I am not the best person in the world to talk about dating and safety culture for trans women. I am a privileged trans woman who has had a good life. I have a loving partner. I have seven cats. I have a nice home in the suburbs and a good job. I live in a place where trans people are valued and respected.
So why am I writing about dating and safety culture for trans women? I am choosing to explore this narrative because we are not just individuals. We are also our community and its stories. When it comes to the stories of our community and the realities of life as a trans woman, I am qualified to share what I instinctively hear and know. More than any of that, I want in this short article to get at something about being trans, about being both a body and a person, and simply what it means to be a body unpacked of all the complicating factors of gender. Then we’ll return to that magical world of gender where most of us live and talk a little bit about safety and what that means for trans women: how we can be safe and what people dating trans women should know about why they do what they do.
Let’s start with the basics: Trans women are women. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. We come in all kinds of sizes, shapes and styles. Trans women think like women, we talk like women, we walk like women, and we really want to be accepted as women. But some of us are willing to also live in a little bit of a nether world where we understand that our identity is grey and shifting. “Woman” is a complicated identity. It might sound simple, and on some level it is, but on another level it isn’t quite so straightforward for a trans woman. Our biggest fear is that we will be treated as men and discounted as a freak or mentally ill. It is true that many of us were raised in a gender identity that we did not choose, but that is not on us, that is on you. And that is what is complicated about dating a trans woman.
You see, the real challenge in dating a trans woman is that she will mess with your sense of gender and identity. And that is because she is going to take you on a magical mystery tour of gender and identity and help you understand that what you see is not what you get. In a way, dating a trans woman is great preparation for being a mystic, going on a religious quest, or trying to understand abstract art. If you want a simple world with a simple reality where everything in your life goes according to plan, then you should stay away from trans women. But if you want someone who will blow your mind and open you up to very deep truths not just about gender identity, but also about bodies and what it means to be a person, then a trans woman may be just the right thing for you.
When I say trans women come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, that is just what I mean. I know trans women who look like a man in a dress, but who identify as a woman. They tell me they look like a man in a dress, and they understand that is how they are seen, but inside they feel like a woman and that is what makes them trans. I know several trans women who present this way. They are very happy, and they have a happy dating life or are even happily married.
That is the first thing to understand about dating a trans woman — you might be talking about anyone across the gender spectrum who is in a relationship with a trans woman. So you might be a heterosexual, cisgender woman, and you might be looking for someone who you think presents as male. But in reality, you might be dating a trans woman, and you might be very happy in that relationship. You might be a gay man who thinks that you are attracted to effeminate men. You might be dating someone who dresses and presents as female but who is deeply involved in the gay or queer community, and you might be dating a trans woman.
On the other side of the spectrum, you might be across the aisle on a dating app. You might be swiping and find someone you really like, an attractive woman with curly black hair and a great figure, clear skin, hips, a full figure, and great fashion sense. Someone who is always out on dates and is very selective about the kind of man she dates, someone who is considered high value in our heteronormative, body positive culture. You meet up for coffee, go out for a drink, go out to dinner, come home, and make it all the way to home plate — and you might be dating a trans woman. She might tell you she is trans, or she might never let you know. You may find out by accident, or you might never know.
You might be a queer, cis lesbian at a pride festival, and you might meet up with a good looking woman, who is butch and presents as a dyke. You might get to talking and pretty quickly read that she is trans. Contrary to a lot of ideas about what trans mean, she might be a trans lesbian. You might be an open minded lesbian who has been around the conversations happening in the queer community, and you might be open to dating a trans woman who self identifies as a lesbian.
You might be a trans woman in a community of poly, neurodivergent, gender non-conforming, gender non-binary, pansexual folks who think being trans is old-fashioned because it is part of the gender binary. And you might still be interested in dating and might need to have your mind expanded as a trans person by the next thing in gender and sexuality.
These are all experiences that you might have if you want to date a trans woman, and these are some of the many different kinds of trans women there are. Some of us have been across the entire spectrum of these experiences, from living lives where we were read as men and in an old-fashioned narrative felt like we were in the wrong body to living a life where we are trans and think we have done everything we are supposed to do to transition. We have had our surgeries, taken hormones, changed all of our identity documents. We have been living deeply stealth in the suburbs with our cats and loving partner, living a boring, ordinary life — only to find that we are old-fashioned and out of date by the standards of the new generation of gender non-conforming, gender queer, pansexual, poly folks who are busy deconstructing everything from race to body positivity to challenging neurotypical assumptions of identity.
So here are some of the things you might want to know about dating a trans woman that might also help you if you are dating anyone who has a body.
Orgasms matter! Transgender women love to have orgasms, and contrary to popular opinion, trans women have amazing orgasms that would blow your mind if you had one. And they have all kinds of orgasms. A trans woman can have an orgasm with a penis that is just fantastic, or she might have an orgasm getting anal through her prostate. A trans woman post op might have an orgasm with her clit, or she might have one deep in her g-spot just like a cis woman. Just like any woman, it might take her a little longer to get off then it will take you, especially if you are a cisgender man. But give her some time to get to where she is going.
The reason I say this first off in dating advice is because I know we all want to get there. That magic that comes from getting off is the juice that makes the magic, it is the electricity in the machine, and it is the high we all crave, that fantastic orgasm. And trans women want the same thing.
It might be a little embarrassing for some trans women to have a penis, but it is just as unembarrassing for a lot of trans women to have a penis. Lots and lots of trans women have penises (or penes if you want the proper English usage to indicate multiple penises.) Just because a trans woman has a penis, don’t think you look better than she does. I know so many trans women who are either pre-op or non op that look better than you ever will and will get any man they want.
And don’t think twice about having a penis and being a woman. It’s just not a problem to have a penis and to be a woman. But for a lot of trans women, we have felt or do feel embarrassed about that because we feel or have felt that it is the one and only signifier of gender identity that really matters. So if you are not into women with penes, if this just disgusts you or you think it is wrong or you are going to hell, then don’t date a trans woman. Save us all some trouble. That way, you won’t be shocked and she won’t be assaulted or bashed. She won’t end up in the annual list of trans women who have been murdered that we remember ever year in November as part of Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Having a penis is a big deal for some people. For a trans woman, it can be great to have a penis because there are so many men who are into beautiful women who have a penis but are also women in every sense of the word. If that is the kind of woman you are into, then more power to you. I have a list of trans women who would love to date you.
Getting over the fact that a woman has a penis can be a huge barrier for a lot of people. For trans women, it can be a real source of danger and harm, and that is why I would always recommend disclosure. This is not only disclosure of your body parts, but also just disclosure of gender identity generally. I always think that safety is the most important thing for any trans woman.
Far too many of us die or are hurt every year because we are transgender. I think that just like the way we step out of the road to avoid getting hit by a car, we know that there are always going to bashers and haters out there and the best way to avoid them is just to let them know from the start who and what we are. It is great to live in stealth if you can, and I know that is an old fashioned word. But most of the world still lives by the gender binary, and so it is better to disclose in a world of heternormativity than to end up in the hospital — or worse yet, in the morgue.
Sex is in the brain. That is the most important thing to know about a trans woman. Everything that she does, everything that we do, is about life and joy and pleasure. What a transgender person has to offer you in terms of sex and dating is the same thing that any woman can offer you. But she is also going to challenge your ideas. However, if she does, that is good for you. Because part of being trans is about deconstructing heternormativity and gender.
Our bodies are all about pleasure, from the way we love and bond to how we cum. It is all about pleasure and joy, and when we date and have sex and make love, we want the same thing, any body and any person. There are different kinds of outcomes of love and pleasure. The most important outcome is that we can have experiences that change our lives, filling us with magic and joy and appreciation for life and all its wonders. And we can ultimately find our innermost fulfillment in the deep meaning that can happen in strong interpersonal relationships.
Trans women are capable of all these things. Trans bodies are amazing. We have been one gender in terms of how we were treated and what was expected of us, and then we became another gender, the one that matched our gender expectations. To me, that is incredible. It makes us amazing lovers and incredibly giving people, deeply perceptive and appreciative of love and physical intimacy. This is what I mean by the concept that sex is in the brain, and this is what I meant at the beginning of this blog post when I said that dating a trans woman will take you on a magical mystery tour.
Understand, though, that you should only date a trans woman if you are ready to date one. Just like any queer identity, trans women are ambassadors of queer culture. Like it or not, we are going to challenge your expectations. With some trans people you are always going to sometimes see a male body and sometimes a female body. But then, once you get accustomed to trans and gender queer bodies. when you begin to look out at the world of heternormativity, you will begin to sometimes see male bodies and sometimes see female bodies in the same hetersexual cisgender person as well. You will begin to see how gender is a construct, and it is a game that we all play.
What does this have to do with dating and safety culture for trans women? I am writing this because I would like you to think, the next time you go on a date with a trans woman or the next time you see a trans person — what are you looking at? Because you really aren’t looking at them. You are really looking at the inside of your mind, at your conditioning based on hundreds of thousands of interactions in life, what you think gender is. And your gender perception is being challenged.
There is a saying in the mystical tradition that you do not know you have had a mystical tradition until after it has happened. In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know until you realize that you didn’t know it. Transgender people are fabulous lovers, but if you are not ready for them and ready for our bodies, then maybe it is better to wait until you are. For those of us in the trans community, it is important to understand that have to be safe. If we want to live, if we want to grow as a community like we have been, we must be safe. But we also need to challenge our culture, because just like with everything queer, the more we get, the more we have.
Every time we go out into the community with our trans bodies, we are making it better for the next generation. Every kiss, every embrace, every orgasm we have with our trans bodies is an act of justice. But we must understand that there are people who want to hurt us, people who don’t understand our bodies and our lives. We have to be smart and protect ourselves so that we can continue to create this sacred space that we have made for future generations of trans, gender queer, and gender non conforming people.
Anna
