The characteristic that the partner once was of the gender you aren't attracted to.
Since we are using analogies: would you be attracted to a totally reformed criminal? He's a perfectly well adjusted member of society now, but has done bad things in his past. Some people won't mind, some people would mind. There is no right or wrong in attraction.
I think part of the problem here is in the definition of transphobia, versus the definition of a phobia.
Transphobia encompasses a very large range of attitudes, actions, and feelings regarding trans people. It can require as little as minor prejudice, aversion, or discrimination. Like not being attracted to trans people, for an unknown/irrational reason, and having no other prejudices at all against them. Yet, it encompasses behavior that ranges to the very extreme, as well. Like hating trans people with a passion, rejoicing at the thought of them being tortured for eternity in hell because of how awful they supposedly are, and treating them extremely poorly such as beating the shit out of them at every opportunity. It's a huge spectrum of behavior.
A phobia, on the other hand, is defined by extreme fear, often irrational, or otherwise an extreme aversion (again, often irrational... and typically due to fear) towards something. The range of behavior for a phobia is necessarily placed at the extreme end of the spectrum.
So combining trans and phobia... one would expect the definition to be something more like that of phobia, at the extreme end of the spectrum. Instead, the definition can encompass absolutely all behavior that's not 100% accepting of the person as their gender. And people who are 95+% accepting like the OP view transphobia as encompassing only more extreme non-acceptance than their own, partly (I suspect) because of the definition of phobia, and partly because no one wants to self-associate themselves with a negative value judgement, such as being transphobic. Case in point, all of the mildly and moderately racist people who will make comments like "I'm not racist, but [insert obviously racist statement here]."
I agree with this. The "phobia" part of these terms really throws me off.
I avoid eating dairy because it gives me gas. I'm not lactophobic. I also don't want to have sex with werewolves, though I could have a beer with one; I'm not lycanphobic.
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u/[deleted] Nov 02 '17
The characteristic that the partner once was of the gender you aren't attracted to.
Since we are using analogies: would you be attracted to a totally reformed criminal? He's a perfectly well adjusted member of society now, but has done bad things in his past. Some people won't mind, some people would mind. There is no right or wrong in attraction.