Is fancying a particular sex and not a particular gender bigoted?

[ArcheryAnnie]

Changed name for obvious reasons.

Provoked by this article - which is getting a depressing amount of traction, by a blogger on twitter called stavvers: www.donotlink.com/framed?43198

Short version: if your sexual preferences are linked in any way to the shape of your potential partner's genitals, then you are a bigot. So, eg, if you are straight, you should be attracted to men who have vulvas, and if you are a lesbian, you should be attracted to women with penises. (This isn't saying "it's totes ok to fancy trans lesbians or transmen", which would be cool, it's saying "if you pay any attention to the shape of someone's genitals at all, you are a bigot".) Any way of Doing Sexuality apart from stavvers' way is creepy and weird, and also cissexist and bigoted.

Most of this was aimed at women, naturally. Men's preferences were an afterthought.

In the twitter storm that followed, stavvers and her allies spent a lot of time tee-heeing about how any woman who disagreed with her was probably crap in bed, and all these lesbians who objected it this were prudes who didn't know how to have sex, were probably just holding hands in the dark, and .....dear god it was like a timewarp into the 1950s. Lesbians who choose not to sleep with people - men or women - who have penises are prudish and frigid! How hilarious! How new!

This would all be irrelevant if stavvers was seen as what she is (one of those tedious people who thrive on being "shocking" and "edgy"), but she's got a depressing amount of support for it.

The right to be a prude, and not have to be "up for anything" is pretty much feminism 101, I would have thought.

LRD - I ...kind of see what you mean, but it's not so much judging them for what they choose to keep or get rid of, as judging some for what they choose to do with whatever they have. And if what they choose to do is keep all the physical advantages and attributes they had before, but use their trans status to berate and bullying women who don't want to have PIV into having PIV with them - I judge that absolutely, just as I'd judge any man who possessed a penis who did the same.

(Just thought of this - I don't think I've ever seen stuff by trans men complaining about either women or men not sleeping with them on the grounds that they don't have the right configuration. Maybe it exists, but I've never seen it.)

LRD I think there's a difference between judging transwomen who have penises or transmen who have babies and looking at these situations as examples of how transgenderism has moved from what society understands as transsexuals (i.e. men or women who want to live as the opposite sex and have genital surgery and other treatments and who typically and who want to be sexually "straight" post op) into, well who knows what? A lot of people, even if they have gender critical politics, are sympathetic to people suffering severe dysphoria and are okay with accommodating those people's needs to a certain extent. When we get the post-modern "anyone can be anything without doing anything other than saying who they are", there is a clash with women's rights and needs. It also becomes a snake that eats itself - what are they transitioning to and from?

Flora, your post makes a lot of sense to me.

I agreed with the article - basically about being tolerant and not nosey/inappropriate - until the bit about sexual preference, which is absolute nonsense, given what she says about rape earlier.

Flora, that made a lot of sense to me, too.

Hang on a minute...I'm confused as hell!

So even though I'm straight and fancy dp like hell I'm a bigot because I wouldn't want to screw a vulva? On a man?

Wow never thought I'd be classed as a bigot! Do I get a badge?

cal - oh, absolutely. I am boggled to all get-out.

flora - well, yes, that's more or less what I was trying to say! Judging individuals is not useful. I can believe many individuals are doing the best they can in a shitty social structure. What I cannot get around is the way that feminists have been trying to get recognition of oppression for decades, but in some contexts, trans activists have got the same rights much faster, simply because society is much happier with this binary idea of gender. And yet ultimately that binary idea doesn't solve anything much!

I was going to write a longish post about why I choose to have sex with a male with a penis but then I thought Hey fuck it, it's my fanny and you know what I get to choose who touches it. That is really the end of it.

I think she is confusing being "right-on" with being an arsehole.

I've become so freaking vanilla. Last night I dreamed about trans sex but rather then actually having it I was discussing it.
Does not having sex with transpeople in a dream make me bigot?

Arf you are bigoted even in your dreams.

There is no hope for you.

There's been a twitter war going on between a lesbian porn performer and trans activists attacking her for saying she does not want to have sex with any transwomen. Trans activists are demanding that she "casts" or "books" a transwoman for her porn i.e. that she has filmed sex with them and calling her transphobic for saying that she doesn't want to. At the same time, they are claiming they are not trying to coerce her into having sex with a transwoman. This is trans activist logic.

genderidentitywatch.com/2014/06/15/lily-cade-lily_cade-and-chelsea-poe-chelseapoe666-internet/

Flora, does this same activist also demand that men-born-as-men film with M to F trans folks? Is there a twitter war about that?

Thanks for that link Flora, it's quite an illuminating post about entitlement and expectation. Lily Cade states she's 'never sucked a cock and never will' and Chelsea Poe counters with an accusation of 'transphobia'. It isn't transphobia, it's merely that Lily, as a lesbian, doesn't want anything to do with cocks. The only person who has the power to say who Lily has sex with is Lily herself. And her partner, of course.

FloraFox I saw that RT'd into my timeline, and oh dear god. I was also pretty disappointed with Laurie Penny, who I've previously quite liked (though I don't follow her) parading around twitter yelling "TRANS WOMEN PRESSURING LESBIANS FOR SEX JUST NEVER HAPPENS" when this demonstrably happens quite a lot. And now when anyone asks her to comment on specific instances where it clearly is happening, she's all delicate-flower, can't cope with taking about it. (Which - I generally respect when someone doesn't have the time, energy or mental health resources to engage in a twitter argument, except when they are playing knock-down-ginger like Laurie is, having quite enough energy to make unsupportable, inflammatory statements but then no energy at all to acknowledge people who point out the problems in those statements.)

kim147 the problem is, the trans activists who think like that are the really vocal ones, and them and "allies" even have a special insult for trans women who challenge this kind of thinking in public: "truscum". (What goes through the head of an "ally" who thinks that they are advancing the cause of trans acceptance and equality by insulting trans women, I just don't know.) I don't blame any woman - trans or not trans - who doesn't stick their head above the parapet on this issue, but it really is polarising that the loudest voices on this are the hardline "die cis scum" ones.

DoctorTwo indeed.

There was also this line of argument that Lily Cade had thrown at her: "Please explain how folks are okay w/strap-ons in lesbian porn but not women with penises...oh right transphobia."

It should be feminism 101 that being OK with one sex act does not mean that you should be OK with any other sex act, even if some random idiot on twitter thinks they are similar. And, of course, it is also the case that being OK with one sex act on one occasion also does not mean that you should be obliged to perform that sex act a) ever again, if you don't want to or b) with a different person, if you don't want to.

What you say is entirely fair, kim147 - except that is now is what is widely seen as "trans activist logic". If this is all that is out there, visible, then it isn't really surprising that this is what will be accepted as representing mainstream thinking amongst trans people, whether this is true or not.

I'd bet that they don't, kim, but the atmosphere is such that anyone who speaks up is ripped to shreds, so the current situation isn't really surprising.

Also - of course - nobody is obliged to disclose their trans status (either way, as trans or not-trans), and nor should they be. It's a private decision for each person. I'd bet that some of the people now being derided online as "cis scum" for disagreeing with some of the more vocal activists are nothing of the sort.

There was also this line of argument that Lily Cade had thrown at her: "Please explain how folks are okay w/strap-ons in lesbian porn but not women with penises...oh right transphobia."

A strap-on is completely different to a penis. A penis is usually attached to somebody born male, and the lesbians I know (I used to know quite a few, as they used to drink in my then local and the bar staff advised them to sit with me as I was 'safe') don't want to have sex with anybody with a penis.

Btw, I never brought the subject up, they did, in a "apparently you're a decent bloke ..." sort of way.