Words by Emma Paidra, Uncloseted Media
Design by Chyna Sudbury

When Pornhub released its most watched categories of 2025, queer-themed content held the top two spots: “Lesbian” was the most viewed category and “Transgender” was the second most viewed, up five spots from 2024. 

The global appetite for LGBTQIA+ adult content is increasing in tandem with the explosion of AI porn. Over the last year, Google searches for “AI porn generators” have steadily climbed, with one site receiving 8.57 million visitors in January. But unlike porn made up of real people, AI porn is largely unregulated, opening the door for the exploitation of queer bodies. 

“More often than not, AI-generated pornography falls under this umbrella of ‘non photo-realistic media,’ or ‘non hyper-realistic adult content,’ not unlike illustration,” Aurélie Petit, a postdoctoral researcher at the Quebec research chair on French-language artificial intelligence and digital technologies, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “And the moment you don't know how to address this kind of content, then you don't know what to do with a big part of AI adult productions.” 

Though there have been steps taken to regulate the AI porn industry, there is still a long way to go. Last year, Congress passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which bans the publication of intimate, non-consensual images in the US, including AI-generated images. And the sharing of these images, known as deepfakes, is now a felony in Tennessee. 

But much of AI porn isn’t based on one person's likeness. Rather, it’s generated from a vast database of pre-existing content used to teach the AI model. So any user who wants to create porn can simply ask an AI model to create their dream scenario, and – in a matter of minutes – a video to their liking that depicts realistic people is created. 

“There's a very real concern that some of the worst types of content on the internet — hateful content, non-consensual content of children… those exist on the internet, and we cannot verify that data sets [used to power AI algorithms] don't include those images,” says Miranda Wei, postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

Outside of deepfakes, US laws leave AI-generated porn in a legal grey area, often varying by state or municipality. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill cracking down on deepfakes and requiring AI-generated content to be watermarked. But there is yet to be consistent policy across the board on how to legislate AI porn. 

“When you have real people, or images that look like real people, we understand harm,” says Petit. “But most platforms do not know what to do… It’s really a legal blur, a policy blur.” 

Depictions of trans women 

Because transphobic people make up a significant chunk of porn consumers, mainstream trans porn is often designed in a way that leans into prejudice. Videos using slurs or harmful tropes perform well on porn websites, and Google trends show that searches for “tranny porn” and “shemale porn” remain high. On Reddit, the largest trans-related subreddit is r/traps, a porn-sharing group named after a derogatory term that describes trans women as “traps” for cis men.