#SuperStraight and The Insidious Discomfort With Trans Women In Public Space

If you’re like me, you’re probably not up on the hottest TikTok trends, but one’s popped up that I haven’t managed to escape: #SuperStraight.

#SuperStraight is a “movement” created by a teenager on TikTok who was frustrated with people calling him transphobic for not wanting to date transgender women. In reference to trans women, he says

“Well, that’s just not a real woman to me.”

While some will give 4chan credit for its creation, this tiktok predates the posts found on 4chan which sought to make #SuperStraight some sort of nazi psyop, because of course. Regardless of where it came from, it’s started a conversation about whether or not it’s transphobic to sexually or romantically reject a transgender woman, and as a trans woman, I have thoughts.

Firstly, I’ll tell you of one of the first times I ever saw a transgender woman: daytime TV. Between Maury and Jerry Springer, trans women were first established to me as these sort of freaks that existed to fool and trick heterosexual men into expressing sexual attraction to them. On Jerry Springer, trans women would bring their boyfriends on the show and reveal that they were transgender to a live audience. The trans women would say

“I was born a man.”

and the audience would laugh as the man runs off the stage, completely mortified that he publicly expressed interest in transgender women. These episodes, like most, were staged. Maury had a slightly different flavor. He would host these pageants where the audience was invited to guess which women were women, and which ones were men; and of course, if a man stood up and “guessed wrong” the audience would laugh at him for doing so.

What audiences don’t know is that in both shows, the Trans Women that were commonly featured were women the producers found from escort ads on BackPage, a now defunct website that was known primarily for its escort ads. Escorting among Trans Women was slightly more common back then, during a time where employment protections for trans women didn’t really exist. I know this from the work I’ve done creating transgender media for over a decade, but I’m sure most people who saw those shows weren’t aware of the things happening behind the scenes. The narrative that was being, quite literally, constructed, for an audience that wouldn’t generally go beyond what they see on the show is that Trans Women existed to fool and trick men. When you’re trans, you’re constantly navigating between what society believes about you, and what you know is true about yourself. Society would like you to believe that Trans Women are undesirable, but Trans Women are so desired that the women who were featured on these shows only gained more notoriety, and often more clients from their appearances on these shows.

I wish I remembered the name of this webpage, but I remembered a very popular webpage, often shared by teenage boys where there were several photos of beautiful women and you were encouraged to click on the picture of the woman you thought was the most attractive and sometimes that woman would be trans. It was a popular thing for young boys to play when they were hanging with each other after school with unfettered access to the internet. And of course if you clicked on a trans woman, you were expected to express repulsion and disgust. It was weird if you didn’t. Today, as transgender women become more and more visible, these sorts of conversations become more popular. Everyone obsessively speaks about whether or not being with a transgender woman, as a man who identifies as straight means that the man in question is still straight. All, of course, predicated on this idea that transgender women are, as this TikToker says, not real women at all.

To be completely clear about a few things, I’m very far from offended by this TikTok trend. In fact, I find it to be a bit silly, if I’m being frank. I think if someone doesn’t want to sleep with a transgender person, that is entirely within their right. While some may disagree with me on this, I don’t really think that it’s transphobic for someone to reject an individual trans person. My “issue”, if I had one, truly lies in this idea that because a heterosexual man doesn’t want to sleep with a transgender woman, she’s “not a woman”. No matter how you cut it, outright denial and rejection of a transgender woman’s gender is, indeed, transphobia. But this conversation leads to another more pervasive conversation that many people aren’t having right now. How transgender women, like all women, are objectified and how their transness challenges the men who objectify them.

The central narrative of many who criticize transgender people is that we live in this state of perpetual offense. That we are constantly “triggered” or easily offended. Being an outspoken transgender blogger, I’ve been accused of this fairly frequently. That’s always been a bit frustrating to me, as I’ve never allowed myself to be a victim and I’ve never wanted to believe that because I’m transgender that I should simply not do certain things or go certain places. What this means for me is that I don’t segregate myself to trans-specific spaces; in fact, I avoid them. I go where I want and, frankly, I’m able to do that because I have a fair amount of “passing privilege”. People tend not to know that I’m transgender when they first meet me. It’s not really a secret, but it’s not something you’ll hear me organically reference in my daily life. I transitioned over a decade ago, so the times where I feel it’s relevant to the discussion are far, few and between. My situation and the way I tend to lead my life has put me in many interesting situations that have frequently shown just how often people seem to resent the very existence of trans women in public space.

One night, I went to a party. It was a new scene for me and if you’ve ever seen me at a party, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a social butterfly. I love meeting new people and I find people to be utterly fascinating; maybe it’s my character animation background. I don’t go to parties to flirt, or to connect with men, though I understand that many men find me attractive. I’m aware of the fact that most men who flirt with me, believe that I’m cis, so it’s pretty common for me to entirely dismiss a man who expresses any degree of interest or attraction to me. I put up a sort of wall where I subtly make it clear that while we’re having this conversation, it’s not going anywhere.

I joined a group of people chatting with each other at the back of the house party. They were having a heated debate about which Toy Story movie was the best. I gave the correct answer, the first one. The man standing next to me gave the wrong answer, the last one. We connected and I could tell that he was interested in me, but, again, I avoid connecting in that way because I don’t even want to have the conversation at all. When it comes to me telling men that I’m transgender, I tend to tell them when they’re cute and I’m interested in being intimate with them. Very rarely am I interested in being intimate with anyone and very rarely do I think most men who express attraction to me are attractive themselves. This guy wasn’t bad. Yet still, I tried not to connect with him; but as most women will tell you, in these situations, sometimes it’s hard to get a guy to leave you alone and unfortunately, I’m still working on not being so afraid of seeming like a bitch.

I move through the party, as I do, meeting new people, having a few drinks. Eventually I plop down into the Jacuzzi… and it’s like everywhere I go, he follows. Maybe I could have been more straight forward with him and told him that I just wasn’t wanting that tonight, but he was pretty persistent and these Sex on The Beaches were hittin’. I eventually pull him aside and tell him that I’m transgender. He initially had this sorta confused, sorta shocked look on his face, but he was still warm and friendly and still interested (this reaction is more common than cis people know). And so we kissed. It was an okay kiss. The night went on and he was still flirty with me, but things really took a turn at the end of the party.

By the end of the party, I’d been pretty sober, but he definitely wasn’t. He switched from warm to a bit cruel and resentful. He started complaining to me that I was dishonest. That I had tricked him and that what I “did” was wrong. And, really, what was I “doing”? Well, I had the audacity to exist in public as a trans woman and not be what he had imagined me to be. I had the audacity to go to a party and exist in a way where cis hetero men couldn’t objectify me without questioning themselves.

A frustrating reality that comes with being a trans woman, especially one who is read as cis, is that men who meet you and find themselves attracted to you have often already convinced themselves of the complete impossibility of this happening. What I mean by that is that our social consciousness around transgender women is one where cis men anticipate that they will never be in a situation where they find a transgender woman attractive. For many men, I become dishonest the exact moment I exist in public space and they find themselves attracted to me. It’s my mere existence as a woman they find attractive that, alone, convinces them of my dishonesty. Of course dishonesty doesn’t work that way. I’m not dishonest by presenting myself in a way that makes me feel happy and content, but when heterosexual men register you as a woman they find attractive, and then they recognize that they cannot or do not want to pursue you because you’re transgender, it angers them. It angers them because even though I don’t exist to fool or trick them, they feel as though I have. These are the inherent politics of being a transgender woman who exists in public space. In this deeply misogynistic society, all women are expected to be digestible to men in a way that doesn’t threaten them. I’m not even arguing that the men who do this are terrible sexists; in fact, this guy, specifically, would not stop talking about how much of a woke feminist he was. I point this out to say that it is such a pervasive part of how men engage with women that when said woman is trans, it often causes men to immediately question what they’re doing and how they’re thinking and for a lot of heterosexual men, that is incredibly scary.

I’m reminded of the time where Youtuber, Nikita Dragun went to a celebrity’s house and was asked to leave once said celebrity discovered that she was transgender. She, and the other women in the room, were expected to be there for the consumption of the men in the room and when they figured out that she was trans, especially after expressing attraction to them, she posed a threat to their sexuality…simply by existing in the same space as them. I’m sure Nikita was just excited to be in that space, but, to these men, she couldn’t exist in this space without being available for their consumption. Once they learned she wasn’t their flavor, she had to leave. People split hairs over whether or not transphobia is actual “phobia”, but what I read in situations like this is that those men were so afraid of the idea that someone in the room could “accidently” express attraction to trans women, that they wanted to remove the “threat” entirely. If Nikita and her friend weren’t a threat and these men were confident in their own sexualities, there’d be no reason to remove them. After all, what’s the problem with having two women you’re not personally sexually attracted to at the same party as you? As a woman, I rarely conceptualize social events or kickbacks in a way where I must be surrounded by men I find personally sexually attractive. That’s rarely the case. But a lot of heterosexual men are socialized to see all women in this way. It’s why some people believe that men and women cannot be platonic friends. It’s a toxic mentality that stems from this idea that men have no valid reason to share space with women, unless said women are giving them something sexually.

Situations, like the one I had at that party are far from one off experiences. I’ve had this experience many times in my life. It’s easy for them to make you fele like the best solution is to run away and hide yourself. To feel like you simply shouldn’t exist in public space in the way that you currently do; but like I said, I refuse to bow to that. I refuse to allow misogyny and transphobia to limit my ability to exist in public.

Not discussed in this #SuperStraight conversation is the fact that plenty of straight men absolutely do find transgender women attractive. Even though most of the men who pursue me identify as heterosexual, I have a very strong preference for men who are openly bisexual or pansexual. Not because bisexual and pansexual men are attracted to men, and some people see me as one, but because I find that most men who identify as straight have never self examined themselves in the way an openly bisexual or pansexual man generally has. #SuperStraight feels like a performance I’m all too familiar with. Men who outwardly perform disgust when it comes to transgender women, who absolutely do find transgender women attractive, or have been in situations where they’ve expressed attraction to a trans woman, but needed to follow it up with a loud rejection of them, as not to seem gay to the people around them. For many heterosexual men, their sexuality is defined, not by their own feelings and desires, but by consensus. Heterosexual men are expected to have a sexuality that aligns neatly with other heterosexual men. Deviation for heterosexuality, even slightly, could mean that other heterosexuals might think you’re gay. For some straight men, gay is the worst thing you can ever call them. So, in my life, it’s been very common for the heterosexual men who approach me to carry this deep fear at the very idea of anyone even knowing that we have a relationship. Some of my most abusive relationships have been with heterosexual men who mistreated me so that the could reinforce their heterosexuality. I’ve met so few heterosexual men who are truly confident in their sexuality in a way where they could sit with their heterosexual friends and point at a trans woman and openly say that he found her attractive without being mercilessly shamed for it. While I recognize this struggle, I suppose I have very little sympathy for men who feel this way and aren’t working towards not feeling that way. All too often, men’s silence has made trans women, like myself, sound like they are fabricating their relationships with heterosexual men. It’s that silence that allows people to buy into the narratives that when we die, it must be because we tricked a heterosexual man. It’s a handy cover for the abuse and murder trans women experience at the hands of their intimate partners. And unfortunately, it often works.

I believe that some believe that transgender women feel validated when they say that heterosexual men find them attractive. I’m not going to deny that, for some transgender women, this is indeed a source of validation. However, for me personally, it is not. Unfortunately, when a man expresses attraction to me, he’s usually straight. In most of these situations, when I tell a man that I’m transgender, privately, they’re still able to acknowledge their attraction to me. I’ve very rarely been in a situation where my life was threatened after revealing that I was transgender to a man. It’s happened, but it’s not common enough to say that it’s common. However, perhaps this is connected to my appearance, maybe this is because I tend to do so tactfully. I’m not sure. Either way, I’ve been in situations where I tell a man that I’m transgender and he politely expresses that it isn’t his thing. Often times, these are ill worded expressions. Sometimes they’ve been offensive in the way an unprepared statement from a person who’s never been in that situation before would be. But often times, it’s something along the lines of

“You’re beautiful, but I’m sorry, it’s just not my thing”

And yeah, that’s hurt, but I’m usually fine with it. What’s unfortunate is that this is an expression generally reserved for my ears only. Straight men could never acknowledge that they find trans women aesthetically attractive in public without dealing with the subsequent shame for going off script slightly. Paradoxically, I’ve had men do these whole performances about how they would never sleep with me in front of other people, yet whisper to me that they were still interested. So few heterosexual identified men could throw their hands up and say “who cares what others think”. Cis hetero men are expected to express disgust in trans women, in order to reinforce their heterosexuality, which is why so many of them will privately pursue transgender women. Which is why so many of those aforementioned women who appeared on Maury and Jerry Springer managed to have sex work careers that supported them. Trans women are desirable, but you wouldn’t know that because you’ll very rarely hear the men who love us claim us publicly.

The guy at this party believed that I “tricked” him because he looked at me and assumed that I was a cis woman. He had developed this attachment to this image of me that he had in his head and he was upset when those feelings didn’t align with reality. These feelings threatened and upset him, but that’s not the same as me living and being this inherently deceptive being. I’m not deceptive because a man looks at me and assumes that I’m a cis woman. I’m not deceptive because you find me sexually attractive and contrary to popular belief, I don’t need to trick or fool men into my bedroom; they manage to find their way there just fine on their own. Without being crass, I’m very invested in having a positive, healthy, sexual relationship with men and I find that I cannot do that unless they know that I’m transgender. I resent putting myself in a position where I have to degrade myself by framing my transness as this mark against me that a man must learn to get over. Aside from that, the assertion that I live to trick and fool greatly overestimates the value and worth men present to my life.

Personally, I see my “responsibility” in these situations to be explaining to the men that I’m intimate with that I am transgender, and that’s essentially it. The problem is that, being a woman, means you are constantly navigating around objectification and sexualization you’ve never consented to. Women don’t really get to determine when a man does or doesn’t objectify them and part of being a trans woman in public space is navigating around the same sexism cis women do, but fearing transphobic violence specifically because a man’s sexism, when paired with transphobia means he may find he has a reason to escalate violence in a way he wouldn’t be able to get away with, with a cis woman. Society is all too quick to cling to the narrative of the deceptive trans woman who pressured a straight man into being less than straight, and so he killed her to defend his own heterosexual image. And of course, this is seen as just, even if it’s untrue.

I think most women have to learn that the objectification they experience is not their fault. I’ve learned that when men objectify me and become disappointed that I’m not cis, that this is not my burden, but theirs. I am not responsible for assumptions made about my body, but I do see myself as responsible for making clarifications before I’m intimate with someone.

I think that everyone has the right to be uninterested or unattracted to whatever they’re uninterested and unattracted to. I think sexuality is complex and that it’s unreasonable for people to dictate to others what the boundaries of their sexuality should be. I have really narrow attractions to men and men only (and I include transgender men in my attractions). I don’t think of myself as so important that I would need to tell the world what I don’t find attractive. I don’t think that’s important, vital information that deserves its own movement. While, yes, some very online transgender people will argue that rejecting them is transphobic, the vast majority of trans people recognize that they are, indeed, an acquired taste. #SuperStraight isn’t personally offensive to me, but the creators invalidation of trans women’s gender is, indeed, transphobic. A lot of straight, cis men seem to believe that women are defined by the degree at which they appeal to their interests and desires, but I suppose what I would like to express here is that women exist beyond that. We exist beyond bounds at which men find us sexually appealing. Men, and their attraction to me, don’t validate my gender, but if they did, I’d say I’m doing quite fine.