---
date: 2020-01-15
weight: 6
---

> So, tell me about Michael in a second, but tell me why you knew that was coming.

Why should I? We both know.

> Because it's important that you be able to contextualize this discussion.

It was the order of your questions. It was the way you came at things so circuitously. It was the way you asked about the local furry scene specifically without mentioning him. It's the way you nudged me about Shannon before bringing him up.

> Was that uncouth?

A little. Ask about relationships as relating to a woman, then ask me about when I started dating a trans man. Are you my internalized transphobia?

> Not my department. You hate yourself far more than this conversation entails.

Of course.

> Still, the answer is no. I do not ask about him out of some weird sense of transphobia, so much as because, with Shannon, you mentioned being very, very gay, and yet your relationship with Michael was still sexual.

So?

> There is an aspect of biology here that needs mentioning.

Or at least talking around in circles.

> No, mentioning. You went into your relationship with him gay to the point of describing your aversion to vaginas, and you came out of it solidly bi despite him being a man.

Point.

> Yes.

Our relationship was indeed sexual. It didn't involve PiV sex until it was no longer a romantic relationship, but there's no denying the that aspect of it. There's no denying the attraction, even if at the time, I chalked it up to him being transmasculine.

> Was there perhaps some aspect of **doppelwunsch** to it? Some bit of "I don't know whether I want to be with him or be him"?

If so, it was only the tiniest shadow of a prelude. We dated when I was seventeen and eighteen. I didn't really do the whole *gosh, maybe I'm trans* thing until I was in my mid twenties.

> Hindsight is 20/20.

I hate that phrase.

> 2016: "I think "hindsight is twenty-twenty" is better reserved for cases
when seemingly unrelated occurrences come together to form an outcome
that seems to be greater than the sum of the parts. It fits best when
you look back at your life and see disparate, unconnected events come
together to make the situation you find yourself in now."

You throw my words back at me?

> Yes.

Fine. Yes. Perhaps there was some aspect of *doppelwunsch* to our relationship. Still, that does not take away from the fact that suddenly, sexuality became far more complex for me. Suddenly, there was attraction to someone who wasn't simply another gay furry on the internet.

> It opened you up. "Ah," you thought. "Perhaps the reason sex doesn't work so well with guys is maybe I'm more into women."

That's putting it quite glibly, but perhaps in a way, yes.

> So you dated Kayla.

Yes. We even had sex a few times.

> And were you more into women?

I don't know. I think that's the point at which it stopped mattering. That's the point I started calling myself pan. That's the point I stopped keeping track.

> Because nothing was working.

Yeah.
