From what I can tell, Skald never mentioned whether either Mary or Shannon had fully transitioned. Roger asked, but Mary never actually specifically answered.
Does this uncertainty change anything for anybody?
“Then no. 'm sorry, but I could never be attracted to a post-op transexual.”
This line indicates Roger made his decision thinking she was post op. He could be wrong, but since we’re judging his motives, we can only really judge him for the decision as he thinks he’s making.
If the scenario was a pre-op I would think it a lot less likely that Roger was transphobic, since it adds two very likely non-transphobic reasons to not date her, as he likely enjoys PIV sex, and it isn’t transphobic to think penises are off-putting.
I obviously disagree. I think telling somebody they should date a transgendered person is as offensive as telling a gay person they should date somebody of the opposite sex. In both cases, you’re telling that individual to ignore their own preferences and comply with yours.
That’s not really why gay people find being told to try het sex offensive.
The loins want what the loins want. Pretending otherwise is an exercise in futility. So long as Roger continues to treat transgendered people with dignity and respect, I do not consider him phobic.
But I do want to know why Skald offered his thoat for punching. Wouldn’t shipping a thoat from Barsoom to Earth be prohibitively expensive?
What’s the difference?
Yeah, sup?
These posts only makes some kind of sense if you think transgendered people are not, in fact, the gender they present as. Or some nebulous other gender. Neither of which is the case.
I’m not telling anyone to do or comply with jackshit. I’m just telling them what I think of them.
If you could argue someone into being sexually attracted, gay therapy would have a better track record than it does.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s just silly. If a lesbian says she isn’t attracted to men, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand what men are. She doesn’t need some kind of enlightenment, which is what you’re implying.
Comparing a homosexual who isn’t attracted to people of the opposite gender to a heterosexual who isn’t attracted to trans people of the opposite gender doesn’t seem to make sense, since hetero-but-no-trans isn’t really an orientation. It makes more sense if you view a transwoman as not really a woman, or if you viewed trans people as having some third gender, which is what Mr. Dibble is commenting on.
What he wrote was that the only explanation for not being attracted to somebody was a lack of understanding. And presumably if you gain that understanding you become attracted. I simply applied his theory. According to his theory, the reason lesbians are not attracted to men are because they don’t understand what men are. If they did understand, they’d be attracted to men and would no longer be lesbians.
Does that sound offensive? Of course it does. Dibbles’ theory is offensive and I’m just pointing that out.
I just reread all of his posts in the thread, and neither
nor
seem to say you’d be attracted to transwomen if you understand them
No, he’s not, at least not as I’d understand that term based on other similar uses. Yes, we should treat everyone as equally as possible, particularly in business and general interactions, but as relationships take on a more and more personal matter context, we cross a fuzzy line of objective acceptance and enter the realm of subjectivity. And when it comes to a relationship as personal as a romantic one, there just isn’t any accounting for it.
To exit the realm of social constructs for a moment, let’s examine something that I think is superficially similar, like say music. I think anyone with an open mind can appreciate a musician who is technically skilled at his craft, even if it’s in a genre he’s not much a fan of. It would be unreasonable to argue that, because I’m not a huge fan of that genre, that someone who is really talented shouldn’t be well regarded by fans of that genre and should be respected and appreciated for his talent. That said, not being a fan of the genre, I’m not going to buy his albums or attend his concerts. And I think pretty much anyone, other than perhaps a die hard fan, would consider it unthinkable to insist that I should give him my money just because he’s good, even if I’m not a fan.
Conversely, I WOULD be a hater of the genre if I insisted that it was impossible for anyone in a particular genre I’m not a fan of to demonstrate talent, or that they don’t deserve the respect of their fans or whatever, and I instead spent my energy telling fans of that genre and those artists how my favorite genre and artists were superior.
Why should human relationships based on whatever particular demographic we choose to break people down by be any different? Sure, I could see an argument if one straight out refuses to even talk to someone and possibly consider being a friend, since generally things like race, gender, and orientation have very little to do with those types of relationships, but there are plenty of other demographics that could affect even friendship, like politics, religion and culture. And still, when it comes to one’s romantic relationships, considering that it is generally the single most important one in our lives we have a right and a duty to be picky, not just for ourselves, but for the person we’re entering into a relationship with.
We do these sorts of things all the time in other ways with relationships too. For instance, age is often a big one. If someone is significantly younger, she’s unlikely to have the same level of education, be in the same stage of her life, and possibly even have very different values or life experiences. Similarly, I might appear the same to someone much older. And while I’ve dated women several years in both directions, overwhelmingly, the ones I find I have the most in common with tend to be close to my age.
By the same token, how is it “fair” to say one is not interested in dating a someone 10 years one’s senior, but it’s “unfair” to say one is not interested in dating a transsexual person? Putting aside the idea of children, and even assuming sexually functional in that person’s identified gender, there’s a lot of other stuff that goes along with that, that would potentially make it difficult for both parties. For instance, chances are that person’s transition is a major aspect of that person’s life, that the other one just cannot meaningfully relate to. Through no fault of that person’s own, there’s going to be a lot of experiences, thoughts, situations, etc. that neither can relate to for the other.
And this isn’t limited to just this either. It’s difficult to relate to someone who has had mental illness or addiction when you haven’t, was raised in a different culture or religion, or even from different social classes. Considering the countless number of variables that go into a successful romantic relationship, it just doesn’t make sense to start off setting up hurdles for yourselves. This is why it’s not all that surprising when I’ve seen stories about couples where both of them are transsexual and, of course, it’s really common for people with other things like being immigrants, similar religious and cultural backgrounds, etc. to be couples. It seems to me that it’s far more the exception to do something outside of that than inside.
How is it wrong, in one’s most intimate of relationships, to seek out the person with whom one expects the greatest compatibility? It seems odd to me to argue on the one side that what one does in the privacy of one’s own home is one’s own business, as I think it should be, but then criticizing people exactly for that. This whole thing comes down to something as simple as to whom we’re attracted and how we identify ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with being attracted or not being attracted to a particular person. Sometimes it’s something seemingly innocuous, like eye color or their snort-laugh, and sometimes it’s something that is much more personal, like one’s gender or gender identity or one’s beliefs. Regardless, I think it’s something we should respect.
His argument is very clearly that, if we actually accept them as women, then we would not have any problems being attracted to them.
Unless you are just quibbling on the meaning of “understanding them.”
I voted the guy isn’t transphobic, but it’s based on his other behaviors, not this one. By itself, a flat out refusal to even meet Shannon does come across as transphobic. But his other behaviors indicate he is not.
I have to admit, the fact that I can see this easily happening is making me question my assumptions that anyone who categorically refuses to date people of a certain race are at least somewhat racist. I mean, I still think you are better off going through with the date and seeing if there’s chemistry, but maybe it is possible to see black people as 100% people while finding their blackness (and not just their skin color) unattractive.
Because the alternative is that I am both somewhat transphobic and somewhat homophobic, and I actively choose not to be either one.
His first post was saying if you find a transwomen attractive until you find out she’s trans, it is probably you giving yourself Heebie Jeebies, and you would be better off if you didn’t. Little Nemo pointed out that saying that to a lesbian about sex with men would be gross and offensive (which it would be). Mr. Dibble pointed out that that comparison didn’t really make a lot of sense if you correctly view transwomen as women. It was not laying out his theory on being attracted to transgendered people, it was commenting on Little Nemo’s comparison.
I mean we’re in a thread about a guy who’s attracted to women, and was attracted to this woman until he found out they are transgendered. Understanding transgendered people seems like a logical missing third piece, but I doubt Mr. Dibble will defend it as sufficient absent the first two conditions
miss elizabeth has good reason not to want to return to this thread; she has simply not elected to share them with all & sundry. That’s her right as a Tennessean.
How can we infer that it would have meant the world to Shannon? Granted that Mary was telling Roger the exact truth in her pitch, Shannon doesn’t even know Roger’s name.
I dunno. To me, feeling free to be incredibly blunt is a mark of close friendship. My best friend in life has said similarly “crass” things when calling me on bullshit, and vice versa.
You realize some people have been FORCED to suck cock, and thus might not appreciate such a sentiment, yes?