u/fxxkyoufor2morrow

Mine is honestly getting dolled up

I LOVE doing my makeup, doing my hair, putting together cute outfits, all of it. There’s something so satisfying about getting ready and then just going out into the world feeling pretty

And I love the social side of womanhood too

Walking somewhere, paying absolutely no attention to the men staring at me, and then immediately turning around to tell some girl I love her dress or her hair. I love complimenting women. I love those random little interactions with other girls where you instantly hype each other up like you’ve known each other forever

I love being a girl’s girl. I love the sisterhood of it all.
Like yes, transition was obviously about becoming myself and being comfortable in my own skin and all the serious stuff… but also? I did it for the sisterhood and the fashion lol

What’s yours? It can be something deep or something completely superficial. I wanna hear the tiny things that make you go, “yeah, I love being a woman.”

Cis women struggle with this too: convincing themselves that a man’s occasional attention is enough, or that asking for affection and effort makes them needy. But trans women can have an extra reason to accept less: the fear that fewer men will want us, so we should be grateful when one does

We are not less deserving of care, affection, consistency, romance, honesty, or consideration than cis women. A man being willing to date a trans woman is not a favor. You don’t owe him gratitude for treating you like a girlfriend in private while keeping you a secret everywhere else. You don’t have to accept him ignoring your boundaries, making your body the focus, or expecting you to educate and reassure him without offering you the same care in return

Dating can be harder for us. That doesn’t mean we should lower the standard for how we expect to be treated. Someone’s interest is not proof that he’s a good partner, and the possibility that another man might not come along is not a reason to stay with one who makes you feel unwanted or ashamed

You’re allowed to want more than “he doesn’t hate that I’m trans.” You’re allowed to expect effort and tenderness. Don’t let a man make you feel demanding for wanting the same basic care you’d want in any relationship

I’m genuinely tired of the recent influx of people trying to rehabilitate “chasers” by insisting that it’s all just a harmless sexual preference.

No. Not every man who is attracted to a trans woman is a chaser. And obviously nobody controls who they’re attracted to. That isn’t the issue.

The issue is specifically seeking out trans women because they are trans and then demanding that trans women accept that behavior as nothing more than a normal dating preference.

As a Black woman, I would be deeply uncomfortable with a man who exclusively sought out Black women. And if his explanation was “I just have a preference for Black women,” that would not magically make the fetishization disappear. If he talked about how much he loved “Black bodies,” specifically sought Black women out because of stereotypes about our bodies, and was uninterested in women outside of that category, people would understand exactly what was happening.

Race is not the only context in which fetishization exists. Trans women are not somehow exempt from it.

What is especially bizarre to me is watching people act as though trans women should be flattered by being specifically selected for our transness.

A lot of chaser culture revolves around an “exotic” fantasy of the trans woman. The supposedly feminine woman with the “surprise” of a penis. The fantasy of getting femininity and male anatomy in one person. The obsession with pre-op bodies, “natural” penises, trans porn, trans women as a sexual category, or the idea that trans women are uniquely adventurous, submissive, sexually available, or somehow different from cis women.

That isn’t simply “I have a type.”

The fact that someone says, “I only want trans women with penises and no implants” is not somehow made more progressive because they aren’t insulting trans women who have vaginoplasty or breast implants. You’re still talking about selecting women according to their trans status and then reducing that status to a particular set of sexual characteristics.

And the “natural penis” language is especially telling. Natural compared to what? A trans woman’s vagina? Her body after surgery? Why is her pre-transition anatomy being treated as the authentic or desirable version of her body while the body she may actually want is treated as less interesting?
That is exactly where the supposed “preference” starts intersecting with fetishization.

And something else chasers seem remarkably unwilling to understand: many trans women do not want their genitals to be the selling point.

Some trans women are profoundly uncomfortable with their penises. Some are pursuing surgery specifically because they don’t want to have one. Some don’t want partners staring at, touching, commenting on, or expressing excitement about the anatomy that causes them the most dysphoria.

So when a man says, “But I LOVE trans women because they have penises!” and expects that to be received as a compliment, why would a trans woman be obligated to appreciate that?

You are essentially saying, “The thing you may desperately want gone is the thing I specifically want you for.”

That doesn’t make your attraction evil. It makes it extremely understandable why the woman you’re approaching might find it uncomfortable.

And honestly, I think the fixation on whether chasers are “bad people” is a distraction. I don’t particularly care whether somebody calling themselves a chaser considers themselves respectful. The question is whether trans women want to be approached that way. I sure as hell don’t!

If a large number of trans women are telling you, “Being specifically sought out because I’m trans makes me uncomfortable,” the appropriate response isn’t to start an argument about why your attraction is actually a completely normal preference.

You are not entitled to have the women you fetishize reassure you that your fetish is flattering.

The recent rhetoric around this has gotten especially strange because it seems increasingly centered around making cis people’s sexual preferences the thing that needs protecting from trans women’s boundaries.

Why are we spending so much time defending the feelings of men who want trans women instead of listening to the trans women explaining why being specifically sought out by those men makes them uncomfortable?

You can date whoever you want. You can be attracted to whatever body you are attracted to. You can have whatever dealbreakers you want.

But trans women don’t owe you validation for turning “trans woman” into your sexual category.

And calling it a “preference” doesn’t make the fetishization disappear. It just gives it a nicer word.

I’ve never had a boyfriend, despite being at a point in my transition where I get a decent amount of attention from men. For a long time I convinced myself I was fine with that. I could be celibate, stay single, focus on myself, whatever

But I think the truth is that I’ve been scared

Dating as a trans woman does something weird to my brain. Even when a guy is clearly interested in me, I question his intentions.

Is he settling? Would he rather be with a cis woman? Will he see me differently once he knows? Is he actually looking for a relationship, or am I going to become an experiment or a secret?

Maybe some of that is internalized transphobia

Some of it is probably reasonable caution. I honestly don’t know where one ends and the other begins.
So I’ve developed a really convenient solution: leave first

I’ve talked to guys I liked before, felt things getting a little too real, and disappeared. Blocked them, stopped responding, found some reason it wouldn’t work. I could always tell myself that I was protecting myself, to leave before they knew because technically nothing bad ever happened

Nothing good ever happened either

And now there’s someone

He doesn’t know I’m trans yet, and obviously I know that conversation has to happen. But for once, instead of already looking for an exit, I actually want to see what happens. I have this ridiculous little feeling about him that I can’t explain. Like maybe this is the person I’m supposed to be brave for

And that’s almost scarier

Because I really like him. I can actually imagine being his girlfriend. I can imagine doing all the stupid normal relationship things I’ve watched my friends do for years and wondered if I’d ever get to have. I don’t want to sabotage this because I’m so afraid of finding out how he feels that I make the decision for him

I’m still terrified of sex. I’m still terrified of being vulnerable with a man in that way. I’m still probably going to overthink the hell out of telling him

But I’m also excited

For the first time, I don’t want to block him.
I want to give him the chance to know me. And I want to give myself the chance to find out what happens if I stay

I get to be honest

Whatever happens happens, truly, I wouldn’t take it as a slight against my transition, identity, appearance, or whatever else

but guys like come on it’d be nice to have a little boyfriend, cross your fingers!

This morning I woke up feeling embarrassed because I had reached out to two men I never even dated

One was someone I talked to years ago, the other was a coworker I gave my number to who never texted me. Neither of them was an ex. Neither of them had promised me anything. Still, their silence felt disproportionately painful, like they had been given the authority to decide whether I was desirable, feminine, or lovable, and said no

And this morning I realized it was never really about them

I’m 23, six feet tall, Black, and trans. When I started transitioning, I made peace with the idea that I would probably never have a boyfriend. I hadn’t dated before transitioning, so I assumed dating would become even harder afterward. Telling myself love was impossible hurt, but it also protected me. I didn’t have to hope for something I believed I would never receive

Then I transitioned

I had surgeries. I learned how to do my makeup. I figured out wigs, clothes, and how I wanted to present myself. I reached a point where I pass, and for the first time in my life, I can look at myself and genuinely believe I’m beautiful. And other people tell me too

I thought that would be enough

I thought becoming pretty would make me feel wanted. I thought passing would finally allow me to have the experiences other women seemed to receive naturally. Instead, I learned that beauty doesn’t guarantee love. It doesn’t make the men I want choose me. It doesn’t protect me from silence, rejection, or the fear that someone can somehow tell I’m trans and is privately repulsed by me

I think that is why I kept returning to these two men

They weren’t just men to me anymore. I had turned them into proof. If one of them finally chose me, maybe it would mean my transition had worked. Maybe it would prove that I was pretty enough. Maybe it would prove that a man I considered desirable could see me as a woman worth pursuing

The difficult part is that I’m not even sure I truly wanted either of them

I wanted what their attention would mean

I’ve been noticing the same thing on dating apps. I send likes because I want to feel chosen, but when men actually match with me, I often don’t want to meet them. I crave male validation, but I’m also afraid of men and intimacy. When I find a man attractive, I become strange around him. I flirt, create tension, overthink everything, and turn the interaction into a test. When I don’t find him attractive, I can relax and treat him like a normal person

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m even attracted to men anymore or whether I just want confirmation that straight men can be attracted to me. That line of thought gets frustrating, because it’s happened, it happens, and yet, it’s not the proof I want

I’m lonely

I want intimacy. I want to be known by someone who loves me. I want a relationship with someone I desire who is also proud and excited to choose me. I don’t want random attention or a man who only wants my body. I want tenderness, safety, and something mutual

But I think I’ve been asking unavailable men to reassure me that this kind of future is possible. Men that I know may not even necessarily like my personality

Their silence touched something much older than either of them. It touched the fear I carried into my transition: that I could do everything possible to become myself and still never be loved. To think that I could finally become beautiful and discover that beauty still wasn’t enough

But that doesn’t mean I’m A) visibly trans and unattractive or B) unlovable

Fuck those options

This morning I realized those men were never judges. I made them judges because it felt easier to obsess over one unanswered text or one unused phone number than to sit with the uncertainty of not knowing when I’ll find love

It was never really about them

It was about wanting someone else to tell me that I hadn’t doomed myself by becoming myself

My dating life is not a failed story. It has barely started. I only recently began feeling comfortable and beautiful in the world, and dating is awful for almost everyone. Their silence was not a prophecy. It was just two men not responding

This morning I woke up feeling embarrassed because I had reached out to two men I never even dated

One was someone I talked to years ago, the other was a coworker I gave my number to who never texted me. Neither of them was an ex. Neither of them had promised me anything. Still, their silence felt disproportionately painful, like they had been given the authority to decide whether I was desirable, feminine, or lovable, and said no

And this morning I realized it was never really about them

I’m 23, six feet tall, Black, and trans. When I started transitioning, I made peace with the idea that I would probably never have a boyfriend. I hadn’t dated before transitioning, so I assumed dating would become even harder afterward. Telling myself love was impossible hurt, but it also protected me. I didn’t have to hope for something I believed I would never receive

Then I transitioned

I had surgeries. I learned how to do my makeup. I figured out wigs, clothes, and how I wanted to present myself. I reached a point where I pass, and for the first time in my life, I can look at myself and genuinely believe I’m beautiful. And other people tell me too

I thought that would be enough

I thought becoming pretty would make me feel wanted. I thought passing would finally allow me to have the experiences other women seemed to receive naturally. Instead, I learned that beauty doesn’t guarantee love. It doesn’t make the men I want choose me. It doesn’t protect me from silence, rejection, or the fear that someone can somehow tell I’m trans and is privately repulsed by me

I think that is why I kept returning to these two men

They weren’t just men to me anymore. I had turned them into proof. If one of them finally chose me, maybe it would mean my transition had worked. Maybe it would prove that I was pretty enough. Maybe it would prove that a man I considered desirable could see me as a woman worth pursuing

The difficult part is that I’m not even sure I truly wanted either of them

I wanted what their attention would mean

I’ve been noticing the same thing on dating apps. I send likes because I want to feel chosen, but when men actually match with me, I often don’t want to meet them. I crave male validation, but I’m also afraid of men and intimacy. When I find a man attractive, I become strange around him. I flirt, create tension, overthink everything, and turn the interaction into a test. When I don’t find him attractive, I can relax and treat him like a normal person

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m even attracted to men anymore or whether I just want confirmation that straight men can be attracted to me. That line of thought gets frustrating, because it’s happened, it happens, and yet, it’s not the proof I want

I’m lonely

I want intimacy. I want to be known by someone who loves me. I want a relationship with someone I desire who is also proud and excited to choose me. I don’t want random attention or a man who only wants my body. I want tenderness, safety, and something mutual

But I think I’ve been asking unavailable men to reassure me that this kind of future is possible. Men that I know may not even necessarily like my personality

Their silence touched something much older than either of them. It touched the fear I carried into my transition: that I could do everything possible to become myself and still never be loved. To think that I could finally become beautiful and discover that beauty still wasn’t enough

But that doesn’t mean I’m A) visibly trans and unattractive or B) unlovable

Fuck those options

This morning I realized those men were never judges. I made them judges because it felt easier to obsess over one unanswered text or one unused phone number than to sit with the uncertainty of not knowing when I’ll find love

It was never really about them

It was about wanting someone else to tell me that I hadn’t become myself for nothing

I wanted them to prove that I hadn’t doomed myself by becoming myself. But my dating life is not a failed story. It has barely started. I only recently began feeling comfortable and beautiful in the world, and dating is awful for almost everyone. Their silence was not a prophecy. It was just two men not responding

This morning I woke up feeling embarrassed because I had reached out to two men I never even dated

One was someone I talked to years ago, the other was a coworker I gave my number to who never texted me. Neither of them was an ex. Neither of them had promised me anything. Still, their silence felt disproportionately painful, like they had been given the authority to decide whether I was desirable, feminine, or lovable, and said no

And this morning I realized it was never really about them

I’m 23, six feet tall, Black, and trans. When I started transitioning, I made peace with the idea that I would probably never have a boyfriend. I hadn’t dated before transitioning, so I assumed dating would become even harder afterward. Telling myself love was impossible hurt, but it also protected me. I didn’t have to hope for something I believed I would never receive

Then I transitioned

I had surgeries. I learned how to do my makeup. I figured out wigs, clothes, and how I wanted to present myself. I reached a point where I pass, and for the first time in my life, I can look at myself and genuinely believe I’m beautiful. And other people tell me too

I thought that would be enough

I thought becoming pretty would make me feel wanted. I thought passing would finally allow me to have the experiences other women seemed to receive naturally. Instead, I learned that beauty doesn’t guarantee love. It doesn’t make the men I want choose me. It doesn’t protect me from silence, rejection, or the fear that someone can somehow tell I’m trans and is privately repulsed by me

I think that is why I kept returning to these two men

They weren’t just men to me anymore. I had turned them into proof. If one of them finally chose me, maybe it would mean my transition had worked. Maybe it would prove that I was pretty enough. Maybe it would prove that a man I considered desirable could see me as a woman worth pursuing

The difficult part is that I’m not even sure I truly wanted either of them

I wanted what their attention would mean

I’ve been noticing the same thing on dating apps. I send likes because I want to feel chosen, but when men actually match with me, I often don’t want to meet them. I crave male validation, but I’m also afraid of men and intimacy. When I find a man attractive, I become strange around him. I flirt, create tension, overthink everything, and turn the interaction into a test. When I don’t find him attractive, I can relax and treat him like a normal person

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m even attracted to men anymore or whether I just want confirmation that straight men can be attracted to me. That line of thought gets frustrating, because it’s happened, it happens, and yet, it’s not the proof I want

I’m lonely

I want intimacy. I want to be known by someone who loves me. I want a relationship with someone I desire who is also proud and excited to choose me. I don’t want random attention or a man who only wants my body. I want tenderness, safety, and something mutual

But I think I’ve been asking unavailable men to reassure me that this kind of future is possible. Men that I know may not even necessarily like my personality

Their silence touched something much older than either of them. It touched the fear I carried into my transition: that I could do everything possible to become myself and still never be loved. To think that I could finally become beautiful and discover that beauty still wasn’t enough

But that doesn’t mean I’m A) visibly trans and unattractive or B) unlovable

Fuck those options

This morning I realized those men were never judges. I made them judges because it felt easier to obsess over one unanswered text or one unused phone number than to sit with the uncertainty of not knowing when I’ll find love

It was never really about them

It was about wanting someone else to tell me that I hadn’t doomed myself by becoming myself

My dating life is not a failed story. It has barely started. I only recently began feeling comfortable and beautiful in the world, and dating is awful for almost everyone. Their silence was not a prophecy. It was just two men not responding

I know that's probably not a complaint people expect to hear from a trans woman, but I'm exhausted

The thing nobody tells you about being stealth is that people start treating you exactly like they would any other woman. Which sounds great in theory, and most of the time it is. It's a privilege. I know it is

But holy shit, the amount of conversations that revolve around things I can't relate to

Guys making jokes about getting me pregnant. Asking what birth control I'm on. Making comments about accidental pregnancies. Women talking about periods. Period cramps. Tampons. Tracking cycles. The monthly ritual of complaining about being on their period

And every single time it happens, I have to do this weird mental dance where I smile, nod, laugh, and act like everything is normal

I feel like some kind of imaginary spy

I don't want to explain myself. I don't want to disclose. I don't want to be "the trans girl" in every interaction. But I also desperately want these conversations to stop happening

Because they trigger dysphoria in a way that's hard to explain. Not always major dysphoria. Sometimes it's just enough to throw off an otherwise good day. A little reminder of something that's different about me that I wasn't thinking about five minutes ago

Sometimes I wish I could wear a giant sign around my neck that says TRANS just so people would stop making those assumptions

And yet, if you gave me the option, I still wouldn't tell them That's the contradiction. I don't want the comments. I don't want the questions. I don't want the jokes. But I also don't want to give up being treated as just another woman

So I sit there smiling through conversations about birth control and periods and pregnancy scares, feeling simultaneously grateful and miserable

Stealth. Thriving. Occasionally losing my mind

I keep seeing people frame the kiss like it was Agnes finally realizing romantic feelings for Becka, but honestly I think the scene is way sadder and more complicated than that.

What makes it so difficult to read is that Agnes is feeling about twelve things simultaneously, and Chase Infiniti plays every single one of them in her face. The microexpressions during that scene are actually insane because none of them read as simple attraction or romantic clarity to me. If anything, she looks overwhelmed by grief, guilt, tenderness, fear, and this desperate need to give Becka comfort before they’re torn apart.

I think Agnes loves Becka deeply. Like profoundly. But love and romantic desire are not always the same thing, and I think the tragedy of the scene is that Agnes understands this in real time.

The thing that stands out to me most is that Agnes doesn’t recoil because she thinks Becka is disgusting or sinful. That’s the important part. Earlier Agnes probably wanted to believe the Gilead line about gay love being wrong because it would make things simpler. It would let her neatly categorize her feelings and distance herself emotionally. But by this point, she can’t do that anymore. The moment completely undermines Gilead’s ideology because Agnes clearly does not experience Becka’s love as depraved or monstrous. If anything, she’s devastated because she recognizes how sincere and pure it is.

I think Agnes realizes in that moment:
“Becka’s love is real. Her pain is real. And I cannot dismiss her feelings as sin just because I don’t fully reciprocate them romantically.”

And I think that realization devastates her.
Because now Agnes is stuck with the understanding that:

Becka’s love is real
Becka’s pain is real
Gilead is wrong

Yet Agnes still cannot fully return the feelings in the way Becka wants.

That’s why the kiss feels so emotionally brutal to me. Agnes isn’t horrified she kissed a girl. She’s horrified by the possibility that this tiny moment means everything to Becka while simultaneously knowing she cannot save her, cannot fully choose her, and maybe cannot love her in the exact same way.
There’s also something incredibly intimate about the fact that Agnes seems to choose kindness in that moment. She knows Becka is suffering. She knows Becka is terrified and emotionally cornered. And I think part of Agnes is thinking: “If this is the only thing I can give her, then I want to give it willingly.”
Which is honestly more heartbreaking to me than if it had just been straightforward romance.

And the parallel that kills me is that Agnes spends so much of her life being treated like an object people project meaning onto, a daughter, a wife, a symbol, a vessel, and here Becka is almost accidentally doing the same thing. Not maliciously, obviously. Becka genuinely loves her. But Agnes can feel the weight of what she represents to Becka in that moment. The kiss isn’t just a kiss to Becka. It’s hope. Salvation.

What a massive emotional burden for Agnes to suddenly hold in the middle of literal trauma.

So when I watch her face, I don’t see romantic realization. I see:

affection
sorrow
protectiveness
guilt
tenderness
fear
helplessness

Which honestly makes the scene way more devastating.

I’ve noticed something in myself that I’m not proud of, and I want to be honest about it instead of just pretending it’s not there.

When I interact with deeply religious people, I sometimes catch myself assuming they’re less critical or less intellectually rigorous. Like they’re operating inside a kind of mental framework I automatically see as limited or unexamined.
And I hate that I think that way.

Because I know it’s not actually that simple. Religious belief is tied to upbringing, culture, emotion, identity, community, tons of factors that aren’t just “intelligence vs ignorance.” But in the moment, I still get this knee-jerk judgment, like I’m watching someone accept answers I personally don’t find convincing.

I think part of it is frustration, like I can’t relate to faith as a way of knowing things, so I default to interpreting it as a lack of critical thinking. But I also know that’s a pretty shallow read of other people.
I guess I’m posting because I don’t want to stay stuck in that mindset. I don’t want atheism for me to turn into superiority or contempt. I’d rather understand where that reaction comes from and how to not let it turn into something unfair.

Has anyone else dealt with this kind of bias creeping in?