Having a type and fetishizing definitely isn’t the same. The difference is, when you have a type, you date people with a certain appearance or with a certain style, etc. because you think they’re hot. Everybody has a type. The fact that they might be trans is not inherently part of that process, although of course, indirectly, it can be. If you’re attracted to masculinity, hang around other queer people a lot and don’t really care what’s in someone’s pants, masculine, queer women and trans men tend to show up in your dating pool.

With fetishes, the most important thing to them is that the person is trans. If they weren’t, there’d be no interest. From what I understand, the main reason most trans ppl don’t like dating someone who fetishizes them is, that they aren’t seen as men or women but explicitly trans men or trans women. Sometimes not even that.

Also, yes, "BBC hunting" is a form of fetishization.

having a type is not the same thing, the essence of fetishizing is objectifying a body type without the consent or consideration of the person who owns the body

e.g. "it would be a shame to waste those great tits of yours" is a fetishization because it's only taking into account the viewer's perspective, not the owner's. a lot of trans men feel really dysphoric about having breasts and, quite frankly, it is only their business if they get top surgery or not. if they ask for your opinion, you can give it, but it should probably emphasize their happiness anyways because they're the ones who have to live in their body, at the end of the day

basically, as long as you treat the person you're seeing with respect and consideration for their happiness, you don't really need to worry about it

I think a lot of this comes from the idea of "passing". It's much easier from what I've seen for trans men to pass than trans women... primarily because of facial hair and body structure if the person is not on hrt.

It's pretty crazy if you look on any porn site under the trans category. If there even is porn with a transmasc person (rare), it's almost always with a cis man and the trans man is always on the bottom. Feels gross that that's the only thing available most of the time.