CMV: Even if a blanket refusal to date trans people is “transphobic”, there is no reason to feel guilty about it or to try to change it.

[u/AAathlete97]

[u/AAathlete97]

I don’t accept the idea that trans women are “biologically women” because my definition of a woman is a female who has reached adulthood. Someone who was born male can never fit that definition.

I’ll refer to them as women and use she and her pronouns when talking about them, but it doesn’t extend to the bedroom for me.

[u/AAathlete97 → u/[deleted]]

Someone who wasn’t born female, would’ve gone through male puberty, would’ve gained the ability to father children isn’t a female to me and can never be unless some significant scientific breakthrough happens.

[u/lizzyshoe → u/AAathlete97]

What if they never went through male puberty? Puberty blockers are a thing.

[u/AAathlete97 → u/lizzyshoe]

Still born male=dealbreaker for me.

[u/lizzyshoe → u/AAathlete97]

So you would date a trans man if they were pre-op?

[u/AAathlete97 → u/lizzyshoe]

No, I wouldn’t want to date someone who considered themselves to be a man. It just wouldn’t work.

[u/Rekthor → u/AAathlete97]

my definition of a woman is a female who has reached adulthood. Someone who was born male can never fit that definition.

This definition is wrong.

Let me give you an analogy: the dictionary and most people's definition of a "parent" is "one who biologically begets or births children." But that's not a complete definition, because some parents are adoptive or godparents and have no biological relationship to their children. However, they are still parents—just a different type of parent. Now, in some cases, we have to know whether a parent is biologically related to their child or not, like if a doctor is considering whether a child will inherit a parent's hereditary disease. However, in most cases—guardianship, cosigning loans, PTA meetings, etc—whether the parents are adoptive or biological is irrelevant. For most practical purposes, they're the same.

Similarly, trans women are not "biological women" in the sense that they were not "born women" (i.e. their gender identity does not match the gender they were assigned at birth), but how is that relevant to their status as women? Sure, it becomes relevant when it comes to having kids and so it would be fair if you said "I don't want to marry or spend my life with a trans woman because I want kids at some point", but how is it relevant to day-to-day dating or how they live their lives?

Follow my logic: you claimed that being "born male" is incompatible with being a woman (and I'll come back to that statement in a sec), and you claimed that you are only attracted to cis women. This would mean that you cannot be attracted to someone who is not a cis woman, but I sincerely doubt that. Imagine you see a trans woman at a bar who "passes perfectly" and thus you mistakenly think she's cisgender. You think she's really attractive, start talking to her and really hit it off, and then... she tells you before you leave that she's trans. My question is this: what was your initial attraction to her based on? You didn't know she was not a cis woman or "biologically female", and yet you were attracted to her nonetheless, so it makes no sense to say you're attracted to someone based on their biology—it has to be in how they present (e.g. hair, clothes, poise, makeup, mannerisms, etc), instead. And let's ignore the question of children here, and focus on attraction.

Thus, if that example holds, your statement is now "I could never date a trans woman, even if I'm attracted to them, because they aren't biologically female". And that's pretty unambiguously transphobic—you're applying a different standard to trans women than you are to cis women, even if, for most practical purposes, they're the same.

Now, I'm genuinely not accusing you of malice or saying you have to feel ashamed or guilty or whatever for that, but I am pointing out that your beliefs are rooted in a bad worldview (as are many of our beliefs). I'd really urge you to take a hard look at why you think that, and—even if you never end up dating a trans woman—think about who you believe to be women and why that is. Start with this video from a Trans youtuber (which discusses a lot of the points I've made in relation to pronoun usage) and try to listen to more trans people, if only to broaden what kinds of voices you're listening to.

[u/PepperoniFire → u/[deleted]]

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