In the complex gendered world we live in, if you are a transsexual, transgendered person or a crossdresser chances are you have encountered an "admirer".
Admirer by definition is a male person who is attracted to one of us. As with
any label I know for a fact many men are embarrassed by it.
"Vallin" who follows the blog (and I seemingly run into all over the internet) is a man who speaks to the subject.
One of the longest running threads on "
Pink Essence" was started by a man who was attracted to transgendered women. Vallin's comments on the subject were classic and it was Vallin who sent me this site to take a look at.
"
Transpinay Rising" is a blog written by a Filipina transgendered activist and is called "On the Men Who Fancy Us."
Here are some highlights:
There are three persistent memes about men who fancy transwomen. First,
is the view of transwomen about the men who fancy them: “
These men are just using us to fulfill a sexual fantasy.” Second, the view of general society about these men: “
These men are perverts.” And third: “
These men are ‘really’ gay men who can’t accept they are gay.”
“These men are just using us to fulfill a sexual fantasy…”What is sexual fantasy? In their paper “
Sexual Fantasy”, Harold Leintenberg and Kris Henning defined sexual fantasy as “
almost any mental imagery that is sexually arousing or erotic to an individual.”
As sexual beings gifted with the faculty of imagination, we all have
sexual fantasies; and most of the time, fulfilling a sexual fantasy
includes another person. If we all have sexual fantasies, and if we all
fulfill some, if not all, of them with another person (or persons, if
you will), what then do transwomen find objectionable about the men who
fancy them, who transwomen say are “just” fulfilling a sexual fantasy?
In order to have a meaningful exploration of this question, we need to
know the context from which this view of transwomen comes.
Perhaps
it’s safe to say that in all parts of the world, we, transwomen didn’t
grow up in societies that positively accept us for who we are. In our
growing years, we transwomen experienced rejection from all social
institutions (e.g. the family, school, church) that are supposed to be
there to serve as nurturing and nourishing agents to the flourishing of
our beings. Furthermore the rejection that transwomen face is not just
the typical rejection that starts and ends with a No. Each door that
closes to us bears a sign: “
You should be ashamed of yourselves." We get so insecure of ourselves: our bodies, our abilities, our existence.
Everyone,
of course, has experienced what it means to be rejected. Indeed being
rejected can strengthen our fortitude. But if rejection is such a
recurring and persistent and systematic loop of events in your life,
healing becomes more difficult, leading you to easily build walls of
suspicion around yourself. This type of rejection is what deeply breeds
fear.
In this state of being rejected and shamed, cynicism
becomes an addictive escape. In the comforts of our solitude, our tears
carry the dolorous melody of the most mind-boggling question: “
Why?”
But deep inside our hearts is the ancient longing for the exquisite joy
and pain of loving and being loved by someone; however, the ghosts of
being rejected and shamed turn love into a Sisyphean task.
Then we encounter a surge of men who fancy us….
Suddenly, we are desired for “
what we are.”
Porn, dating sites, chat rooms, bars where men can go to meet us sprang
like mushrooms. Our hungry egos suddenly got its food: Attention. From
being untouchables, we become “desirables.” To be lavished with this
kind of attention provides such a great pull out of our “untouchable
status." Being rejected and shamed almost all of our lives, we find this
attention as an irresistible novelty in our lives, which is so
refreshing, so fascinating, so addicting, so ego-inflating! In the TS
women’s dating/hook-up scene, two terms are being used to describe these
men: Tranny Chaser and Tranny Admirer (My view about these terms will
be discussed later).
At first, we became so captivated by the
novelty of this attention: Remember how a gazillion of men replied the
first time you ever posted an ad on a dating site? How at least ten
private windows popped in your screen after you entered a chat room? How
men go gaga over the girls in those TS bars? And of course, we find it
intriguing that one of the fastest growing and in-demand genre of porn
is those that feature us (well, most specially those that feature pre-op
and non-op TS women).
But sooner or later, comes a rude
awakening. The attention becomes a tiring cycle, a suffocating prison, a
source of suspicion. And in our solitude, the whispers of our need for a
more meaningful relationship flutter from our depths to beat on the
palm of our reflection. We ask: “
What do these men want from us?”
We take a survey of what’s happening around us. We see BS after BS
thrown to us by men after men. We see everywhere an extravagant
objectification of our bodies and over-sexualization of our being
transgender. It seems that it is “only” through sex these men want to
connect with us, that every eye gazing at us just seeks to undress us
rather than dive into the depths of our being. Just how many men we've
encountered treated us like an exciting dirty secret that they are so
afraid to be discovered by their friends, family, colleagues, and, ehem,
wives?
And outside porn, are there any visual representations of
what it means to be with a transwoman? You can easily count the movies,
television shows, or documentaries that are charming, re-assuring,
love-affirming, non-sensationalizing, non-sexualized depiction of
relationships between a transwoman and a man. This context is such a
fertile ground for the paranoia that “
We are just sex objects.”
Now, add into this, the social-rejection burden that we carry on our
shoulders and Voila! we resort to playing the role of a victim who
escapes into the hell of cynicism, indulging in self-pity and, worse,
self-sabotage. We then unconsciously project this cynicism, self-pity,
and self-sabotage in every relationship that we enter into. It takes
tremendous depth of emotional intelligence, an integrated sense of
self-awareness, and courage to rise above this unconsciousness. It can
be such a tall order to transcend the pain that we carry, but it is
necessary if we want to invite serenity and stability to enter into our
lives and our relationships.
As you can read, she goes totally in depth and even I (with my short attention span) followed most of it.
My own simplified version is simple.
Initially as a transwoman we are
validated as females by male attention. (The same as most women.)
When we become
sex objects the situation changes. The majority of transwomen are not the kind of girl a guy brings home to Mom and the family. The romantic part of a relationship is out with most men.
But hey! The bottom line is that they are just men and in many ways we face the same obstacles with them as genetic women.
