So apparently a child with a mustache posted a video on TikTok declaring that he's "made a new sexuality" called super straight? That, according to him, means he doesn't date transgender women because they aren't "real women," but you can't call him transphobic because "that's just my sexuality, you know?"
To be honest, no. I do not understand this self-declared "straight man." And, again, he looks like he's maaaaybe a junior in high school and, hey, nothing wrong with being a teenager. I was 16 before and thought I was real smart about a bunch of shit I turned out to know nothing about. Only, I didn't pretend to invent a sexual orientation to shield myself from getting called out for my very clear bigotry.
Anyone else super straight? Big respect to this guy createing a new thing. #superstraight pic.twitter.com/hdLdeV82xK
— üëëSuper straight revolutionüëë (@OGSuperstraight) March 3, 2021
What this kid needs is help. It's not healthy to be hateful, and his very public declaration that he would never date a trans woman seems like a cry for help. Toxic masculinity hurts everyone.
And, to be clear, this kid's problem isn't that he won't date trans women. He doesn't have to date anyone he doesn't want to date. If he doesn't find someone attractive, that's his biz. His problem is that he's really, really proud of his anti-trans bias and doesn't care about offending or hurting an already marginalized group of people who do not benefit from his straight/male/cisgender privilege.
Oh, and the so-called super straight flag is black and orange. You know, like Halloween. That is appropriate because this super straight thing is actually pretty scary in that the movement has been latched onto by Nazi trolls online BECAUSE OF COURSE IT HAS. There are "super straight" logos all over social media with "SS" stylized like that of the Schutzstaffel. Nazis are why we can't have nice things and why the bad things we have are even worse. White supremacy/Nazism/white nationalism, whatever way you slice it, have misogyny at their core. So it isn't a surprise that transgender people are a target of their hatred.
I'd also like to give a shout out to stand-up comic Robin Tran (@robintran04 on Twitter) who pointed out that she came up with the term "super straight" as early as 2017 in a hilarious bit lampooning macho attitudes about transgender men and women, though Tran's definition is pretty much the opposite of the "super straight" currently trending. Go watch it. As a treat.
TikTok user Procrasclass has the best takedown of the so-called Super Straight thing. Procrasclass has posted several videos on this topic and is clear that Super Straightdom is straight-up transphobia. It is not, as some claim, just declaring a preference. "If a white woman says she prefers white guys that means she dates white guys more often but Black guys aren't off the table," he says, "versus 'I won't date you because you're Black,' which means she thinks that there's something inherently wrong with Black people."
To all the people who think #superstraight is a thing please what this tiktok
You may understand why superstraight is fucking transphobic pic.twitter.com/jtcpWm91ca— that guy with a sombrero (@ABlideran) March 6, 2021
Bingo. "I won't date you because you're trans" means you think there's something wrong with being trans. Therefore, it's not a simple preference. It goes deeper than that.
There's this misguided idea that trans people are inherently dishonest and trying to deceive everyone around them and, worst of all, want to trick straight people into dating/having sex/falling in love with them. And because of our culture's entrenched sexism and homophobia, men who identify as straight consider this an active threat and the worst kind of betrayal.
Being super straight doesn't affirm your heterosexuality. It does, however, telegraph to the world that you are not super worthy of dating to begin with.
