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Recent comments by Seth McFarlane, creator and writer of Family Guy, have caused controversy in circles where such controversy is wont to occur. You can read about it in more detail here, but the short of it is that one of his straight male characters threw up after he learned that he'd had sex with a post-op male-to-female transsexual. McFarlane was criticized for saying that he didn't think that this was an out-of-the-ordinary reaction for your average straight dude.
I got into a bit of an ugly scrum over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redstapler's LJ, where what I thought was a productive discussion with redstapler quickly got derailed by your usual-type flailers and shriekers accusing me of being the devil, so I was hoping maybe we could have a more civil discussion of the topic here.
It remains to be seen if that's possible.
My points, briefly, are that:
It is not unreasonable for a straight male in modern Western culture to be distressed upon learning that someone he thought was a ciswoman, that is to say a woman that was born a woman, with woman bits, who was acculturated as a woman was actually a transwoman, that is to say a woman that was born a man, with man parts, acculturated as a man who later got top and bottom surgery and is now a woman*.
It is, further, wrong for a transperson not to notify their partner that they are in fact trans, and not cis, if they can reasonably assume that the fact that they're trans might affect their partner's decision to consent to sex. In other words, their partner has to be given an opportunity for informed consent. Without such a notification, their partner is incapable of informed consent and that's wrong, because sex without informed consent is a form of rape -- in fact, it's one of the primary definitions of rape.
The arguments against me, as best I can understand them, are:
A transperson should never have to reveal their trans status because they are constantly in danger of being transbashed, that is to say, violently assaulted because of their transsexual status. Concern for their personal safety overrides any other considerations, including their obligation to inform a potential sexual partner.
If you have sex with a transperson and you can't tell that they're trans, then what difference does it make? You never need to know, and they never need to tell you. No harm, no foul.
yagathai is a racist and a transphobe and a homophobe and a terrible human being**.
Discuss.
*Yes, there may be ways to be a transwoman that don't involve getting a whole bunch of surgery, but this was the scenario as presented in the TV show and it's the one I'm going with here.
**For the record, I think you could make a legitimate case for only one of those four things.
I got into a bit of an ugly scrum over at
redstapler's LJ, where what I thought was a productive discussion with redstapler quickly got derailed by your usual-type flailers and shriekers accusing me of being the devil, so I was hoping maybe we could have a more civil discussion of the topic here.It remains to be seen if that's possible.
My points, briefly, are that:
It is not unreasonable for a straight male in modern Western culture to be distressed upon learning that someone he thought was a ciswoman, that is to say a woman that was born a woman, with woman bits, who was acculturated as a woman was actually a transwoman, that is to say a woman that was born a man, with man parts, acculturated as a man who later got top and bottom surgery and is now a woman*.
It is, further, wrong for a transperson not to notify their partner that they are in fact trans, and not cis, if they can reasonably assume that the fact that they're trans might affect their partner's decision to consent to sex. In other words, their partner has to be given an opportunity for informed consent. Without such a notification, their partner is incapable of informed consent and that's wrong, because sex without informed consent is a form of rape -- in fact, it's one of the primary definitions of rape.
The arguments against me, as best I can understand them, are:
A transperson should never have to reveal their trans status because they are constantly in danger of being transbashed, that is to say, violently assaulted because of their transsexual status. Concern for their personal safety overrides any other considerations, including their obligation to inform a potential sexual partner.
If you have sex with a transperson and you can't tell that they're trans, then what difference does it make? You never need to know, and they never need to tell you. No harm, no foul.
yagathai is a racist and a transphobe and a homophobe and a terrible human being**.Discuss.
*Yes, there may be ways to be a transwoman that don't involve getting a whole bunch of surgery, but this was the scenario as presented in the TV show and it's the one I'm going with here.
**For the record, I think you could make a legitimate case for only one of those four things.
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It is not unreasonable for a straight male in modern Western culture to be distressed upon learning that someone he thought was a ciswoman, that is to say a woman that was born a woman, with woman bits, who was acculturated as a woman was actually a transwoman, that is to say a woman that was born a man, with man parts, acculturated as a man who later got top and bottom surgery and is now a woman*
The reason this line of thinking is a problem is because it leads, as you acknowledged, to trans-bashing.
The problem is that this line of thinking is culturally taught. You are taught revulsion and distress to this situation.
Until the reaction to the discovery of a person's trans-status is no worse "Oh, sorry, that's not my bag," in the same way that some people don't like their lovers to have tattoos, facial hair, or the wrong body type, jokes reflecting trans panic, and even yes--a person's deciding to disclose is not your right.
I agree that in a happy shiny world, that info could be given freely and without issue. But that's not the world we're in.
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But OK, even if I agree with you, and I concede that not wanting to fuck transpeople is a learned trait -- so what? A person still has the right to exercise choice about their sexual partners based on a learned trait. You may not agree with their sexual preferences, but that doesn't mean that their sexual preferences shouldn't be respected. Our bodies, our choice, right?
Bottom line, just because that revulsion is culturally taught does not make it wrong for a person to feel revolted where their sex life and their sexual choices are concerned. I frankly cannot believe you are coming down against a person's sexual sovereignty here.
(This verges into point 2), but I'm going to bring it up because it also speaks directly to your point:)
Your argument, that a transperson is at such high risk of getting the shit kicked out of them that their risk level trumps their partner's right to informed consent, only holds water if those are the only two choices -- either come out and almost certainly get bashed, or lie to your partner and let them make a decision based on false pretenses. In that case, fine, you've got an argument. I still don't know if I buy it, but it's a much stronger position.
But there's a world of choice that occurs between those two options. You could, for example, not fuck the person you know wouldn't fuck you if s/he knew you were trans. That's the most obvious choice. That way you don't risk getting bashed, your potential partner doesn't have his or her sexual identity potentially violated and everyone's happy. Or you could look for someone that's trans-friendly in the forums that we now have available to us where people like that congregate. If you meet someone in a trans-friendly chat room, for example, the odds of getting transbashed drop precipitously.
So no, I'm sorry, I don't buy it. If I know that you'll be upset if you know the truth about me, but I go ahead and let you assume a falsehood anyway just so I can fuck you -- that's not right, Jill. It's wrong!
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I'm saying that a revulsion and disgust for the discovery of trans-status *is.* The danger trans-people live with is the result of long-standing, systemic, culturally-ingrained hate.
I'm not saying everyone needs to go fuck everyone regardless of one's preference. I'm saying that we need to change the fact that disgust and revulsion is the response.
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You watch the show. Do you think that the character of Brian, written consistently as a fairly comfortable middle-class liberal intellectual, would have vomited if he'd found out that Quagmire's dad was trans when he met her at the bar? Do you think he'd have showered compulsively if he'd been hanging out with with Quagmire's dad at a party and found out she was born a man? I would likely say, not.
Again, I submit that Brian's reaction was not to the simple fact that Quagmire's dad was trans, but rather because his sexual identity had been seriously violated and as a result he'd been psychologically traumatized.
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So, Mike, you're right that the reaction was not unheard of or unrealistic. Thinking it's not unrealistic doesn't make you transphobic or homophobic or a terrible person (you're a terrible person because you bust up your evil twin when she's vulnerably post-surgery!). But redstapler is also correct that media portrayal such "realism" contributes towards how people learn such behaviours.
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Also I don't buy that barfing is a common reaction to something you don't like having happened, at least as common as movies and TV would have us believe. Shit gets real, I don't spontaneously ralph, and I've never seen anyone do so.
But straight up? Family Guy is offensive all the time on every level and is not funny. Color me not shocked that they were not funny and offensive again.
I'm still thrown by it was the dog? Having sex with someone's dad? What?
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Brian is treated inconsistently based on the comedy needs of the episode. Sometimes he's treated like a dog, but in recent seasons they've been treating him like a human most of the time, with the occasional surreal gag that points out the fact that he's a dog. But he drinks martinis, has human girlfriends, drives a car, wrote a crappy pretentious novel that got panned by the New Yorker, etc. Basically anytime they need a straight man for a romance subplot, or a male character that isn't a buffoon like Chris or Peter, they use Brian the dog.
Within the fiction of the show, it's not at all unusual for the dog to be having sex with a human woman.
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See, this is what's very, very wrong about this situation: this "sexual identity had been seriously violated" thing. Why has his sexual identity been violated? It could only be violated because he believed that a transwoman is not a "real" woman. He believed that a transwoman is some sort of man in disguise, not a woman, and that the biology (and his own perception of her) is the truth and not how the person chooses to define herself. And that's sick and horrible and I have to refuse to think that this is the norm for white, cis-gendered men, because I would have to believe them even more damaged by the patriarchy than I already do.
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If what he found was what he wanted, and he did things he enjoyed, what does it matter where those parts came from? He met a woman, he liked a woman, he screwed a woman, and he presumably had a good time, period dot.
It certainly is transphobia to say, after all that, "omg what if I'm gay because she was really a sneaky trickster man and I had sex with him!"
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That's the crux of this particular argument for me. Being turned off by someone's body parts? Normal variation in desire. Being nauseated by the idea of the source of those body parts challenging your straightness? Homophobia and transphobia, plain and simple.
This does not make those emotions not real, to be clear. Emotions are emotions. But every one of us has the personal responsibility to handle our own emotions appropriately, and examine whether they come from flawed reasoning or bigoted assumptions.
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There's not much I'd want to say here that isn't getting said, but I did want to offer this:
From this page. (http://lezgetreal.com/2010/07/ncavp-releases-2009-hate-crimes-statistics/)
I know that you're not cool with transphobic violence or homophobic violence. However, I think what you're not considering is that for cisgendered LGB or Q folk, their partner's willingness to involve themselves sexually is a good sign that they're not about to get hurt. Even having to consider the question of whether a sexual encounter is going to turn into a violent attack is horrible, but at least once a gay person has you in bed, they know that they're probably past that question because you are PROBABLY comfortable with them being gay (being as you're potentially about to have gay sex with them).
Trans people have no such assurance. There is no point before everything is bared and everything is done where they can say, "Okay. At this point it's probably safe to say they're cool."
Would you be scared?
With rates of violence like what LGBT people get (with the bulk hitting racial minorities or feminine-presenting transpeople), if I were trans, I don't even know how often I'd leave the house. With rates of violence like that, the fact that a trans person is even engaging in sexual activity at all requires a hell of a lot of courage. This is sad, because it shouldn't take some kind of courageous hero to let someone near one's body, but for trans people, it kind of does.
As a result, I find you disbelief that conditions are so dangerous and so potentially frightening for trans people to be deeply misinformed at best, and trivializing of the violence they are threatened with at worst.
Even if you personally would blink and say, "Huh. Y'know, this does change things and I sort of wish I'd known before we got to this point," it might be a good idea to temper that with even a little bit of compassion for how frightening it probably is to tell you at all, and the trust that has just been placed in you to not murder your aspiring sexual partner.
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Also, not all trans people are part of trans communities or even have the internet. So, those people don't deserve to have relationships if they're concerned about their personal safety?
There's a whole world between knowing someone will be upset (which personally I wouldn't want to shag someone if I knew they'd be that hateful towards me) and knowing someone won't be, and 99% of cases fall into that.
(reposted to fix typo)
To borrow outright steal a meme from kynn, why isn't it the cis person's responsibility to preemptively disclose, "By the way, if I find out you're trans, I'll beat|kill you," as an even more certain way of not having trans people get bashed by their lovers?
(Hint: one of the places you went wrong was when you wrote, "you know wouldn't..." Until we can mandate 'phobes wearing some sort of warning symbol, that's not always so easy. Another place you went wrong is blaming the victim instead of the perpetrator of the violence,/em>. Bashing is never the right answer, and regardless of how confused someone is after having their worldview challenged by the existence of someone who isn't what they expect, the shame, blame, guilt, culpability, etc. for bashing rests squarely on the basher, not the victim, because violence is simply not acceptable morally, ethically, or technically legally (though to our whole society's shame, the "trans panic" defense has worked before in court). )
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The reason this line of thinking is a problem is because it leads, as you acknowledged, to trans-bashing.
And really, what do you propose as an alternative? That it's NOT OK for a guy to be upset that he feels he was decieved into sex? That he should be fine with it, and that a professional satirist and provocateur should self-censor and pretend that he's fine with it too? That's just not smart or right or realistic.
I don't even think your argument against my point #1 makes sense from a strictly utilitarian point of view, even if you ignore the ethical implications which comprise my point #2. The way to eliminate transbashing and effect a cultural shift is not to have more transwomen fuck more unwitting straight guys. In fact, it's a great way to polarize popular opinion against transpeople on a grassroots level.
I guarantee you this, Jill. The average straight guy -- and even most of the not-so-average, fairly socially and sexual liberal straight guy -- that finds out that he unwittingly slept with a transwoman and liked it is not going to suddenly be OK with fucking transwomen. He will not be like a kid you tricked into eating and liking beets. He will, instead, feel betrayed, confused and upset -- maybe upset enough to throw up, maybe not -- and then he's going to be angry. Very, very angry, as only people who have had their sexual choice taken from then can be.
Think about all the guys that, if approached by a transwoman who tells them that she's a transwomen, would say either "no thanks, that's not my bag" or even "no, ew, get away!" and not proceed beat the living shit out of her. I think people are fundamentally good, and tolerant, and a lot of guys would have exactly that reaction. They might be amused, or disgusted, or indifferent, but not violent.
Now of those guys, how many would in fact beat the living shit out of her if she slept with them and then revealed her status?
Those are the folks whose support you are losing with your line of reasoning. Those are also an awful lot of transwomen getting bashed instead of just rebuffed.
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Really? You must be less cynical than I am. I hope that doesn't damage your rep.
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There needs to be recognition that his revulsion toward transpeople is a question of the boundaries of his interest and not some inherent flaw or disgustingness in the transperson. It is possible to be straight and uninterested in what's gonna feel to you like gay sex without being revolted by the very possibility of it happening.
Lack of interest is not the same as revulsion. Period dot.
If I had a partner who needed me to wear a pony mask for him to enjoy himself, I might have to say, "Not that there's anything wrong with this mask, but it's not for me." If I had a partner who did not, in fact, have the penis I was looking for, I might have to say, "Not that there's anything wrong with this vagina, but it's not for me." I don't see why repulsion and disgust is the natural reaction, and not this. Is this really so hard?
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how obvious people like you and me think that tolerance is. It doesn't matter that you or I would think, "WTF why would you attack someone over that?" What matters is that it happens, and it is not for you or me to ignore the crazy transphobic madpeople, nor is it for you or me to tell transpeople that they're too worried about the reaction they'll get.
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Also, a fundamentally good person would not say, "no, ew, get away!" when told that one woman has had a different life experience from many other women. Emotional abuse is still abuse.