“The Transgender Craze Seducing Our [Sons]”; or, All the Trans Guys Are Just Dating Each Other

Abstract

Abstract Recent antitrans discourses have critiqued trans masculinity in particular as a site of social panic and contagion for proto-trans adolescents. In extreme cases, this is framed as a seduction. Turning “seduction” from a social danger to a benefit, this essay theorizes masc4masc t4t erotics as a type of contagious gendering. The authors discuss the coming into identity that takes place via desire for trans people, including a sexual urge toward or attraction to people who look like the person one wants to be. They examine the cultural representations of ftm4ftm erotics, and what it means to think about these relationships now, in the face of their new emergence as cultural threat. The authors make a close reading of 2000s-era erotica and pornography to argue that Daddy/boy and group sex dynamics can be read as gender labor, affective and intersubjective work that produces gender and that in t4t erotics works within a framework of differentiated reciprocity. The article concludes by gesturing toward future possibilities for trans masc 4 trans masc politics and pleasures.