When You Say “I’m Not Attracted To Trans Women”
By: Cassie Brighter
Tags: Inclusion, Diversity, Trans Visibility, Dating, Transgender

When You Say “I’m Not Attracted To Trans Women”

You have full freedom to choose your sexual partners. You also have accountability to be a decent human.

Date who you want to date. Of course each person should be free to pursue their own choices and listen to their own heart. But when you say “I’m not attracted to trans women,” you’re taking about more than 20 million people. There are over one million trans women in the United States alone.

Saying that you wouldn’t be attracted to millions of people give never met sure sounds like prejudice to me.

“Oh but my sexual attraction is tied to a type of genitals,” you might say. Well, many, many trans women have vulvas and vaginas.

Some say that dating someone who “used to be a boy” makes one gay. No. Dating someone who used to be a child doesn’t make you a pedophile. You date the person she is today. Also, trans women didn’t “use to be a boy” — they were born with a body condition which is rectifiable through medical means.

Some might say, “trans women cannot bear children.” This is sadly true. But many women are unable to bear children, and judging the worth of a woman by her childbearing ability is medieval. There’s adoption. There are surrogates. There are solutions.

The reality is that this society is still swimming in a soup of toxic masculinity where men are terrified of having their man card challenged, where their sexuality runs down a weird river of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia, where the need to conform and not be bullied supercedes a man’s free choices of whom to love.

Date who you want to date. But truly give yourself freedom of choice. If the woman you love won’t meet the standards of your buddies at the pub, maybe you need new pals.

Is it transphobic to not date trans women? Who knows. Search your own heart. You know what drives you — and if it’s fear or even disgust, you might want to question that. But hey, it truly IS your choice to make. However, is it transphobic to pronounce publicly “I would never date a trans woman”? Yes, a thousand times yes. Discounting millions of humans before you’ve even met them is prejudice. And making such a pronouncement feeds bigotry.

I was at a pizza place today. I asked for a lemonade, the man reached for a bottle. “Sorry,” I said, “I don’t do plastic.”

Do you see? I didn’t just say, “do you have a glass bottle? I prefer those.” I made a public statement against plastic. Other customers heard. To a smaller or larger degree, I influenced people’s opinion. (I hope.)

Your words matter. Your words sway others.

What would you think of someone who writes “no fatties” in their profile? Or “no men below 5'10”?” What would you think of someone who wrote “No Hispanics”?

Date who you want to date. But don’t prescribe your own preferences — and prejudices — into others. And challenge your prejudices. It’s ok, we all have prejudices. Sadly it’s part of being human. But just understand that prejudices are PRE — before, JUDICE — think… to think before you know.

Get to know people. You might find that, in this world of 7.1 billion people, there are more people you like than you originally thought.