The cotton ceiling is a metaphor for the perceived marginalization or desexualization of trans women in queer erotic communities.[1][2][3][4] It has been used to describe a "tendency by cisgender lesbians to outwardly include and support trans women, but draw the line at considering ever having sex with them."[5]
The term is controversial. Some lesbians and gender-critical commentators interpret the term as connoting an obligation to have sex with trans women, which LGBTQ+ academics dispute.[6]
^Zamantakis, Alithia (2021-12-13). Thinking Cis: Racialized Cissexism, Cis-Heterosexual Men, And Cis-LBQ Women. Georgia State University (Thesis). doi:10.57709/26163765. Archived from the original on 2022-12-28. Retrieved 2023-01-04. The cotton ceiling, though, is not a demand for cisgender lesbians to sleep with trans women. Rather, it is the articulation of the manifestation of cissexism within lesbian spaces in which cisgender, lesbian women may refuse to see trans women as women and/or lesbian. In the heated debate surrounding the "cotton ceiling," cisgender lesbians reframe trans women as "[men] whose idea of 'woman' clearly is nothing other than a sexual object" (Yardley 2018).(Link to cited article)Archived 2024-04-16 at the Wayback Machine