Edit 29/07/2013: I’m getting a lot of hits from Tumblr from people who apparently don’t understand the point of this post. I am not specifically ‘picking on evil lesbians/gay men’ – but asking questions about the ways that monosexual people perceive the genders of others. I’m sorry that I’ve upset people but I stand by my original points: if you say you are attracted to “women” (identifying as a gay woman or a straight man) but you exclude trans women from that, you are being cissexist because you are excluding trans women from the category “women”. All I am saying is that perhaps monosexual people should examine what it is exactly that they are attracted to, and use different terms; “cis women”, “cis men”, etc. It was an exercise in the language we use and how it can be cissexist. Please seethis postfor further clarification. Thanks for reading. On with the original post.
What is a lesbian or a gay man? Generally speaking, a lesbian is a woman attracted to women, and a gay man is a man attracted to men. And of course, we use the word ‘straight’ to mean a man attracted to women, or a woman attracted to men. But scratch the surface of these definitions and I believe we usually find some treacherous and insidious transphobia.
What does it mean to be a woman? I have met lesbians who say they call themselves lesbians because they are attracted to women, but when asked they clarify that they are only attracted to cis women. There is something, therefore, about trans women that makes them something other than women in many lesbians’ eyes.
Of course, I am not saying there is anything wrong with not being attracted to trans women – that you can’t control – but it is disingenuous to state that you are a lesbian (i.e. attracted to the group of people called ‘women’) but to exclude trans women from that group. By excluding trans women from the group you call ‘women’, you are being transphobic. This all, of course, applies to straight men as well (and replace ‘trans women’ with ‘trans men’, and it applies to gay men).
Similarly, some lesbians find themselves attracted to trans men. In this, are they stating that there is something about trans men that makes them “really” women (the only group that lesbians are ostensibly attracted to), or are they willing to admit that, by finding themselves attracted to men as well as women, they are probably actually bisexual or pansexual? Because by calling themselves lesbians despite their attraction to trans men, they are being transphobic.
The plot thickens. How about attraction to someone like me, who identifies as genderqueer – neither a man nor a woman? Even a lesbian who hasn’t internalised enough cissexism to exclude trans women or see trans men as women, might still be guilty here. Because if a lesbian is attracted to me because she perceives me to be female, she is, even without meaning to, misgendering me and being cissexist in her assumptions about my gender based on my presentation and/or bodily attributes.
Are the only people attracted to people like me, people who identify as pansexual? I don’t think so. Because I am privileged to ‘look’ like I am one well-recognised gender, people place me in that box and allow or disallow themselves to be attracted to me based on their assumption.
And the thing is that usually you can’t tell that somebody is trans*. People say to me “I’ve never met a trans person!” and all I can say is “Yes you have, they just weren’t wearing a sign.” For some reason people expect all trans women to be butch and hairy, all trans men to be small and effeminate. It doesn’t work that way.
The majority of trans people are just going about their daily lives and no matter how astute you think you are, no matter how much you believe they’re leaving little ‘clues’ to their ‘true sex’ left, right and Chelsea –you can’t ‘tell’. So to say “I’m not attracted to trans women” (or men) is also transphobic in the sense that you think that it’ll be apparent to you that they are trans.
And some might say “Well I’m attracted to certain bodily attributes.” For example, someone who calls herself a lesbian might be turned on by soft, hair-free skin, gentle jaw-lines and the smell we as a society attribute as being a ‘woman’s smell’. Nothing wrong with being solely attracted to those things at all.
But they usually say this as a way of excusing their exclusion of trans women, and inclusion of trans men and genderqueer people in their attraction. Of course, anyone with any sense will realise by now that many or most trans women have the attributes we associate with ‘womanliness’, some assigned-female genderqueer people don’t, and many or most trans men don’t.
So I suppose what I’m saying is not that lesbians, gay men and straight people are all automatically transphobic, I am saying that perhaps they ought to self-analyse a little bit and ask them why they are only attracted to one of many genders, what it is about that gender they find attractive, and what they would do if they met someone of that gender who defied their expectations of what a person of that gender should look/smell/sound/feel like – whether they feel they would be capable of attraction to that person. The answers to those questions, especially the last one, will tell them all they need to know about whether their sexuality is based in cissexism.
Source: http://shutupsitdown.co.uk/2013/02/27/cissexism-in-the-language-surrounding-monosexuality/
More on monosexuality and cissexism
It would appear that my post about cissexism in monosexuality has hit Tumblr and a lot of people who have spectacularly missed the point are very angry. So I’d like to clear up a few things.
I wasnotsaying that, for example, gay men have an obligation to sleep with trans men. Nobody is obliged to sleep with anybody, sex is not a right, any reasonable person knows that.
Iwassaying that the gay man who says “I am attracted to only men” and then excludes trans men from that, should perhaps be examining why he excludes trans men from the category of men.
I wasnotsaying that “gay people have to evaluate why they’re not into any genders other than their own” (genuine quote from someone on Tumblr, for which I was called “homophobic as fuck”).
I find this statement cissexist as fuck, to be honest, whether it’s coming from a cis person or a trans person. The idea that a cis man and a trans man have “different genders” is extremely transphobic. A trans man is as much a man as a cis man, end of.
So Iwassaying that a gay man who says “I am attracted to only men” and then excludes trans men from that, should perhapsexamine the language he is using. He is saying that trans men don’t fall into the category he defines as “men”. Why can the gay man not say “I am attracted to only cis men”?
I don’t have any problem with people being attracted solely to cis women or cis men (or genderqueer people or trans women or trans men or any other type of person). What Idohave a problem with is the way people frame their sexualities using words like “women” and “men” and then expressing that they don’t consider trans people to be a part of those categories.
A person who didn’t consider black men to be men, or disabled men to be men, would be being racist or ableist. A person who doesn’t consider trans men to be men is being cissexist, and there’s no escaping that.
I wasnotsaying that lesbians have an obligation to be attracted to trans women.
Iwassaying that to say “I’m attracted to women – because I’m attracted to vulvae/hairlessness/a particular type of smell/body type” is cissexist. Because not all women have vulvae. Not all women have that body type. Say you’re attracted to cis women, but it’s cissexist to say “women” and mean only one type of woman.
This is like the old problem with Reclaim the Night marches saying they welcome “women and trans women”. Anyone with half a brain can see the problem with this – it puts trans women in the category “not actually normal women”. Why not “cis women and trans women”? Why do we think of cis women as the only women deserving of the default description “woman” and all other women need a qualifier?
I’m sure there will still be people who disagree and frankly, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. If you can’t see that trans women are women and trans men are men, if you’re going to continue using the words “women” and “men” to mean “cis women” and “cis men” by default, you’re part of the problem. The solution is changing the language we use to describe who we are attracted to (and to describe people in general), and that’s not a difficult thing to do.
Source: http://shutupsitdown.co.uk/2013/07/29/more-on-monosexuality-and-cissexism/
