It’s Me, Hi

It’s me, hi, I’m transgender, it’s me.

I make no effort to “pass” as cisgender. I am trans and proud. I am a t-girl and not bothering to hide that.

Of course, this courage and declaration is primarily reserved for my femme life. I still keep my non cisgender side of me a secret to almost everyone in “his” world.

On my Twitter account I will sometimes use the hashtag #GirlsLikeUs or #TransIsBeautiful or something similar. My Twitter bio has the transgender pride flag in it as well. Essentially I am not trying to catfish anyone.

I assume people know I am trans, whether it’s because of a hashtag I use or because, well, I don’t think I look like a cisgender girl (not that there are any standards that a cisgender girl must have, mind you).

I get a lot of direct messages on Twitter and I presume that the sender knows that I am transgender. I mean, you have to visit my bio (the one with the transgender pride flag on it) in order to write directly to me.

Of course, some people might not know what that icon represents or what #GirlsLikeUs means.

Regardless, I presume that the person messaging me knows that I am transgender.

When I get a message I usually look at the sender’s profile before I reply to them. I want to get a feel for what this person tweets about or who they follow. Essentially I want to know if they are complete fetishists or, well, assholes. And honestly? Most men (and yes, not all men) who message me fall into one of those two categories.

The vast majority of these DMs do not go beyond this exchange:

Some guy: hi

Me: Hi

The same guy: hello

Me: Hello

And that’s the end of that.

Sometimes the guy actually puts a tiny bit of effort into his message. Sometimes they get right to the point, if you will. Sooner or later their messaging cuts to the chase and he tells me that I am hot or beautiful or whatever. And that’s fine. I like compliments, lol. But then after saying something nice like that it almost always jumps to something overly sexual.

And that’s the end of that.

If the dude in question primarily follows/retweets t-girls that post primarily sexual pictures, my assumption is that they are likely a chaser or someone who fetishizes trans girls. They could also be curious about, well, being intimate with someone who has a penis but they think it’s, ah, “less gay” if said person is a girl. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with being sexually curious and I don’t think certain genitalia or anatomy is exclusive to a specific gender.

And I suppose you could take a step back and, well, not assume the guy is a fetishist. It’s not uncommon for a guy to be attracted to petite girls or girls with red hair or any number of physical characteristics. You could broaden that scope to a guy just being attracted to girls with a penis without diving too deep into his psyche.

Anyway.

I am going to strut into fairly… presumptuous territory here. I know there are likely other reasons or motivations for the guys I am about to speculate about. I admit I am not a therapist or psychiatrist or I have no interest in analyzing the men who message me so please know that my assumptions and speculation are exactly that: assumptions and speculations.

And I could be completely wrong in my assumptions and speculations.

When a guy DMs me I look at their profile. Are they sports fans? Do they lean one way politically? Are they super into heavy metal? Do they only retweet photos of girls in stilettos?

Although one’s social media can give someone an idea what that person is like, I admit that most people are very complex and one’s Twitter account is not necessarily indicative of who they are. So, although almost every picture they post is them in a boat with a fish they just caught, it’s likely that there is more to them than just being a guy who fishes.

I usually need to remind myself of this. I tend to paint people with a fairly broad brush and that’s not fair. I know I shouldn’t assume anything, especially based on someone’s social media profile.

That being said…

I’ll get DMs from guys who, well, seem to despise the LGBTQ+ community. What I mean is that it’s not unusual for me to get a “your (sic) sexy” message from someone who Likes stories about books being banned because they have a gay character in then. Or perhaps they Like a story about armed men showing up a LGBTQ+ nightclub on the evening of a drag show.

Of course, it’s possible they like the story for other reasons, but it’s possible to presume they like the idea of a book being removed from a library or they like that armed men are intimidating adult patrons of a drag show.

Again, these are my assumptions. BUT I feel that they are likely correct. If someone is consistently retweeting stories like this, it’s likely that they support and agree with the actions highlighted in the post. If the person also follows a lot of anti-LGBTQ+ journalists or news outlets, it adds credence to my supposition.

When I get a message from someone like this that is meant to be flirty I do wonder if they know I am transgender.

IF they know AND they still tweet/Like messages that seem to be, ah, disapproving of the LGBTQ+ community, well, obviously they are a hypocrite OR they will happily engage in flirty messages with a transgirl… as long as no one knows. Bitch, I am NOT your little secret.

IF they don’t know, I do wonder how they would react if they found out. I imagine they would likely stop messaging me (yay!) OR they would be, oh, I guess embarrassed and possibly get really angry with me. Like it was my fault that I made them horny. Bitch, YOU messaged ME.

I suppose it’s too optimistic to think that maybe they would realize that transpeople aren’t the evil perverts some people say we are.

Listen.

I know people are complex and labeling things along the gender binary are silly and that sexuality and sexual preferences and even fetishes can be complex and not able (and usually don’t need) to be classified.

But I do know that being hypocritical is pretty clear cut. You either walk the walk or you don’t.

You can’t hate on transpeople in public AND flirt with them in secret. You can’t call us perverts on Facebook and then try to fuck us when your wife is out of town.

Of course, that brings up another point… men who have things in their Twitter bio like “FAMILY is most important to me. I love my wife and our kids” and then slide into my DMs wanting to rail me but I suppose that’s another topic for another day.

Love, Hannah