In a lengthy op-ed for Vice, transgender man Lee Hurley (a biological woman presenting herself as a male) lamented the supposed epidemic of cis-gendered women (and men) ghosting transgenders in dating life, arguing that they have been brainwashed to “have such a limited view of how gender and sexuality works.”
According to Hurley, dating life was an easier racket back when she identified as a lesbian, but that all changed after becoming a transgender man.
“As a trans guy, the majority don’t seem to know what to make of me, so they run away,” wrote Lee. “I’ve played around with the big reveal and I know the two are linked. It’s hard not to see a connection when you arrange a second date, drop the T bomb and then she cancels in the next breath.”
Lee then conducted several experiments to see how this transgender bias plays out among cisgender single women by setting up three dating profiles, in which one was only listed as a transgender. Unsurprisingly, the transgender profile received the least amount of replies versus the other two.
“I won’t lie. It got to me for a while,” lamented Lee. “I’d be chatting with a woman, making her laugh and seemingly getting on well. Then I’d tell her and she’d vanish. Over and over and over. Before dates, during dates, after dates, it didn’t matter. The result was almost always the same.”
Determined to discover the origination of this social phenomenon, in which women seem to only wish to date biological men, Lee Hurley then dived into the chatrooms of Reddit to see what the people had to say. “Why do women vanish when I tell them I’m a trans guy?” Lee posted on /r/dating_advice.
“A woman born a woman is always a woman, no matter what,” said one Redditor. “The women on the dating apps are not interested in dating other women so they vanish because they are interested in me.”
“It’s probably the genital issue,” replied another.
“I would assume it’s the thought that you don’t have a penis that puts them off,” said another.
In response, Lee boasted of a “drawer full of d***s” with “a size to suit every pleasure.”
“Not one of them has ever failed to get up, get hard, or get her off,” continued Lee. “Not something I can say for these all-singing, all-dancing, superd***s that cis men are apparently endowed with.”
Ultimately, Lee concluded that this supposed ignorance stems from an unfair standard that society holds transgender people to, likening it to women having to list their fertility status on dating apps or men have to share their penis sizes.
“That, really, is the whole issue in a nutshell,” concluded Lee. “We hold trans people to a higher standard than anyone else when it comes to dating. We require of them more than we ask of others, all while constantly sending the message that trans people are somehow ‘less than’. The reality is, being trans is a magic sorting hat. As tough as it is to have people vanish when you tell them who you are, it does me a favour. By telling them that one thing about me, their reaction tells me everything I need to know about them.”