Thread by @Emmy_Zje

“Genital preferences are transphobic.”

To prove this is true, you must prove it’s true for every case.

To prove it’s false, you need only prove a single counterexample.

To do so, the person’s impetus for the preference must be known.

That’s impossible.

So what do we do?

1/

The real question becomes: what do we do with folks that have a genital preference since we can’t know for sure its origin?

As a group of people who experience life differently than most, we often ask (demand) the benefit of the doubt be given when we say “this is who I am.”

2/

Thus, I’m VERY hesitant to make blanket statements about people’s intentions when they say their sexuality includes genital configurations.

Mine doesn’t, but cis folks don’t experience the trans experience, yet they’ve wrongly projected their experiences onto us forever.

3/

Essentially, since we can never know the intent of another’s genital preferences, we’re left with a choice to condemn them all as transphobic or to give them the benefit of the doubt about their sexuality.

Maybe they experience sexual attraction differently than I do.

4/

It all reminds me a bit of ace conversations in the 2000s on altnet.

We’ve probably all witnessed the cringe of “You’re lying if you say you don’t experience sexual attraction!” 🙄

I’m hesitant to immediately call people liars about their gender or sexual experiences.

5/

Firstly, because that’s exactly what transphobes do to me.

Second, because the only experience of sexual attraction I have is my own, and I’m SURE it’s based off of my own personal mosaic of desires, informed by everything that is my life, especially trans.

6/

I passionately don’t understand ace experiences either, but I’m not gonna call them all liars because they experience sexuality differently than I do. I give them the benefit of the doubt and move on.

We all know transphobes hide their bigotry behind genital preferences...

7/

But to extrapolate from there and assume EVERYONE who doesn’t want to sexually engage with X bits is transphobic is to intentionally capitalize on the first point I made: intent is unprovable anyway so it removes the duty of those making the statements to actually prove it!

8/

In sexuality and gender, we have to give benefit of the doubt, even if that lets the malicious phobes off the hook.

It doesn’t matter if 99.99% of people with preferences are rooted in transphobia. If a single counterexample exists, it’s wrong to call everyone transphobic.

9/

I’m surprised at how volatile this conversation has been. I think we need to stick together, even if we disagree on this topic.

The optics right now are VERY useful for those who want us dead.

10/

I’ve been reading about colonialism and how whiteness has shaped gender & sexuality.

All 100% valid!

But it still doesn’t mean in every single case that sexuality has been 100% socially conditioned into what it is.

It only shows how influential colonialism has been.

11/

We can work to undo damage set upon sexual and gender minorities by colonialism and whiteness without throwing everyone into the fire who doesn’t experience sexuality or gender the way we do.

They’re differentiable!

We CONSTANTLY ask this of cishet folks after all.

12/

When I say differentiable, it means I leave room to acknowledge that 1) biology may (likely) plays a role to varying degrees for different people & 2) I may not be able to understand how other people with starkly different preferences than mine experience those attractions.

13/

I’m not gonna define someone’s intent for them, then turn & condemn them for it, *precisely* because I can’t experience *their* sexuality.

That’s arrogant.

In fact this is *exactly* what transphobes do when they lie about us.

I’m probably not done.

I’m tired though. :/

14/

NONE of this excuses any of us from checking ourselves and keeping bias from blinding us.

That’s something we all should do on the daily anyway.