Shaming men attracted to Trans Women...

[Michelle Firestone]

I think she should of also brought up the trans-women who shame the men attracted to us. It's not just society.

I seriously never understood that phenomenon. I don't understand why girls do that. It makes me sad.

[evoker8812]

I seriously never understood that phenomenon. I don't understand why girls do that. It makes me sad.

A lot of the women are projecting their own insecurities and cynicism towards society. Obviously the men who fetishize transgender women should be called out but guys who want legitimate relationships with them shouldn't be labeled as "chasers" and ridiculed by the same women who they're attracted to.

[MrsKellyPierce]

Yes, of course society shames men interested in transsexuals because they are ignorant...but ts women shame them too who aren't!

I just don't see how any ts girl calls a man interested in them a fag it's hypocritical. He is attracted to you so are you a FAG?

TS girls have issue if the guys desires another transsexual. If he has dated or slept with another transsexual many hate that too. They need to get over that..women have. It's so silly to me. Most likely if one hot transsexual is good enough another one will be too!

To me those are the transsexuals that need a man to fill their ego. They need that delusion to feel more feminine. That oh he only finds me attractive. I'm special and so on.

Heavenlysin and I were discussing this the other day at dinner. Transsexuals are just too hard on the men interested in us. We also discussed how men who date transsexuals will also be mentally abusive when they are feeling insecure and pick out your flaws on purpose to hurt you. So it's a double edged sword many times..both insecure where they are..so they disrespect one another to bring themselves up.

I just think the shaming needs to stop in general!

Well known tranny chasers are called fags a lot of times cause they had sex with so many and the tgirl feels burnt/used.

If a guy is a bottom he is called a fag by a trans-women.

The list goes on.

[rick_932]

I think she should of also brought up the trans-women who shame the men attracted to us. It's not just society.

i agree that many trans-women use a man's attraction to them to shame, blackball, and manipulate the man. That was my main issue with the whole Mr. C and bimbo winehouse situation. Bimbo clearly knew who he was and decided to put him on blast publicly, even after she got paid $100 for doing nothing.

@bluesoul

I think you missed the point with many of Janet's subjects. When she mentioned the stars who were caught taking pictures or rumored to have relationships with trans-women, she said that these stars had to state publicly that they weren't gay, even though many of these stars didn't know they were with a trans-woman. She never accused them of any wrong-doing. Her point is that many men feel they have to do this because society instantly labels them as gay because they were caught with a trans-woman and they have to defend their manhood. She's saying there's no other label for being attracted to a transsexual other than 'gay'.

You also respond to another one of her points with "haven't we established that a majority of transsexual women live quiet lives and don't want to be "outed" or "in the spotlight" as transsexuals? so perhaps one can assume the men who are dating these women are living quiet lives too."

The point she's making regards openly transsexuals in an open relationship, not secret. Here's her quote: "It is rare for an openly trans woman – no matter how “passable” or attractive she is – to have a man who openly loves her". You can have an open relationship with a transsexual and still live a quiet life.

[MDinMD]

Yes, I read this earlier today. It's very unfortunate - I certainly keep my desires for transwomen under cover - not because there's something wrong with it, but because much of society acts as though there is. Oh, anybody who knows me personally is likely to know - but at work, nobody does. I'm not going to launch a jeremiad about my profession (I'm a physician), but the medical community is very conservative, even in the not-all-that conservative area where I live.

[dderek123]

Sidney Starr lied about the Chingy thing? SMDH

Kelly you are awesome.

[bluesoul]

@bluesoul

I think you missed the point with many of Janet's subjects. When she mentioned the stars who were caught taking pictures or rumored to have relationships with trans-women, she said that these stars had to state publicly that they weren't gay, even though many of these stars didn't know they were with a trans-woman. She never accused them of any wrong-doing.

that doesn't make any sense. if they didn't know they were with trans-women, who did they think they were with? and why state your not gay if you don't know someone is trans? does that then mean they thought the person they were taking a picture with was gay?

also i don't get your second part in regards to "living openly trans but a quiet life"

[tsmirandameadows]

Yes, of course society shames men interested in transsexuals because they are ignorant...but ts women shame them too who aren't!

I just don't see how any ts girl calls a man interested in them a fag it's hypocritical. He is attracted to you so are you a FAG?

TS girls have issue if the guys desires another transsexual. If he has dated or slept with another transsexual many hate that too. They need to get over that..women have. It's so silly to me. Most likely if one hot transsexual is good enough another one will be too!

To me those are the transsexuals that need a man to fill their ego. They need that delusion to feel more feminine. That oh he only finds me attractive. I'm special and so on.

Heavenlysin and I were discussing this the other day at dinner. Transsexuals are just too hard on the men interested in us. We also discussed how men who date transsexuals will also be mentally abusive when they are feeling insecure and pick out your flaws on purpose to hurt you. So it's a double edged sword many times..both insecure where they are..so they disrespect one another to bring themselves up.

I just think the shaming needs to stop in general!

Well known tranny chasers are called fags a lot of times cause they had sex with so many and the tgirl feels burnt/used.

If a guy is a bottom he is called a fag by a trans-women.

The list goes on.

I think it's probably a function of how heavy your rucksack is when you're trans. The insecurity, the self-loathing, the body image problems; the list goes on and those are just the things trans girls will inflict upon themselves without even considering what is inflicted upon them by others. The end result in so many cases is that you cannot possibly accept that a man is legitimately attracted to you for your femininity, and thus I would imagine that many tgirls feel they have to demean their boyfriend's attraction to them in the same way that they demean themselves.

I fortunately do not have that problem, demeaning the men who are attracted to me, but I have found that I have become far too dependent upon the presence of in-person male attraction to maintain my emotional stabiity. I have a guy friend who, while not official, I spend a fair amount of time with. When I'm with him, I feel validated as a woman, and while my major source of insecurity never quite goes away, it fades far enough into the background that I can feel happy and enjoy my time with him. Yet, when I am away from him, or even just away from a random male hookup, for any length of time, I lose control of my emotions, as if male attention provides a bulwark against my insecurity, and without constant male attention I am washed away by the tide of my own self-hatred. This is not a good position to be in because I cannot be around sexually interested men 24/7, and allowing myself to slip into a state where I feel like I need that attention 24/7 is likely only to lead to some incredibly risky behaviors.

I suppose being trans is just this incredibly complicated balancing act, where no matter where you are in your sense of being female, the mere fact that you are trans in a society that makes no room for being transgendered forces you to stay in a constant state of readjustment and recalibration, as if balancing on a highwire, otherwise you simply lose the ability to continue to bear that rucksack on the long road march through life.

[tsmirandameadows]

that doesn't make any sense. if they didn't know they were with trans-women, who did they think they were with? and why state your not gay if you don't know someone is trans? does that then mean they thought the person they were taking a picture with was gay?

also i don't get your second part in regards to "living openly trans but a quiet life"

Sure it does. Random star is photographed with a fan that he doesn't know is trans. Gossip blogs reveal that said fan was trans and begin insinuating that if random male star is willing to be photographed with trannies, even unknowningly, then there must be something "not straight" with his sexuality. Random male star then has to publicly come out and defend his heterosexuality, generally making comments to the effect that he would never do a "dude in a dress" and simply didn't know that the fan in question was trans, otherwise he wouldn't have agreed to be photographed with "him".

[Odelay]

Michelle and Miranda, thanks for sharing your perspectives. It occurs to me that you're part of a - for lack of a better term - new generation of t-girls. And I'm picking up a different vibe from many of the newer t-girls, i.e. less shaming of the guys who are attracted to them, less self-loathing, more positive outlook on their future as trans-women. The article speaks a current truth, but I wonder if things aren't starting to gradually change for the better.

I love the "it gets better" campaign for GLBT youth. And even beyond just the GLBT population, the anti-bullying campaign is starting to pay dividends. Frat boys who do and say stupid things are being laughed at on the internet. Okay, I see that as a form of electronic bullying, too, but in many cases these dolts deserve it. And it's turned the term bully into a very negative thing that is no longer macho in any way.

Perhaps after anti-bullying comes anti-shaming. I hope so.