Editor’s note: In this series, we highlight conversations with our readers/viewers. We think folks will benefit from these conversations. All names are made up to protect everyone’s privacy:
I’m 32, pre-transition and really struggling to cope after years of repression. I don’t know what do. I am in so much pain. I’m so lost. I’ll be honest I spent all night last night reading your site and crying. I saw there multiple times where one of the writers said ‘you only need one’ and it really woke me up. It’s not the first time I thought the same thing. There’s millions of men in the world surely one can love me?
Lonely and longing
Hi Lonely,
While it is true you only need one, literally thousands of men will (not can) love you. Millions “can” love you.
And yes, if you’re monogamous, you only need one of those multiple millions or multiple thousands of men.
The problem comes from where you stand relative to that man. Looking for love and not finding it resembles looking for sunglasses you think you lost.
You can’t find what you think is lost
I just ended a client session this morning where the client described how she lost her sunglasses. She looked for them everywhere, throughout her house…even in her car. No sunglasses.
Then she realized they were on her head the whole time. She pushed them up there earlier and forgot. Since she forgot, she tried “finding” them. She didn’t remember where she put them (on her head) because she stood in the “story” (the belief), that her sunglasses were “lost”.
Finally, she gave up looking for them and went on her errand. “Giving up” means, she let go of the story “I want my sunglasses. But I can’t find them.”
“I want my sunglasses. But I can’t find them” made it impossible – literally for her –to realize the glasses on her head. So close they were!
Yet, she couldn’t see them. She couldn’t even feel them!
You stand in the exact same place about this man you want. You literally can’t find him while telling stories you tell yourself, about boys/men, about love, about relationships, about YOURSELF about you being trans, about your worthiness and deservedness when it comes to loving relationships.
Meanwhile, just like my client and her sunglasses on her head, the man you want is as close as that. He’s literally moving around you all day every day.
But when you tell the equivalent of “I want my sunglasses. But I can’t find them” across all these subjects, he is as invisible and as lost as my client’s sunglasses.
And when you try to find him, you just exacerbate his invisibility.
And yet, the pain you feel brings benefits. That pain tells you something important. But if you don’t know what it tells, you can’t benefit. It sucks when most people experience pain, especially emotional pain, for this reason. Most don’t know what pain offers.
I can’t offer something in an email that will move you out of your pain and into your ideal love relationship. That takes a while. My client load exists for that reason. But if you want, we can start that work together. Clearly, you’ve read a lot of our material, so you sense what we do and its effectiveness.
The good news: you came into the world knowing you’d have this experience. You WANTED it and you knew it would be an extremely rewarding and world changing one.
But like everyone (almost everyone), you’ve forgotten this knowing (like the sunglasses on your head) in the face of physical reality’s bewildering nature. Its detail, real-ness and solidity seem so real! And objectively separate from you.
We help people remember what they forgot, then show them how to use what they remember so they create reality in which what they want happens. When that happens, life for them gets as fun as we write about.
Someone sent the following response to a Medium article of ours:
“If you are attracted to transwomen because they are transwomen, That is a fetish,” The person wrote. “Just like if you are attracted to women because they are Asian or Black, if you are White. Not something to be proud of. You’re just being shallow.”
This person went on:
“If you are attracted to women and it doesn’t matter if she is a transwomen, there is nothing to be shamed of. Really, in modern times, I don’t think there is a form of sexual attraction anyone should be ashamed of except when it isn’t towards an human adult.”
Except any sexual attraction this person considers a fetish, apparently.
If your skin color looks like Tom Ellis‘ from the show Lucifer, and you think women who look like Ellis’ South African co-star Lesley-Ann Brandt are sexually attractive, you’re a fetishizer. You mustn’t be proud of that attraction. Even if you genuinely feel attraction to such surface features at first.
That’s what this person says. But is that accurate? Or is more going on here?
There’s more going on
While this person’s comment seems sensical and worthy of agreement, I think it merits further scrutiny. Yet I know many people, especially transgender women on the receiving end of trans-attracted men’s attention, will wholeheartedly agree with it.
That’s because a LOT of transgender women struggle in the self-acceptance department. And, of course, such women’s stories create their reality. No one gets around that.
So men they’ll meet will reflect “lack of self-acceptance” back to such women. A transgender woman unwilling to accept her status as transgender and enjoy that part of her, will create realities showing her resistance to “what is”: the material actuality of who and what she is as trans.
Certainly, a transgender woman is more than transgender.But resisting that material actuality resists what is. And when that happens, the resister will create material actuality reflecting back this unharmonious inner/outer reality.
That material actuality, includes men she meets.
Self-acceptance, for the trans and trans-attracted is key to love you want and deserve. And the most important story to accept is about accepting yourself.
The dilemma of living stealth
Every transwoman who wants to “live stealth” deals with such stories. Even if only slightly. For “stealth” means being seen and accepted as cisgender, which is not what a transperson is.
Certainly excellent reasons drive a trans person to wanting to live stealth. As this Wikipedia entry describes, living stealth can increase one’s self dignity. A person may feel they live fully in their gender when living stealth. They might feel safer too. So living stealth can soothe a lot of resistance. Living stealth also can cause anxiety associated with being discovered as not being cisgender.
That aside, all those excellent reasons – dignity, full access to one’s gender and safety – are states of being. A transgender woman can attain such states without “passing” at all. Let alone living stealth.
The problem comes when reality hits that ideal. When anyone stands outside of what they want, feeling inadequate, not good enough, unsatisfied and anxious stands alongside them. Those feelings will create realities revealing inconsistencies in who one is being.
Everyone is perfect as they are, moving towards greater perfection. Hear the self-acceptance in that? But who one is being when not accepting oneself as they are now, can’t abide with who one is. The reason life reflects this disharmony is so one can do something about it.
Anytime one feels any less than positive emotion, that feeling indicates disharmony. Emotions such as hopeful, joy, freedom, appreciation, love, positive expectation and eagerness indicate internal harmony.
Perfect matches everywhere
Not standing in such positive emotions, again, creates life experiences matching that. The same holds true for trans-attracted men. Many such men don’t stand in those positive emotions because they don’t accept who they are either. They wonder if trans-attraction means “I am gay” (nope). They fear what friends will think. If married, they worry about wifey finding out.
Doesn’t it make sense then, that these two people – the insecure transgender woman and the insecure trans-attracted man – would find one another? Each perfectly matches the other in their beliefs. And beliefs or stories create reality, including relationship realities.
But if either party judges the other they match with as undesirable, then no progress happens.
Say, for example, the transgender woman harshly rebukes the man’s attention as “chaser behavior”. To the Universe she’s saying more loudly than anything else “I don’t accept myself as acceptable so this man who is attracted to me, can’t be for any other reason other than that which I don’t accept about myself”.
In reply to such stories, the Universe says: “Great. Have some more of this kind of man. Until you figure out how to accept what you are.”
In other words, non-self-acceptance is a tough place from which to find love. For in not loving oneself, how can one find love in another?
“But I can’t accept what I am.” Someone may say.
I assert that that someone already did accept it. They’re here as they are because they accepted that before coming here. And they did so for a metric shit ton of good reasons.
The best contribution you can make is by realizing you chose to come into the world as you are, accept it and get on with giving the world the benefit of that. We show you how to do that at The Transamorous Network.
How matches happen
Starting to see how a person attracted to a transgender woman, because she is trans, might not be a fetish? Far deeper explanations exist.
A person attracted to a trans woman because of her trans-ness gets there partly because he is part of that woman’s reality, showing her what she must know to get what she wants (self-acceptance). Another side of the story exists, of course, because both parties co-create the rendezvous.
A trans-attracted man in the “chaser” stage is trying to figure his shit out. He comes with pre-agreement about his trans-attraction just like the trans woman. While his path looks different, it’s actually the same. Mainly, he must accept what and who he is to get what he wants.
But, just like a guy who first discovers girls will chase girls for the “pune-tang”. The chaser-stage, trans-attracted man is like a dog in heat. Maybe he discovered his attraction through porn or a documentary or social media. Either way, he’s excited and intrigued. Hooked.
But he also doesn’t know anything about his object of affection. So he’s going to stumble. He will likely also question his own sexuality. He may even question his gender. That might trigger all kinds of self-acceptance issues. Especially if this guy, like many people, thinks what others think about him carries any importance.
It doesn’t of course, but most people think it does.
So now this guy faces a quandary. He found something he wants, but it causes non-acceptance in him. Getting what he wants requires that he accept what he is. But, just like the transgender woman who lives on the same “story level”, he can’t accept that he might be gay. He also can’t not pursue his attraction.
So he pursues, steeped in insecurity. His insecurity flows from him like radar. That “pinging” gets “heard” by those transgender women – and only those transgender women – on the same radar “frequency”. In other words, insecure ones.
Getting the love wanted requires putting out what you’re wanting. When you’re steeped in self-acceptance issues, you’re not doing that. Relationships you find while standing there help show you that.
An exceptional life awaits
What do you think happens next?
That’s right. The two match. So they meet.
What happens next depends on what moves each party makes. At The Transamorous Network, we show trans and trans-attracted people how to make moves leading to more positive emotions. Emotions such as hopeful, joy, freedom, appreciation, love, positive expectation and eagerness.
Why?
Because when one stands in those, one’s radar puts out signals which attract people standing similarly. Each client approaches dating happy. So better matches get made.
“Fetish” doesn’t apply to any situation. Especially when those using that word intend to demean the fetishizer or the fetishizing. Underneath surface appearances, a great and eternal dance roils. Huge forces swirl around these encounters, all of which flow from who one “bees” (as in being) at any moment.
So if someone wants to meet someone who wants them for who and what they are, that person must first stand in profound self-acceptance. Anything less will bring relationships showing why that relationship won’t satisfy in the long term. Hardly any relationships come meaning to stay because nearly all of us are works in progress.
We constantly get better, improve, change, become more. And perhaps the greatest challenge for humans lies beneath those words. We are constant, changing beings. Always moving forward. But accepting that in a world unwilling to accept people as constantly changing, becoming-more, eternal entities, can be tough.
That’s why we’re here. We help people figure this out. When they do, they become an exception. And in that, their lives become exceptional.
I’m Jay and I’ve been interested in your site for a while. The only thing is, I don’t know exactly where I fall in the whole transamorous thing. Because I can’t really say that I’m specifically into transgender women.
What I find is that I’m a straight man actually into clean shaven effeminate men who cross dress. Unlike trans-attracted men, I pretty much label what I have as a fetish. I compare it to men who are into dressing up in leather, but instead, I’m into gay guys that dress up in women’s clothing and wear makeup. I’ve know this since I was in my early 20’s and now I’m in my late 50’s. But I struggled with it because I was afraid that this made me gay. So I explored that just to see if it was the case and as hard as I tried, I was just not into men. Not into muscles, penises, bodily hair, masculine men, bears, twinks, etc. But an effeminate gay guy dressed in women’s clothing was a turn on.
In my 30’s I had the opportunity to be with 2 cross dressers and it was amazing. Neither evolved into sex, but there were numerous kissing sessions with both and I can say the level of sensuality was incomparable.
Here’s the twist. I’m married and have been for 20 years. But still, I have that part of me that still has this attraction, however I have no intention nor desire to act on it. My outlet is through cross dresser porn once in awhile. I will not venture past that because I refuse to cheat on my wife with a cross dresser or anyone else for that matter. So this feeling is something that will obviously not go away and it’s not hurting anyone so I’m just trying to accept it.
My reason I’m writing this is because I don’t know where I fit into the transamorous title. When I’m watching adult materials, I actually skip the transgender section and go straight to the cross dresser section of the gay site to find depictions of bottom cross dressers being intimate with top men. And again, the level of intimacy and chemistry that I enjoy is unmatchable. So I’m not sure if there are others who relate to this.
Lost in my sexuality
Howdie Lost!
There’s no need to label your interests. Especially no need labeling your interest as a “fetish”. Your interest is not “abnormal”. “Normal” gets us all into so much trouble. What’s normal is, the vast diversity of everything, including sexual and romantic interests as well as sexual and romantic expression. So just enjoy what you enjoy and be done with this.
Your interest as you describe it doesn’t fit in the category “Transamorous” though. Transamorous as defined by its creator (not me) means “someone who is romantically interested in transgender people.” You describe your interest as categorically not that.
Now, some cross dressers are likely somewhere along a trajectory leading toward perhaps some version of transitioning from male to female. That could make that person trans, even if they don’t recognize it in them yet, in the same way trans-attracted men would, strictly, be defined as “queer”. But again, who cares if your interest falls into whatever category?
What we offer, in terms of encouraging people towards what they want, towards greater self-appreciation, self-acceptance and self-love, applies equally to everyone. Not just transgender and trans-attracted people even though that’s our focus at The Transamorous Network. In other words, no reason exists justifying you feeling confused, bunged up or shameful about what you find attractive, arousing or alluring. Enjoy your experience for what it is: a unique expression of what you uniquely are.
So what that you’re married. You can be married and still enjoy your attraction. It would be better if your marriage partner knew this about you, of course. That could afford greater freedom of both expression and being. But I can understand if they (your marriage partner) don’t know and you wanting to keep them in the dark, as many marriages aren’t built so much on trust and honesty as they are on desire, security and social norms.
The whole “am I gay” story trips so many people up, you’d think it’s the only option to “straight”. But there are as many variations of human sexual and gender expression as there are people. I would encourage you to drop labels and attempts to categorize yourself and accept who you are as you are and know what you are is right…just as you are. Relief you might feel in that may open more doors to all kinds of pleasurable futures.
Life is meant as a fun experience. Make it so by telling stories consistent with that. Then watch how your life becomes fun, the way it’s meant to be.
TTN
Dear The Transamorous Network,
Wow…wow!
Thanks so much for this affirming and uplifting reply. This made my day! I’ve had this attraction for years and have always kept it as my private joy.
I must admit that there was a ton of “confusion” in regards to my orientation at first but I never felt that I was gay because the litmus test that I used was that I had no desire to “receive.” By that, I mean even though I had a major turn on for transvestites, I had no desire to give oral or receive anal from them. I suppose to put it in gay terms, I would be considered a top. And not that this means anything, but we like what we like.
In regards to sharing this with my wife, I’m still a bit shy about doing that. Although she is liberal, there are still some conservative resembling opinions that I’m sure would inhibit her from fully embracing that part of me. I also know that there are people who are fully aware of their spouses’ tastes, but they make it work. For example, I belong to an Atheist organization and met a woman at one of the conventions who was happily married to a man, yet she identified as bi-sexual. For her, it was enough to state that she is bi-sexual and she has no desire to cheat on her husband. Likewise, I can say that I have an insatiable attraction to transvestites, but it doesn’t mean that I am going out there to live out my fantasy. I was with a gay crossdresser years ago and while it was very intimate, we did not go the whole way. But for me, that memory is enough for me to cherish because without a doubt, it was one of the most sensual, intimate experiences of my life.
I think that what it boils down to is that we all like what we like and there’s nothing at wrong with it as long as no one is getting hurt or taken advantage of. I’m trying to embrace this more and more and your response has helped me tremendously already.
So thank you for your words of encouragement. You are very good at this and I’m sure that you’re helping a lot of men who are dealing with a lack of self-acceptance.
Terryel (formerly Tiffany) kicks ass. Six months ago she began creating new stories for herself. As a result, her life is on fire. Everything she wants she gets: Men’s attention, opportunities to express her passions, clarity around her family and friends, and, of course, good sex.
Don’t take my word for it though. Listen to her tell her own story. Terryel shows how telling better-feeling stories creates new, better realities. Her new ways of interpreting experiences leave her empowered and joyful. Instead of self-judgment/self criticism, Terryel speaks lovingly and confidently about herself.
How many trans women speak like this?
Terryel’s confidence, joy and clarity inspire. I cracked up at her newfound sense of humor. I felt moved by her insights, insights everyone gets when they realize they create every situation they experience.
Transgender women: DL men needn’t leave you feeling like shit. Desperation and fear about ever feeling loved needn’t worry you. Your happiness depends on no external situation, or person.
Once you discover YOU create every experience, even with DL men, empowerment will rise from within you. One that happens, confidence, assertiveness and joy becomes your all day, every day. Then, and only then, can you say good bye to men who treat you poorly, or circumstances you prefer not to have.
All those things spring from within you too. Change your stories though, and, like Terryel here, you’ll uncover your freedom, your power and your joy. Then a life consistent with all that will be yours. Guaranteed.
A transgender woman who discovered The Transamorous Network on Medium followed our content. Then, just a couple days later, stopped following us after a brief exchange with me.
She wasn’t happy hearing she creates her reality through stories she’s telling. Instead, she wants to blame men, society…anyone other than herself.
I get it.
It’s challenging getting what I share because it requires owning the indisputable fact that everyone creates experiences in their lives. But once it clicks and a person sees how their experiences stem from their stories, it all starts making sense.
Then life gets really fun. Because the only one who can effect your life experience is you. In other words: You and only you create your world. That’s powerful knowing.
It’s not easy for people to accept that they create lives they experience. But no on else does it and it’s certainly not random. But once someone sees how it happens, then takes control of that, life gets really fun. (Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash)
Results a person gets on the way to getting what they’re after indicate what they believe about what they’re after. It’s great knowing that too.
Because armed with that knowledge, results help shape beliefs more aligned with what one wants. Deliberately using this process, seeing it work the way it does, makes life fun. It also makes getting what you want really easy.
Nearly all my clients come thinking they want what they want. But when we examine beliefs they have about what they want, and about other things related to that (and not related), they see how, actually, contrary their beliefs are to what they want.
Why people give up dreams
Putting it plain: everyone’s life springs from what they say, think and believe about life. No one experiences something not in accord with their beliefs. That’s accurate for finding lost keys, enjoying ideal careers, changing personal characteristics, having a political system that’s fair and just…and having love however that looks.
Nearly everyone thinks they think consistent with what they want. But I assure you if that were true, dating sites, for example, wouldn’t be a thing. The only reason so many of us humans give up on our dreams, including dream lovers, is because we don’t understand what we’re doing that squashes those dreams.
I share the below screen shots a lot. The reason why: they show to a “T” how transgender women (and trans-attracted men) squash their dream relationships:
A trans woman vigorously defending her limiting beliefs.
The same mistake over and over
The transgender women in those screen shots are doubling down on “evidence” they THINK tells them it’s the world “out there” creating circumstances that frustrate, confound and annoy them. It’s the men they meet, they say, who are to blame. Or it’s some other factor beyond their control.
In reality, it’s the doubling down on those beliefs that’s the problem. That’s why transgender women who say such things feel so bad when they say them.
They keep repeating the same mistake, rolling out all the evidence they think confirms what they think is the reason they can’t meet the man. They don’t realize that the reason they can’t meet the man is because they keep focusing on all the men they’ve met who have come and gone, men who are NOT the man, men who match and reflect stories they have – about themselves, about men, generally, about these men specifically, about dating, about what they want and whether they believe getting that is possible. These beliefs keep them from getting what they want.
The same thing is happening for trans-attracted men.
When you know what you’re really thinking, then your life gets easy. In the “easy” life gets fun too! (Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash)
Be the evidence
You just can’t get what you want when you’re telling stories all the time about what you don’t want. That’s what transwomen do when they say “I’ve been online dating for XX years and have contacted XX hundred men and…blah, blah, blah.”
Life doesn’t work that way.
My own life shows how accurate “the work” is. I write about my results every week on Positively Focused and here on The Transamorous Network. My life experience contains a ton of evidence how this works.
Don’t rely on evidence I produced though. Create your own. Be the evidence you want to see.
So it’s not about being “picky” about the men you want. It’s about what you think about the men you want, what you think about the men (or transgender women) you had, what you think about YOU.
What you think about what you think you deserve says a lot. How do you feel about being trans? That matters. How do you feel about life in general? That matters too.
Each of us comes into the world ready to create whatever life would thrill us. Transpeople especially.
Stories that have you feeling shame about yourself aren’t stories you wanna tell. They work against everything you’re wanting. (Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash)
You already knew this
But transpeople and trans-attracted people bring something more: an extraordinary ability to influence all of humanity. Because that which humanity comes from knows “trans”, as a phenomena, is a response to humanity wanting to know more about its potential.
But that “wanting to know” and the potential both are oppressed by bogus collective beliefs humans have about life, gender and a bunch of other things. You can see this by how resistant humans are to real progress and things that confront their beliefs.
Like many people, transgender people get kinda lost. They forget what I’m sharing with you although they knew it before they “incarnated”. Then they get insecure, begin thinking they’re unworthy, and in so doing, lose their influence.
Then they end up in various states of anxiety, frustration, worry, insecurity…the list goes on.
Some don’t stick around, chosing instead to pass back into nonphysical, the place from where they came, where we all come from, through what society calls “suicide”.
That is another bogus belief because every death is chosen, making all deaths suicides. Humans find that very hard to accept too. Just as some trans people can’t accept that they chose to be trans before incarnating and that choice was a magnificent one chosen by a powerful, world-changing, eternal being.
Everyone is SUPPOSED to have EVERYTHING they want. No exceptions. No one is keeping anything from anyone.
But if you’re struggling to find a partner, there is someone keeping that at bay. That someone is you and you alone.
