TW Rape: My partner and I are both genderqueer & non-binary (AFAB). When my partner was younger, their father forced them to watch het porn as conversation therapy. Because of this, they developed PTSD-like symptoms, mainly when considering penetrative sex with someone who has a penis. I too experience similar PTSD after having been violently raped by cis men as a teen. Would either of us be considered transphobic for having negative reactions to the idea of penetrative sex involving a penis?

queeranarchism:

I’ve had this conversation on here a lot of times before. I could point to a post of mine in that debate but I think the best reply was bu unquietpirate, and it’s this one:

I appreciate seeing some people having this conversation, because this is something I’ve thought about a lot and haven’t had a clear articulation for. Basically, what it boils down to is a situation where two legitimate experiences of oppression are clashing — one in which survivors are triggered on the basis of legitimate trauma, and one in which marginalized people are having their marginalization reinforced by having their bodies treated as a threat.

Incidentally, this is a pattern we see in some other places, too. The one that most immediately comes to mind is the way that white women often respond to black men in public. On the one hand, we have women saying that they feel vulnerable around men, regardless of race, especially walking alone late at night, etc. and that sounds pretty legit. At the same time, we have people of color pointing out that white women’s fear and perception of black bodies as “threatening” has long been used as an excuse to oppress and incarcerate men of color.

Generally, when someone has less institutional power than you, publicly asserting that you find their body threatening is, in actuality, a threat against them. Because, as a person with privilege, the institution is interested in making sure you feel comfortable and not threatened — at the expense of the other person’s safety if necessary. In other words, publicly stating that you feel “unsafe” around “oppressed type of person X” is, on an extremely micro level, a little bit like calling the cops on a homeless person outside your house. “Hello, Officer? There’s someone sleeping on the street over here. They’re not really causing trouble, no, but…it’s just making me nervous. Is there anything you can do?”

I have a friend, a poor white queer woman, who was mugged in downtown New Orleans once when she was a teenager. The people who mugged her happened to be two large black men. And she struggles with this now because she doesn’t want to be a racist, and yet she finds herself avoiding black men on the street, partly because of lingering trauma from that experience. As a young person, she associated that experience with her muggers’ blackness and that became a part of her experience of the trauma of being mugged.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the experience of being mugged at 19 in a strange city is genuinely traumatizing. It also seems obvious, to my friend herself and to me, that as a white person with the power to institutionally harm people of color, she has more responsibility than she would otherwise to work through the elements of that trigger that are rooted in racism. It’s not necessarily that her avoidance of black men today is a show of active racism; it may simply and entirely be a trigger-reaction to past trauma.
But it’s likely that the trauma lodged itself in her psyche the way it did because of racist ideas she held at the time — after all, she subconsciously associated her experience specifically with the mens’ blackness; she didn’t just develop a phobia of “people who live in New Orleans”, or “pairs of large men”, or “men with guns”, or “muggers.” Her subconscious singled out and specified their Blackness as the relevant characteristic in her mugging — and then clung to that fixation for ten years.

And, because of the system’s desire to make her as a white person feel comfortable, her lingering psychoemotional phobia of a group of people who have less institutional power than her puts those people in danger.

Similarly, I get that some people have had legitimately traumatizing, sexually violent experiences with someone who had a penis. But, contrary to cartoonish cultural belief, a penis is not an autonomous entity with a mind of its own. A penis doesn’t commit rape. A person commits rape. And subconsciously hyperfocusing on the rapist’s genitals (or their skin color, or their socioeconomic class, etc.) as the source of the rape suggests something about prejudices that probably pre-existed the traumatizing experience — such as the cissexist prejudice that penises are inherently linked with masculinity and sexual violence. 

That doesn’t mean the trauma’s not real! It just means the trauma is manifesting through the cultural lens that the traumatized person brought to the experience. That cultural lens can still have oppressive socialization in it; that slate isn’t wiped clean by the fact that the person was victimized — even though it sucks that they were.
I’m not sure if I’m articulating this very clearly. I guess maybe what I’m trying to say is this: The OP seems to be asking for a compact way to express, “I’ve had traumatizing experiences with some people who had penises, and I’m not currently willing or able to prioritize resolving that trauma, so instead I don’t want to interact with any people who have penises right now.” That’s a completely legit desire, depending on where that person is in their healing and recovery process. But I don’t think it’s a simple enough desire that we should boil it down to a one-word identity label.

Although, again, in the course of our each of our healing processes, I’d encourage prioritizing the healing of traumas that makes us dangerous to vulnerable people first. If I’m recovering from battlefield PTSD, the first thing I want to do is make sure my own safety needs are met, and the next thing I want to do is make sure getting triggered doesn’t result in me lashing out and hitting my spouse. Likewise, if I’m recovering from a traumatizing experience with a penis, the first thing I want to do is just make sure I’m okay, and the next thing I want to do is make sure getting triggered doesn’t result in me lashing out at trans women.
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I mean…analogies are tricky, obviously…but let’s say I was raped by a very large, strong, heavy person who used their size to overpower me sexually, and now that makes me feel nervous around people who are physically bigger than me — including (but not limited to) fat people. How do I explain that I don’t want to date fat people because I’m triggered by their bodies because I was raped by a fat person once? How do I express that in a way that both allows me to take care of myself and avoids perpetuating fatphobia?

Or, to go back to the original analogy: Let’s say I was raped once, and the person who raped me was a black man, and now I feel nervous around black men and don’t want to date them. How do I express that? And how do I express it in a way that doesn’t perpetuate racism?
Because, ultimately, these scenarios are similar to, “I was raped once, and the person who raped me had a penis, and now I feel nervous around people with penises and don’t want to date them.” How do you express that in a way that honors your healing process but doesn’t perpetuate transmisogyny?

I don’t have an answer to any of these questions. I guess I’m just trying to point out that I don’t think coming up with some word people can slap on their blog along with the rest of their identifiers is appropriate in any of these situations. Negotiating the tricky space between setting boundaries that keep us safe and trying our best not to perpetuate oppression is difficult and important and it’s always going to be difficult. I really don’t think there’s a shortcut around that process. And I also think there are lots of considerate and compassionate ways to turn down dates with people who trigger you besides telling them that they trigger you.

I just can’t imagine trying to come up with a “polite” word people could use to say “I don’t fuck fat people. Their bodies freak me out” even if the reason fat bodies freak you out comes from some kind of trauma. There have got to be better ways to navigate that situation. And I think there have got to be better ways to navigate this situation than coming up with a newer, gentler, more compassionate word to describe people who are afraid of trans* bodies. I mean, come on, we already have a word that literally describes people who are afraid of trans* bodies: Transphobic.
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All we’re really saying here is that, when someone is transphobic in a way that fixates on trans womens’ penises, sometimes that transphobia is based purely in generalized cultural prejudice about penises, and other times that transphobia is based in specific instances of personal trauma with people who had penises. That’s fine. Whatever. The ultimate impact of your phobia on trans women is the same — your fear still makes you still dangerous to them.

So, if you want to argue that your transphobia is a result of trauma and that you’re not ready to deal with it, fine, that’s where you’re at; just own that shit. Accept that one of the many negative consequences of your experience with sexual violence is that it made you more transphobic, and that sucks, and that dealing with it isn’t a priority for you right now. Have the decency to be transparent about that, so trans women folks can know that you’re not a safe person to be around right now and avoid you if they want to.

I mean, look, on some level everyone’s prejudice is an artifact of trauma. Isn’t it? Personal prejudice against marginalized folks is an element of systemic abuse. Most people become abusers because they, themselves, were abused. That’s worth being compassionate about, absolutely. But it’s not enough to get people off the hook when they do abusive shit.