they want to call it pornography or not.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Abigail. On the part of the actor/actress involved in a pornographic film, what they are doing is just another side of art, just like any other Hollywood films where a celebrity is just portraying a role for the film. It really depends on the kind of censorship film department puts on the movie.
ReplyDeleteInteresting essay. I'd just like to point out, though, that the Jousou Shonen Anthology series is aimed at men, not women; it's an example of " otokonoko" (girly-boy) or "josou" (female-drag) manga rather than yaoi, so it refects men's desire to be feminine (or men's desire for feminine men, in some cases), rather than women's desire for feminine men.
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing how one can live to be nearly 45 before encountering the term that pretty much nails it… I am what I would call the quintessential girlfag; shipping boy pairings since early teens way back in the mid 80s when ”gay” or ”homosexual” were words that very rarely were uttered anywhere, not in my surroundings or in the media for that matter. I loved the concept of a guy being in love with another guy and even kind of shipped my high school crush with his best friend, lol. Whenever they practiced some form of affectionate skin ship in the school hallways it would make my day and I would excitedly report about it in my diary.
ReplyDeleteLater on I shipped male members in popular hard rock bands and that’s basically how all my sexual fantasies have been like to this day: I don’t insert myself in these fantasies since, well, I don’t have the right body, I’m not of the right gender in order to do so. Only guys together will turn me on, only seeing kisses and love making scenes between guys have ever turned me on. I never liked looking at heterosexual love scenes in movies, for example. The first time I saw man to man action was in my early twenties and it was amazing, my eyes glazed over, lol.
Way before the advent of the internet I used to call myself a gay man in a woman’s body, and had no idea that this was commonly used by other people like me - it came to me naturally, it was the only way I could describe myself. I was the only one of my kind as far as I knew until my late twenties. In early 1999 I actually first became aware of Boys Love manga while reading a travel guide on Japan. It had an article on manga and it mentioned this phenomenon of gay comics written by females and targeted at teenage girls. It astounded me and at the same time I felt kind of betrayed: my Western world could never provide me with something that would have made me feel a bit more normal whereas had I lived in Japan I could have enjoyed gay love stories openly produced by the media and specifically targeting girls like me!
I now call myself just genderqueer since I have never really experienced gender dysphoria or actually wanted to be a boy other than in a sexual/romantic relation with a guy; I’m fine living in my female body in everyday life, though it must be said that I have always been very happy about having rather small breasts, don’t know how it would have been like had I been big breasted. I didn't wear a bra until I was in my twenties and then I stopped wearing one again in my thirties, now I only wear fairly tight tank tops under a shirt. I have never had to suffer that glance guys give to a woman’s breast area rather than looking her in the eyes, hahah, and I have always been grateful of that.
I’ve had several relationships over the years, but they have all ended on my account. Somehow it never seemed to work and the fault was always in me, not the guys. They were all really nice men and I may be one of the few females who has no reason to call men jerks since I have no personal experience of being badly treated by men. No, it was always me and now I kind of know why: it could never really work because I craved to be the guy who falls in love with another guy and have the guy fall in love with me as a guy. It’s an impossible dream, basically, and I have accepted it. At least I now know that there is a label I can use for myself - there are times when it feels good to be able to label yourself!
Back to mandreaming now, lol. I discovered the world of Japanese male idols this year and they are able to provide me with the kind of visual eye candy ( pretty/beautiful guys with a certain amount of femininity mixed in with the kind of non-macho masculinity that doesn't irritate me to no end like typical Western masculinities do…) and the kind of boy/boy interaction I have always loved and craved for.
Saman1, thank you so much for replying! I read this piece back in 2015 but just read it again and read your comment, and it was very affirming. I’m 35, and it feels like so many people who feel this way are significantly younger. It think because of that, many write them off saying “they will grow out of it,” and perhaps some will, but hearing that always makes me feel like “something must be wrong with me; I must just be immature.” So it’s incredibly heartening to hear someone else who’s no longer in their twenties say “yeah, that’s basically me.” And know that they have sound some peace.
DeleteThank you for sharing this Saman1!
ReplyDelete//I don’t insert myself in these fantasies since, well, I don’t have the right body, I’m not of the right gender in order to do so.//
That seem to be a pattern when it comes to the difference between FTM and MTF crossdreamers. I am not sure why this is so.
More MTF crossdreamers fantasize about becoming/being turned into their target sex than the FTM ones, who more often fantasize about someone with their target sex eloping. The underpinning dream is the same, though.
I am sorry to hear that you have not found someone to share this part of you with. The obstacles you describe are shared by many crossdreamers, MTF and FTM and stops many of them from establishing relationships. It seems, as you put it, "an impossible dream".
I have heard about enough genderqueer relationships to know that it is possible, though, if you apply a lot of imagination and playfulness. But we have still not found a way for MTF and FTM crossdreamers to find each other.
I highly recommend anyone seriously considering this, to please do a lot more research before determining if you are really transgender/transsexual/etc or not.
ReplyDeleteI say this because I am actually "detrans"(used to try to become FtM then stopped).
For me, it was because I did not do enough research about different possibilities, instead going for the "sexy" choice of becoming a man... But it didn't work.
I still identified inside as a woman no matter how hard I believed I WANTED to be a man. If a man made a sexist comment, I immediately and instinctively felt offended and could not relate to men, the way someone raised as a boy/man could.
It was not until recently, about 5 years after trying to become transman, that I realized I'm not transman. I realized how harmful I was being to medically gender dysphoric transsexuals, by undermining them and using their mental illness for my selfish desire. It's like if someone who is obsessed with anime someday decides they want to become Japanese by surgery and by claiming they have a "Japanese brain". It's another level of cultural appropriation.
I am simply agender but still a woman biologically which I cannot deny as it is simply the truth. I just reject the gender construct for myself, instead focus on being what I feel like I truly AM and not just what I WANT to be. Focus on my REAL goals in life like to adopt a cat, or move into a nice home.
So, being agender I do not care if something I like is "for girls" or "for boys", unless it requires genitalia to use, as far as I can tell it is unisex. That was always how I was, but I never knew the word for it until I researched and learned that such a word existed.
Gender is made up in the first place, and sex is just chromosomes, hormones, and genitalia.
In the end, you may just be happy to mentally unleash yourself from the invisible constraints that is the gender construct.
And then, if not, if you truly think you may be trans, then do see a professional therapist who specializes in it before making a rash decision like ordering hormones online or flying overseas for a surgery you may regret.
"If a man made a sexist comment, I immediately and instinctively felt offended and could not relate to men, the way someone raised as a boy/man could."
DeleteThis. You see, I always was offended if someone said something bad about men. Always. From a very young age, I myself asked parents and grand parents why boys were treated the way they're treated, i.e. weren't allow to cry or to be showered in comliments and being nurtured like women typicaly were. And so on.
I'm glad that you're recognised this:
"I realized how harmful I was being to medically gender dysphoric transsexuals, by undermining them and using their mental illness for my selfish desire."
There are a lot of freaks now in the trans community, which for me personally is a reason to desist. Though I trully believe that I'm a man in woman's body... It was never a problem from a social perspective of view, never the obstacle, from my observation society treats men awfully in terms of conforming to norms. See, I still view it from a male perspective for that's who I am. Though I can't demand from people to be referred or treated as such. Only a close circle knows.
But please... Do not understimate struggle of transsex people by
"and sex is just chromosomes, hormones, and genitalia."
It's vital important for them/us (not sure if I'm in my right to clain it). That's the whole deal of it - to correct a misalignment between a body and mind, and hormones and srs are life-saving procedures for transsex people who suffer from sex dysphoria.
//I realized how harmful I was being to medically gender dysphoric transsexuals, by undermining them and using their mental illness for my selfish desire.//
DeleteI think you are much too hard on yourself. We must leave room for the exploration of both sexuality and gender identity. If we put up too strict rules for what it means to be "real trans", a lot of "real trans" people will be afraid to make the journey to whoever it is they truly are.
And just to make this absolutely clear: Being trans does is not being mentally ill. Gender dysphoria or gender incongruence is not considered a mental illness by the medical community. Not anymore.
Most female yaoi fans have internalized misogyny,in my experience. They fetishize gay relationships as if they're somehow more "special" than straight ones because they've been brainwashed by the sexist culture we live in.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that all of us have internalized misogyny to a greater or smaller extent. This will also affect our sexual fantasies and the way we see ourselves as men, women or enbys. But that does not mean that a dream of being the "other" gender cannot be anchored in a transgender identity.
DeleteI know of so many trans men and trans women who have gone through phases in their lives where such fantasies have been their mind's only way of exploring their gender variance. The subconscious does not care about morals. It simply is the way it is.
When they finally have faced their fantasies for what they are, though, and they have understood that they are transgender, most of them are able to see them in a broader context. Indeed, for most of them, these fantasies recede or disappear as soon as they make peace with their true selves.
That does not mean that all yaoi fans are trans. Far from it. But it does mean that we should keep in mind that these fantasies are real expressions of some kind of gender variance. Dismissing them as a "fetish" does not really explain much.
Our cultures are definitely sexist, but they are also heteronormative and homophobic. This makes it hard to understand why they go for this much harder option.
"Note the comparison with straight cis-male porn. When non-transgender gynephilic men watch porn movies, they focus on the woman. The male character is uninteresting to them, even though they imagine themselves in the role of the male actor. In yaoi the focus is in the submissive uke. If we accept the parallel that would mean that the female reader identify with the proactive and dominant seme."
ReplyDeleteI can cofirm it. Especially this:
"The male character is uninteresting to them, even though they imagine themselves in the role of the male actor".
When I watch/read explicit gay stuff I inevitably picture myself in the place of a penetrating one, though he's not interesting for me at all - it's just me, I'm in his place, that's all, and all my attention is on the penetrated male. It confirms, that I see it from a male gaze. Does it mean I'm transsexual? Yes, but it's not ONLY because of that AND
as the article noted, cis females also have the ability to watch gay male stuff and perceive it from an active male gaze.
"Feminine traits are considered more
ReplyDeletebeautiful by both men and women."
Beauty is NOT predominantly feminine! Your point is sexist. Men were always considered to be beautiful in Ancient Greece and Roman Empire. And young men were considered beautiful NOT because they reminded women/girls. They didn't! I love beautiful men, and I would never consider a beautiful man feminine. It's disrespectful.
Stop portraying maleness as only that tough hairy overmusled and whatever.
Check this also: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1583959/Amethystaura
AN author is a fan of yaoi and associates herself with a seme.
She explicitly says that she DOESN'T like feminine men. She provides good pont.
Beautiful men, cute guys, pretty boys, angelic looking men are NOT feminine.
Stop being sexist and misandrist.
If anything, even considering "typical" 'feminine' and 'masculine' features, I (ftm, gay) prefer masculine features: masculine bone structure of face with more squared jawline and high cheekbones. As for body figure, I prefer broad shoulders, no curves. I like typical male ass much more pleasing than female one. I don't like female butts at all.
ReplyDeleteI find women with masculine features aesthetically pleasing. I can find handsome women attractive. But I strongly dislike feminine women and femininity.
I don't mind guys with round faces and small noses if that what considered to be feminine.
I'm not a crossdreamer though.
Maybe that's why it's different.