Thread by @delaneykingrox

Okay straight dudes, lets talk about the confusion you may feel being attracted to a transgender woman from a purely scientific point of view.

Your confusion will be lessoned somewhat by this.

Okay, so when we hit puberty, our bodies start amping up the hormones in our bodies.

This means our cells start working using a slightly different sequence of instructions, and the tissue formed from these cells develops differently.

As a result, we start to develop secondary sex characteristics. There are quite a few... butt, boobs, cheeks, body hair, skin changes... and that is when we start to be noticed by people

Those people are keying off our secondary sex characteristics.

Their brains see our curves, hair, etc etc and it fires off the "oooh, me likey" reaction. Aka attraction.

Your sexuality is essentially what secondary characteristics work for you.

Furthermore we all have our own individual tastes within those characteristics.

Those cues are what faceapp plays with by the way... those proportions hard coded into our brains. Eye proportions, cheek apple sizes, the extra layer of fat masking the angle of the jaw... all these are cues we read.

Okay, so of you are a straight dude, you will key off the secondary sex characteristics associated with women.

To be more specific, you are keying off the secondary sex characteristics from high estrogen, low testosterone.

Transgender women who have undergone HRT (hormone replacement therapy) have... wait for it... high estrogen, low testosterone.

As a result, their cells use the same DNA sequences that other women do, because their cells have bound to the hormones present.

As transgender women take hormones, their cells change, their bodies shift and they start to develop secondary sex characteristics in exactly the same way as in other women.

Exactly. The. Same.

Sometimes some of the work of unwanted hormones needs to be undone... new bone is built on old bone, so it doesn't reduce in size... and that is where surgery happens. These women have the extra bone that keys secondary sex characteristics adjusted.

It undoes the first puberty.

So what you end up with is a whole set of secondary sex characteristics that say "woman".

Okay, so here is the crunch...

If you, a straight man, find a transgender woman attractive, all it means is that you are straight.

Because straight men key off womens secondary sex characteristics. You can test this by looking at these faceapp pictures.

Okay, so well done... you now have the science to understand you are straight.

Okay, so let's go a leeeeetle bit further than you may be comfortable with, (but should be)... what if... what if you... made out with her?

Okay, so here is the thing about lips on HRT. They change and change quickly. They get super soft, and plumper.

Amazingly, it will be juuuuust like kissing a cis woman... because on a cellular level, you ARE kissing a woman's lips. Let me explain...

... cells die all the time. The you now, is made up of a completely different set of cells to the you of ten years ago.

You know this.

When new cells rock up to replace them, they key off hormones to set themselves to "male" coded or "female" coded DNA sequences.

Those soft, plump smoochies are built using the exact same instructions as the person would use of they where born a cisgender woman. The same ones.
So not only are you attracted her because your brain reads her as a woman, she is also made up of "woman stuff"

After seven years on HRT, every single cell including bone is built using those instruction.

So, congrats straight dude... you are still straight.

Okay, so you got yourself a date with a hot woman , who looks like a hot woman, who is made of woman stuff.

Still got issues? Of course you do, but you have to understand the issues are yours to deal with, not hers. And those issues involve growing up in a toxic environment

You are told that your masculinity and sexuality is cancellable by your male peers. That if you are not masculine and straight in the way they demand you are, then you are nothing, lesser... a joke.

This isn't true masculinity, this is toxic masculinity.

It also says that women are inferior, and that behaving like a woman makes you less of a man, and inferior.
That is the basis of a whole mess of struggles you will have to work through, because it is based on the concept that women are less.

This is the root of homophobia.

So here is the thing. Your masculinity and sexuality is yours and yours only to define. Your worth is in your hands.

If you find a transgender woman attractive and like her, it should be okay. Draw that line in the sand with your mates. Make it their problem, not hers.

Trans women are women. And women should be respected and treated well.

Who knows, you may find someone who makes your world spin.

You just gotta get the bugbears out of your head.

Science is wonderful, and humans of all types can be too.

Straight people like trans people.

So now, if one of your mates is joking "I think (transgender celeb) is hot, I don't know what that says about me", you now have fuel for an excellent "well actually".

Go forth and enjoy being... yunno... straight and stuff.

I will be over in the lesbian corner reading a book.

Thanks for reading, if you like my shitposting, toss a coin to this bitcher here...

ko-fi.com/dellak

If you woulf like to read up on how cells interact with hormones here is my 101 guide:

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1271061616558092288?s=19

*Would. Jesus my spellchecker is failing me hard today.

Testindg, shdusysns, shsusjs

Nope... It's off.

Well, guck me im tje asshoke, i neef my spwllchegker

A little addendum: this thread is in response to straight men facing a very hot sports illustrated cover model and feeling confused. I honestly hope this helps.

The subject is more broad than this, and we can explore more complex issues like attraction to intersex people...

...like myself.

Or the psychology of why straight men get aroused seeing erect penises (It's a competitive mating signal... oh, shit you are ready to go, so I better get ready as we may compete for the same breeding opportunity) which is why straight porn usually has large junk.

I haven't covered things like attraction non HRT trans people, lesbians attracted to transgender women, non binary people and so forth because the goal of this article was those straight men on topic.

Cool mcGools?