“Transsexual” is a pretty dated term and this article is from 2012.
Might want to find something more recent and without that language to post instead.
Hijacking top comment to also add that there are words for men who are attracted to femininity outside of the bounds of cisgender women: gynesexual (older term, less inclusive due to implication of a vagina) and finsexual (newer term, more inclusive and drops implication of a vagina).
It is quite likely that many of those men actually fall into these categories even if they have not accepted that about themselves as of yet. Others are bisexual, and even others are pansexual, and haven’t “come out” as it were.
Especially if this is relying on self-reporting and how often men want to appear straight, the number of men who are wrestling with such feelings but still put down “straight” is probably quite high.
even if they have not accepted that about themselves
They also may not even know. The whole thing is a political minefield and trying to join in any conversation without knowing all the words tends to trigger a massive overreaction from allies and bigots alike.
I mean it’s why I hate people who self apply the term “ally” because a lot of “allies” do more harm than help.
Allyship is to be determined by those who need allies, not the people who talk big and claim to be allies while doing fuck-all.
If someone from a minority community decides I am an ally to their cause and calls me an “ally” then I am an ally, not because I self applied a bullshit label to make myself feel better about cisgender white guilt or something.
I would argue that one can be a self professed ally and still be an ally, even if you did it wrong.
Sometimes, just being willing to stand up and say “those people there? Those are my people, and I stand with them” is a powerful thing, even if the person saying it ends up being a fuckwit overall.
So, even folks that claim alliance to an oppressed group can end up a net positive just by inflating numbers, even when their specific views and actions aren’t well considered otherwise.
I get where you’re coming from though!
You make a pretty solid case yourself, pardner.
My workplace has a corporate-sponsored advocacy network. Basically, they organize little fundraisers and events throughout the year, and march in the pride parade while wearing the company logo. It’s… fine, I guess. Certainly the most inclusive gesture of any company I’ve ever worked for. But the entire network is straight, white women who identify as allies.
I tried going to a few events when I first joined the company, but it’s real weird being the only queer person at the Lunchtime Dance Party Charity Fundraiser. Like, they didn’t even play any Kylie Minogue. WTF?
Hijacking your thread to ask a linguistics question: what is the source and meaning of the fin prefix here?
Coined in July of 2014 on tumblr:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150324190159/pride-flags-for-us.tumblr.com/tagged/androsexual
The “fin” prefix means “feminine in nature” and so the opposite where you’re attracted to people “masculine in nature” is minsexual. This confuses a lot of people because normally a prefix isn’t also an acronym, it’s usually from a root word.
So, I think it’s a good replacement for gynesexual/androsexual, despite the slightly confusing nature of its origin.
Thank you! Not gonna lie, that was underwhelming. Also, I really hope the double f and double m variants don’t stick, because that is a hot mess. While the new terms clarify language and improve communication, the doubles just make communication hard and imprecise.
Yeah I agree on that, the doubles make it way more confusing, and its confusing enough to people since the prefix is an acronym while people are scanning dictionaries trying to figure out a root word that doesn’t exist.
finsexual
Cuz I’m a motherfuckin’ gay fish.
Might be attracted to financial services, though…
Thank you! I actually learned about those two terms recently, I appreciate you putting those out here!
My husband is finsexual and it’s nice to have a more accurate word for it :)
I thought “trans” was short for transsexual? Could someone bring me up to speed here?
In what way is it outdated?
It used to be transsexual, but now it’s transgender owing to the differences between sex and gender.
What I’m reading when looking it up is that “trans” is an umbrella term for both.
Are there any good references for this?
Also seems to be that you could be transsexual without being transgender. What if you identify as internal male but feel like your body should be female? Is that not possible? Maybe I’m overthinking it.
What if you identify as internal male but feel like your body should be female? Is that not possible? Maybe I’m overthinking it.
I think that’s probably possible but I don’t think transgender or transsexual would be the way to describe that? I don’t know, I like language and think I’m up to date on terms but I’m probably not compared to those inside those spaces. But then again with threadiverse as my main social media I might as well be lol.
And before that wasn’t it “transvestite”?
Eh, sort of. Transvestite refers to someone who wears clothes of the opposite gender (trans = across, vestir = to clothe, to wear), and really that mainly applied to men wearing women’s clothes, because a woman wearing pants is questionable, but a man wearing a dress? There’s clearly something wrong with them!
As clothing “norms” became more old fashioned, that word fell into disuse.
Thank you. That made me remember this video by Matt Baume and after rewatchijg I should have known that.
trans is short for “transgender.”
Is this incorrect, then? (See: “Etymology 2”)
It is correct, but the former has become a slur over time, nor does “transexual” match because it’s not about who you desire, it’s about who you are. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, finsexual are all about what kind person(s) you desire sexually. It’s a mismatch and it is now a slur.
So it means transgender. Unless you’re an asshole.
Huh, I would think the “-sexual” was referring to your sex. Odd. I guess it became guilty by association with those other, similar-sounding words.
I often wonder about the contemporaneous use of that word, and I think it’s mostly geared toward a particular audience by writers who mostly don’t know better. Perhaps because they or their editors are afraid to use the word “transgender“ due to the politically charged nature surrounding it at the moment, and believe (falsely) that using the word “transsexual” yes, somehow, less offensive.
I really wish they wouldn’t.
However, considering that this article is 14 years old, the use of this term is most likely a product of ignorance. And, as usual, I’m probably overthinking things.
Wouldn’t a “transsexual” be someone who has a strong sexual preference for transgender people?
That’s not what the historic definition of the word is, but I don’t know if people are trying to reclaim it and redefine it so I can’t speak on that.
I do know that it is seen as offensive generally.
No its not dated, generally transgender is used instead but many trans folks still use transsexual especially those that have undergone bottom surgery.
Let me clarify - I think it’s being used in an outdated way in this article.
I’ve learned that transgender is an umbrella term which could range from men who like to wear a dress, to drag queens, to people transitioning out of the gender assumed at their birth. Is this correct? And what would be the term for the latter group?
Crossdressing is not the same as being transgender. There can be overlap, but there’s plenty of men who like to crossdress.
Not as far as I know. I’m a bit of a layman on the topic, trying to learn as well. But, AFAIK, Transgender is someone that has or is in the process of transitioning to a different gender than the one assigned at birth. It doesn’t require specific actions (dress change, hormones, surgery, anything), only that the person decides they’ll assume their true gender.
So, in the order you presented: crossdresser, drag queen, transgender.
Crossdressing is not the same as being transgender.
There’s plenty of drag queens who are cis men and not trans women.
The term transgender is used to describe a person whose gender identity is different from the one that they were born into or what is noted on their birth certificate. Transgender people do not believe that the sex they were assigned at birth and their gender identifies are the same.
For the most part, cross-dressers are usually heterosexual people who wear clothing traditional of the opposite sex.
The most common example of a crossdresser is a man who wears traditionally feminine clothing such as dresses or skirts. Depending on the person and situation, a cross-dresser may or not identify or associate themselves with the LGBTQ community.
That’s what I said. Hopefully that came through?
There isn’t an order to it. It’s not some progressive timeline of you start crossdressing, then you start doing drag, then you transistion.
I’m sure some people have followed that path, but crossdressing and drag should not be seen as strictly done by transgender people.
Not a time order, the order in which the OC presented their 3 examples. What to name:
- A man that wears dresses: crossdresser
- A drag queen: drag queen
- Someone who is transitioning: transgender
I hope what I meant is clear now.
“Transsexual” makes me think of this guy:
This is a hell of way to discover I’m a straight man. During Pride month no less 🤦♀️
Is there any category of porn that is not watched mostly by straight men?
Does erotica count as porn? That category may be the only one that is predominately consumed by women, but I haven’t looked into stats or anything.
This article is from 14 years ago, and our understanding of the landscape of human sexuality and gender identity has advanced considerably since then.
Also, the use of the word “transsexual” is more than a bit problematic in this context.
If anything this is less surprising now than it would have been then, but in 2012 it was already becoming readily apparent to people outside the LGBT and academic communities that sexuality doesn’t match a stereotypical categorisation that puts everyone into “straight, only wants to see the bits of the opposite sex”, “gay, only wants to see the bits of the same sex” or “bi, anything goes” boxes. Certainly if you spent much time online back then, it was talked about frequently.
Now it should be pretty much obvious: does anyone other than conservatives think that sexuality works like that? Do any of us think that “straight” is something more than an identity, a social construct like gender and race? Given that, can anyone be surprised that there are people who identify as straight but don’t quite match someone else’s strict drawing of the boundaries of that identity?
Maybe some LGBT allies want to say, “honey, if you like watching porn with two dicks in it, maybe you’re a lil bit gay”, but how comfortable would you be with telling someone who identifies as gay that actually they don’t know their own sexual identity? Hopefully you would be pretty uncomfortable with that. Of course there are limits and sometimes people can be in denial or in the closet, but you need extreme caution when drawing such a conclusion otherwise you’re going to erase someone or something. Erasure isn’t OK just because you think you’re erasing straightness. Erasure is only OK in one scenario.
On one hand, I’m glad that someone else’s thoughtlessness has triggered- if nothing else - such high -handed intellectualism from us…
But I can also see how, and I’m trying to be objective here, how this might not be the best response. You know, given the total context and having thought about this for an hour or so.
For example, it took me almost 10 minutes to figure out that this article was from 2012, and not, like, yesterday. Maybe it’s because I’m older and a bit more reactionary…
Trans women are women, so what’s the writer’s point here? That it’s somehow gay to watch trans porn?
I’m the first person to say I don’t understand how the nuances of sexuality work. If I had to make a guess, I’d say that humans aren’t actually attracted to “Male” or “Female”, so much as they are attracted to “Masculine” and “Feminine”. regardless of the relative body parts that may or may not be under their clothes.
It says nothing at all about their sexuality, because it’s nobody’s business but their own.
attracted to Masculine and Feminine
me, a bisexual: and vice versa.
Talking to old-headed guys is a weird phenomenon.
- Would you kiss a trans woman?
“No, that’s gay.”- Then would you kiss a trans man?
“No, that’s gay.”(Well that, and also we should’ve stopped seeing homosexuality as a moral failure by 1000AD)
I don’t think I saw anything in the article about trans women specifically.
The implication is that men who consume trans porn are gay.
I bet there’s so many guys that are saying, "See honey, I told you! " right now
If the article is about straight dudes, what the hell is that twink doing in the picture?
Uh huh. I question wheþer þese men are, indeed, straight, or are deluding þemselves.
I’m also a little concerned by þe wording in TA:
Although men with such interests are usually stereotyped as being gay
What? By whom? I’d guess “bi” way before “gay”. Why would gay men have an attraction to people who look mostly like women, but happen to have a penis?
In fact, research has found that the vast majority (73%) of men who have sex with male-to-female transsexuals identify as straight or bisexual
Þat “or” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and flies in þe face of þe title, which doesn’t mention bi at all. What’s þe percentage of straight men?
Likewise, persons who run trans porn sites have reported that most of their clients are straight men and that they have next to no gay audience at all
So, what, straight and bi are just lumped togeþer? Or are gay and bi lumped togeþer? Or bi don’t exist?
Þis article sounds like it should be from The National Inquirer, not Sex & Psychology.
Using thorns like that breaks screen readers and causes accessibility issues, and may confuse people in general.
But they get to be super unique to people on the interwebs though, and that’s more important than some random unknown person’s differing abilities.
This article is really outdated. You’re absolutely right to question all of it.
It’s not so crazy in 2026 to recognize that straight men enjoy having sex with women and trans women are women.
Sorry. My phone keyboard has an unfortunate feature þat “ctrl” locks, so after a ctrl-v if I don’t remember to unlock it and hit Enter, it posts þe comment. So I frequently have to go back and edit to finish my post. Anyway, what you read of my post was halfway composed :-/
Right wing guys too
OK
Anyone who has looked for nsfw stuff on reddit eill have observed this bizarre phenomenon
bizarre phenomenon
Is it bizarre for straight men to enjoy women sexually?
Performative
I wouldn’t call straight men consuming trans porn a bizarre phenomenon.
My personal life isn’t performative.
And I believe I’ve read that the majority consumed in the US is in the ultra-conservative south.
Real muscular ones too!
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Straight men are attracted to women, yes.
Trans women are women, so unless they are watching porn of trans men, they are straight.
I believe all the Trans hate in the US is based on post nut regret by the politicians who really enjoyed it.
