The following story is an extended version of a lead story from The Autostraddle Insider, Autostraddle’s new print zine. To find out how to get the zine — where you can see even more photos from this story — click here.

I’m just over a year into my transition, and I find myself using the words “bro” and “brother” way more than I ever thought I would or wanted to. It’s not that testosterone has erased my vocabulary or made me forget everyone’s names. It’s that, for the first time in my life, I genuinely feel a sense of brotherhood with my transmasc friends.

So it only makes sense that a trans dude in Los Angeles would want to build something around that feeling. Enter: Adam Bandrowski, founder of Trans Dudes of LA (TDLA), who shares my adoration for trans brotherhood, but couldn’t seem to find it within his proximity. He found plenty of trans support groups but not as many trans dude social groups. In August 2023, he started organizing small meet-ups in Silver Lake and Echo Park like a beach day and a pumpkin carving night. It was during a billiards night that Bandrowski met his eventual TDLA co-director, Mich Miller, who had learned about the group via a flyer on a lamppost.

As it turns out, Miller, who was 30 at the time, also did not have a large group of transmasculine friends. Even more, he craved a mentee/mentor relationship that he hadn’t been able to find. Miller runs his own print shop called Print Shop L.A., which he describes as a community space, and even there he sometimes finds himself to be the only trans man in the room. That’s what drew him to what Bandrowski was doing with TDLA.

According to Bandrowski and Miller, they had “great friend chemistry.” They’re both artists, they’re creative and imaginative, and they know how to use humor to spark joy in each other. “Immediately we started thinking of really creative ideas like bringing a printmaking night to trans men or bringing tattooing and live music together and it’s all transmasculine talent,” Miller tells me. They also hosted Magic Dyke, a transmasc pre-party to lesbian-centric Dyke Day.

The boys love a good theme (last year’s Halloween party was called Trasmascarade) but more than that, they love to be of service to trans guys seeking friendship. “I think all trans men can benefit so greatly from having a shared community, from witnessing trans people of all ages, races, and walks of life in real time,” Miller tells me. I agree.

What started as one guy looking for people like him to hang out with has evolved into a full-blown coast-to-coast spectacle. TDLA is more than a social group; it’s a reminder that there’s still very much a need for intentional and protected spaces for trans men and nonbinary people, even in the most progressive of cities.

And nothing captures that better than T-Boy Wrestling.

Bandrowski and Miller started to gain attention for their fun parties, but could they organize something that wasn’t just a party? That’s what they set out to prove, as both community organizers and business owners, with their inaugural T-Boy Wrestling event in September 2024. But how and why did they land on wrestling?

At the aforementioned Magic Dyke event in June 2024, Bandrowski and transmasc creator Noah Way “put on tiny little shorts and wrestled on the stage,” and the crowd went absolutely wild with transmascs dying to join in on the performance. After all, the goal after three rounds was a kiss pin.

The raw reaction from the crowd that day made Bandrowski and Miller realize that this is what they needed to be doing with TDLA. “The way that it’s grown, and things have grown politically and as a society at the same time, have really affected each other,” Miller reflects. “At first it was really just a space for real wrestling and also real tomfoolery and sexiness and camp. And it still has those roots but it’s also a stage for political theater, it’s a stage for expression on all levels from the transmasculine community.”

A regular attendee and participant in TDLA events, Ashton, who does not identify as a trans man, but rather a non-binary, gender-fluid person, describes themself as “femme of center.” For Ashton, their participation with TDLA is not to specifically find trans masc friends, but to be in community with other trans and queer people, period. “In reality, finding that on a large scale is difficult,” Ashton shares, “but as a person of color, I find trans people in whatever pockets of the world that I can find them in.”

As a gender expansive person who does not fall into a binary gender label, the only wish Ashton has for TDLA and its participants is more pronoun checking and fewer assumptions. This is less a critique of TDLA specifically and more so a well-documented flaw within queer and trans communities. We’ve made so much progress to be inclusive that we’ve almost circled all the way back to assigning labels to folks based on physical attributes, thinking we’re affirming them. It’s a good reminder that transness can look like anything.

TDLA doesn’t care where you are in your transition or if you’re transitioning at all. They know there are too many ways to move through transmasculinity to ever box it in. So they don’t try. If you identify as trans or transmasc, you’re welcome. To Bandrowski and Miller, T-Boy Wrestling is an athletic space specifically for trans poeple as well as a space for those who are more performative, who want to make a statement, and want to use wrestling as a critique of masculinity.

That openness matters, especially as some queer spaces get tighter with their gates and pickier with their labels. TDLA offers the opposite: an open ring.

I first heard about TDLA when an Instagram post of that very first wrestling match made its way into my transmasc comedians’ group chat in New York. We were instantly hooked and turned on. Sorry, I ended that sentence prematurely. It turned us on to some fantastic community programming for guys like us.

Though let’s be honest, it also just turned us on.

But the horniness of T-Boy Wrestling transcends simple attraction. It’s not just sexy…it’s liberating. It’s brotherly love, not born out of obligation or shared trauma, but a deep appreciation for co-existing experience and distinct individuality. It’s about showing up as yourself, in your body, in front of hundreds of cheering strangers. And feeling held — even if it’s in a chokehold.

Bandrowski and Miller know exactly what they’re doing, and when they don’t, they figure it out. The duo shared the philosophy behind their programming via Zoom straight through an active earthquake. When I asked them if they needed to pause or reschedule the call, they assured me they did not. If they weren’t L.A. boys, I’d accuse them of toxic masculinity.

TDLA is the first big job Bandrowski, 24, has had outside of a desk job at Nickelodeon, where he didn’t speak to anyone. But to him, event producing feels like a natural skill he stumbled into. He credits some of this skill to attending California Institute of the Arts, an experience that also helped him figure out how to up the production value of T-Boy Wrestling without breaking the bank.

Between the first T-Boy Wrestling tournament in September 2024 and the most recent one held in March 2025, the boys got an official boxing ring, legit bleachers, lighting equipment, and even a jumbotron projecting a livestream of the matches. “I wanted these guys to be seen in the absolute best light…” Bandrowski tells me, “I wanted them to have the experience of cis people in televised wrestling and sports in general.”

T-Boy Wrestling doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it does take trans joy seriously. In a moment where our bodies are legislated and debated, where being visible can feel risky, TDLA gives us something that’s both sacred and rare: a space to play.

In the future, Bandrowski and Miller look forward to developing their business minds so they can continue to make the money needed to continue their programming. Funding is a challenge many queer and trans groups face when scaling. It’s no surprise that grant funding for trans — and arts — programming is disappearing before our eyes.

There’s a balance to strike between free and accessible events and ticketed events, and it sounds like TDLA knows how to execute it with the help of some “angels” along the way. The social group offers more non-ticketed programming outside of T-Boy Wrestling that serve the community just the same. Beck Williams, a trans actor in L.A., is used to making transmasc friends through film industry mixers and friends of friends, which is how I make most of mine, too. But ever since learning about TDLA, Williams frequents the recurring “Transmasc Thursdays” programming.

Williams jokes but also means it when they say: “[There’s] something about looking around (at people as short as me, too, lol) and seeing the beauty of trans expression and life that I never ever got to see growing up. And being immersed in that is truly special.”

I also spoke with a TDLA regular named Shayne, who emphasized they had never been to an event for trasmasc people, by transmasc people, prior to TDLA. In addition to Trasmasc Thursdays, Shayne attends T-Boy Wrestling, line dancing, and most events held by Bandrowski and Miller. “If the boys are pulling up, I probably am too,” they tell me. Even though he can guarantee he’d know at least one other person at a TDLA event, he feels empowered to show up alone, knowing he’d be just fine either way.

To Williams and Shayne, being in a space with mostly, if not all, trans people feels like home. I love it when trans people say this, because we all have such different definitions and experiences of home, but we still know it’s the correct word to describe that feeling. It’s where your siblings are.

So yeah. Maybe “brother” wasn’t always in my vocabulary. But it’s programming like Trans Dudes of L.A. and T-Boy Wrestling that have me saying hell yeah, brother.

Shortly after concluding this interview to be featured in Autostraddle’s print magazine, I received a text from a friend asking if I wanted to apply to NYC’s TBoy Wrestling with him as a duo. I agreed without hesitation, and we got to work putting together our choreographed performance. We’re both stand-up comedians and thought doing a comedy routine would be a fun way to stand out. Fast forward a few months, some wrestling practices, and two pencil skirts later, we were ready to take the ring.

I can’t lie — I was a bit nervous leading up to the event. To begin, there were over 100 trans guys in a group chat, most of whom I had never met. And I thought I knew all the trans guys in the tri-state area! So to be faced with the reality that there are so many of us was so beautiful but a little overwhelming. I was certainly on the older end of the age spectrum for the group, and that brought a bit of hesitation and self-consciousness. I turn 29 next week, so I’m certain I’m due for a departure from TBoy Wrestling to TMan Doing Age Appropriate Things, and my body is certainly paying the price for that right now.

The nerves quickly dissipated once I arrived for the wrestlers’ call time. As soon as I saw the wrestling ring being erected in the center of a Brooklyn music venue and all different walks of “transmasc” rush by me — collecting wigs, blocking choreography, taking T-shots, rolling joints, chugging protein shakes — I was reminded that I am but one small part of the event. From then, all throughout the afternoon and evening, I was continuously reminded of the community aspect of the programming. At one point, I thought to myself, Oh my God, this must be how cis guys feel at a football game.

As an audience member, sounds and movements came out of my body that I don’t think ever have before and maybe never will again. In more than one instance, I threw my fist in the air, feet off the ground, and screamed, “LET’S GOOOOOOOOO!” I don’t know what came over me. At one point, I demanded, “MORE BLOOD!” and “KISS HIM OR KILL HIM.” Luckily for me, everyone else around me was experiencing the same kind of psychosis. It was cathartic and thrilling and so, so horny.

Since the event, I’ve seen more and more trans dudes demand that TBoy Wrestling go to their city. I have a feeling we’re seeing the start of a wide-spread, radical display of transmasculinity, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

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