What’s Behind Transsexual Attraction?

Knowledge beats unreasoning fear!

A trans woman wants to know what kind of men watch "T-girl" porn. Are they the same ones who bash her in real life?

October 23, 2011

Salon / By Tracy Clark-Flory

This story originally appeared at Salon. 

I’m gender queer and was told by a friend that the porn shop she worked in carried a wide selection of magazines and films catering to an interest in trans women. That sort of implies it’s popular enough to support that much material on it — which is really interesting when you think of the way many straight males react to any other “male” behaving in a “female” way. I really wouldn’t be surprised to find out the guys who try to bash me are secretly turned on by my existence — although, I’d prefer they just send flowers or something. Is this becoming a more common attraction?

Seriously, FTD.com! It isn’t that hard. Sure, flowers cost more and won’t last as long as self-hatred, but that’s a good thing.

Back to your question, though: I assume you’re talking about transsexual women who haven’t fully transitioned, since that’s the most popular type of gender queer porn. For uninitiated readers, that means people born with male bodies but who identify as female and have not had full sexual reassignment surgery, although breast implants are common. In the ever tasteful and humanizing world of porn, they are referred to as “she-males,” “chicks with dicks” or “lady boys.” In similar fashion, men who are attracted to trans women are colloquially called “tranny chasers” or “transfans” — sometimes affectionately, sometimes not. The technical, although still controversial, term for such attractions is gynandromorphophilia (the correct pronunciation of which is equivalent to stuffing your mouth with food and saying damn near anything).  

With that vocabulary lesson out of the way, we can move on to just how many men have these attractions, READ MORE