The Cotton Ceiling

[MonaTheMoaner]

Thanks to Mumsnet I've hit peak trans. Just when I think I'm at the peak, there's another. I feel like I'm climbing Everest.

I've recently delved deeper into articles, Twitter and Tumblr posts regarding the cotton ceiling.

Are gay men being harassed, bullied and belittled like this over trans men and men with vaginas or is this just another example of misogyny against women?

It seems to be just women.
Also as far as I can tell this guy in Canada who was recently almost elected ran a workshop about how to break through the cotton ceiling, through Planned Parenthood: mobile.twitter.com/MorganeOgerBC

Mistyped meant to say this transwoman

There was quite a lengthy article a couple of years back that had a number of gay transmen bemoaning how they weren't really accepted in gay spaces and apps like Grindr. The few that had dabbled felt the gay men didn't respect their identified gender or affirm them - no surprise there!

They do partake in a bit of berating and 'educating' but it's not often and it's very low level stuff.

Found it

mic.com/articles/128056/the-painful-truth-of-being-a-trans-man-on-a-hookup-app#.nCw41ua26

There have been a handful of other article since in LGBT press but I doubt many gay men take any notice because these TIFs are rarely hassling them in real life or social media.

This cotton ceiling cartoon caused some upset a few months ago. tinyurl.com/y7pmg4cy (Reddit, NSFW)

That is copyrighted artwork that the transborg stole from a lesbian lesbians to serve trans boners.

PINK NEWS bashes gay men, and there are some efforts being made to evict gays from LGBT organizations because they are privileged and do not deserve to be represented.
There is a forum for gay men, name on the tip of my tongue, where they are beginning to recognize the legal threat Trans advocates represent.

@thebewilderness I didn't realise that. Then it's even worse than it seems!

PINK NEWS bashes gay men, and there are some efforts being made to evict gays from LGBT organizations because they are privileged and do not deserve to be represented.

That is just incomprehensible.

MoanaTheMoaner
This is an exceptionally powerful thread about the obliteration of young lesbians in universities:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3146166-Transactivism-and-the-lesbian-community

When I first heard of cotton ceiling, it was on a trans-supportive post and seemed to focus on the idea that while people might be happy to have sex with trans people or be in relationship with them, they didn't want to admit it publicly.
On that front, it sounded fairly reasonable. It did occur to me why it was a cotton ceiling but I hadn't really thought further than that.

Only later did I find out that the 'cotton' refers to underwear, and when they're talking about how to break down barriers, that would be breaking through into someone's underwear when they've initially said they're uncomfortable with it.

I cannot understand how someone can know that 'cotton' means underwear in this case and not realise just how awful that is.
Actually I do understand it. Only someone who thinks they have entitlement to sex would use it. It's not a term used by anyone who is respectful of consent.

I've just been on the terfisaslur website and spotted this.

The thing is that they're targeting young women who don't want to be bigots and using that good will against them. I am genuinely horrified.

Like someone else has said, I don't remember seeing anything where transmen are calling gay men bigots for not into having sex with them.

This is what Pink News readers think about Grindr becoming trans/enbie friendly
www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/11/21/grindr-is-no-longer-men-only-as-update-adds-support-for-women-trans-people/comments/
Pink News is usually extremely trans supportive.
Interesting I don't notice these commenters getting called bigots for wanting an app for cis men only

Interesting comments on there, Quentin.

There's a guy who says, "The transmovement doesnt respect lesbian and gay only spaces nor our rights."

We should join forces...

@thebewilderness, that makes the whole thing even worse!

Not that surprise genitals in such a situation wouldn't be bad enough to begin with. As a straight woman I'm reasonably privileged in this regard, in that transmen don't seem to display the same amounts of aggression about the matter. I'm arguably a lot more at risk by people I actually would want to sleep with.

Still, the thought of surprise vagina when I was expecting penis feels violating. I'm sorry, but I'm straight. That means I happen to be attracted to men with male bodies. I really tried to like women. I just don't - and that's okay. Just as it's okay for anyone else to have preferences.

There are men on that thread who literally saying the same things we are. And giving the same reasons.

Greetings all, My name is Kay Brown. I'm the author of the essay that Juzza12 linked yesterday regarding the issue of autogynephilic transgender (both AGP transwomen and heterosexual cross-dressing men) sexuality focused on "early transitioners" / transkids and the problems that causes when the two are conflated (or the known differences ignored) by the medical system.

I feel compelled to join this conversation to clear up several misconceptions and further explore the issues brought up here.

1. The false meme of "1%"... no... the number is more like 0.03%... about 30 times smaller: sillyolme.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/the-new-math/

2. The number of gay identified transmen is incredibly small... first, the number of transmen is about a third the number of transwomen... and the percentage of those who are androphilic (attracted to men) is somewhat of a guess... but the bounds go from 1:72 transmen to 1:4. Thus, given that gay men are 2% of the male population, the ratio of androphilic transmen to gay men is a tiny 0.00125:1 AT MOST ! Thus, it is not likely that gay identified transmen are going to be much of an issue to the average gay man.

3. Regarding transwomen and straight men... here we have to differentiate between autogynephilic transgender "late transitioning" transwomen who claim to have had a change of sexual orientation from gynephilic to bisexual or even exclusively androphilic and "early transitioners" who are universally exclusively androphilic. Research shows that up to 40% of AGP transwomen make such a claim. But interestingly, because of various issues, the majority of them find male partners who are themselves autogynephilic... thus, they find willing partners to play the part within their own number, sometimes even taking 'turns'.

"Early transitioners" on the other hand are exclusively androphilic and are notoriously disinterested in autogynephiles, both transwomen and cross-dressers. They prefer run of the mill straight men, period. In this regard, they are much like exclusively gynephilic women (lesbian) in their dislike of autogynephiles.

As the saying goes, "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." Exclusively androphilic transwomen ("early transitioners") are doubly afraid that men will kill them given that many men will be irrationally violent towards them: sillyolme.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/one-in-twelve/

Thus, we come finally to the differential treatment of the various potential sexual partners by the various subsets of the lumped together "transgender" people.

Gynephilic transwomen have a history of being heterosexual men who have had a lifetime of male privilege. When they socially transition, they find one of their preferred sexual partner groups, women, no longer interested in them. Plus, many have long had sexual fantasies of being lesbians having sex with other lesbians (often the Hollywood / porn / male gaze version of "lesbians".... you know what I mean...) Straight women want men, not feminized males. Lesbians want women, not (poorly) feminized males. Thus, gynephilic transwomen are in a bind... and some, not all, but quite enough, lash out in anger at being rejected.

Gay identified transmen have a history of being straight women who do NOT have a history of male privilege... and most know better than to demand that gay men have sex with them... instead, they seek out willing partners... and there are those.

Most gynephilic transmen have no problem finding willing female partners... and I've never heard any of them grouse about not finding them.

Finally, we come to the exclusively androphilic "early transitioners", who have a history of being extremely gender atypical gay boys (and thus not attractive to gay men) with a lifetime of being bullied and harassed for being both queer and "sissy"... whose primary problem is not finding willing straight men... but safety. Who in their right mind would demand that straight men who don't want anything to do with them do so anyways? Seriously?

On that note, I will share that safety was such a primary concern that I told my (then) future (very straight) husband that I was a post-op transwoman on the phone AFTER a wonderful date (a picnic at a park)... He did kinda freak, but got over it. We've been together for twenty years now.

Another essay on the issue of transwomen finding partners: sillyolme.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/going-to-the-chapel/

Thanks Kay, that's a really interesting analysis.

Transgender advocates have been trying to rewrite the history around the Cotton Ceiling incident ever since it happened in an effort to make it appear less rape culture predatory men plotting against lesbians. All that does is alert more women to the fact that men really are plotting against lesbians.

Thank you Kay, that's an interesting read.

Thanks Kay, that is fascinating stuff and rings very true.

Thank you, Kay! Most informative.

Thus, gynephilic transwomen are in a bind... and some, not all, but quite enough, lash out in anger at being rejected.

I've said this on here before - I have sympathy in that everybody wants to find someone to be with and it's not nice to be in the tiniest of dating pools, but the behaviour of narcissistic AGPs with regard to this is not only unacceptable on the level of each individual AGP doing it, but also deeply unacceptable in the licence it gives to let societal misogyny and lesbophobia run wild.