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Opinion: Is The Manosphere The Result of The Male Loneliness Epidemic?
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere offers a very raw look at the lives of some of the internet’s most notorious creators in a genre of content online that’s all about empowering men who wish to rule over women. Ironically, the term comes from a film directed by two transgender women. To be red-pilled is to have woken up to the truth of the world according to the Manosphere. That truth being that women have ruined the world through feminism. Over on Quora, a self-identified red piller offers his own definition:
“Let us start with the most basic concept first, gynocentrism. Society is set up for the benefit of women. Men are irrelevant and disposable.
Tony Wallace on Quora
This is almost self evident. Consider the practise of saving women and children first, and sending men off to war. Male disposability does make sense, populations recover faster if most of the dead are men. They are also bigger and stronger, more able to carry heavy loads of bombs and bullets. This gynocentrism, along with feminism, and female own group preference ensures that women are treated better than men in society.”These arguments are familiar to me. As a feminist content creator who’s been engaging with these ideas online since I was a teenager, I saw the Manosphere take shape. I, along with many other feminist content creators were harassed by content creators who at a different point in time, described themselves as “anti-SJWs”. The anti-SJW often argued for this idea of “Female Privilege”, that privilege being, as Wallace says on Quora, that “women are treated better than men in society”. Common examples being that men are the last to be saved on sinking ships, they’re overwhelmingly responsible for doing physical labor, they are often given the short end of the deal in divorces, and that women, more than men, are able to use their appearance to get ahead. Fast forward and the Claviculars of the world have attempted to subvert this idea through “looksmaxxing”, where young men try their hardest to improve their appearance and “mog” other men by excelling at their beauty routine. What we politically incorrect and mildly homophobic millennials once described as “metrosexual” back in the day, now passes as the height of heterosexual male gender performance. Frankly, the shift has been fascinating.
In one of the most recent Epstein drops, it became fairly clear that Epstein had a direct connection with the shift I witnessed being the subject of ire from anti-SJWs. At the time, I struggled to understand why my content, or Anita Sarkeesian’s, elicited such a violently negative response. At the time, there were several feminist content creators who worked pretty hard to make their message palatable to an audience that wasn’t really primed to understand, let alone accept feminism. I’ll never forget finally watching one of Anita’s videos and recognizing that it was very basic feminism 101. One of the main messages is that women deserve to be more than supporting characters in men’s narratives. That women are more than damsels sent to satisfy the protagonist, who, of course, will always and forever be a male. It all seemed like such a simple idea to me, but in reality, the idea that women can exist independently of men is still quite radical.
Steve Bannon was at the scene of the crime back then, and he’s on the scene of the crime now. He helped weaponize a base of young, disaffected men through Gamergate, which some argued was about “ethics in gaming journalism”, but I always knew was plainly about misogyny. Suddenly, after years of being associated with older people, Republicans were starting to make headway with young people. They did it, in part, by granting the misogynistic premises often held by young men who’ve yet to truly form their own identities or experience much of life. They learned through that movement that they could organize around these young men, whose rejection of feminism (well, let’s be honest, just women) easily fit into the capitalistic Western chauvinism favored by White Nationalists. As Epstein helped bring Bannon into more power, podcasters like Joe Rogan used their platforms to host a slew of people who appear in the files. The idea was to present, normalize, and mainstream ideas that were once quite fringe. White Genocide, the idea that white people losing the ethnic majority in North America is a genocide, was once a fringe conspiracy predominantly whispered about outside of mixed company. However, these days, the richest man in the world spends his days on X talking about it.
In Louis Theroux’s documentary, there’s a scene in which he interacts with Myron Gaines of the Fresh and Fit podcast. Myron is seen by many as one of the main figureheads of the Manosphere movement, which argues that women’s main value to men is their bodies and how submissive they’re willing to be to the needs of men. The girlfriends and wives of these men also have to accept that they’ll get bored one day and want to mix things up by adding another woman, probably a younger and hotter model- you understand, right?
As Theroux speaks to Angie, Gaines’ partner, who has apparently never had sex with him, it becomes clear that he’s uncomfortable with her speaking to him when he isn’t around. He must be there to control the narrative; she cannot write one on her own. On his show, he invites OnlyFans models to have conversations about topics like their “body count,” which is the number of men they’ve had sex with. The podcast episodes often degrade into fights, and more than one woman has walked off set after Gaines degraded them in one way or another. But while he degrades them for their profession, they use the platform to promote their pages. Gaines benefits financially from presenting these women on his show, yet he also condemns them for doing sex work and making money for themselves for the same reason.
In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published a report examining the impact of loneliness and it’s where many people have gotten the idea of the “Male Loneliness Epidemic”. I think it’s worth a read.
One study found that among men, deaths due to suicide are associated with loneliness and more strongly with indicators of objective isolation such as living alone. In this study of over 500,000 middle-aged adults, the probability of dying by suicide more than doubled among men who lived alone. The same study showed that for women loneliness was significantly associated with hospitalization for self-harm.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy
Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023This topic came up in my feed today as a video by Anthony Pillarella, and it inspired me to write about it on my blog.
Firstly, I appreciate this creator’s transparency and open dialogue. The anti-SJWs never wanted to hear this, but I’ve always believed that men do indeed have issues, even if they benefit from patriarchy. I agree that the Manosphere caught on for a reason. Contrary to popular belief, I was raised with a present father, and from what I’ve gathered, many of the men who fall for these things often did not. This frequently causes them to seek out a sort of masculine, patriarchal figure, and that’s what men like Myron Gaines are to these young men. As he says in this video, these men offer more than “be nice” or “go to the gym”. They tell men how to “gain value” and offer them a step-by-step guide. Maybe men shouldn’t need that, but it’s clear to me that many of them do.
While I don’t want to lay it on too thick here, I think men do indeed have a reason to feel drawn to a community of men who work to teach each other how to be men. The problem is, the solution they’re often presenting is a disempowered woman who is willing to be submissive to them and essentially maintain this way of life, where they never quite have to grow up. This content creator acknowledges that this is all a pipeline that leads to indoctrination, but makes the point that these men need a soft place to land, or they will continue to feel that these misogynistic spaces are the only ones for them. He says that we should not dismiss these men as simply men who hate women, but my question is, what does loving a woman even mean when your version of it is that women should only play a supporting role in their own story?
I find some of these conversations to be frustrating because while there are several premises I can grant about men needing community, needing support and having a reason for being how they are, I think what’s often missing is a full acceptance of just how terrible misogyny actually is for women. There’s a lack of fully acknowledging that misogyny frequently puts women in a position where they are encouraged to put aside their own needs to satisfy those of a man. Many women are raised with the understanding that their future is only productive if it includes a man. They’re raised to satisfy a future husband, only to realize once they’ve met that guy and started doing what they were raised to do that it just isn’t what they want. Quite frequently, misogyny makes women feel as if they do not deserve to prioritize themselves at all. They are constantly told they are selfish for prioritizing themselves, and women who do are the main targets of criticism in the manosphere. As a childless woman in her 30s, I fairly regularly get people who seem almost offended that I don’t have children, or want them. I’ve even been lectured about it. It’s as if at every step, women are not fully allowed to live on their own terms for themselves at all without being shamed for not being tied to a man. It’s as if by saying I do not have children, I’ve in some way slighted men. I’m reminded of Dr.K’s comments on Diary of a CEO.
What I think men miss is that when we hear “The Male Loneliness Epidemic”, even if it’s true that men, for a myriad of reasons, are genuinely lonely for a systemic reason, we know that we are going to be told that it’s our job to solve this problem.
“Aw, come on, you gave me blue balls! Can you at least touch it? Sorry! You’re just so hot, I can’t help myself!”
We know that because it is often expected of us. It’s what’s translated to me every time a man says, “smile, sweetheart”. The message transmitted to me is that I exist in public to serve and satisfy men in one way or another. If I grimace back, I’m a bitch, if I smile, I’m followed. If he touches me, I led him on. I’m sure if you’re a man reading this, you’re one of the good ones, but I don’t think men fully recognize the degree of entitlement men have generally to women and why it’s easy to take our experiences with men and say that the so-called “Male Loneliness Epidemic” is self-imposed.
Abbie Chatfield, the host of the It’s A Lot podcast, pushed back slightly on this creator’s video, and I found his response quite telling….
Screenshot Right out of the gate, you get that he is frustrated by this question to the point of finding the question to be borderline insulting. This response made it clearer to me that he understands and receives the idea of “Male Loneliness” quite differently than most women. Obviously, as a man who once consumed manosphere content, he grants the premise that men are lonely, but doesn’t understand that loneliness being viewed as a uniquely male epidemic is indeed making the argument that men are more lonely than women.
“There were no real gender differences found — men and women experienced similar rates of loneliness — nor were there major differences based on political ideology or race or ethnicity. However, adults with more than one racial identity had much higher levels of loneliness: 42% in this category reported they were lonely.”
What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness and How Can We Fix It? by Elizabeth M. Ross on Harvard.eduPerhaps I could stand to do more research, but it seems like there has been a bit of a game of telephone when it comes to Murthy’s report. It seems like while men and women may experience similar levels of loneliness, men are far more likely to be violent towards themselves and others because of it. However, since that report was published and “OUR epidemic of loneliness” became “the male loneliness epidemic”, it has certainly shifted to that meaning, which I think will always illicit a negative response from women. If women are also experiencing loneliness, the message being sent when people argue that men are uniquely lonely is that even if you are lonely, even if you’ve got good reason to not sideline your life to focus on fixing a man’s misogyny, it is your duty to do so. This creator isn’t explicitly saying this, but it’s what you can gather from how he responded to a woman asking whether the premise he was willing to grant was even truthful, and how he shamed her for even asking the question. Interestingly enough, I think this is a good microcosm of how women’s labor is often viewed as something that should come naturally to them. If you were to ask many women why they left their marriages, many of them would say that it was the way their husbands took advantage of their labor and valued them less for it. It is just a continuation of the same misogyny that tells them that their lives hold less value than a man’s. And in this conversation specifically, the demand is that we meet these men with empathy and help them, even if up to this point, they’ve spent most of their lives disrespecting women and have only truly been invested in themselves as men. Men underestimate that women are often raised to prioritize men’s feelings regardless of their relationship with them.
It’s not that I don’t understand what this creator is trying to say. Someone shouldn’t need to be worse off for you to want to help them; this much is true. However, within the demand for help, support, and acceptance, there is a lack of fully understanding how deeply misogyny impacts women. I do not think women are wrong for rolling their eyes at the idea of the male loneliness epidemic, and I don’t think they’re wrong for saying that men who view women as sexual objects that they can both degrade and capitalize on, actually just hate women. They may be led astray, but is it really a woman’s job to lead them back on the right path after they’ve survived so long under misogyny?
So whose job is it to help these men? My answer has always consistently been…other men. If you pay attention to how men within the Manosphere interact with each other, it’s a constant dance of trying to impress other men by one upping on them in one way or another. Many of these men are grifters who barely care about other men beyond using them to make money, because they know it’s an easy scam. These men saw a weak point and decided to exploit it, and I do think that one of the only solutions to this is for men to want to foster community for other men because it’s healing for them, not because it makes them money. The men who appear in Theroux’s documentary have no real desire to help these men. They are selling them cryptocurrency and trying to get them to subscribe to the women they manage on OnlyFans, and there-in lies the problem.
Loneliness is a very real thing that many of us are experiencing right now, as our social interactions are increasingly monetized and spaces for community are shrinking. I know “it’s capitalism” isn’t a satisfying answer to some, but if you understood how much of our society is constructed around squeezing every penny from you, it would make slightly more sense. COVID-19 really hurt our ability to leave our homes, be in communal spaces, and foster relationships with others.
Had I not essentially moved to Los Angeles with a desire to be social and surround myself with diversity, I think I’d be lonely too. Before the pandemic, I filled my calendar with interesting events and singles socials around the city. Now I even host one, and my social network is quite large, but I treated making social connections like a job. Many people not only don’t have the time, but also the access. The internet was the only way many people could make connections during the quarantine, and many began to recognize how dehumanizing it was to put your personhood into a dating profile and measure your value by how many people swiped on you. Then, half the time they did, they’re asking you what exactly you bring to the table and measuring you based on where you’re at in your life at that moment. We are increasingly entering into a quite shallow era in our society, where it’s becoming more commonplace to measure someone’s value by how well they match beauty standards. Beauty standards that may or may not be obtainable through wealth. When I hear men complain about how women only want to date men who are 6’2, with muscles, and very wealthy, I don’t think they’re getting that from nowhere, but I also know that conclusion is indeed out of step with the average woman who isn’t pining for Clavicular or Myron Gaines. The Manosphere capitalizes on men’s insecurities to sell them workout routines and wealth-growth strategies. Gender binarism is a great tool of manipulation by the capitalist because we exist in a society where gender is still very much seen as a value system.
Essentially, I think this creator is making the same mistake Rogan made, but on a much smaller, less harmful scale. He is entertaining the very premise of a “male loneliness epidemic”, thus justifying it as a real thing. I think the only thing the “male loneliness epidemic” and the “Manosphere” have in common is that they both believe that women should serve men’s needs and that they should never choose to be centered in their own lives. People who validate both premises believe that women who don’t even care about men at all are in some way slighting them. But let’s get real for a moment: we are rapidly entering an era where women are going to have less power. Right now, women are dying on the delivery tables because they happen to live in states where abortion is banned. Women no longer have complete authority over their own bodies and are having forced C-sections so that they can deliver men’s children. The SAVE Act is aimed at taking away a woman’s right to vote, explicitly if she’s married and their name doesn’t match their birth certificate. Men want to own women, and this much is clear from many of the arguments made by the Manosphere.
For many women, the safest thing they can do is de-center men and instead cultivate a strong foundation of friendship and community with other women. That, not violence or sexual abuse, is often how women solve their loneliness. Men’s friendships with other men are often shallow and based on competition. Men don’t want to lean on each other’s shoulders, which is why they often expect women to take care of them. Men often feel as if they can’t be vulnerable with their male friends for fear of being ostracized from the group. If a man seems sensitive, he’s often met with homophobia from other men, which causes him to feel like these emotions must be directed towards women. This desire to make women speak delicately to misogynists is just a continuation of that misogyny.
In conclusion, I think the Manosphere benefits from the framing of the “male loneliness epidemic”, which is why they relate to each other. However, these have been the arguments being made about men my entire life. What I do know is that there are plenty of men in happy, functional relationships with women. They’re often the ones who truly see women as independent human beings who do not exist solely to play a supporting role in their narrative. I’m not single, but a lot of the time when I interact with men socially, there’s this strong sense that they want me to be a side character in whatever narrative they’re trying to construct for themselves. Maybe I’ll write about this in another post, but it’s almost as if my disinterest in this makes me more appealing to them. I think men in general truly need to unpack their desire to conquer and control women, and they need to stop seeing women as the answer to their loneliness because men certainly aren’t the answer to most women’s loneliness.
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Starting Your Own BDSM Community
Starting Your Own Munches and Building Your Own Community
Someone smart said a very long time ago “build it and they will come”. You won’t hear me discuss this very much on this website or really any of my other blogs, but I actually organize a pretty sizable BDSM community in the Los Angeles area. We’ve host charity BDSM events and have raised over $10,000 for our local LGBT community. At the time of me writing this post, I currently organize probably the largest munch in the LA area and I’ll tell you that it’s a lot easier than you might initially think.
Organizing Your Own Munches
Like I said, my first bit of advice to any newbie is to go to a munch, so if you live in an area where there isn’t one, consider starting your own. There are a few things I’d keep in mind when trying to organize your own munches:
Firstly, while you might want to communicate with the venue about what you’re doing, I’ve found that most venues do not care that you’re a BDSM meet up as long as you’re not actually doing BDSM. During the time of Covid, I would highly suggest that you choose a venue that has a large outdoor patio. I say large because the reality is you really don’t know how many people will show up. When I first started the current munch I run, we started with a good solid group of about 20 people and most of those people were people we knew, but since our munch has been happening, that number has doubled and trippled. When people like your munch, they’ll tell their friends and those friends will tell their friends and sooner or later you will have a thriving group of people who look forward to every munch you host and organize.
I will warn you, however, taking up this mantle requires a lot of responsibility. You have to be willing to ban people who misbehave because you will absolutely get your fair share of pick up artists and creeps that come thinking it’s a pick up situation, but remember, that’s not what munches are supposed to be about. You want your munch to be welcoming to new people and so you must put a focus on not doing things that might potentially alienate new members and also you want to make sure that you’re heavily discouraging public play at the munch. Public Play or even something like a person walking their partner on a leash will easily be used by the venue owners or other customers to remove you and your group from the establishment. You want to maintain a positive relationship with the restaurant or bar so be sure to patronize, and tip well. Most venues will appreciate the additional business.
There are pros and cons to hosting your event at a restaurant or a bar. Most restaurants do not have open seating so they may not lend themselves very well to a munch. The problem with bars is that you might have members of your community that are sober or under the age of 21 and those people might feel alienated from your munch. We host our munch at a restaurant/bar so people who are sober can order food and people who want to drink can drink and everyone over the age of 18 is welcome to attend.
I think any BDSM Community that has regular play parties needs to have munches or sloshes to balance the community out and as an introductory point for newbies. Some of the local BDSM dungeons also throw game nights where people are invited to come to the BDSM Dungeon, check out the equipment and play some board games. You will find there’s a huge crossover between people who are looking for a DnD group/other people to play boardgames and BDSM. Either way, I highly encourage establishing some sort of non kink related activity that is focused on bringing together folks who are interested in BDSM or actively practicing BDSM. To me, that is the first step to building a community and subsequently organizing BDSM play spaces.
Organizing Play Parties
As previously stated, I organize a fairly large LA based BDSM community, but with that said, We’ve currently only thrown 2, quite successful play parties. So take this section with a grain of salt, but here are some central things that stood out to me when organizing a play party.
When organizing BDSM Play Party, you are assuming responsibility for the things that go on at your event. I would actively discourage you from doing this unless you are willing to take on that burden. It can be, and often is, a very overwhelming and annoying task. Because you can only be in so many places at once I would highly suggest that your first step be securing Dungeon Monitors for your events. You probably don’t want to begin entertaining the idea of hosting events without already having established a relationship with Dungeon Monitors. Depending on your community and its local dungeons, you might be able to pick up DMs from other events, but some DMs only work at certain events and you’ll likely have to prove to them that your event is a good one before they agree to give their time to DMing for your event. These are probably your strongest asset for your events.
Most people to go to play parties for socializing, exhibitionism and a chance to use the equipment. This means that you’ll need a venue and likely equipment if you don’t already have it. I would say that when it comes to equipment, you’ll want to have no fewer than 3 pieces of equipment and if you can tripple and quadruple that, even better; if you have the space. You might want to consider hiring or partnering with a local Dominant/Top who has their own equipment who is willing to service top. I would avoid partnering the with the kind of person who only tops specific bodies/genders/races/etc if you’re hosting a diverse party where everyone is welcome. Most Tops will bring their own tools, but it might be handy for you to have a few you don’t particularly care for available for the newer and more curious people who are still sorting things out. Parties for newer people are going to require either more space or more structured use of the equipment.
Really really ask yourself what kind of space you’re wanting to create. Personally for me, inclusion is very important in the BDSM spaces that I’m in so when I sort out to organize my own events, that was at the forefront of how the munches and events were presented. If you’re a person who really wants for your space to be one where, for example, newly out transgender people can use the pronouns that feel good to them, sometimes it’s as simple as having a pronoun pin/name-tag with a space for pronouns can communicate that they are welcome here. If it’s an event for everyone, say that. You don’t know just how many people are nervous about coming to events because they are worried they might not be welcomed there.
This is my long-winded, but basic advice about getting into the BDSM community that already exists in your area or potentially starting your own. I hope this helps anyone trying to find their place out there! Happy slappin’!
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Who’s To Blame For The BAFTA Incident?
Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, and it started a debate about Tourette’s. I wanted to share my perspective.
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Listening to Epstein’s Victim’s Journal Entries
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Comment Response: “ can trans people accept that they’re just a fetish?
I accept that in a transphobic society, there will always be people who fetishize me. What I don’t accept is that it is impossible to be attracted to a trans person and not have a fetish.
As a person in the BDSM community, I understand the nuance differences. There are people who fetishize the idea of a person being trans and this is often coupled with assumptions and projections about how they operate sexually. Fetishizing a trans person looks like pathologizing transness and never accepting that they exist beyond this pathology. It doesn’t look like a person finding me attractive, being interested in my body and even enjoying aspects of it that aren’t like a cis woman’s.
Trans bodies are not a representation of a fetish, and it’s only within a transphobic framework that our bodies are understood as such. When you accept trans women as women, it becomes easier to comprehend that while cis women may not experience being fetishized for being transgender explicitly, they are often fetishized for many other reasons. It is not the existence of those fetishes that then marks them as a fetish inherently. Fetishism is something that they experience; but it is not their experience nor is it does it define them. But the difference here is that our society at least grants them their gender, and the idea that they exist beyond that.
Because transgender people are stigmatized, they are often forced into doing sex work. For many transgender people, sex work is the way that they survive in a society where it has historically been legal to discriminate against them. The impact of that is that the vast majority of representation people have of transgender people is in some way connected to sex work and explicitly sex workers who need to fetishize themselves in order to survive. The understanding of trans people as an inherent fetish is largely connected to the fact that trans people are rarely allowed to represent themselves beyond this context.
There have been several high profile instances of trans women being celebrated outside of the context of sex work and almost every time there has been pushback. For me, this is the perpetual cycle that needs to be broken. Because trans women are oppressed, they often end up doing sex work, and then because they’ve done sex work, they are often seen as an inherent fetish, and because they’re seen as an inherent fetish, they’re not seen as suitable for public society, and because they’re not seen as suitable for public society, most people only understand them as a fetish, and therefore oppress them. In other words, it is the oppression of trans women that gives you the understanding that transgender people only exist as a fetish, for the most part.
However, in my life, I’ve had multiple long-term relationships. I’ve been in love more than once, and currently as a polyamorous person I have several long-term partners who very much love me and are very much proud to be seen with me. They don’t fetishize me for being transgender, in fact, they didn’t even know that I was trans when we met. What I think people in your position will always struggle to understand. Is that the reality for many transgender women moving through the world is that while plenty of people fetishize us, and plenty of people see us as through stigmatized lens, it’s actually fairly common that when men are attracted to you, and especially if you fall into a certain range of beauty, you will meet men who desire actual relationships with you. Will that be most men? Probably not, but that really doesn’t matter they are men who do and I often think that when people go out of their way to reinforce the idea that trans women only exist within the scope of a fetish, they are often fighting to maintain their access to trans, people by reinforcing and engaging in transphobia that makes trans people more accessible to them because of stigma.
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Closing 2025…
When I turned 30, someone told me that it wouldn’t feel nearly as transformative as 35. I wasn’t expecting that to be true. I have a resentment towards being told who I am or how things will go. I’ve never wanted to go to a psychic because if my future can be read, I’m not so sure I’d like to know it. I’m stubborn. I don’t fold easily. Too stubborn to admit that time has passed. 2025 was a year where a lot of things came into focus for me. It’s the year when I finally started to understand a lot of things about myself. I’ve had to admit to some hard truths and recognize some very real things about myself. It’s the year I started to really look in the mirror and realize that enough time has passed for me to be honest about the reality of certain things.
Time isn’t something I am very conscious of. To be completely honest, even though I’ve lived in LA for almost a decade now, it feels like I just got here. Intellectually, I know this isn’t true. I’ve seen many businesses open and close. I still remember going to Amoeba at the old location….but it’s like when the quarantine happened, I stopped aging. Time stood still and hasn’t moved forward for me in many ways. I feel like I’ve been consistently working and working and working and challenging myself to improve and grow, but I’ve lost sight of that time. I’ve lost sight of the fact that I moved to this city in my 20s and I’m half way through my 30s. I don’t feel like I am though. It’s a very odd feeling… but I’ve had to be honest about it. As I buried my parents, a lot of things came into focus for me. It’s cliché, but death really teaches you how final everything is. It kills me to know that I never called my mom as much as I should have. That I wasn’t able to speak to my father before he died. Its hard for me to recognize that I allowed time to pass in such a great way that in all reality, in the pursuit my career as a content creator, I’ve forgotten what’s important.
In retrospect, my ex wasn’t great, but I was sucked into my online content creator life so much that I can admit that I did neglect aspects of our relationship. The thing I’ve come to understand is that because of my upbringing, I have a very severe, almost automated survival instinct. I don’t let myself rest until I know I am financially secure. I started to feel insecure in that situation, so I hustled, and I hustled, and I hustled until I made more money than he did. When I really think of it, I’ve always used what I’ve had; and what I’ve always had is my creativity…and my body. I don’t like using my body. I don’t like selling it, measuring it, or categorizing it. I hate fitting it into a mold and selling it in whatever package sells best, often a package that feels so disconnected from me. But aren’t we all doing that? Aren’t we all acting and moving in ways where we are pretending and selling?
For about a year, I committed to wearing the same wig and shooting my videos the same way. In a way, it was really nice because it meant that I had cohesion. People clearly preferred the cheap pixie wig to my natural hair. I noticed I was getting more compliments on my appearance. Women would stop me in the airport bathroom and ask if I cut my own hair, and ask how. I always felt they were being shady, but at a certain point, I had to accept that, whether it was a genuine celebration or ridicule, it got attention, and that attention can be monetized. I’ve never liked attention. Not really.
I think most of my problems can be traced back to the fact that I am not a capitalist. I like making money, I like having enough to feed myself and to enjoy a few nice things here or there; but I’ve never loved money. Money just made me feel safe. Money meant I didn’t have to put up with men I didn’t want to, and it meant that I was able to not rely on my parents….if I’m being honest, what I realized this year was that I have been hustling for most of my life, which has made it really hard for me to be appreciative of what I have. But this was a year when I started to truly appreciate my life.
If you follow my YouTube channel, you’ll know that about two years ago, I decided to commit to uploading higher-quality content less frequently. This was a great decision. At the time, I was struggling to maintain my channel’s mainstay, True Tea. Initially, I started the series as something easy I could do every week. I’d film several different episodes in one night, and I still had plenty of time to live my life. When I first moved to LA, I was going to BDSM and Poly socials really regularly. I was making friends and meeting people. It was why I came to the city. It’s how I met Alexander, whom I love very much. I’m so glad that I was able to make the time to live and experience life… but when the pandemic hit, I found myself with too much time to overthink, and I think I forgot how to live my life in a way that’s becoming apparent to me as the year closes. Because I was trying to do more, I put most of my energy into creating video essays. These essays would perform much better than my previous content. People liked them. They wanted more of them. But only very recently have I done the numbers and realized that while I’d been working hard, I hadn’t really been working smart. I was investing more in my content than I was making.
It’s bizarre because, here’s the thing: while I’ve had worse months, I feel like the content I was creating for a while was my best content and content that performed the best. I felt good about what I was doing and how it was being received, for the most part. However, I had to be honest and recognize that I was feeling drained. I’ve been feeling drained for a while. My parents death has me thinking a lot about legacy and what I want to leave behind. It’s made me realize I really don’t want to look back on my life and say the thing I was best known for was my YouTube channel. For years and years, when people recognized me for my YouTube channel, I’ve cringed. Not because I don’t appreciate my followers, but I guess it’s always been something I could do but it was never the thing I really set out to be good at. The speech I used to give to students before Trump dismantled that path of income for me was always about accepting that maybe the job you excel at isn’t the job you were necessarily meant to work. For me, that was about how storytelling was always a talent of mine that I’ve never seen as one. Sometimes you have things you’re good at that you weren’t expecting to be good at and its important to embrace those things; especially for survival. However, the other side of that story is that Youtube was never my first choice.
I’ve been a YouTuber since I was a teenager, and I don’t imagine a time in my life when I won’t be in some way. The reality is that among the hobbies I’ve had, blogging has always been my favorite. I was an early adopter. I was among the first of my kind, though few will ever acknowledge it. I didn’t start this for acknowledgement. I started it for the love of blogging. My blogs have taken so many forms over the years, but fast forward today, the reality of my life is that it is my current full time job. It’s a job I am actually happy to have. These days, I can feel how my situation has given me more comfort and security than most. This year, I learned to appreciate the fact that I am an artist and that I get to create full-time. I get to largely talk about anything I want and because I can, my job is fun. I’m excited to create something new and I love the cycle of publishing something and having it entertain people. But what I’m realizing is that I have allowed myself to completely lose sight of many things in my life because of how I’ve focused on Youtube.
It sounds odd, but even though I have several partners who love me, this was the year it really sank in: they actually mean it. My hustling has been bad for my relationships. I work too hard and too much. There are times when Alexander, a software engineer at a very large company, just wants to take me out and let loose after a stressful workday, but because I don’t have traditional hours, I still feel like I’m on the clock. Around the time I finish one video essay, I’m off to start the next, constantly trying to capitalize on a trend, which I’ve never really enjoyed. I’m not a trendy person. I don’t care for trends, but my job requires me to at least remain aware of them.
When Taylor Swift released her last album, I decided to mix things up. Instead of engaging deeply in the discourse and spending weeks upon weeks researching and writing some video about Taylor Swift that I’d barely care about, I just decided to sit down, do my nails and listen to the album while recording my reaction on my phone. I edited around the copyright, uploaded the video and put a nice thumbnail on it….and it made me more money than the past two video essays I had worked on that I had paid several editors to edit. I was able to pay my rent with a video that required, maybe 3 hours of my time. That was a turning point for me. I started doing live-streaming and I found that I can edit my livestreams into content; even better if I record high quality self footage while I do so. With a bit of pre-planning, I can EASILY edit that livestream into a video and depending on the topic, it’ll perform as well as a normal video essay. Live streaming also allows me to have a more direct connection with my audience and many of my followers have missed my livestreaming. I’m ending the year with earnings higher than they had been in the previous month simply because I have been uploading more content and doing more live-streaming. Sure, some of these videos aren’t performing well. Some of them sit at just under 40k views, which is a huge shift from the 100k my video essays were getting, but in terms of my earnings, it is turning out to be a much better thing for me to work a bit smarter.
What I can’t get past, however, is the feeling that this content is “trashy”. It feels trashy for me to upload content that isn’t well shot, often deeply researched and performed a certain way. But it feels like a good thing for me to continue doing and I find that even if the stream is just me relaxing and creating something while reacting to things, that can do something for me. I’ve managed to earn a decent amount on just the livestreams, which I wasn’t even thinking about. Livestreams are helpful because I’m able to a lot of what I’d do in post just live on a livestream. It feels like the right choice.
If you’ve followed me on Patreon for a while, you’ve heard me speak about struggling through a lot of this, but I feel like I’ve truly started to figure out what’s what. Ultimately, I have recognized that if I start live-streaming, I can upload content regularly to my page that will then perform decently enough to, bare minimum, tide folks over for the more substantial videos I’m working on. Last year, I lost a lot of time and resources towards experimenting, but I think what I have to do is use my Youtube channel to fund my more creative endeavors. I have so many things I want to do. So many creative projects I want to complete.
What I’m going to do in 2026 is commit to making creativity a mainstay of my Youtube channel. I want to do all of those projects that are rotting away in my apartment. I want to use my overlocker. I want to do something with that pile of leather I have in my apartment. And what I’ve realized is that I find myself being drawn back to my roots. I was once a DIY Youtuber content creator. That content didn’t get viewed, so I started talking about myself. People were more interested in that so I kept going. That led me to feminism and that led me to social justice, which ultimately let me to leftism. And in a way, I find all of these things coming together in this exact moment in time. And I’ve recognized that I am actually in a great position to do something big. I have the platform, the desire, the talent and the ability. I don’t want my channel to become what I would internalize as trashy, but I like the idea of doing a few livestreams a month and spending most of the month working on several creative somethings or others and putting together something huge.
Frankly, there are some projects I paused that I want to bring back…and collaborations I want to see in 2026. So I’m going into this year with a lot of excitement.
Happy New Years!
-Kathryn
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Hot + Introspective- November 8th
Happy Saturday!
So, recently I was thinking that I really need to use this blog more, and I had an idea… Every week, I’m going to make a post on here about the things that I think are hot…and the things that made me introspective. A combination of things that are both thoughtful and escapist! My goal with these posts is to be positive/silly and to speak more about my interests and the little things I nerd out over. Realizing that making this a thing I do every week will also encourage me to be more positive and to also keep track of the things that make me smile. Each post will be split into two sections: things that are Hot (culture, entertainment, etc) and introspective (educational, informative, etc).
Hot
GirlSet – Little Miss
You’ll probably notice I will use this section to fangirl over pop girl groups quite a bit. Yes, I am a Goth, but I am also occasionally pop trash because of my nostalgia for girl/boy bands. I wasn’t allowed to listen to much secular music growing up, but I remember quietly renting Spice World from my library as a kid, which gave me an appreciation for everything girl/boy band. I primarily follow Asian pop music, which led me to GirlSet. This group came from a reality TV competition called A2K, where Americans auditioned to be part of a K-pop group managed by a K-pop company. Those familiar with the group will know that Girl Set is a rebrand of Vcha, which was the original name for the group that debuted after six members won the competition. However, two of the girls would withdraw from the group, with one of them alleging that they experienced abuse and torment while working under the management company, JYP Entertainment. Former member KG even asserts that the abuse may have pushed a member towards suicidal ideation.
With two of its members gone, Vcha was rebranded as GirlSet and given a more mature look, since the two youngest members are no longer in the group.
Initially, when they debuted with their song “Commas,” audiences were underwhelmed by the low-quality music video and what felt like very little investment from JYP. Many complained that the song had already been ruined with JYP posting the chorus all over TikTok and Shorts, as the company tends to do with many of its groups. Many people expressed disinterest and even a lack of faith in the fact that Lexus, Camilla, Savanna, and Kendall could ever truly step into their own and carry through with the remaining members; especially as both KG and Kayle, another member who also left the group, were powerful vocalists, with the remaining members having more strength in dance… and then Halloween happened.
The group posted a spicy cover of Britney Spears’ hit Gimmie More and each member was dressed as a Bratz Doll from the recent Alwayz Bratz 2024 release. The video was an absolute hit, and it currently sits at 1.2 million views, reaching a milestone much faster than their debut. The video also affirmed their more mature rebrand, associating them with a brand already known for its daring, but fashion-forward, and still girly style. A perfect fit for the diverse group of young women who have indeed grown since their A2K days.
When GirlSet announced they were having a comeback, I was not at all prepared for how much I’d enjoy this small snippet of their upcoming song, Little Miss, and I wasn’t the only one!
The song samples Lean Like a Cholo, and the girls appear in a distinctive urban style that seems like an excellent fit for them. I was surprised by just how much this group of introverts has grown. Even the group’s nay-sayers have decided to learn the choreography and upload their own cover of it, which was choreographed by Latrice, who has choreographed for acts like Teamin and Vivis. The dance is going massively viral, and the song isn’t even out yet!
Little Miss will officially release on November 14th, and I will be rooting for them! And as I root for them, I hope they are treated well.
Eli performs at Spirit Halloween
Transgender pop ingénue, Eli was gracious enough to perform for customers at the Silverlake Spirit Halloween location just last week.
Originally discovering her on TikTok, I’ve genuinely fallen in love with Eli’s very pensive, Y2K teenage-dream vibe, and I immensely appreciate her sense of humor on social media. With impressive chops, I think she’s successfully reaching her goal of becoming the kind of pop darling she herself wanted as a young queer kid.
Eli just released her EP, Girl of the Year, a tender album that explores her journey, identity, and love life. Worth a listen!
After
A few weeks ago, I discovered the group, After. I don’t know much about them, but last week I went to Amoeba looking for their music. I found out they haven’t released their most recent EP yet, but honestly, I can’t really describe just how much I enjoy their music. It hits that particular Imogen Heap space that I’ve held in my mind for a while. It reminds me of music I listened to before I truly left my bedroom. When I would spend days and days just making art, surfing online, and replaying everything that made me feel dreamy.
Dhoom Machale and Zohran Mamdani
Zohran Mamdani is the newly elected mayor of New York City. While I will never be a simp for a politician, I have to admit I appreciate his policies quite a bit, and I think he represents a different direction, free of AIPAC funding and centered on the people. I am cautiously optimistic about where the left will go if his success is replicated nationwide.
While I am too pessimistic to be charmed, I will say the one thing that really made me smile was the fact that he played Dhoom Machale after giving his winning speech.
Many years ago, I discovered this song while I was… researching Hrithik Roshan (please forgive me, I was young). It’s one of the songs that makes me so happy. It’s such a joyous song to me that I can’t help but feel satisfied when I hear it. In fact, I’ve played it many times to improve my mood. This moment truly tickled me, and I have to be honest, it did something to my mood to know that all of these Billionaires invested tons of money into him losing, and the people said no. I do believe his win is a good sign.
Ashnikko – I Want My Boyfriends To Kiss
I absolutely adore Ashnikko. I can’t remember the first song of hers I’ve heard, but she’s someone whose music I rarely skip when it comes up. I find myself saying “same” all the time when I listen to her music, and I could not have felt more seen by her new song, I Want My Boyfriends To Kiss. This subversive anthem forces us to ask the question… what would our society be if men simply relinquished ego and embraced homosensuality for the female gaze. In this thesis, I will….
And I’ve absolutely loved watching some of the most fascinating creators make their own videos lip-syncing her words.
Boy Throb and the Quest for Darshan
Boy Throb is a.. very interesting social media video series about an unconventional boy band trying desperately to make it big.
At the time I am writing this, we don’t know much about the people behind these videos, but they appear to be an elaborate skit that many people have taken to. What I’ve loved most about this series is that they’ve managed to create a really intriguing set of videos that went viral very quickly. They’ve created a narrative that people have latched onto, and I think the people behind it are brilliant.
This amazing Evangelion cover in a Garage
Maybe it’s because I’m a weeb, but this video made me really happy this week lol. Their entire page is full of really great stuff just like this.
Introspective
Freshpet may be bad for your dog
Some users are reporting that their dogs have health issues after consuming Freshpet. As a doggy step mom whose dog eats Freshpet, I thought I’d spread this along.
Nathan Ramos-Park Shows His Audience How to Eat Well on $50 in LA
Like a lot of people right now, I’m thinking a lot about saving money, eating well, and treating food prep more seriously. LA local, Nathan Ramos, shares how he manages to do it for $50 at Zion Market in Ktown.
Scottish Tiktoker explains why Scottish and Irish Americans are Disproportionally MAGA
This video came into my feed and I thought it was utterly fascinating.
The Library Of Things
You may be surprised to hear that your local library has a lot of tools and equipment and offers many services beyond lending books. However, this new story got a lot of people excited about the idea of expanding that further and creating more robust mutual aid.
I think that’ll do it for this week! I’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments! Please subscribe to my blog to get updates!
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Decolonizing Love, The Shemale Fantasy and Hierarchical Polyamory As A Trans Woman
Decolonizing Love is a leftist platform dedicated to educating the poly-curious about non monogamy from a decolonized lens. Nick and Millie have been in a happily polyamorous relationship for over 14 years. Millie is a non-binary she/they Kenyan immigrant who’s been non monogamous their entire lives, while Nick’s non monogamy started once they began dating. Though they’re based in Toronto, Canada, their content has been celebrated world wide as it is one of the more accessible platforms dedicated to attempting to break down some of the commonly embraced aspects of colonization that appear within non-monogamous relationships; namely, hierarchy. As their platform is largely about criticizing the concept of hierarchy within non-monogamous relationships, it’s often been used as a resource for couples transitioning from monogamy to polyamory. Nick and Millie offer their followers peer support, while also selling a relationship contract for $149 that has apparently appeared in Business Insider. Make no mistake, Decolonizing Love is a business.
Recently, they’ve come under fire for some of their positions, namely Millie’s statements about transgender women and some of their comments about BDSM practitioners. As you can image, as a leftist, kinky, black transgender woman, I have a lot to say about these comments and you can watch my hour long video essay that goes over most of what I have to say on my Youtube Channel. However, in this post I wanted to focus on Millie’s comments about transgender women and expand on some of my thoughts about how these comments very naturally result in what I know is a contradiction to their stated politics of “decolonization”, and stance against hierarchical polyamory.
Before launching into my entire thoughts about this; a disclaimer. I have not, nor have I ever been invested in “cancelling” anyone. Even some of the people I’ve written about on this blog are people that I, at the end of the day, believe are capable of change. I never want to believe that people are completely immovable, which is why I make the work I do. In general, my problem with the way Decolonizing Love discusses many things is their very black and white way of viewing certain things. They often leave no room for nuance or practicality. Their content is primarily fixated around shame and greatly relies on their audience being ignorant, but drawn to do better.
Clearly, their audience grants Millie a lot of credit because of her African background and often times when criticized, Millie will say that it’s an attempt to attack her and subvert her points, specifically because of this background. I want to make it clear that I am especially not invested in tearing down black creators and those who I know are ultimately under a harsher lens of scrutiny because of misogyny.
Millie has… half heartedly apologized for what I’m going to be discussing in this post, but I’m writing it because this is an aspect of discussions around non-monogamy and hierarchy that I often feel is not just dismissed, but actively suppressed, largely because I feel that people do not want to face the harsh reality of the disconnect between their politics and their actions. Hierarchy is something I feel quite sharply BECAUSE I am a trans woman.
So what exactly did they say?
Underneath an Instagram post, Millie, who makes most of the posts for Decolonizing Love, discusses her preference for pre-op transgender women. She says she prefers them over cis women. Her reasons? Trans women with penises could potentially fulfill one of her sexual desires: being fucked by a woman with a functional and responsive penis.
This comment was made very publicly and that’s worth noting because for quite some time now, we’ve adjusted to a social norm where these conversations about cis bodies are fairly taboo. One time I was in a club with my partner Alexander, who is a tall white man. Another white man who that had been flirting with me for months saw us together and decided to launch into this very uncomfortable rant about how Alexander would absolutely love Asia. He’d recently traveled to Japan and found that Japanese women absolutely loved him! Why? According to him, Japanese women have tight, small vaginas that are particularly satisfying to, presumably, larger white penises. He said this to us in public and, yes, it was quite uncomfortable because it was such a disgusting, objectifying, and racist thing to say, but he said it very comfortably. Everyone around him was mortified.
Despite the right’s attempt to normalize “locker room talk”, we still tend to acknowledge that it’s very disrespectful to publicly discuss a women’s genitalia in a degrading way. Yet transgender bodies are often viewed as public domain. So when our bodies are described, they’re spectacles first that are either repulsive or seductive; either way they exist to be consumed. Being a transgender person often means accepting that most people will only ever humanize you if you’re able to closely mimic the gender you identify as, that you weren’t designated. Outside of that, you often feel like you must instead convince the world of your humanity, as to avoid objectification or stigmatism. You’d think a great ally to the trans community who has a decolonized perspective would be aware of the toll objectification has on transgender women especially. Millie speaks about transgender women’s genitalia as if she’s describing her favorite sex toy. And frankly, that’s how many poly folks view trans women: as toys to be taken out of the nightstand only when the fancy hits and no one else is there.
I’ve met so many people who “prefer” trans women and they’re almost never in long term romantic relationships with them.
When I first came into the poly world, I went to a little gathering that happens at a bar in the straight part of West Hollywood, the Sunset Strip. I was fresh meat, just getting out of my six-year, vanilla, more traditional relationship and I was eager to finally explore polyamory with the right people. I pretty immediately got the attention of a shaggy haired dude who I’d later discover had some what of a cult-of personality in the LA poly scene. This was my first time meeting him though and I was immediately taken by his seemingly aggressive statements about feminism and constant reference to his sexuality being less than straight. At the time, I’d spent a good years or so kissing conservative frogs in Orange County and here he was; one of them lefty liberal type feminist dudes from LA. Surely he’d be a better choice.
Because of his constant reference to his bisexuality, I felt like I didn’t need to rush to tell him that I was a transgender woman. At this time in my life, I had just started letting go of being stealth and I wasn’t quite comfortable being super open about being transgender. I figured that since he was bisexual, it wouldn’t be a huge deal. So before our first date, I let him know and I sensed a bit of hesitation. He explained to me that he’d never been with a trans woman before but he thought I was cute so let’s see where it goes.
This particular guy would have (and I’d bet does) absolutely loved Decolonizing Love’s Facebook content. He was an obnoxious Facebook male feminist who made post after post about political issues that would, of course, make him seem like a good dude. His wife was very openly bisexual and he would spend a lot of time making posts about desiring men, despite never actually having any romantic experience with men. He’d make a lot of comments about how certain popular male figures were attractive, but when I observed him, The poly community is, of course, full of an array of people of various sexualities, but I never really saw him give attention to anyone other than women and non transitioned non-binary people who were designated female at birth.
We dated for a few months, but he would often pull away when I attempted to initiate intimacy. It was hard for me to register this as he’d speak openly about his drive and desire and frequently made dates with new women, whom he would have some degree of intimacy with. We’d go out together or be at the same event at the same time and he’d make a point of taking a picture of us and putting it on Facebook, but privately, he avoided my touch.
Eventually, I felt like I was chasing him, which is a bit embarrassing to admit. He never seemed available for me, but was for his other partners. I obviously knew the reason why he went from overeager to performatively doing the bare minimum. While he never said this to me, I know that he was uncomfortable with my transgender body. For me, one of the main downsides of passing is that I’ve often experienced people making the assumption that I was female at birth, and then had to experience the disappointment when I share that I am not. And yes, often times, this disappointment has been from people who claim bi or pansexuality.
Being a transgender woman often means being an entity that inherently challenges a lot of the people you interact with. You may not even be trying to do so, but, frankly, people are so deeply propagandized that they engage in a lot of things without realizing that they are. In a way, I called his bluff. He had been presenting himself as a woke, inclusive, experienced guy, but in reality, he was someone that still had preferences and measured people’s value based on those preferences.
I don’t think there’s a way to ever state a preference without it sounding problematic. Frankly, I think if Millie is interested in well endowed, trans girl tops with functional pensies and doll-like bodies, that is her right. What I take issue with is the way certain people like to pretend they aren’t capable of engaging in behavior that reflects bias. My experience is that most people who include trans women in their dating pool only do so for sex, and many of the ones who desire long term relationships with them often have a preference for what I describe as the “Shemale Fantasy”.
A”Shemale” is the “best of both worlds”: a beautiful woman with sizeable breasts and a functional penis. If you look at a lot of the top selling transgender porn, that’s mostly what you’ll see, and it’s from porn that many people develop The Shemale Fantasy. A fantasy that one day a shemale will passionately penetrate you with her very functional, and large lady penis. Are there transgender women with big dicks that like to fuck? Sure. But typically if you’re a trans woman on HRT and your penis is functioning the way a cis man’s functions, you’re not yet at the point where HRT is truly feminizing your body.
In the early stages of HRT, one of the things people often check for is whether or not a trans woman is getting erections at the same rate as they were before they started. Over time, hormones will decrease the size and functionality of the penis as it’s working to suppress the things that would make your penis sexually functional. Does this mean it’s impossible for trans women to get erections? Absolutely not. In pornography, some transgender performers will take drugs like Viagra to make themselves functional again. Outside of sex work, some trans women will opt for a certain hormone regimen that leaves enough testosterone in their system for them to do so. But either way, it’s important to point out that while it’s completely valid for someone to have this sexual desire and there’s no wrong way for a trans woman to have sex, that for many transgender women, being feitshized in this way is particularly hurtful because of the dysphoria they experience, which I chasers who call themselves allies would understand is more common than not. Many transgender women want bottom surgery and being fetishized for their bodies can be quite traumatizing. Millie isn’t a trans woman so I’ll give her a bit of grace with her use of “pre-op”, but there’s a lot you could read into there.
A “pre-op” trans woman is typically a transgender woman who plans to have “the” surgery. Her ultimate goal is not to have a large and functional penis, but to feminize her body and eventually have a gender affirming surgery where her current parts function in a way that makes living in her body more liveable, as it aligns with her view of self. For many trans women who feel this way, erections are upsetting, not enjoyable. Many trans women who have severe bottom dysphoria that would encourage them to get “the” surgery aren’t interested in being sexually active at all until they’ve had it. For those transgender women, losing functionality of their genitalia is a good sign. It means that their hormone regimen is working correctly and feminization will be successful. Many transgender women will avoid masturbation just to avoid a spike in testosterone that would potentially clash with their hormone goals.
If you see a “pre-op” trans woman in a pornography, she’s probably trying to earn the money she needs to afford “the” surgery. It’s a surgery that will cost many trans women somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000 depending on where you are and your insurance. For many trans women, sex work is one of the only viable ways they’re able to earn enough money to transition. So the great irony is that trans women often end up needing to capitalize on their dehumanization and thus fetishism in order to survive in bodies they feel humanized within. Many trans women feel forced into doing sex work, and it’s ironic how that’s also how many people develop a desire for transgender women. A desire that often alienates us more than it validates us as it’s often based in the realm of fantasy. Few trans women do not have complicated relationship with their genitalia.
I think many people are used to understanding transgender women as being perpetually rejected, and while it’s true that many people reject us, what I wish more people understood is that many people accept us and desire us in the way we want to be desired. For Millie, it likely felt complimentary at the time to say what she said as very few people area willing to publicly state an attraction to transgender women at all; but it’s still objectification that only really happened because trans women aren’t granted their humanity as a baseline. What made her comments ironic to me is that they have a clear indication of preference and hierarchy that would indicate that she’d likely be less interested in dating a cis woman or a woman who DIDN’T have a penis that was eager to fuck her.
Decolonizing Love says a lot of things about hierarchy that I agree with. When a couple attempts to transition their relationship from monogamy to polyamory, I do find that they often operate more-so as an “open relationship”. To me, the distinction between polyamory and an open relationship, an open relationship is other people servicing the desires of the primary couple, the other is about people who all experience romantic love for each other. Romantic Love is something I’ve often found is gatekept from you when you’re outside of someone’s sexual preference or curiosity. Plenty of men I’ve attempted to date over the years explictly stopped trying to date me because I didn’t want to fuck them. For me, my desire to not top is two fold. Without getting into the gore-y details: I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to and if I wanted to, it wouldn’t be without having major surgery. That’s a me thing, not a trans thing though. Either way; for that reason, I’ve always taken issue with is that within an open relationship, you’ve got one couple that’s trying really hard to make sure their interactions with other people don’t have a negative impact on their relationship. This feels very reasonable and is a very common way that many practice non-monogamy, but if you wanted to practice polyamory, you’d need to add a bit of love to the dynamic. It’s my position that polyamory as a term really should only refer to people who love multiple people, not simply sleep with multiple people. Sleeping with multiple people is easy, but truly loving multiple people requires a capacity I find many monogamous people don’t have. Not saying that to sound all holier-than-thou. That’s just my observation. Polyamorous people have the ability and desire to hold more than just a sexual interest in a person. Of course not every relationship is about love, but within an open relationship, it’s off limits. Yet when you’re a trans woman, you often only find yourself on one side of this equation.
Before recognizing I was polyamorous, I had a lot of experience with men who were in open relationships. The situation would typically be a cis man married or dating a cis woman whom he loves very much and would never want to break away from. That cis man has a curiosity for trans women, often a Shemale Fantasy, and he’s gotten permission to pursue this desire with a transgender woman. These relationships were almost always about letting him get his tranny fix and then sending him back to his wife or girlfriend that he gains some sort of social capital from. No one could know that he was interested in me or that we’d had sex. It’s their little secret that must be maintained. I must maintain it, in order to protect their relationship. The sex we have is in service to their relationship. The idea being that because he’s able to get a bit of tranny sex on the side, he can love his woman all that much more. Unfortunately, this is something I also feel among some truly polyamorous folks.
When you’re still fixated on the Shemale Fantasy, it doesn’t really allow you to understand that it is just that; a fantasy. Like the white dude talking about how Asian Women just can’t take his huge white cock, there are probably always going to be a few Asian Women that confirm his bias. However, when you view people through that lens, it has the effect of not allowing you to understand their individuality. As a trans woman who can’t fulfill the Shemale Fantasy partially because I don’t want to, but also because I’m physically unable to, it has always been disorienting when people decide that this makes me a less valuable partner. Within polyamory, sometimes this has become a problem. In general, on dating apps, even vanilla ones, I have to indicate that I am a person who only bottoms because, yes, there are people who do desire long term relationships with trans women, but only as bottoms. Millie identifies as pansexual and even she has a genitalia preference when it comes to trans women.
When I’ve had conversations with people who cling to a sexuality label that suggests that they sleep with both men and women, many of them will dance around essentially acknowledging that the truth is, they don’t want to date a person with a penis unless they’re using that penis to fuck them. In their minds there’s not really see much of a point to dating a transgender woman unless she uses her penis in a very particular way. This may seem like a given, but like I said, a huge majority of trans women do not want to have sex in that way let alone have their genitalia focused on at all. For the fetishist, this may be confusing, but for people who grant trans women their humanity, they recognize that trans women can have a diverse way of feeling about their genitalia with many of them not even having penises. As I’ve written about on here a few times, I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with preferences, even if you could argue that they come from various isms, but let’s be honest about that. As a pansexual, if Millie says she’s primarily attracted to pre op trans women among all women, it’s not hard to imagine how she’d pull away from a post op transgender woman.
My point of contention here is that the natural result of a polyamorous person having this “preference” is that everyone who doesn’t fit it will fall to the wayside. What frustrates me a lot about conversations around hierarchy in polyamory is that the experiences of trans women are often never really introduced to the conversation. If we exist in a society where colonization has taken root and many people only have a very exotic understandings of who transgender women are and how their bodies work, when it comes to pursuing romance, trans women will often experience two very harsh sides of the same coin. They’re either embraced as a fetish or understandably rejected because we aren’t cis. What aggravates me is that many cis poly folks don’t want to be honest where they are in their journey of understanding their attraction to trans women. It’s as if being honest about it is something people are afraid to do in either direction. They’re afraid of outright saying that they exclude trans women from their dating pool entirely, or they’re afraid of saying they only like a select type of trans person that’s more tolerable based on which genitalia they have. I’ve known way too many “pansexual” men in the poly community who are only attracted to feminine people who have a relationship with womanhood; but will reserve romantic feelings for the ones designated female at birth specifically. Too many people clinging to labels because being honest about how they really feel would get them “cancelled”. Many people within the poly community refuse to be honest about how they feel about trans women one way or the other. They refuse to acknowledge that they are inexperienced with trans women and thus are unsure about whether or not they could date them long term the way they’d date a cis woman or that they have sexual feelings for trans women that don’t lend themselves to long term relationships or anything beyond fulfilling a passing sexual kink. None of these people want to be honest about where they are and the ultimate result is that time is wasted.
As I said, a lot of people don’t seem to register that there are indeed people who desire trans women the way they want to be desired. When I met Edward in a quiet little dive bar in K town, we were attracted to each other and he didn’t care that I was trans and he didn’t expect me to fulfill a Shemale Fantasy. He was just attracted to me as an individual; not the embodiment of a fantasy he’s had for a very long time. He, along with my other partners actually do very much appreciate that only one of us in the relationship is being penetrated. I’ve had so many debates with fetishists about how unreasonable it is for me to expect men who have an attraction to me to not want these things, but I’ve been able to find four partners that do not at all feel that way. With that in mind, I want people who feel like Millie to understand that we don’t need these vivid statements about your Shemale Fantasies to feel celebrated or embraced. Humanizing us the way you’d humanize a cis person goes a very long way; but why exactly does that need to be said?
What I found ironic about Millie making this comment from an account called Decolonizing Love is that one of the reasons I have the politics I have is because many years ago, I did a research paper about Two-Spirited people and how they experienced genocide at the hands of Europeans in the Americas. When the white man came to Indigenous lands and saw that there were people who existed beyond their own binary conceptions of gender, they wanted to put an end to them because these people conflicted with one of the main tools of colonization: patriarchy.
Through religion, capitalists have been able to instill this idea of submission to authority and the Christian conception of this places women beneath men, with men existing just beneath God, who is of course a man. While plenty of people are “naturally” monogamous, within a patriarchal society, monogamy matters because legacy matters. If a man is to spread his seed and bind with a woman, he wants to make sure that those children are his and for most of our existence, monogamy was the only way that could ever be ensured. To Decolonize monogamy, we have to also decolonize our conceptions around gender because these things are tied to one another.
There’s a reason why, despite several very well documented stories of pregnant transgender men, the idea that HRT will make you infertile is a huge talking point for those who are trying to dissuade trans masc folks from transitioning medically. There’s a reason why Elon Musk spends his days ranting about the white birth rate on Twitter and also happens to absolutely hate transgender people, including his own daughter; whom many of his fanboys see as a stain on his legacy. There’s a reason why Donald Trump, through is dementia is continuing to rally specifically against transgender people. Capitalists understand that gender is one of the main modes of control because patriarchy has been so instilled within us via colonization that people easily fall into line when they feel their gender is questioned. Telling men that they aren’t real men has encouraged generations of men to throw their lives away so that oil companies can have more oil. Telling women they’re not real women has encouraged many of them to allow their bodies to be used as vessels to birth workers who will slave away to make the Musks and Zuckerbergs of the world more richer as pregnancy continues to be the primary reason women experience poverty. Misogyny convinces many men that as long as they aren’t a woman, they’re doing just fine. Defying the gender binary means defying one of the most potent ways in which capitalists pull our strings; and they know that.
The presences of patriarchy in our culture is why so many people are both repulsed and excited by transgender women. In a patriarchy, if you are a man, it’s in your best interest to remain one and to maintain the small little box you’ve been assigned at birth. You’re shamed for rebelling against what has been repeatedly reinforced as the correct path for you to take. There’s a reason why “you can’t give birth” is such a potent argument against trans women for so many. It’s because that’s the understood role of a woman in this society. To essentialize gender is to embrace the narrative of patriarchy and a tool of the capitalism, which doesn’t care about these things beyond their ability to keep everyone in line.
If you watch my video essay, you’ll know that a good portion of it is dedicated to Decolonizing Love’s stance against BDSM. They reject it on the basis that it replicates the tools of the oppressor. They describe the minorities who enjoy it as having some great epigenetic need to give or receive violence. It’s a very sophomoric understanding of kink and BDSM and especially the community around it.
I organize a BDSM much in Los Angeles that is very well-attended by transgender women. Vanillas don’t tend to understand that for a lot of us in the kink community, we are there for reasons other than BDSM. More that just a few of my attendees started as one gender and I now see them in a new gender. I’ve seen many trans femme and trans masc people blossom over the four or so years I’ve been hosting what is, frankly, the most diverse BDSM munch in the city. While there’s certainly a range, Kinksters who are community oriented also tend to be leftists who are invested in creating an alternative space where mutual aid is commonplace and many of the pains of the vanilla world are intentionally subverted with the idea that we can exist and thrive beyond what the vanilla world accepts as the norm.
Many of our events feed right back into the political work we do. I’ve hosted four paid events where all of the proceeds went to people providing resources for queer and trans people in the city. The same exact resources that actually saved my life as a teen. We were able to raise $11,000 with the help of a local dungeon in Los Angeles. The work I do, and have done both inside and outside of the BDSM community has often been about providing a space for trans people to be themselves and be embraced, not as the fantasy, but as reality. I know that the events I’ve hosted have helped build confidence for trans people who often feel there are limited places for them to be themselves. Vanilla people who fetishize trans folks probably don’t know this, but that’s a fairly common thing within the BDSM community. Many of the leaders of our community are transgender, and that’s not because trans people are more perverse, but because most of us actually do intimately understand the need to create space for things that don’t typically fit into the neat boxes left behind for us after colonization.
It’s my experience as a both a trans woman and a kinkster that makes me roll my eyes at a lot of what I see Decolonizing Love post. While I am aware that their current belief is they are only receiving criticism from people because they are jealous of them or because they’re part of a government organized initiative to destroy their African, leftist platform, I want to make it clear that once again, I do not have any investment in “cancelling” them. There’s are a lot of good, helpful content that they publish and I’m not someone who likes to see anyone or anything as wholly and entirely bad, but that’s not really a grace they tend to extend to others. Their platform is particularly well-loved by the kind of person who likely wouldn’t have any the experiences that I’ve shared in this post, which is why I’ve decided to share it. I hope it helps someone recognize patterns they may not intend to repeat.
Each of us is touched by colonization; we can only work to ensure we don’t continue its legacy.
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Laverne Cox and the Folly of Being a Woman Who Desires “Traditional” Men
I appeared on an episode of Olay and Friends to discuss this topic:
Transgender trailblazer, Laverne Cox, made some very questionable comments about dating a blue-eyed, white, conservative MAGA-voting NYPD officer and… I have thoughts
This video is, rightfully, causing a lot of anger around various corners of the Internet, with many people asking how exactly a Black transgender woman, and an activist at that, ends up in a relationship with a MAGA conservative who is quite plainly perhaps her most significant and most dangerous foe. However, I think much of the shock around Laverne Cox’s dating history comes from people distinctly separating trans women’s dating patterns from cis women’s. If many of the people having these conversations understood that straight trans women can and often do fall for the same traps as cis straight women, I think this conversation would start making a bit more sense.
One of the significant things that complicates conversations about transgender dating and even life is that there are a lot of people who do not understand that the visible transgender people are the transgender people who choose to be seen. For most of my life as a trans woman, I’ve understood the danger of visibility. I’ve understood that being known as a trans woman comes with the pressure to be a good representative, and I’ve also understood that being known means that I may have less success in relationships. A lot of men don’t want anyone to know that they’re dating a transgender woman. I’ve known many trans women who had relationships with men that relied on how well they could conceal their gender. Many of my relationships in the early years were like that. For some people, this sounds like a prison, but for others, it may be precisely what they want, or rather, what they feel they can get.
Contrary to popular belief, not all trans women identify with queer sensibilities and desire relationships where their transness is widely celebrated, known, and focused on. There’s an entire layer of transgender women who choose to simply and quietly live their lives, allowing society to accept them simply as women without any prefixes. Typically, but not always, those women are invested in maintaining very rigid gender roles, and that’s where their compatibility with cis heterosexual conservative men begins.
I’ve spent most of my life living in conservative, predominantly white communities. For the longest time, I would say that I’d only ever dated conservative men, but this was never something I intentionally sought out. I was raised very religious and sheltered, and for obvious reasons, this has meant that I’ve frequently been the archetype of woman some of these men feel they should pursue. So I’ve found myself in more than just a few scenarios with them. I’d say I didn’t have much experience with left-leaning men until I moved to the city. Most of the conservative men I’ve dated would say that they “weren’t political.” It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize what that means. For a while, I thought it meant they kept their heads down and worked without paying much attention, and thus lacked education on the issues. I hadn’t recognized that many men are aware of the fact that the more liberal women, whom they tend to prefer over conservative women, do not want to date conservative men, so often they will hide or deny their politics, essentially until you’re in love with them.
Make no mistake, I don’t think anyone who’s marginalized right now should be dating a MAGA voter. I believe that if you love yourself, you will liberate yourself from it as an expression of respect for yourself. I also think it’s telling that she specifically dated a police officer from New York. 40% of law enforcement officers report themselves that they have been involved in domestic violence. I think it is unwise to date a cop, and fawning over a white man in his twenties with blue eyes is cringeworthy. That said, she likely dated him… because he showed up. And as many people seem to be baffled by conservative men who date trans women, I wanted to speak openly about my experiences with them as someone who’d never do it again.
In conversations about transgender women’s dating prospects, trans women are often encouraged to accept society’s premise about how repulsive their bodies are to people who’d want to be with them. Cissexism is the idea that cis bodies are superior to bodies that are transgender. The idea that a cis woman’s body is more valuable than mine, for example. It’s why we are often pressured to be gracious when we are being rejected because some people may simply prefer “natural” cis bodies. A few weeks ago we were having conversations about TS Madison and her experience dating straight men. Many people were eager to bust into the conversation to tell TS Madison, who dates transgender women despite them being neither transgender nor experienced with dating them. Society seems convinced that the ideal and common partner for a transgender woman would be a bisexual man with liberal politics, but the reality is quite different.
I have long accepted that society will never quite understand this, but straight men dominate my dating pool. At 34 years old, I believe I can identify who is and isn’t attracted to me and who tends to pursue me and who doesn’t. My experience with bisexual men is often that they see me as “the best of both worlds”. They frequently view my body as a collection of parts that can satisfy them instead of seeing me as an entire human being with my motivations and desires. The last bisexual man I attempted to connect with was very clear about what he wanted. He wanted children, so he wanted to marry a cis woman. Still, he enjoyed trans women’s bodies sexually, so he wanted to continue having sex with them, even as he built a family with a cis woman. I like bisexual men. I’ve found they are often better lovers and are more likely to have examined toxic masculinity. However, they do still frequently choose to pursue cis women when seeking long-term relationships. I know a lot of bisexual men who like trans women, and I’ve never seen them date anyone other than a cis woman long-term. It’s hard to ignore that in the face of how straight men often pursue trans women.
What a lot of people don’t often understand is that, while it’s true that many, hell, even most heterosexual men reject transgender women, the ones who don’t are often more invested in placing you into a box and treating you how they’d treat a cis woman. Straight men are more likely to see trans women as just women, not the best of a man and a woman. This is a significant, distinctive difference because it means that when trans women date bi men, they’re often dating men who are excited about them being transgender. In contrast, when they date straight men, they’re often dating men who are excited they’re dating a woman. From the vantage point of a heterosexual trans woman, what this means is that aside from all of the societal benefits that come with dating a heterosexual man, she’s also dating a man who shares her view of gender. My consistent experience with bisexual men is that if they know that I am transgender, they tend to place me into a “for sexual use only” category. In contrast, straight men often want to explore the connection beyond that. Through my romantic life, as I’ve raised my standards to only date men who are confident about their interest in me and being seen with me, I’ve found that straight conservative men are, as I’ve said, overrepresented in my dating pool, and I feel like society is shocked by that, but it’s a canon event for most trans women I know who only date men.
Trans women will often experience men who are interested in them but do not want to date them, respect them, or treat them particularly well. Contrary to popular belief, Black transgender women such as Cox aren’t typically murdered by white, conservative MAGA dudes. They’re usually murdered by Black men who, quite likely, have strong disagreements with white MAGA dudes. Society will have you believe that trans women are so undesirable and repulsive that no man would ever be consensually attracted to them, but if you look into these incidents of violence, you’ll find that more than just a few of them are the result of a man not being able to handle the world knowing that they were with a transgender woman. When we discuss these murders, we are encouraged to, again, accept the premise of how repulsive and unappealing we are. People eagerly imagine that trans women go out of their way to trick and fool men into their bedrooms, not understanding that these men make their way there themselves. But this premise that everyone grants, allows a lot of people to truly not understand just how commonplace it is for conservative men to pursue transgender women.
The last Republican I dated didn’t come into our relationship wearing a red hat. He came in wearing a suit, a well-manicured one at that. He was kind, he was respectful, he was polite, and he pretty immediately wanted to pursue a relationship with me. We went on really nice dates; I met his friends and some of his family. When I was dealing with a stalker, he decided to come over with the tools he needed to protect me. He was masculine, protective, and kindhearted. I was falling for him, and just around that time, after months and months of us dating, he revealed to me that he was a Republican. This shocked me… nothing he did was very Republican to me. Especially during his first administration, I’d built up this narrative about Trump voters as not just repulsed by me, but activel antagonistic towards me. But he wasn’t. I couldn’t really understand how the idea of a Trump voter in my mind didn’t register with what I had experienced from him. He didn’t treat me like he was repulsed by me or wanted to harm me. Frankly, he treated me much better than the DSA dudes I was attempting to date at the time. When I asked him about his politics, he said that he was “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” and mostly voted for Trump because he was rich. This baffled me because I thought I wouldn’t experience this again after moving to Los Angeles.
Something that I’ve had a hard time adjusting to in the city is the way that many men treat women. In a conservative community, I often felt not only safe but also wanted, desired, and protected. Because men in the OC subscribed to more traditional gender roles, they were eager to ensure that I always felt comfortable, was safe, and was taken care of. In the communities I’ve lived in, an unaccompanied woman is suspicious. If I was alone for a bit, it wasn’t long until I was being chaperoned by some man who was essentially attempting to take what he imagined to be an opening. Where I’ve lived, young women are supposed to be with men. Of course, this is patriarchy. It’s not a good thing, but it is something I’ve unfortunately become very used to. Living in a conservative community as a more sheltered person, these are norms you don’t exactly question if your referenc point is quite shallow. When you do not have a wider imagination of possibility, it’s hard to imagine a different experience.
For better or worse, I’m used to men wanting to be gentlemanly and protective, and that’s typically who I find myself attracted to. What I noticed immediately when I got to the city is that I was expected to carry myself in a way that I had sadly internalized as “masculine.” Men expected me to pay the bill; they expected me to find my own way to the date. They expect me to be ok with casual sexual relationships, and that was very odd for me to experience after living so long in communities where it often felt like men were looking for wives. Relationships formed faster outside of the city. People were more eager to bind themselves to a person than they are out here. In the city, I find that men only end up dating women long-term when they offer them social capital. If you’re from a conservative community and you’re used to conservative men, all of these things really stand out to you.
I understand why so many people are confused by the idea of a trans woman dating a cis man with conservative politics. Traversing gender in a patriarchal society is indeed quite radical. However, what a lot of people miss is that the sensibility in a lot of conservative communities is one where assimilation is celebrated. What straight trans women and cishet conservative men have in common is an adherence to rigid gender roles. Trans women often internalize their treatment as misgendering. They often imagine, quite naively, that men treat them differently than they do cis women because they are transgender. To some degree it’s true that cis men will often treat trans women differently from cis women, but the older I’ve gotten and the closer I’ve become to women (after many years as a pick me who “didn’t have women friends”), the more I realize that these men treat us all the same, they just milk some of us for social capital. Men who mistreat cis women also mistreat trans women. Men who abuse trans women also abuse cis women.
In my experience with conservative men, it’s all roses and chocolates at first, then it slowly becomes needling about how you don’t deserve roses and you should put the chocolate down so you don’t gain more weight. Conservative men who date trans women like Laverne Cox often view them as the exception. When I was still dating these men, they’d tell me that one of the only reasons they were dating me was because I was “passable” and because I was feminine. Keep in mind, most of you have only known the very liberated version of me. I used to idolize the idea of playing a traditional role in a relationship because that’s what I saw growing up. As I burried my mother and went through her things, it became very clear to me how similar we were, and that my femininity was an extension of hers. My mother idolized being a mother over almost anything else and I think for a while, that’s what I also wanted. Some trappings of traditionalism. Safety within the suburbs bound to a man who provided for me. It’s funny to think of this now because I’m quite different. Many of the men who met me in my youth met a very compliant, agreeable version of me that was desperate for validation. Conservative men will love you as long as you’re compliant. For trans women who assimilate their genders in a very binary way, it’s easy to imagine how they’d align quite well with a straight cishet man who expects gender assimilation from his partner.
As you get closer to these men, you also realize that their identity is a symptom of them simply being followers. His suits are crisp, but he’s been wearing them since his father told him to do so as a child. These men typically have very underdeveloped politics but a central point of patriarchy and misogyny. They put on a good show, and while they may have worked through some of their ideas about trans women, they’ve thought of very little else. Their politics are about them getting what’s theirs and hoarding power they believe reflects their greatness. They follow the Trumps of the world because they think they’ll make more money under them. They date a very narrow type of woman, and when they date trans women, they are always very narrow in their interest and the standards. Sure, some of these men may explore their sexuality with the accessible crossdressers near them, but if they were ever seriously to date a transgender woman, she’d have to pass. She’d have to be beautiful. She’d have to be desirable to other men. Conservative men reward compliant women who put their needs second to those of a man. They capitalize on pick-me sentiments, and that’s the common trap many transgender women fall into. When you’re used to people either fetishizing you or being hesitant to pursue you, it can be incredibly refreshing to meet a man who is direct and sure about their attraction to you. Many transgender women will ultimately end up in a situation where they view men making an exception for them as desirable, when the alternative is often being limited to just a tool for sexual exploration. It can be a very tempting scenario if you’re still granting society’s premise that you are repulsive, no one wants you, and you should be understanding of people’s exclusion of you from their dating pool.
As I gained a lot of my voice with age, I found that these men became less interested in me. They tend to see me as arrogant and self-involved because I like myself and no longer shrink myself. Conservative men still pursue me quite a bit, but my politics always turn them off. I had to learn the hard way that I must be aligned with my partner politically.
When I first moved to LA, I dated a man who was an Elon Musk fanboy. Red flag, but I continued. This was before he did his little Nazi salute, but he was still already being open about how much of a shithead he was, especially about trans folks. This guy was a liberal Jewish dude who opposed Trump but supported Musk’s innovations. He was inspired by them. He’d whiz me around in his Tesla like a teenage boy showing off. I was the first Black trans woman he ever dated long-term. Much of our relationship was predicated on how I was so unlike most of the women he’d date. Red flag, but I continued. When Trump started becoming scary in his first administration, he began to feel like this was all getting a bit too familiar, and he decided to pack up and leave the country to avoid genocide…and of course, he made those plans without me.
I’d spent years with this man, often debating political topics and trying to get him to understand how much of a shithead Elon Musk was. He didn’t really handle quarantine well, and he dipped as soon as he could. That was a turning point for me. I realized that at this point in my life, and this point in the country, the men who do not have politics that align with me will indeed get me, if not killed, left unprotected. I gave him grace. I gave him patience. I held his hand as he struggled to accept my body, my race, and my size. I had shared my body with this man, who was unwilling to use the power he had to protect it. Frankly, I think he probably made the right choice in getting out when he did, but it was interesting that I wasn’t part of the planning. For as much as I stuck my neck out for him, I’d expect it, but the ultimate conclusion of his politics is that I was not valued enough to protect. That was such a clear statement. He was a liberal Jewish dude who was far from MAGA. Still, his desertion of me made me realize that I needed a man who could punch Nazis, not men who are going to make excuses for them like a liberal or be indifferent to what they’re doing like so many MAGA with dissonance around what’s happening, even as they build internment camps.
I do think it says something about you if you can very comfortably date a MAGA conservative man. I think people are right to criticize Laverne Cox for her dating history and see it as perhaps a sign of low self-esteem. I think when you love yourself, you’ll want to be with men who are willing to defend your body beyond the bedroom. Sleeping with someone who is voting for someone who wants to take away your rights is not a flex. That said, I choose to meet people in this position with grace because they are doing exactly what our society is pressuring them to do. In a patriarchal society where gender is supposed to be binary and Black women are masculinized, a traditionally masculine white man who votes against your rights but makes an exception for you can feel quite validating when you’re starved. But that source of validation is polluted with patriarchy, which will naturally poison you and result in your dehumanization. That said, I think it’s tough to be attracted to men as a woman and not date at least one man who has bad politics.
In this discourse, I decided to poll my audience and ask, of the people who date women who are being critical of Laverne Cox right now, how many of them have ever dated a Black trans woman, and would they if they could? The overall answer I got from people with overtly left-leaning politics was no. Many of them said that they would if they could. Plenty of them said that they were in monogamous relationships, so they couldn’t. I asked that question because trans women are frequently placed into a position where they are being criticized at all angles, every step of the way:
- If we acknowledge ourselves as desirable, we have autogynephilia.
- If we state that men find us desirable, we’re delusional.
- When we narrate our experiences with straight men, people insist that we are delusional; those men aren’t straight.
- Then when we talk about being harmed by straight men, we’re told we should have expected to be mistreated by them—they’re straight, and we should be focusing on bisexual men.
- If we say that bisexual men sexualize us, we’re biphobic.
- When they mistreat us and murder us, we tricked them. Men are right to have genitalia preferences.
- If we acknowledge how we are dehumanized because of cissexism, we are told that we need to accept the reality that no one finds us attractive.
- When we DO narrate the reality that, quite often, the men who accept us, are attracted to us, desire long-term relationships with us, and don’t exclusively sexualize us, are frequently straight conservative men, we are told to stop chasing after Nazis, as if most of these men wear their politics on their sleeves instead of hiding it the way we know conservative men have been known to do.
There is so much projection around the imagined realities of trans women who exclusively love men, and it makes these conversations quite challenging to have. I certainly understand why so many people are repulsed by the idea of fawning over a white man with blue eyes, a man likely working directly with ICE to remove brown people from the streets and put them into camps. It is indeed repugnant, and I’m certainly not going to blame anyone for being turned off by it. However, what I see in this discourse is how many people were simply waiting for the chance to take a shot at Laverne Cox, which feels like an exact symptom of the very thing that places her in a position where she welcomes a man like this with open arms. To my understanding, she was in this relationship for 4 years, and it ended ultimately because of their political differences. Our society shames minorities for sticking up for themselves. It rewards catering to white supremacy, and many women have internalized lowering their values and committing to a man. Being so immensely dehumanized often means that you are isolated. Being isolated usually leaves you starved for positive reinforcement. To me it isn’t hard to understand how these things all conclude with many trans women choosing to be with conservative men who affirm them.
Because these conservative men rarely lead with their politics, people in Cox’s position often end up weighing the pros and cons. It feels like a big thing that he shows up for you and affirms you, and a small thing that he marks red on his ballots every once in a while. When you have a scarcity mindset around men, you’re more likely to accept the premise that a man’s politics aren’t a big deal, but frankly, they are. A man’s politics are everything. I suffered greatly in the relationships I was in with more conservative men. I spent years of my life not asking myself what I wanted or who I was, but wondering who I needed to be to satisfy whichever man I was with. I changed myself to meet their expectations and made a point of pandering to them, all because they treated me slightly better than the last guy. It’s easy to fall for that when you have very little sense of what could be. I accepted less because I lacked the imagination. People think that because Laverne is older, she’s no longer dealing with these feelings of fear around being alone and being unloved. People often assume that because someone is good at projecting themselves, they are also good at protecting themselves, but it can take a lifetime to truly understand what protecting oneself means.
The truth is that often we are drawn to things that are objectively bad for us because of how good they make us feel. You can tell from how Cox describes this man that, aside from his politics, he made her feel good… and that’s sad. What I want trans women in their position to understand is that there are indeed men out there who have politics that are deeply invested in your protection and survival, who are also classically masculine and unashamed of their attraction to you. I’ve managed to find four of those men. The quality they all share is a profound amount of empathy for others and a complete disconnection from the very disempowered desire to act macho. They don’t get their masculinity from how small I make myself or how beautiful I am to other people. They’ve defined it for themselves. They don’t need women to be weak to feel strong. They don’t need a racial hierarchy to feel powerful. They measure themselves by their good deeds to others. Their masculinity is in their usefulness to those who need help. Empathy is a central part of who they are. Those men exist, and you will struggle to find them when you waste your time trying to convince a MAGA that you’re worthy. Love yourself enough to see good politics as a basic requirement, and continue to not share your body privately with men who wouldn’t claim it publicly.
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