

This is a dating guide for trans girls becoming women quicker than it feels like their hearts can survive the journey through the hands of men. As a young trans woman, the world has already taken so much from you. It has tied your wings even before you learned the feeling of flight into the world and your lover’s arms. You would think that men would be gentle with women who have had so much taken from them. You would think that they’d recognize your vulnerability to the elements of the world and put themselves in front of you, as protectors, instead of leaving you to weather its storms alone. You would think that others would not feel the need to create competition with girls who are most often not considered “real” women and who are killed in the act of un-naming them.
Even with these hard truths forging you in their fires along the way, there is hope. Your journey is one that ultimately fashions a passionate, resourceful, and fiercely self-loving woman. There is however the issue of survival against destructive forces. The intimate space that young trans women navigate in the exploration of romantic love with men is often a high-stakes game of minesweeper.
These are some of the trials and characters you may meet along the way:
Lipstick Alley Headline
Things may often seem very unfair. Cis people love to pass Black trans women's photos around the internet as a "warning" to men. They love to pass around a trans woman’s photo and perform a ritual to tear apart her beauty, nitpick her face and try to destroy her reputation and image. I pray for spiritual protection for all trans women. Pray with me. Our beauty is not defined by the cis tribunal. You do not have to feel shame for your desire and others’ desire for you. Do your best not to allow others' behavior towards you to define you.
The Vibester
An unending party of vibes and vaguery that never ends. There are many men who will not create safety for you or openly express their feelings for you, yet will try to push a sexual agenda on your body and place you in a dangerous space of ambiguity. They will try to turn a “vibe” into sex, without any communication or admissions of romantic affection. This can be extremely dangerous for a trans woman. It may work for cis people, as a moment of fleeting pleasure, but often you may find it just feels scary and unsure. Allow them to do the work for you. All girls deserve an admission of desire and an allowance of care. Allow him to establish a context of safety as a beautiful bridge into the erotic.
The Casual Criminal
It’s no big deal. Nothing is a big deal, even when you need it to be. There’s not much room for intimacy, only vibes. These are men who see you as one of the world's many buffet offerings for his perusal, as opposed to honoring your unique needs and vulnerabilities as a trans woman. You’re considered the same as everyone else in his circus, the only problem is you’re not. You’re not for men who don’t have the time to consider you, the offering of your vulnerability, or your safety. He may be using the idea of “sameness” to avoid intimacy and accountability and considers all of his work done for being “cool” about you being transgender.
Sometimes cool can be too cool. So cool, it becomes lukewarm, stale, and tepid. You don’t want boring. Hold out for a little passion. Be a big deal. You are one and you deserve it.
Houdini
Completely disappears after the slightest moments of intimacy. Reappears when the chemistry fizzles out to keep the cycle going. Cycles of intimate rejection and painful revolving doors rarely end in the love you seek. You are the magician and your magic is in the craft of your heart, not disappearing it.
The Therapy Bill
Not sure why but you feel terrible after every interaction. He doesn’t create or encourage a context of safety or transparency. The longer they know you, the more increasingly psychologically complex they become in their emotional terrorism of you. You keep waiting for things to let out into peace and clarity, but instead of an ocean, it's a drain circle. If you have to ask your friends for too much advice to feel “okay” or if at every turn you are more disturbed and confused than the last, it's likely a negative cycle, not a deepening intimacy. Hold out for a man who is a friend to your mind.
The Chaser
You deserve more than men who target vulnerable women and use them as a kink. You are not a kink. You are a woman. You are easy to love and therefore you do not have to worship a man for finding you beautiful. Men who move through vulnerable communities of women for their own emotional and sexual pleasures are simply a different type of misogynist. And no one deserves an award for loving you. You are alarmingly beautiful and unconditionally inspiring of love.
The Activist
There are men who talk a good game about liberation and fill their bookshelves with the self-righteousness of their own literacy. Do not be surprised if they never apply any of it to relate to you. There are men who will learn just enough emotional depth and get in touch with their feelings just enough to use them against you. There will be sensitive poets and writers who ultimately only understand their own pain and the desire for their own freedom, while yours largely remains a theory or a cudgel to use against others. There will be many who define their own liberation as the right to quiet you.
When you explain your sufferings and ask for a reprieve from your pain, they will talk about how it's really them that's suffering. These men rarely actively address their own sufferings, merely use them as reasons why they should be able to abuse freely. Your job and your labor of love as a trans woman are to live the freedom he can only ever read about in books. Walk out of the pages and away from his hands.
The Enigma
Is this a date? Are we friends? Are we attracted to each other? What is happening? No one involved has any idea and so you float until there is finally heartbreak to free you. There are men who have no idea what they are doing and in the space of ignorance, they keep you at arm's length, while using you for whatever desires randomly emerge during a drunken night. There are men who are far too afraid to face their desire for you, yet they can’t let you go, so they keep exactly the information you need to make the best decisions for your own life. There are men who are criminally casual. In the face of stagnation and emotional poverty, pray and walk steadily from these lands until you find love.
Dangerous Liaisons
There are unfortunately men willing to kill in order to preserve their sense of self and enact power over vulnerable women. Develop a practice of safety that serves your unique circumstances, honors your truths, and practice not sacrificing your own safety and body in the pursuit of romance or pleasure.
The Clockers
There is often someone trying to “clock” and “check” your womanhood. There is an impossible standard of beauty imposed upon trans women. Nothing short of perfection is ever enough for the naysayers and even a few of the well-meaning. No one has to be as beautiful as you to be loved.
Therefore, it may seem like everyone else but you can be loved. You will wonder what is the formula to be considered “human.” A change of hair, more hips, boobs, a bigger ass, lighter skin. When it comes to the dominant cisgender values on beauty, rarely is anything ever enough. You are always one shifting goalpost away from “enough.” You are always one hair out of place from being unmasked as “unreal.” The beauty that the dominant messaging tries to impose on trans women is a beauty of surveillance. You will often find eyes searching for a reason to unmask what they see as “the trick” of your womanhood. Especially if you are Black.
You may look around while you are hungry and notice a lot of instant noodle romance: Images of love that promise to feed you, but lack what you really need to feel nourished. Everyone seems to have come with the right ingredients in their cup to be instantly loved, ingredients that never seem to include the things that make up women like you. Love may seem instant for others, while yours seems like a longer reach from God. There are many men who may fight their feelings for you because you are far from a woman who is convenient to the status quo. Others may seem to have an easier time in love than you. It may reach them quicker, with fewer obstructions and more open desire. Yours is not a quick plate love, it is a slowly opening one. God’s love for you is flavored to the bone.
The Chicken
Your success in romance, will not come from contorting yourself to a man’s fantasy and avoiding his disapproval by trying to manage his emotions with a tireless performance of femininity. You are not responsible for a man’s emotions and feelings about his attraction to you. Men will often lay this burden at your feet and create a dynamic of constantly courting their approval. They enforce this dynamic through intimate partner violence, from the emotional and psychological to the physical. Men who date trans women often develop a habit of making their fear your problem.
Don’t let a man’s fear of you define you. There will be many men who are too afraid to openly face their desire for you. They will often see you as a shameful desire, like a porn category they can shut their laptop on when they’ve had enough. When they are ready again and the blood rushes to their head, they reappear. They are not reappearing for a better relationship with you, they are appearing for another hit. Repeated behavior without deepened intimacy does not get better, it’s a compulsion, not a relationship.
Men who act on compulsion for you, instead of connecting to you are adversaries to the self-realization of your own humanity. This is always the goal of a trans woman. Our goal is not to prove to others that we are worthy of love. Our goal is not to save the world, it is to remove the projections of inhumanity that society has placed over us and to constantly ritualize our own humanity back into our focus. Our goal is to recognize that we are beautiful, not because we align with images of what is “allowed,” but because we walk the path of life’s wild and unpredictable beauty itself. We are nature unfolding in the personal truth of rare shapes and intoxicating bloom.
The Glitch in the Matrix
Be wary of men who loop. When men perform repetitive cycles of shallow engagement, they are tuning into you as an object of erotic fetish, not a human being. They are extracting pleasure as a means of avoidance and ego, rather than engaging in acts of care and protective love. You will likely find a certain type of guy who enjoys the attention of young trans women but withholds deepened relationships with her.
When asked to clarify attraction, commitment, or intention, this man will withdraw and make the trans woman feel punished. He will reappear when enough distance has been created to restart the cycle and enough time has passed to “forget” your needs. You may think the reappearance means that he is prepared to meet those needs. It does not. He repeats the cycle of rejection and reappearance if you ask again. Over time, the trans woman learns that asking for her needs to be met will be met with withdrawal and abandonment.
When the black cat of a man’s ego appears twice, choose yourself.
The Backseat Driver
There are many who will demand perfection from you that they do not even demand from themselves. There will be people who will say that we deserve to die for not navigating relationships with men according to their idea of “perfection.” Always choose your own safety as you learn not to open where you cannot reveal the truth of your body and your own experiences. Having access to you is a secret menu that many just cannot afford and they do not have the special passwords.
“Perfection” will likely be a huge theme in your life. Lack of perfection for a trans woman can sometimes mean harm or even death. It is not your job to be perfect, it is your job to be “love.” It is your job to live, according to your own needs, not the projections of others. You may face many disappointments in love and with them will come learning. A lot of women struggle with self-blame when relationships end or become destructive. I think a better way to approach a painful relationship is not “what did I do wrong?” but “nothing in that relationship was conducive to me succeeding.” You likely were not set up for success. Dispense with guilt and shame. When you are set up for success, you don’t have to be perfect.
There is room for you and your learning. This includes your romantic life. If you are not supported away from the self-blame of overthinking and being invited into care, you mistake performance of goodness for connection. If you have to fix things all on your own, by lashing yourself with a constant demand for your own perfection, the connection demands too much of your own blood and suffering to be safe for you. If the connection dissolves when you discontinue this practice, it was not of love.
The One
There will be many men who are just not for you. Even if they want you, they ultimately just cannot make the leap across what society tells them they can and cannot have. Only the one can make the jump. Hold out for a “Neo.”
The Concern Trolls, the Bad Faith Actors and Finally, You
There are many people who wish for you to remain in pain and for sadness to reside permanently in your heart. As an act of political and intimate necrotism, like when Colombus set dogs upon queer Indigenous people as his first act of setting upon their land. You do not have to live that way. You do not have to live in competition. You do not have to live in fear. You do not have to waste time fearing for your life, merely let go of the loves that do not become you. You do not have to live in lack, you simply have to practice sumptuously in your prayers. You do not have to argue talking points about your humanity, you simply have to orgasm in the privacy of your templed hands.
If the men do not show, as often they do not, make worship of your love for life in the approach of their death. My advice to you is to live and always forgive yourself for the hard acts against you. Dear young, Black trans woman, we used to follow the stars and night for freedom. Now we follow the Sun.
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On her debut album,CTRL,SZA crooned about her desire to be a “Normal Girl.” Now, nearly eight years since its release, her Not Beauty line represents her commitment to existing outside of traditional beauty norms.
The singer whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe first teased the idea of a lip gloss line during Super Bowl LIX in February, noting that the release would be happening “very shortly.” Not Beauty debuted simultaneously with the Grand National Tour, which she co-headlines with Kendrick Lamar, in Minneapolis on April 19.
Each Not Beauty pop-up would offer fans the opportunity to purchase the glosses, learn more about the brand, and have the opportunity to meet the superstar in the flesh regardless of their ticket status.
During the Los Angeles tour stop, which spanned three dates on May 21, May 23, with the finale on May 24, xoNecole had the opportunity to test out the glosses included in this soft launch, as SZA revealed in a statement that "this is just the start of other lip products, including plans to launch stains, liners, and creams all inspired by SZA's “infamous layered lip combinations.”
Courtesy
So, what is included in the first Not Beauty launch?
The current Not Beauty products available are lip glosses that come in three shades: In the Flesh, Strawberry Jelly, and Quartz.
During my visit to the first LA Not Beauty pop-up activation, I not only had the chance to purchase all three glosses but also took a peek inside the blow-up log tent. Inside, fans got to experience SZA’s love for nature and her fascination with bugs, which are prominently featured in her performances for this tour. At one point, she even had human preying mantis prancing across the stage y'all.
There were blow-up photos of the beauty that is SZA for fans (myself included) to take photos, but in wooden-like tree trunks were a deeper dive into some of the ingredients featured in her products and their benefits.
For example, the glosses feature Hi-Shine Lip Jelly and Shea Butter as key ingredients and some of the listed benefits included are:
- Shea Butter - “A powerhouse ingredient, offering both functional and nourishing benefits.”
- Hi-Shine Lip Jelly (featured in the In the Flesh shade) - “Formula glides on with perfect adhesion to the lips without stickiness).
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What are in the products?
Featured in an orange package, with images of a bug and flower on the side, the back of the box reads: “It’s NOT BEAUTY, it just works. Developed by Solána “SZA” Rowe.
As someone who never leaves home without a good lip gloss, I loved how compact the wood panel packaging is. Perfect to slip into my purse, or in the case of the show at SoFi Stadium, into my pocket when I’m not carrying a bag.
Because I’m a sucker for a good black and brown lip liner and clear gloss combo, I decided to wear the Quartz flavor on night one of the Grand National Tour LA stop, and it did not disappoint. I’ll admit, it’s light weight feel made me nervous because it felt like there was nothing on my lips. However, when I checked my lips in my compact mirror several times throughout the night, I was shocked to find that my gloss was still intact. I only reapplied once out of the habit of looking cute and applying my gloss, but not necessity.
Here are some of the ingredients featured, but not limited to, in the Quartz flavor.
- Polyisoubutene
- Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea)Butter
- Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil
- Mentha Piperita (Peppermint) Oil
- Tocopherol
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Lip prep
I’m a simple girl who loves to stay true to her roots. So ahead of the show, I stopped by a local Inglewood Beauty Supply store and grabbed a Black and Brown shade lip pencil for just under $2 a piece.
Shading the outline of my lips with the black pencil first, I used the brown to lightly fill the inside of my lips before applying my Quartz Not Beauty shade gloss.
How to apply
There’s truly no right or wrong way to apply lip gloss (in my opinion), with this being a brush applicator sort of product, I simply untwisted the top and swiped the gloss around my top and bottom lip generously.
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Results
Again, my Not Beauty Quartz product stayed on my lips from the start of the show, which began with a fire DJ set from LA’s very own, Mustard, to the conclusion when Kendrick and SZA reunited on stage to send us home to their duet, “luther,” featured on the rapper's GNX album.
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Devale Ellis On Being A Provider, Marriage Growth & Redefining Fatherhood
In this candid episode of the xoMAN podcast, host Kiara Walker talked with Devale Ellis, actor, social media personality, and star of Zatima, about modern masculinity, learning to be a better husband, emotional presence in marriage, fatherhood for Black men, and leading by example.
“I Wasn’t Present Emotionally”: Devale Ellis on Marriage Growth
Devale Ellis On Learning He Was a ‘Bad Husband’
Ellis grew up believing that a man should prioritize providing for his family. “I know this may come off as misogynistic, but I feel like it’s my responsibility as a man to pay for everything,” he said, emphasizing the wise guidance passed down by his father. However, five years into his marriage to long-time partner Khadeen Ellis, he realized provision wasn’t just financial.
“I was a bad husband because I wasn’t present emotionally… I wasn’t concerned about what she needed outside of the resources.”
Once he shifted his mindset, his marriage improved. “In me trying to be of service to her, I learned that me being of service created a woman who is now willing to be of service to me.”
On Redefining Masculinity and Fatherhood
For Ellis, “being a man is about being consistent.” As a father of four, he sees parenthood as a chance to reshape the future.
“Children give you another chance at life. I have four different opportunities right now to do my life all over again.”
He also works to uplift young Black men, reinforcing their worth in a world that often undermines them. His values extend to his career—Ellis refuses to play roles that involve domestic violence or sexual assault.
On Marriage, Family Planning, and Writing His Story
After his wife’s postpartum preeclampsia, Ellis chose a vasectomy over her taking hormonal birth control, further proving his commitment to their partnership. He and Khadeen share their journey in We Over Me, and his next book, Raising Kings: How Fatherhood Saved Me From Myself, is on the way.
Through honesty and growth, Devale Ellis challenges traditional ideas of masculinity, making his story one that resonates deeply with millennial women.
For the xoMAN podcast, host Kiara Walker peels back the layers of masculinity with candid conversations that challenge stereotypes and celebrate vulnerability. Real men. Real stories. Real talk.
Want more real talk from xoMAN? Catch the full audio episodes every Tuesday on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and don’t miss the full video drops every Wednesday on YouTube. Hit follow, subscribe, and stay tapped in.
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