because people have been discussing this lately, i think it's worth a reminder that fetishization is more than finding someone attractive. i'm a trans woman and i think i look pretty good most of the time. my partner is trans and obviously i think she's attractive. it is not transphobic to find a trans person hot or to think about or portray them in a sexual context
now to be clear: fucking trans people is not activism. it's not something that needs to be celebrated, especially because in many cases it does come with fetishization. but it's also not something that should be treated as deviant, because it isn't. and acting like it is is itself a form of transphobia
“My friend, still seemingly perplexed, asked me "So if it's not about genitals, what is it about trans women's bodies that you find so attractive?"
I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes.
When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness.
I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person.
I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway.
I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.
When I look into a trans woman's eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators.
In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognised as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world.
In a trans woman's eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that's seemingly fuelled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one's femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage.
Everybody loves to say that drag queens are "fabulous", but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity