not sure if this trans guy likes me back.

I’ve known a trans guy for about 2.5 years, we met just a couple weeks before he came out. we’ve been friends since then, but never very close. for some reason in the last few weeks we’ve started talking a lot more and flirting pretty explicitly with each other, and I thought about asking him out.. but I realized that if I had been flirting in this way with a cis guy, I would probably assume it was just friendly joking, as male friends tend to do. But if it was with a cis woman, I’d be certain she liked me. Does he like me or is he just a dude who likes joking about sexually explicit stuff?