I found myself in an argument with a radical trans activist recently. It started around the question of whether one would date a trans person. Now my sexual orientation is attraction to women. I like the shape of a woman’s face, I like the shape of a woman’s body, and I like ‘interacting’ with female body parts.
I stated that were I currently dating, I would have no problem with dating a trans woman. There are some trans women who I find quite attractive, and the fact that they are trans would not bother me. I said however that for me to be sexually intimate with a trans woman, she’d have to have a vagina, meaning she’d have to have had what is referred to as ‘bottom surgery’ or vaginoplasty or gender correction surgery AKA gender reassignment surgery.
There are extreme trans activists, including one I argued with online, who would call me transphobic for not wanting to have sex with a trans woman who still had a penis. As I said, I like ‘interacting’ with female body parts. That is not limited to breasts, but also includes the vagina. I’m quite happy to give a woman pleasure by stimulating her vagina in a number of ways, including stroking, oral stimulation, and regular old coitus.
I prefer to get my pleasure through coitus, particularly face to face, and don’t much care which of several face to face positions we use. I’ve done ‘doggy style’ and it’s fine, but prefer to be able to see and kiss the woman during sex. Unlike many men, I don’t care to receive oral stimulation, and don’t care for anal either. I’ve tried both, and they just aren’t the same. At the same time, I have no interest whatsoever in pleasuring someone else’s penis through oral or anal. Let me be clear, I don't care what gender one was assigned at birth, nor do I care what gender you identify as now. If the person has a penis, I have no interest in having sex with them.
That is their right, and if they identify as women, I have no problem with considering them to be women, but if they still have a penis and not a vagina, I don’t wish to have sex with them. That is my sexual orientation, and I don’t see why that should cause me to be considered transphobic. I neither fear nor hate trans individuals. I don’t wish to treat them any different from cisgender people. I don’t wish to deny them rights, or determine which bathrooms they have access to.
Hell, for what it’s worth, there are many cisgender women I don’t wish to have sex with for many reasons. Not every woman is someone I would be romantically or sexually attracted to. There are a variety of factors involved in what I find attractive, and I don’t know that I could even list them all, even if I wanted to. Sometimes women who I think I wouldn’t be attracted to, I end up finding I am, while others for whom I have an initial attraction, I find other factors lessening that draw.
Whether or not someone was assigned female at birth is not among the factors that I really even care about. I do want a particular set of genitalia, and some female appearance – though I’ve found myself drawn to some very attractive androgynous looking women at times.
I pointed out to the person I was arguing with that Janet Mock, who is a prominent trans woman and activist says explicitly that she is a heteronormative trans woman, meaning that she is exclusively attracted to men. The woman told me that in that case, Ms. Mock was transphobic. I pretty much ceased arguing at that point, since I felt the person was beyond reason.
Folks, not all trans allies are pansexual. Some of us are basically either heterosexual or homosexual in orientation and that implies a wish for the body parts associated with the gender that the other person identifies as. For a bisexual person, I’m not sure how many would care whether the genitalia matched the gender identification. For some it might, and others it might not.
Regardless, we each have the right to choose romantic or sexual partners based on what attracts us and for many, the genitalia are a part of that. I don’t feel it is transphobic to prefer a particular set of genitalia. As I said, I don’t care whether those are the genitalia the person was born with, if the person otherwise attracts me. I do care which set they have.
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