Where do the words “trans” (short for “transgender”) and “cis” (meaning “not transgender”) even come from? Why, chemistry!
In chemistry, “cis” means that the CH3’s are on the same side of the carbon bond and “trans” means that they are on opposite sides of the carbon bond, or across from one another. The first drawing of a chemical is cis and the second one is trans.
That was chemistry. Now, in women’s studies type classes, sex is short for “biological sex” and gender is not the same as biological sex. A trans woman wants to be called a woman to avoid gender dysphoria (I’ll explain what that is in a sec), but her sex is not on the same side as her gender, so she is referred to as a trans woman. She is a woman whose gender is on opposite sides of or across from her biological sex. Look at it like this:
So a biologically female woman is a cis gender woman (see the line that goes straight from “Female” to “Woman” in the above image) and a biologically female man is a trans gender (“transgender”) man (see the line that goes diagonally from “Female” to “Man” in the above image). A trans man is a man who was female at birth but (typically) does things like take testosterone and work out to get a male physique. Example before and after photos:
In contrast, a biologically male man is cis and a biologically male woman is trans, as in the below diagram.
Taking what I just said and flipping it, a biologically male man is a cis gender man (see the line that goes straight from “Male” to “Man” in the above image) and a biologically male woman is a trans gender (“transgender”) woman (see the line that goes diagonally from “Male” to “Woman” in the above image). A trans woman is a woman who was male at birth but (typically) does things like take female hormones and wear women’s clothing. Example before and after photos:
Sex refers to things like chromosomes and gender refers to your state of being a man or a woman (like “he” or “she” pronouns, being referred to as “sir” or “ma’am”, etc). In woman’s studies class, sex is biological (like your genitals) and gender is a social construct (like whether people refer to you as “sir” or “ma’am”) and they are two different things.
Anywho, a transgender woman wants to be a woman and a transgender man wants to be a man. It makes them experience positive feelings and the opposite makes them experience negative feelings in the same way that you being called the wrong pronoun makes you feel negative feelings. My name is John, so imagine someone said “John, she went to the park”. I felt irked – I am not a “she”. That is exactly how a trans person responded when I used the wrong pronoun for them. They said “I am not a she regardless of what other people think”.
Okay. That feeling of a negative emotion when someone calls you by the wrong pronoun is a form of gender dysphoria, or a negative emotion associated with one’s gender (what they consider to be the wrong gender with respect to their internal sense of gender). The opposite of “dysphoria” is “euphoria”, where gender euphoria is a positive emotion (like if you feel good because people are getting your gender right). So imagine that now people are saying about me “John, he went to the park”. I don’t feel euphoric or dysphoric (because being referred to as “he” is just normal for me), but maybe I feel gender euphoria if I get the nice arm muscles that I have always wanted from going to the gym. It’s self-confirmation. According to a trans YouTuber who I watched, the main types of “-phorias” that trans people experience are from their physical appearance (like the muscles) and their pronouns (like when I got irked at the thought of being referred to as a “she”). The former would be good, self-confirming gender euphoria and the latter would be bad, annoying gender dysphoria.
I am not trans, but that’s my best understanding as a cis man.
In the story, the King isn’t actually aware that he is naked. He thinks that he is wearing the finest clothes, and everyone is pretending that he is wearing the finest clothes, but in reality he is naked. I am sort of like that in that I am not really self aware. I sort of need to hear or see myself in order to be aware of myself. For example, it really helps me to look at myself in a mirror, see myself on camera, or hear myself on audio recording because if I don’t, I might totally miss something about myself that other people notice. For example, if I didn’t hear myself talking, I would have no idea that I sound kind of like a girl or a woman. Like just now I heard a recording of me saying something and my response was “wow, I sound like a woman”. My focus is very “external” to me and I am just not terribly self-aware. Heck, even my sense of God is sort of inverted such that when I see a Jesus reference like this or a mention of his name like this I am like “Hey, that’s me!“. I’m an egomaniac, lol, but I swear it’s not on purpose.
Anywho, being not self aware has a lot of really peculiar consequences. For example, I used to always dress like a slob and not even notice (although other people do). Working at a bank forced me to dress nice in front of a mirror each morning, and this resulted in me looking better than I ever looked working at a tech company. Always looking your personal best is really helpful when you are single, and I appreciate the improvement in my appearance.
One thing that I kind of wondered was why I really like girly stuff like this:
I really didn’t know why I like girly stuff, but I think I realized why.
It’s me. Like I talk I sound kind of like a woman, and I love myself, and that’s why I love this stuff. I love women, but I think that love is more like an extension of the love that I have for myself. I used to kind of hate women and also myself, and I think that these two forms of hate were interconnected in a similar way.
As an example, I kind of love Elizabeth Warren, and I also kind of love little girls, and I love myself, and I think these forms of love are connected. That being said, I really am not self-aware. Like for example, I remember being into Patti Smith and being surprised to find out that all the other Patti Smith fans are women. Like I didn’t know this when I started listening to Patti Smith, but then you look at a Patti Smith event and you are just like “there are no men here“. Like I remember being at a karaoke bar and picking the song “Because the Night” and I thought that either a guy or a girl could sing it because Bruce Springsteen also sang this song and co-wrote it with Patti Smith, but when I put that song on, a bunch of girls started singing along, but no guys. In retrospect if I pay attention to the song it makes sense that it would appeal to women, but like I remember being like “why the fuck are all these girls singing along?” Like I just don’t have that self-awareness.
Like in my head I come off like this:
But in real life I come off like this:
I’m like the emperor in this picture:
One interesting consequence of this is my sense of gender and attraction. I had a very masculine gay friend who was kind of attracted to female stuff, but it wasn’t sexual to him. Like I would notice boobs and he would be like “yeah”, or like he would want to grab like a fluffy pink piggy bank and put it in his cart. The thing is, I am also kind of drawn to the color pink and to boobs, but to me that draw is sexual, but to him it isn’t. Like he can notice boobs the way I do, but to me it’s sexual where as to him it’s just “yeah”, and we’re both really masculine on the outside and we both kind of notice that stuff, but to me it’s sexual and to him it isn’t.
I’m sort of like that with men, lol. Like to me men’s eyes and faces and stuff are attractive, but like it isn’t sexual to me. Like I can’t get a boner or anything from it, but I do notice it. I’m not gay, but like it’s sort of a non-sexual attraction to me that I have towards men, but not towards women. I think that’s why I like chicks who are like dudes. Like I was watching this prank video about a college girl who walks up to random guys and asks to suck their cock, and I totally see how the guy at https://youtu.be/XEfWcm63kDM?t=120 is attractive. Man this is embarrassing.
Anyway, referring back to the paragraph before the previous one, the color pink or magenta is kind of weird to me because it’s just a color, but it makes my head turn the way a hot woman does. Like for example I was in a store and I saw a bright magenta suitcase on top of a bunch of black suitcases, and I felt like a pull towards the magenta suitcase. Like obviously I can’t get a boner from a suitcase, but the way it sort of mentally pulled me felt the same as the mental pull I experience towards a sexually attractive woman. I sort of mentally associate those two things with each other, the color pink or magenta and the the female sex. Like I associate this color with “woman” or “female”:
It’s weird how a color can pull my head the same way a nice butt can pull my head, but my body doesn’t physiologically respond to a color.
Anyway, I guess that femininity is sort of like my external presentation (like the way I talk) being represented internally. I’m kind of like a bat that uses echolocation. I sort of see or experience myself through the reflection with the outside world. Like if I don’t see that I look like crap, I don’t think I look like crap, even if other people see that I look like crap. My dad is like that. I think this way of seeing the world is due to the size of one’s ego. Like I think Donald Trump is like this a little bit. It’s called being “narcissistic”, but to me it’s just me. I swear I’m not like that on purpose – it’s just my perspective and the way I see the world. My mental “inside” is like a reflection of what I project to the “outside”.
I’m like a mirror in that I sort of reflect myself.
This has an effect on the way I perceive attraction. I am actually a zero on the Kinsey scale – damn near 100% heterosexual – and it’s not “fluid” like the way some “straight” women (who date men) say their sexuality is fluid. My attraction to men is more like a non-sexual “secondary attraction” or something, but I think that secondary attraction still sort of makes a difference, especially when it comes to picking someone who I want to be in a long term relationship with. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but this is what I thought. I don’t think any scientific contraption or anything can figure it out because it’s super subtle and psychological – like you can’t measure attraction with a medical device that measures penis blood flow. Heck, they even created a thing that shows where your eyes look, and it showed that straight male eyes look at women’s eyes (which are sort of looking away or not looking at the camera) when they watch straight porn. This makes sense because the eyes are a turn on when they’re not looking at you, and you want to be really turned on to orgasm. That being said, this feeling is not what I am talking about when I mean “attraction”. Like their eyes are hot from the side when they’re not looking right at you, but like when they look directly at you it isn’t hot:
^ Like I honestly don’t even know how to respond to this. Could you move your face further away, please? ^
But yeah, like women are really hot from a distance, but up close, like face-to-face, I don’t really know what to do. Related story.
In college I sat down with a girl who was sitting by herself for lunch. I just made friendly conversation and she found it funny that I wore a nice dress shirt on top but sweatpants from the waist down (time saver!). She seemed kind of bored and there was time to kill between classes and I somehow invited her back to my dorm room for a game of chess at the end of lunch. Note that I was really excited about chess at this time and I actually expected to play a game of chess with her in my dorm room. She sort of followed me to my dorm room, we went in, I closed the door behind us, and got out the chess board. I set up the chess board and I was surprised that she had no idea how to play chess. She just kind of asked what each of the pieces did, and then there was awkward silence, and then she left my dorm room and I was confused.
Looks wise she kind of reminded me of the girl in this picture, but she wore all blue:
I think she might have been kind of interested or curious or something, but man did that not work. I literally had no idea what she wanted me to do. Like I’m not really attracted to pretty women face-to-face. Like this woman on YouTube is super hot:
Like if she grabbed me by the neck and started making out with me that would feel really hot (and I would probably close my eyes during this hypothetical making out session), but like I’m not attracted to pretty women that way, so if she wanted to do that she would kind of have to be the one to instigate it in this imaginary scenario. Like it’s not that it wouldn’t feel hot if it happened – I am just not attracted to women in that way, and it’s kind of awkward when they sort of almost want it or anticipate it or something and I am just like “it’s your move ♞”. Don’t worry – this doesn’t happen very often. Usually I meet a hot older woman who seems super cool and I want to be friends but then she leaves.
But yeah, I don’t actually have a desire to kiss women, except maybe the one who I am dating, and even then it’s sort of like a special expression of love or like within the context of dating or something like that. Like if I am dating someone and we go on a long walk and kiss after or at the very end that’s different. But in this situation she had no visible body to speak of (i.e. none of this stuff), I don’t remember how she smelled (this person who I was seeing before the Russia scandal broke naturally has this smell that makes me want to fuck), and like all I had in this situation was this pretty girl’s friendly smiling face in front of a chess board (which is all I need from a girl if the only thing she wants to do is play chess). I’m not attracted to women like as people, I am attracted to female (like the body, smell, etc). I also tend to like people who are kind of crazy bitches, but that is just me. Don’t worry – I think she is delightful – she just scares the crap out of other people.
I am homo-romantic (like towards men and chicks who are like men) and I am hetero-sexual (like towards physically female people). These are two separate things, so my orientation is “homoromantic heterosexual”.
First, how I know I am homo-romantic:
I love men.
When I am drunk I kind of want to make out with pretty boys, but nothing about male people can give me an erection. Like the attraction is more towards the person or their face/eyes, not towards their body. Also, alcohol kind of makes my “up top” attraction stronger and my “down bottom” attraction weaker, if that makes any sense. Straight male sexuality is mostly “down bottom” where as straight female sexuality is mostly “up top”. This sort of explains what I mean by that: https://youtu.be/Ip7kP_dd6LU?t=423 .
I have really long platonic relationships with guys. Like one pretty male friend I said “I love you” to on multiple occasions, went on sort of friend date walks on the beach with, and even asked once if we could make out (just out of curiosity). Like I used to have sort of friend relationships with guys.
I generally have no interest in kissing girls, and I don’t think a thought about making out with a girl has ever crossed my mind in my entire life, but one time a femme looking lesbian grabbed me by the neck and made out with me and it felt hot. To be honest, I kind of wished that straight girls did that instead of asking me shit like “Would you teach me how to make out?” Uhh… I don’t even know what to say to that, so I think the best response to that is no response. And yes, “Would you teach me how to make out?” is an actual sentence that an actual female person once directed at me.
I only date tomboys. It just doesn’t work with really effeminate women. It either feels like there are two women in the relationship or their incessant high pitched talking makes my dick smaller. I’m sexually attracted to female people, but I don’t like girls the way some guys like girls. Like when a teenager says “I like girls” or “I like guys”, they don’t mean what I mean when I say that I am heterosexual.
Second, how I know I am heterosexual:
I want to fuck chicks, for Christ’s sake.
I am un-attracted to women as people, though, so it generally doesn’t work out in real life. In real life it generally turns into a sort of friendship. I experience face-to-face un-attraction with women, and the attraction that I do feel is more physical and it is mostly butt oriented.
I only get that hot “electric” feeling that turns me on from touching female people, not from touching male people.
Gay porn is gross – 100% of my porn has female people who are getting fucked in it.
In college I tried experimenting with a guy and it didn’t work. The male gaze is an instant boner killer.
The person who I was dating before she got involved in this government conspiracy thing is kind of a hybrid. Like she has big, round, sparkly female eyes (especially when she is looking away or when you see her eyes from the side), and she is female bodied, and she has this smell that kind of makes me want to have sex with her, but she is like a dude. Like she writes three word texts and talks like a dude (sort of the opposite of how I talk) and in the past she sang male country vocals in the shower (while I tend to sing more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXw_gBlcNsM&t=348s ).
There’s like a gender balance. Also, like I mentioned before, she sort of disappeared during this crazy “government conspiracy” in which the FBI and Secret Service was involved. See:
p.s. I kind of wanted her back, but like these conspiracy people keep messing with me and she joined in. Also, she sort of intercepted me and left me her jacket. I don’t know what is going on.
p.p.s. For some reason I really love effeminate girly shit, like this: https://youtu.be/TlyrweRsILk . Why I am like this, I do not know, but unlike say Pete Buttigieg, I am not sexually attracted towards guys. To be honest, the only thing about Pete that even gives me that impression is his big round sparkly eyes. This might just be a coincidence, but I noticed these sort of eyes in masculine gay men. You can’t actually tell anything about whether a guy is sexually attracted towards males (like Pete is) or towards females (like I am) by the way they talk or by whether the way they dress is more masculine or more feminine.
The sexual identities of “gay” and “straight” are social constructs because different sexes have different standards for what these words mean. Males and females categorize themselves as “gay” or “straight” on a different set of subjective rather than objective or universal standards. Males tend to base their categorization on their more physical sexual orientation and females tend to base their categorization on their more mental romantic orientation. The “gay” and “straight” standards for males and females are very different, and this results in words that do not have broad or universally applicable meanings. These words are social constructs.
To prove this point for males, look at this couple: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/23/2020-spouses-presidential-candidates-1233092 . In the the United States a self-identified gay man, Pete Buttigieg, is running for President. He comes off as a straight man in terms of appearance. He has a masculine personality, he speaks in a masculine way, he served in the military, and he wears short hair and a clean shaven face. He identifies as “gay”, but he looks like a typical straight man.
That being said, his partner, Chasten is very visibly male (male physical form, suit and tie, etc) and I would assume that Pete is sexually attracted to Chasten. As I see it, Pete Buttigieg is homosexual because he is sexually attracted to males such as Chasten. That being said, when I look closely at the personality of his partner, Chasten comes off as more like a woman or as womanly in many ways, or at least to a greater extent than Pete does. His partner is a grade school teacher with more effeminate mannerisms and a more effeminate way of speaking. Me personally, I generally do not find effeminate mannerisms and an effeminate way of speaking attractive. My romantic partners tend to have masculine mannerisms and a masculine way of speaking. That being said, I am heterosexual and I am happy with physically female features. I am sexually attracted to that – the female sex – as well as things that I associate with the female sex. For example, I find a streak of the color purple to be attractive even though the color purple isn’t physically female because I associate the color purple with the female sex, but I still like it when my female partner has a more masculine personality (tomboyish, older woman, talks like a dude, offers for us to get drinks, etc).
I don’t know Pete or his partner personally, but perhaps Pete is a homo-sexual hetero-romantic if he loves those non-sexual female features (female mannerisms, way of talking, etc). Perhaps his partner, Chasten Buttigieg, is a homo-sexual homo-romantic because he is sexually attracted not only to the physical male body (suit and tie, male physical body, etc) but also to the masculine personality that Pete has (masculine personality, masculine way of talking, military service, etc).
Also, in terms of Pete and Chasten’s roles (who folds the laundry and who does some other typically male or female chores around the house), that is a separate thing. If I remember correctly, I think that Pete does more of the typically “womanly” chores in his household like folding the laundry. This might be more of a gender role than anything. I personally am not sexually or romantically attracted to gender roles like who folds clothes and who doesn’t fold clothes. But yeah, I would identify as a heterosexual homoromantic (or at least more homo-romantic than I am hetero-romantic) and when I see a couple of gay men where one of the men is feminine and the other is masculine, that makes me suspect that they are not both 100% homosexual and 100% homoromantic. This makes me suspect that perhaps one is slightly more heteroromantic than the other.
As I see it, these men (Pete and Chasten) both identify as “gay” because they are sexually attracted to males or things that they associate with the sex of male (say, a three piece suit and men’s dress shoes). The fact that one of them likes or loves the feminine characteristics in a partner doesn’t affect whether or not they identify as “gay” or “straight”. They identify as “gay” because they are physically, sexually attracted to men. That being said, let’s flip it and look at a lesbian couple and see what makes them identify as “gay”.
Imagine a couple of cis-sex, female, “lesbian” women. They are born female and wish to stay female. Now imagine that in this couple, one of them physically looks like a man with a suit, tie, and men’s dress shoes and the other looks like a woman with a curvy red dress, red lipstick, and makeup. Let’s say that both of these women identify as lesbians. That being said, one of those self-identified lesbians for some reason appears to have been sexually interested in males in some way. Let’s say it is the feminine looking one who was sexually interested in males. Let’s say that the feminine looking lesbian used to have no strings attached sex with men and enjoy it ( https://youtu.be/jtsqciPLwfU ). If a cis-sex male does this, he would probably self-identify as “gay”, but if a cis-sex female does this, she might also self-identify as “gay” or “lesbian” because she only enters into romantic relationships with women and she is only romantically attracted to women. This is a difference in the standards that cis-males and cis-females use with regards to their definition of “gay” and “straight” in terms of sexual identity. For example, the butch lesbian with the three piece suit and the men’s dress shoes might still have womanly personality characteristics that the femme lesbian finds attractive and desirable in a relationship partner. The femme lesbian (the one with the red dress and lipstick who dates butch lesbians) appears to identify as “lesbian” because of her romantic orientation, not because of what a cis-male might consider to be her sexual orientation.
I have seen this same phenomenon with an asexual woman who identified as “lesbian” because she entered into romantic relationships with other women. I would say that she is technically a homoromantic, asexual woman, not a “lesbian”. The category of “gay woman” or “lesbian” is subjective because cis females tend to put themselves in this category based on their romantic orientation (who they date or love or feel emotional attraction to) and cis males tend to put themselves in this category based on their sexual orientation (the sex that they are sexually attracted towards and physically aroused by).
Thus, the categories of “gay” and “straight” are not hard or universal. They vary based on the sex of who uses or identifies with these words. These words (“gay” and “straight”) are social constructs. These words should NEVER be used in a technical context (example: ) because technical terms should NEVER be subjective rather than objective. These words should NEVER be used in a scientific or technical context because these are not scientific or technical terms.
John Reed For President 
