Whether you’re a cis straight man, cis gay man, cis straight woman, cis lesbian woman or a cis person of any sexuality (cis meaning not trans, your sense of gender identity aligns with your gender at birth) basically you might have heard of this question about whether you wanting to date not trans people is transphobic and with a huge (manufactured) outrage over this issue and stuff like the whole super straight thing.
Well the answer is both yes and no. It depends what your reasoning is. Now you might think “oh so you’re now saying that I should be coerced into dating trans people and not reject them and not respecting my boundaries?” Well no, but however there are some transphobic reasons to reject trans people but there are non-transphobic reasons as well, it’s somewhat similar to you not wanting to date people of other races, you might say “I’m not going to date Chinese people”, but if your reasoning is something like “Oh they all eat dogs and are ugly, filthy people \[insert racial slur\]” or something along these lines and keep loudly shouting everywhere on some irrelevant topics about how you’re not going to date them and then blanket reject them then you’re definitely racist and it’s not coersion or not respecting boundaries to call out your bias that you hold against that group.
Although these comparisons aren’t 100% similar because there isn’t a similar type difference between races/ethnic groups like it is between men and women and your preference towards a certain race is much likely going to be shaped by your social conditioning and the euro-centric standards of beauty might make you not want to date them, while your sexual attraction towards men or women is immutable, afterall conversion therapy for gay people never worked because their sexuality is an immutable characteristic.
You rejecting trans people might have both transphobic and non-transphobic reasons, let’s have a look at some of these statements that are often commonly said :
* Statement 1 : “As a straight man, I’m not gay, I’m not doing going to date these mentally ill men in dresses who think they’re women. I only date real women.”
* Statement 2 : “As a gay man, I’m not going to date these mentally ill mutilated females who are yaoi fans who think they’re gay men and invade all our spaces and are taking our rights away. I only date real men.”
* Statement 3 : “As a lesbian woman, I’m not going to date these mentally ill men in dresses who think they’re women and invading all our spaces and they’re all taking our rights away. I only date real women.”
* Statement 4 : “As a straight woman, I’m not a lesbian, I’m not going to date these mentally ill mutilated women who think they’re men. I only date real men.”
* Statement 5 : “You’re a gay man/lesbian woman who’s dating trans men/women? You’re not a real gay man/lesbian woman, you’re just a closet bisexual invading our spaces”.
* Statement 6 : “You’re a straight man/woman who’s into dating trans women/men? You’re not really straight, you’re just gay/bisexual.”
* Statement 7 : “As a straight man/lesbian woman, I’m not attracted to penises.”
* Statement 8 : “As a straight man/woman, I’m not going to date trans women/men because I want biological children of my own.”
* Statement 9 : “As a straight woman/gay man, I’m not attracted to vaginas.”
* Statement 10 : “I don’t find this trans person personally attractive. I don’t like their personality.”
Looking at the statements, we can say that statements 1-6. These statements are absolutely transphobic and you’re rejecting trans person because of your prejudice towards that group, not because of your differing attraction, and you’re not accepting them as their gender. Statements 7-10 aren’t transphobic at all, they are just expressing your sexuality and your differing gential attraction. Having a differing genital attraction isn’t transphobic. If you’re a straight man/lesbian woman who’s only attracted to vaginas, it’s completely fine, nothing transphobic about it, similar applies straight woman and gay only being attracted to penises. You’re just expressing your sexuality. It’s your sexuality afterall which you can’t control.
But however if you couple the statements 1-6 and 7-10, then you’re going to be transphobic, as it’s something like this for example :
“As a straight man/lesbian woman, I’m not attracted to penises. **I’m not going to date these ugly mentally ill men in dresses who think they’re women.**”
But however the part in which you’re saying that you’re saying you’re just not attracted to penises isn’t transphobic, but the part (which is highlighted in bold), is what’s transphobic because you’re denying the gender of that trans person and you’re calling them mentally ill just for who they are and therefore not respecting them for who they are, which shows an unaccepting attitude and you’re engaging in stereotyping by calling them ugly.
When some trans people say, “It’s transphobic to not date trans person because they’re trans”, now looking at this statement you might really think it’s about coercing cis people to date trans people, coercing gay man and lesbians women, telling gay men to like vaginas and lesbian women to like penises, literally gay conversion therapy isn’t it?
But no this isn’t what they meant by saying this, if you take account for all the factors and all the stuff that you’re attracted but very specifically reject a trans person for being trans, like it’s a case like this for example, you’re a man, you don’t have any problem with dating infertile women, you’re not interested in having any biological children, you don’t have any problem with being attracted to any genitals, you don’t have an issue with dating women who due to certain conditions, you can’t have vaginal sex, you found a woman physically and sexually attractive before learning she’s trans and then reject her after seeing her medical history and you think they’re all men in dresses then that’s what they consider to be transphobic, solely and only rejecting them for being trans.
By not wanting to date a trans person, as a gay man or a lesbian woman, you aren’t rejecting on the basis of being trans, it is because you don’t find their genitals attractive, you’re not attracted to pensies or vaginas.
Also loudly announcing everywhere how you’re not going to date trans people on some irrelavant topic and being obsessed with saying you don’t want to date trans people, making conspiracy theories about trans people wanting to coerce everyone into have sex with them and making an entire sexuality out of it shows that you’re a transphobe and also your failure to understand the set theory.
Straight man attraction = {cis women only, cis women and trans women}
Straight woman attraction = {cis men only, cis men and trans men}
Gay man attraction = {cis men only, cis men and trans men}
Lesbian woman attraction = {cis women only, cis women and trans women}
A straight man only being into cis women is a subset of being straight. It’s not a separate set itself. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t straight if you’re only into cis women. Both men who are into cis women only and into both cis women and trans women are straight. People who support trans rights don’t actually say that you need to be both attracted cis women and trans women to be considered a straight man. There’s no grand trans conspiracy to coerce every cis person into having sex with trans people.
Are there trans people who unironically say it’s transphobic for a gay man or a lesbian women to not be attracted to vaginas or penises respectively? The answer is yes, just because you belong to a marginalized group, it doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be a good person and be sympathetic towards the struggles of other marginalized groups. There are extremists in every demographic of people, but however the internet attracts people with the more extremist mindset and people with transphobic agendas get a great opportunity to attack the trans community and another bonus of dividing the LGBT community and they greatly amplify the voices of trans people with such shitty opinions like these and even twist the words of trans people who don’t think that way and try to frame it as if the majority of trans people think and create a rift between the gay and trans communities. In reality this is not a majority opinion, vast majority of trans people are completely fine with a gay man or a lesbian women only being attracted to penises or vaginas respectively.
Since conservatives in the West have pretty much lost the debate on gay marriage and this is an inter-connected world these days, they’re looking for a new scapegoat, a better scapegoat that can be used to further their agendas and them weakening the solidarity between the different groups among and within LGBT further works very well. If instead of attacking LGBT as a whole, you make it trans vs gay as this is how they frame this situation these days, it can be used as a great tool to attack the trans community and also putting some gay people on their side makes them appear more legitimate, “Oh look how insane these transgenders are, even gay people are against them”. So this division works really well for them.
This things about trans people and dating and how trans people coercing everyone into saving sex with them is just mainly manufactured outrage by conservatives and their friends to further attack, demonize and vilify the trans community.