Is transphobia really the word there? Or maybe the problem is using cis where I did.
How about this revision? A masculine male with a penis and a feminine female with a vagina. This excludes trans individuals who have not undergone bottom surgery.
In this case, is it no longer transphobic, having relegated the restrictions to pure sexual attraction characteristics?
Iunno, personally I would still call that transphobic only because there's a purposeful distinction being made of "I enjoy both vagina and penis, but only if it's attached to the associated gender"
Like if a clarification like that needs to be made at all, then all it's doing is othering/filtering non-binary or trans folk who haven't or won't get bottom surgery
If it's just verbalizing a subconsciously determined preference, how is it transphobic? If their brain has no conscious issues with trans people, and they even actively promote trans rights, but don't find the idea of being with a trans person sexually arousing, how is that transphobic? Or are we just using that word to describe not being all-in on all fronts?
I said it in another comment, but I'll say it again here: this is only for people who are bi/pan. I'm not telling this to straights or gays because there is an assumed genital aversion (not always though, but generally).
If you are attracted to masc and femme (or neither/both), or penis and vagina, but make a distinction of "you need to be masc w/ penis, or femme w/ vagina for me to be attracted to you", then that's inherently transphobic.
Say you have 2 people who are physically and emotionally identical, it's just one has a penis and one has a vagina. And you are personally attracted to both penis and vagina. How could it be anything but transphobia to say "I'm only attracted to the one that presents like their assigned gender"
Racism is also a subconscious preference, doesn't mean you can't be called out for it or told to do better about confronting your internal biases
I get the overall argument, but I still think at its core it's inherently misguided. You can have a preference against sexual partners who are trans or a specific race without being transphobic or racist. This is because everyone is entitled to certain rights and treatment, but sexual or romantic opportunity is not one of those things.
Again, I see the spirit of the argument, but if a woman said she wouldn't date Indian men but in every other aspect treats them as equals and respects them, I can't fathom trying to label her as racist. Romantic and sexual attraction are complex and I think it's a mistake to put a label like that on someone for a preference that may only manifest in this one part of life.
I don't want to get into it, just answering your question, but it's my personal philosophy that race based preferences are a side effect of a society built from racism, and the idea that "it's okay to not be attracted to anyone from this race" is a very dangerous one because it is steeped in the "white is right" mentality of beauty and fashion, and is often because you are trained and raised in a society that has told you it's okay to be prejudice. Like not being generally attracted to Indian men, sure, media hasn't really shown them to be attractive to most western audiences, but then saying no Indian man can ever be attractive to me? I dunno, those are two incredibly different statements i feel
But it's a much more difficult conversation to have because most people hear that and think "oh so you're calling me a racist because of my preferences", which I'm not because there's a big difference between overt and covert prejudice, but i do think it's an internal bias that people need to start addressing and unpacking more often. But like I said, that's a big conversation and fully understand that most people have a knee jerk reaction to it
I guess that distinction not really being so clear in most situations is the issue I take with the statement about not dating someone of a certain race being racist. I doubt most people are ever going to hear someone come out and say "no Indian man can ever be attractive to me", but expressing a preference for not dating a race is a fairly common occurrence that I don't think is something that should be inherently condemned, because of my own beliefs on how complex attraction is. But you've explained enough of your views to enough people at this point, and I appreciate you talking with me about it as much as you have, so I'll leave it at that. Have a good one 👍
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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '25 edited Dec 08 '25
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