I’m a kinky, pervy, multi-faceted cosplaying porn star.. that just happens to be transgender.

Uh oh, here comes the floodwaters as the dam bursts and I talk a bit about my own experiences, and where I fit in with regards to transgender activism and all that.

Let me put it this way.  Anything a cisgendered woman can do, so can a transgendered woman.

I see a lot of younger transwomen throw shade on those who wear wigs.  It’s to the point where the term “wig wearer” is synonymous with cross dressing, with the obvious implication that underneath that wig, the person must be sporting a hairstyle so masculine it makes Guile from the video game Street Fighter look like a long haired hippy.

Yo? Who you calling a pansy? I'll hit A and C twelve times in a row and bust your ass..

I freely admit that I wear wigs for my shoots.   What? You thought that purple hair was my own?  It’s not that we haven’t seen my natural hair, its just that if your career takes you into color coordinated costumes and you’re playing what is essentially a zillion different characters, then yes, you’re gonna switch it up.  And in showbiz and burlesque, I know plenty of cis women who wear wigs all the time for dressing up.  It doesn’t mean that they’re cross dressers (which I’ve had some people try to mis-label me as).

One can properly be labelled a cross dresser if they go back to that other gender expression when the clothes come off.  Since I’ve posed naked a lot and still appear female, then that’s not applicable.  Hey, I’m not dressed, right?  And not going back to any sort of boy life, hence no application of the “cross” part either.

And it’s not like you’ve never seen my natural hair- you have.  But it’s a lot of work and it would make every shoot look the same.  Thats not what I do.  I play lots of different characters, yet I seem to attract a lot of crossdressing and “sissy” fans.

Eh, yeah, that’s OK.  I’ll be honest, I don’t care who you are as long as you still love me and give me your money 😉  Yeah, I know how that sounds, but guess what, I’m trying to eek out a living as a starving artist.  Have you seen my house?

For those of you wondering, THIS is basically my natural hair, with some extensions, and of course, dyed red. Looks nice enough, but it's a lot of work. Best put- I have what you'd call "problem hair". It's no wonder I use wigs here and there. And if you have a problem with it, I'll blow your head off!

But yeah, if a cisgendered female can dress up in fetishy kinky outfits and play all sorts of larger than life characters, than so can a trans woman.

Again. my natural hair. But not my natural day to day wear.

And if a cisgendered woman can open her legs and feel sexual and kinky and so all sorts of wonderfully perverted things, then so can a transgendered woman.

My gifts and my talents are with my erotic imagination.  It’s given me an edge that I can keep my art fresh whereas other trans porn stars seem to churn out shoot after shoot looking exactly the same.  Maybe I’m just jaded but after a while that gets stale.

It’s funny.  When I started out in this business over 10 years ago, one could have a successful solo adult website based completely on just being trans.  Because that was enough to stand out.  And I admit, it was pretty much easy money back then.   I mean, it wasn’t wiping your ass with $50 bill times, but it was still decent pay for the amount of hours you’d spend investing in it.

I still recall the glory days when I had maybe a dozen or twenty photo sets on my site that had only 100 pictures per set, in glorious 640 x 480 resolution (ooh! its high res!)- and I was pulling in actually decent money.  And while I can still maintain a halfway decent income now, its tougher and tougher these days considering that I have far more content and the quality is better than it’s ever been, yet I pull in a fraction of what I used to.  As bad as it was growing up pretty poor, it did teach me to not live beyond my means.  Well, at times I have, but I have some common sense about it where I think some of my peers do not.

I don’t know if it’s oversaturation of the market or the loss of the novelty (just  being trans and naked on the internet isn’t enough any more).  My livelihood is pretty much dependent on remaining something of a novelty, and definitely a fantasy object.  But hey, there’s plenty of alternative cisgendered female models who engage in all sorts of fantasy role playing as well, so it’s not off limits for me.

So yeah.  I play a lot of different characters, and you’ll never know what you’re going to get when my next shoot pops up

And yes,  I will even use the increasingly unpopular term “shemale” in marketing my adult work, because I always thought it was a cutesy hokey term that conjured up hybrid creatures like a “mermaid” or a “unicorn” (sadly a unicorn means something else these days).  I’m totally okay with that, because I sorta miss those days when the novelty made me, well, special.  Well, I’ll use those terms until something that’s not so damn clinical comes around to replace them.

That’s the double edged sword of trans rights progress.  I’m totally for the complete integration into mainstream society of transfolk, and champion that in my day to day lifestyle, but my career persona is obviously over the top (and needs to be to stand out).

It’s funny. I do some performing and burlesque, though these days it’s more of a showcase of my costume conceptual talents, and tongue and cheek sexiness.  It’s never been “drag” and I’ve always resisted any sort of drag pigeon holing.  I’ve always rolled my eyes at drag queens.  I did not watch RuPaul’s Drag Race until last season because when it comes to trans-activism, I’m right there side by side standing in solidarity with the younger generation, who think some elements of drag hurt trans-activism.

But then I watched Drag Race last year, and discovered that I didn’t really hate those people as much as I thought I would.   In fact I started to like quite a few of the contestants.  And even more so when there was one who indentified as trans first, then a drag queen second (was that Monica Beverly Hills?).    Honestly even I didn’t think that was a possible option.

And then I realized that there was little harm in using some of those drag tricks of the trade to enhance my own art.  It’s a tough world out there for trans-folk to forge careers and make a living, you might as well use every advantage you can find.

So in conclusion- did I come to a conclusion?  Sometimes I think I’m just rambling on and on about stuff.  I guess people read what I write, and some people pay attention to me.  Geez, look what I do, of course I want people to pay attention to me.  I’m still trying to figure out if my life is even interesting enough to tell my life story.   But it’s on my mind, at least I’ll say that.  Maybe that  means I’ll blog about stuff in a non-filtered way, but at least I’m saying something.

-Tara