#transhets

to any gf I bring around as my “friend.” So of course I don’t relate to cis straight men about sexuality, but also I’m not gay or bi or pan. But the default of the community is that ‘LGBT is the opposite of straight,’ which really means cis straight people but everyone says straight. And then (cis) straight people obviously don’t make space for trans people. So I don’t feel like I fit in either with (cis) straight people or other queer people. Saying I’m straight feels not queer enough. (2/)

I think that for the most part we as a society just normatively assume cisgenderness whenever we discuss or think of sexuality- so the best way I’ve been able to understand my experiences and identity is that for me being straight is a queer thing to be. I wasn’t raised to be a guy or to be into girls- and was actively discouraged from both- but I am anyways. (3/3) 

Hell yeah. Straight trans people are absolutely queer enough, regardless of orientation, and there is genuinely no way for any trans person to be thought of as “straight” the way cis/straight society defines straightness; especially as a social class vs. just an orientation.

One great point I’ve seen (forever ago on twitter, or I’d link it) is that transhets are actually the exact group of people that a lot of mainstream transphobia is directly targeted at.

The entire concept of a “trap” is a trans woman who “tricks” straight men into “sleeping with a man”, and a ton of violence against trans women happens because straight men feel “tricked” when they discover the women they are attracted to are not, in fact, cisgender. They believe trans women are “just gay men” who only transition to “prey on straight men”.

The erasure of trans men in history is almost entirely because trans men are presumed to be lesbians, who “lived as men to escape homophobia”. The ways we’re targeted by cis lesbians support this, too; that trans men are just “lost lesbians” that cis lesbians need to save from ourselves, abuse into detransition, and force us to “accept ourselves as lesbians”.

Obviously transhets are not the only group that transphobia is targeted at. Trans lesbians are seen as “straight men who want to prey on lesbians” and on gay trans men are seen as “straight girl fujoshis who fetishize gay men”, and in general, we aren’t ever seen as really being gay or straight the way cis people are.

Bi/pan/m-spec trans people sort of get the worst of both worlds, and a-spec trans people have their own host of problems, too. There’s no way to escape oppression for our orientations as trans people.

You really nailed it here:

“We as a society just normatively assume cisgenderness whenever we discuss or think of sexuality”

The concept of straightness as a social class, one that comes with all kinds of privileges and inclusion in the mainstream of society, was never intended for trans people.