"I’m sick of being told I should like penis. I don’t like penis. That’s why I’m a lesbian. That’s the whole point."

Says a lesbian quoted in "Some women have penises. If you won’t sleep with them you’re transphobic/87.5 percent of respondents to a recent survey said they would only consider ‘cis’ people as potential sexual partners" by James Kirkup (in American Spectator), which I'm reading because it's linked at Instapundit ("21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Some women have penises. If you won’t sleep with them you’re transphobic").

But is it really true that, for everyone who is a lesbian, the reason is the utterly genitalia-focused notion "I don’t like penis"? To be fair to the quoted individual, she did say "That’s why I’m a lesbian" (emphasis added). She doesn't purport to speak for all lesbians, and she can't from her own personal experience exclude the possibility that other lesbians are attracted to other aspects of a woman, perhaps subtle qualities that we label "gender."

I'm not sure what exactly that is, and it's hard to put it into words without coming across as sexist, but what are transgender women feeling when they say that inside they feel like a woman? I'd like to think that women come in infinitely variable forms, so that it doesn't make sense to say you feel like "a woman." Which woman of the infinitely variable forms of women are you talking about? But people do talk like that. It's not just for transgenders. We hear the song "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman," and we understand — in fact, we find it especially deeply meaningful. It's standard movie dialogue for a female character to say that a man makes her "feel like a woman" (or for a male character to say that a woman makes him "feel like a man"). If it were all about the genitalia they wouldn't long for confirmation like that. They could just take a gander at their nether regions.

But nobody should bully anybody about having sex, and you're entitled to say "no" for any reason. You don't need to offer an explanation. You have the right to say no. Every young person should be taught that. Anyone who doesn't accept that you've declined the invitation and starts accusing you of having bad thoughts — including being "transphobic" — is a manipulator or someone who does not understand boundaries. With sex, you should be turning down almost everybody. There can't be a presumption that if you say "no," it's for any particular reason. And if they persist and demand justification, that's another reason for saying "no."

People often say "no" when the precise reason would be very rude to say out loud! It might be "transphobic" to tell a transgender person bluntly that you would never have sex with a transgender, but it's other kinds of -phobic to tell somebody who wants you that they're fat or old or homely or poor or too religious or a race you don't like. You still get to say "no" for any of those reasons.

Your body is not a social justice stomping ground.