Heterosexual men dating transvestites

Alicia shook her head, laughing. "Does this make me gay?" She was asked that question countless times by men throughout her years in the sex trade. "If they were good, I'd tell them no, of course not. If they were bad I'd say, pretty much!"

I think every trans partner is as special as the trans woman they're with.

Matt has progressively gained Alicia's trust. "Getting our own place together was really important," he said, encircling her in his arms. Sharing their home was a big step for both of them, and Matt saw it as crucial to showing his sincerity.

"To tell you the truth, sitting here talking to you about, I'm kind of embarrassed. I should be proudly sharing her in every part of my life," he said, referring to his colleagues and family, two groups with which he's yet to break that seal of secrecy. It may not be safe to—Matt's colleagues say hateful things about trans women. "'Not human.' 'Should be executed.' Nasty stuff. Alicia's told me not to stick my neck out at work, but a couple of times I said, 'You know what, I bet that person who has been conflicted their whole lives, and has probably suffered their whole life, is finally free." Matt thinks that if they ever found out, the consequences could be tragic. "You'd read about me in the paper, unfortunately."

As Cristina Herrera sees it, guys like Matt have the cards stacked against them. The cultural stigma against loving trans women is deeply ingrained into our society to the point of ubiquity. "There is a lot of bullying going on," Herrera said. "Public figures that have been discovered having sexual relations with trans women have paid a heavy price." Herrera said these public shamings "hurt the whole process. It makes other men much more nervous. They know it could happen to them, that their friends or colleagues might treat them the same way if they knew."

Our Untold Stories: Trans People Defying Stereotypes

We try awfully hard to bend ourselves around language, but even the people who feel best represented with words like "straight" don't fit all the criteria. One of the central issues to identity politics, and the LGBT string of labels, is the idea that people whose sexuality or gender differ from a heteronormative standard are inherently different, where those whose gender or sexuality conform to it are not. Rather than trying to normalize queer people, we could recognize that no one is normal. Straight, cisgender people are different too. Alicia alluded to it when she said that every trans partner is as special as the trans person they're with.

I asked Matt what he thought it would take to change society, to bring his trans amorous brethren out from the shadows. "The more of us that are out there," he said. "The more men who walk down the street holding a trans woman's hand. It'll show other men, give them their courage to say, 'I like that too, and I'm not afraid.'"