Trans Men Get Treated Like Sex Objects, Too

Content warning: gender dysphoria, misgendering, and transphobia

Some cis straight men fetishize trans women, seeing them as sexual experiments rather than people. It’s disgusting and dehumanizing. We call these men “chasers.”

But there are also chasers who thirst after trans men and transmasc nonbinary people.

Nonbinary folks are neither “male” nor “female.” Transmasc people have a masculine gender identity, such as trans men and transmasc nonbinary people.

I'm a transmasc nonbinary person. On Grindr, a “dating” app mostly for gay and bi men, there are lots of men who want to hook up with transmasc people, especially if they look “feminine.”

It sucks when these men DM me, and then I see "preferences" like this on their profiles:

Femme guys

Effeminate sissy boys

NO FACIAL OR BODY HAIR

And the like. There were men who for some reason called me “girl” or “wifey”... One guy who messaged me, wrote in his bio: “I’m just here to talk to girls way out of my league.”

What?

Yet another guy DMed and told me he wanted someone with “girl energy” to suck him off…

Yikes! It felt awful to be misgendered again and again. But I had accepted that, according to conventional standards, I looked “feminine” compared to most cis men.

Yet, surprisingly, I got dumped by a Grindr friend, Ivan, when they realized that I look much more masculine in person than in my pictures. They said they were only into femme guys — men who have a feminine physical appearance.

Ivan was a nonbinary person who was assigned male at birth, going by he/they pronouns, and as far as I knew, had no body or social dysphoria, or any wish to change their name. They didn’t identify as trans on their profile, either.

My paranoid side thought he might have been a cis guy pretending to be a nonbinary person on Grindr, to deceive unknowing trans folks like me.

Believe it or not, I have heard such horror stories from trans friends: One trans male friend dated a cis guy. The cis guy told my friend he was trans, until he one day confessed that he was cis. He wanted to gain my friend’s romantic trust by pretending to be a fellow trans person…

In a different incident, some trans friends went to this women and trans-only event at a sex club. A couple of cishet guys went in, claiming to be trans men. But later they confessed that they were actually cis straight men.

These are rare incidents, but can you believe that some cis men would lie that they are trans, to get trans people to lower their guard sexually or romantically?

About my Grindr friend Ivan, I got the sense from what he told me, that he especially fancied transmasc people…And women. When he regrettably apologized to me for losing sexual interest, he said he was mostly into girls now anyway.

A part of me was relieved that I didn't get read as femme. But still, there was something about the whole affair that felt icky to me.

After I confided in a trans male friend about what happened, I realized that it was the indirect misgendering that I was reacting to.

It’s okay if a guy presents as femme and is happy to be seen as such. But it’s another thing if a transmasc person is read as “femme” just because he was assigned female at birth…I definitely prefer to be seen as masculine, not feminine, thank you very much.

It feels weird, because on the one hand, Ivan validated my identity. But on the other hand, they appeared to fancy transmasc folks in particular…Were they a chaser?

Indirect Misgendering

There were a few other folks on Grindr who made me feel a similar way.

One guy, Trevor, identified as straight. He was pretty fun to talk to, and we were both Chinese, so we bonded over our shared culture. He said he wanted to bang me, but he was shy and polite about it. I wasn't offended because I wouldn't expect otherwise if a guy DMed me on Grindr.

I know that a lot of straight-identified men hook up with men anyway, whether cis or trans. And Trevor seemed to respect my identity as well.

Still, thinking back, I couldn’t help but feel that, subconsciously, he saw me as a nice stepping stone to ease his way into having relationships with cis men…

For the next guy, let’s call him Cal. On the surface, he respected my identity and called me a man. When I corrected him and said I was nonbinary, he apologised. Yet, he also said weird things like: “my d needs your p,” “I’ll grab your tits and…”

While Cal didn’t demand that I shave my body hair, thank goodness, he oddly asked me whether I wore girl panties or boy panties. Um, I had no idea and said I just wore underwear. And later, when I planned to go to his place, he told me not to wear boxers.

Is it just me, or does he just want to have sex with a woman while calling them a man, as a kind of kink? It’s utter shit, because men like Cal play up “feminine” traits as desirable, and “masculine” traits as ugly and unattractive. So they would praise me and misgender me at the same time.

There was another guy, Ron, who went so far as to ask me how I looked pre-transition. Talk about rude! I got the sense that he wanted to have sex with a man and a woman simultaneously (embodied in a trans person). From some other things he said, he probably had some race kink too.

Do I Look Nicer Before Transition?

Speaking of pre-transition, when Ivan regretfully ditched me because I looked too masculine, I showed him my favorite pre-transition photos just for fun.

He said, “Wooow, you were really, really cute. You still are, but now it’s more handsome rather than feminine beauty.” And when I asked him if he would have been attracted to my pre-T self, he said yes.

He meant that in a kind way, I think. But it also felt a bit predatory, even if unintentionally.

Or was that just my perception? Did I internalise the belief that a masc-presenting person who thirsts after femme-presenting folks, must be heinous? (And yes, this would demonise all straight men.)

I’m trying to unpack this. Maybe there was nothing wrong or “predatory” about it. Perhaps I just had internalized fears. When I was "raised as a girl," my parents taught me to be afraid of (straight) men.

There seems to be this predator-prey dynamic, even though I know in real life, male-female couples aren’t necessarily like this.

Honestly, I feel guilty even typing this out. I have straight male friends who I sincerely love. But I do sometimes have a knee-jerk nervous reaction to masc folks who are only (or mostly) attracted to femme folks.

Still, we can’t help who we’re attracted to, right? Why demonize a sexual orientation? And people are so much more than their orientation!

But are all chasers men? Are there women who “chase” trans guys?

I’ve definitely heard of women who exclusively dated trans men, because they were scarred by cis men in the past. But later, they dumped the trans guy, because he was only a placeholder until the woman felt fine dating cis guys again.

I’ve also heard of stories where a woman would date a trans guy, to ease her transition to having sex with women.

Either way, that sounds horrible, using a trans guy as a placeholder until they felt safe to date cis men again, or using the trans guy as a bridge to sleeping with women…Is that internalised transphobia plus internalised homophobia?

It would be great if people, regardless of gender identity, could treat transmasc people like regular human beings to be loved, rather than as some sexual experiment, a bridge to gay sex, a placeholder before going back to cis men, or the like.

Over to you

Have you also heard of people fetishizing trans men and transmac nonbinary folks? What other thoughts do you have on this topic?

Do you love reading about LGBTQ+ experiences, art, culture, and psychology? Then consider signing up for my newsletter!

Originally published in Prism & Pen on June 12, 2023