I'm attracted to trans mascs, but don't want to be a chaser. How can I check myself?
I've thought about this, too. Here are some of the conclusions I've come to.
Sound the alarms. A new question has entered the queer zeitgeist, and I’m thrilled that we’re having this conversation more loudly:
As a cis person, how can I be mindful of not engaging in chaser dynamics when attracted to trans people? More specifically, what does chasing look like when it comes to trans mascs—and how can I avoid being that asshole?
Often, when we talk about chasing in the trans community, we’re looking at cis men and their attraction to trans women and femmes. To turn this conversation around and say, “Hey! Cis people can also chase trans men and mascs!” shows an openness in the community to recognize the various ways that oppressive dynamics can show up.
Specifically, it honors that trans men and cis women don’t cancel each other out on the spectrum of oppression (where the former have male privilege and the latter, cis privilege). Rather, we have different experiences of marginalized gender. This conversation recognizes that when talking about gender oppression, it’s not as simple as “men oppress women” or even “cis men oppress all other genders,” but acknowledges also that cis people, including cis women, also oppress all trans people.
As a cis woman who has been open—and even vocal—about her attraction to trans mascs, I’ve started to get this question more often from other cis women who want to tread carefully in how they approach that community. And I’m happy to talk about the processing I’ve done around this.
But I want to be clear about the position I come from in responding to this question: I, myself, am not a trans masculine person. I am a queer, femme, cis woman with deep roots in lesbian and dyke culture, who dates and is in community with trans mascs, and who thinks a little too much about what it means to do the “right” (non-oppressive) thing.
That is to say, this essay comes from the perspective of sharing how I’ve thought through this question – not as an affected person.
With that said, let’s talk about chasing.
Chasing is the practice of specifically seeking out a person in a marginalized group and fetishizing them for the features of that group. For example, a chubby chaser is someone who seeks out fat people to date. Someone who “chases” trans people does so because of the stereotypes that they hold about trans people.
But what’s important to understand is that being attracted to or expressing desire for a certain group of people is not inherently chasing.
Indeed, when I was processing this myself, I had a conversation with a fat, trans masculine friend of mine who noted very directly how hurtful it is to assume that people could only be attracted to their body if they’re objectifying it.
To conflate attraction and chasing is to imply that desiring marginalized people is inherently abnormal; therefore, it needs its own name. This isn’t unlike how people talk about attraction to people of color by using derogatory language like “jungle” or “yellow fever.”
Chasing has a very specific slant to it: It is dehumanizing, minimizing trans people to their transness itself (for example, making assumptions about anatomy).
Here are some things that distinguish chasing from regular old attraction:
Fetishization: Chasers look at trans people as a fantasy, novelty, or experience, rather than as a whole, autonomous person. This is not unlike how unicorn hunters often treat bisexual and other queer women.
Objectification: Chasers see trans people as objects to fulfill their own desires. They might hyperfocus on things like genitals, use anti-trans slurs to refer to their partners, or force that fact of their transness to be at the forefront of the relationship.
Secrecy: Sometimes there is an element of shame associated with the attraction. Think, for example, of straight cis men who secretly date or sleep with trans women. They may do so behind closed doors, not wanting to confront what it might mean about their sexual identity (“Are men who date trans women straight or queer?” is a complicated topic for another day!).
None of these things is okay to do to anyone. And if you find yourself falling into these thoughts and behaviors, it might be time to take a step back and consider how you’re harming people you claim to care about.
Of course, what feels objectifying can change, based on the trans person in question. And like with anything else, it’s most important to have clear conversations with people you’re dating about what does and does not work for them, including in terms of how they understand their gender – and how you express attraction to that.
To me, the biggest question here is: How does this person want to be perceived?
Trans mascs feel differently about their genders and their own attractions! Someone who identifies as a trans man versus a trans masc, for instance, may be more likely to want to perceived as closer to a man than a trans person. A friend of mine, for example, identifies as “a man of trans experience,” emphasizing his manhood over his transness. Conversely, I dated a masc last year who expresses his gender as “trans first, then a man.”
Similarly, there might be a difference between trans masculine people who identify as straight versus queer, even when they’re both attracted to women. They might have differently relationships to their manhood and their transness, with straight-identified people relating more to the former and queer-identified people relating more to the latter.
Most of the trans mascs who I spend time with are deeply rooted in lesbian or dyke culture and identity: They’ve struggled with the idea that they may no longer be sapphic post-transition; many of them have reclaimed their relationship to lesbianism, and might even seek out butch/femme dynamics. Others might be T4T, only seeking to date other trans people because of a lack of shared experience with cis people.
That is to say, there are some trans mascs who want to be loved and desired for their transness itself. Some are even hurt or offended by being perceived as in the same category as cis men or express frustration with being categorized as “man lite,” particularly by cis women who are looking for a “best of both worlds” experience. (Bisexual babes, I’m looking at you: This is a really weird take. Stop saying this. You are not uniquely positioned to be attracted to trans people because you like “both.” Unless explicitly stated as their gender experience, trans people are not a “both/and.”)
What I’ve noticed for myself is that I am attracted to queerness in and of itself. Part of how that plays out is that I’m only attracted to masculinity in people who are subverting norms by expressing it (that is, not cis men). I personally only want to date trans mascs who are trans-forward, queer-identified, and dyke-aligned. While I respect how anyone experiences their gender and wants to move through the world, I personally swipe left on mascs who list themselves as straight, desire to be stealth, or otherwise see themselves as “one of the guys.”
That results in my only entering specific dating dynamics where chasing may be less of a concern because the queerness of the relationship is the goal – unlike with folks who don’t want their transness to be of consequence.
So much of our understanding of transness—and therefore, chasing—in our society comes from the culture of trans women and femmes. This is because they’re hypervisible as targets of violent transphobia, both from the government and interpersonally.
I saw a TikTok of a trans masc comedian once who made a joke, after introducing himself as trans, along the lines of “people don’t even know we exist.” Trans masculine people, as a community, are far less visible, their culture much less considered.
For example, while I think the refrains of “trans men are men” and “trans women are women” absolutely have a place, I also think they lack nuance and complexity – and, indeed, leave out trans people who either aren’t comfortable with that binary, or aren’t desirous of being lumped together with cis people of a similar gender. But I think, overall, that “trans women are women” tends to be more resonant for that population than “trans men are men” is for them.
Chasing in trans feminine communities is arguably much more prevalent, especially when it comes from cis men, who are already socialized to sexualize and objectify women and see our compounding identities (like as lesbian, Black, fat, or trans) as pornography categories—fetishes for their consumption.
Indeed, when I’m asked about chasing in trans masculine communities, my mind goes first to mascs being chased by cis men—and the dehumanization of their gender therein.
That isn’t to say that cis women can’t or don’t chase trans mascs. Rather, it’s to say that the history and culture of that dynamic (for example, butch/femme dating in lesbian spaces) is very different.
You may be well aware of chasing in trans femme communities and want to apply that to trans mascs. But it simply isn’t a one-to-one.
While there is an overarching “LGBTQIA+” community, each of those letters—and the subidentities therein—have different cultures and histories. Lumping us all together flattens the nuance and is only beneficial to people outside of the community who want a simple rubric to understand queerness.
Thus, the conversation about chasing in trans masculine communities is already fraught—because it’s being overlaid a conversation about trans femmes, a narrative that simply doesn’t perfectly fit.
That all being said, do we—as cis women who date trans mascs—want to be intentional in how we do that? Do we want to avoid, to the best of our ability, oppressive dynamics in our relationships? Do we want to not be a chaser asshole?
Of course.
Here are some questions to ask yourself about your attraction to trans mascs:
Am I attracted to their transness itself? What about that is attractive to me? In what ways does my desire align with stereotypes or assumptions?
Do I see trans mascs as a means to an end that ultimately benefits me? Do I see them as individuals with their own autonomy and varied experience?
Do I have expectations about their transition? Do I expect them to have had top surgery? Am I making assumptions about their genitals?
Am I placing them in a category that is unfair to how they might conceptualize themselves (the best of both worlds, the same as cis men, lesbian-adjacent)?
How do I feel about them being out or not? How do I feel about myself being seen as someone who is attracted to trans people?
I see the exploration of this less as coming to a definite answer and more as understanding that our desire is complex—honoring that, but also challenging it when appropriate.
Because ultimately, we—cis women—do hold social power over trans mascs on the axis of gender, even if they might hold power over us in different ways. And any time we are in connection with someone of a different set of overlapping identities, it’s important to consider how we may show up oppressively. And chasing is one of those potential ways!
Love,
Melissa
PS. Do you want some one-on-one guidance sorting through your experience of queer attraction? I got you! Send an inquiry here with a note about what your questions and/or goals are, and we’ll make it happen.