Dating, love and choices

Dating, love and choices

I have lived "out loud" about my natural attraction to transgender women for the last 15 years. Sometimes, my friends ask what my attraction is about? What is it about transwomen that attracts you, they ask.

I've done a lot of thinking about that. Words don't do the explanation justice. It's more feeling than intellectual. The best answer I can give is: What is your hetero attraction about?

I wasn't always attracted to transwomen. When I was in elementary, middle and high school, I didn't feel that attraction. Then again, I don't think there were any transwomen in communities where I lived. If so, I didn't meet them. Not in a way that I was aware.

There was a time well before I knew about transgenderism where I felt desire to be a women. I even raided my mom's closet from time to time (until she caught me!) to dress in women's clothes. I've had some M2M relationships - nothing serious - but those were more sex than attraction based. Several cis-women I dated have enjoyed strap-on sex, a nice compatibility for sure! Perhaps my attraction was latent in those early days. Obviously something was sorting itself gender and orientation-wise. It culminated in a clear understanding of who I was which happened about 15 years ago. I still vacilate. Ciswomen are attractive to me. But they don't compare to a transgender woman in any respect. 

My attraction to transwomen is as natural a part of me as is my intelligence, introversion, and my spirituality. It is as naturall as breathing. That's why I've been so comfortable in public with past transwomen. In some cases, my GFs at the time expressed frustration that I was more comfortable than they were about being in public with them!

I feel confident my connection to and understanding of my own feelings allows me to be accepting of transwomen who dislike men, who don't want anything to do with them, or are equally attracted to transwomen or ciswomen as I am to transwomen. I also appreciate transwomen who go after outwardly-appearing great catches - guys with sixpacs, who display
alpha characteristics, who are the life of parties, etc.  How can I begrudge what may be a deep and natural part of who they are?

Still, I feel sorrow when I see transwomen who have experienced tragedy, broken hearts betrayal and more at the hands of  such men. I wonder why some transwomen (as many ciswomen do) seek characteristics in men which clearly are poor indicators of relationship maturity. Sixpack abs, thrill-seeking or party behavior and A-type "alpha" characteristics and appearence more often than not have little correlation with skills and maturity needed to appreciate and effectively deal with natural challenges that come with trans-cis relationships.

When I see transwomen seeking such men, I feel almost a futility sometimes. For I know there's nothing I can do or should do about what I see: People of all kinds have to walk their own paths.

If you're reading between the lines here, you now I'm not bashing these "hot" "masculine" alpha males some transwomen (often but not always young, super attractive "passable" transwomen) seek. Rather, I am asking "what about guys like me?"

One of the reasons I gave up dating transwomen some three years ago, and deleted my profile on URNA is because of my frustration with my dating experiences. Both locally and online I find it exceedingly difficult to attract quality transwomen. No hypocrisy here: I realize I have my own "search criteria dilemas" I must deal with when choosing my potenial mates. But that doesn't wholly explain the relatively little interest from transwomen I receive. 

A transwoman once confided in me a couple things I hadn't realized about pursuing transwomen:

• Being black is a major impediment. Despite the BBC fallacy (I say fallacy because not every black male bears a BBC. My status in this area is private), black men are often looked at as not even on the last possible choices for transwomen. This I can understand. We all have our choices and preferences. There's a lot behind the politics of race I can discuss. Perhaps a later post I will. But it was clear, at least to this woman that being black was a big problem.
• Not being Alpha. By this she meant being vers/bottom. Trans politics plays a large role here. I know there are many transwomen who are tops, vers and do not intend to become "post op". Last years Miss Brasil choose not to accept the free surgery that came with her victory. Politics aside, I know transwomen such as Miss Brasil still consider themselves as women. But my confidant was telling me that many more are looking for guys to be "straight" perhaps to validate their womanhood. I'll write another post to go into this more deeply.
• Being kind was also seen by this transwoman as being an impediment. Her explanation was that transwomen don't want to date "nice guys". Rather, they are looking for someone who will "lead the show" whatever that means. Maybe it's someone who will treat them like the woman they are. But why can't a nice guy do that? 

There's a rich amount of information I'm laying out here which I'll expand on in future posts. I look forward to any responses I may get and enjoy talking about this kind of thing. Thanks so much for reading.