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When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at DearShonVogue@gmail.com for your own chance at enlightenment.
Dear Shon,
As a confident, averagely attractive woman, I used to be able to walk into a bar and, usually, hook up with whichever man I wanted. I enjoyed having a lot of guys want to date me.
I transitioned a few years ago, and I m now living as a non-binary boy. I look like the femme boy of my dreams growing up! Transitioning has been better than I ever could have imagined, improving my health, my life, and relationships.
The problem is, I know the world at large finds me much less attractive. While in the gay club people often compliment my outfits, it takes a lot more work to hook up. And dating apps (other than grindr) are almost a complete dead zone. I m certainly not what most gay men are looking for. While I know as well as anyone the many perils of living as a woman, I do miss entering a whole room of people attracted to me!
Sometimes I think I could put in work to meet gay beauty standards better (work out more, shave when I m dressing femme), but it doesn t feel worth it, as I ll still be pretty low down the desirability ranking regardless. And also I like how I look!
My life has changed a lot since the time I feel selectively nostalgic for. I m in my 30s rather than 20s, my health has taken a hit, and I party considerably less than I used to. While in most ways I m also the most stable, happy, and successful I ve ever been, these parts of growing up have probably impacted my desirability too. Perhaps this is just another bit of growing up.
Should I just take the wins in all other areas of my life and try to let my desire to be generally desired go?
Nostalgic
Dear Nostalgic,
Being desired. It’s hard to be honest about what it means to us. We’re taught desire is something you should effortlessly command but never be seen to crave or, worse, actively work for. We repeat that it is meaningless, despite the fact that there are multi-billion dollar industries built around it. And we profess, particularly if we are feminists, to never enjoy the feeling of being hot, despite the fact that patriarchy and consumerism train us to equate it with self-esteem. The truth is, there are two things going on in your case. Firstly, you once participated in desirability politics by being read by men as a young straight woman i.e., as a highly desired subject in our culture. And now you’re a trans and feminine guy in gay contexts where the perceived sexual hierarchy is very different. Secondly, you are older and this also changes how desirability works.
The truth is that even if you had actually been a woman and remained presenting as one, your relationship to the general desire you felt from men would have changed with age. “In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place,” Emily Ratajkowski writes in My Body, a collection of essays about beauty, femininity and commodification. Many women learn between the ages of 20 and 30 that being thought of as hot by men is not always accompanied by care or respect and may even act as a conduit for mistreatment and exploitation. Because you changed your body and how it is read, your recollection of how affirming male desire is may be somewhat frozen in time.
Being trans can mess up developmental timelines. When I transitioned medically it felt like I was starting all over again when it came to sex and dating. There were new rules that I didn’t understand yet, but I craved desire, affirmation, and that elusive feeling of being seen. Perhaps the reason you miss being lusted after to the same degree you were in your youth is because you long for the sexual experiences you missed out on as a gay guy in those years before you came out as trans? If so, these will need to be gently grieved. Of course, you may have a very natural desire to make up for lost time, which produces frustration when the opportunities do not present themselves. Plus, while gay male culture can be deeply fraught with anxieties about body image and desirability, it does have a certain sexual openness and freedom that isn’t so available to women in heterosexual dynamics.
The truth is that, while your younger self was desired by a larger pool of people, your older, wiser self who has gone through the upheaval of transition probably wouldn’t want most of the guys who wanted you back then! A smaller dating pool doesn’t have to be a worrying thing: It has massive benefits in that you’re likely to know that people who choose to date or hookup with you actually want you, not a body you feel alienated from. You mention lifestyle changes like partying less in your thirties. I hear you, and the reality, too, is that there are just fewer single or available people about or opportunities to meet people in your thirties because many of us calm down or are in relationships. You may have to prioritize making time for other social activities with fellow queer people in order to meet new people.
Give yourself some grace: transition is (quelle surprise!) a massive adjustment and requires a huge adjustment period. It can take years to find your place in the world, your aesthetic, the people who find you hot and vice versa. You write effusively about what being your true self has done for you in terms of wellbeing; it paints quite the picture of how difficult life must have been in your early twenties. This is where nostalgia can warp things: Who wants to be generally desired by men while feeling terrible inside? Confidence and groundedness are sexy. They just are. This means that you are actually hotter now than you have ever been. You are able to be present and real with yourself and others in a way that would have eluded you back then. I think it’s about stepping into that confidence and owning it. The right people will find that highly desirable.
