# Sexuality — A Woman Who Likes Men *The short version: I'm a trans woman who likes men. The long version: everything that made that sentence possible.* --- ## The sentence that breaks the internet I'm a trans woman. I'm a Republican. I like men. I'm a Unitarian Christian who thinks God is a piece of shit. Pick any two of those and the internet would have a field day with me. But here's the thing — none of these are in conflict, because none of them are the same *kind* of thing. My politics aren't my identity. My identity isn't my faith. My faith isn't my sexuality. They're four different rooms in the same house, and I'm allowed to decorate each one however I want. But since this page is the one about the last room — let's talk about the men. --- ## The flame, again Remember the flame? The gay flame in my voice, the tell I couldn't hide? Here's the part people never connect: **the flame and the orientation are the same fire.** I grew up in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in the closet — not just the trans closet, but the "I like men" closet, which in conservative Oklahoma is its own separate underground bunker. I was the "good boy" everyone thought I was, and good boys in Stillwater did not like men. So I buried it. I buried both of them — the girl and the orientation — so deep that for years I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. They were both just... *wrong.* Both were the thing I wasn't allowed to be. Both lived in the same locked room, under the same floorboards, in the same house where the adults did the deciding. And the voice always knew. The flame was the truth leaking out through my larynx — the thing that said *I'm not the boy you think I am* before I ever had the words to say it properly. People heard it and couldn't place it: "something's off about that kid." Off. As in: not the boy. As in: likes men. As in: girl. All the same signal, all the same fire, all the same flame. --- ## What it means to be a woman who likes men Let me be precise, because people get this wrong in two opposite directions: **No, it doesn't mean I'm "actually a gay man."** That's the transphobe's version of the story — that I'm a man who likes men and can't admit it. It's wrong. I'm a woman. My attraction to men is a woman's attraction to men. The orientation didn't change when I transitioned — the *frame* did. I always liked men; what changed is that now I like them as *myself*, as the woman I actually am, instead of as the boy everyone thought I was. **And no, it doesn't mean my identity is "invalid" because I'm not a lesbian.** There's a whole corner of the internet that thinks trans women are only "real" trans women if they're attracted to women — that liking men makes you a fetishist, or confused, or not really trans. It's the mirror image of the transphobe's lie, and it's just as wrong. Trans women who like men are not a contradiction. We're not a punchline. We're not a category error. We're women who like men, same as millions of cis women. The only difference is the paperwork. --- ## The long road to saying it The foster homes didn't have a box for it. The church didn't have a box for it. The chapter house didn't have a box for it. Stillwater didn't have a box for it. So I spent years — *years* — not saying it, not thinking it, not letting myself look at it directly, because every institution that had power over me made it clear that the box I was supposed to be in did not contain liking men. And then I got out. And I started building a life where I got to decide the rooms. And one of the first things I did was open the door to that locked room and let the flame breathe. I like men. I've always liked men. It took me twenty-four years and a cross-country drive to be able to say it out loud, in my own voice, without the flame being a leak instead of a statement. Now it's just... a fact about me, like my height or my name. A room in the house. Decorated the way I want it. --- ## The receipts - **The closet within the closet:** trans and gay, both buried, both "wrong," both in conservative Oklahoma - **The flame:** the voice that always knew, the tell that leaked the truth - **The frame, not the orientation:** I always liked men; transition changed who's doing the liking - **The answer to both lies:** not a "gay man in denial," not an "invalid trans woman" — just a woman who likes men --- ## What I want you to understand There are people who will read this page and use it against me. The transphobe will say "see, she's just a confused gay man." The gatekeeper will say "see, she's not really trans." Both of them are wrong, and both of them are describing a world where I don't get to exist as I actually am. Here's the truth, and it's the same truth as every other page on this site: **I am a woman. I like men. Both of those are true, neither of them is a mistake, and I have the receipts — the flame, the name, the court order, the cross-country drive, the whole goddamn life — to prove it.** I didn't spend twenty-four years fighting every institution in America just to let the internet tell me which room I'm allowed to be in. I built the house. I know where the doors are. And this one's open. ❤️