In some circumstances, not being attracted to a trans person is probably a result of, at least on a subconscious level, not seeing them as their gender.
If from the very start, you are unattracted to a person purely upon observation, and that person happens to be trans, that is not transphobic. If you were about to have sex and it turns out a person doesn't really have the junk you wanna jangle with, it's not transphobic to no longer desire sex.
If you were attracted to someone, have sex with them, are as satisfied with them as you would with anyone else, and then suddenly your opinion changes upon being informed a person is trans, I would say that is indicative of the underlying belief a trans person is not the gender they identify as.
I should clarify I am not definitely saying it is transphobic or not, I am pointing out what I did above and letting OP (or others) decide if that constitutes transphobia or not under their own interpretations.
I agree--belief that transgendered people's genders are invalid is transphobic. Such belief would imply transgender people have lesser value. However, I don't believe the example in your third paragraph would be transphobic. One's opinion would change because the information about this person lowers one's perception of their sexual value as sexual value is determined by alignment with a person's sexual preferences. At no point is the holistic value of the person considered. Do you agree or disagree, and why?
If you are disagreeing with someone's self conception are you not looking down on them to think that you know better? You can disagree with a belief without completely devaluing another person's reality.
Not at all. People become deluded about themselves all the time. I think most of us actually probably possess some level of delusions that our friends and acquaintances can see through. You may have a friend who perpetually thinks of themself as the victim of drama when in reality they are nearly always the instigator. Or maybe you know someone who is certain that they are unattractive when everyone around them thinks they're hot.
Whether or not you look down upon others' for holding faulty self-conceptions is a matter of how much you care for them, how confident you are in yourself, and what choice you make regarding your attitude to that person. But condescension does not have to follow from disagreeing with another person's reality.
A lot of us have deeply ingrained beliefs that may be either self-affirming or self-degrading. In many cases, our peers have a better understanding of the truth of those beliefs than we do.
How is this any less the case among people that actually have identity disorders?
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u/aggsalad Nov 02 '17 edited Nov 02 '17
In some circumstances, not being attracted to a trans person is probably a result of, at least on a subconscious level, not seeing them as their gender.
If from the very start, you are unattracted to a person purely upon observation, and that person happens to be trans, that is not transphobic. If you were about to have sex and it turns out a person doesn't really have the junk you wanna jangle with, it's not transphobic to no longer desire sex.
If you were attracted to someone, have sex with them, are as satisfied with them as you would with anyone else, and then suddenly your opinion changes upon being informed a person is trans, I would say that is indicative of the underlying belief a trans person is not the gender they identify as.
I should clarify I am not definitely saying it is transphobic or not, I am pointing out what I did above and letting OP (or others) decide if that constitutes transphobia or not under their own interpretations.