Another… (I was thinking in the shower.)
On the continuum from a raging, murderous transphobe to the perfect ally where is the point where you can label someone a transphobe?
I’ve already told you that I have had a pair of transfem friends for 50 years, a transmasc friend for 10 years, my kids have non-binary and trans friends who I treat with the same dignity and respect that I treat everyone else in my life is the simple fact that I’m interested in cis women enough to get me labelled a transphobe? What if I’m that raging, murderous transphobe but I have sex with trans women? Is being a transphobe like a scorecard, you can have a perfect score but a single wrong answer and you’re a transphobe?
I’m not being an ass or trolling. I genuinely want to understand your perspective on these questions to inform further discussion.
I asked a longtime lesbian friend whose partner is a retired human rights lawyer who specialized in LGBTQ+ rights law about this conversation and the partner mentioned absolutism (which I mentioned in another part of this discussion.) I just wonder if that’s what’s going on here.
I’m off to a maker fair with my family today so I probably won’t get back to this until late this evening. I hope you have a good day.
Sorry that it has taken me a long time to respond, I’ve been at the cabin, away from my phone.
Yeah the problem is that because of the history of discrimination we don’t have words for relatively harmless discriminatory tendencies. So if I were to say
I have racist tendencies
it sounds like I’m admitting to being a “capital R” racist, when what I mean is,
I was taught incorrect stereotypes by media as a child, and sometimes despite my best efforts to be egalitarian, these biases cause me to make bad judgements. I try to notice when this happens, to make sure I treat people fairly.
Yeah I’m not saying anyone is a jerk for having sexual interest only with feminine people with vaginas and boobs, I’m just saying that it’s kinda trans-erasure (and therefore technically transphobic) to say
I’m exclusively attracted to cis-women
Because a person doesn’t know the assigned birth sex of every woman they’ve ever been attracted to.
OurToothbrush was offended because she is a transwoman and attracts men that think they’re exclusively attracted to cis-women. She’s on the front line of transphobia, and searching for a partner puts her at a too real risk of being murdered by a transphobe.
Yeah it sounds like absolution is a relevant term. People like to think that there are only biological males and biological females and that’s that. It’s not that simple. People like to think that there are racists and non-racists and that’s that. It’s not that simple. People like to think that there are transphobes and non-transphobes and that’s that. It’s not that simple. To me, being an ally is is about supporting a community to defeat unfair discrimination. Imo supporting individuals with friendship isn’t exactly the same but it’s better than nothing.
We all have lives. I sometimes remember that I was discussing something with someone weeks later.
In the end my trans friends, LGBTQ friends, my lesbian daughter, and my son and daughter’s LGBTQ, non-binary, and trans friends and everyone who knows me knows that I’m not a transphobe. They know that I’m an ally. They know that they can count on me for support and that I will actively protect them.
Being labelled a transphobe by someone who doesn’t know me and obviously has rather extreme views is less than meaningless to me. I engaged in the coversation to try to help her to understand my position and that labelling anyone who wasn’t interested in having sex with her, no matter how much of an ally they really were, was counterproductive. I did my best. I’m going to keep doing my best to be an ally no matter how much people who demand thought perfection label me. That’s just who I am.
