HeSheThey by Schuyler Bailar

Author:Schuyler Bailar [BAILAR, SCHUYLER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2023-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

“NOT WANTING TO DATE TRANS PEOPLE IS NOT TRANSPHOBIC; IT’S JUST A PREFERENCE!”

In March 2021, a video describing a “new sexuality” went viral on TikTok. In it, a boy claims that he has come up with “super straight,” a sexuality that excludes trans people because he was tired of being called transphobic. When asked about dating trans women, the TikToker says in his video, “She’s not a real woman to me. I want a real woman. […] So now I’m a super straight. […] You can’t say I’m transphobic because that’s just my sexuality, you know?”1 The TikToker’s account was eventually removed for violating community guidelines.

But sadly, the movement continued. A disappointing number of individuals piled on the trend, declaring their own “super straightness.” Thousands of people joined a subreddit for “super straight,” unveiling their deep-seated transphobia. Some even claimed they were dealing with “superphobia,” describing the “oppression” they were experiencing for their supposed sexuality. The Reddit has since been banned for “promoting hate.”2

While the label “super straight” was explicitly intended to exclude trans people on the basis of our transness—and is therefore, by definition, transphobic—the argument that it’s “just a preference,” is still, by far, the most common argument I’ve heard attempting to validate rejecting trans people on the basis of transness.

It’s just preference. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

At the most granular level, “preference” here usually refers to genital preference: some people claim they prefer dating men with a penis, others prefer women without one. “Super straight” and similar ideologies then utilize this “preference” to declare they would not date trans people, based on the assumption that trans men do not have penises and trans women do. But even this base assumption is false: some trans men have penises and some trans women do not.

Beyond this inaccuracy, even the concept of genital “preference” is reductive. If we lived in a perfect world free of transphobia, then yes, being attracted only to certain genitals could be “just a preference.” But the thing is: we don’t live in that ideal world. We live in a racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, and very transphobic world. Our preferences were not formed in a social vacuum. Our preferences are born in and of a world fraught with systemic oppression and massive identity-based injustice. Given this, I believe it’s impossible to extricate “just a preference” from systemic oppression—in this case, transphobia—present in our everyday lives.

Consider the same excuses that are frequently given about race: “I’m not racist, I just don’t like Black women,” or, “I’m not anti-Asian, I just don’t date Asian men,” and so on. While no one should ever force you to date someone you don’t want to date, these “preferences” are still inherently racist. They are born of and contribute to a system of oppression that continues to discriminate against and disenfranchise Black and other people of color. The same goes with the choice not to date trans folks.

Someone can absolutely choose not to date us, and that choice can still be transphobic.

If a trans man doesn’t have a penis, it is for one reason: because he is transgender.

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