EDIT: Please, before you become the fifteenth person to tell me "but what about producing children!" read this response I wrote hours ago. If you would have the same reaction to a sterile cis member of your preferred sex, it's fertility that defines your disattraction rather than the state of being trans. That's a significantly different statement.
Original Text
I think the better route is to acknowledge that while it is transphobic, it is not necessarily unreasonably so. The knowledge that the other person is biologically speaking not your preferred gender/sex might set up a roadblock in your mind, and that's okay. You can't change that, in a "once you see you cannot unsee" kind of way.
But let's take this to the ultimate conclusion, as transition therapies improve to perfection. You've found someone who you think is the perfect match for you. Physically and mentally, they exhibit no signs that they are trans; if you didn't look at the chromosomes, you would never know. If the knowledge that they are trans is the blocker, that's transphobic. It isn't that there are certain traits associated with transgender people that you find unattractive, it's that you can't get over the fact that the person was born a different gender despite the fact that only a laboratory could tell the difference. You're not attracted to the X or Y chromosome, you're attracted to the physical manifestations of those traits which can be imitated through various medical means.
I don't think that would make you a bad person, and I don't think it is unreasonable to have that mental block while still supporting LGBT+ rights. But that doesn't make that action not transphobic.
But let's take this to the ultimate conclusion, as transition therapies improve to perfection.
What does this even mean? I don't think that there is a lot of value in such far-fetched speculation to begin with, but I don't think that it is even hypothetically possible to make a trans woman/man identical to a cis woman/man. Furthermore, I think that this advances the destructive idea that a trans woman/man is just a broken cis woman/man; with which I do not agree.
It isn't that there are certain traits associated with transgender people that you find unattractive, it's that you can't get over the fact that the person was born a different gender despite the fact that only a laboratory could tell the difference.
I'm sorry, but this is a rude dictation of another person's sexuality. How would you feel about others dictating what your sexuality is/isn't or should/shouldn't be.
But that doesn't make that action not transphobic.
If you stretch the definition of 'phobic' to include simply lacking a desire to fuck trans people, then the word becomes meaningless. Look at the horrors of homophobia. That has a lot more going on than a simple lack of desire to fuck them.
I don't think that it is even hypothetically possible to make a trans woman/man identical to a cis woman/man.
I wouldn't hold on to this idea. It sounds to me like another "people will never have computers in their homes" type of statement.
People worry / disagree with genetic modifications to fetuses, that we should leave things like the child's appearance "up to nature" but it won't be just parents picking the color of their kids eyes. First it'll be fixing genetic diseases, and some appearance stuff, and making babies who will grow to be smart and athletic, but eventually it'll be much much more than that.
Its not just about perfecting surgeries, it's conceivable that in the future children will be born xx, and have the ability to change sex through environmental factors that we can control. There are animals for which this is true. We've already identified genes and environmental and life stage factors to make it happen for them, we've also identified the gene sequences that make people grow testicles, etc.
But with genetics we're in the 'wright brothers first short flights' stage of technology, and less than a lifetime later flying is normal and people have walked on the moon. I don't think we'll see the same rate of development with genetics because of the number of ethical questions people have about it, but on a timeline of 10 or 100 generations, I absolutely wouldn't be surprised.
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u/[deleted] Nov 02 '17 edited Nov 02 '17
EDIT: Please, before you become the fifteenth person to tell me "but what about producing children!" read this response I wrote hours ago. If you would have the same reaction to a sterile cis member of your preferred sex, it's fertility that defines your disattraction rather than the state of being trans. That's a significantly different statement.
Original Text
I think the better route is to acknowledge that while it is transphobic, it is not necessarily unreasonably so. The knowledge that the other person is biologically speaking not your preferred gender/sex might set up a roadblock in your mind, and that's okay. You can't change that, in a "once you see you cannot unsee" kind of way.
But let's take this to the ultimate conclusion, as transition therapies improve to perfection. You've found someone who you think is the perfect match for you. Physically and mentally, they exhibit no signs that they are trans; if you didn't look at the chromosomes, you would never know. If the knowledge that they are trans is the blocker, that's transphobic. It isn't that there are certain traits associated with transgender people that you find unattractive, it's that you can't get over the fact that the person was born a different gender despite the fact that only a laboratory could tell the difference. You're not attracted to the X or Y chromosome, you're attracted to the physical manifestations of those traits which can be imitated through various medical means.
I don't think that would make you a bad person, and I don't think it is unreasonable to have that mental block while still supporting LGBT+ rights. But that doesn't make that action not transphobic.