#ally culture
the thing is, that, like, no one really questions you if you say, “i was bullied in school for being gay,” even if you didn’t know you were gay at the time, we accept that people, even by the time they are children, have a sense for those differences which make someone an acceptable target.
and yet. when trans women say that they were victims of misogyny before coming out, suddenly people throw up their arms and insist that they cannot possibly understand how that would be the case, even though it’s explained by a model of behaviour they already readily accept in another context.
this is going to be a very long post. it has to be, because i know a lot of people are going to disagree with it, and i dislike arguing so i am trying to lay out everything, pre-empt all possible questions and challenges, right from the beginning. i am sorry if you have trouble reading it. i will probably not explain much. it’s about a difficult subject, one I do not enjoy talking about it.
it’s about genital preference, which for those of you out of the loop, is the idea that in addition to only dating people of certain genders, some people will only date people with certain genital configurations, or in other words, of a particular coercively assigned sex. if you havent figured it out by now, this usually means they dont date trans people. or sometimes that they date based on coercively assigned sex at birth, regardless of gender. this post is going to focus on trans women and cis lesbians because that is my experience. if you find anything i say rings true for other groups, great, but if you want to talk about that further then make your own post.
the discourse is this: some people think this is an apolitical stance, just a quirk of human sexuality - some people like their partners with X genitals and thats just the way it is. others believe this is a product of the way society encodes meaning into bodies - its not really about the shape of the genitals, its about what they represent. if the second one is true then we would have to understand this preference as being influenced by transmisogyny, because transmisogyny is present in the way society encodes meaning into bodies.
when i talk about transmisogyny like this, i mean it in a material sense. i mean that something has a measurable, negative impact on trans women, on our quality of life, on our access to community, on how we are treated, and regarded, and talked about, or that it is a consequence of these things. i am not talking about an ideological transmisogyny i.e., one that is merely about how people feel. i think that a lot of the people who express this preference probably dont hate trans women. i think they think of us as women, they think of us as an oppressed and exploited minority, i think a lot of them want to be good allies to us. i dont doubt that. but i think they also think of their sexual preferences as unrelated to that, which is where we disagree.
so that’s the subject matter, and just a few of the disclaimers i feel i have to make before diving into this. now here’s my take -
if a cis lesbian knows that she is uncomfortable with trans women’s genitalia, acknowledges that this is probably a product of the way patriarchy coercively assigns meaning to bodies and, although potentially also a product of her own traumas, is ultimately a result of transmisogyny, and not an innate biological urge or otherwise something that trans women have no right to question, but is still actively committed to materially supporting and defending trans women in her life, then like, whatever. we can probably still work together.
now i want to be very clear. this is not about sex. this is not about me, or any other trans woman, wanting to have sex with anyone. im mostly interested in other trans women anyway. i am dating one cis woman currently, and i hope to be with her for the rest of my life, but if we break up i consider it very unlikely i will date a cis woman again. so it’s not about sex. it isn’t about that. but it’s still important.
since we know that there is a clear and measurable exclusion of trans lesbians from lesbian spaces, communities, organisations, that there is a clear and measurable lack of friendships between and social circles that include both cis lesbians and trans lesbians, compared to what you would expect given our shared lesbianism and relative numbers. given that lesbian groups and women’s groups generally, where they exist, are by and large hostile to the inclusion of trans women, not always openly hostile, but materially hostile -
then who would deny this is a consequence of transmisogyny? you cannot argue that is just biology or innate preference. and yet, when it comes to who cis lesbians date, we are supposed to believe it has nothing to do with who we can see they would rather be friends with? or who they would rather organise with, or live with, or talk to, or, like, play sports with? that is an absurd claim. an unsupportable claim. if the trends the previous paragraph describes are undeniably transmisogynist, and genital preference is undeniably both a consequence of those trends and a contributor to them, which it is, then genital preference is transmisogynist. it’s transmisogynist because it has both the effect of and is a consequence of isolating and othering trans women. it’s transmisogynist because it’s a product of the way patriarchy coercively assigns meaning to bodies. it’s a product of transmisogyny. it’s by definition transmisogynist. intent doesnt come into that. cis lesbians’ internal experience of it doesnt come into that. if your preference is traumatic in origin then it is a trauma shaped by transmisogyny. our traumatic responses are not immune to criticism.
even supposing some individuals might still possess this preference in a genderless society, since we cannot knowthis, assuming this and basing your politics around it is not a position you can possibly defend as materialist since we already know that patriarchy and transmisogyny are also shaping even our most private responses. to pretend like that’s not the case - to pretend like you can knowthat’s not the case, is to live in a transmisogynist fiction.
but the question this raises then, presumably, is does this reaction by cis women not in fact betray something deeper, that they must not really believe trans women are women, or care about us, or some such. and i would only say that wantingto fuck us does not rule out this possibility either.all it really tells us is that they, like all cis people, has internalised the value system that is transmisogyny. but we already knew that. that’s a given. we havent acquired any new information.
what i find really condemnable is defending this position as value-neutral, or demanding trans women reassure you about the way you see our bodies. what is also obviously unacceptable is pretending that trans women’s objection and discomfort with your preference comes from a place of “pressuring lesbians to have sex with trans women,” and not in fact from a place of trauma and exhaustion with the way we are seen and treated across all facets of our lives, not just sexual. if you tell a trans woman about your preference and she reacts badly, she does so because she is upsetwith you, not because she wants to fuck you. get over yourself. all of this is a mark of far greater transmisogyny than your initial reaction to our bodies.
like, here’s the thing. i have never seen a justification for genital preference by a cis lesbian that did not misgender trans women and our bodies (with words like dick, vagina, male & female, see this post for clarity), that did not subtly demonise us, that did not portray us as sexual aggressors, that was not patronising,that did not show a supreme lack of empathy for us, or that showed any attempt to understand how this is a traumatic subject for usas well. if it was not already deducible from the nature of genital preference that it was a transmisogynist position then it would still be obvious from the way cis lesbians talk about it.
to act like all these trans women, for all these years, offering all these analyses of this situation are all wrong, or misguided, or irrational or over-emotional or predatory, that is what betrays your real feelings towards us. that is not a defendable position. not without denying transmisogyny, not without denying the power cis women wield over trans women and trans women’s position as an oppressed and exploited group, not without denying our humanity, our subjectivity, our basic ability to understand and talk about our situation.
and if you do feel this way, and you recognise its origins in transmisogyny, and you’re just not sure how to change it or if you can, the correct thing to do is to keep it to yourself. no public confessional, no “i feel like i should tell you this to be accountable.” you literally just dont tell us. if you keep your sexual preferences private, like you should be doing anyway, and commit yourself to combatting transmisogyny in all other respects, including in yourself, then your preferences become irrelevant. in that situation i literally dont care.
this includes making posts on your blog about it. this includes talking privately to other cis lesbians about it and sharing how you think we are being unreasonable. (this does not necessarily preclude the possibility of anydiscussion on the subject between cis women, cis women should, after all, talk about transmisogyny and combatting transmisogyny amongst each other, as well.)
and oh my god does this ever include tagging or replying to this post with some shit about how it applies to you and you want to do better. dont do that! i dont want to know. if you really want to change then all of the above advice is probably how you do that. the way to unlearn the dehumanising responses you have to trans women is to treat us like human beings, and that includes not exposing us to your harmful beliefs about us and that especially includes not asking us to process those feelings for you. if you can do that, and treat us that way, maybe change is inevitable consciousness follows material events.
if you think any of that’s unreasonable, consider that this is how you should be approaching anyoppressive attitude or reflex you recognise in yourself. you dont make it the problem of those people the belief hurts. you commit yourself to the struggle and deal with it privately.
and like, i do not want you to feel ashamed. i dont want that. shame doesnt help me. shame doesnt allow change, or growth, or healing. it actually hurts me. it hurts me the same way it hurts trans women when people feel ashamed *because* they’re attracted to us. shame leads to lashing out. shame leads to the kind of diatribe against trans women from up-til-then good allies i have seen too many times already. none of us are trying to shame you. we’re not doing that. we’re not in a position to do that. you’re doing that. it is cis people’s ideas about who and how trans women are that produces the shame you feel about how you relate to us, however that might be. stop blaming us.
anyway that’s like, literally the most compassionate take i can offer on this. anything else would demean myself.
and, can i add, finally, that as a trans woman, who has not always known she was trans, who did not always know trans women even existed, but who has never the less alwaysbeen a lesbian: i’ve been there? i grew up thinking i was only attracted to cis women too. even after transitioning i had to learn to look past the ingrained responses i had to trans women’s bodies. like, you aren’t that special. you’re not having some secret lesbian reaction that only cis women will understand. i’ve been there. i unlearned it. it wasn’t innate. there’s a reason this “preference” is so common among cis lesbians but virtually non-existent among trans lesbians. its not a lesbian thing. stop hiding behind that. we’re lesbians too. stop forgetting we’re lesbians too. not less lesbians. not lesbians with any other qualifier. lesbians as much as you are, exactly the way you are.
Reasons why the “trans is a medical condition” narrative bugs me:
- It implies that being cis is normal and that being trans is abnormal, or a defect.
- It implies that transness is something to be cured, fixed, or endured, rather than a part of yourself to be proud of.
- It implies that transness is defined by suffering or unhappiness, when in fact most of us are happier after we accept ourselves as trans, and many of us embrace it.
- It implies that the main problem with being trans is transness itself, rather than living in a horribly transphobic society.
- By treating transness as a private, individual issue instead of as a social phenomenon, it fails to hold transphobic people and transphobic culture accountable for why trans people suffer.
- It implies that you need medical authorities and/or gatekeepers to verify that you’re actually trans, to “diagnose” you with it, and that you don’t have the right to identify as whatever is best for you. It takes power out of trans people’s hands and gives it to cis people.
- It implies that cis people are better authorities on whether a person is trans, and what it means to be trans, than trans people are.
- Requiring diagnosis/treatment from the medical establishment penalizes poor trans people, disabled or neurodivergent trans people, non-English-speaking trans people, and trans people of color.
- It’s usually associated with the idea that you need body dysphoria to “prove” that you’re trans, which is exclusionary and harmful to a lot of trans people.
- It’s connected to nasty ideas like “autogynephilia” which disproportionately pathologize trans women, police their identities, and make it harder for them to get support or transition.
- It puts non-binary trans people in a difficult position, because the medical establishment has no idea how to deal with us, or transition routes besides FTM or MTF.
Now, I can definitely understand why gender dysphoria (especially body dysphoria) might be considered a medical condition. But even then, I think we should be cautious about how much of a person’s suffering we attribute to illness, and how much of it is caused by the society around them.
Also: It’s perfectly fine if you’re trans and you see your transness as a medical condition. If that model works for you, that’s great and I support that. I’m just saying that, when transness in general is conceptualized as a medical condition, or when that’s seen as the only way to be trans, it bothers me a lot.
