Recently, we’ve had a few discussions about fetishism and how it impacts transgender women who predominantly date men. However, this reader had a question for me about transgender men and their experience with fetishism!  

Hi Kat! I’ve been watching you got a long time now although I technically just subscribed lol. I just watched your video on the bisexual bf and whether he was fetishizing his gf or not. I loved it but I was wondering if you could talk about chasers when it involves trans men(like me). I’m a sub who’s trans and still pretty fem and I feel like even in bdsm circles and clubs all I find are inexperienced men who say they’re doms but really just want to get their rocks off. I’ve found dating while not conforming to binary gender constructs is really really difficult. Like I’ve been single since I was 16 and I’m 21 now. I know you’re experience as a trans woman is different so you might not want to speak on it but I appreciate it I feel like trans men aren’t really talked about all the much in general. Anyways love your videos and I wish you the highest level of success whatever that means for you!!

Dear Reader,

Firstly, I appreciate that you’ve reached out to me for my perspective, but of course I have to begin by stating that I am a transgender woman, and most of my observations of trans men within the BDSM scene are from my own interactions and often the interactions I’ve had with their partners who occasionally desire a connection with me. So, my sample size is small, but I can share some of my observations, and I’ll preface them with the warning that they have been unflattering.  

In your message, you do not specify that you’ve been engaging primarily with heterosexual men, but I’m going to read between the lines and assume that most of the men who approach you as a feminine transgender man likely identify as heterosexual, and I think that will end up being the source of most of your frustration within the BDSM scene. Kink evangelists will tell you that the BDSM scene has a higher concentration of men who’ve done “the work.” While I think this may be partially true in comparison to most spaces, I have to be frank and say that it’s taken me much longer to accept that, in reality, most of my issues with men can be boiled down to patriarchy and misogyny. it is optimistic to believe that a man who wants to exert sexualized violence has not in some way internalized dangerously patriarchal thought; and the basis of that is gender essentialism.

Gender Essentialism in the BDSM Scene

The BDSM community is full of queer and trans people, but that does not mean gender essentialism is not a problem. Gender essentialism is the idea that a person’s qualities are dictated by the sex they were assigned at birth. For those who believe it, that is a destiny that is impossible to escape. In the scene, you’ll see this in the form of Doms (male dominants) not taking Dommes (female dominants) seriously. While plenty of people switch, the assumption often made of those designated female at birth is that they are inherently submissive, and if they ever switch or indicate otherwise, there are people who still believe that they are “truly” submissive because they are female. This is something that even some of the most “woke” people within the scene tend to believe. Whether it’s belittling a Domme’s competence or assuming that a feminine person designated female at birth is a sub, these assumptions can be quite alienating, especially if you are transgender.

Feminine people tend to be stereotyped as submissive, and if you’re a woman of color, you may be read as more masculine because white supremacy tends to see femininity through an incredibly narrow lens. I am not dominant, and I have never topped a man sexually or kink-wise. However, because I am a tall, Black transgender woman, people will occasionally read me as masculine, and thus dominant. If I were to call them out for this, they’d likely deny it. Often people within the kink scene want to seem as if they are more inclusive than they truly are, but when you are on the receiving end of this, it becomes hard to ignore.

Despite not being a Domme, I kept experiencing people not only telling me that I looked like one, but eagerly telling me that I’d be excellent at it, mostly because they liked how I looked and felt it leaned in a more dominant direction. This read of me is incredibly alienating, and it’s why I stopped going to the BDSM dungeons. Frankly, it wasn’t until I lost 70lbs and people started reading me as more feminine because I was smaller that I found fewer people read me as a Domme. At a certain point, this becomes toxic, and I do think it’s important to walk away from spaces and places that don’t seem to see you.

I think the kink community can be incredibly shallow, and if you’re primarily a person who plays with heterosexual men, you are quite unlikely to find a man who is willing to play with you who “gets it” enough to understand that trans men can be feminine and that doesn’t make them women. Having connected with several male Dominants who have trans men as partners, I’ve certainly noticed a pattern.

My Observations of Cis Men and Trans Men in The Scene

Being polyamorous and openly trans means that I often end up dating people who are dating other trans people. On more than a few occasions, I’ve dated men within the kink scene who had partners who were transgender men. I’m not going to say it’s impossible for someone to be attracted to both trans men and trans women, but what I notice from most of these men is that they are almost never interested in cis men, and typically identify as straight. If they don’t, it’s still pretty rare that they have been with men. I’ve had a lot of conversations with ostensibly “straight” men who say their partner “made them gay” because they were a feminine, non-transitioning trans masc or non-binary person. Quite often, these men will misgender their partners when they are not around, and more than just a few of them have confided with me that they miss their partner’s femininity the further that person medically transitions. Frequently, none of this is perceptible to the trans masc or non-binary person, who often conflates the heterosexual man’s attention with validation and allyship. They are often just happy to be with a man and don’t see how little that man actually cares for them. They are often interested in dating me because they would like access to a feminine partner, and I do not date submissive men.

When I first moved to LA, I dated a liberal lawyer for a very brief time. He was quite handsome. If you were to go to his partner’s social media page, he’s celebrating his growth as a trans man with what is presumably an affirming partner and crowdfunding his top surgery. However, when he was with me, I noticed how often he used “she/her” when referring to him, and he privately confided that he isn’t looking forward to his partner’s top surgery. The two clearly got along quite well and, to my understanding, are still very much together. They’re a very cute couple, but I’ve observed many couples like this in the past, and often when I date these men, they are dating me because they miss femininity.

Within the BDSM scene, I’ve noticed an uptick in patriarchal Doms shifting themselves to seem safer to people who are designated female at birth, but do not identify as women. People whom I’ve observed mistreat women shift their presentation and change their labels, often around the time they are called out. When I first came to the scene, I was bottoming for a woke Dom who definitely tokenized me as a plus-sized black transgender woman with a bit of clout within the scene. Through the years, I saw this person move just like your standard patriarchal Dom, but the labels made them seem safer. It’s not that I don’t think their identity is real; it’s just that if someone were to look at their identity and assume they are safe because of it, they’d be very wrong, based on what I know. People do change, but these were always people who I -heard- speak at length about their desire to be with men, but when they met me, I kinda ended up calling their bluff.

Passing has many upsides, but a major downside is that you end up in situations where woke people have to wrestle with their ignorance directly in front of you. I’ve been rejected by most of the “pansexual” Doms I’ve been approached by right after I share with them that I am transgender. My experiences helped me understand the depth of gender essentialism within the BDSM scene and the phony nature of a lot of “woke” Doms. Keep in mind, these aren’t sexual partners; these are people who are doing BDSM with me, usually impact play. But even for the woke pansexual Dom, a line is drawn in the sand for those designated male at birth. With that Dom, what I had to accept was that because I was designated male at birth, no matter how many scenes we did or how much power exchange we’ve done, there was never going to be a moment where they shifted and desired something more intimate with me. And sometimes this has been very hard for me to accept because I’d be bottoming for a man who topped cis women, and I’d see how the aftercare they gave me was more passive, less intimate, and never sexual. To the point where sex and kink were something I stopped anticipating because gender essentialism often dictated that it was entirely off the table. They were comfortable hitting me, but they’d never desire me how they desired a person designated female at birth; because of their parts. And that was dizzying for me, because they would never flat out just say that, but would continue to present as if they were always open; even more so than straight men.

I say all that to say that I think you’re always going to be in a conundrum when it comes to attempting to form a kink relationship with a cis het man, so I think if you want to avoid binarist relationships, your best bet is to avoid them. For many people, gender is part of their BDSM practice. I’d say it isn’t part of mine, but because I only play with men, that’s hard for me to deny. However, what I’ve come to realize is that this can have many nuances and some of them are alienating to transgender people.

I’ve known a  decent amount of transgender men who enjoy taking on a feminine persona when they play, and in the vanilla world, there are already men who fetishize the idea of taking a person who is designated female at birth, who isn’t gender conforming, and pressuring them to gender conform. There are indeed men who fetishize transgender men because they imagine that there’s something about them that will get the trans man to relinquish their gender and service their specific desires. Many men fetishize Lesbians and view all gender non conforming people assigned female as stand ins for them. “Dyke/Butch breaking” is a massive fetish and many straight men imagine they will be the exception. As I said, you’re incredibly optimistic if you think cis men in the scene haven’t internalized patriarchal abuse. Because BDSM is more than what is represented in BDSM porn, I think it’s silly to pretend it is inherently patriarchal, but I also think we have to be realistic about the fact that very few men have done the work needed to see it as anything other than that.

Actionable Steps

I’m not going to pretend that transgender men are incredibly common within the BDSM scene. There are a few transgender men who come to my munch, and they seem very comfortable within the scene. However, I’ve noticed that, romantically, they predominantly have cis women as partners. I don’t think that’s coincidental. The impression I’ve often gotten from straight men within the scene is that they are more invested than they should be in other people’s judgments of them. As I said, the “pansexual” kink scene often ends up just being the heterosexual scene, and for that reason, there are distinctly sapphic or gay kink scenes.

There are many people who’ve organized gatherings specifically to address the problem of straight men ruining their BDSM experience. I think that if you are a person who finds the gender binary alienating, your best bet will be with other queer people; and yes, you can still play with men if that’s the only type of person you want to play with. I think that in your specific situation, you’re going to really require a series of deep conversations about gender and boundaries, and I think people within the acronym are far more likely to not just understand, but celebrate your queerness.

Last week, I popped my head into Wicked Zen, a dungeon in the San Gabriel Valley (where I’m from). I was elated to see many trans and queer people, each there, playing, connecting, and having a good time with people who seemed to understand them. Most local dungeons host queer nights or gatherings specifically for the queer community. In my recent post about BDSM events, I shared several communities that I think would be a great start if you’re in the Los Angeles area.

Ultimately, finding community should be your focus right now. Go to munches, make friends, gain insight into how others navigate the scene. Bind yourself to other submissives so you can communicate and warn each other. I think one of the worst things you can do is rush. Dominants who do not truly care for you will try to push you too quickly. Focus on making friends and building your community. You probably don’t want to hear this, but that’s what you should be doing in your 20s. Don’t let men ruin your relationship with kink when you’re young. You can and will find the people who are on the same page with you. Yes, you may have to accept a smaller dating pool, but it’s a much higher quality one. It’s okay to be someone who isn’t immediately understood, who is a bit of an acquired taste, but be wary of people who’d want you to prove yourself to them, who hold your respect for your identity hostage. Finding the right people takes time, and you’ve still got plenty of time.