Attraction is a tricky thing, I would like to say that the physical doesn't matter and blah blah but it really isn't a choice what exactly about a person floats another persons boat. For a long term relationship I think the situation completely changes but I think most people have preferences for various things even if they sound a little un-PC. I'm basically repeating what the OP said, but I'm trying to be careful not to offend. I'm gonna go ahead and give my opinion anyway like I always do, I already got crap for having this opinion from various people (IRL, not on this forum) but heyho.
For clarification: Everyone involved in the following story is trans
A few months ago I was having this exact discussion with a friend of mine, she's straight and I'm gay so we often compare notes on men we fancy.
She has a thing for a guy who's new to the group and they've been obviously flirting back and forth for months so I asked her if they had hooked up yet want details etc etc (normal for the realm of our friendship)
She said she wanted to and he wanted to, but whenever it came down to it, it was just awkward for both of them. She said seeing each other naked was weird because once all the carefully structured clothing came off she still has male anatomy, he has female anatomy. She said something along the lines of, all the right parts were there for what we wanted to do....but on the wrong people.
My answer was basically, well, I know how you normally go about it...sooo....prosthetic? Same deal?
She said they discussed that and although he was up for it, she felt it'd be unfair to him. She'd be willing to have a go at satisfying him, even though she's not familiar with how it all works, but he doesn't feel comfortable with that.
So they're both attracted to each other, but instead of just hooking up like she normally would do with any cis guy she set her sights on (a common occurrence) when it came to dating a trans guy who she genuinely liked on top of being attracted to, neither of them could compromise enough to make it work in the bedroom. Which has put a damper on things. The endless discussions about what they could do also puts a damper on things, talking about it brings dysphoria up and makes them both feel bad both about themselves.
We've spoke about this at various points but at one particular time at a bar I finally shared the opinion that I personally don't think I could ever date another trans guy. (women, trans or otherwise, I'm just not generally interested in) The reason being, is that I would feel like a lesbian. The second those words left my mouth a different guy from the group came storming over to go off at me for calling trans men lesbians. I tried to explain, to no avail, that that's obviously not what I meant. I'm a trans guy myself, a gay one at that, to be calling trans men lesbians would be pretty ridiculous of me.
The point is that I, me, myself, would feel like a lesbian because of the anatomy involved. I would not regard the other guy in the equation a lesbian, nor myself. But if you really had to put a label on it, the stuff we would be doing would be very similar to "lesbian sex" .... which ... doesn't interest me at all. In fact I feel a bit squicked out by it, not in like an "ewww lesbians" way, but just in regarding myself that way. If that at all makes any sense. I guess if you want to dig deeper you could say it's because I've mistaken for a lesbian for most of my life and it's the direct opposite of what I actually am, so I don't want to be reminded of it in any way. On the other hand I feel like a jackass because in having those feelings about myself, I've projecting them onto other trans men and inadvertently implying that trans men who hook up with other trans men are having lesbian sex...which they're clearly not...because they're men.
I feel like a huge hypocrite but that's just how it is for me. I can still be attracted to trans men but I wouldn't want to sleep with one. (post op I haven't even considered, it's confusing enough already)