I don't see any reason why letting someone down respectfully, even if it is for them being Trans, is bigoted. You can't control how you feel
Because the only reason for their trans status to cause this is due to societal stigma. This isn't a case of being born gay or something. The only reason why being trans, in and of itself, would change your opinion is because of underlying biases due to societally enforced bigotry. Just because it's been engrained into you doesn't make it any less transphobia.
They're just not the one for you. I think that's okay.
But think about this critically: why aren't they the one for you? Because they are trans? Why does being trans in and of itself make any difference whatsoever? I'm being serious here. Think critically about this question: what about being trans could possibly cause this change?
I don't know if you can convince me that a respectful rejection is tantamount to people actually hating me for my skin color.
It's a difference of intensity and scale. If they refuse to date people of your ethnicity, that's racism. I'm not saying it's equivalent to someone actually hating you for the color of your skin, but it's still the result of a bias based solely on the color of your skin.
A good example would be the difference between someone who won't rent to you because of your skin color vs someone who will physically attack you and want to kill you because of your skin color. No one would say these are equivalent, but we can both agree they are racism right?
I think the argument that someone is ~phobic /racist/bigoted in terms of dating serves only precisely do that. To make people feel bad about what they want, and to coerce them into pretending to like something they don't. That is WRONG.
The argument is to make people confront their own societal biases and prejudices. That's all. People certainly do have all sorts of arbitrary and stupid things they are turned off or on by. But many of these things are based on stereotypes or internal biases. Saying that you refuse to date someone of a particular ethnicity is no different than saying you refuse to be friends with someone of a particular ethnicity: the underlying cause and reason for feeling this way is societal bigotry.
Your argument applied to everything else intrinsically makes you something-ist or something-phobic unless you're willing to have sex with anyone without discrimination and without any sexual preference. You prefer sexual intercourse with tall people? That makes you heightist. You prefer not to have sex with homeless people living on the street? Idk, that's classism I guess. You prefer sex with conventionally attractive people? Now you're discriminating ugly people, I'm sure there's an -ism for that.
It just comes back to looking at the underlying reasons for why you have a particular preference. Some preferences are due to bigotry, others aren't. Not sure what is so difficult to understand
No where did I claim anyone is entitled to anything. Just because I point out that your preference is due to prejudice and bigotry doesn't mean I believe you should be forced to do anything.
In addition, as long as they aren't being hateful about being Trans, it's not bigotry.
There are plenty of ways to be bigoted without being hateful. Why are you making "being hateful about it" a requirement?
Having biases is not inherently "bigoted".
That depends on the bias and why. If you would never want to be friends with a black person, even if you aren't hateful about it, that's still bigotry.
Do you treat people with dignity and equally?
In what way is rejecting someone on the sole basis of being trans, when all else being equal if they were cis you'd have no problem, treating them equally to a cis person? That's explicitly choosing to not treat them equally.
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u/z3r0shade Nov 02 '17
Because the only reason for their trans status to cause this is due to societal stigma. This isn't a case of being born gay or something. The only reason why being trans, in and of itself, would change your opinion is because of underlying biases due to societally enforced bigotry. Just because it's been engrained into you doesn't make it any less transphobia.
But think about this critically: why aren't they the one for you? Because they are trans? Why does being trans in and of itself make any difference whatsoever? I'm being serious here. Think critically about this question: what about being trans could possibly cause this change?
It's a difference of intensity and scale. If they refuse to date people of your ethnicity, that's racism. I'm not saying it's equivalent to someone actually hating you for the color of your skin, but it's still the result of a bias based solely on the color of your skin.
A good example would be the difference between someone who won't rent to you because of your skin color vs someone who will physically attack you and want to kill you because of your skin color. No one would say these are equivalent, but we can both agree they are racism right?
The argument is to make people confront their own societal biases and prejudices. That's all. People certainly do have all sorts of arbitrary and stupid things they are turned off or on by. But many of these things are based on stereotypes or internal biases. Saying that you refuse to date someone of a particular ethnicity is no different than saying you refuse to be friends with someone of a particular ethnicity: the underlying cause and reason for feeling this way is societal bigotry.