It's really popular to dunk on trans women these days; acting like white cis heterosexual men are so oppressed and going against the grain and "speaking out" against some imaginary status quo that trans people have established, e.g., "has gone too far." It doesn't surprise me that these same people help this video rise in popularity on reddit and elsewhere, especially since, I believe at its root, is a threat to masculinity which is partially based on *not being gay.* We'll get into that bit later and also I know there are *some* bisexual men who still care about this as well. Masculinity is complicated. This is something I notice far more among men and far less among lesbians--these sort of opinions are a minority among lesbians I've encountered on Tinder--TERF lesbians are few and far between. However, this is a very common opinion among men on Tinder I've met. The same for my experiences online and my friend's anecdotes. Of course, those are simply anecdotes.

This video isn't coherent to me. He uses an abstract moralization/metanarrative from a strawman about trans people thinking labels are bad, i.e., "well trans people say labels are bad therefore why would they label me transphobic?" Just to entertain this narrative, if he really is arguing for the abolition of, at least, these labels, more concretely, abolishing gender-coded things like makeup means you're a "woman," then why would the label of gender assigned to someone at birth be important if you're already attracted to that person, considering the aforementioned position? Surely, we must admit then, even by this own logic there are localized contexts which contradict the metanarrative of simply "labels are bad."

Now that we've addressed that strawman and abstract moralization by playing devil's advocate, let's actually attack the root of the problem I see with this argument. Let's do a little thought experiment. Let's say you've been in a sexual and loving relationship with someone you know is infertile--for whatever reason--who you genuinely find attractive and wonderful. However, they let you know that they were assigned male at birth and this changes how you feel and you dump them--this is transphobic. You are entitled to do so--you should not be forced to be in a relationship you do not want to be in. Your transphobia doesn't mean you are or should be forced to be with someone who you don't want to be with. But you should do some self-crit on why you would be willing to dump someone over how they were assigned at birth, despite previously loving who they are and finding them sexually attractive. The answer to that might be something like "because they're not who they said they were," or they "lied by omission," or that they "owed you that knowledge." Why are they not who they said they were; why was it a lie; why are you owed that knowledge? Because of the presumption of cisgenderedness? Perhaps it's because you only believe we call trans women *women* out of kindness, but not because we believe they're *truly women like cis women are,* in that cis women are the more authentic woman, or even exist in a space orthogonal to trans women, e.g., "a type of woman" you are attracted to. You can make lots of abstract reasons on how you *deserved to know* but we must ask why it is you *deserved to know* and why it changed your love and attraction to this person. There's lots of things people don't tell others until late in a relationship, such as with trauma--you're not entitled, but we may open up and share this because we love you and you're a part of our lives. The real reason you feel entitled to know is that you feel it affects the state of your affection for the aforementioned reasons of who you see as *the type of woman you're attracted to.* Would you stop loving someone for trauma they went through as a child? If so, that might be something worth analyzing in yourself and perhaps something that's negative in you, but this doesn't mean you should be forced to be with someone you don't want to be with, even if most people would think you're a dick for dumping someone because they were traumatized as a child and only opened up later in the relationship about it.