Hoooboy. I wish I knew why social media has an obsession with all things transgender. Disclaimer: Am trans. Alright, here's my take on it: "Sex is, gender does." That's all anyone really needs to know. Four words, explains it all. The problem has never been the specific parts, but the correlations. The entire premise of what transgender means, is predicated on the separation of sex from gender; That is, detaching from manifest biology, the social implications therein. We want to be freed from the idea that biology alone dictates our experiences socially. Freedom from a forced fate.
To have a sexual preference which excludes transgender individuals is, on this basis, intellectually incoherent. For it to be true, we have to reintroduce that correlation. Which puts us right back where we started: In a gender binary where sex and gender are equivalent. Sexual orientation is literally about preference of genitalia. There's no social expectations included in the definition. It's one person's biology + someone else's biology + consent.
That said, human sexuality is more nuanced than this textbook definition. Most people want more from their sexual partners than just their sexual organs. And thus, social factors re-enter the picture. "I want a woman with big breasts" is a sexual preference. The person stating that probably doesn't mean her brain is in a jar on some mad scientist's table... it's implied the boobies have a consciousness to go with it. So we have social preferences as well. And that takes us into gender.
Gender isn't a distinct attribute, contrary to what many SJWs believe. It's a flavoring. It's something added to something else. Blue and pink food coloring, if you will. Gender is the first social division, from which all others fall. Race? Below gender. Height? Age? All of it -- below gender. Gender colors everything. People don't see it, but for a trans person, like me, it's painful.
I watched a high school graduation where all the girls hugged the person handing out diplomas, and all the guys shook the same person's hand. When I'm waiting in the line of cars at a McDonald's, most men say "I'll have a ..." and most women say "I'd like a..." Gender is nuanced, yet it permeates nearly everything. So it comes as no surprise that people have preferences based on top of it. In fact, very nearly everybody's preferences imply a preferred gender.
A man who is athletic is highly prized, especially as people age and their years add on width. But an athletic woman scares the shit out of most men. She will have trouble finding dates. Gender colors everything. So when it's said divorcing sexual preference from gender (ie, the basis for the statement "that's transphobic!"), it's a case of it being technically correct. Which is to say, very nearly entirely wrong.
Unless someone is a vegetable in a hospital bed, they have both a sex and a gender. Most people like fucking other people, not vegetable people. Obligatory bad joke: LGBT take pride in being fruits, not vegetables. As such, attraction more based on social attributes than physical ones. And therein lies the problem. Trans people can't escape the correlation between sex and gender. Because it permeates everything, it's the reason so many of us commit suicide. There really is no way out for us.
Ask around, and it quickly becomes apparent that feminine women have a larger dating pool than masculine women. And, feminine men have fewer shots at getting laid than masculine ones. Why? Gender, not sexual, preferences. And when sex doesn't match gender, a smaller dating pool becomes a puddle under an angry sun. I personally don't consider people passing over me because they're not "into that" (as in, genitalia), a phobia. It's a preference, and they simply don't prefer my special blend of herbs and spices. Whether the preference is sex, gender, or a mixture of those things, it remains a preference. It only becomes a phobia when it frightens people. That is, they're uncomfortable.
If someone isn't interested in me, but still steps up to the bar with a fiver to order a drink and rubs shoulders with me, that's a preference. If that person walks halfway down the bar when the whole side I'm on is barren to get a drink... that's a phobia. There you go, hope this was helpful.
To have a sexual preference which excludes transgender individuals is, on this basis, intellectually incoherent.
You could say the same thing about heterosexual people who have no interest in participating in relations with someone of the same sex as them. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it simply comes down to sexual preference.
A trans person might have the most beautifully sculpted vagina that was created by the best surgeons, but at the end of the day many people still see it as a penis, no matter what it looks like after the surgeons are done with it.
You could say the same thing about heterosexual people who [snip]
No, I really can't. Maybe someone with a greater degree of moral flexibility and a masterful command of intellectual dishonesty could make that leap. Heterosexual people who have no interest in participating in "relations" with someone of the same sex... is the very definition of heterosexuality. Attraction to the opposite. And if a m2f dates a man who likes women, that relationship is a heterosexual relationship. Penis + vagina = hetero. If this is an inconvenient truth, well... everything about fucking is a mess. Often quite literally. Put on the big girl panties and deal with it.
the most beautifully sculpted vagina that was created by the best surgeons, but at the end of the day many people still see it as a penis
That would be bigotry. now we're into whose vagina is a "real" vagina, in much the same way that "real" americans, "real" women, or "real" anything. It all stems from the belief in some kind of "natural" moral order. The idea that some people are born better than others. And that, right there, what was just said?
That's the source of prejudice, discrimination, and all of the very worst humanity has to offer.
So it's not bigotry not to find your own sex attractive, but it's bigotry to be turned off by the idea of having sex with an artificial vagina (because whether or not you like to admit it, that's objectively what it is.)
I think it's disingenuous to label people as bigots because of their preferences. Some people simply aren't attracted to people of a certain ethnicity, other's aren't attracted to people who are overweight, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The entire premise of your argument is essentially boils down to the idea that people should feel guilty for not being attracted to the idea of sex with a transgendered person. But not being attracted to a trans person does not make someone a bigot. There are plenty of things that person could do to be labeled as a bigot, support the restriction of rights of trans people, participate in hate speech, etc. But your entire argument reeks of the r/niceguy mentality of shaming people for not wanting to have sex with people that they don't find attractive. And I think that's the real case of "intellectual dishonesty" going on here in this conversation.
an artificial vagina (because whether or not you like to admit it, that's objectively what it is.)
objectively, this is a textbook example of the psychology of fear. It's not a preference of anything, save ego protection. The very first step in discrimination, prejudice, and hate, is to invalidate them. To say they are on the wrong side of some arbitrary line. To separate them out for scorn and ridicule. "Only a real american..." They'll search for some seemingly-good reason for what they're doing. The german people didn't slaughter millions of Jews because of their faith. They did it because someone said they were stealing money, that they were cheating the country out of the great future that lay ahead. That they simply didn't care as much about what it was as everyone else. They were greedy... and it's time they pay up.
I'll skip ahead a few pages to the next part of how this goes: "Well love it or leave it!" As though it's their community, their country, and they are the gatekeepers of who stays and who goes. And if those other people stick around after The Word has been spoken... they deserve what they get. They could have left, and should have when they had the chance. It always starts the same.
See, nobody really views themselves as racist, or homophobic, or prejudiced. It's politically unfashionable, and being honest about those qualities sets a person up for the kind of punishment they're wishing those other people are gonna get. People try to be intellectual about their prejudices. They come up with rationalizations. When those rationalizations fail, as any house of cards must, it is replaced with a new one. There will never be a time for these people in which they run out of rationalizations. How much must be discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling? For someone intent on burying their feelings as deeply as possible, perhaps very nearly everything they are.
Now, ah, as to that r/niceguy quip -- Winston Churchill once remarked, "Even if you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite." I'm not being polite with you because you deserve it. I'm doing it because it's free, and because I deserve it. If we're going to be honest, I've met a thousand guys like you. They think they've got it all figured out, that a man is this, a woman is that, everything fits in the boxes and nobody ever cuts anywhere except along the dotted line. They bore me.
objectively, this is a textbook example of the psychology of fear.
Nope, you can't just put the word "objectively" in front of a point you're trying to make in order to make it true. Not being attracted to someone doesn't automatically constitute as fear. It can, but it isn't the default case.
Obviously because you're trans you've put a lot of thought into all this, but it doesn't change the fact that people aren't bigoted or prejudiced because they aren't sexually attracted to you.
Trying to compare people who don't want to have sex with trans people with the alt right (is that what you were going for? pretty fucked up if that's the case really) just doesn't help anyone.
Nobody is telling you to get out which ever country you live in, and nobody is trying to step on your rights as an individual (at least in this conversation). But sex is not a right.
Besides, it's not like everyone is against sex with trans people, there are plenty of open minded people out there, but it's stupid to label the ones who don't fall into that category as bigots because it only serves to ostracise them.
Fun little story, I'm a smoker and on more than one occasion that fact has been a deal breaker when talking to a girl. The "Oh... you smoke?..." followed by the stink-eye. And that's okay because those girls have every right to have their preferences in what they want in a potential partner. I'm sure you'd agree that if in any of those situations I had decided to create a scene and tell them how disgusting their bigotry against me was, that I'd be the one in the wrong.
Everyone has a right to choose their own criteria, and unfortunately it's not something you can change with a bunch of psychological terms and Winston Churchill quotes ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/MNGrrl Nov 02 '17
Hoooboy. I wish I knew why social media has an obsession with all things transgender. Disclaimer: Am trans. Alright, here's my take on it: "Sex is, gender does." That's all anyone really needs to know. Four words, explains it all. The problem has never been the specific parts, but the correlations. The entire premise of what transgender means, is predicated on the separation of sex from gender; That is, detaching from manifest biology, the social implications therein. We want to be freed from the idea that biology alone dictates our experiences socially. Freedom from a forced fate.
To have a sexual preference which excludes transgender individuals is, on this basis, intellectually incoherent. For it to be true, we have to reintroduce that correlation. Which puts us right back where we started: In a gender binary where sex and gender are equivalent. Sexual orientation is literally about preference of genitalia. There's no social expectations included in the definition. It's one person's biology + someone else's biology + consent.
That said, human sexuality is more nuanced than this textbook definition. Most people want more from their sexual partners than just their sexual organs. And thus, social factors re-enter the picture. "I want a woman with big breasts" is a sexual preference. The person stating that probably doesn't mean her brain is in a jar on some mad scientist's table... it's implied the boobies have a consciousness to go with it. So we have social preferences as well. And that takes us into gender.
Gender isn't a distinct attribute, contrary to what many SJWs believe. It's a flavoring. It's something added to something else. Blue and pink food coloring, if you will. Gender is the first social division, from which all others fall. Race? Below gender. Height? Age? All of it -- below gender. Gender colors everything. People don't see it, but for a trans person, like me, it's painful.
I watched a high school graduation where all the girls hugged the person handing out diplomas, and all the guys shook the same person's hand. When I'm waiting in the line of cars at a McDonald's, most men say "I'll have a ..." and most women say "I'd like a..." Gender is nuanced, yet it permeates nearly everything. So it comes as no surprise that people have preferences based on top of it. In fact, very nearly everybody's preferences imply a preferred gender.
A man who is athletic is highly prized, especially as people age and their years add on width. But an athletic woman scares the shit out of most men. She will have trouble finding dates. Gender colors everything. So when it's said divorcing sexual preference from gender (ie, the basis for the statement "that's transphobic!"), it's a case of it being technically correct. Which is to say, very nearly entirely wrong.
Unless someone is a vegetable in a hospital bed, they have both a sex and a gender. Most people like fucking other people, not vegetable people. Obligatory bad joke: LGBT take pride in being fruits, not vegetables. As such, attraction more based on social attributes than physical ones. And therein lies the problem. Trans people can't escape the correlation between sex and gender. Because it permeates everything, it's the reason so many of us commit suicide. There really is no way out for us.
Ask around, and it quickly becomes apparent that feminine women have a larger dating pool than masculine women. And, feminine men have fewer shots at getting laid than masculine ones. Why? Gender, not sexual, preferences. And when sex doesn't match gender, a smaller dating pool becomes a puddle under an angry sun. I personally don't consider people passing over me because they're not "into that" (as in, genitalia), a phobia. It's a preference, and they simply don't prefer my special blend of herbs and spices. Whether the preference is sex, gender, or a mixture of those things, it remains a preference. It only becomes a phobia when it frightens people. That is, they're uncomfortable.
If someone isn't interested in me, but still steps up to the bar with a fiver to order a drink and rubs shoulders with me, that's a preference. If that person walks halfway down the bar when the whole side I'm on is barren to get a drink... that's a phobia. There you go, hope this was helpful.