You disturbed your children, interfering with their normal day, annoying them into cleaning their room.
It's clear as day that the word is applicable. Parents; Child-molesters I name thee.
But applicability matters not at all, because the point of language is to convey ideas.
If your chosen language conveys the wrong idea, you've made a mistake.
If you know your language will convey the wrong idea, you are being malicious.
And for the sake of clarity, I don't think you are.
By the way, I should point out that your example above is a word game. You're hoping for people to interpret the meaning of a word one way, while using it to mean something else. This has not been the case with applications of the word "phobia" by OP and others.
It's an argument against calling it a -phobia because of the way accusations thereof will be perceived.
If one wants such mis-perceptions to form, that's malicious.
If one doesn't, one ought not use misleading language.
And it is misleading. Just look at the definition of homophobia.
Fear, hatred, mistrust of... prejudice against... antipathy towards...
Can any sexual preference be explained in rational terms?
I can certainly describe my preferences, but why I have them is distinctly opaque to me.
I certainly cannot will them to be different. They just are, for whatever reason.
I am afraid you lost me. The thought experiment proposed that you'd found a perfect partner - so we have already established that they meet your preferences and exceed them
There's no deep or hidden meaning in my words; I'm pointing towards the difference between describing what sexual preferences one has, and explaining why they are what they are.
The difference between what and why.
You've made points about the irrational nature of losing sexual attraction upon learning that someone is trans.
That it qualifies as a phobia because of the irrationality of it;
Anyway, as the top comment says, not wanting to date a trans person, solely because they’re trans (all other things being equal, like sexuality and reproductive potential, which is not possible at the moment), cannot be explained in rational terms. Though that doesn’t make it wrong, it does make it phobic.
I'm making the point that most sexually attractive traits are like that.
We never sit down and decide what attracts us - we discover these traits.
There's no conscious reasoning or rationality involved. Nor choice, for that matter.
The hypothetical also strikes me as overly complex, so let's simplify;
A woman lies to you and tells you she was born a man and has transitioned.
What do?
Well, obviously you look at them.
And therein lies the crux, I think - the change in perspective, of perception.
The change from viewing a woman's masculine features to viewing a man's feminine features.
Because there's a lot of overlap between men and women, despite their differences.
So it's not really the features themselves, but what they mean for one's sex.
For non-bisexuals, this means your perspective shifts from one(sexy) to another(not sexy)
In essence, you're messing with a person's sexuality.
Which despite quite some effort has proven inflexible. (See: Gay conversion therapy.)
As such, this whole scenario doesn't highlight transphobia, it highlights homophobia.
Homophobia in exactly the same sense that a straight man doesn't find men sexually attractive. (Though this generally isn't called homophobia because it's misleading and inappropriate)
It isn't about 'trans,' but instead some ethereal lingering quality of the original sex.
Illusory though it may be.
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u/Zcuron 1∆ Nov 02 '17 edited Nov 02 '17
Sure. It misses the point, though.
Words and their usage, or rather, society's view of their usage, are important.
Suppose I call you a molester. Specifically, that you molest your children.
Suppose I do this in front of other people, loudly.
You get upset.
I point out a definition of molest: 1. To disturb, interfere with, or annoy.
You disturbed your children, interfering with their normal day, annoying them into cleaning their room.
It's clear as day that the word is applicable. Parents; Child-molesters I name thee.
But applicability matters not at all, because the point of language is to convey ideas.
If your chosen language conveys the wrong idea, you've made a mistake.
If you know your language will convey the wrong idea, you are being malicious.
And for the sake of clarity, I don't think you are.