The Dating Game

For a while now I’ve been using online dating. There’s quite a range of people whom you end up talking to. There are certainly pros and cons of using online dating – pro: getting some inside info on someone you’re interested in without the awkward asking questions; con: ‘Hey baby ur sexy’ – but this article isn’t a review of online dating. Instead I want to talk about an experience that many transfolks experience, both in online dating and in real life, and the implications of that experience. I’m talking about when someone finds out that you’re trans and they no longer are interested in pursuing a relationship because of that.

It is always transphobic when someone says, “I don’t date trans people” or even “I’m not attracted to trans people.” Always. It’s the same thing if someone stops being interested in or declines to even consider interest in dating trans people, though these are often harder to gauge by an outside audience. Of course, often people respond to the revelation with one of the statements above which usually is indicative that that is the only reason that they are no longer interested.

First off, such statements operate on the assumption that transpeople are all the same, or at least can fit into some large, general categories. In fact, this is no truer for transpeople than for cispeople. Transpeople –like cispeople– come in all shapes and sizes, types and qualities, personalities, prejudices, likes and dislikes. The thing is, trans and cis are both labels that don’t actually tell you anything about the person except a shared experience that that person has. For transpeople it is the experience of discrimination and disenfranchisement that society imposes. For cispeople it is the experience of privilege in those areas. But apart from such an experience, neither trans nor cis people share any single quality.

More specifically, even the assumptions about the state of a transperson’s genitalia are unfounded. No matter their gender, trans people come with all kinds of genitalia, some having changed theirs through surgical process and others who haven’t –both by choice and by necessity. It’s the same deal with cis people, where a person might have a surgical process (usually medically induced) to alter their genitalia in some way, not to mention intersex people (both cis and trans), who may have had their genitalia altered or not. The point I’m trying to make is that a neither a person being cisgender or transgender says anything about the status of their genitalia despite the assumptions people make both ways.

Not to mention, of course, that caring more about a person’s genitalia than about the person themselves is somewhat of an outdated way of viewing things. Whatever the genitalia of the participants, there are ways to enjoy sexual activity for any partner, in whatever kind of way they wish. There’s an entire industry that exists solely about making apparatuses for just such kinds of practices, not to mention the many ways the body supplies people with ways to enjoy sexual activity. I’m not going to say that preference for a certain kind of genitalia is never justified, but from a practical standpoint, there are options for everyone.

Of course, it’s pretty common for people to say things like, “but (so-and-so) doesn’t look like a woman/man!” and try to use that as an excuse for making such blanket statements. But no one is saying you have to be attracted to (so-and-so). The point is not that you have to find every transperson attractive, just as no one expects you to find every cisperson attractive. In fact, maybe you’ve never met a transperson to whom you were attracted. That’s cool, and there’s no problem with saying that. But if the only reason for not being attracted to someone is the fact that they are trans, it’s transphobic. It would be like not being attracted to someone just because they saw (in person) the events of 9/11/2001 at the World Trade Center. That is a shared experience that those people have, but they might have any number of other qualities. Perhaps you’ve never met someone who witnessed those events in person to whom you are attracted. But yet people would look at you strangely if you make a similar blanket statement about your lack of attraction to them. It’s no different for transpeople.

On the other side of all of this, it is similarly transphobic to be attracted to someone *specifically because of* them being trans, and for the exact same reasons as listed above. Only this one goes a little bit further: if you are ignoring all of a person’s qualities in favor of a single experience that they have had, you are objectifying a person. Of course this gets more tricky in conversation, because there is nothing wrong with being physically attracted to someone who might fall outside the traditional “conventions” of gender. So being attracted to taller women who have more square jawlines, higher foreheads, and broader shoulders isn’t transphobic, despite the fact that a good number of people who find these traits attractive might shorthand their attraction into the words “I like transwomen.” The problem is when someone, instead of being attracted to a person, is only attracted to their experience. It’s the same kind of problem with the fetishization of people of color. There’s nothing wrong with being physically attracted to darker skin. But when your attraction is to the experience of being a person of color, rather than the person, it becomes objectification.

It also is in no way the responsibility of a transperson to announce being trans at the beginning or early on in the relationship. While things such as lying about transness have their own issues for a relationship (you know, the whole lying thing), but an omission of stating something is not the same thing as lying. Each transperson is entitled to inform their partner or potential partner at whatever time they so choose, and in the way that they choose, just as with any other information about a person’s history. The same reasons above apply to this: there is nothing special about being trans that makes it something that should be mentioned. At the end of the day, if a person is upset because of not being told right away, or upset because of the other person’s transness, then that is their choice. People can choose to be transphobic, but beyond that, it is important to realize how much such a response can hurt a transperson. You have boiled down everything in their existence to be completely mitigated and overshadowed by the fact that they are trans. You have taken their hopes and dreams and personality and hidden them under a blanket of transness. I’m not sure what kind of a heartless person you’d have to be to do such a thing knowingly, so I have to assume that the majority of people who have done so and who continue to do so don’t understand the implications of their actions.

In the end, of course no one is here to police your sexual or romantic preferences. But it is important to realize that your preferences can be transphobic, and be mostly based on misconceptions, stereotypes, and a lack of understanding. This is a subject that often is difficult to talk out, oftentimes because a lot of transpeople have internalized the idea that being trans is someone an *undesirable trait,* in the same ways that a lot of cispeople have. But it isn’t an undesirable trait and it shouldn’t be deemed socially acceptable for someone to lose interest in someone else when they find out that that person is trans. If you’re ever confused about how to avoid this, ignore the fact that a person is trans when figuring out if you like the person. If the answer is yes, then go for it. If the answer is no, then you don’t really like the person. That’s how you move forward without being transphobic. Please, spread a little more love in the world.