The Volokh Conspiracy

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent

Nothing Says "Free to Be Me" Like Compulsory Pansexuality

"Is a lesbian transphobic if she does not want to have sex with trans women?"

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A remarkable story from the BBC, revealing a phenomenon that strikes me as utterly bizarre:

Jennie is a lesbian woman. She says she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas. She therefore only has sex and relationships with women who are biologically female.

Jennie doesn't think this should be controversial, but not everyone agrees. She has been described as transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a "terf"—a trans exclusionary radical feminist….

Another lesbian woman, 26-year-old Chloe*, said she felt so pressured she ended up having penetrative sex with a trans woman at university after repeatedly explaining she was not interested.

They lived near each other in halls of residence. Chloe had been drinking alcohol and does not think she could have given proper consent.

"I felt very bad for hating every moment, because the idea is we are attracted to gender rather than sex, and I did not feel that, and I felt bad for feeling like that," she said.

Ashamed and embarrassed, she decided not to tell anyone….

One woman reported being targeted in an online group. "I was told that homosexuality doesn't exist and I owed it to my trans sisters to unlearn my 'genital confusion' so I can enjoy letting them penetrate me," she wrote.

My view:

  1. People who want to have sex with you may indeed try to make you feel bad for not agreeing.
  2. "You owe it to someone to enjoy letting me penetrate you" is a very old story.
  3. It's just not clear to me how this gives them the moral high ground.