Feedback on trans male story

[ColtonWrites]

Submitted a story with a trans male submissive and a gay male Dominant. Its tagged clearly as transgender male.
Got a 1-star review and private feedback that they don't like gay men stories with trans men in them. Okay? Why did you read it then? It wasn't in the Gay category even! Its BDSM!

 

[AlexBailey]

I loved ‘I Chose Him’

I really like the uncommon perspective. I’m certain this would have been received well in the Transgender category.

️️️️️

 

[ColtonWrites]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I will probably move it. I wrote another chapter, and it ends with a trip out to get an emergency contraceptive. Probably won't go over well in any other category.

 

[AlexBailey]

I was recently at a trans community party with ~ 50 people. There were lots of T&Q folks but more than half were trans-masc.

At one point, when talking about niche smut and porn, people were saying how hard it is to find stories that reflect some of the outlier identities. Trans-binary is fairly common. T4T isn’t unheard of, but T-masc4G, T-fem4L… harder to find, especially something that isn’t just male-gaze fantasy.

I’m poly pan trans-fem fluid queer with a butch tomboy aesthetic. . I generally have to write my own stories. I know some folks who will love yours - the family dynamics and background bits too. I love how authentic and genuinely relatable those parts of your story are.

-Alex

 

[ColtonWrites]

I was recently at a trans community party with ~ 50 people. There were lots of T&Q folks but more than half were trans-masc.

At one point, when talking about niche smut and porn, people were saying how hard it is to find stories that reflect some of the outlier identities. Trans-binary is fairly common. T4T isn’t unheard of, but T-masc4G, T-fem4L… harder to find, especially something that isn’t just male-gaze fantasy.

I’m poly trans-fem fluid queer with a butch tomboy aesthetic. . I generally have to write my own stories. I know some folks who will love yours - the family dynamics and background bits too. I love how authentic and genuinely relatable those parts of your story are.

-Alex

I don't see a lot of stuff where the t-masc character is allowed to like/be comfortable with their body, even without surgery. And a lot of stuff that's power exchange/dubcon (which I really like) strays into transphobia (name calling etc), which pretty much dumps a bucket of cold water on me.
But yeah, I write my own stuff because its hard to find. Plus its cathartic for me - the world doesn't like me very much right now, and its not safe to go out cruising even if I wanted to, but I can certainly write about it!

 

[AlexBailey]

I want to give your post both a and a .

 

[stickygirl]

Hi there, welcome to Lit! Sorry I didn't see this earlier and could maybe have saved you from sarcasm on the AH forum.

I write from a trans MC pov and I've experimented with different categories:
Lesbian, where she hooks up with a cis gender woman
Romance, where the content wasn't especially sexual but more emotional
Mature, because why not?! Still not sure what Mature means anyway!
... and most are in the Transgender category.*

I went through a spell of judging the tone of my stories subjectively, which blinded me to what a regular Lit reader might expect. I realised from feedback that finding a trans woman in a Romance category can squick some readers. As it is, there's sufficient spread of stories within Transgender to include Romance and Lesbian content, so if I write any more, that's where I'll put them. I think Chloe's 'trumping' made good sense: Hey look - we trump all the other cards in the pack!!

*( Worth noting that Crossdressing and Transgender content used to be in the same category, but were wrenched apart in June. I see two of my stories got lumped into CD - that wasn't my decision, but I can't be bothered to ask the Mods to correct it )

 

[ColtonWrites]

My fear was that I would upset someone in the TG forum with heavy S&M content!
I think in the future if I'm concerned about content like that I'll just keep it to AO3, and post gentler stuff here.

 

[stickygirl]

Interesting. I got tired of the fan-fic format at A03 and deleted my account - nothing worse than having 30 views in two years... maybe I'm just vain!! Or maybe it was my crappy tags?

I think I make it clear in the first paragraph or two that "Hannah was transgender but, so, and...." so that everyone's in the picture. I'm not convinced that the readership at Lit even knows where to look for tags.

 

[ColtonWrites]

Interesting. I got tired of the fan-fic format at A03 and deleted my account - nothing worse than having 30 views in two years... maybe I'm just vain!! Or maybe it was my crappy tags?

I think I make it clear in the first paragraph or two that "Hannah was transgender but, so, and...." so that everyone's in the picture. I'm not convinced that the readership at Lit even knows where to look for tags.

Yeah Im also going to start including author notes. I got a (positive) comment from someone who enjoyed my story but missed the trans reveal that I (as a trans person) thought was obvious (being told he didnt belong at a gay bar + wearing a binder).

 

[stickygirl]

Yeah Im also going to start including author notes. I got a (positive) comment from someone who enjoyed my story but missed the trans reveal that I (as a trans person) thought was obvious (being told he didnt belong at a gay bar + wearing a binder).

We need to be mindful of the needs of cishets