I hope the mods don't mind that I decided to start a separate thread about this, since I saw the original one was locked presumably due to transphobic speech - let's try to keep this clean. In my view, there are valid reasons not to date trans people and there are transphobic reasons not to date them. For example, if I said I don't wanna date a trans woman with a penis because I have genital preferences, or I wanna have biological children, those are valid reasons. But if I said I don't wanna date a trans woman because I don't consider them "real women", that would be transphobic.

The decision and desire to label people who refuse to date trans people transphobic should depend largely on their reasons, since our preferences can sometimes betray underlying prejudices. This could work in terms of race as well, for instance if I didn't wanna date black women because I just prefer articulate women or I like quiet girls, this would imply I believe all black women conform to a racist stereotype of loudness or inarticulate speech.

It's not necessarily the preference itself that's the issue, but the potential reason why it exists. I don't think any reasonable person is saying you can't have preferences, it's your right to date or sleep with any consenting adult you want, but that doesn't mean some introspection wouldn't go amiss sometimes regarding why you rule out a specific group of people.