Earlier this month a major gay porn studio, Raw Fuck Club (RFC), released a scene featuring Cyd St. Vincent a transgender performer and creator of Bonus Hole Boys, and Seth Knight, a cisgender performer. The scene is one of only a handful of shoots from a major studio to feature a transgender man, marking an important moment of trans inclusivity in traditionally cisgender gay porn.

However, while many people salivated over the scene, a handful of Twitter users let their transphobic flags fly. Normally I’m not one to abide the trolls, but I think there are some important points to make here both about how the cisgender gay community understands trans men and the role that porn can play in normalizing trans bodies.

So let’s get straight to the point: Do trans men belong in gay porn? Yes, and the reasoning is laughably simple. Trans men are men, and gay porn is porn that features men either solo or engaged in sex with one another. Therefore, trans men belong in gay porn.

Still, some gay cis men seem incapable of wrapping their heads around it. One particularly adamant Twitter wordsmith responded, “HELL NO VAGINA IN MY GAY PORN NOOOOOOOOOO.” Another Twitter user replied to RFC, “I just love cocks not vaginas, no offence (sic). So if I’m in the minority of your members, and it’s going to be a trend now, I’ll simply sign off.” Because apparently, he’s been into every single one of the other videos featuring cis men on the site, but this one scene with a trans man has tarnished RFC’s good reputation in his eyes!

In crafting a response to the trolls, one need look no further than the title of the salacious scene: “Some Men Have Pussies.” It’s a fact that trans people have spent a great deal of time and energy clarifying. Gender is about how a person identifies, not about what’s in their pants.Of course, not all trans men feel comfortable using that word to describe their bodies, and it’s crucial to ask before you make assumptions about what to call a trans person’s junk.But, in stating that some men have pussies with such simplicity, RFC drills the point home that a trans man getting drilled is really nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s sexy as fuck.

And, as an explicitly gay scene, it sends the message to viewers that a person’s genitals don’t have any particular bearing on either their sexuality or that of their partner. Another of Twitter’s finest responded to Knight, “Well you are bisexual I suppose.” Gay porn featuring trans men is just that: gay porn. It’s not inherently bisexual porn, it’s not straight porn. It might be queer porn. But, it’s about the gender of each of the performers and not the genitals involved.

Still, the scene was largely met with heart eyes and eggplant emojis. When I spoke with St. Vincent, he replied, “It’s actually a very smart market for companies to get into, since it’s the one type of porn that is not overexposed on every nook and cranny of the internet.” The increasing interest combined with the fact that there’s very little content available creates the perfect conditions for pornographic profit.

Personally, I’ve been out for nearly a decade, and I’ve witnessed a full-on sea-change in the gay community. Where I used to regularly face disbelief, disdain, and dismissiveness when disclosing my trans status to potential hookups, now I’m much more likely to meet people who have either had an experience with a trans man or are interested in playing with me because they think I’m cute, not because of what’s in my pants.

Of course, I recognize that the more “passing privilege” I’ve accumulated (and given the fact that I’m white, able-bodied, and thin), the easier it’s been for me to find potential partners. But overall, my sense is that the gay community is slowly releasing its death grip on its cis dick-centrism. Those wise porn creators who can get out in front of this cresting tide stand to make some serious coin.

Yet, there’s a much more crucial imperative here than profit. Porn has the power to normalize bodies and sexual experiences in a way that I think we often don’t give it credit. If I had a dime for every time a cis man told me that he realized he was into trans men after he stumbled across a video on Pornhub, I’d be doing pretty well. If you push past the hangups and the obnoxious (and misogynist and transphobic) jokes the gay community loves to make about hating vaginas and focus on the raw, visceral act of sex, you might just find that you’re into trans men.

And, trans representation in porn can play a crucial role in helping other trans people realize that their bodies, their genders, and their sexual desires are valid. The first time I saw a gay porn scene featuring a trans and cis man was avideowithJames DarlingandWolf Hudsonplaying in a bathtub. Witnessing someone with a body like mine, engaged in the kind of sex I hadn’t even realized I wanted, was a revelation.

St. Vincent put it especially well stating, “I think it’s important that trans men/AFAB trans people are represented in explicitly gay porn so that they know that having same-gender sexuality/relationships is an option for them and their bodies are desirable.” The fact that trans men and AFAB trans people like myself will see themselves reflected in St. Vincent’s scene and those of gay trans porn to come, is a cause for celebration.

Of course, there’s certainly more work to be done. Porn featuring trans men, like any other marginalized group, runs the risk of fetishization. Ideally, at some future time we’ll have passed the point where trans men are considered sexy because of what body parts we do or don’t have and entered a time where trans men are included in gay men’s community and sexuality without it being a big fucking deal.

As with all other types of porn, it’s also important that the gay trans porn of the future is inclusive and features a diversity of races, ages, gender expressions, sizes, and abilities, not just the cookie cutter, masc, muscular white dudes the gay community has come to idolize.

And, it’s important that trans people have the opportunity to steer the future of trans porn as producers and creators, not just performers. St. Vincent plans to put out more content with Bonus Hole Boys which he’s operated since 2014.

But for now, I’ll say this:

Look, there’s a whole lot of porn out there in the world and it’s up to you to find what gets you off. I won’t pretend that there isn’t an element of deeply entrenched transphobia and problematic desirability politics that makes some gay cis men disinterested in trans men. But, if trans men just aren’t your jam, all you have to do is find something else that is. No need to yuck anyone else’s yum just because you’re not into it.

As for the rest of us, the future of trans men in gay porn looks steamy indeed.