Are they cis guys who are attracted to trans women but don't know how to process that in healthy ways so it comes out in transphobia? Are they just transphobes and they get their jollies out of being straight up sicko creeps? Or something else entirely? I'm just curious as to what makes them tick.

  • MtF_DOOM [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Chasers are transphobic and misogynistic predators who are almost always abusive.

    They objectify trans women and see us as fetish dispensers instead of as actual human beings. Their interest in trans women is heavily sexual with a huge obsession on what makes us "different" from cis women.

    :visible-disgust:

    Others can probably answer this better, but that’s my summary. I’m speaking from a trans femme experience vs a trans masc one. I thankfully haven’t had to deal with many chasers so far, and I hope it stays that way.

    An example of a chaser that got purged from this site was @budoguytenkaichi, you can read about that here: https://hexbear.net/post/192543

    The mods are really diligent with banning these losers and I don’t see many here. That’s probably one of the reasons the site discourages horny posting too.

  • Ideology [she/her]
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    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I've talked to a few. There are multiple different subtypes of chaser.

    • The extremely closeted proto-queer (will probably transition at some point)
    • The conservative anti-wife-guy (thinks being a "former boy" means you'll understand their boomer ass)
    • The incel ideologue (same as above but without a wife)
    • The alt-right debatebro with a hateboner, probably also into Nazi femboys and wishes you could get over your silly sjw hangups
    • The shock fetishist (really into traps, sissification, hypnosis memes)
    • The Gay/Bi in Denial ("There's no way I'd ever be into men, I'm so straight 😤😤😤")
    • The misguided leftist: thinks that watching leftube videos means they can get in your pants. Still has some incel brainworms.
    • The malthusian: overlaps with the incel ideologue and misguided leftist. Believes transwomen are the answer to the "female shortage"
    • Rem [she/her]
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      edit-2
      2 years ago
      • The extremely closeted proto-queer
      • The conservative anti-wife-guy
      • The incel ideologue
      • The alt-right debatebro
      • The shock fetishist
      • The Gay/Bi in Denial
      • The misguided leftist
      • The malthusian

      Weird d&d party but as long as everyone is having fun I guess

      • Ideology [she/her]
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        2 years ago

        I'm pretty sure whatever they're having is the opposite of fun.

          • Ideology [she/her]
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            2 years ago

            "The extremely buff ratman with great hair and a charming face tells you that there is something that looks like a dungeon full of a big bad dragon's gold underneath the town's gay bath house."

            Half of the players are bursting into flames in their chairs because there hasn't been a single female character in weeks. The other half are secretly getting into the plot.

    • space_comrade [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      The malthusian: overlaps with the incel ideologue and misguided leftist. Believes transwomen are the answer to the “female shortage”

      Bruh what

      • Ideology [she/her]
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        edit-2
        2 years ago

        There's a type of chaser that legit believes that there aren't enough cis women or cis women with low enough standards to sleep with them THEREFORE transwomen balance this out by increasing the fem population (with a low-self-esteem bonus). Like some other chasers, they think you'll "get" how hard it is to be a guy and sympathize with them.

        If anything, transitioning demonstrates to us how easy it is to change and that toxic or incel traits aren't immutable, but that it's your own constant receding into them that makes the rest of you disappear.

        • space_comrade [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Those are some sublime brainworms, the patriarchy really does a number on some men's minds.

          Sorry you had to suffer through interacting with those people.

  • Awoo [she/her]
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    2 years ago

    Fetish for chicks with dicks. Nothing more. That is all they see in the trans person they are chasing, when relationships do happen due to the poor judgement of the trans person they tend to become incredibly manipulative and abusive if/when full transition surgery becomes on the table as this would remove the thing they like. They don't really give a shit about the trans person as a human being, they're a sexual fetish and nothing more.

    There are probably a bunch of other factors involved. Trans women tend to overcompensate a lot to seek gender affirmation which makes them uniquely manipulateable by someone that understands the things they want, they tend to hyper-feminise in an overcompensating way, they tend to be open to being hyper-submissive in an overcompensating way. Etc etc. A lot of trans people grow out of the overcompensating later on but yeah, it makes them targets for a lot of stuff.

  • TrashCompact [none/use name]
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    2 years ago

    Cissie here, but I always see it explained mainly as #2 there.

    #2 would also be consistent with other especially reactionary fetishes. For example, it has long been recorded that a disproportionate number of overt white supremacist men enjoy porn that is oriented around a black man having sex with (or raping) a white woman, sometimes in the context of that woman having a white male partner already. There is a lot to be said about this if one can stomach to dwell on it, but the short version is that they seem to be sublimating the "racial anxiety" that their ideology has caused them, turning it into a source of sexual pleasure in order to cope with it.

    I would suspect from testimony like appears in this thread that the chaser's fetish is driven by seeing trans people as subhuman, and thus in some manner either the chaser is 1) "debasing" themselves, a sublimation of anxiety into sexual excitement like the racial example or 2) seeking to "dominate" the "lesser" being that is their trans victim, hence the frequency of abuse.

    Anyway, that's what it seems like from the outside. I of course welcome correction from people who might have experiences that disagree with me.

    • Whatami [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      In 1960s-70s Israel, Nazi porn was a big deal. From my study of historical sexuality, it doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it is forbidden. Some of us humans just love love love anything, as long as it's taboo. The really sick people come from libertines who don't have any taboos. They have to get into the seriously abusive and even murderous to get their rocks off.

    • Ideology [she/her]
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      edit-2
      2 years ago

      There is a sort of pipeline for the porn that leads to this behavior. Shock humor -> Habituation -> Testing the Waters -> Ironic Acceptance -> Negotiating Unironic Acceptance -> Embracing Fetishization. There's stuff out there mostly meant to troll people not into this stuff, and then catch and subsume them into their weird little community so more content gets reposted or commissioned.

      • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
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        2 years ago

        Weird that they enforce the cycle of abuse and trauma by checks notes showing each other trans bodies

    • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
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      2 years ago

      I went down a rabbit hole the other day of people complaining about pup chasers on grindr and it was wild disk horse

  • frankfurt_schoolgirl [she/her]
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    2 years ago

    I'm a straight (ish) trans woman, so I have some takes on this. The word chaser gets used in a bunch of ways, including just to mean anyone attracted to trans people. Personally, I'm kinda glad that there are people attracted to me, otherwise I'd be lonely. I would say chasers are anybody wants me, but isn't willing to go to the trouble of treating me like an actual human. There as basically two different types.

    Type one are "open minded sex pests". They tend to be the stereotypical married older guy who tries to meet "passable cross dressers" on Grindr and will refer to you with some bizarre porn term from the 80s that no one your age has ever uttered. They don't have to be this, though, they can be any age.

    There's a funny scene in a book by a trans author I read once. Character one is trans but stealth, character two is an Asian cis woman complaining about her shitty ex boyfriend. Ch. 2 recounts how she found her ex's extensive asian porn stash, and how gross it made her feel. Ch. 1 immediately jokes "Oh, what kind of chaser is that?", and then realizes she fucked up when Ch. 2 asks what a chaser is.

    My point is that there is no difference between "tr*nny chasers" and any other type of man who fetishes a specific group of women, whether it's Asian women, very young women, skinny women, curvy women, or the elusive gamer girl. The reason chasers are considering their own thing is that's trans people are uniquely marginalized, making us easier to exploit, and also because the transphobic general public assumes that chasers must be gay or something.

    Type two are those who are repressing their own queerness in some way. They may be bi or gay and want to experiment, but often they are straight up trans themselves and haven't come to terms with it yet. I obviously have a lot more sympathy for this group, but the dynamics can still be kinda toxic because they want to live vicariously through you to some degree. I haven't met anybody like this, but it's a stereotype to the point where there are memes about it. I have had some guys who came out as bi right after meeting me (gee thanks...).

    I think there are also slightly different kinds of chasers who go after trans men, but you'd have to ask one of the guys about it.