An article published in
Psychology Today says that if you are heterosexual and cisgendered and are attracted to men who are actually men or women who are actually women, then you are dehumanizing transgenders and the non-binary. Cisgenders are people who identify with their birth sex.
Karen L. Blair and Rhea Ashley Hoskins published a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships and they argue that the refusal to date transgenders and similar attitudes exacts psychological harm to transgenders.
The authors chose 1,000 participants for their study and asked their preferred partner given the following choices:
- a cisgender woman
- a cisgender man
- a transgender woman
- a transgender man
- a person with a non-binary gender identification
Roughly 87.5% answered that the first two options were preferred, depending on their orientation. Non-binary and transgenders were at the bottom of the list and only those who identified as gay, bi-sexual, or other forms of sexuality. The authors did not like this result and believe that a change of attitude is needed.
They wrote: “If trans and non-binary people lack access to one of the most stable sources of social support, this could explain some of the existing health disparities within trans communities.