Playing with Gender

This article is about justification of how some men enjoy fetishizing and objectifying gender play gender play. It is not about being transexual or transgender. Many people who are trans find this offensive as they do not want to be fetishized or objectified.

Occasionally a woman comes into my therapy office feeling upset, confused, and even betrayed because she discovered that her husband had been watching transgender porn on his computer. Or perhaps she discovered that he sometimes likes to dress up as a woman when she wasn’t home. He may even have hooked up with a trans woman.

“Why hasn’t he told me that he is gay or that he is attracted to transgender females?” she asks. “I feel like he’s been cheating on me all this time.”

My job, then, is to help her understand that her husband’s behavior doesn’t necessarily mean that he is gay or cheating on her. It is far more subtle.  

The truth is that some straight men simply enjoy dressing like a woman with makeup, hair, nails, lingerie, undergarments. It makes them feel sexy in a feminine way. They are exploring what it must feel like to be a woman, imagining themselves as a woman much the same way an actor will imagine themselves as the character they are playing. It doesn’t mean they are gay. It doesn’t mean they are trans. Cross-dressing turns them on, but in reality they are straight. Some might call this a fetish or a kink, not something that defines their actual sexual identity, but something they enjoy playing with—gender play.

Then what about straight men are attracted to a cross-dresser, someone who wears the wigs, the exaggerated makeup, the eyelashes, the whole bit? This still doesn’t indicate that the attraction to that person is homosexual in nature. More likely it means that he is attracted to the femininity he sees in that person, not that person’s gender. You might ask, why wouldn’t they just find another woman instead? Some straight men in this situation say they don’t identify as gay because they are attracted to the femininity and the gender fluidity. Even if the object of their attraction has not had bottom surgery and still has a penis, they enjoy playing with it. But in their mind that trans person is a woman. People can only see this as being gay. Why would he want to play with male genitalia and engage in that if he wasn’t gay? Well, primarily, a straight man wants to play with a trans female because he wants to see a woman from the waist up but play with penises from the waist down. The term for this attraction is gynandromorphophilia which means sexual attraction to individuals assigned male at birth who possess a combination of male and female physical characteristics, such as feminine body features (e.g., breasts) while retaining a penis. Most gay men don’t want that. It doesn’t interest them. They want to see a man from top to bottom.

Here’s another twist: A gay man may enjoy playing with and penetrating the vagina of a trans man because he experiences the person as a male.

We find that there are different ways that cross-dressing men get off. Some might like to have sex with a woman, perhaps even their wife, while they are dressed like a woman. Some straight men like to dress as a woman and have sex with a man. The important thing here is that it is not about their masculinity, but about femininity. These are straight men, not gay men. The common denominator is an exploration of femininity.

If a straight man may even like to play with the penis of a trans person who hasn’t had bottom surgery, does that mean he is gay? No. In our culture, we equate body parts to sexual orientation. The problem is that body parts only express natal gender, not gender identity or expression. But sexual attraction comes in many flavors. For example, there is a term for men who are attracted to trans females who haven’t had bottom surgery. It is called gynandromorphophellia. It means that they are attracted to the gender fluidity in that person. They get access to both male and female parts in a woman. Then, there’s something called autogynephilia. It defines the experience of feeling, presenting, experiencing oneself as a woman, as a female in a feminine way.

Cross dressing, then, doesn’t indicate the cross-dressing male is gay. It indicates that he enjoys the gender play. He likes feeling like a woman, being treated like a woman. It’s a turn on for him. But again, it doesn’t mean he is gay.

Gender play as fun

            Women get to play with gender overtly and publicly. They get to wear three-piece suits if they want, wing tips, or heels, and nobody bats an eye. We don’t easily assume that every cross-dressing female is a lesbian, bi or not straight. But if I were to come to work in a boa, or in some kind of feminine way, people would look at me and think something’s wrong with me, and wonder, “Why is he coming to work that way?” There is more permission for women to play with gender than there is for men to do this.

Gender play, admittedly, is complicated. And for some men, it can be a lot of fun.

People who perform in drag will tell you people that there are many straight men that are very attracted to them. But cross-dressing and being attracted to people who perform in drag doesn’t mean someone has lost their heterosexual identity. Some straight men just love the exaggerated features, the exaggerated hair, the exaggerated makeup and fingernails, all of it. Their attraction eclipses the knowledge that they are looking at a man dressed as a woman.

For the woman who comes to my office because she has found that her husband or partner is attracted to trans or cross-dressers and therefore believes that he is not straight or wants to transition, I try to help her understand that it means noting of the sort. It simply is gender play, a way to explore a different part of oneself.

It’s erotic fantasy.