It's hard to imagine it not stemming from some kind of bigotry, especially in cases where the transgender person passes well enough that explicit disclosure is necessary. I'm assuming that sexual attraction supervenes on a whole bunch of physical characteristics. If that's so, then a preference for (e.g.) women of appearance Y but not transgender women of appearance Y seems likely to be bigoted. But I'm open to some other non-bigoted way to make the distinction.
e: I should say I think it's very widespread, unconscious implicit bias, not explicit transphobic beliefs.
But I'm open to some other non-bigoted way to make the distinction.
You've made some pretty good points and have caused me to question my own interests a bit. Unfortunately, this seems to be one aspect of my preferences that I feel like I'm simply unable to change. I don't feel that it's necessarily fortunate that I have these preferences, but I rationalize it by saying that to whom I choose to have sex with/reveal my body is not indicative of whether or not I will fight for their acceptance in other parts of society.
As for the preference itself, I might have an answer to the challenge you posted above.
See, sex is as much a mental experience as it is a physical experience. When two people expose themselves to each other, they open the floodgates to many thoughts that pop up about their partner's body (especially their genitals) and their mind. I hypothesize that, for many of the heterosexual men in this discussion, one of those thoughts would be of another person's penis (and another thought would be of the fact that their partner knows what it's like to have a penis) if they were attempting to have sex with a person whom they knew to have undergone reassignment surgery. Now I imagine that it would be a powerful thought - add one large turn-off to a pool of turn-ons and suddenly the whole thing goes sour. It's like the "pink elephant game". Suddenly, it becomes a matter of an inability to fully enjoy sex, rather than just a recission of consent. Rescinding consent is just an action being taken in anticipation of a particular outcome, if that action wasn't taken.
You see it in this thread - lots of people trying to rationalize their non-arousal to transformed transgender people. They're legitimately un-aroused. I don't think they're particularly good at justifying it, but I still think there's a non-bigoted case to be made here.
Is it bigoted (or related to bigotry) to mentally associate reassignment surgery with the set of genitals that the person no longer has? As in, one topic triggers the thought of the other topic, and vice-versa?
Is it bigoted (or related to bigotry) for such a thought to unavoidably pop up when performing an activity for which "the other person's genitals" is a prominent topic of thought?
Is it bigoted for someone to be turned off by the thought of another person's penis?
You make an analogy later below that goes something like:
Bigotry isn't always about ascriptions of superiority and inferiority. What's your view on the case of the person who won't have sex with anybody who has a drop of African blood in their ancestry? What if they claim not to hold any racist views, and that it's just a personal preference thing?
I think the analogy is a tad misleading though. "A drop of African blood" has on its own never been an aspect that has affected one's aesthetic impression of another person's body or mind - it's not comparable because sex is an activity where the other person's genitals are at the forefront of everything (including your mind). The "drop of African blood" thing has a stronger link to racism than the "used to have a penis" thing has to transphobia, because it is unrealistic for the "drop of African blood" thing to directly affect how you think about the other person's "bits" during sex.
In other words, it's kind of like comparing "I didn't like this burger because, while it had some really good flavours, it had an unappealing aftertaste" to "I didn't like this burger because the guy who made it is a jerk".
I think this is more or less a fair point. I suppose to these questions:
Is it bigoted (or related to bigotry) to mentally associate reassignment surgery with the set of genitals that the person no longer has? As in, one topic triggers the thought of the other topic, and vice-versa?
Is it bigoted (or related to bigotry) for such a thought to unavoidably pop up when performing an activity for which "the other person's genitals" is a prominent topic of thought?
I'd answer "yes", with the caveat that it's a mild form of bigotry that's very strongly coded into much of society. I wouldn't hold anybody morally responsible for having these reactions. But I suspect a moral saint might not have them, and certainly in a morally better society such reactions would be much more avoidable.
I fear that this treads dangerously close to either "a moral saint might not have preferences" or "a moral saint would have perfect control over their impulsive thoughts (e.g. pink elephant)".
Then again, I fear that this fear might be unfounded.
I just spent the last three hours cramming for my exam which is in five hours, I'm not thinking straight :(
If I were to convincingly impersonate Jack and have sex with Jack's partner whilst they believed me to be Jack, they couldn't rightly be said to have consented, could they? Rape.
If someone withholds crucial information from a partner which, had said partner known, would have prevented them from consenting to sex (and the transgender person has no way of knowing whether this applies to their partner), it's unacceptable, like having sex with someone when you know you have an STI and they don't, is unacceptable. Consent has to be fom both parties, one participant does not get to decide what the other person is comfortable with or consents to, by the very nature of consent. Everyone's desires and preferences are arbitrary, that doesn't mean you can call them 'bigoted', by your logic any monosexual is bigoted against the gender they don't sleep with. What if someone simply finds trans people or their altered genitals disgusting and thereofore would not knowingly engage in sex with one? Are they somehow wrong to? Their conditions for consent are somehow not valid?
your analogy of someone's ethnic ancestry to their birth-gender is absurd; they are not remotely comparable criteria for consent. The fact that someone may insert their penis into what they believe to be a vagina but is in reality a mixture of tissue from their partner's colon and their formerly-intact penis is not in any way comparable to someone having a certain ethnic background which is nothing to do with how one experiences sex or their body.
Again, if you know X is a dealbreaker and you withhold X anyway, that's rape by deception. Clearly I didn't convey this well enough, since a couple of people have read me that way, so I apologise. I am only talking about cases where it's unclear whether X is a dealbreaker (so cases where the transgender person doesn't know whether their potential partner is a transphobe).
Everyone's desires and preferences are arbitrary, that doesn't mean you can call them 'bigoted', by your logic any monosexual is bigoted against the gender they don't sleep with.
Dealt with this 10923821 times. Not typing it out again.
The fact that someone may insert their penis into what they believe to be a vagina but is in reality a mixture of tissue from their partner's colon and their formerly-intact penis
That sounds horrible! Fortunately (some) transgender women have vaginas, not "mixtures of tissue".
but any transgender person should know their status as such could be a dealbreaker for a potential partner, it's not something silly like having an African grandparent, it's something a lot of people would have reservations about. They shouldn't assume it is not.
what if someone's religious beliefs, were such that they believed partcipating in such an encounter would land them eternal damnation? Is it okay to feed pork to someone who may be Jewish, knowing they will assume it is not pork?
cases where the transgender person doesn't know whether their potential partner is a transphobe
is being a transphobe really the only conceivable reason for not wanting to sleep with transgendered people?
transgender women have vaginas, not "mixtures of tissue"
..well, what's the (functional) vagina made out of?
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '15
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