Tranny chasers love trans women, but trans women are not always so enthusiastic in return. This odd match-up sent me down the tranny chasing rabbit hole…
What is a Tranny Chaser?
The term tranny chaser refers to men (who typically identify as “straight”), who are sexually attracted to pre or non-op transexuals, usually MtF. It generally carries a negative connotation because of the fetishizing of “chicks with dicks”, and the objectification that often goes hand in hand with what is considered tranny chasing.
What’s the Problem?
In an excellent opinion piece I dug up in the archives over at Feministe.us, the writer suggests that tranny chasers “tend to conflate all the transsexuals they meet either with the trannies they’ve already fucked or with an amalgamate everytrannytarget cobbled together from brief conversations and magazine articles.” Basically, that chasers don’t value transwomen for their individual uniqueness, but for the mere fact that they are trans in the first place. Indeed, just as a ciswoman with large breasts does not want to be sought for such an attribute alone, the ts woman also desires to attract men for attributes beyond gender and genitalia.
Another point that should be kept in mind, and which the writer reminds us of, is that, ” it’s important to point out that reactions to trannychasing are as diverse among trannies as everything else. Some people can’t stand it; some people have reservations; some people think it’s an awesome idea; some people don’t want to date anyone who isn’t a chaser.”
There are many conflicting views, as evidenced in this forum discussion on tranny chasers over at Susan’s Place, a home for transgender resources. There, the question “How do you classify a tranny chaser” garners responses ranging from insulting to understanding to Freudian!
The tranny chaser does receive a lot of flak for their attraction, but I think the meat of the problem boils down to something that piny, the writer of the article at Feministe, puts so succinctly: “People are not a fetish.”
In Defence of Tranny Chasing
On the flip side, some tranny chasers believe there are other factors at work in the tgirl culture that make it difficult for men attracted to trans women to be perceived as anything but this negative stereotype. For example, in a post entitled In Defence of Tranny Chasers over at the Confessions of a Tranny Chaser blog, the anonymous writer suggests that the issue is due to a lack of acceptance and “normal conversation” in society which pushes admirers to “explore their desire through websites that objectify and sexually sensationalize the community.” He also suggests that the “majority of the girls that he can communicate with are simply advertising no-strings sex”.
While I agree that there are plenty of awful shemale porn sites out there doing nothing to forward the perception of ts women, this type of attitude betrays a lack of effort to meet and interact with transwomen offline, which is vitally important and one way in which a tranny chaser may be reformed. With proper experience and interaction, perhaps he can become a man that while finding tgirls especially attractive, seeks his partners based on factors beyond narrow conceptions and preconceptions.
So what’s the dilemma here? On one hand, trans women want and deserve to be desired for their unique selves, not for their gender. On the other, we have all these men who lust for the transexual experience in particular. It is a gulf that can hopefully be bridged with further education and understanding. In a future where transwomen and transmen are more on par with cisgenders in terms of social accpetance, the fetishizing that is happening based on ignorance and mystique will lessen. More relationships with be born out of mutual admiration rather than any type of exoticism alone.
I’d love to get the conversation going on this one, so if anyone would like to chime in from either side of the fence, please do so in the comments below.
And now, let’s lighten the mood with RuPaul’s Tranny Chaser video!
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Tell us what you think