Rose of Dawn talks about how the "dating pool" for transsexuals shrinks pre-op and then further again post-op citing her (transsexual MtF) experience of being contacted by men on a dating site (Hello Cupid?).
As expected, they asked whether she was pre-op or post-op and most were NOT interested when they found she was post-op, ie. had had "bottom surgery".
(I can't remember which video it was:
www.youtube.com/user/AshleeK9/videos )
Rose is not surprised by this, ie. that more men have a "kink" for "tits and dick" than for "tits and fake fanny" (please mentally convert to latinate equivalents if Plain English offends - my brain is not up to it at the moment). Also that the few men going for "post-op" transsexuals are not in it for the long haul, as most want a future that includes a family where they expect to father children.
Obviously, TW (both pre-op and post-op) claiming/bragging that men find them more sexually desirable than women never frame this as their admirers having a "kink" or fetish.
Some people have a "kink" for amputees but we don't see amputees bragging that this means they are therefore more sexually desirable generally. Instead, this usually causes sadness and frustration when seen as sex objects rather than as "real people" and sometimes difficulty trusting that "romantic interest" is genuine:
"What’s your crutch? The bizarre world of amputee fetishes"
drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/whats-your-crutch-the-bizarre-world-of-amputee-fetishes/
"How I Came to Terms with People Fetishising My Disability"
(author is a lesbian fetishised by lesbians)
www.vice.com/en_uk/article/vdxa34/how-i-came-to-terms-with-people-fetishizing-my-disability
Miranda Yardley has an interesting blog post on the real goal for (some?) TW being acceptance by straight men:
"The Cotton Ceiling":
mirandayardley.com/en/the-cotton-ceiling/
Blog post ends:
The cotton ceiling is a red herring. The problem lies not with women refusing to accept transwomen as partners, it lies with men who will, generally, fuck pretty much anything (women, transwomen, goats, cars, mattresses…)
Transwomen find no difficulty getting a man to accept them for sexual purposes, even as far as discrete dates (usually very discrete, what with being a dirty little secret an’ all) but they will never, ever introduce their transwoman partner to their friends or around for dinner with their mum.
This is ‘The Plastic Pocket Protector’ – until men as a class accept it’s all right, it’s acceptable, to have a partner who is a transwoman, the validly of transwomen as people deserving of having a loving, equal and sustainable relationship is negated.
Here is the battle to be fought by transwomen: a battle to be accepted as something other than fetishised sexual objects, a shame, a hidden vice to be used and discarded at will.
Our battle is not against women or lesbians, our battle is against our dehumanisation, objectification and misuse by men.