Superstraight

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A common variant of a "superstraight" pride flag. The coded Nazi symbol (8 = H) and porn-site color scheme are totally accidental.
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Sexuality
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"Superstraight" is a sexual orientation invented by alt-right trolls to describe heterosexual individuals whose attraction does not include transgender people. It is another example of a 4chan psy-op intended to sow division within the LGBT community. The meme spread throughout social media in March 2021, finding notable support among TERFs and other transphobes.[1][2][3]

Genesis of the Superstraights: Kyle Royce[edit]

Although the notion of heterosexual men not wanting to date trans women is not a new concept, the term being discussed seems to have appeared in common internet parlance in early 2021.[4] In this specific case, Kyle Royce, the possible propagator of the "superstraight" idea (or, at the very least, the most newsworthy 'superheterosexual'), anecdotally refers to instances of being called transphobic for not wanting to date a trans woman in his life. To address these remarks, Kyle posted a video, circa early 2021, by stating the following:

Yo, guys, I made a new sexuality now, actually. It’s called “super-straight,” since straight people, or straight men as myself — I get called transphobic because I wouldn’t date a trans woman.

The issue with this first statement is the fact that Royce claims that he "made a new sexuality". He forgets, or does not understand, that sexuality is not invented. Rather, it seems Royce believes that people identifying qualities or aspects of their own sexuality is equivalent to creating a sexuality. Heterosexual could be seen in a context as a broad category of sexuality and while meaning "I am attracted to female-identifying individuals" or "I am attracted to cis-female individuals" or something else. Who knows. If further demonstrates that Royce forgets that American society, only within the last two decades or so, has begun to openly discuss qualities that make someone LGBT+. Different labels or terms for different groups of sexuality may appear odd to people who either do not confront these ideas regularly or discuss them regularly. However, Kyle has more to say on the matter:

You know, they’re like, “Would you date a trans woman?” No.

Who Kyle would wish to date is his business alone. However, Kyle turns this discussion into a transphobic micro-rant:

“Why? That’s a female.” No, that’s not a real woman to me. I want a real woman. “No, you’re just transphobic.” 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's hard to know where to start during a road-kill autopsy. First, Royce could have just said that he is not comfortable dating a trans-female. Instead, he takes the time to justify his belief by highlighting a view that insults and delegitimizes someone's sense of self. Then, to reassert the fact that he is not transphobic — which his statement is, by and large — Royce applies his flimsy understanding of sexuality (or his flimsy defense) as a salve against protestations of his feelings toward members of another gender/sexual-orientation group. Ultimately, Kyle uses his "coming-out" video to lambast both non-heterosexual sexual-orientations and insult transexual women.

Furthermore, this argument is essentially self-refuting. The whole idea behind SuperStraight is that trans women supposedly aren't "real" women. However, by saying that not being attracted to trans women makes him something other than straight, he is essentially admitting that trans women are women.

Because he spread views that demonstrated hateful verbiage — whether he intended for his video to be satirical or genuine — Royce's video was removed from Tiktok only to become the source of inspiration for shitheads-the-lot-of-'em and nazis to propagate the fuck out of the idea of "superstraight persecution".[5][6][7]

Irony[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Irony

Funnily enough, this meme seems to have been predated by a 2017 standup routine performed by transgender comedian Robin Tran, in which she coined and used the phrase "super straight" to mean exactly the opposite of what the transphobes are now taking it to mean:

So apparently, most doctors would say that if you're a man and you're attracted to transgender women, that doesn't make you gay. But I think that we should take that a step further. I think that if you're a guy and you're attracted to transgender women, not only are you not gay, I think that means that you're super straight. It's like: "Yo, Kevin, do you like transgender women?" Kevin's like "What? Do I like transgender women? Dude, as long as she's a girl, I don't give a fuck what kind… I'll eat a girl's pussy, I'll suck a girl's dick, dude: I don't give a fuck; she's a girl!"
—Robin Tran[8]

References[edit]