Deciphering Tranny lovers

Two big, burly construction worker types are leaning against the bar. A bunch of girls parade in front of them, all competing for attention. The guys are clearly enjoying the spectacle and the attention — both of them are regulars, and they have become friends. Just like any guy, they like to chill, drink beer, and talk about chicks. A busty latina walks in, immediately capturing their attention.

“Really, man? Is it thick?”

I’d like to discuss the men I affectionately refer to as “tranny lovers.” Men who are sexually attracted to transsexual women (anywhere on the T-girl spectrum) are amongst the least studied and least understood of sexual orientations. I first started getting to know tranny lovers about 10 years ago, when I met Mandy Goodhandy. Mandy was running an adult-oriented shemale website, and I was helping with the photography. The male models she worked with fascinated me — they were often gorgeous suburban boys who wanted nothing more than to be on their knees with tranny cock in their mouth or on their knees with tranny cock in their ass. The simplistic, unenlightened view is that these guys must be gay. They want cock, right? But calling a guy who has sex with a beautiful woman gay is not only innaccurate, it’s also insulting.

I have been informally studying the sexuality of these guys in all sorts of sexually charged environments. The tranny-loving scene in the Toronto area has evolved and grown, largely due to events produced by Mandy. She started with private she-male sex parties in the suburbs, then introduced she-male strippers to Mississauga, then created a regular T-Girl bathhouse night, and some she-male nightclub events. Finally, two years ago, we opened a nightclub together in downtown Toronto with several nights catering specifically to T-Girls and their admirers.

This subculture has evolved from single guys sitting furtively at tables staring at strippers, never speaking to each other, to a world where macho construction workers can openly discuss their love for pretty cocks with my bar staff. But I still find myself explaining the sexuality to others, especially gay guys, who often find tranny attraction hard to imagine.

“They’re just gay guys in transition; they just need an excuse to suck dick.” That is a common sentiment I hear from gay guys. From my experience, a small percentage of tranny lovers end up being gay, but they are the minority. Still, this view, while incorrect, is understandable to a degree. The only T-Girls most gays have been exposed to are of the female impersonator, or drag queen type. These girls quite often identify as gay guys who dress up and entertain in a comedic manner in gay bars. While many a drag queen has later on realized that she is actually somewhere on the trans spectrum in terms of gender identity, their role while in the gay community is clearly non-sexual. And the gay community in general does not put much value on femininity, at least not in sexual circles.

Guy is talking to me over the bar. “Todd, I love ladies with dicks. It’s almost to the point where if I meet a woman and she doesn’t have a dick, it’s weird to me.”

As someone who has shot a lot of tranny pornography, I can relate. I always try to frame the shot so that the viewer can see both the tits and the dick. So, when I recently shot a scene with a biological woman I found her lack of penis strangely unnerving. But this guy’s comment helped me understand one important detail, useful when trying to simplify things for those who don’t understand the sexuality at play: T-Girls are girls with dicks, not men with tits. Straight guys like girls. That is why the guys who like trannies almost always originate from within the straight world and usually continue living a straight lifestyle.

The bitter looking guy paces up and down the hallway, waiting for T-Girls. It’s a snowstorm during one of Mandy’s T-Girl bathhouse nights, and I am working the door. T-Girls are not known for coming out in extreme weather, so there are only a couple girls on hand, all otherwise occupied. The guy snaps at me, “Well if there are no T-Girls, I’m going to have to fucking have sex with a guy.”

Understanding this sexuality cannot happen in one small column. Every week another concept I thought I understood is shattered. There are no black and white answers. I used to be adamant that the guys who wanted T-Girls didn’t want guys. Period. But that was naive — our T-Girl bathhouse event ended up becoming more and more bisexual as the weeks went on. But these guys are not “crossing over” into the gay scene — most of them seem utterly uninterested in that, and continue coming to the tranny events. I used to be adamant that one should never refer to a tranny lover as “bisexual” because the label bisexual, to me means someone who is attracted equally to males and females. A tranny is neither a male nor a female, she is a different gender altogether. But many of the tranny lovers consider themselves bisexual, if only for the lack of a better descriptive term.

Until someone embraces this topic, probably an academic, the tranny lovers will continue to live in a limbo where there is no official label to define their sexuality. They will continue to ask themselves, “Am I gay?” (a common and tormenting question among guys who love trannies).While I am not fond of labels in general, some mainstream discussion of this very real sexual orientation would go a long way in validating the lives of transsexuals and those who continue to admire them.