Brittany St. Jordan, a 28-year-old leggy redhead in a plunging gold number, was all dressed up with somewhere to go: the Adult Video News Awards, the so-called âOscars for the porn industry.â But she ended up standing in line for three hours waiting to walk the red carpet, as other female performers were sent ahead. When she finally got her turn, event organizers directed her away from interviews with the press.
St. Jordan had an idea of why: Unlike the ladies who were sent right in, sheâs a transsexual woman.
After the night was over, having lost in the Best Transsexual Performer category, St. Jordan took to the Web to protest her treatment. Her story inspired Kelly Pierce, a female trans performer who didnât attend the ceremony, to write a lengthy blog post titled âAVNâs Inequality & Segregation Needs to Stop!â Soon, industry blogs and message boards picked up on the controversy.
It was an explosion of long-building resentment over their treatment within the industry. Beyond the red carpet delay this year, which AVN says was not limited to transsexual performers, the company has never allowed the Transsexual Performer of the Year award to be presented on stage. Instead, it has been announced on a JumboTron as the audience starts to filter out of the auditorium. As one star told me, âWeâre the black sheep.â
That is despite the genreâs tremendous popularity: âT-girl sites are the fourth most popular category of adult Web site,â according to âA Billion Wicked Thoughts,â a book that crunches the numbers behind Internet porn. (Although female-to-male transsexual stars are on the rise in queer porn, what weâre talking about here are trans women â more specifically, people assigned as male at birth who have transitioned to being female but still have a penis.) There are more frequent Web searches for this genre â often through terms like âshemaleâ and âchicks with dicksâ â than for basic X-rated categories like âbuttsâ or âblowjobs.â Authors Sai Gaddam and Ogi Ogas found that the genreâs average viewer is a straight-identified male (and, based on their analysis, passing curiosity doesnât explain its popularity).
After St. Jordanâs outcry gathered virtual steam, AVN called a meeting last week with a handful of concerned trans women. On Tuesday, the company published a press release announcing that the transsexual winner would be announced on stage in the future. AVN also promised to allow more trans performers to walk the red carpet and talk to the press, and to present awards during the ceremony.
St. Jordan, who says she put her career on the line by speaking out, is thrilled. âWhether or not I ever get nominated again or get invited to anything with AVN again, the fact that the Transsexual Performer of the Year will be on stage and seen by everybody? Thatâs huge.â Tomcat, director of Kink.comâs TS Seduction site, agrees: âNot sharing the stage with Ts performers has allowed the majority of non-trans performers to dismiss them as outsiders and perpetuated discrimination against a group who should be equally praised for the work they do and the revenue they generate for the industry.â
While AVNâs decision marks serious progress, St. Jordan says that recent commentary on industry message boards reveals just how far there is to go. âSome of the hate and ignorance that came spewing from people was unbelievable, and this was people in, or associated with, the industry. You saw where a lot of people stood.â
Not that it wasnât already apparent. Thereâs a huge stigma against mainstream straight stars working with transsexual female performers â theyâre stereotyped as gay and therefore at higher risk for transmitting HIV. Tomcat, a trans man, told me in an email, âI still encounter many non-trans performers who will not work with [female] Ts performers because they consider [them] to be more of a STI risk to do a scene with â this is bullshit. In a industry where everyone is tested and everyone makes choices, the same risks are present regardless of gender identity.â
It perhaps goes without saying that the marketing of transsexual porn is often problematic. âPeople still search for Ts porn using âshemale,ââ Tomcat says. âTo me, this is like searching online for a cab company by typing in âstagecoach.â Itâs an antiquated term that is ignorant, incorrect and no longer OK to use.â
Some performers, like Wendy Williams, arenât so concerned about the lingo. âI donât live in a utopia, itâs what it is,â she says with her Southern lilt (sheâs from Eastern Kentucky). âIâm not trying to be a transsexual activist.â Plus, âItâs a porn term that describes a genre. That way, some country, straight-ass guy in the corner is going to understand,â says Williams. âYou say âtranssexualâ and theyâre confused, you say âshemaleâ and they know what that is.â
A major struggle for the transsexual female niche is to get recognition within the straight side of the business as opposed to the gay side. âThis is one of my biggest pet peeves, when I go into a store to do research to see if theyâre carrying my DVDs or product lines and you have the transsexual stuff mixed in with the gay stuff,â says Williams. âPutting it next to âHarry Men Volume 1,â itâs just not a good idea,â she says, since the vast majority of their fans identify as hetero. âMy gay friends squeal at the idea of having sex with anything but a masculine male â the breasts and all that is just a huge turnoff.â
For most fans of transsexual porn, the genre is just one of many categories that theyâre interested in. âA Billion Wicked Thoughtsâ argues that T-girl porn has such a significant straight male following because it combines the key sexual cue of female anatomy with that other fixture of heterosexual porn: a big, hard cock. Madison Montag, a nominee for Transsexual Performer of the Year, says, âThey get tired of just the same old thing. Transsexuals are more feminine, theyâre like hyper-feminine. To me, itâs kind of get the best of both worlds.â
The mis-categorization of Ts female porn has been painfully evident at the AVN awards in the past, Williams says: Buck Angel, the first recognized FTM trans performer, won the Best Transsexual Performer award in 2007. âIt was a huge scandal in our community,â she says. âHow do you judge his porn against our porn? His fan base is totally different. Thatâs just one example of how ignorant the porn community is.â (In an aside, she mentions the scene she filmed with him in 2005: âActually, Buck was the very first, quote, vagina I had ever been in.â)
Many female transsexuals feel like theyâre rejected from both the straight and gay world. âEven if you go into the [gay] clubs, transsexuals and drag queens are primarily there for entertainment,â says Williams. âItâs not really inclusive. Weâre kind of in limbo, weâre in between both worlds.â In the straight world, men are often timid about revealing their interest in the genre. Most sales happen online, says Williams, who has a line of signature toys, including a $240 cyberskin mold of her ass. She says, âWeâre the taboo, and where does taboo usually happen? Behind closed doors.â
Then again, Pierce, a blond with pixy features, says that when she signed autographs in a booth at the AVN Expo in 2008, she was allowed in the âfemale sectionâ and had a line longer than some non-trans girls. âThey were kind of upset with me,â she laughs.
In terms of fansâ willingness to announce their interest in public, it all has to do with a performerâs âpassability,â according to Pierce: âSome men feel like theyâre more straight if theyâre attracted to more feminine looking transsexuals who bottomâ â because topping is seen as masculine. Passability is also a factor in how girls are treated within the industry, she says: âIf you look like a woman, theyâre more accepting of you. And if you donât look like a woman, theyâre less accepting.â
Montag, a 19-year-old, doe-eyed brunette who calls me âsweetie,â says she got stellar treatment at this yearâs AVN awards â she rubbed elbows with Ron Jeremy on the red carpet and scored a seat in the second row â and attributes it in part to her passability. âIâm very young. Iâm only 5â1âł and 81 pounds. Iâm very petite.â She adds, âI started hormone therapy earlier than other girls.â
St. Jordan agrees: âWhen it comes down to it,â she says matter-of-factly, âthis is business, and itâs a beauty contest every day.â
Williams, who is 6-feet-tall with red, va-va-voom hair, says the pressure to pass as a porn star is even greater than in everyday life. Normally, she says, âI pull my hair up into ponytail and throw on some lip gloss and people just think Iâm a tall girl with big boobs.â On camera, everything is different: âYou need to seem extremely feminine, but if you want to seem feminine, then you need to be on hormones â but if youâre on hormones, you canât stay hard and come, and if you canât stay hard and come, youâre a bad performer.â On top of that, she says, the same viewers who expect this expensive nipped and tucked aesthetic âwant to pirate my videos and not sign up for my website and have it for free.â
The irony is that many female trans performers get into the sex industry to pay for their transitions. Well, that and because it can be difficult to get a job anywhere else: âI interviewed for a job that I should have got,â says Williams about her pre-porn days, âand the guy told me, âI just donât know how the cohesion in the office would be if people knew that you were a transsexual woman.ââ Things have improved in the decade since then, but the same issues persist: âI couldnât get a job, not even at Burger King,â says Montag, who lives in a small town in Texas where âpeople get beat up just for being punk and emo.â
She may be sexually outgoing on the Internet, but itâs not so in real life. Montag says she gets far more action on-screen and doesnât pursue men in real life, for fear of them having a bad reaction to the discovery that sheâs trans. Instead, she sticks to the Web: â[You get] a better reaction and itâs safer, too,â she explains. âItâs not like theyâre gonna beat you and leave you in a cornfield to die.â
Courtney Trouble, a queer porn star and director who has worked with many trans performers, hopes that porn might actually help reduce transphobia in society at large. âPorn, while seemingly a private, frivolous luxury, has the immense power to gently create an awareness for trans issues in the audience,â she says. âIf porn can create a change in the minds of people outside the industry, thatâs where the real rewards are.â
Tobi Hill-Meyer, director of âDoing It Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project,â left the mainstream business âto create an alternative that allowed trans women to be represented the way each performer wanted to see herself represented,â she says. âI had to leave the mainstream industry in order to accomplish that, but Iâve seen a similar thing happening within it. More and more performers are speaking out about changes theyâd like to see and setting up their own websites or productions.â Trouble believes that independently produced porn will do away with terms like âshemale,â âtrannyâ and âchick with a dick.â
Others predict transsexual porn will explode within mainstream straight porn. Thatâs in part because âso many transsexual stars are transitioning younger and getting more beautiful,â says Pierce. But she adds, âSexuality in general is becoming more open-minded and the new generation is really pushing the limits on sexuality, and I think itâs going to push the transsexual market.â
St. Jordan agrees: âI think thereâs gonna be some great crossover stuff real soon, within the next year or so,â she says. That means transsexuals performing not only with non-trans girls but also with straight male performers. This is partly because of growing acceptance and interest on the part of porn viewers, and partly because the up and coming generation of young performers have increasingly liberal attitudes. She says, âAs new minds and ideas are coming into the industry, there are more people willing and open to work with us.â
