Yes, you were sold a lie. There is a very specific subset of guys who are interested in trans men. From my own personal experience, I've found that these guys have often been in relationships with women before. Two I'm thinking of in particular have children from their previous marriages, so perhaps there was some level of genuine enjoyment that they got from sex with their wives.

I will not begrudge two people who find happiness with each other, but it is unrealistic to expect most people to want you if you are trans, that's the cold hard truth. Efforts to tell people to "educate themselves" into wanting to doesn't help either, because genuine attraction isn't something you can "educate." People either think of trans men and think "wow, hot" or they do not.

On that second note about "educating," I remember an eye-rolly conversation with an otherwise decent guy about what a profoundly feminist, intersectional thing he was doing by dating a trans man....a non-white one! Yes dude, the entire foundation of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy will come tumbling down now that your penis has entered the brown trans man. A real V for Vendetta moment! The entire tone of the conversation became stilted and preachy at that point, and was so starkly different from what had been a really engaging and fun talk over drinks at New Year's eve. He seemed to sense that me and my roommate were now just politely listening, and we then went back into talking about the merits of various goth bands.