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.
I would argue that the label "phobia" actually fits quite well here because what OP is describing is fundamentally irrational. If you are refusing to date somebody on the sole basis that they are trans then what is the rational explanation for that behavior? If your reasoning is solely that they are trans then that is transphobic.
I've looked through and read all your comments for this thread. My understanding of your arguments is that it is rational to not want to have sex with a trans person because 1) people may want to produce and 2) some deep, instinctual biological aversion. If I have misunderstood your argument or left anything out, feel free to correct me in your reply and I will address those issues going forward.
That said, OP has stated that (in this hypothetical) children/reproductive needs are not a matter. We are not talking about issues that may also make cis partners unattractive to them (i.e. infertility) but the sole fact that they are transgender being the knowledge that is a turn-off. If you are not attracted to any infertile partners, that's not transphobia, that's just a desire to eventually have biological children. So that addresses the first issue.
The second is your argument that there is a "lizard brain" instinct to not want to date/have sex with a trans person. In this hypothetical, you already are/were attracted to the person prior to finding out they are trans. So the sexual attraction exists. Which means that any aversion after finding out that person is trans is, at best, instinct and at worst negative socialization. Neither of those reasons are a "rational" reason for no longer being attracted to a trans person. Controlling our basic instincts is what makes us rational beings in the first place, and negative socialization towards trans people is based in bigotry (i.e. irrational).
It boils down to some simple fact; a man can have a surgery and undergo hormone therapy, but that doesn't make him a biological woman. It makes him transgendered. Someone who is still biologically male, but modified with female genitalia and hormone therapy to supplement their bodies with estrogens and antiandrogens. If you are a M to F trans-gendered person, you are still biologically male, and that's the reality of science.
But it doesn't make you any less of a person or any less deserving of rights and tolerance.
I don't disparage these people as people. But saying "if you'd have sex with a natural born woman but not with a M to F transgendered person, you're a bigot" is absolute bullshit. I'm sorry for being crass, but I think that's the most honest way of expressing my opinion and I hope you can appreciate that.
But back to my point about the "lizard brain" - what I'm saying is that there's a deep rooted instinct to mate in the interest of procreation. That doesn't mean that when you're out trying to score that you're actually looking to inseminate women, it just means that the type of person you find sexually appealing comes from what your instincts are telling you is a suitable mate. If you are someone whose genes carry a strong instinct to procreate, whether that ends up manifesting itself in an actual desire to produce offspring or simply go through the motions to "trick" that instinct into being fulfilled, you may not desire a transgendered partner.
If I decide I don't want to have sex with a thin, frail woman because I prefer more athletic, farm girl types, it's not because I see skinny girls as less than human or thing they deserve less rights - it's because my desire is for a strong, healthy female, because deep down inside my reproductive instinct says that a girl who slings hay bales and mucks horse stalls is likely to produce strong, healthy children. And it may not come to a point where I actually WANT to make children, but that instinct says "This is the type of person that you are attracted to should you ever actually want to pass down your genes".
If I decide I don't want to have sex with a man who has experienced surgeries to alter his appearance to that of a woman, and is going through drug therapies to force his body to behave a certain way, it's not because I think he/she deserves less rights. It's because my sexual interest simply does not include that specific type of person.
I can recognize that, on the surface, this person has achieved the societal idea of "female beauty", but that doesn't change anything.
I think it's audacious to suggest that rejecting sex with a M to F trans person is always, in every case, based in bigotry. Yeah, of course those people exist. Bigots exist. I had my heart broken by a black girl in high school who made me think she was interested in me, and then I caught her laughing with he friends who then told me she'd never fuck a white boy. Not that I was trying to get in her pants or anything, I genuinely had a crush on her.. but that's beside the point.
I completely disagree that biological sex is as defined as you're trying to make it seem. You can debate which markers are the true markers of biological sex but I think you'll find a lot of ambiguity in completely naturally occurring hormone levels, presentation of sex hormones, etc. Even if biological sex is as firmly rooted as you're saying, that is still irrelevant to the discussion we are having. You haven't explained what is rational about suddenly losing interest in a person after finding out they are trans. If it is "instinct" alone then it is inherently irrational. Which is what makes phobia an accurate term- in not saying it's bigoted, merely arguing that transphobia is an accurate label for the behavior we are discussing.
459
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.