I’m not clear on the “gender-queer” + attracted to men description. Is she a simply a tomboyish, dykish looking heterosexual woman or is there more to it? Hetero men, including myself, can be attracted to a huge variety of women and women really don’t really need to hugely doll themselves up these days to get action. If a guy thinks a woman will be nice to them or is receptive to overtures she can get a boyfriend as long as her interpersonal social behavior is not incredibly off putting or obnoxious.
Is dressing “like a man” innately necessary to some aspect of her sexual identity or could she keep the jeans and maybe ditch the work shirt and oxfords for a more feminine top and sleeker shoes? If it’s a size issue that easily solvable as there are lots of places to get larger women’s shoes that are still sexy.
If she wants a heterosexual boyfriend and she’s not innately all that attractive she’s probably going to have to be willing to fem it just a little bit to get some interest and action. Is she willing to do this?
Totally my kinda girl, or would be if she were in her 50s and stuff. She needs a malebodied girlish person. Sorry, we don’t have a really visible social identity yet (I’m working on that). But such people are out there and they’d like to meet her, trust me on this.
Our mother (her grandmother) died several years ago and left a house that when sold will leave us with a ton of money. When her mom, my sister, gets hers, they are planning on moving to a better location (one with public transportation), but this will be years away.
She is actually able to care for herself, she just can’t do anything financial. I see about the group home thing. We just don’t want her stuck in a situation where her self esteem is going to get worse (people who work with the disabled tend to treat them like children, mostly unintentionally).
It would be like telling a man to wear a dress. She tried dressing more femininely several years ago and you could tell she was comfortable. Her mom told me they tried to put her in a dress once and it was like bathing a cat. She really identifies as both genders, predominantly male though.
If she wants serious male sexual interest from submissive leaning heterosexual men who are attracted to large, mannish women one source for this attention would be men who fantasize being handled and dominated by very tall and large women. There are numerous online fetish groups that focus on this lifestyle, and oddly enough in googling these up most of these don’t involve overtly sexual scenarios. It’s more of a lifestyle thing with men being loomed over and bossed around. If she’s willing to engage the “play” aspect of this without comprising her gender ethics I would imagine she would get all the action she desires. Getting these men to come to her locally if she is in a remote area might be another issue.
I feel bad suggesting this, but since you’re hearing this issue second hand is it at all possible she is attracted to women but isn’t ready or comfortable coming out to her mom yet so she has not been truthful?
If she really identifies as male predominately and dresses and appears to be male, but is attracted to hetero males, that is basically an impossible situation.
There are tons of guys attracted to tom-boyish women, but actually identifying as male probably takes it too far.
That’s kind of the part I don’t get. What the OP is effectively describing is an out, very masculine lesbian who wants … penis from girly men. Having sex with a receptive dykish woman might actually be kind of intriguing for a number of men but having a productive emotional relationship afterwards might be tough. Unless she’s willing to leave her rural home and play in a much bigger demographic it’s not likely to come to her doorstep.
What are some positive qualities besides being “smart”? How does her intelligence manifest?
Obviously she has some major issues that are going to make finding someone she is interested in, who is also interested in her difficult, but putting those aside for a moment, what will her ideal partner see in her? Is she loyal, honest, caring? Funny, thoughtful, reliable? Insightful? Empathetic? Her disabilities are not a reason to date her, and for the right person for her, they won’t be a reason not to.
Her lack of social experience may be a better starting point than trying to find a romantic partner just yet. If her therapist is at a loss as to how to help her find friends, maybe try a different therapist. She has interests. She has a job. You haven’t mentioned her being a jerk, but even jerks usually have friends. She may need help finding them, but there are surely friends out there for her.
She is like a walking encyclopedia on animals, medical issues and history. She has an EMT liscense, but can’t do the job due to her limitations. She did excellent on the written parts, but had issues with the multiple step physical tasks and the heavy lifting. She is a really good listener and does not interrupt or monologue. Sh is very loyal to the people who give her a chance and look past her issues, which is a very rare thing. Most people, around here that is, when they learn about her problems will write her off has being “stupid” or “challenged” and not want anything to do with her.
Part of the problem is her interests aren’t those of the general population of this area. She is into history, science, medical things and the webcomic Girl Genius. Most of her friends have left for college/the military (the only guy she remotely clicked with, who turned out to be Bisexual, is on an aircraft carrier outside of Japan right now), and since as of right now college is not working out (it may next year, she holds out hope) she is having trouble finding people with similar interests. She is the type to take a bullet for someone, she is really lonely and can’t find anyone to even try and listen to her. She has a mild speech issue (brain moves faster then the tongue) and people take that to mean she is “retarded” and should be ignored. I know I’m rambling, but it is so hard for her right now. All the other people her age in the family have already started careers, paired up and most have had children (she doesn’t want kids). So she gets Christmas cards from other relatives showing them with their SOs and that makes her feel worse. My sister and her husband are emotionally distant people, as my sister’s illness got worse she drifted farther away from her daughter. I can’t tell her to just stop thinking about it. Her main outlet (besides volunteering) is writing Girl Genius slash fiction, mainly between Maxim and either Dimo or Oggie. Just reading one of her stories, you can tell she is in pain.
Not to pry, but assuming she’s sharing her situation with you, has she actually ever had any kind of intimate physical contact with a man including intercourse? I get that you say she “presents as a man” but writing slash fan fiction (and yes I know there are some male slash writers) is an overwhelmingly female (including gay female) thing to do. Plus in this scenario you’d think “presents as a man, dress as a man, want’s girly men” would go hand in hand with a kind of dominant, take charge attitude, but (per your descriptions) she seems kind of passive and sad. Other than her dress preferences nothing you’re described about her lifestyle behavior seems particularly cis-gendered male. She seems to be an almost dead on stereotypical (dogs, EMT job, male dress, slash fic) lesbian.
We can’t get everything we want in life and she has a big market basket of unusual and exacting specifics that are going to be hard to find. If someone told me that the only way I would get female action was to put on glitter stockings and wear curly toed genie shoes I’d be shopping for a pair of them in men’s size 13 the next day.
If she’s a biological woman who identifies genderwise as a man, but who wants male sexual interest in her she’s going to have “take charge and man-up” and to make some calculated and strategic compromises in her dress choices.
If she’s never had sex with a man and this exists strictly as a hypothetical attraction she might want to consider also investigating a relationship with women as this seems to be (based on your contextual description) the way 90% her other behavior is oriented.
The thing that is breaking my heart here is her not having access to public transportation. I don’t have a car, and it doesn’t hurt me at all because I can take public transportation to any corner of this city with no problems. If I didn’t have that, I don’t know how I would maintain friendships, interests and a full life. She needs that, more than anything.
This reminds me of when a teenage friend of mine, in a small Muslim village in West Africa, confessed she was a lesbian. She had tried everything-- Imams, priests, witch doctors, the works, but she couldn’t change her orietntation. In a conservative place where she faced very real pressure to marry and have children before she hit 18, she was just despondent. I didn’t have any advice for her, except that she had to find some way to make it to a larger city, were she could find a community for herself. It wasn’t great advice, but there weren’t really any good alternatives.
Is there any, any way she could get to a better place? There are disability-positive communities, and disability-positive workplaces-- places where a young, hip disabled person could find a real community. There are places where nobody bats an eye at unusual genders. There are people like her out there, friends for her to have. But she has to get there somehow. Life in the city can be harsh and trying at times, but surely it’s worth a shot.
She has never shown interest in women. When she first started asking me for help, I offered to introduce her to my lesbian friends. She told me she has never had feelings towards women. Says she feels like a “gay man trapped in a woman’s body”.
Then she’s going to have to accept the fact that she may not get to dress the way she prefers 100% of the time if she wants a man. Tall women can easily get men. Some men strongly prefer big, tall women (my ex is 6’1" my daughter is 5’11’’ so I am not speaking theoretically) her chances to get the kind of male attention she wants will go up 1000% if she can fem and glam it up a little. I’m not talking about wearing high heels, a sundress or a push up bra, but rather some women’s cut jeans to emphasize waist/hip ratio, some colorful flats, a top that shows that what curves she has. If she is not willing to make some degree of strategic adjustment along these lines to achieve her goal of getting males attracted to her that’s a decision she’s making and not something her circumstances can be blamed for.
Astro, you mean well, but it just doesn’t work like that.
I don’t know what it is, but for many people, gender identity is encoded very deep in the brain, and is all tangled up with a person’s very sense of identity and personhood. Maybe you aren’t like this, so it doesn’t feel like a big deal to you (or, alternatively, your gender “fits,” and you can’t imagine what it’s like for it not to fit.) The trans people I know have expressed a range of emotions from their biological gender, from mere annoyance to actual disgust. Being in the wrong identity feels alien and bizarre, as do the countless small references to your gender that people make in an average day. It’s like having to wear an ugly, unwanted, bizarre mask in front of everyone-- and you are the only person you know who has to go through this humiliating trial. Like that, you are never at ease, you are never fully yourself, and you never really feel like you belong or are normal. Even worse, that feeling, over the course of years, starts to wear at your own sense of self, leading to even more emotional difficulties.
It’s not an easy thing to deal with, and putting on a costume isn’t a workable fix.
I’m not saying it’s a “fix”, there is no fix in this somewhat awkward scenario. It’s a way to get something you want. If I was strongly attracted to a woman and she only dated men who wore capri pants and thong sandals I would be in that clothing and living it. Her unusual wants are very difficult to achieve in real world terms so the choice is to mope and be sad or play dress up for limited periods of time. If even minor levels of dress up tweaking to get some play is going to nuke her identity into the ground then we are in an endless circle of frustration and failure.
If I want a wary animal for dinner and I refuse to wear camo because it makes me feel “wrong” then I am making a decision to go hungry. It’s a perfectly valid decision, but it’s a decision. If people want something badly enough they compromise.
Can she go live with her uncle? Not forever, obviously, but for some defined period of time? It might give her the opportunity to move out of a toxic environment and develop some plans toward independence.
I think your niece would be better off focusing on making friends right now rather than finding a boyfriend. In her current environment this will probably be easier, and I’m concerned that her situation would put way too much pressure on any new romantic relationship. If she found a boyfriend he’d be essentially her entire social life, and it sounds like they wouldn’t even be able to see each other unless he did all the driving. That’s a lot to ask of someone, and frankly I’d be concerned that the sort of guy willing to jump into this kind of romantic situation with a woman he hasn’t known long would have to be some kind of psycho control freak.