[UUPoly-L] gay, straight or bi

[Joani Blank <joani@swansway.com>]

Azora is right to pull this question apart in this manner.
> self-definition, attraction, or behavior?

In order to really know about a person's sexual orientation one has 
to know (or be able to answer for the self) FOR TODAY, the following questions:

Is the person a man a woman?  (a note about transgender folk at the bottom)

Is he/she attracted to men or women or both?
Does he/she have sex with men or women or both?
Does he/she self identify as gay/lesbian, heterosexual or bi-sexual?

Then other dimensions have to be added.  For those who answer "both" 
to the first two questions,are they attracted equally, or if not in 
what proportions, to men and women.  And do they have more or less 
the same amount of sexual activity (or if not in what proportions) 
with men and women?

Then there's the time dimension that applies to everyone.  Is the 
person talking about today, "these days, " for the past X weeks, 
months or years, all his or her life, all his or her adult life so 
far?  How about what he or she thinks he/she would like moving into 
the future.  Then there is the question of how out a man or woman who 
is anything other than heterosexual, might be, on each of the three 
questions, and to whom, adding yet another dimension.

Here's my way for looking at the orientation of trans people. I start 
by finding out whether the person (during the time period being 
considered...see previous paragraph) thinks of him/herself or 
identifies as a man or woman.

From there on, I'd want to know the answers to the other questions 
from whichever gender he/she/claims.  So if an MTF trans person 
describes him/herself as a woman or a transwoman who is attracted 
exclusively to women or other transwomen, and only has sex with women 
or other transwoman, I'd say she is a lesbian. However, if she wants 
to identify (last question) another way, I'd respect her choice, 
though I might have a hard time understanding it.

How did I do? Who or what did I miss?  And does all this really 
matter? Well, it matters a great deal to some people, not at all to others.

Joani

Joani Blank
land line : 510-834-7399 (preferred)
cell: 510-387-1315