I don’t think I’m transphobic but can you sense check me please

[Greenwateringcan]

I’m a regular poster on mumsnet, I don’t post here usually. I’ve name changed because I don’t want this linked to my usual name. I am sure mumsnet will confirm if needed.

I’m in my 50s and female - born female. I don’t have an issue with trans people at all, I’m not really gender critical, but I do have some issues with how to manage protection of women’s spaces and sport for example.

I’m not a campaigner, not a protestor on trans issues, I generally try to just get on with my life.

I’m in a feminist group on Facebook. Or rather. I was. I’ve just been kicked out a few months ago for being transphobic and I really don’t think I am or was and I would really like a sense check please.

The group has young trans women in it who are very vocal and drive a lot of the discussion. One of the discussions was around dating and how or when to tell a potential partner they were trans.

To cut a long story short, the trans woman in question felt that anyone they dated should be open to having sex with them, regardless of their trans status. And that if someone didn’t want to have sex with them they were automatically transphobic.

I disagreed and said that my sex life was one area of my life where I was perfectly entitled to be discriminatory. I don’t have to have sex with anyone I don’t want to for any reason and that is my right.

I also said that they had to accept that by being trans, without any surgery, meant that they would find it more difficult to get a partner as people who were attracted to men might not like how they presented, and people who were attracted to women would have an issue with the fact that they still had their male genitalia and that as a straight woman I wouldn’t be attracted to them, as my sexual preference is for males who present as male.

They launched a slanging match at me, as did their friends, and told me I was transphobic for not wanting to have sex with them. I ended up being kicked out of the group because I wasn’t accepting of trans women as women.

I promise I’m not a troll I’ve worried about this a lot - am I transphobic? I try to be inclusive and understanding in my life of all kinds of difference and I don’t give a stuff how many one wants to present, I’ll use whatever pronoun people want, and I’ll happily share a bathroom space with them but I don’t see how I can be made to check my thinking and sleep with someone I don’t want to

I know I’m being discriminating in as much as I wouldn’t want to have sex with a trans woman, but that’s because I’m straight and their presentation doesn’t turn me on (sorry) but I could equally say that about someone with a big nose or bad breath or any number of other things that would make me not attracted to someone.

Can you tell me if you think I was or am wrong? I’m asking here because I know you all have a much better handle on the issues than me and better language to express the issues.

We're equal before the law. We're not equal in who likes strawberries or durian, or preferred hairstyles, or to whom we're attracted.

Christ on a bike.

This needs to be said?

Tell those bozos to get a therapist if they can't deal with "no."

The very idea of anybody trying to bamboozle a woman into handing over her body to all comers. Are these ... people trying to prove that they're guys?

I've seen this argument run with younger people. You might recognise some of the tactics about genital preference (minus the polyamory dimension) from this conversation (the interviewee ended up dating a trans women 'to get over her biases'):

Sample around 7:20 - 16mins if you want an idea of it the industrial strength gaslighting and social coercion tactics at play.

No, this isn't transphobia. Gay men are not automatically misogynists either. Is sexual preference.

Of course you're allowed to have a preference. If you weren't then pansexual would be the only sexuality - which it obviously isn't.

I think this is just a really complicated topic and a lot of people are very confused about it.

You weren't being offensive to anyone's choices about how they choose to identify or who they choose to sleep with, you just stated your own preference.

In this case I think the group were the ones being intolerant.

Sometimes trans people can become hyperaware/ hypersensitised to people criticising them and the way they are - this is understandable considering all of the transphobia flying around at the moment - and sometimes it can go to the extreme in the other direction and they can actually become quite intolerant as well.

Open communication is so important so I'm sorry you were banned from the group, but honestly I would just ignore, forgive, move on. A lot of people are very confused about all of this.

It's not about big noses though, it's about undermining the rights of homosexuals to be sexually attracted to the same sex, and of straight people to not want to have lesbian or gay sex. It's completely contradictory to the whole LGB core to believe that people can be trained to ignore genitals and that sexual preference isn't valid. It gets worse when you read that young coming-out lesbians are being encouraged and taught to embrace 'ladydick' or they'll be condemned as bigots.

To be honest, it just sounds as if you've had your 'peaking' moment, where you realise that, as tolerant, accepting, kind and inclusive as you are determined to be, you will be called transphobic by people who are pushing a very strange and mostly harmful agenda. It's important to note the distinction between trans people (usually transsexuals, who've been through years of adjustment and therapy etc) and the Trans Radical Activists, who are, frankly, loopers.

Of course you aren't. The feminist group you were in on FB has men in it. And look what's happened.

I don't understand how people using this "transphobic" argument are not called out for being massively homophones (being that it is often transwomen going after lesbians). It baffles and saddens me. I'm afraid these pile ons just convince me that many of the TWs and their allies are nothing more than extreme misogynists who have found a new way to abuse women, rather than any genuine desire to be a woman. If they were a woman, they'd show some bloody empathy and all the "be kind" qualities they expect us women to have.

Everyone's entitled to dealbreakers, and someone being trans

It's not about them being "trans" it's about them being the wrong biological sex for her sexual orientation. A little more honesty and a little less agenda-pushing from trans activists and their allies would be nice.

But yes, bisexual people can reject people for being trans if they don't fancy them or any other trans people too, I quite agree, because people's bodies are not subject to the Equality Act.

This for me is about consent. If I say no, it’s no. No need to explain.

Well, you are transphobic as far as the definition goes.

It’s also transphobic to say only women have uteruses, lesbians never ever have penises and that it’s impossible for human beings to change sex.

It’s probably transphobic to dislike marmite, I dunno. Everything seems to be transphobic. Science is violence.

So if someone with a big nose was in the Facebook group complaining about how people didn't want to date them because of their nose, and wondering if it was ok to wear a facemask for the first few dates so that the person they liked got to know them before they knew about the nose, would you have given the same response?

I don’t buy this analogy.

Having sex with someone who has different genitalia than you originally thought, is a huge leap from a physical difference like the size of a nose. Eg everyone has a nose. Not everyone has a penis. If, for example, you were a lesbian and wanted to have sex with other women, having a penis sprung on you just isn’t ok. Not without consent. Little bit different to a nose.

Notice that someone is trans ? Transphobic

Don't notice someone is trans ( see sex only ) ? Transphobic

OP earlier: "I don’t know how to square my right to a sexual preference with this ideology."

You can't. When somebody says "everything must be done exactly my way" there's no room for your way, is there?

(Just to be clear, there are plenty of trans people who do have respect for others. They're just not the loud transactivists.)

Not everyone has a penis. If, for example, you were a lesbian and wanted to have sex with other women, having a penis sprung on you just isn’t ok. Not without consent.

It's potentially a serious criminal offence, sophistry about "preferences" doesn't cut it.

Of course some loud trans women were controlling the conversation. Happens all the time.

Op, yanbu. You have the right to choose who you have sex with. You have the right to say you don't find men attractive if you're a lesbian, for example. You do not have to feel guilted into having sex with anyone.

You are perfectly entitled to your own sexual preferences. It is not about discrimination it is about your having your own boundaries. YANBU, OP.

Sexual orientation is a protected characteristic. Some heterosexual men get very angry when women won't have sex with them.

‘The group has young trans women in it who are very vocal and drive a lot of the discussion.’

That’s all you need to know. One vocal person with a drum to bang and a bully pulpit (and a sense of entitlement).

Not transphobic in the slightest, and I think most transgender people would agree with you. Unfortunately there is a certain group of people speaking for transgender people (some of them trans and some of them "allies") who will claim that yout sexual preference is abusive and will speak up the loudest, bully and threaten until you bow to their ideology.
I feel really sorry for transgender people who are just quietly trying to live their lives without abusing people, demanding we deny biology and respecting single sex spaces. Their "allies" are damaging their rights, not feminists.

I would never want to have sex with another women. It doesn’t do it for me. No disrespect to lesbians, but it’s not my thing.

I’d have no problem saying so to a lesbian, sorry, I’m not gay so you’re not my type.

So why do I feel I have to be so much more careful with my language around trans women? Why did I couch it all so so very carefully? I’m a bit pissed off with myself for tiptoeing round it - and I still got cancelled anyway when they said I had to consider trans women as sexual partners.

What is it about the way they present their views that made me so scared to speak up bluntly like I would’ve done to a lesbian and even to a man who I didn’t want to have sex with?

Any ally eventually finds out that nothing apart from complete pandering and total capitulation is enough
It's also surprising just how much TW act like males when in a group setting. Particularly a female setting

I have to go to work shortly but I will be back in case this carries on and you think I’ve disappeared.

Thank you all you’ve given me lots to think about I really do appreciate it and the sense check 😊

I agree that everyone can choose their own sexual partners by whatever criteria they want. Insisting that people consider sex with people that they don't fancy is approaching coercive sex, which is rape. Because why would you insist that someone 'consider' having sex. People who say that don't really mean 'consider', if I openly say that I wouldn't have sex with an intact trans woman then I HAVE considered it and decided not to. They are saying 'consider' but they mean to put women in a position where they will be called transphobic for refusing to have sex.

Demanding sex? Very rapey.
You're not transphobic. These young people have some very twisted ideas around consent.

That you even have to ask the question in your final paragraph does my head in. That is where we are now as a society. This is what we are teaching our young - good grief!!!!