Dearest Saranjit, thank you for your thoughtful response.
It may be too simplistic to portray the cisgender man as reacting from a place of sexual insecurity.
I apologise if it sounds like I am calling-out cisgender men, generally — I am not. I am addressing the particular sort of man who is antagonistic toward trans women and fearful of being ‘tricked’ into dating one. I do believe that these men are acting out of sexual insecurity; fearing that being intimate with someone they believe is ‘really a man’ will somehow ‘rape’ them of their manhood. I come to this conclusion based upon the many, many outraged messages I have received from these fellows.
Among many reasons could be a genuine concern that the trans partner is the one who is insecure, having “changed” once, why wouldn’t they change again?
Now this is interesting, and something I had not considered. You said —
…any relationship comes with insecurities…enlightening to have the conversation…
— and I think the de-transition concern would fall under those ‘conversations we need to have in our relationship’. And of course, with men who refuse to date trans women categorically, those conversations will never occur.
(For the record, de-transition is vanishingly rare. The media love a sensational headline, and they highlight the rarest occurrences — criminality, severe mental illness, de-transition, and so forth — so that people perceive these things as common. In reality, ‘transition regret’ is quite rare, and de-transition occurs in a small handful of cases out of the many thousands, perhaps millions, of transitions that occur.)
The one thing I can say for certain is that, as an average cis-man I would welcome the opportunity to talk openly to people who do not identify as cisgender and I don’t believe I am in a minority with that view.
I am not so certain, Saranjit, but I am charmed by your openness and optimism, and I sincerely hope you’re right. My perception may be distorted by the heat and volume of those who are loudly antagonistic. Perhaps there is a more open majority who are silent. Thank you for speaking out.
It would be enlightening to have the conversation rather than speculating here but I have never met a trans person, to my knowledge.
You have now, luv. :-) I am open to any questions you may have, and look forward to continuing our conversation.
❤ Allison
P.-S. J’habite actuellement en Angleterre, mais je prévois mon retour en France, et j’avais passé du temps en Belgique. La photo qui accompagne cette histoire est moi, en Belgique à Noël, en 1989. Enchantée de faire connaissance. :-)
