r/trans•
Enbyra

Hear me out. Could "genital preferences" on dating sites make it better for us?

Discussion

I've seen a lot of discussion on how difficult it is for us on dating sites. To be honest, I haven't even attempted online dating since coming out as a trans man. I don't think I'll be ready for it for a while, as I've heard the horror stories and I'm scared.

Cis people seem to be obsessed with our genitals. So why not just allow people to privately choose "genital preference" on dating sites? When inputting your initial user data, (gender, sexual orientation, etc.), you could additionally be asked to list your genital preference as, "prefer penis", "prefer vagina", or "no genital preference", and when asked for which genitals you had, you could pick, "I have a penis", "I have a vagina", or "prefer not to say". You would have to answer this in order to use the site, but as anyone has the option to tick, "prefer not to say", it's not like they're forcing anyone to disclose private information about your body. This would be private, not clearly displayed on your profile, but would affect who you match with.

The main advantage of this is to shield trans people from transphobia and fetishization on dating sites, because we would be less likely to be matched with people that hate us or are just going after us because of our genitals. I assume many of us won't want to say what our genitals are. I probably would pick, "prefer not to say". Because it's no one's damn business unless I am likely to get intimate with them. Anyone with "prefer not to say" would automatically be matched with only people with "no genital preference", which seems ideal to me. As a man who is mostly attracted to men, I don't want to be with a guy who is disgusted with my vagina, but I also don't want to be with some chaser who just sees me as a fetish object, so I'd prefer someone who just doesn't care what my genitals are. You would only know the genitals of the people you match with if you choose a preference and if the people in your dating people match your preference.

Now, the downsides to this are that transphobes could then target people who have disclosed their genitals, so it would be more dangerous to disclose your genitals if you're trans and haven't had bottom surgery. However, I get the impression that we're already targets on dating sites, and as we would have the option to just not disclose and only be matched with people who have stated they don't care about genitals, that would make us less prone to those sorts of attacks than before. I also think a lot of cis people wouldn't be comfortable disclosing their genitals either, so "prefer not to say" wouldn't be seen as an automatic indication of being transgender. I think many trans allies would pick, "prefer not to say". And super transphobic people would proudly declare their genitals and proudly choose their genital preference. I can see a bunch of right-wingers targeting "woke dating sites" asking people this stuff, but they're always gonna whine about our existence one way or another. They're mad enough now about the possibility of being "tricked" into going on a date with a trans person already, and wouldn't this help them? UGH.

Anyway, what do you think of my idea? Are there potential horrific consequences to this that I haven't considered? It just occurred to me so maybe there's some really huge glaring obvious flaw that I'm missing. Let me know.

Posted Aug 15, 2024, 7:50 AM UTC

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