"But if you say that you “like guys!” & exclude trans men bcos of their vaginae, you do not mean you are attracted to men. You are attracted to penises." Yeah but saying that you like men doesn't mean that you'll like all men. If a girl says she likes men, but admits that ginger guys are a turn off for her, she still would say that she is attracted to men, because everyone she is attracted to IS men. You wouldn't say "but you're attracted to HAIR not men". Sexual attraction is involuntary? ◥ Anonymous

You people need to stop

~preference~ doesn’t cover systems of oppression. In fact those systems of oppression are often propped up by ~preferences~

Does not liking ginger hair contribute to the oppression of gingers? No, they’re not oppressed.

Does not wanting to date a certain race contribute to global racism? Oh yes indeed it does.

Because like it or not, you are subconsciously misgendering and othering trans people wholesale when you create imaginary and fictional lines based on genitalia.

When you say “I like men, but with penises”, you’re not saying “There are lots of variations in what a man can be and this is the kind that does it for me.”

You’re subconsciously saying “This is what I expect men to be because I’ve been taught that that is what real men are my whole life and any variation unnecessarily perturbs me enough to kill my attraction to these men who are still complete and total men.”

You’re not saying, “I’m attracted to penises.”

You’re saying, “I’m attracted to cis people.”

“But I never said that!” Well you’re thinking it. Every last one of us thinks it. We were raised to think it, to not even think it, to just know it, to take it for granted. It takes your whole life to resocialize yourself to reject these toxic norms. I don’t trust cis people to have rejected these norms. No way.

Your preference for cis people, and that’s what it is, a preference for cis people, not genitalia, cannot healthily exist in a transphobic society, and I’m frankly not sorry about that.

So, no, your analogy doesn’t work, because the societal scripts tell this woman that everyone she is attracted to is men, but the trans men she isn’t attracted to are not. She is making that subconscious and transphobic distinction. That’s why we implore cis people to challenge the notion of attraction to ‘sex’ instead of gender. That’s why we ask cis people to examine their own internalized cissexism.

When we’ve done away with transphobia, then maybe you can pull the ~preference~ card and not have it be a cheap cover for your ingrained bigotry.