• @TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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        227 months ago

        It unironically has a point. Straight is a very similar term to whiteness, in that it doesn’t just describe what people literally think it does. Much like how the “white race” isn’t just about skin color, with plenty of pale skinned people being excluded, straight excludes plenty of heterosexual people as well.

        If a cis woman dates a man who presents too feminine or a cis man dates a woman who presents too masculine, their straightness is called into question by conservative society. If a cis man dates a trans woman, not straight “because penis.” If a cis person dates an enby, they can literally be heterosexual, but still not qualify as straight for many. If a trans man dates a trans woman, conservatives will twist themselves into pretzels to consider them not straight. If a cishet man gets pegged by his cishet wife, believe it or not, straightn’t.

        You might not accept that people believe this, but I didn’t understand how people could see Jews as non-white growing up. I didn’t really get why white people would treat what I saw as other white people like that. Straightness breaks down if you actually look at how people use and think about the term. All notable concepts have loaded connotations that we are often unaware of. That’s just how our brains string together meaning at a neurological level.

        Straightness really means that someone isn’t one of those queer people and aren’t attracted to those queer people. It’s why men lose their shit and turn violent if they get attracted to a woman, only to find out that she’s trans. Their straightness is questioned because they fell for a “degenerate removed,” and they fear of becoming a “dirty homo” themselves.

        The mere existence of passing trans people and crossdressers makes it impossible for anyone to meet the unrealistic ideal that justifies trans panic as a legal defense. No one on earth can “always tell,” meaning that if you are attracted to the opposite gender at all, there is almost certainly a trans person or crossdresser that you’d be attracted to. The only way to ensure one will not be attracted to trans people is to be ace, meaning no true straight person could ever actually exist.