Diego Day has a pretty small TikTok account, with only a handful of videos and just over 700 followers. So far, his content feels like a throwback to the heyday of “social experiments” on YouTube. In a recurring bit, he stops random men in public to ask how much money it would take for them to suck another guy’s dick. Not especially original or interesting stuff — or it wasn’t until he ran into 26-year-old Tristan on a street in the beach town of Tulum, Mexico.
“Damn,” Tristan says when he hears the question. “Is she trans? I’ll suck a trans dick for free.” After affirming that no amount of cash would entice him to blow a dude, he reiterates, “I’ll do that shit for free if she sexy.” I won’t spoil the end of the clip, which you should watch for yourself:
Two days after this interview hit TikTok, it surfaced on the subreddit r/unexpected, where it eventually amassed more than 8,000 comments. Some of the most popular posts in the thread praised Tristan for his poise, charm and confidence. “Genital preferences are totally valid, but a lot of guys think being attracted to a trans girl makes them gay,” wrote one redditor. “He knows he’s straight, and no amount of sucking girl-dick is gonna make him gay.” Another remarked: “Pure respect for the trans rights there. Homeboy a Chad [for real].”
At the same time, Tristan was gaining fans on Twitter, where the video had also blown up. He took the opportunity to drop some shirtless pics and shout out the trans community again. In a few short hours, he was a certified internet crush, attracting tons of thirsty replies and DMs.
“I think what appeals about Tristan is he’s hot, and loves trans women and expresses it in a way that’s enthusiastic but not fetishizing, and that he’s not afraid to say it, even in company that may not understand,” says Berry, a professional streamer and content creator from Philadelphia who shared the TikTok on Twitter, in a private message. “He seems like the kind of man who would protect you from transphobes in your own life, were he your man.”
She notes that “a lot of trans women are starved for a man who explicitly loves them, and their bodies on [their] own merits,” because “so often your attractiveness as a trans woman is judged on your adjacency to cis women — being able to approximate a cis female role.”
“Moreover,” she says, “it’s uncommon for a cis man who does like trans women to be so open about it.” This swagger also impressed Zefra, a 25-year-old in Brooklyn who can be found in Tristan’s replies of late. “It’s really cool seeing someone say with their whole entire chest (a gorgeous chest at that) to the world that they have sucked a trans girl’s dick lol,” she tells me in a DM. “There are a lot of men like him who are simply too afraid to be honest about their attraction to trans women, and I think if more men were like Tristan, maybe the social stigma associated with us wouldn’t be as bad. That said, I’m mostly just a thirsty bitch, and my taste in men is very limited. But oh my god he’s such a GigaChad I can’t even help it.”
Along the same line of identifying Tristan as a kingly “Chad,” stand-up comedian Robin Tran called him the living embodiment of her joke that men attracted to trans women are not merely heterosexual but “super straight.”
Tristan welcomed all the love, appearing on a podcast and participating in a Reddit AMA about his sudden online fame. Despite the sheer number of flirty advances he’s sorting through at the moment, I managed to get in touch via Twitter DM and learned that he’s originally from Southern California, but moved down to Mexico — and fell in love with the country — during the pandemic. He has a solar energy company based in California and Texas. And, he says, he wasn’t always so willing to acknowledge his attraction to trans women.
“I was attracted to trans women since 15, started dating at 17, and have gone through a whole world of emotions around it being 26 now,” Tristan writes. “After getting to know myself better, an honest life is the only one I want to live.”
He’s “very surprised” by the attention, he says. “I wasn’t expecting it to get steam like it did, kinda hilarious, but I’m here for it.” Beyond the sexy stuff, he has a renewed understanding of how transgender folks are marginalized. “I’ve been listening to the trans community and a couple big [issues] are availability to health care and the need for feeling safe at all given times. I see now more than ever how targeted trans people are in society and it needs to stop,” he tells me.
Of course, you can’t go viral without rubbing one or two people the wrong way. In their messages, both Zefra and Berry bring up the archetype of the “chaser” — most commonly understood as a cis man who fetishizes the bodies of trans women and places greater importance on his sexual fantasies than their personhood. Although he might face that critique from some, neither believes that Tristan is anything of the kind.
“Honestly I’m very excited about all this having happened,” says Berry, because “a thing I advocate for a lot is moving away from terms like ‘chaser’ that cast desiring trans women in a negative light, and toward something more positive. I hope our guy’s rise to fame is indicative of a positive shift.” Zefra is on the same page: “People will call him a chaser I’m sure, but I think he’s really the one being chased by countless trans girls right now. There is a fine line between him and chaser, but I think he’s walking it like a fucking king [right now].”
In any event, becoming the semi-official representative of cisgender hetero dudes who cherish, respect and have sex with trans women is bound to come with certain pressures. It won’t always be easy for Tristan to live up to the wholesome and positive standard he’s set — just as anyone else must continually strive to be a good partner and ally. But his simple honesty, delivered with complete self-assurance, has marked him as someone up to the task. As Tristan put it to me: “Work on yourself, I care so much less about other people’s opinions because of how confident I am in myself.”
In other words, don’t hesitate to look straight into a camera and brag that you’ve sucked a woman’s dick. It’s exactly what someone out there needs to hear.
Miles Klee
Miles Klee is MEL’s resident tank-top dirtbag, shitposter and meme expert. He’s also the author of the novel ‘Ivyland’ and a story collection, ‘True False.’
