Wow, the fact that that post got flagged and hidden is telling to me. There doesn’t appear to be room for any sort of discussion on this topic, anything perceived as anti trans is immediately ignored.
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I wasn’t referring to the survey; I was referring to
Correct. Let me see if i can find the official word on that.
Even though I turned off notifications, I still got a pop up, so I’ll respond.
I specifically postulated that you remained attracted to her — that your only reason for refusing to continue the relationship is that she is trans. If you aren’t attracted anymore, then of course it isn’t transphobic. That seems incredibly clear to me.
I also said:
but you seem to have missed that part.
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Change the word trans to black in your sentence and realize what you sound like.
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That wasn’t at all clear (to me) from your post. That’s a far more reasonable position than your post implied.
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OK, that’s fair enough. Reading back, it looks like my point was spread over several posts, so it’s easy to misread the intent as you go through.
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As I read the flagged post it was arguing for gender equality.
Is arguing for gender equality considered anti trans?
Because, arguing for racial equality is not considered anti-black as best I understand.
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The post was chock full of anti-trans dog whistles and TERF talking points. It’s exactly the type of test post bigots make on a site to see if they can get away with it before they slowly get more vile. It’s exactly what killed the political section of the AO for many people.
There is no gender equality without equality for trans people. I didn’t become a woman in June 2020 when I started my transition, or in November 2020 when I changed my name and pronouns publicly. I have been female since November 19<mumble, mumble> when I was born. It is a core part of who I am.
Look, I don’t want to be trans. It’s not a choice anyone would make. It’s a brutally hard life in our society, and it’s much harder for many than it is for me. I fought for 30 years to fake being a cis man, to keep society happy at my own expense. But in the end, I just couldn’t fight who I am anymore.
Do some trans women look like stereotypes? Yes, but a huge part of that is that if we just wear a jeans and sweater, we get misgendered constantly. We are in the middle of a nor-easter here, so that’s what I’m wearing today because it works with the weather, but it is a 90% chance that when I pick up lunch today that despite having breasts and having makeup and nail polish on that I get 'sir’ed due to the jeans. Either we perform femininity or we get misgendered.
Society has to get past this ‘icky’ feeling they get when trans issues are discussed because it involves genitals and sexuality. Being trans is just another physical characteristic of the human condition. Most people are born right handed, some are born left handed, and some are neither. Same thing with gender identity — most people are born cis, some are born trans, and some are neither.
We are just asking to be left alone to live our lives, without the fear of being murdered or attacked because of who we are. Without being mis-gendered intentionally because we put on a pair of jeans because it’s cold, or being excluded from using the washroom in public areas. We just want trans kids to be able to play sports, go to dances, and have the schools recognize them for who they are.
We aren’t taking anything away from cis people. We just want to be treated as humans.
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Thinking about this some more, I guess that’s fine as long as you’re not judging on why someone isn’t attracted any more.
People have preferences on all kinds of things, some of which aren’t obvious until you undress. Like whether or not a male-bodied person has been circumcised, or a female-bodied person has had a boob job
In fact, so common are those two, that they each have TV episodes from popular series devoted to them. (I’m thinking of Sex and the City and Seinfeld, respectively, but there are probably others too.)
I’m not sure that other surgical alterations belong in a different category. 
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There is no explaining sexual/romantic attraction in my experience. Either it is there or it is not, and trying to figure out reasons for it is a waste of time and counterproductive.
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So we have a policy of posts being welcoming and friendly, and mods shut down posts where they feel it’s crossed that line. And in the end, where the line gets drawn on the issue is where the mods decide. Because there’s no consensus from users on this subject, just disagreement and beratement.
It’s my intent to have this place welcoming. It’s the mods intent to build a community and allow conversation. Hopefully we can agree with the intent even if sometimes there’s disagreement on the implementation.
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I think an analogy would be:
It’s not racist if you are mostly attracted to light-skinned people.
But if you are attracted to someone, but then learn that they are a light skinned Black person and are turned off by that, that’s racist.
Lots of people have strong preferences for one set of genitals over the other in their sexual partners. That’s the norm, and it’s not anti-trans. But lots of people don’t. Most bisexuals are not too concerned with what’s under the shorts, for instance. If what turns you off is that the person is trans, that’s anti-trans.
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I think the why matters a whole lot, but not something easy to dissect (like at will employment on protected classes)
Is there a difference between preference and prejudice?
Is there a difference between “I prefer to date non-black people only” vs “I prefer to date taller people only” (obvious tangent to “I prefer to date cis-people only”)
Ehhhh, I think a post like that is pretty easy to argue down. You did an excellent job there.
To expand a bit…
I think the liberal trend is that it’s not society’s business to tell people how to act.
If acting femme is important to you, then by all means, act femme.
If it’s not important to you, then don’t act femme.
If acting gay is important to you, then act gay.
If acting black is important to you, then act black.
If acting cis is important to you, then act cis.
If acting none of the above is important to you, then act none of the above.
Etc. Etc.
It’s arguably more liberal than declaring people are wrong for having feelings, and hopefully will make fewer people want to kill themselves.
Now I as a woman have this awareness that this is what half of our society (the liberal half no less) believes a woman is.
And this specifically is incorrect. It’s not that liberals believe women = femme. Liberals believe that people should be free to define themselves.
What we now have to live with is people that define themselves differently from how we define ourselves. A sort of anarchy.
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Honestly it might be better to just start a Feminism thread.
There’s nothing uniquely trans about society’s mixed feelings about what it means to be a woman (or any other identity). The same conflict has split the feminist movement (and every other movement) for decades.
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Anne_Roth’s post was not only offensive, but it was idiotic. And if “conservative men” in her workplace really give her a problem for being not feminine enough, that’s a hr issue not a trans issue.
I don’t believe this happened though.
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Easy in what sense? It may not be obvious, but there is an extremely high emotional price that I pay participating in these threads. I made that post then spent 15 minutes wandering around my office building to calm down enough to focus.
And it’s not just these threads. It like that every. single. day. of a trans person’s existence. Being scared of being attacked because I need to pee at Panera Bread. Getting told my voice sounds fake, or too deep. Getting messages on Twitter calling me a rapist and that I should lose my children.
There are two choices in online forums: either you ban all use of bigotry, dog whistles, and hate, or your forum isn’t safe for marginalized folks and eventually the hate is all you have. There is no reason for discussion about whether people of human rights or deserve to exist. There is no legitimate discussion to be had.
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