Gay MenNot being attracted to transmen doesn’t make you transphobic. : askgaybros

submitted by windrunner from reddit.com

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]windrunner[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Edit: to be frank I also think that these threads often have kinda inflammatory comments that don't help our side

Yes, definitely.

[–]8bitgay 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Frankly a big part of the LGBT community (and a relevant part of the straight people nowadays) believes strongly that trans men are men and trans women are women. This isn't new, this has been the case for years even before the whole "gays/lesbians must date trans" thing became popular.

I think we lose a lot of possible people for our side when people keep saying that trans men aren't men. And it makes the whole discussion easy to dismiss, because then they think "well, this person said transmen aren't men, and this is wrong, so everything he says is wrong". Maybe I'm being naïve, but I think we could get more people to our side by pointing out other issues.

[–]Rosefield 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah but if trans men are men then gay men have no "excuse" to not be attracted to them. You can't have it both ways. Either fight for lgb rights OR cater to homophobes & trans activists.

[–]8bitgay 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I mean, I also consider a male dog male, and it's pretty understandable for everyone that I wouldn't be attracted to a dog.

Frankly I believe that having the courtesy to call someone the way they prefer doesn't mean that they suddenly changed sex, and sex is relevant for many spaces. And they know it too: you don't see transmen rushing for military enlistment in countries where it's only compulsory for men. In situations when it's disadvantageous for them, they're fine with following their sex instead of their self-identified gender. This is also why you don't see as many transmen demanding to use the male bathroom.

As I've said before, they might say "gay men are attracted to men, so they're also attracted to transmen", but their views are often contradictory. Show them a picture of an attractive masculine non-binary person and suddenly they change the narrative to "gay men feel attracted to masculinity, regardless of how the person identifies". So even if you consider transmen as men, their logic easily falls into these contradictions. But if you consider only that gay men feel attracted to the male sex, it isn't contradictory. Under this logic, it doesn't matter if you consider transmen as men or not, they are outside of the scope of our attraction.

There are many gays and lesbians out there being convinced that they have to feel attracted to the opposite sex, while they also firmly support trans rights. Saying that transmen are women will probably only drive them further away, and it's not like this is something new to them.

Again, I might be naïve, but I think you have a better chance if you remind them that it's ok to fight for the rights of trans people, like the right to not suffer violence. But demanding to be part of other people's sex life and invading spaces of other groups (including opposite sex spaces) isn't anyone's right. Men have rights, and you can support men who have their rights denied without supporting incels.

However, I'm not even saying that you have to call transmen men. I'm just saying that coming to discussions about these topics using the "transmen are women" card right away will probably have the same negative result. I'd avoid saying this and instead focus on the other many issues of their discourse.