Attraction to transgender people

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Attraction to transgender people is an enduring pattern of experiencing sexual or romantic[citation needed] feelings for transgender persons. Attraction to transgender people can be toward trans men, trans women, or both. The phenomenon has numerous formal and informal names. This attraction can be a person's occasional, preferred, primary, or exclusive interest.

Contents

Social aspects [edit]

People attracted to transgender people can identify as either heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or with none of those categories. Terms for people attracted to transgender people include admirer, transfan, tranny chaser, trans* catcher, trans* erotic, transsensual and tranny hawk.[1] the term tranny chaser was originally (and still predominantly) used to describe men sexually interested in pre-operative trans women, but it is now being used by some trans men as well.

Many members of the transgender community (particularly in the MTF population) use "tranny chaser" in a pejorative sense, because they consider it a fetish-like attraction to the penis of a pre-operative or non-operative trans woman MTF or to the vagina of a pre- or non-operative trans man.[citation needed]. In True Selves[2] Brown and Rounsley suggested that tranny chasing men may be homosexual men in denial. The term tranny (or trannie) is itself considered a slur in many circles.[3][4]

In "Diary of a Drag Queen" Daniel Harris describes four types of men interested in him while he was cross-dressed: heterosexual men who wanted the presumed superior oral services of another male, homosexuals who were only interested in his genitals, other cross dressers, and men who were intrigued by the mixture of masculinity and femininity he represented. Relatively little has been written about the sexual preference for feminized men. When describing what makes them feel sexually attracted, different people refer to different aspects. One aspect of the appeal has been reported to be their exoticism. Also, "they are often both hyperfeminine in appearance and sexual aggressive".[5] There is a tendency for gynandromorphophilic men to describe being attracted to individual people who are transgender rather than to transgender people overall. Other tendencies are reported description of being attracted to what transgendered women represent (a challenge to the traditional male/female dichotomy) and the explicit focus on the transgendered body and appearance: "I like women with dicks. I like tits and I like dicks....Something erotic about getting fucked by someone who is a woman."[6]

According to Helen Boyd, "Tranny chasers are the big bugaboo in the crossdressing community, because their very existence suggests that crossdressers are not all as straight as they claim to be. Chasers are willing to give crossdressed men the kind of attention they desire, and that attention (a drink, a compliment) validates the crossdresser's experience, and completes the fantasy of feeling like a woman."[7] According to Jeffrey Escoffier of the Centre for Gay and Lesbian Studies of CUNY, sexual interest in male-to-female transsexuals first emerged in 1953, associated with the then famous transition of Christine Jorgensen.[5] It was after expressing transsexualism via surgery became more feasible over the 1960s that sexual orientation came to be re-conceptualized as distinct from gender identity and cross-dressing. In a survey of men who engage in sex with male-to-female transsexuals, 73% identified their sexual identity as straight or bisexual.[6] It is because gynandromorphophiles can identify with any of those terms, HIV prevention efforts and research ought not overly depend on those identities.

Erotic materials created for people attracted to trans men have become more visible in recent years, largely due to pornographic actor Buck Angel.[8] The FTM author Jamison Green has written that cisgender gay men can and often do enjoy sexual relations with trans men, even if their trans man partners don't have a penis. Green writes, "Plenty of penis-less transmen manage to engage in sex with penis-equipped gay men...and these non-trans partners are often surprised to find that a penis is not what defines a man, that the lack of a penis does not mean a lack of masculinity, manliness, or male sexuality."[9] Some non-trans gay men are sexually attracted to "female" body parts such as the vagina and vulva, so long as they are on a trans man. For example, the transsexual porn star Buck Angel has stated that the majority of his customer base are gay men.[10][11] Many of his gay male fans have expressed their sexual attraction to what Buck Angel calls "mangina."

Academic research [edit]

Sexologists have created numerous terms for preferential attraction to transgender people. The attraction can be to people who have not undergone any physical transition,[12] or to people who have.[13]

Some academics characterize attraction to transgender people as a medical diagnosis to be managed[14] or a type of paraphilia.[15] Researchers John Money and Malgorzata Lamacz proposed the term gynemimetophilia to refer to the sexual preference for male-assigned people who look or act like women, including crossdressed men.[16] It can also refer to an attraction to trans women. A related term is gynemimesis, which refers to a homosexual male who engages in female impersonation without sex reassignment.[15] The terms were used by Money for classification purposes in his gender-transposition theory.[17] Researchers Ray Blanchard and Peter Collins proposed the term gynandromorphophilia.[18] They state that gynandromorphophilia, along with autogynephilia, has been noted to be important considerations in the assessment of Gender Identity Disorder.[19] Gynandromorphophilia has been compared to acrotomophilia, the sexual preference for people who are amputees.[20] Martin S. Weinberg and Colin J. Williams have proposed the term Men sexually interested in transwomen (MSTW) to describe the phenomenon among men.[21]

Andromimetophilia is sexual attraction to female-assigned people who look, act like men, or are men; including butch women or trans men.[12]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Baker, Paul (2004). Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang. Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-8264-7343-1
  2. ^ Brown, Mildred L.; Chloe Ann Rounsley (1996). True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism – For Families, Friends, Co-workers, and Helping Professionals. Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0-7879-6702-4.
  3. ^ Staff report (4 January 2010). Paper guilty of transsexual slur. BBC News
  4. ^ Lennard, Natasha (April 7, 2010). Transgender Film Draws Protests at Festival Site. New York Times
  5. ^ a b Escoffier, J. (2011). Imagining the she/male: Pornography and the transsexualization of the heterosexual male. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 12, 268–281.
  6. ^ a b Operario, D., Burton, J., Underhill, K., & Sevelius, J. (2008). Men who have sex with transgender women: Challenges to category-based HIV prevention. AIDS and Behavior, 12 18-26.
  7. ^ Helen Boyd, My husband Betty: love, sex, and life with a crossdresser, p. 248, Seal Press, 2003, ISBN 1-56025-515-3
  8. ^ Richardson, Niall (2010). Transgressive Bodies: Representations in Film and Popular Culture. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 9780754676225
  9. ^ Green, Jamison (2004). Becoming a Visible Man. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. p. 121. ISBN 0-826-51456-1. 
  10. ^ "The Many Sides of Buck Angel". GayCalgary. Retrieved 2012-10-03. 
  11. ^ Elledge, Jim (2010). Queers in American Popular Culture. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 245. ISBN 978-0-313-35457-1. Retrieved October 3, 2012. 
  12. ^ a b Corsini, Raymond J. (2002). The Dictionary of Psychology. Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge. p. p. 48. ISBN 1-58391-328-9. OCLC 48932974. 
  13. ^ Flora, Rudy (2001). How to Work with Sex Offenders: A Handbook for Criminal Justice, Human Service, and Mental Health Professionals. New York: Haworth Clinical Practice Press. p. p. 90. ISBN 0-7890-1499-8. OCLC 45668958. 
  14. ^ Barrett, James (2007). Transsexual and Other Disorders of Gender Identity: A Practical Guide to Management. Radcliffe Publishing, ISBN 9781857757194
  15. ^ a b Richard Laws, D; O'Donohue, William T (2008-01-07). Sexual Deviance, Second Edition: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment. ISBN 9781593856052. 
  16. ^ Money, J. (1984). Paraphilias: Phenomenology and classification. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 38, 164-78.
  17. ^ John Money, Gender-transposition theory and homosexual genesis, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, Volume 10, Issue 2 Summer 1984 , pages 75 - 82
  18. ^ Blanchard, R., & Collins, P. I. (1993). Men with sexual interest in transvestites, transsexuals, and she-males. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 181, 570–575.
  19. ^ Kórász K, Simon L. (2008). Diagnosis and differential diagnostic features of gender identity disorder. Psychiatr Hung, 23(3), 196-205.
  20. ^ Smith, R. C. (2004). Amputee identity disorder and related paraphilias. Psychiatry, 3(8), 27-30.
  21. ^ Weinberg, M. S.; Williams, C. J. (2010). "Men Sexually Interested in Transwomen (MSTW): Gendered Embodiment and the Construction of Sexual Desire". Journal of Sex Research 47 (4): 374–383. doi:10.1080/00224490903050568. PMID 19544216.  edit

Further reading [edit]

  • Tracie O'Keefe, Katrina Fox, eds., Trans people in love, Routledge, 2008, ISBN 0-7890-3572-3
See also
Gender and sexual identities
Gender identities
Other
See also
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