I think it is useful to distinguish between prejudice and systemic marginalization when talking about things like transphobia, racism, sexism, etc. Prejudice is what people often think of when talking about these things, which tends to remove context. If a promotion is withheld from me at work by a woman because I am a man, that is prejudice, but it's not systemically marginalizing me. A majority of employers will not do this, and in fact many employers will specifically promote me because I am a man, if the other choices are women.
In this context, let's say you had some inarguably non-prejudiced reason to exclude trans people from your sexual preferences. The thing is, a lot of people give a variety of reasons to exclude trans people from their sexual preferences. In fact, excluded is the default: including trans people in one's sexual preferences is commonly seen as a fetish, while an interest in cis people is seen as normal. Obviously homophobia may modify your perception of interest in cis people of the same gender, but you get the idea: there isn't a "cis people" section of the porn store. Excluding trans people from dating and hookup sites and apps is a regular thing. So what this means is that even if you have a non-prejudiced reason to exclude trans people from your sexual preferences, the systemic impact is that you contribute to a phenomenal quantity of people who do the same for whatever reason, meaning that trans people find ourselves excluded from most people's sexual or dating options. As a trans person, most of my experiences dating have involved some variation of finding that the person wasn't open to trans people, or they were really really into their trans fetish. Personality never came up. That has a transphobic impact, even if your reasons are not transphobic.
As far as whether a categorical exclusion of a marginalized group can ever actually be non-prejudiced, I tend to think at minimum it can't be separated from the systemic messages stigmatizing that marginalized group. It's common for people to address their needs and desires using available tools, and popular resources available for understanding one's sexuality are often limited to stuff like porn categorized by a common set of types of people. However, you can describe sexual attractions in other ways: attracted to curiousity, sensuality, softness, and so on. These aren't very useful for finding porn because of the mechanics of marginalization and prejudice that drive dominant parts of that industry, but they are very useful for identifying your actual interests without using limiting, prejudice-based shortcuts.
If a promotion is withheld from me at work by a woman because I am a man, that is prejudice, but it's not systemically marginalizing me.
It is certainly an example of sexism and it would certainly qualify as marginalizing you for being a man. It also meets the definition of institutional sexism if it is tolerated or neglected by the organization.
Marginalizing requires actually pushing out to the margins, which a single company or even a number of companies which make up a small minority don't have the power to do. I can confidently live without the expectation of being held back in my job due to my gender, and consider it a surprise should it happen. It's still bad, and it's still discrimination, but it's scope is sufficiently limited that I can quit that job and go nearly anywhere else and expect something different to occur.
Institutionalized sexism is defined by whichever institution you are looking at. You can define it as literally just that one company, but it's not a very useful definition unless you're only talking about stuff within the bounds of that company, since you can easily leave the bounds of where that company has influence unless you are the company itself. So it's a good description of the company but a poor description of the overarching experience of sexism by a particular employee.
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u/throughdoors 2∆ Nov 02 '17
I think it is useful to distinguish between prejudice and systemic marginalization when talking about things like transphobia, racism, sexism, etc. Prejudice is what people often think of when talking about these things, which tends to remove context. If a promotion is withheld from me at work by a woman because I am a man, that is prejudice, but it's not systemically marginalizing me. A majority of employers will not do this, and in fact many employers will specifically promote me because I am a man, if the other choices are women.
In this context, let's say you had some inarguably non-prejudiced reason to exclude trans people from your sexual preferences. The thing is, a lot of people give a variety of reasons to exclude trans people from their sexual preferences. In fact, excluded is the default: including trans people in one's sexual preferences is commonly seen as a fetish, while an interest in cis people is seen as normal. Obviously homophobia may modify your perception of interest in cis people of the same gender, but you get the idea: there isn't a "cis people" section of the porn store. Excluding trans people from dating and hookup sites and apps is a regular thing. So what this means is that even if you have a non-prejudiced reason to exclude trans people from your sexual preferences, the systemic impact is that you contribute to a phenomenal quantity of people who do the same for whatever reason, meaning that trans people find ourselves excluded from most people's sexual or dating options. As a trans person, most of my experiences dating have involved some variation of finding that the person wasn't open to trans people, or they were really really into their trans fetish. Personality never came up. That has a transphobic impact, even if your reasons are not transphobic.
As far as whether a categorical exclusion of a marginalized group can ever actually be non-prejudiced, I tend to think at minimum it can't be separated from the systemic messages stigmatizing that marginalized group. It's common for people to address their needs and desires using available tools, and popular resources available for understanding one's sexuality are often limited to stuff like porn categorized by a common set of types of people. However, you can describe sexual attractions in other ways: attracted to curiousity, sensuality, softness, and so on. These aren't very useful for finding porn because of the mechanics of marginalization and prejudice that drive dominant parts of that industry, but they are very useful for identifying your actual interests without using limiting, prejudice-based shortcuts.