GenderX: Portraying Trans Performers in a Sex-Positive Light

The transsexual erotic content site GenderX, along with several other sensible and sensitive adult studios, is trying to break this stereotype. Sure, the content they provide features some of the industry’s best known trans names such as Aubrey Kate, Chanel Santini, Daisy Taylor, Ella Hollywood, Lena Moon, Natalie Mars, Shiri Allwood, and TS Foxxy, but the way they’re portrayed is different from many other transsexual sites. There’s no ‘freak show value’ assigned to GenderX’s scenes, just real people having real (and extremely hot, well-shot) sex.

Jim Powers is the director who writes and shoots the scenes for GenderX. Powers says that “GenderX began as a studio whose goal was to shoot high end trans content and most of all, portray it in a positive light. From Day One it was about normalizing the act of making love to a trans woman.”

The fact that trans-nontrans sex needs to be ‘normalized’ (a quick scan of the web will prove that this is rarely the case) speaks volumes about the continuing prejudices and social isolation endured by trans people. That GenderX and Powers are committed to normalizing trans sex — and the fact that this feels like a social revolutionary act – shows just how little has been achieved in accepting trans people as members of society.

Jim Powers doesn’t stop there. By portraying trans women as the sensual women they are, he is affording them the social acceptance and respect hitherto reserved for cisgender Playboy models.

“We want to make movies the girls could be proud of being in,” Powers tells YNOT. “The sets should be fun. The performers should walk away and feel they had a great day – not to mention that they should be making movies that they would not be embarrassed to show to other people.”

Again, GenderX’s stance on producing trans content is diametrically opposed to the industry’s traditional take on transsexual porn. “In the past trans movies were done in a ‘shock and awe’ type of style,” says Powers. “It was always like the man had somehow been tricked or ‘trapped’ into the trans encounter and when the lady dick came out he would be shocked and somehow just go with it.”

“Our portrayal is much different as 90 percent of the time the male actor is portrayed as already in the relationship with the trans woman or that he knows exactly what he is getting,” Powers adds. “The male actor is not caught off guard by the situation he is in. He wants to be there.” This is a key point in normalizing trans sexuality, because men who are openly attracted to trans women today risk being humiliated and condemned, just as gay men were in the past (and still are).

GenderX deliberately avoids other ‘trans tropes’ as well. For instance, “we stay away from the ‘tranny hunter’ approach of the man who is just banging every trans woman because that is his kink,” Jim Powers says. “We also don’t do the ‘fem dom’ type of trans content where the man is being abused by the trans woman either. It’s all done very positive: GenderX portrays the sex as very normal and the trans woman as a woman.”

Make no mistake: GenderX is taking a socially provocative position by portraying trans sex as human sex. This is a deliberate stance.

“GenderX chose this philosophy because we wanted to be at the forefront of a very fluid wave of sexuality,” says Powers. “GenderX is very fluid, almost pansexual in many respects as we explore everything from orgies, to mixing in cisgender women to gang bangs. It’s the normalization of being in a trans relationship.”

“Trans content has matured and changed so much since I first shot it back in the 1990s,” he adds. “Even within porn up until recently, it was very taboo for a cisgender girl to work with a trans woman, but over the last three years that has dramatically shifted. It’s starting to shift with cisgender male performers also being happy to star with trans actors in front of the camera. Sure, they have always done it off camera but now you are starting to see some big names work with trans women in movies.”

Meanwhile, the many trans stars who appear in GenderX’s productions “enjoy being treated in a much more mainstream fashion,” says Powers. One big reason: “We don’t put any pressure for ‘pop shots’ from the girls as they are women: If it happens, it happens. I understand that for most trans women a big pop shot is not going to happen, so why take people out of their comfort zone?”

Looking towards the future, Powers has major ambitions for GenderX. “Eventually I am hoping that our stories get much bigger and we are able to make ongoing series with characters,” he says. “I would like to utilize more costumes and broaden the themes of the movies as well.”

“The very fact that GenderX is doing so well proves that the market wants trans content that is ‘normal’ and non-exploitive,” Powers observes. “Trans content, in my opinion, has definitely gone mainstream as people are starting to realize it’s ok to be attracted to a trans woman. It’s not weird. It’s not bad. It’s cool, and why not? They are women, after all.”