Yeah, I like transsexuals, what are you gonna do about it

Here's a quiz: Take a look at the women at this table. Which one of them is a transsexual?

It's a trick question. The answer is all of them.

In my last post I mentioned that I belong to a transsexual-themed Yahoo group. That's not entirely accurate. I belong to several of them, a couple of TS pay sites (Bob's T-Girls and Brazilian Transsexuals) and have an assload of TS DVDs and videotapes.

Anyhow, I haven't really talked too much about this here, except to post an entry congratulating Vicki Richter on her win for "Transsexual Performer of the Year" at this year's AVN awards. So I decided to get into it a little bit, why I'm attracted to TS, how does that all play out. I'll also pepper this with some photos, just for fun (and just because I finally got a Flickr account, so I actually can now).

Actually," why" is a difficult question. I really can't answer "why" on any technical term, just as I can't explain my attraction to women or my sexual desire to sleep with men. I mean, with women there's the biological imperative to reproduce and while that explains it from an evolutionary standpoint, it does nothing to explain why it applies to me, but at least everyone understands it.

But obviously it's a little different with transsexuals. The explanations I've heard of this phenomenon have been far too simplistic and often simply wrong. The most common explanation is that men attracted to transsexuals are secretly gay, but in denial. This has some prima facie sense to it, but it's completely inaccurate. The problem here is that if you're truly gay, a person that is, in appearance, attitude and psychology, 90% or more woman is simply not a reasonable substitute for a man. Gender is defined by far more than just the genitals, and even though that's primarily how society, when pressed, has differentiated gender in the past. But gender shows elsewhere too, in the rest of the body, in the face, in the hands, and then in much deeper ways that are harder to define without generalizing past the point of absurdity. I always hate ascribing personality traits to men and women based solely on gender, because you invariably run into contradictions that undermine individuality. However, whether from societal gender-typing or from some unknown brain-biology, fine points of personality and attitude do differ in subtle to broad ways between men and women.

However, as a bi-sexual, I would seem to be living evidence that at least some homosexual inclinations are necessary for an attraction to transsexuals, right? Don't I undermine my own argument? Do people into transsexuals have to be bisexual? Well no, not in my experience. From talking with other guys (and women) that are into T-Girls, the bulk of them are straight. Well, straighter than me. Straight but with a kink.

Another explanation is that T-girls represent the "best of both worlds". Obviously this is an intentionally simplistic short-hand, but I still disagree with it. And the reason is that, well, I dig the va-jay-jay too. I'd be hard pressed to say that the absence of coochie represents an improvement. In other words, I meet an interesting, attractive, funny and smart girl, I don't find myself thinking "if only she had a cock."

No, instead I think to myself "This chick is out of my league. I hope she likes guys that can solve a Rubik's Cube."

So what is behind the attraction? Well, I can't speak for anyone else. Actually, technically I have been for this entire post, but I'm gonna stop now. Anyhow, here it is. I'm attracted to transsexuals as a third gender. Women, but not exactly women. The first time I saw one, she just looked right. Not "natural" in terms of what I was expecting, but like she was what I didn't know I had been looking for. Not as a replacement for women (or men), but as another gender, and a beautiful one at that.

Plus I'm always attracted to people who become what they want to be, despite not being born into or living within circumstances that makes that practical. And the physical gender you're born into is almost universally considered a given, it's hard to imagine a tougher circumstance to overcome. I mean, can you imagine looking at your body and accepting that it was entirely wrong? That the very flesh you were born into was a mistake?

Ah, but here's where I gotta break out some honesty. Here's the part where my sensitivity and my sexuality collide. I'm attracted to transsexuals, but specifically "pre-op" transsexuals. In other words, prior to their sexual reassignment surgery. I like the meat between the legs. I said earlier that gender wasn't defined by a single body part, but the truth is, without a penis, a transsexual doesn't excite me. Now, the same is true for breasts or other feminine features, but there is a certain visual element. I don't feel too bad about this, because men are supposed to look one way, women another, and transsexuals a third. Technically, I suppose, this makes me tri-sexual, but I don't see any reason to make up new words here.

And there's the problem. As much as I'd like to believe that I could have a normal romantic relationship with a transsexual, I often wonder if I could. So far, my experience with t-girls has been largely an objectified one. Luckily, a lot of the transsexual pornstars, most notably Vicki Richter, but also Danielle Foxx and Vaniity, have things like Yahoo groups and the like that allows them to keep in touch with their fans. You couldn't really say that you're friends with any of these women just because you've posted to their group or anything, but often the messages they write are pretty personal, so you can appreciate their personality (Vicki, in particular, has loads of personality, which is why she's so cool).