Thread by @rdqb80

Is There a Gay Male “Cotton Ceiling”? A Thread:

Yesterday I came across this tweet asking if gay men get the same accusations of bigotry from online articles for not embracing dating “trans men”. Here is a thread about that issue based on articles that I found online. First...

Is there a Cotton Ceiling for gay men? Well technically no, because this concept was created by straight men who claim to be women targeting lesbians specifically. Also, these men are persistent & entitled because they were socialized to be so, less so for women seeking gay men.

But I’ve been seeing since 2015 several articles online from so-called “LGBT” and “LGBT friendly” social media sites insisting that bio women who claim to be men should be allowed to identify as “gay men”, be in gay men’s spaces, and be seen as part of a gay man’s dating pool.

Most of these are written from their perspective usually referring to how hard it is for them to navigate the gay male hookup scene and what considerations “cisgender” gay men should take when either dating them or when just having a sexual encounter.

And they suggest, often, that it is transphobic to reject them because of their female genitalia or to even point out the fact that they are biologically female. There is no consideration whatsoever that male homosexuality is predominantly exclusive to the male sex.

However, there is no equivalent acronym like TERF hurled at gay men for this or even for excluding so-called “trans men” from gay men’s spaces. Just your garden variety transphobia, although occasionally terms like “vagphobia” or “phallocentrism” get hurled around.

Sometimes gay men even get to be called misogynists despite the fact that “trans men” are supposed to be men, like in this blog entry by San Francisco “trans man” Brandyn Gallagher: betablog.org/misogyny-in-fa…

BTW, here is a photo of Brandyn with her sky-blue “Three-Holed Faggot” shirt. If you’re wondering about that “third hole” it’s the infamous “front hole” of legend, of which gender dysphoric women who think they are gay men can’t seem to call by its real name: vagina.

In fact that term is in common use in some of the articles I found and in publications like Primed: The Back Pocket Guide for Trans Men & The Men Who Dig Them (no link, NSFW) which is a sex/HIV/STI guide for “trans men” who have sex with men.

From page 24: “Some of us like getting fucked in our *front holes* (some of us don’t want anyone or anything near that area). Penetrative frontal sex often occurs with a flesh cock, a strap-on or dildo.” Emphasis mine. Flesh cock? As opposed to feathered cock? 🐓? What?

But more on the perniciousness of the “front hole” situation in a later tweet. Without further ado here are the articles that I’ve seen online with some quotes:

1) From 2015: “I Don’t Sleep with Women. *Takes Deep Breath*
Are you intentionally misgendering me to hurt me, or has the gender binary severely affected your sight, brain and manners?” pride.com/transgender/20…

2)From 2016: “What do you call your junk?
I definitely DO NOT call it a vagina. I refer to it as "the downstairs" or my dick. Sometimes I’ll say cock.” Okay...
pride.com/transgender/20…

3) Again 2015: "Cis gay culture is so phallocentric, everybody's expecting a penis," Jack said. "And, you know, some of us don't have that." Gee I wonder why gay men expect penis? Any thoughts?
mic.com/articles/12805…

4)This is from last year: “Chasers of trans masc folks tend to be interested in one thing, and one thing only: the bonus hole. Very rarely, if ever, does that interest extended to the person attached to it.” vice.com/en_uk/article/…

And here is where we take a time out to go back to the “front hole” problem. Apparently in today’s queer dystopia it is more misogynistic for a gay man to reject vagina than for a man to refer to the vagina as an “extra hole” to stick his penis in. Who would have thought?

Never mind the internalized misogyny coupled with male sexual objectification folks! Let’s get back to it!

5) This very rare one is from the perspective of a “gay man” who dates trans men: “My ability to detect whether or not someone is gay or bi (what some call gaydar) is faulty...” I think your other radars are also faulty.
advocate.com/sexy-beast/201…

6) And here is the latest one for the gay teen YouTube generation: “I’ll be talking to a guy, and it’ll be going great. And they’ll seem really interested, and then it’s like the second that I tell them, shit seems to hit the fan.” No really?!😱
hornet.com/stories/trans-…

So in conclusion: I think that there is an active media insistence that gay men date trans men. But I don’t think it’s comparable to the “Cotton Ceiling”. Trans men have not created a term like the “Boxers Barrier” or the “Bikini Briefs Border”, nor have they made conferences.

My real fear is for current gay teens and young gay men who are being taught it’s transphobic not to date biological women because they are getting this message from all types of media. Here is a tweet left on Riley J. Denis’ Twitter account that one should consider:

This type of situation could repeat itself. There are no gay men screaming from the rooftops: “It’s okay to only like men!” Instead many are onboard with trans ideology & it’s pretty likely that such an event could repeat itself. Gay men need to evaluate what they are supporting.

I should add that using the term “faggot” in this way is insulting to gay men. Here is a tweet:

https://twitter.com/reclaimthebody/status/1089664538423640069?s=21