Strange encounter

By way of introduction, I believe I have mentioned in the past that I have a small part time gig selling flowers in clubs and bars on weekends and on the holidays. Its my own little biz, I get the flowers from a wholesaler, and average roughly $100/week for 4 hours work on Friday and Saturday nights. As a good will gesture (which reaps vast benefits, BTW), I give the staff and owners of the places on my route free flowers for the holidays.

So, late this afternoon, I went around my route and gave out flowers to the owners and managers of the establishments that let me do business with their customers. Well, the last stop I made, the bar owner was there in a congenial mood, and we got to talking and he bought me 3 drinks. I was feeling a little tipsy and realized I'd better eat something and sit at the bar for a while or risk a DUI, so I ordered some pizza and as I was eating it, a person of indistinct gender entered the bar and sat down one bar stool away from me.

This person had obviously been celebrating Easter all day long and was in a very loquacious mood. I had the worst time figuring out if s/he was a woman or a man, but over the course of a about an hour "he" gradually told me "his" story. He said that he had been born a woman and actually had been married and had a child when he had had to let his true male self out and get hormone shots. This part of the story rang true to me, because he was the most effeminate looking man I'd ever seen except for a wispy trace of beard on his chin.

He told me that he preferred to be referred to by the male gender because this is what he felt he was meant to be, and only a cruel mistake of nature had caused him to be born outwardly a woman. Thank God for modern medicine, right? But then he went on to say that he was NOT a lesbian, but was attracted to men, and had a male lover at the moment.

I've been trying to wrap my mind around this one every since. I have no prejudice toward either gays or lesbians and have had friends of both flavors. I couldn't care less as long as they understand that I am irredeemably straight, don't even bother trying and embarrassing us both.

But why on earth would a woman turn herself into a man in order to have a gay male lover? Life is complicated enough without being a female homosexual. We tend to be a bit backward sometimes in Colorado, so am I just hopelessly out of it, or does it strike anyone else as bizarre as it does me?