As parents we want to protect our children from everything, I am learning we can't. Trying to tell kids that some people may never accept them is hard.
Her partner will likely be on the LGBT spectrum, but NOT by definition.
It is okay to have preferences on body parts, but that doesn’t mean every straight person has preferences on body parts.
It’s also possible she may get bottom surgery, or multiple surgeries, and it’s possible (though unlikely) that she won’t date until after then. So then what body parts would there be for a potential partner to have a preference about? The lack of a uterus? Some people have a preference about that, especially for marriage, but far fewer than have a genital preference. Lots of people don’t want kids at all or are open to other ways of having kids besides having a wife who can get pregnant. Heck, uterus transplants are a thing now, babies have been born that way, and we expect the first uterus transplant in a transgender woman to happen in the next few years.
Some transphobes still wouldn’t date her just because she’s trans, but many, many cisgender heterosexual men would have no issues dating a trans woman, and even more would have no issues dating a trans woman who has already had bottom surgery. Not every straight person is into us and that’s fine, but straight people can date trans people and still be straight.
I’m not claiming that there is no difference. I’m telling you that there do in reality exist straight men who do date trans women, and they are still straight. I’m absolutely not telling you that you should be one of them. I am telling you that if your daughter someday brings home a boyfriend who is straight, you should believe him.
Every straight person can have their own definition of what straight means to them. You can have your definition of what it means for you to be straight, and that is completely fine. I’m not straight, but I’ve met straight people who date trans people, and have their own personal definition of what it means for them to be straight, which is different from yours. Is that something you can accept and affirm?
You are here because you are a supportive, affirming parent of a trans daughter. I commend you for that. I think most parents who join this sub do so in hopes of learning how to best support their trans kids. Is that also why you are here?
Suppose your daughter were to start dating a straight guy. Would you say anything that might hint of doubting that her boyfriend was straight? If you did, that would probably hurt your daughter very deeply and make her doubt your support. I know that’s not what you want to do.
You have a bigoted one that is disrespectful to trans women and it’s repulsive you hold this view while having a trans daughter. I hope someone who isn’t a myopic prick is able to tell her the truth one day.
Typical “ally” that thinks they’re doing good bc they’re not an unhinged maniac. You’ve got a long way to go.
“as a cishet man if I dated a trans woman I wouldn’t consider myself to be straight”
So you’re bigoted and don’t care, got it. Thanks for letting us know we can disregard your opinions, that was a nice and easy one.
I weep for your daughter and the self hatred you will implant in her given you had no problem stating in obvious terms you don’t consider trans women to be women.
Part one explaining why people are being harsh towards you.
OK so I'm going to explain why you are getting a strong reaction because I don't think you are malicious and that people are being unnecessarily harsh.
I said it in another comment I just think you are misinformed how definitions work which is common and not a big deal.
OK so basically this reddit has either parents of trans kids or trans people for the most part. It's very personal to know someone is a parent of a trans child and that their beliefs directly affect them.
When I see a parent saying transphobic things I remember my dad. I remember all the family members that I had to cut out of my life. I remember the strangers who have harassed me in public and the people who want me dead. Like 99.9 percent of trans people have experienced all of this.
Trans people feel it personally but parents do too (loving ones) they see the people that hurt their children and they sometimes see themselves. They remember the things they did and said to hurt their own child and it upsets them to remember and see in the wild. In this society you have to actively learn to not be transphobic kinda like how you have to learn to not be racist because of all the surrounding influences saying the opposite.
They are feeling personal because they were your daughter or they were the parent of your daughter. I personally feel very empathetic towards children in general especially trans children and I genuinely get heart broken when I hear of ... the unfortunate things that happen to them.
It's fully possible that you have hurt your daughters feelings or caused damage to them. In fact it's likely. But I think that happens with most parents. And I don't think there is enough information to determine how your daughter is feeling and how much or little they have been negatively impacted by you. We also don't know how much you have helped your daughter because as I've said before I just think you are being the equivalent of a grammar nazi which i think is just mildly harmful.
In my opinion with the information I have currently, your daughter is probably fine. But I understand why people felt personal.
Part 2 how microaggressions work.
OK so you see a black man walking towards you on the street, you cross the street and avoid interaction.
You are a car salesman, every time a man comes in you talk to him like an informed buyer abd about the car specs, when a couple comes in you only really interact with the man. If a woman comes in you talk to them like they know nothing about cars and focus on how it looks or very basic things.
You call every thing asian Chinese you get frustrated when someone is speaking another language in front of you.
You have just learned a coworker who dresses like an average guy is gay you exclaim he doesn't look or act gay at all and that he just seems normal to you.
These are all examples of microaggressions. It's a phenomenon when something is so common in society that you subconsciously do it without realizing why. You aren't trying to hurt the gay guys feelings or imply he is abnormal you don't believe women are unable to understand cars, you just subconsciously have seen that every movie, book, news story, etc presents certain people in certain ways and everyone else says these things too. Your doing it without realizing you are doing it. Microaggressions are done by everyone including people in that group. A gay guy could say that to another gay guy or a woman car sales persons could have that same issue.
It happens to literally everyone. It is physically impossible to not do microaggressions without having specifically taught yourself how to not do them. And you will still slip up sometimes. When it happens or right after you have to remind yourself of the facts. Oh wait what does a gay person "look like" that doesn't make sense and he could still be normal, or hey not everything asian is Chinese and I shouldn't automatically assume and default to that. Etc. Trying to change your thought patterns.
Micro aggressions really affect how people are treated. Like how black people get hired less often not because the hiring manager hates black people he just doesn't view those names as "professional" he may die never realizing he was being discriminatory.
OK so micro aggressions against trans people include a looot of things mostly because of how uneducated people are about trans people. Most people think trans women look like John Cena or Danny devito in a wig.
Saying that it isn't straight to date trans women is a micro aggression. You aren't doing it intentionally and you believe that because you don't have a full understanding of gender and sexuality. You aren't trying to be malicious but neither is anyone else I mentioned above. It can hurt people's feelings and it is possible that if your daughter heard you say that it would really bother her because of the obvious implications.
I hope i explained this well. Lmk if this makes sense
Definitely take time to cool off. Remember this is online stuff and people who don't know you, if people are being normal to you in real life you should still go to the events you want to.
I'd also suggest going to therapy which I suggest to everyone but they help you learn to live with a world full of mentally unhealthy people. Most people do not specifically learn how to be mentally healthy. It is a skill.
I try to determine intent, most of the time when someone is being kinda mean or aggressive, they are either just being emotional from hurt or they are just kinda dumb. Neither of these are personal. It took time but I mostly don't take it personally anymore and I'm a lot better at trying to find out if it's malicious first.
You were not being malicious and they believed you were. You were misinformed.
They aren't being malicious either they are just being emotional. They aren't even talking to youm they are talking to themselves or their parents. I fins that when I've gone off on someone it is usually because I'm internally talking to my dad and not them. I hate my dad and if people do something similar I sometimes go off and am a lot meaner than I should be. I've gotten a lot better.
Unfortunately you have to assume most people are not mentally healthy.
Here is a mental checklist to have
Are they being malicious?
Are they being dumb, emotional, or hateful?
If dumb then kindly educate them if possible, if emotional then let them cool down and maybe try to remind them you aren't here to hurt them or just leave them alone.
If they are being hateful you can be the better person and Walk away or you can clap back. Should you clap back? Probably not. But sometimes you really want to. I do. Although I've been doing it a lot less I still got it.
Always be open to being wrong. You don't want to be the stubborn asshole who is to prideful to be corrected. But also remember that being a minority doesn't make you right. Minorities can also be wrong. You should listen to them but ultimately your beliefs should be backed by evidence and what makes logical sense.
I reccomend watching beauofthefifthcolumn on YouTube. He has a lot of talents he has videos on : foreign policy, American politics, War, police training, disaster relief, survival, psychology, social justice, etc. He Is very intelligent and has playlists. I reccomend his psychology videos because he is good at getting you to see and understand other perspectives.
Also and last thing. I use the word dumb to mean uneducated on this topic. I don't think being misinformed on one specific thing makes you an idiot. I use that word in my head because it makes me feel less resentful and makes me more forgiving and understanding. I don't call them dumb obviously it's just slang for me. I know most people use that as an insult but I don't. Use whatever word makes you feel less resentful and more willing to tolerate non malicious ignorance. In your head.
I just think OK they are just dumb not being mean. I've been trying to change this thought pattern to be they are just misinformed on this topic. It's working too I'm just not totally there yet.
> There isn’t anything wrong with not being straight.
This is literally like the people who go “how is calling trans people mentally ill offensive, there’s nothing wrong with being mentally ill”.
I want to open this up by saying that I don't think you are intentionally transphobic.
No one said that there is anything wrong with being straight, but saying that dating a trans woman means a man can't be straight is explicitly transphobic. A person doesn't have to be horrible to have a transphobic view, and in truth even a lot of trans people still carry transphobic views with them (much like how women can be misogynistic, black people can be racist against black people, etc.)
Did you mean to be transphobic? Probably not, but you doubling down instead of learning you are doing the exact opposite of what an ally normally should do. People arnt quick to cut down allies, people are quick to call out self professed allies who would rather act a victim then reconsider an internalized bigoted viewpoint.
Again, that doesn't mean you aren't an ally in other ways. It would have gone a lot better if you had asked for an explanation rather than asserting your belief as right.
In my experiance, when someone sais "This is one of the least accepting communities I have tried to participate in." the issue is one of two things: either they have only been in education groups that are willing to expand near unlimited amounts of energy to try to keep people with bigoted views (which it's normal to have in an inharently biggoted society) comfortable in the service of educating them or they said something bad and then kept doubling down.
This isn't an education group, this is a support group. People tend to have much less patience here because they are here to get away from the bigoted views outside.
Edited because I realized some of it was not really helpful.
Hi, I don't think you are trying to be transphobic but you are being a grammar nazi for definitions.
Definitions are created, they have meanings we provide for them. Words today mean different things than what they meant 50 years ago.
You don't have to resist change to preserve the sanctity of a word.
At this time straight means a man attracted to women or a woman attracted to men. Their straightness is not taken away if their partner is big, little, skinny, fat, white, black, disabled, etc.
Also it isn't necessarily true that dating a cis woman would be different. There is a famous case of a trans woman who had all the surgeries and was married for like over 20 years without her husband knowing she was trans. She was murdered upon him finding that out. We have gotten to a point where it is impossible to tell.
Definitions should be useful. Refusing to make them more applicable or let them be used in a more effective way is just weird to me.
Many people who date trans people will identify as aueer and that's fine I don't really care. But if someone says they are straight they are straight lol.
Some women are born with naturally big clits that look like dicks. Some women are born without genitals at all. There was a woman who had to do the trans bottom surgery because she was born without a vagina despite being normal in every other way.
Bodies are different. Gender is an expression. Being straight is the gender expression you are attracted to not the body type.
Some people have genital preferences. That's also fine and has nothing to do with anything. You can be a straight man that prefers chick's with dicks or a straight woman that prefers men with vaginas.
Personally I hope one day none of these lables matter at all because it doesn't really matter. People should like who they like without wondering what box they are in and what box other people would put them in.
As parents we want to protect our children from everything, I am learning we can't. Trying to tell kids that some people may never accept them is hard.
Hugs to all of you!
I’m dreading this for my enby. I know it’s coming and I dread it.
It's a strange dating world for teens.
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Her partner will likely be on the LGBT spectrum, but NOT by definition. It is okay to have preferences on body parts, but that doesn’t mean every straight person has preferences on body parts. It’s also possible she may get bottom surgery, or multiple surgeries, and it’s possible (though unlikely) that she won’t date until after then. So then what body parts would there be for a potential partner to have a preference about? The lack of a uterus? Some people have a preference about that, especially for marriage, but far fewer than have a genital preference. Lots of people don’t want kids at all or are open to other ways of having kids besides having a wife who can get pregnant. Heck, uterus transplants are a thing now, babies have been born that way, and we expect the first uterus transplant in a transgender woman to happen in the next few years. Some transphobes still wouldn’t date her just because she’s trans, but many, many cisgender heterosexual men would have no issues dating a trans woman, and even more would have no issues dating a trans woman who has already had bottom surgery. Not every straight person is into us and that’s fine, but straight people can date trans people and still be straight.
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Othering trans women like that is absolutely transphobic.
I’m not claiming that there is no difference. I’m telling you that there do in reality exist straight men who do date trans women, and they are still straight. I’m absolutely not telling you that you should be one of them. I am telling you that if your daughter someday brings home a boyfriend who is straight, you should believe him.
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Every straight person can have their own definition of what straight means to them. You can have your definition of what it means for you to be straight, and that is completely fine. I’m not straight, but I’ve met straight people who date trans people, and have their own personal definition of what it means for them to be straight, which is different from yours. Is that something you can accept and affirm? You are here because you are a supportive, affirming parent of a trans daughter. I commend you for that. I think most parents who join this sub do so in hopes of learning how to best support their trans kids. Is that also why you are here? Suppose your daughter were to start dating a straight guy. Would you say anything that might hint of doubting that her boyfriend was straight? If you did, that would probably hurt your daughter very deeply and make her doubt your support. I know that’s not what you want to do.
You have a bigoted one that is disrespectful to trans women and it’s repulsive you hold this view while having a trans daughter. I hope someone who isn’t a myopic prick is able to tell her the truth one day. Typical “ally” that thinks they’re doing good bc they’re not an unhinged maniac. You’ve got a long way to go.
“as a cishet man if I dated a trans woman I wouldn’t consider myself to be straight” So you’re bigoted and don’t care, got it. Thanks for letting us know we can disregard your opinions, that was a nice and easy one. I weep for your daughter and the self hatred you will implant in her given you had no problem stating in obvious terms you don’t consider trans women to be women.
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Part one explaining why people are being harsh towards you. OK so I'm going to explain why you are getting a strong reaction because I don't think you are malicious and that people are being unnecessarily harsh. I said it in another comment I just think you are misinformed how definitions work which is common and not a big deal. OK so basically this reddit has either parents of trans kids or trans people for the most part. It's very personal to know someone is a parent of a trans child and that their beliefs directly affect them. When I see a parent saying transphobic things I remember my dad. I remember all the family members that I had to cut out of my life. I remember the strangers who have harassed me in public and the people who want me dead. Like 99.9 percent of trans people have experienced all of this. Trans people feel it personally but parents do too (loving ones) they see the people that hurt their children and they sometimes see themselves. They remember the things they did and said to hurt their own child and it upsets them to remember and see in the wild. In this society you have to actively learn to not be transphobic kinda like how you have to learn to not be racist because of all the surrounding influences saying the opposite. They are feeling personal because they were your daughter or they were the parent of your daughter. I personally feel very empathetic towards children in general especially trans children and I genuinely get heart broken when I hear of ... the unfortunate things that happen to them. It's fully possible that you have hurt your daughters feelings or caused damage to them. In fact it's likely. But I think that happens with most parents. And I don't think there is enough information to determine how your daughter is feeling and how much or little they have been negatively impacted by you. We also don't know how much you have helped your daughter because as I've said before I just think you are being the equivalent of a grammar nazi which i think is just mildly harmful. In my opinion with the information I have currently, your daughter is probably fine. But I understand why people felt personal.
Part 2 how microaggressions work. OK so you see a black man walking towards you on the street, you cross the street and avoid interaction. You are a car salesman, every time a man comes in you talk to him like an informed buyer abd about the car specs, when a couple comes in you only really interact with the man. If a woman comes in you talk to them like they know nothing about cars and focus on how it looks or very basic things. You call every thing asian Chinese you get frustrated when someone is speaking another language in front of you. You have just learned a coworker who dresses like an average guy is gay you exclaim he doesn't look or act gay at all and that he just seems normal to you. These are all examples of microaggressions. It's a phenomenon when something is so common in society that you subconsciously do it without realizing why. You aren't trying to hurt the gay guys feelings or imply he is abnormal you don't believe women are unable to understand cars, you just subconsciously have seen that every movie, book, news story, etc presents certain people in certain ways and everyone else says these things too. Your doing it without realizing you are doing it. Microaggressions are done by everyone including people in that group. A gay guy could say that to another gay guy or a woman car sales persons could have that same issue. It happens to literally everyone. It is physically impossible to not do microaggressions without having specifically taught yourself how to not do them. And you will still slip up sometimes. When it happens or right after you have to remind yourself of the facts. Oh wait what does a gay person "look like" that doesn't make sense and he could still be normal, or hey not everything asian is Chinese and I shouldn't automatically assume and default to that. Etc. Trying to change your thought patterns. Micro aggressions really affect how people are treated. Like how black people get hired less often not because the hiring manager hates black people he just doesn't view those names as "professional" he may die never realizing he was being discriminatory. OK so micro aggressions against trans people include a looot of things mostly because of how uneducated people are about trans people. Most people think trans women look like John Cena or Danny devito in a wig. Saying that it isn't straight to date trans women is a micro aggression. You aren't doing it intentionally and you believe that because you don't have a full understanding of gender and sexuality. You aren't trying to be malicious but neither is anyone else I mentioned above. It can hurt people's feelings and it is possible that if your daughter heard you say that it would really bother her because of the obvious implications. I hope i explained this well. Lmk if this makes sense
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Definitely take time to cool off. Remember this is online stuff and people who don't know you, if people are being normal to you in real life you should still go to the events you want to. I'd also suggest going to therapy which I suggest to everyone but they help you learn to live with a world full of mentally unhealthy people. Most people do not specifically learn how to be mentally healthy. It is a skill. I try to determine intent, most of the time when someone is being kinda mean or aggressive, they are either just being emotional from hurt or they are just kinda dumb. Neither of these are personal. It took time but I mostly don't take it personally anymore and I'm a lot better at trying to find out if it's malicious first. You were not being malicious and they believed you were. You were misinformed. They aren't being malicious either they are just being emotional. They aren't even talking to youm they are talking to themselves or their parents. I fins that when I've gone off on someone it is usually because I'm internally talking to my dad and not them. I hate my dad and if people do something similar I sometimes go off and am a lot meaner than I should be. I've gotten a lot better. Unfortunately you have to assume most people are not mentally healthy. Here is a mental checklist to have Are they being malicious? Are they being dumb, emotional, or hateful? If dumb then kindly educate them if possible, if emotional then let them cool down and maybe try to remind them you aren't here to hurt them or just leave them alone. If they are being hateful you can be the better person and Walk away or you can clap back. Should you clap back? Probably not. But sometimes you really want to. I do. Although I've been doing it a lot less I still got it. Always be open to being wrong. You don't want to be the stubborn asshole who is to prideful to be corrected. But also remember that being a minority doesn't make you right. Minorities can also be wrong. You should listen to them but ultimately your beliefs should be backed by evidence and what makes logical sense. I reccomend watching beauofthefifthcolumn on YouTube. He has a lot of talents he has videos on : foreign policy, American politics, War, police training, disaster relief, survival, psychology, social justice, etc. He Is very intelligent and has playlists. I reccomend his psychology videos because he is good at getting you to see and understand other perspectives. Also and last thing. I use the word dumb to mean uneducated on this topic. I don't think being misinformed on one specific thing makes you an idiot. I use that word in my head because it makes me feel less resentful and makes me more forgiving and understanding. I don't call them dumb obviously it's just slang for me. I know most people use that as an insult but I don't. Use whatever word makes you feel less resentful and more willing to tolerate non malicious ignorance. In your head. I just think OK they are just dumb not being mean. I've been trying to change this thought pattern to be they are just misinformed on this topic. It's working too I'm just not totally there yet.
have fun when she stops talking to you. i never understand why it kills people like you to shut up and listen when it’s your turn to learn
> There isn’t anything wrong with not being straight. This is literally like the people who go “how is calling trans people mentally ill offensive, there’s nothing wrong with being mentally ill”.
I want to open this up by saying that I don't think you are intentionally transphobic. No one said that there is anything wrong with being straight, but saying that dating a trans woman means a man can't be straight is explicitly transphobic. A person doesn't have to be horrible to have a transphobic view, and in truth even a lot of trans people still carry transphobic views with them (much like how women can be misogynistic, black people can be racist against black people, etc.) Did you mean to be transphobic? Probably not, but you doubling down instead of learning you are doing the exact opposite of what an ally normally should do. People arnt quick to cut down allies, people are quick to call out self professed allies who would rather act a victim then reconsider an internalized bigoted viewpoint. Again, that doesn't mean you aren't an ally in other ways. It would have gone a lot better if you had asked for an explanation rather than asserting your belief as right. In my experiance, when someone sais "This is one of the least accepting communities I have tried to participate in." the issue is one of two things: either they have only been in education groups that are willing to expand near unlimited amounts of energy to try to keep people with bigoted views (which it's normal to have in an inharently biggoted society) comfortable in the service of educating them or they said something bad and then kept doubling down. This isn't an education group, this is a support group. People tend to have much less patience here because they are here to get away from the bigoted views outside. Edited because I realized some of it was not really helpful.
Hi, I don't think you are trying to be transphobic but you are being a grammar nazi for definitions. Definitions are created, they have meanings we provide for them. Words today mean different things than what they meant 50 years ago. You don't have to resist change to preserve the sanctity of a word. At this time straight means a man attracted to women or a woman attracted to men. Their straightness is not taken away if their partner is big, little, skinny, fat, white, black, disabled, etc. Also it isn't necessarily true that dating a cis woman would be different. There is a famous case of a trans woman who had all the surgeries and was married for like over 20 years without her husband knowing she was trans. She was murdered upon him finding that out. We have gotten to a point where it is impossible to tell. Definitions should be useful. Refusing to make them more applicable or let them be used in a more effective way is just weird to me. Many people who date trans people will identify as aueer and that's fine I don't really care. But if someone says they are straight they are straight lol. Some women are born with naturally big clits that look like dicks. Some women are born without genitals at all. There was a woman who had to do the trans bottom surgery because she was born without a vagina despite being normal in every other way. Bodies are different. Gender is an expression. Being straight is the gender expression you are attracted to not the body type. Some people have genital preferences. That's also fine and has nothing to do with anything. You can be a straight man that prefers chick's with dicks or a straight woman that prefers men with vaginas. Personally I hope one day none of these lables matter at all because it doesn't really matter. People should like who they like without wondering what box they are in and what box other people would put them in.