(This piece is what I submitted for the book called “Trans People in Love,” published by Routledge, June 6, 2008.  The editors are Tracie O’Keefe and Katrina Fox.  “Sex and the Single Trannie” is Chapter 12, on page 111.)

By Monica F. Helms

“NO! I refuse to believe you!”

“Sorry, Monica. Once you start hormones, you’ll lose your libido.”

“I will NOT let that happen.”

“You’ll have no choice.”

“We’ll see about that.”

One may ask, “What does libido have to do with love?” This is, after all, an anthology of transsexuals and love and very little about sexual desires. That maybe so, but I cannot separate the strong connections between all of those parts of my personality.

Most people understand that humans are extremely complex biological organisms that have the capacity to experience a large range of emotions, including the elusive one known as “love.” They also can feel a multitude of physical sensation and understand what they all mean, especially sexual pleasures. Over the course of the last decade, I’ve experienced love and sexual pleasures on so many levels that it would be hard to isolate one special moment or one special person. Others in this book may have a partner or someone special, but I don’t. Yet, I have loved and lost enough times to know what the experience feels like.

(Break)

While writing my autobiography in 2005, I had a chance to scrutinize the experiences I had with women while living as a man. I didn’t have many encounters with women, so the ones I did have stood out rather vividly. A connecting thread between all of those loves began to emerge, surprising the hell out of me when it became obvious. This thread occurred because Mother Nature had endowed me with such a miniscule “tool” that it forced me to find more creative ways to satisfy women. Not surprising, many of those ways have been used by lesbians since the dawn of time. It appears that Mother Nature actually gave me a gift, preparing me for my future life as a lesbian.

As a man, I truly enjoyed making love with women and I enjoyed the pleasure they gave me. But, as I approached the time to start hormones, I became more and more worried that I wouldn’t even feel like making love to anyone because of losing my libido. To not find intimacy exciting any longer sent a chill through the Italian blood coursing through my veins. My brain couldn’t conceive of the idea of being asexual, so I decided to do something to ensure I would still desire lovemaking with another person. At that time, it could have been with either a man or a woman.

According to the dictionary, the word “libido” means: 1.) The psychic and emotional energy associated with the instinctual biological drives. 2a.) Manifestation of sexual drive. 2b.) Sexual desire. If there is a psychological component to a person’s libido, then couldn’t the brain be trained to maintain the same level of libido after a male-to-female transsexual begins hormone treatment? I felt truly motivated to find out the answer to that question.

The physical affects of taking female hormones were not only well documented on the Internet and in books, but my friends provided me with their first-hand experience on this matter. The penis would shrink and no longer feel the same sensations it felt before hormones. That idea didn’t bother me, because I would eventually have it inverted for my new vagina. Of course at that time, I didn’t think I would live a full decade without getting sex reassignment surgery. If the penis couldn’t feel pleasure and I didn’t want it to, then where on my body would that pleasure come from?

The first place I concentrated on was my nipples. They had proven to feel sensitivity in the past, so I focused on finding the right way to make them feel it again. In a very short time, I discovered that if I wet the tips of my fingers and very lightly rub them over the tips of my nipples, I would feel some tingling sensation. It took me awhile to actually magnify that sensation and “train” my brain to understand that this was a new erogenous zone. It worked.

As satisfying as my nipples felt during that “training period,” I knew that there had to be more. This time, I turned my attention a bit further south, a place where my future vagina would reside. I knew that the nerve bundle in the area between the testicles felt some form of sensation, but nothing prepared me for what I would discover when I started concentrating on that area. To say I found my ultimate G-spot would be a gross understatement. Nothing in my life has ever felt that amazing and it didn’t take any time for my brain to register this new erogenous zone. I created these new pleasure points BEFORE I began taking hormones and my penis had shrunk. Feeling a female-like orgasm without getting an erection made me ecstatic. And, having multiple orgasms opened a whole new world for me. My journey as a female had begun.

In later years, I had a conversation with a therapist who not only worked with transgender people, but with paraplegics and quadriplegics. She would help them find sexual pleasure in the areas where they still had feelings, training the pleasure center of the brain to accept these locations as their new erogenous zones. It appears I had followed her methods before I knew that sort of brain-training existed.

Knowing that I had the ability to enjoy a full and wonderful sex life as a woman – whether I had surgery or not – strengthened my libido rather than diminished it. I looked forward to finding the love of my life rather than shrinking away and avoiding love altogether. It made me less afraid to wear my heart on my sleeve, less afraid to open up to someone and less afraid to have my heart broken.

Just before and after I began living as a woman, I felt a need to experience love with men. I had fantasies of actually living with a man and having a happy home as a married woman later in my life. I quickly discovered that the men who found pre-operative, male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals exciting looked for just one thing. They want a “chick with a dick” . . . the mystical “Best-of-Both-Worlds” creature. They do indeed exist in the form of she-males, but an MtF transsexual has a different motive for living as a women. Since taking hormones causes a pre-op, MtF transsexual’s penis to shrink and not get erect, then this may turn off many men who want to date a pre-op.

Sex with men felt exciting, but as time went on, I needed more than a quick roll in the sack. My attraction to masculinity faded, replaced completely by the need for the softness and emotional gratification I had always received from women. It meant I really didn’t change whom I found attractive, so by definition, I went from being a heterosexual man to being a gay woman. Only the labels changed. I now tell people I’m “historically bisexual,” since I did have sex with men at one time in my life.

Now that I finally discovered my true sexual orientation, what would I do next? Only Fate would place me where I needed to be. In early 2000, I met an attractive, post-operative, MtF transsexual who seemed to find me attractive as well. We met in Phoenix while she attended a political activism meeting I had put on. We hit it off rather quickly and later in the evening, she and I went dancing at the local lesbian club. While on the dance floor, she pulled me close to her and kissed me. My first kiss from a post-op woman and it felt so good that it made me weak at the knees.

Sadly, the evening didn’t find us sharing a bed together. She made an odd blanket statement stating that post-op transsexual women do not want to make love to pre-op transsexual women, because it reminds them of their past. To her, it felt like “going back in time.” She also said that it makes the pre-op jealous. At that time, I believed her statement was widely-accepted by post-op women, but later I found out that her attitude only reflected her own personal feelings and nothing more. Over the last seven years, I’ve had the pleasure of making love to several post-op women, so I’m now positive not everyone accepted her viewpoint.

My first true love as Monica came only five months after kissing that woman on the dance floor. She, too, was a post-op MtF transsexual, having had her surgery eight years earlier. I met her on a list for trans people, but it didn’t have many members from Arizona. The two of us talked on the phone for a while then decided to get together one Saturday to go to a movie. For this story, I will call her “Brenda.”

Brenda and I hit it off rather well and found out we had at least a few things in common. She told me that for the last twelve years she had been living with a man, but it just didn’t feel right to her. Since she begun her transition during the days when the doctors insisted a person follow very strict rules, she had to convince them of being straight or they wouldn’t let her continue. The doctors wouldn’t allow any transsexual to identify as being gay. Many lied to the doctors, some so convincing that they believed it themselves. Thus was the case with Brenda.

I found Brenda attractive, but the words of the other woman five months earlier still rang in my ears. “Post-ops don’t want to make love to pre-ops.” This meant Brenda and I would be nothing more than friends, which I could easily settle for. However, Fate stepped in once again and threw me a most interesting curve ball.

After going to the movies and having lunch together, we came back to my place and began talking about all sorts of things, including our past and how our families treated us. I cannot remember who broached the subject first, but the topic of sex and love came up. Sometime during that subject, she asked me, “Have you ever made love to post-op?”

I said, “I got the impression that post-ops didn’t want to have anything to do with pre-ops.”

Brenda found that statement to be completely ridiculous. To prove it, she leaned in close and gave me a long and sensual kiss. Wow. What made me so lucky to get a kiss from such gorgeous women? They say that what comes around goes around. Whatever I did to deserve such good karma, I needed to keep doing it.

After some extensive foreplay, Brenda and I ended up in bed together. I’ve had memorable times making love to another person, but that first night with Brenda topped anything I had ever experienced up until then. (But, my future had better things in store for me in later years.) She solidified my sexual orientation. From that evening on, I would never consider making love to a man . . . except a trans man. Why, you may ask? Or not. Trans men have a quality about them that non-trans men don’t. Some will admit it, while others won’t. Their past gives them a much deeper appreciation for women, so they know how to treat a woman right . . . at least most of them do.

Over the next few weeks, Brenda and I had fantastic nights together; nights that burn deep into my memory with the passion we felt for each other. However, life would not allow us to continue our relationship. Just before I met Brenda, I had applied for another job in Atlanta, staying within the company I worked for. They accepted me and asked me to arrive in Atlanta by June 12, 2000. I had to leave just as our relationship began to heat up. She and I remained friends for a few years after I left, but as of today, she won’t take any of my calls. I would like to find out if she has a happy life.

My life in Georgia would be totally different than what I experienced in Arizona. The people at my new job accepted me completely and I had more challenges on the job than I did in Phoenix. Other opportunities opened up to me as a political activist, putting me in a position to meet many people in the area and nationwide. My experience with women didn’t take off until I had been there for about five months. “Five months?” Again? Is this a reoccurring pattern? I wonder . . .?

Transgender people are great with trigonometry, because they love to go off on tangents.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Five months after I arrived in Georgia, I met another post-op transsexual at Atlanta’s first Transgender Day of Remembrance. I will call her “Olivia.” Something about her caught my eye. I felt drawn to her looks and intelligence. What can I say? I find highly intelligent women very sexy and Olivia fit the bill on that, as Brenda had earlier. For the next two months, we had a torrid relationship. The fact that she lived in Athens, about 90 miles away from where I lived at the time, caused a bit of a problem for me. Getting there took up a lot of my time and gas.

Even though everything seemed to be going smoothly between the two of us, Olivia had something boiling deep in the bowels of her psyche. She had a dark past of disturbing incidents that had left her emotionally and psychologically scarred. Many transsexuals experience horrible things in their life and none of them make it through unscathed. Some are harmed far more than others. Olivia carried the wounds of a family rejection, physical and mental abuse that stayed hidden just below the surface like an emotional Mt. St. Helen, waiting for the right – or wrong – moment to erupt. That eruption took place about two months into our relationship.

On the day it happened, I stayed over night at Olivia’s apartment. The next day she seemed all lovey-dovey when we got up and we planned on seeing a movie that afternoon. Before the movie, I stopped at an eyeglass store to get new glasses and she wandered through the mall. After I finished getting everything ordered, I waited and waited for her to come back. When she did, she seemed distant and didn’t want to talk. We went to the movie and during the entire time, she leaned away from me, not making any physical contact.

On the drive home, she remained silent. I knew then that she wanted to break up with me. I asked, “Is it over?”

“Wait until we get back to my place.”

I started crying. She showed no emotion. The pain cut through my heart.

When we arrived at her place, she turned to me and in the coldest tone of voice, she said, “I want you to leave.”

“Why? What happened? We were okay just this morning.”

She said nothing and still showed no emotions. It appeared to me that this post-op transsexual shifted into a mode that I hadn’t ever seen in woman, breaking up with me like any man would break up with a woman. I felt like an emotional basket case on that long drive home.

In later years, Olivia told she shouldn’t have let me go. My friends and I later found out that Olivia lead a transient life, not wanting to get a job and had tried to con others into giving her money. I also found out just recently that she now lives in San Francisco and has been stalking a prominent facial surgeon, trying to get him to do surgery on her for free. Olivia has even tried to commit suicide several times. She really needs help.

Losing Olivia when I did couldn’t have happened at a better time. Not only did I dodge the bullet with her early on in the relationship, but it freed me to begin looking elsewhere. A couple weeks later, I attended a Georgia Stonewall Democrats meeting and I told a female friend of mine, Susan, on how Olivia had treated me.

Susan asked, “Does this mean I can now ask you out on a date?”

“Ah . . . ah, yes. It does.”

I found Susan to not only be highly intelligent, but she and I had several things in common. We both love science fiction and we both love to write, though her writing focuses on non-fiction, whereas I have a love for fiction. In school, Susan considered herself a computer geek and looking back at myself in school, I was a nerd. At the time I met her, she worked as an editor for a trade magazine, but had also written for the local LGBT newspaper and wrote for CNN.

On our first date, I took her to an Italian restaurant and we talked about several things. I found her attractive and felt comfortable being with her. That evening, we went back to my place and made love on the couch in the living room.

Wrong move.

My roommate, another transsexual and owner of the townhouse I lived in, confronted me the next day and ordered me to move out in six months. She never said why she gave me so much time, but I figured she needed extra money to help pay for her up-coming labiaplasty. I discovered later that the whole reason she needed me to move in was to help her get the final amount of money she needed for her sex reassignment surgery. Once my usefulness had ended, I would be kicked out anyway. My evening with Susan accelerated that. The next day, I began looking for a place and found one much closer to work and to Susan. My former roommate would have to find her money somewhere else.

Susan and I had an interesting relationship. For four years, we called each other “girlfriends,” using the lesbian definition and not the one used by straight women when referring to their female friends. We expressed our love for each other in many ways, but we never had a sex life after that first date. I found out she had a bi-polar condition and because of the medicines she had to take, she completely lost her libido. Of course, my libido remained as strong as ever during the entire relationship.

I once asked Susan, “Do you find any woman on Earth sexually attractive?” She responded by saying “No.”

If Susan felt that way about every woman, then I didn’t have much of a problem with our lack of sex life, at least at first. It became clear to me as time went on that it had become a growing problem. She encouraged me to seek out others for sex, which I only found someone twice in the entire four years. Later, her doctor gave her a new drug that helped to restore her libido, but it became quickly apparent that she still didn’t want to make love with me, even when her libido returned. It became the start of our downhill slide.

As time went on, other things contributed to our eventual breakup. We kept growing apart until my lack of enthusiasm forced her to call it quits. The moment of our breakup felt sad, but necessary to give me a chance to grow and expand. My relationship with Susan did me a lot of good and helped me to further understand myself in many ways I couldn’t have had if her and I had never dated. We remain friends to this day.

In April of 2005, I met a woman, Cindy, at a local lesbian nightclub called My Sister’s Room (MSR.) Since this nightclub sat across the tracks from the all-woman’s college Agnes Scott, it drew in a lot of women in their early-twenties. I could easily tell that Cindy didn’t fit that age bracket because of her gray hair.

Cindy and I stayed together for a few months, even though she never felt comfortable seeing me completely nude. I had to hide my penis by wearing panties, yet she didn’t mind eventually being totally nude with me. She wouldn’t allow me to give her oral sex, so we had to use other ways to take care of her needs. However, she spent very little time taking care of my needs.

Because Cindy lived forty miles away and didn’t have transportation, it became hard on me. Also, she shared her house with a much older woman whose attitude forced Cindy to not invite friends over without causing a big fuss. I had to drive to Cindy’s place, bringing her back to my apartment so we can go out or have dinner together, then drive her home the next day. This became too much after awhile, so I broke it off with her.

The week after I broke it off with Cindy, I met another woman at MSR. This time I went there to just enjoy myself and not try to hook up with someone. But, hook up I did and in a huge way.

The woman I met that night, Glenda, had something about her that I found intriguing. Normally, I’m attracted to fem women, but Cindy and Glenda didn’t fit that category one bit. However, I found Glenda very attractive and interesting to talk to. She works as a lawyer for a firm that helps to patent biotech creations for companies. This job was tailor-made for her, since she has a degree in both biology and law.

After we left MSR, we grabbed a bite to eat at an all-night diner, then she took me to her place. The fact that she didn’t care about my “plumbing irregularities” surprised and thrilled me, since I told her well in advance about me, back at MSR. Her lack of shyness felt refreshing after my experiences with Susan and Cindy.

That evening began a five-month relationship that rivaled anything else in my entire life. (Again, with the “five-months?”) Our lovemaking took me to a new level of ecstasy that I never believed existed and I had only heard rumors of over the years. I place the stories of that kind of intense lovemaking in the same category as ghosts, angels and UFOs. I’ve heard of them, but I never personally encountered them. We did things together that I would have never expected from any woman. I fell in love once again, only this time in a hard way.

Glenda had separated from a woman whom she had a committed relationship with just six months earlier. She was the biological mother of a five-year-old girl and shared joint custody with her ex. One weekend Glenda would have the girl and the next weekend her ex would, so we “hooked up” on those weekends when she didn’t have her daughter. However, we would go to dinner and do things together on the weekends she had her daughter.

During the course of our relationship, Glenda told me that she had a repressed sex life since her early years and after separating from her ex, she had finally liberated herself to explore the hidden desires within. Since we went on that exploration together, uncovering the various facets of her sexual desires, I told her that we were like Lewis and Clark heading up the Missouri River into the mountains, finding new wonders around every bend. I couldn’t believe the beauties of what we found along the way. Thinking of those nights still makes me smile.

One of the most touching moments of our relationship took place on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, 2005. Glenda’s daughter asked if I could “sleep over” that night so I could spend Christmas morning with them. Glenda agreed. I fully expected to sleep in a spare bedroom, but I ended up in Glenda’s bed. I made sure I had a complete pair of pajamas on, because I felt a bit apprehensive about her daughter being there and possibly wandering into the room. It all turned out fine.

The next morning, I once again experienced the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of a small child, something I hadn’t felt since the early 1990s. No other Christmas during the entire time living as Monica felt as wonderful. I would have pledged my commitment to Glenda that very morning if she had asked me.

One funny thing happened on Christmas that still makes me laugh when I think about it. Glenda’s daughter received a little girl’s makeup kit as one of her gifts. After opening it, she turned to Glenda and asked if she could help in putting on the makeup. Glenda laughed and said she was the last person to ask on how to properly apply makeup.

Monica to the rescue! I piped up and said, “Well, it looks like this is an area I’m familiar with. Let me help you.” Glenda’s daughter was excited.

While Glenda made breakfast in the kitchen, I showed her daughter the proper way to put on makeup. Since I had two sons, I never felt the joy of helping a young girl apply makeup properly.

What factored heavily into why Glenda and I had a short relationship had to be the “rebound syndrome.” Even though we had a short-lived and intense romance, we ended it as very close friends. She has become one of the few people I know who I can confide in with the most intimate details of my life. We stay in touch and have breakfast or dinner together occasionally, along with her daughter. When my Mother came to visit me for a week in April, the four of us went to the new Georgia Aquarium together. My mother had nothing but high praise for Glenda.

I haven’t had a steady girlfriend since Glenda and I broke up, but I’ve had some rather interesting romantic moments during that time. In late September 2006, when the Southern Comfort Conference took place in Atlanta, many of my friends from across the country attended. I had the chance to make love to two trans women at the same time, one post-op and one pre-op. It may sound exciting, but part of the evening, the other two spent a very long time concentrating on each other. I even got up and got dressed before they noticed I was in the room. And yet, I suggested having the threesome in the first place. I thought that if I would ever have the fortune of being with two women at the same time, each of us would be treated with equality. I may not suggest that in the future.

I did learn one thing during that threesome. I quickly found out that the pre-op had the same erogenous zones as I have. Very interesting. Once I discovered this, I wouldn’t stop until she begged me to. I can easily say she enjoyed herself, as did I.

During that Southern Comfort Conference, I did something else exciting and new. I asked a good friend of mine, a professional photographer, to take nude photos of me, in black and white. She took nearly two rolls of pictures that day and in some of the photos, someone else was there with me. As I write this piece, I haven’t seen the pictures, but the other person in them with me has. She said they turned out great.

After reading this, one might think that I’ve had a rather exciting sex life with all the women I’ve met. Yet, I finish this piece up with nothing more than a sigh to comfort me. Like I said, I don’t have that one special person to share my life with at this time. No one is near me, reading over my shoulder, begging me to save what I have typed and come to bed. Do I want someone? Yes. Will I stop after getting my heart broken again and again? Never! If I did, the next person I would have met could have been “THE ONE,” so I continue to move forward.

My life has had many moments of shear pleasure and beauty, surrounded with mundane days, weeks and even months. But, I’m encouraged that Fate has more interesting moments ahead. And who knows, maybe the next time transgender people are asked to submit a story about how love works with them, I will be able to write an extensive piece about my life-long love. Until then, I will have to be satisfied with the cards Life has dealt me.

(for those who have read this on The Bilerico Project, I added a new paragraph toward the end.)

I know that by expressing my opinion about this word in an article, I will make a lot of my trans friends angry. Seems that the quarterly label issue is brewing yet again and right on time. This article of mine came about because of an article my friend Donna Rose wrote on her blog called, “Tranny: Just a Word?” Please note that Donna happens to be one of my closest sisters, but like family, we can disagree on things. This is one of those times.

Human beings have a propensity for figuring out ways to verbally put down other people. Americans are absolute experts in this “field,” especially during a war with another country. In Wikipedia, you can find hundreds of words used for just ethnic slurs alone. It’s more fun for American to burn bridges rather than build them. If ethnic slurs are so prevalent, then it stands to reason that slurs directed at the LGBT community would be also in abundance. The questions now become, “Are some of these words actually worth getting upset about?” and “How do we neutralize them?”

(Break)

I tried to look up the “tranny,” or my favorite spelling, “trannie” and found out that it isn’t in Dictionary.com. However, they showed all of the various usages for the word that we find in the English language, which are also listed in the Wikipedia entry for “tranny.”

Tranny/Trannie is a term with multiple meanings:

• Transformer (electrical)
• Transgender (slang)
• Transistor radio
• Shortwave radio (not necessarily a transistor model), like the Zenith Trans-Oceanic Shortwave Radio
• Transmission on an automobile
• A term for a transgender person.
• A nickname for the Ford Transit (usually as Tranny van)
• A transparency, either a photographic slide or for an overhead projector.
• A Rock band based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• In skateboarding a slang term for “transition”.

Seems it is used for much more things than to describe us. Maybe we should be a bit more careful in getting upset with someone when we hear it being used, especially if it comes from a skateboarder, an auto mechanic or an electrician. I also found the words “trannie” and “tranny” in the Urban Dictionary, and even in there, automobile transmissions were mentioned.

Many in the trans community show outrage in the use of the words trannie or tranny. Sometimes I see this outrage as baseless at best. I hear people evoke the “N-word” as an analogy and how it outrages African Americans, even if some of them use the word in conversation. I find it not only ridiculous to say our outrage is similar to this, but downright disrespectful to the African American community and their struggles for even suggesting it’s anywhere on the same level.

The “N-word” has over four hundred years of hateful history behind it. It has over four hundred years of struggles behind it. It has over four hundred of blood and pain behind it. And, it has over three hundred years of slavery behind it. Can we even come close to that? Most of us were alive when the word “tranny” was coined, so it has very little history. Maybe we can start complaining about its usage in the year 2350. Until then, let’s put this into perspective, shall we?

Another source of outrage for the word “tranny” is the fact that it’s used on internet porn sites. Should we be surprised? If the site is used to make money, then it makes good marketing sense to use this word, because the word “transsexual” is too cumbersome. Doing a Google search, I found 2.6 million links for “tranny, porn,” as compared to 19 million for “gay, porn,” or 13.5 million for “lesbian, porn,” and 262 million for “porn.”

But, “tranny” isn’t the only word you can find porn associated with us. You can also pull up porn links using the words “transsexual, transgender, trans, transvestite” and “shemale.” The words “shemale, porn” brought up 3.58 million links. Let’s face it folks, regardless of how you want to label us, we are a category in the internet porn industry, and a rather small one at that. If you want to use online porn as an excuse for not wanting to embrace the word “tranny,” I find it to be rather poor reasoning. You would have to include all those other words in your outrage as well.

Part of this discussion also gravitates to the usage of the words “queer” and “dyke,” two words that have been successfully neutralized, and “faggot,” a word that may never be neutralized. At one time, both “queer” and “dyke” were considered highly derogatory and offensive. Even today, the people who hate try to use them, thinking it will somehow make a queer person or dykes upset. The LGB and T communities have done a good job in embracing and reclaiming these words and now they have become part of the acceptable culture we live in.

The word “faggot” has not made the transition to being acceptable to the LGBT community. It is a term directed to ALL members of the LGBT community, even heterosexual trans people. Its origin dates back to the late 16th century, meaning “old or unpleasant woman,” and the modern use may well derive from this. The word is a shortening version of the term “faggot-gatherer,” applied in the 19th century to people, especially older widows, who made a meager living by gathering and selling firewood. The word “faggot” means a “bundle of sticks for burning.” The modern usage of “fag” and “faggot” are primarily used in English speaking countries. Of course, the word “faggot” is a British term for cigarettes, because they are also a “bundle of sticks for burning.” If a British person asks you for a faggot, they’re not looking for a gay man.

The word “faggot” shows its usage to date back 500 years, most of the time having an offensive meaning. It has a well establish history as a derogatory word, but it didn’t get attached to effeminate men until the late 19^th, early 20^th Centuries. Some people in the LGBT community are trying to neutralize this word, but with no success. But, please take note of this one major difference between “faggot” and the “N-word.” Most of society, and even LGBT people, have not yet accepted or even considered changing “faggot” to the “F-word.” With that long of a history for this word, maybe we should.

Hate words are nothing more than one person using language to take control over another’s emotions. When the person uses them to be offensive on purpose, they succeed in taking control when the other person actually takes offense. Hate language can provoke some people to violence. We have proof that the word “tranny” has been used in violent acts toward trans people, along with “shemale, it, abomination” and “faggot.” Reclaiming the word will not stop the violence, but the word doesn’t cause the violence. Violent people cause the violence. We cannot blame violence toward trans people on one word.

People used to take offense with the words “queer” and “dyke,” both of which predates the words “trannie” and “tranny.” The word “dyke” is the shorten version of the word “bulldyke,” first seen in 1920 novels. “Queer” is much older, coming from the English language in the 16^th century, meaning “strange, unusual,” or “out of alignment.” These words were used to denote LGBT people for a long time, yet they have been successfully reclaimed to neutralize their emotional affect. However, they are still heard during violent acts toward LGBT people.

Many trans people are reclaiming the words “trannie” and “tranny,” and they appear to be mostly the younger people in our community. They seem to understand the need to neutralize the affect that others have in wanting to offend us. Younger LGBT people also accept “queer” and “dyke” more than older LGBT people and may actually become the ones who will successfully neutralize the “F-word.”

This is purely an emotional issue, without logic. I put words in the category of affecting our psych in the same way foods and smells do. Depending on our life experiences when it comes to words, foods or smells is how we react to them. Those three categories cover four of our five senses (words can cover hearing and sight) and our five senses are powerful “input ports” to our emotions. If people wish to say they don’t like a word, then just admit it is an emotional thing and not try to justify it with outside issues that would exist even if the word didn’t.

For me, I refuse to allow anyone to take control of my emotions by allowing them to think that the word “trannie” will offend me. Yes, I have other words that push my buttons and many who read this can easily attest to that. My faith has helped me smooth some of them out as well. We have no reason to let a relatively young and weak word take control of our emotions, when so many stronger ones out there can easily upset us. Let’s eliminate this one first.

“Tranny” is such an easy word to reclaim, because it has far less baggage and history attached to it then the others I have mentioned. This is something trans people have to do themselves, so non-trans people cannot help the reclaiming by using the word right now. It’s an issue we have to take care of ourselves. And, if the older generation doesn’t wish to reclaim the word, we don’t need to. The younger generation will reclaim it for us, whether we want them to or not. It’s the natural order of things.