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Comment by delichon | Hacker News Reader

I read a claim that most male to female transitions are about wanting to become an object of desire, and most female to male transitions are to avoid being an object of desire.

I've never knowingly even met a trans person and have no basis to judge. Does this ring true or false?

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I have two friends who are FTM. One is busy putting together the outfit of his dreams for an awards ceremony. The other is strikingly handsome, and dresses so masculine-dandy-perfect he looks like a male model waiting for a fashion shoot.

Just two data points, but I have zero reason to believe what sounds like transphobic rationalization.

I personally can't comprehend why anyone would want to change their gender, but my dogs can't comprehend why I like salads. Nonetheless, they let me enjoy my dinner. I try to be like them.

Asked trans friends, doesn’t seem to be the case. More about often being very uncomfortable with the bodies and/or role in society they had, dysphoria and all that.

I guess also most cis folks would enjoy being attractive, whereas when it becomes more external (attention from others) then it’s more of a mixed bag, since some of it can be very much unwanted.

I doubt many people want to be the object of desire of some random creeps on the street or have some relationships be ruined because that’s all the other people consider.

> object of desire

I feel like that frames the transgender identity as something performative, rather than something felt. I think transitions are experienced much more personally than just as a statement to society, or an attempt to gain privileges within it.

Could be a continuum. I don't think all trans people fully understand why they want to undergo the change, it would be a rare exception compared to how most humans think and act.

I think that is likely complicated by the fact that, at least in modern Western society, wanting to be attractive/desired is itself considered a feminine trait.

So for example, someone assigned male at birth wanting to be attractive/desired is not necessarily different than them wanting to live the female role in our society.

> someone assigned male at birth wanting to be attractive/desired is not necessarily different than them wanting to live the female role in our society.

What even is this idea? If we take the target audience of men who are loudest about wanting to be 'real men', the Andrew Tate (and the like) followers. These people spend hours at the gym to be desired. They wear tight shirts to show off their muscles to be desired. They wear designer shoes and shirts to be desired. They have weekly barber visits to be desired.

Does that mean all these men want to live the female role in society? I don't think so, since that's the exact thing they claim to oppose.

> These people spend hours at the gym to be desired.

They spend hours at the gym to impress other men and compete with them. It has squat zero with what women desire.

That's just because they're idiots, not because it's not the goal.

A transgender friend of mine for college was certain she was a girl when she was a child, she hadn’t had time to be exposed to all the men-vs-women BS, at least not directly.

Anecdotally, no.

You may be misremembering the claim a bit. I suspect you read about how the kind of received attention changes, and attributed that to the reason for the change.

I'm nonbinary, not mtf/ftm. that claim is wrong though. trans people, similar to most, have their gender as part of their identity. however, their body displays a different gender. they then seek to make their body match their identity.

the idea is similar to viewing one-self's identity as having clear skin but having tons of pimples which people constantly comment on (via pronouns). transitions clear the skin

Interesting analogy.

That sounds like Blanchard's autogynephilia, which is widely disputed and rejected by most trans people and other sexologists alike.

I wonder instead if what is being described here comes from a conflation of drag and maybe something from the BDSM world with trans? I think it does describe the experience of people who live a life in which they feel if not undesirable, then at least ordinary, who have an costumed highly sexualised alter-ego which they inhabit a kind of performance which put makes them a focus of attention, sometimes of desire, and sometimes in a position of power (not these are not exclusive) that is very different from their ordinary lives.

It sounds nothing like autogynephilia to me, although it still sounds like bullshit.

The reverse for trans men isn't, but "trans women transition to male gaze themselves" gets pretty close.

Wanting to be beautiful to others isn't the same as being sexually attracted to yourself, or to the idea of yourself plus some modifications, at all.

I trim my beard in the morning because I want to look good to other people, as do most men. Would you agree that the male population doesn't do this because they all have have a paraphilia for a specific style of facial hair? And that women don't shave their legs because of a similar paraphilia?

I think that's over simplifying it a lot, obviously dysphoria and other needs come first, but you could read some Andrea Long Chu for a perspective on trans theory like that? Better than Blanchards take.

No idea on the men, though. There's certainly trans men writing gender theory but I don't think I've seen a take on male attractiveness come up in it much.

Oh god, don’t get me started on Andrea Long Chu. She is smart enough to be dangerous but says a lot of stuff just to be edgy and controversial which… let’s just say I don’t think that’s particularly helpful for trans people in the year 2025.

Andrea Long Chu's perspective includes celebrated takes like:

> Sissy porn did make me trans.

Also:

> At the centre of sissy porn lies the asshole, a kind of universal vagina through which femaleness can always be accessed. Getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is.

And, according to Chu, the "barest essentials" of "femaleness" are:

> an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes

All of which I think says a lot about attitudes towards women from this particular subset of males.

I met a few trans men who weren't conventional attractive before transitioning, so they were mostly ignored by men.

Afaik, this is not something trans people themselves would ever be saying, but what people who do not think being trans is a thing say about them.

absolutely false. while that may be a side effect of transition, it's not what transition is about. it's just about being ourselves in our bodies in ways that make us happy, just like anyone else.

i really wish cis people would stop pretending they know what being trans is like.

false

[flagged]

this is complete nonsense from a not trans person. please ignore them. autogynophilia is a descredited idea. the motivation for trans people is that we're trans.

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