Thread by @gothmyths

Something important to keep in mind is that when lesbian TERFs insist trans women are pressuring them into sex, they don't actually mean they're being forced or coerced into sex 99% of the time. 🧵

I've seen this argument over and over again for several years. What's actually happening is that they're being asked to examine why they're so sure they could never, ever want to have sex with a trans woman.

Bc the thing is, while genital preferences do exist and there's nothing inherently wrong with them, not all trans women have penises. Some have vaginas. Some have breasts. Some have both, and have undergone any number of treatments for their dysphoria, from hormones to surgeries.

You can't always tell someone is trans by looking. I promise, you've encountered trans women and had no idea that they were trans; you thought they were cis women. I've seen numerous lesbian TERFs say they were attracted to certain women until they learned they were trans.

Lily Cade, the infamous rapist the BBC interviewed for that article, who is now calling for trans women to be lynched, is an example of this; she initially agreed to do a porn shoot with a trans woman, who had a vagina, after seeing a picture of her.

Upon learning she was trans, Cade backed out, the shoot was canceled, and that was the end of it. She wasn't pressured. Everyone moved on.

I'm bringing this up because it proves that refusing to date someone purely on the basis of them being trans is transphobic; it's not about what their bodies look like, their personalities, or even simply not being attracted to them.

What all of this proves is that there are lesbians who find trans women attractive and want to date and/or sleep with them until they find out they're trans, and then, regardless of what stage their transition is at, they find them repulsive and aren't interested anymore.

It's one thing to have a genital preference that makes a potential partner incompatible. That's no one's fault, and it's not transphobic. But TERFs who insist they're being pressured into sex with trans women aren't listening when trans people and allies explain this.

TERFs insist that situations like Cade's, where someone is attracted to someone until they learn they're trans and then stops being attracted to them based on that and that alone, are not situations of transphobia.

While someone being trans can influence attraction, all trans people are saying when we say it's transphobic to say you'd never date any trans person ever is that your insistence that transness is sexually/romantically repulsive to you is that you have biases to examine.

Even if you're the most lesbian woman to ever lesbian, penises repulse you, and you're very into pussy, there are trans women whose bodies can fit into those preferences. You being attracted to them doesn't make you less of a lesbian.

But lesbian TERFs don't want to examine the biases they've picked up from growing up in a transphobic society, because that takes work. Whether or not there are any trans women who want to date them isn't the point (and given their transphobia, it isn't likely).

The point is that this transphobic bias leaks into lesbian spaces and leads to trans women being excluded from those spaces even if they have no interest in dating or sleeping with anyone there. It means trans women aren't seen as real women. It affects how they're treated.

Until that bias is examined by the people who hold it, it won't go away, and it will continue to harm trans women, even if they have no desire to date or sleep with anyone in a given lesbian space, or even in society at large.

So, while I'm sure there's a cis lesbian out there somewhere who has been pressured by a trans woman to sleep with her, it's not a widespread problem because trans women are no more likely than anyone else to pressure anyone into sex.

What's actually happening is that transphobes are being asked to examine their biases, and instead of doing so, they're framing themselves as victims by insisting there's a problem where there isn't one.