Question for tladies

[GRH]

Your interaction is what the REAL trans community is all about. I don't mean to imply that the sex industry version of trans isn't "real," but it is a very small subset of the larger transgendered population. Of course a lot of transwomen end up working in porn to support themselves and/or pay for operations. But this small sub-segment of the populations has a disproportionate impact on how the trans community is viewed-- as you said, largely as sexualized entities.

In reality, many trans are not the sex objects that the porn industry would have you believe. For all you know, you may have met and interacted (and even been attracted to!) trans people before without even knowing they were trans.

It is sort of a catch-22 in my mind. If it is advertised to be about trans, you can almost guarantee that the emphasis is on sexualizing as opposed to relationship building. The expectation that goes along with any of the sexualized words like "shemales" or "chicks with dicks" is that you'll see transwomen engaged in sexual encounters. For many trans, they have NO interest in advertising the fact that they are transsexual. Thus if your goal is to "find a transsexual," you wouldn't necessarily know to check with these people. They just sort of blend into society (as best they can), and if they can get involved in a long term relationship (a difficult thing for many of them), their transexuality may very well be a deal-breaker.