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You say vague things like "pro-trans" but it is better to stick to specific claims and policies. You mention a particular kind of framework called "gender ideology" but of course it's not clear what that framework specifically entails. For the first, I will talk about dating expectations since you mention it; for the second, I will give arguments that actual woke people seem to give.
In another reply, you bring up the superstraight TikTok trend. Here is something you missed: Woke gender ideologists are still relatively libertarian from a love perspective. They would not require a lesbian to suck any particular girl dick, or for anyone to date any particular trans person. The same non-entitlement arguments used on resentful incels apply to resentful trans people.
The key is understanding sexual orientation and gender expression. The only valid sexual orientations are those based on a certain allowed list of things: personality (pansexual), gender expression (hetero-, homo-), maybe some other aspects, whatever. This means "attracted only to people with college degrees" is not a sexual orientation. The reason is that "having a college degree" is not an aspect of gender expression. This is also why "attracted only to people with tattoos" or "attracted only to people with certain genitals" is not a sexual orientation.
College degrees, tattoos, and genitals -- these things are mere preference. (Flashback to Amy Coney Barret's verbal blunder!) So you can be attracted to someone and later lose interest once you find out they don't have a college degree or whatever.
One intuition pump for you is (assuming you are a normal straight guy): imagine a very attractive young woman, and then imagine learning later she has a penis. You probably don't want anything to do with her anymore. That's fine! But it is proof you can be attracted to trans people.
The woke way for a transphobe (or undercover-racist) to date: "Yes, I'm attracted to trans (or black) girls." And then just don't actually date any of them.
I don't understand how this wouldn't be a demonstration of the exact opposite: that a transwoman being a transwoman (i.e. male) is exactly what makes them unattractive to a straight man, overriding how they appear superficially.
If genitals were the actual thing that "attractive" meant, then this thought experiment would be incoherent. If genitals were the actual thing you meant by "attractive," then "imagine a very attractive young woman" would cause you to visualize a scene where the woman has taken off her clothes for you to inspect her.
My thought experiment is perfectly coherent to you, because you intuitively treat "attractive" as what the woke call gender expression: makeup, face shape, personality, stuff like that.
Of course, realizing that you can be attracted to trans people is alarming and offensive, which is I guess what causes all this kind of reaction.
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Imagine you like the colour red but you want to paint your shed green, and when the person you paid to paint your shed buys a pot of green paint and opens it they find that it's full of red paint, and you get annoyed that they've painted your shed red and their explanation is that the label says that it's green, and besides colour exists on a spectrum and what we call red is a neuro-socio-linguistic construction, and you're failing to account for people who are red-green colour blind.
Imagine if the painter tells you they have painted all of their own sheds red because they believe that red sheds are better than green sheds, but they reluctantly agree to repaint your shed and then go and pour the leftover "green" paint into a new pot of green paint, making it neither red nor green. How is that possible to add red-called-green to green and get something that isn't red, red-called-green, or green? Does it matter if they show you their revised work in a black-and-white photo where you can't tell what colour the shed is? Does it matter if they show you the lid from the new pot they used that objectively proves the new paint was green before it was opened, or that the labels on both pots say green?
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Agreed, that's why I started the thread. I am trying to understand the mainstream progressive/leftist/woke view on transgenderism and to scrutinize it. If you are saying that no such consensus view exists, fine, but that's a different issue.
Ok, and who gets to decide what is on the allowed list?
Sure, if "attracted to trans people" includes "unknowingly attracted to trans people." But so what? What's your point here?
I'm a normal straight guy. I have no sexual attraction for men (as that term is traditionally defined). This includes trans-identifying-men, no matter how traditionally feminine they are in their appearance. (By "sexual attraction," I am not including unknowing sexual attraction.) I suspect that because of this, many Leftists would label me a "transphobe" and imply (or state) that there is something wrong with me. Do you agree that many people would do so? And would you agree with those people?
Oh, woke people do of course.
The point is an illustration of what the words "attracted to" and "preference" actually mean in practice.
Hopefully you're starting to understand the woke argument? If you have to say "By X I am not including certain kinds of X" then there's a problem here.
I think they would say you are not actually attracted to femininity at all! The core gender-ideologist claim is that Caitlyn Jenner is in the same bucket as Angelina Jolie, and they call that bucket femininity. They wouldn't quite say "you are attracted to genitals" because genitals are not a kind of gender expression. (I want to re-iterate that 'attracted to college degrees' is incoherent, but 'preference for college degrees' is not.)
Finally, they'll darkly hint that you seem to view women as bodies attached to a hole, or something.
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I agree with this. I am not pro-trans, but I understand it enough I'd say. The entire "gender identity" idea starts with noting that some people have a condition that causes them to feel like they have the brain of a woman but the body of a man, or vice versa. Take the idea that said people feel uncomfortable being reminded of their sex, and work backwards to make sex as irrelevant as possible. With the exception of an extreme fringe, they won't directly insult you for not wanting to date a trans person. They just insist it be called "genital preference" and avoid pointing out that it's because they're trans, in keeping with never mentioning what sex a person is.
Though they will occasionally imply that "genital preference" is internalized transphobia conditioned by society, so they can tell themselves they aren't pressuring you to change, simply offering a helpful suggestion.
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? This seems very dumb. Imagine I surgically modified a great ape to look like a very attractive young woman from a distance, and you had any flicker of sexual interest upon seeing the ape from a distance. You are therefore an enthusiast in Apes. Elsewise, imagine I put a hologram of an attractive woman nearby and you had a flicker of sexual interest. This proves you are robosexual.
Also clear AI response.
The believer in woke gender ideology would just tell you that the sting of your analogy is precisely that robots and apes are not people. Which by the way, makes your analogy dehumanizing and problematic, etc.
Furthermore, my guess is you are being "sex-essentialist" and focusing on the person's genitals. As I explained, having a genital preference is fine, but is not a sexual orientation. This means the analogy's conclusion should not be "you are robosexual" but rather "you can be attracted to a robot." A nitpick, I know.
If I got an early bloomer 12 year old girl, dressed her up and made some mild surgical enhancements then went 'gotcha you're a pedophile' it's the same thing, though.
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