Super straight or super transphobic? Trend being used as attempt to mask bigotry

     Most social media users know that all kinds of new trends arise every day; however, the newest trend comes with underlying transphobia and hurt: the “super straight movement.” According to some social media users, super straight is a new sexuality that is for persons who would only be romantically involved with someone who still identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth… in other words, they won’t date people who are transgender.

     Though to many, on the surface, this trend seems like a harmless “preference”—in reality, it is inherently problematic. The origins of the trend come from a TikTok video where the speaker states “straight men like myself- I get called transphobic because I wouldn’t date a trans woman. You know they’re like, ‘would you date a trans woman?’ I’m like, ‘[..] uh no like that’s not a real woman to me like I want a real woman.’” 

     This user, who has since been banned, continues to say “so now I’m super straight, I only date the opposite gender. Women that are born women. So you can’t say I’m transphobic now because that’s just my sexuality, you know?” It is abundantly clear from this clip that the “movement” was started by somebody who does not support the LGBT+ community—which accounts for the transphobic name.

     By referring to themselves as super straight, they are implying that they are somehow more straight than those who would date a member of the transgender community. However, a straight man who dates a transgender woman is no less straight, and the same goes for a straight woman who dates a transgender man. To suggest anything else is to invalidate the identity of trans people, which is never okay.

     Moreover, the super straights are considering themselves to be an “oppressed” addition to the LGBT+ community and are using language that is commonly used to defend those who identify as queer. By doing so, they are essentially invalidating the hurt felt by those in the LGBT+ community and making a mockery of those who have actually been historically, systematically oppressed.

     It is also important to note that this “harmless” trend has supposed ties to neo-Nazi groups. After its introduction on TikTok, the trend made its way to an anonymous imageboard website called 4chan where a logo for the movement got spread around. The logo consists of two capital S’ that are shaped like lightning bolts, and they match the logo of a paramilitary organization that was operated under Adolf Hitler, called Schutzstaffel. 

     Screenshots of deleted posts from 4chan also show that users associated with neo-Nazis admitted that their goals are to “drive a wedge between tr*nnies and other f*g groups” and “use the left’s tactics against themselves, call them bigots for not accepting super straights.”

     Because members of the transgender community can understand the hurt caused by this movement better than any cis person, it is important to listen to and amplify their take on this trend over anyone else’s. Harford Tech junior, and member of the transgender community, Aegis stated that “it’s honestly just really humiliating to people who are trans. I mean we get hate constantly and now people are trying to insert themselves into our community by excluding us.”

     He continued to share that “it’s just a fancy way to be transphobic, which of course is hard for any trans person to read in general.” According to Aegis, “obviously, you don’t have to date a trans person because you may not be attracted to their sex, but it’s so dumb to make a whole new identity for it.”

     He summed it up perfectly—very few people are actually claiming that it’s transphobic for someone’s dating preferences to exclude people who are transgender; but if that’s the case then you simply have a preference, not a new sexual orientation. And for the record, everyone has preferences. Whether it be eye color, height, ability to have children, sex organs, or anything else, preferences are a natural part of being human; but decent people don’t announce to the world who they find unattractive.

     Bottom line, people can date who they want to, and likewise, refrain from dating who they want to, but the super straight trend only exists as a means for internet trolls to spread bigotry and invalidate the LGBT+ community—especially those who are transgender.