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.

Yes, I think so too. But are they issues of sex/body dysphoria? Or gendered stereotypes?

Seems to me that's the crucisl thing.

But then I was brought up amongst drag queens, most of whom are/were gay men, who liked to dress up & parody women (another thread right there) but did not want to BE women, nor have other people treat them as women. THey were men, interested in men sexually, and usually pretty secure in that identity.

Gender being how you feel in your head

In the academic feminist theory from which all this controversy stems (partly) "gender" tends to refer to the socially conditioned gendered roles people feel coerced by patriarchy to play.

I haven't read the whole thread (I know, I know, I'm sorry and I will but under pressure of time). Part of me thinks it is a little bit bigoted to rule out an entire group of people, for anything. I've never fancied a transgender person before, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility. I've never fancied a girl before, but I suppose it could happen and that would be fine. There are patterns in my preferences, of course, like anyone else (I'm partial to big gruff men with beards, like my DH) but I don't think I can state categorically that I would never be attracted to any feature in particular. I'm attracted to people as individuals, not as the sum of a bunch of parts.

So you consider everybody bigoted who doesn't self-define as bisexual? Surely that's the logical outcome of your post?

Do you think lesbians and gays are bigots, freerange?

You know what? It would be a fuck of a lot easier for women to accept this shit if trans people started off with men. Women have been pressured and guilted into sex and men demanded justifications from women for their boundaries since forever. How about trans people who want to have sex with men get them to accept that it is bigoted to write off trans people as sexual partners and thenaybe we can talk about whether women are bigots for settings their own sexual boundaries.

I've seen loads of conversations where transwomen talk about how they are only attracted to (cos they're permitted to say...) natal women/born women etc - it's nodded along with.
Whereas women can't say this - or if we do, we can't tie it in with our sexual orientation.
Like FloraFox says, it's policing women's sexuality and behaviour yet again.

Oh and being bisexual isn't inclusive enough. It's queer pansexual or nothing, I'm afraid.

Kim, Freerangeeggs said: 'Part of me thinks it is a little bit bigoted to rule out an entire group of people, for anything.'

Surely a whole sex counts as an entire group of people?

That kind of sexual preference may be bigoted, but isn't necessarily. I agree that it is telling that, while (born) men are allowed immutable sexual tastes, (born) women aren't.