Are genital preferences transphobic?

[o_O.Q]

HylianSwordsman said:

Jaicee said:

Anyone who follows my posts is probably wondering by now why I'm here and not on a place like ResetEra 'where I clearly belong' or something to this effect. This thread will exemplify why.

I haven't really made a thread all about this before, but if I can be perfectly honest and not come across as a complete bigot for saying so, I have difficulties with the transgender movement. I don't dislike people who feel like they belong to some identity other than their birth one. In point of fact, to be more painfully honest, I don't really like my body and am fairly insecure in my own femininity and I think can kind of relate to the feeling a little.

Many of the demands of the transgender movement though offend me. Stuff like this:

In the above modern classic commentary, a (sorry to be impolite) man who claims to be a woman argues that "genital preferences are transphobic" and specifically singles out women who are only sexually attracted to other women (that would be me!) for critique in this regard. You see, in the current parlance of the social justice movement, one cannot be an authentic lesbian unless one is open to sex with men who claim to be women. This does not work for me. To be frank, I find the male penis disgusting (sorry!) and the sight of it an instant turn-off sexually. When I say as much to some of my friends on Facebook, I sometimes get called things like a "vagina fetishist" in reply, as though my orientation means that I'm a predator! It's ridiculous. The claim that everyone (or at least all women anyway) should be bisexual in order to be politically correct renders the whole concept of lesbianism moot and irrelevant.

I don't have a deeper point here. It's just something that frustrates me and the kind of thing that sometimes I want to say but don't feel like I would be allowed to on a place like ResetEra.

You're definitely in a safe place to say this, haha. I agree that certain demands of the transgender movement are unreasonable, and that I frequently feel like progressive leaning areas of discourse are not safe to express such an idea, and I find that very frustrating. This demand you highlight here is particularly repulsive. I would however say that it is entirely possible for someone born with a penis to have the a gender identity opposite their sex. I've seen instances of transgendered elementary schoolers attempting suicide over having the gender corresponding to their sex forced upon them. For someone that young to have such a strong connection of their identity to the gender opposite their sex, and for that to develop at an age before one develops most of their identity (during your teens) suggest to me that it isn't someone playing around with their identity or not serious about feeling that they are the gender they believe themselves to be, and I don't think it's the product of some psychosis or psychological disorder either, as there is already scientific evidence suggesting that a transgender child's mind develops differently in the womb to a cisgender child. As this is the best evidence I have to explain the phenomenon, I don't believe that transgendered individuals are "men" claiming to be "women" or vice versa, but rather that their minds truly are of a gender opposite their biological sex. It sounds, according to the rhetoric you use, like you reject the sincerity of the claims of transgendered individuals. I used to reject it as well, up until probably the early 2010s, when I came upon sufficient evidence that convinced me that transgendered individuals were sincere and that like sexual orientation, their gender identity was determined at birth, not formed later.

That said, no one, man or woman, regardless of what genitals they have, has any right to demand anyone else to have no preference for what genitals they wish to have sex with. Such demands, I daresay, border on rape culture. I should add though, on your note of "all women anyway", that in theory, transgender female-to-male individuals, who have vaginas, could hypothetically ask gay males to not have a preference for penises and accept vaginas, in a mirror of the situation you're concerned about here. I don't know if such demands are made (hell maybe it was made in that video, which I confess I didn't have the patience or temperament to sit through) but they would be equally wrong. 

I don't blame you for finding the male penis disgusting either. I do myself, so it's easy to imagine.

"Many of the demands of the transgender movement though offend me."

you need to be more compassionate, you have to understand that these are people who have suffered at the hands of society for centuries, so it should be alright now for more privileged people to step back a bit and allow them to have more rights

why does that offend you?

 

"That said, no one, man or woman, regardless of what genitals they have, has any right to demand anyone else to have no preference for what genitals they wish to have sex with."

but that's transphobic, because what it means is that you are using biology to determine whether a person is man or woman over their stated identity

in effect you are erasing their identity when you do so which as far as i understand is bigotry

 

"Such demands, I daresay, border on rape culture."

bullshit, no one is forcing anyone to have sex with anyone, all that is being said is that to use biology rather than identity in your partner selection is biological determinism in its worst manifestation and the height of transphobia

Last edited by o_O.Q - on 25 August 2018