Secret Shame

116 thoughts on Secret Shame

1. Yep, I’ve heard that claim before (“I had a friend who KILLED HIMSELF after hooking up with a tranny!”). And while I offer condolences w/r/t the loss, I have to assume that there was something else going on at the same time. Some other, underlying mental health issue. I have a really hard time believing that tranny nookie is that dangerous.

   I’m not trans, so I don’t have personal experience with disclosing gender variance, but I always tell potential kissy-friends that I’m bisexual before the kissin’ gets going. However, I’ve never even remotely feared that violence would ensue from that disclosure, so I don’t know how relevant that experience might be.

2. I would put a vote in for always disclosing before being someone alone/vunerable with someone, simply from the personal safety point of veiw.

   On the other hand, I don’t believe your potential sex partner is right to believe that you will psychically predict any problems they might have with you and expect you to disclose them. If they are that bothered _they_ should ask (and be answered truthfully of course).

   The only exception to that I would say is STD’s, where you have an obligation to disclose to avoid causing harm/death to the other person. Then again, I think anyone who doesn’t ask this before jumping into bed with someone is an idiot.

3. Given the extreme unlikelihood of “tranny” plus “failed to disclose prior to sex” plus “actually killed himself afterwards,” I’m tempted to assume that it’s all a big fat lie.

4. Well, you could walk around with a clipboard and those diagnostic sheets they ask you to fill out at student health. If someone shows signs of a depressive disorder or anger issues, you can follow up with more rigorous psychological tests. Sadly, you’ll have to buy a scantron reader, but what’s a little money in the name of moral rectitude?

   Frankly, I’m inclined to go with the big fat lie theory.

5. Piny, as long as you’re inviting free-form exploration around the topic (and I read that to mean from all of us, and not just the transfolks — if I misread that, I’m sorry), I’ll paste in something I originally wrote as a comment to Zuzu’s Disclosure thread last month, which (as is my way) I thought about too long and put up after everyone had stopped paying attention to the thread. The upshot of it is that I think I’m more attached to identifying as straight than I realized, and frankly more than I’m comfortable with; and that I came to this realization because your posts and comments by transfolk that I’ve read in the feminist blogosphere have prompted me to think more broadly about gender identity and partners than I had in the past. Here’s what I had to say:

   In commenting on these threads, I’ve been thinking about an interesting issue: whether I need to know how my partner identifies. There are all kinds of identities. I broke off a fuck-buddy relationship once with a partner who was a conservative because I couldn’t handle the politics. Some people, as it came up on the last thread, care about their partner’s sexual orientation, etc.

   The one that I keep thinking about is gender identity. Piny has posted a little about the difficult disclosure issues and the rejection stuff. I’ve met some transpeople, but I’ve never had a transgendered sex partner, and I hadn’t thought through these issues. That’s cisgendered privilege.

   Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know what the fuck to make of how I feel about my sex partners’ gender identity. If a woman comes up to me and asks if I’m interested in bottoming, I probably am, perhaps especially if she’s gender-variant. (I might be interested in topping, too — I switch). But I’m only okay with that if she identifies as female. She can have bigger lats that mine, she can be wearing boy clothes and a strap-on harness. If she identifies as a woman, I’m playing with a gender-variant woman. But would I turn down sex with someone who presents as female if he generally identifies as male? I wouldn’t consider a biologically male partner who wanted to role-play a woman but identified full time as a man. Does the fact of female genitals, or genes, change that? Well, best I can tell, for me it doesn’t. Plus, it seems disrespectful. If I wanted to fuck some dude, but only if he pretended to be a woman, am I not really saying that I see him as a woman after all? But I don’t. If some guy identifies as a man, I take him at his word. I don’t fuck men.

   But then, I have to ask myself, what does it mean that I’d turn down an interesting partner just because of how my potential partner sees hirself? If the genitals are irrelevant, am I not really saying that what I need is to be able to tell myself that I’m still straight? Which is a little unsettling, because I’ve always thought that my self-identification as straight was sort of more descriptive than normative: that I wasn’t that attached to it. (Plus, I’ve gotten straighter. Years ago, though I never fucked men, I greenlighted MMF threesomes with gay and bi men that for various reasons never happened, where it was clear to everybody that it would have involved some man-on-man sex. I don’t really feel that way now, and I’m not sure why that changed.)

   Looking back on it, one thing I’m clear on. This is my issue. I’m all for people choosing to have or not have sex partners for any reason or no reason. If someone refuses to have sex with Red Sox fans, of Lieberman voters, or anyone who has ever worn a Lance Armstrong yellow rubber band or attended a Beastie Boys show, fine. But those preferences are hardly obvious, and they certainly don’t rise to the level of an obligation of affirmative disclosure. If I really need to know how somebody identifies and I’m not okay with just taking their presentation at however I percieve it, I have the burden of asking.

6. Maybe this is my week to ask Feministe for clarifications, but I really don’t get it: what exactly are you (in general, not you piny specifically) supposed to be admitting here? That you’re *really* a man, or a woman, or whatever it is that you *don’t* identify as and that your transsexuality explicitly suggests you *aren’t*? Isn’t the kind of admission that the folks you’re (you = piny, here) responding to demanding an utter rejection of the reality of your (you = anyone; confusing, isn’t it?) transsexuality?

7. I’ve voluntarily removed myself from the dating pool so I don’t know that I have a whole lot of authority on the matter, but assuming safety is not an issue then I likely would tell a partner that I’m trans. The thing about it is, and I feel like this is what you were getting at in your questions above (which I took to be facetious), this isn’t because the burden is on me to protect some poor fragile person’s gay panic reflex. I simply don’t see it as my responsibility. All the talk of lying and trickery is a form of blame-shifting, in my mind. You know, the whole, “I’m not a fag, I wouldn’t even look at something that used to be a dick, so this tranny bitch must have been manipulating me,” mentality.

   The only reason I feel it necessary to disclose is the same one you offer, piny. If I’m going to have an intimate relationship with someone then hiding my trans status just forces me to keep to much of my self in the dark. It would feel like unnecessary distance. In a non-relationship sense, where I knew it was a one night only thing and we’d probably never see each other again, then it would probably depend on what we were going to be doing. If bottoms weren’t going to be an issue, I may not say anything, but I wouldn’t let it get to the point where someone would get a surprise when my pants came off. If they have a problem with what I tell them, then it’s really their problem in my mind.

   Once I’ve finished bottom surgery, if they can’t tell, I don’t feel obligated to tell them in a casual situation. Relationships always require disclosure, though, in my mind. Maybe not on the first date, but eventually.

8. Besides what everyone else said, I would say, “And now we see how homophobia hurts -everybody.-“

9. I don’t know…If I were flirting with someone, considering sleeping with them, I wouldn’t be all that interested in what gender they were born as. Their real* gender, relationship status, any diseases they might be carrying, and thoughts on birth control/abortion would interest me, their chromosomal configuration less so. I certainly wouldn’t get violent if I found out that their genitalia didn’t agree with their secondary sexual characteristics. Suprised, yes, if it hadn’t been discussed. Ready to make some foolish, unsophisticated and potentially offensive remark, yes. Embarrassed about my lack of savoir-faire in making said remark, definitely. Violent, no.

   *By “real gender” I mean brain gender: the gender the person in question self-identifies as. The brain is the primary sexual organ in humans and a person’s gender is whatever their brain declares it to be.

10. Yes it actually happened.

    The person was not a tyranny (or at least post –op) Not that it makes much difference.
    He received a blow-job at a club, after which the individual pulled out his penis and waved it in his face. Later that week he hung himself and his Sister discovered his body hanging in the garage.

    I’m glad you can make light of it. It seems really craven of you.
    I was looking for something like full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    Seems like an ethical approach.

11. The person was not a tyranny (or at least post –op) Not that it makes much difference.
    He received a blow-job at a club, after which the individual pulled out his penis and waved it in his face. Later that week he hung himself and his Sister discovered his body hanging in the garage.

    I hesitate to even keep replying to you, but I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree: I do not believe that this individual was responsible for this suicide even if it did in fact happen as you say.

    I was looking for something like full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    You’re kind of dense, aren’t you?

12. I hesitate to even keep replying to you, but I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree: I do not believe that this individual was responsible for this suicide even if it did in fact happen as you say.

    Well, who can say (absent the victim who is dead) Certainly you would agree that such behavior (of the tyranny) is wrong?

    I wrote
    I was looking for something like full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    and you responded

    You’re kind of dense, aren’t you?

    No- but you seem to be trying to excuse any possibility of unethical behavior by members of your community. Regardless of dangers or excuses, trans individuals should disclose their genders to prospective partners. Anything less robes them of personnel accountability and therefore inherent dignity.

13. Well, who can say (absent the victim who is dead) Certainly you would agree that such behavior (of the tyranny) is wrong?

    Make that mistake again and you’re banned. Kay?

    No- but you seem to be trying to excuse any possibility of unethical behavior by members of your community. Regardless of dangers or excuses, trans individuals should disclose their genders to prospective partners. Anything less robes them of personnel accountability and therefore inherent dignity.

    You can’t find a quote to defend this argument, because there isn’t one. I haven’t said anything of the kind. And don’t talk to me about physical danger or dignity, since you’re the one using words like “tyranny” and arguing that I should make sure my partners aren’t so damaged by sex with me that they kill themselves. Does that leave me with dignity?

14. Well, who can say (absent the victim who is dead)

    And this is just bullshit. You are arguing that the transsexual–and any transsexual who fails to disclose–is responsible for subsequent deaths, either suicide or murder.

15. “And this is just bullshit. You are arguing that the transsexual–and any transsexual who fails to disclose–is responsible for subsequent deaths, either suicide or murder. ”

    No- my worldview is not so black and white. I dont think anyone has the right to murder anyone. I don’t think the transsexual is responsible for his suicide either. (at least not directly)

    What I think is that transsexual is morally responsible for their actions. I was looking for something like full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    This seems like the ethical approach.

16. This doesn’t really have anything to do with whether a tranny is involved does it?

    This is really about being forthright and honest with someone who you are going to or might have some kind of intimate relationship with.

    It does not matter what gender, orientation, color, religion, blah, blah blah you are. It matters that you communicate honestly that you have some kink, a cold, a STD, crabs, are straight, bi, gay, tranny, a prig, – if it is not obvious and that is at the appropriate time.

17. What I think is that transsexual is morally responsible for their actions. I was looking for something like full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    This seems like the ethical approach.

    Like I said: dense.

18. It does not matter what gender, orientation, color, religion, blah, blah blah you are. It matters that you communicate honestly that you have some kink, a cold, a STD, crabs, are straight, bi, gay, tranny, a prig, – if it is not obvious and that is at the appropriate time.

    What places “bisexual” in the same category as “HIV-positive?”

19. Anything less robes them of personnel accountability and therefore inherent dignity.

    Dude, no one’s getting dressed, and HR is definitely not involved. Also, your grammar is so bad, I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say.

    Having said that, doesn’t anyone else get any fucking dignity? You know, like the right not to be murdered, assaulted, or even the right to have a sexual relationship without people like you running around insisting that they’re actively causing suicides?

20. Likewise I don’t think my friend should have been getting blow jobs from strangers he meets in clubs. That doesn’t mean he is directly responsible for what the transsexual did to him. It does mean however that his degree of culpability is greater and reveals his ethical obligation (to himself)

21. Grady, YOU are the one using the macabre imagery of your friend’s death to a hyperbolic degree–the people commenting here are saying that it’s unlikely that this experience alone caused him to commit suicide. In fact, it’s a pretty ridiculous notion, if you think about it. I have lost two very dear friends to suicide, so I’m not one to make light of such a painful situation, but I’m also not one to blame the entire thing on some unpleasant experience that happened prior to their deaths.

    Did your friend leave a note indicating that this experience caused him to want to end his life? Because if he did, I think that that alone is enough of an indicator of mental illness to make you realize that it wasn’t *just this* that made him do it. I don’t know how recently this happened, but I think it’s possible that you are looking for an easy answer when suicide is, in fact, a pretty complex decision that leaves so many unanswerable why’s in its wake.

22. full disclosure prior to any physical contact

    In principle, I agree. Potential sexual partners should be frank with one another and truthfully disclose any information that the other wants before getting into bed together, even if the info might turn out to be a deal breaker. But transgender status wouldn’t be on everyone’s list of things to be included in the “full disclosure” necessary before a one night stand. If it’s that important to you–if anything is that important to you–ASK! If there’s any information that you want to have before you have sex with someone, ask them for that information before you get to the “your place or mine” stage (or the unzipping for the blow-job stage, or whatever.) If you ask and they lie, yeah, that’s slimy. But if you don’t ask and they don’t tell, they aren’t necessarily “hiding” the info. They may just not know that you care.

23. It’s not that anyone here is making light of suicide per se. The point seems rather to comment on the lamentable fact that participating in a consensual sexual act with a transperson (or a person of the same sex) is perceived as being so horrendous as to warrant *ending one’s life*.

    It’s the notion that having sex with a person who is (or is perceived as) a member of the same sex is so catastrophic to one’s life and one’s own sexual identity that is being critiqued. This is the degree to which homophobia is a symptom of heterosexual insecurity which then manifests itself in transphobia.

24. J swift

    Yes- thats what i’m trying to say. It certainly would cause great consternation in most men. Perhaps this pushed him over the edge. I do think knowing that your partner is the same sex as you (either pre or post opt) is more trumatic than knowing he’s say …Jewish?

    The inability of this community to accknowledge that simple and observable fact tells you something about the depths of self centeredness.

25. That doesn’t mean he is directly responsible for what the transsexual did to him. It does mean however that his degree of culpability is greater and reveals his ethical obligation (to himself)

    Which is a comment on *an individual*, not a community. Having a bad experience is not a reason to demonize an entire group of people and accuse them of instigating suicides.

    And again with the grammar: you keep switching antecedents and you’ve got the pronouns wrong.

26. The inability of this community to accknowledge that simple and observable fact tells you something about the depths of self centeredness.

    I think it’s rather the refusal to accept responsibility for accomodating that hatred, given that no Jew would be expected to take responsibility for potential anti-semitism from their partners regardless of how common or virulent it happened to be.

27. That doesn’t mean he is directly responsible for what the transsexual did to him.

    The tranny gave your friend a blow job, you know, like he asked for.

28. Having a bad experience is not a reason to demonize an entire group of people and accuse them of instigating suicides.

    It is if that community does not subscribe to the ethic of full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    Just because they may regard a person’s apprehension to intimacy with a transsexual as homophobic, does not mean they have the right to keep such information secret.

29. Well, but then the tranny had to bring hir own dick into it, which was just selfish.

30. It matters that you communicate honestly that you have some kink, a cold, a STD, crabs, are straight, bi, gay, tranny, a prig, – if it is not obvious and that is at the appropriate time.

    j, can you give me a list of what it is I’m supposed to disclose and when? Because I don’t think I know what everybody wants to know. Disease status we can probably agree on. Other than that, I don’t believe that what you assume is general agreement on this issue is actually anything like general agreement.

31. Piny says!!

    I think it’s rather the refusal to accept responsibility for accomodating that hatred, given that no Jew would be expected to take responsibility for potential anti-semitism from their partners regardless of how common or virulent it happened to be.

    And here we have the crux of it. They dont need to tell any prospective partner anything. Any aversion to one sex or another is simple bigotry. They are morally untouchable and not responsible for the natural consequences of their actions.

32. I do think knowing that your partner is the same sex as you (either pre or post opt) is more trumatic than knowing he’s say …Jewish?

    I don’t know. Are you a raging anti-semite? Because there can always be something about a potential partner that’s a deal breaker for you. If you’ve got a deal breaker that significant (for me, it would be knowing that I was getting near a bed with Tucker Max, Joe Francis, or their buddies), you say something.

    The inability of this community to accknowledge that simple and observable fact tells you something about the depths of self centeredness.

    For crying out loud, it’s not self-centeredness that’s causing the response you’re getting. It’s this “transsexuals are traumatic and can drive people to suicide and they should own up to it!” attitude that you’re spewing.

33. And here we have the crux of it. They dont need to tell any prospective partner anything. Any aversion to one sex or another is simple bigotry. They are morally untouchable and not responsible for the natural consequences of their actions.

    Uh, no. And, dense. But feel free to try again!

34. It is, however, bigoted to insist that transsexuals can only be described as members of their birth sex, which is what you imply here.

35. Hey Grady, if your friend had killed himself following sex with a light-skinned black woman whom he had taken for white, would you blame her for nondisclosure? Or would that mean your friend had serious mental health (and bigotry) problems?

    So, if being transsexual is different (I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re going to say), why? Because it has been unacceptable to get that freaked out over the race of one’s sex partner for, what, two generations? Or because you think that transsexuals are freaks, so they should bear the burden of trumpeting their status so “normal” people can avoid them?

36. What places “bisexual” in the same category as “HIV-positive?”

    Apparently we have the same effect on the other person in the nookie? Lots of carefully-timed drugs need to be taken after exposure?

    Man, I have to go, apparently I need to go tell my exes to ask their doctors for the meds to counter my foul bisexual influence.

    Grady: I didn’t make light of your friend’s suicide. You’re an asinine, superficial blowhard, and you seem bent on misinterpreting everything said in this conversation. I think you suck, but I imagine the opinion of one deviant won’t matter to you.

37. Sure, sure, everyone should be honest and upfront before intimacy for the umpteenth time already. I’m reasonably sure that most trannies do that already, because they’re aware that homophobia is a problem and don’t want to get murdered or assaulted and definitely also don’t want to mislead their partners.

    What offends me, Grady, is your insane idea that murder and suicide are perfectly natural reactions to this sort of situation. It sounds like you’re okay with that–and that if people don’t disclose what they might think is a pretty minor piece of their sexual history, they deserve to be murdered or held responsible for the very likely impending suicide of their partner.

38. “It’s this “transsexuals are traumatic and can drive people to suicide and they should own up to it!”

    So, if being transsexual is different (I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re going to say), why? Because it has been unacceptable to get that freaked out over the race of one’s sex partner for, what, two generations? Or because you think that transsexuals are freaks, so they should bear the burden of trumpeting their status so “normal” people can avoid them?

    Thank for proving my point for me.

    Good luck fighting the “hetronormative patriarchy.”

    Self centered narcissistic radicals who want the whole world turned upside down so you can feel normal.

39. Any aversion to one sex or another is simple bigotry.

    Gross misreading. I have not seen anybody here argue against the right to pick one’s sex partners on any basis at all — chromosomes, genitals, hair length, body shape, finger diameter or musical taste. But each of us knows our own criteria, and it’s on us to ask what we need to know. If your friend didn’t want to get a blowjob from a transwoman, that’s fine with me. In fact, it’s fine with Piny, too. He already said so. But that transwoman isn’t a mind-reader. You’re asking her to pre-emptively assume that he might have a problem with sex with transpeople — which many transpeople assume for their safety anyway. But she doesn’t know, and he does. So why is it up to her figure out that she needs to tell him, when he knows it’s an issue that matters to him?

    Or are you arguing that your friend has a right to put blinders on and go through the world assuming that every woman in the world was born with female genitals because that’s a comfortable assumption for him, sticking his cock in any mouth that will have it as long as he subjectively perceives the bearer as female?

40. Make that mistake again and you’re banned. Kay?

    Piny, what mistake were you referring to?

41. Yep- straight guys get to walk around assuming people in high heels and dresses are girls.

    The onus rests with the trannys

42. Self centered narcissistic radicals who want the whole world turned upside down so you can feel normal.

    So … I think we’re done here.

    Shall we freaks all just put little markers on our clothes so you can better exclude us? So that you can make sure we understand that whenever we live outside the mainstream, we should beg for toleration rather than insist on equality, like Catholics in Elizabethan England? That’s got a long history and it isn’t pretty. Yellow, six-pointed stars, shall we?

    Very sorry, Sir. “Normal” means the lived experience of straight white frat boys. We’ll know our place from now on.

43. You know you have won when your Hitler

44. Either you won, or your position bears comparison to the Third Reich. One of those two things.

45. Self centered narcissistic radicals who want the whole world turned upside down so you can feel normal.

    Just me speaking here, but fuck normal.

    What I think is that transsexual is morally responsible for their actions. I was looking for something like full disclosure prior to any physical contact or strong emotional bonds forming.

    I like this bit the most- I can just imagine running around rush hour crowds yelling “I’m a tranny!” and then worrying furiously someone didn’t hear me and now’s dashing off to top themselves having touched me.

    Yep- straight guys get to walk around assuming people in high heels and dresses are girls.

    Because, you know, we’re all about the high heels and dresses, all the time.

    Also, brief aside, but taking a friend’s suicide and using it as a stick to beat a group of people you find distasteful… really not very classy.

46. friend’s suicide

    I still don’t believe a word of it; it’s an old urban legend from top to bottom and no more credible then the guy with the tub full of ice and the missing kidney. And making up a friend’s suicide to support his biases is really, really base.

47. What places “bisexual” in the same category as “HIV-positive?”

    Nothing unless you are assuming something.

    The point is that this should be about how human beings treat their fellow human beings no matter their labels or identities. It is not a tranny issue or a bisexual issue, or a disease sufferer issue, tight-ass prig issue or a slob who lacks personal hygiene issue. It is about a whether you honest or not.

    If you are honest you avoid the negative moral consequences or the bullshit recriminations. If the tranny in the scenario at hand would have told the suicide up front then the embarassing encounter might have been avoided. Now the suicide might or might not have still killed himself but no one could place blame. If you are so homophobic that you have to kill yourself over an embarassing sexual encounter you have bigger issues that can be blamed on a tranny or gay person but that does not excuse the tranny’s dishonesty.

48. j, failure to disclose is not the same thing as dishonesty. I asked you before and I’ll ask you again, what exactly is it that I’m supposed to disclose? Do I have an affirmative obligation to disclose that I am straight? Or that I’m straight but once gave a guy a hand-job? Or that I am cisgendered? Or do I only have to disclose what is unusual? In which case, do I have to disclose that I’m a sadomasochist, even if I don’t plan on doing BDSM with a particular partner? That I’m a feminist? That I’m an atheist? That I’ve had a lot of fat partners? That I don’t consume mainstream porn? That I sometimes shave all of my pubic hair off? That I’m an ethnic Scot? That I’m an attorney?

    If someone asks me whatever it is they want to know, I think I either owe them an honest answer, or to tell them that I’m not going to answer. If they don’t want to party after that, that’s their business. But unless you’re going to provide me with a list, how the hell should I know what every potential sex partner needs to know?

49. I’m just waiting for “Grady” to bust out the Hegel.

50. Piny, what mistake were you referring to?

    “Tyranny,” repeatedly. Given the low quality of his spelling and grammar, I’m willing to accept it was a typo, but it was extremely annoying.

51. I’m just waiting for “Grady” to bust out the Hegel.

    Who is this Hegel person?

52. You know you have won when your Hitler

    Say what you will about Hitler, but at least he never confused a possessive pronoun with a contraction.

53. Self centered narcissistic radicals who want the whole world turned upside down so you can feel normal.

    This is exactly the point, isn’t it? That someone like Grady would have to change his assumptions about the world and even behaviour. Never mind that both his assumptions and behavour are demonstrably wrong — why should he change?

    And of course, if you’re a transsexual, or gay, or Jewish, or black, you’d pr’y want to go through life without everyone’s assumptions about who you are dictating your behavior. You pr’y *want* those demonstrably wrong assumptions and behaviors to stop telling you what you can’t and ought do. Jews and to a lesser extent Blacks and to an even lesser extent gays have managed to gain that kind of freedom exactly by refusing to conform to the misguided assumptions of folks like Grady, by rejecting the idea that they need special permission to function as themselves in society.

    Ok, I’m not a trans-anything, so maybe I lack the standing to say this, but I don’t see why, if I were, I’d feel obligated to announce the fact to every potential partner. I *am* Jewish, and I certainly don’t feel like I should tell every potential sex partner — let alone anyone in more casual contexts — that I am. If I should happen to sleep with someone who, on finding out I’m Jewish (and even worse, an atheist secular Jew!) freaked out, I don’t think I’d feel even the minutest frisson of guilt — it would simply not be my problem.

    Being Jewish isn’t exactly the same thing — for the most part, nobody’s all that likely to kill me for it (but you never know…) — but it was once upon a time all too similar, and the difference didn’t come about because Jewish people let bigots dictate their behavior.

54. “Tyranny,” repeatedly.

    Ah. I didn’t even notice the typo / insult. I thought you were taking issue with “tranny”.

55. Say what you will about Hitler, but at least he never confused a possessive pronoun with a contraction.

    Humorous response #1: Being a grammatical pedant to trolls is my job. Have I been made redundant?!

    Humorous response #2: Dude, I can only criticize people’s grammatical errors in one language. Either you’re just flipping shit, or I’m impressed.

    Humorous response #3: But can you say that about Burleigh?

56. Meh. Honestly, I prefer that outsiders, objectors and critiquers opt for more formal language than insiders and allies, given that tranny/queer/dyke/fag/queen are all slurs as well. It’s not something I strongly object to, however. That’s especially true when I’ve used “tranny” several times myself in the same conversation; I can’t expect Grady or whoever to know or care that he’s not supposed to say it, too.

57. You know you have won when your Hitler

    Say what you will about Hitler, but at least he never confused a possessive pronoun with a contraction.

    Can I steal? Pretty please?

    I don’t always disclose, and because I pass as female I have occasionally disclosed and had it laughed off. (“Yeah, sure, you’re a guy. Whatever you say. This sure looks like a cunt to me.”) It makes life easier in the short-term and I’ve thus far avoided anything worse than a bit of verbal abuse.

    What gets me is that I have to even think about disclosing. I have to wonder whether I have an obligation to or whether it’s wise. My partners don’t wait for the right moment to come up to say that they were sexed male at birth.

58. Absolutely. And, good to hear from you.

    I don’t always disclose, and because I pass as female I have occasionally disclosed and had it laughed off. (”Yeah, sure, you’re a guy. Whatever you say. This sure looks like a cunt to me.”) It makes life easier in the short-term and I’ve thus far avoided anything worse than a bit of verbal abuse.

    I was pretty much celibate back when that was happening. When I was in-between I was dating as a transperson in trans-oriented circles. In cases like this, I can certainly see disclosing for reasons of comfort, particularly if your sexual needs and comforts are affected.

59. I personally don’t like when people use “tranny” in serious threads, because something about the word just makes me giggle.

    (“Wanax” in Mycenean Greek does the same thing – it has to do with the sound of the word. Not being mentally twelve, I promise.)

    Regardless: I think I agree with Thomas. Grady, do you have an obituary you can point us at for your friend?

60. Who is this Hegel person?

    You’ve never heard of “Hegel exercises”? Hegel — ir at least the Spirit of History in Hegelian form — invented them, to strengthen the pubococcyl muscles. That is, they can help you strengthen your sphincter muscle to ward off unseemly advances in that direction.

    Or… what was the question again?

61. I personally don’t like when people use “tranny” in serious threads, because something about the word just makes me giggle.

    In some cases, it reads like an attempt to seem friendly or cool, a gesture towards casual familiarity. In a guidance-counselor/youth-pastor way. It pisses me off when it comes from someone saying rather hateful things, because that person is no friend of mine, and is not on a first-name basis with my community.

    But it is a funny word. Not as good as “wanax,” though.

62. You’ve never heard of “Hegel exercises”? Hegel — ir at least the Spirit of History in Hegelian form — invented them, to strengthen the pubococcyl muscles. That is, they can help you strengthen your sphincter muscle to ward off unseemly advances in that direction.

    This has been, like, the funniest thread evar.

63. As a general rule of thumb, I don’t think any minority should be held responsible for the consequences of other people’s prejudice. So quite frankly, I don’t much care if being a transwoman gives some people the heebie-jeebies. F*ck ‘em.

    Having said that, I tell my partners that I am trans quite early in the dating cycle. Why? I don’t want to date bigots, so telling folks up front is pretty important to me. I mean, who would want to have sex with a bigot? Eeeeeew, that’s disgusting!

64. Even apart from the whole “I accidentally touched another dude’s dick because I thought he was a chick and now I need to kill myself” thing, which I would have to characterize as a pretty extreme reaction under any circumstances, I certainly would want to be told before getting too hot and heavy what the lay of the land was. I don’t know that a tranny has some grave moral duty to disclose, but I think it is a courtesy to do so, and in both parties’ interests, especially if the hookup is taking place in a context in which the non-tranny participant has no particular reason to know the score (in contrast to a guy meeting a girl at a bar called The Tranny Station, in which case I think you can safely assume informed consent). Getting back to the suicide story, I think it is implausible as told, but I could certainly see sexual issues leading to depression and suicide. But again, I don’t think simply getting touched in your no-no place by a girl who is actually a guy would send an otherwise together person over the cliff (literally).

65. That doesn’t mean he is directly responsible for what the transsexual did to him.

    The transsexual did something to him? I read the whole thread, and that was the first time you’ve mentioned it. Don’t you think you should have said that up front, and avoided this whole misunderstanding?

    So what did the transsexual do to him?

66. I don’t want to date bigots, so telling folks up front is pretty important to me. I mean, who would want to have sex with a bigot? Eeeeeew, that’s disgusting!

    Tongue-in-cheek parody, or criticism of my kink?

    (OK, not kink so much as neurosis. Unlike piny, I’m not far enough advanced on the path to enlightenment to feel anything other than abject gratitude towards anyone who will brighten miserable little life with a quick screw.)

67. piny, I knew a guy in college who killed himself–this was at LSU, he spent his Saturday nights riding bulls in the rodeo and his Sunday mornings in church–and at his funeral, everyone knew that the real reason he killed himself was that he’d had sex with a tranny. His father, a religious man, spoke against “those people” for “what they’d done to his son.”

    Of course, he was gay and in the closet, so needless to say, the situation was much, much more complicated than “slept with a tranny.” Something more along the lines of “slept with a tranny for the year they were together, went a little wild after they’d split, embraced the sad &c. of young love…” But in the end, “he slept with a tranny and killed himself.” I think what we may be seeing here are wilfully massive blindspots, in this case, the inability of Southern Baptists to understand how their (unbeknowst to them) gay son handled his fallout with his pre-op transexual lover.

    So the story’s oversimplified. But I can’t help but wonder if the story isn’t always oversimplified, i.e. the inability of the straight community to understand the permutations possible at the intersection of the homo- or trans- communities. After all, given the higher suicide rates in the gay community (don’t have the numbers on the trans-) and the number of gay teens who commit suicide in the closet, there’s bound to be a non-neglible statistical chance for massive misunderstandings and oversimplifications of this sort.

68. Well Thomas, I think it might come down to a little common sense on what to disclose and when. For example:

    Telling your date after you have known her a whole 30 minutes that you like to whack off to victoria secret catalogs.

    Telling you wife of 15 years that you have a boil on your ass.

    You are in a room full of coked up party goers looking to get laid but you got a bad case of the crabs a week ago and have not done anything about it.

    You are in a room of coked up party goers looking to get laid and you are HIV positive.

    You are seriously considering marrying somone and you have not told them you are really into BDSM and while you have already had sex it has been pretty tame

    You grew up in a strict religious household and you are really sexually repressed and uncomfortable with being sexual and you don’t know how your girlfriend (who did not grow up as you did) is going to take it.

    Neglecting, refusing or forgetting to tell the person you just slid your dick in that you are HIV positive, have herpes, etc.

    You are thinking about moving in with someone and you have not told them you are a recovering addict, whether that be for booze, sex, meth, or whatever.

    Proudly exclaiming, on your second date, that you are a still a virgin at the age of 35.

    Telling your wife of ten years that you now have a thing for trolling the local park for homosexual handjobs or your penchant for women hookers.

    Gee Thomas I guess this stuff is all about being honest or not, inconsiderate, considerate, vulnerable, hiding your vulnerability, familiar to the point of contempt, oversharing and maybe it does not matter at all. You don’t have to have a list, or a friggin schedule of how and when to disclose anything. It has to with being ernest and honest as a person relating to another person.

69. Tongue-in-cheek parody, or criticism of my kink?

    No, it wasn’t meant as a criticism, Nick.

    It was one part serious and one part parody. In all seriousness, I am disturbed by the idea of being intimate with someone who would be disgusted if they found out I am trans. Having such close contact with someone like that gives me the creeps.

    The parody part comes into play by reminding bigots that I’m just as disgusted by them as they are by me.

    (OK, not kink so much as neurosis. Unlike piny, I’m not far enough advanced on the path to enlightenment to feel anything other than abject gratitude towards anyone who will brighten miserable little life with a quick screw.)

    *grin* I’ve nothing against your looking for a quickie! Go you!

70. It seems incredibly simplistic to say “all trans- individuals should declare themselves before entering into a physical relationship”, or “all people who fear possible hook-ups with a trans- individual should ask beforehand”

    It seems, rather, that all people, regardless of sexuality, should handle such hooking-up-situations on a case-to-case basis. If you suspect that the person you’re flirting with is not the physical gender he/she appears to be, and that’s a problem, you should ask. I know that could be a rather interesting state of awkward, but it seems like it would save a lot of surprise and other potentially negative emotions later on. The same goes for transgendered people; if you’re with someone who you think may take exception, and you suspect that exception to be violent and angry, perhaps you shouldn’t slip into bed with them. Speaking from a personal (and admittedly sheltered) perspective, I personally would like to know, not because I would react with the “ewww, oh my god” emotion, more to avoid being completely and utterly surprised later on. It doesn’t seem to me that one party is necessarily more obligated than the other to ask or declare, but it seems like both parties should be a bit more aware of the dynamic and work and ask about any uncertainties before getting physical.

    Of course, that’s all nice and easy to say here in a vacuum.

71. Grady, or should I say Fitz, you fucking hypocrite asshole.

    You’re banned. Again.

72. (Thanks, Zuzu. I knew it looked familiar, but I was going with the missing-kidney explanation.)

73. You don’t have to have a list, or a friggin schedule of how and when to disclose anything.

    Yeah, you do; or at least a rule susceptible to reasonable application, if you’re going to tell other people what their obligations are. You’re saying “it’s common sense.” But common sense is rarely the subject of much agreement. Like you said, context matters a lot. What one ought to know about someone before they get married is not what one ought to know before a quick blowjob at a party. But either of those two things, and anything on the spectrum in between, is subject to a lot of discussion: what you think is common sense may get ten different answers from ten different people, because people’s senses of these things are not common.

    Nick is here and talking about it, so let’s take Nick as an example. Nick is a guy who has female body parts and can and will look and act female to get laid. If I ran into Nick and didn’t know him, and he was presenting as female, I probably wouldn’t have much clue that he was anything but a woman with a slightly gender-variant presentation. So I might want to hook up with Nick. But as I said above, even if he’s got female body parts and looks female, I’m not really down with sleeping with a man. But, really, that’s all in my head, and lots of guys don’t give a rat’s ass how Nick sees himself as long as they can see him as her. So, what’s the “common sense” answer? Does the straight guy “hey, she’s a chick to me” view mean that Nick doesn’t have to tell me anything? Or does the feminist navel-gazing straight guy “I care how my partners identify” answer get elevated to universal wisdom? I told you my answer: if I need to know, I need to ask. But that does not appear to be your answer. You appear to think that what one has to come out and say unasked is “common sense.” So what’s the common sense answer?

    (As an aside, Nick, it was your long post at Alas that got me started thinking about this, but I wasn’t explicit about that when I wrote the original comment because you were not around and I didn’t think it was cool to throw your name into a debate where you were not around to participate. Seeing that you’re here and talking about it, I’m throwing your name in the mix. Hope that’s okay.

    And it’s good to see you around. Hope the little one is well.)

74. So, tell me if I’m reading this correctly:

    Jill.

    I saw your photos and you obviously make a attractive women. Although your post is rather cryptic on the subject I took it that you are undergoing transsexual reassignment surgery. My question is what are the ethics of dating and full disclosure to potential romantic contacts? (I ask this because I had a friend who killed himself after an encounter with a previously undisclosed transsexual)

    He spends a couple of hours hunting down Jill’s photos, decides she’s the kind of transexual he could sack, then asks her whether her “attractive” self would inform him of her former penis so he wouldn’t have to off himself for whacking it to her photo?

    Wow. I mean, wow. I can imagine the note:

    “I know you’re as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside, but I didn’t realize you used to have a penis, so despite my deep love of your body and soul, I must now commit my body to the keep. I cannot live knowing that I wanted some male (other than my rabbi, my pediatrician, my proctologist and sundry others) to touch my penis. I hope you understand how hot I thought you were, and how much it pains me to kill myself. But, you know, I just can’t stand fags.”

75. Nick is a guy who has female body parts and can and will look and act female to get laid. If I ran into Nick and didn’t know him, and he was presenting as female, I probably wouldn’t have much clue that he was anything but a woman with a slightly gender-variant presentation.

    Outside of your mind, then, how is she anything “other than a woman”? And what sort of responsibility does she have to bear for what goes on inside of your mind?

76. Nick is a guy who has female body parts and can and will look and act female to get laid.

    And Thomas is a guy who has no knowledge of the difference between genotypic and phenotypic features and doesn’t realize that about 6% of the 100% pure women out there have the same chromosomal structure as he does.

    To think, Thomas might be married to a “man” right now. Best get “her” tested, Thomas. After all, your definition of gender’s a hell of a lot more than skin deep.

77. Curious about your stats, Scott. Anne Fausto-Sterling’s research shows about 1% of all live births involving *any* kind of intersexed-ness or ambiguously sexed-ness — 6% for just *one type* of intersexedness, and a particularly rare one as intersexedness goes, seems astronomically high.

78. I still don’t believe a word of it; it’s an old urban legend from top to bottom …

    The fictional transsexual actually sounds like a transsexual version of Tucker Max – he/she is supposed to be timing the disclosure for right after sex to ensure maximum humiliation.

79. Heh, you know, they say lesbian/gay/queer/etc people are lonely and unhappy. Whenever we appear not to be, they’re flabberghasted: how dare you not be lonely and unhappy like you should, you freak of nature.

    In my mind honesty doesn’t even enter into it. If people can argue you’re not a woman because you don’t menstruate (menopause anyone? to say the least), and you’re not a man because you were born with the godsent gift (or godsent direct order) to bear children, then I will participate in this debate knowing beforehand that I won’t be listened to. When people say you shouldn’t be m2f because you’re not pretty as a girl, or f2m because you fancy guys and like to act effeminate, there’s deeper issues to be settled. I think the problem is that most people hear “f2m” and imediately assume he’s lived life as a petite little girl for long enough to be sensible that “she” be considered male property as “all the other girls”. They hear “m2f” and they immediately picture a studly man who may or may not now look fuckable to them as a girl, but hey, “he” is still “a man” underneath. Underneath what? I am only guessing here, but I’m inclined to think that people assume dishonesty because they haven’t still managed to see the man in a f2m and the woman in a m2f. Add to this that some of us identify as homosexuals even when we’re our “desired” gender, and you get a huge lack of any real understanding.
    People have a fixed idea of what male and female is, and will not take opposing arguments into consideration. Human physiology, anatomy and neuroscience notwithstanding.
    Oh and ethics? They’re just a sleazy way of sneaking patriarchy and religious morals into the play.
    These are my thoughts on the theory of the matter.

    And since piny asked for our experience, here’s mine for what it’s worth.
    I’m m2f, pre-op, lesbian, feminist and an atheist. Any bigot could have a field day attacking any of these my attributes which still don’t constitute who I actually am.

    My experience with discrimination has been derision, disbelief and/or open disgust from lesbians during the time my trans status was easy to guess by looking at me, and some hateful verbal abuse from heterosexist homo/trans-phobic fellow med students (once, over the phone, in the middle of the night). I haven’t been beaten or murdered (yet) or openly made fun of and discriminated against ever since I pass as a femme girl.

    So now I’m where I wanted to be for a long time. I look good, I even smile at my reflection in the mirror, I look femme and *ordinary*. And now the big dilemma: do I want to fit in the heteronormative, homo-/transphobic, patriarchal society?

    The solution I’ve given myself is: I tell people I’m trans on three kinds of occasions. a. when I want to shock/open up their minds about gender: seeing a perfectly normal and happy girl proclaim she was not born this way ought to get them wondering (although my hopes aren’t that high)
    b. when I want a fellow gender variant or queer person to know they can feel at home when talking to me (it’s a shortcut to getting them to trust you, heehee)
    c. when I want to avoid people giving me “you deceived me” crap after they’ve found out for themselves.

    Passing presumably creates the obligation to disclose. Everyone feels safer when there’s a transwoman who looks like Mick Jagger in drag around, or when a transman with ambiguous looks finally speaks and his voice is beyond a doubt girly. They know where they stand with these (plus there’s a whole social hierarchy based on “passing” within the trans community, especially among m2fs)…

    As for my sexual partners I don’t really know, since I’m in a monogamous relationship with a girl who knew me before my transition. However my guess is I personally would only disclose my trans status if I was desperate that any sex partner would find me attractive if they found out. I’ve been brought up to believe that would be dishonest, but I wouldn’t mind if someone did the same to me in order for me to like them prior to a big revelation. So, no dishonesty there in my opinion. I’m not luring them into suicide.. I’m luring them with my personality which is what I want them to be looking at anyhow, cis- or trans-.

    Finally, what I want to share about coming out as trans (coming out as lesbian is a different matter) to casual acquaintances is this: I have done it at times because of a nagging, paranoid conviction that they somehow “knew”. I found out their reactions range from “oh is that all?” to “oh yes i knew it but I wanted you to be upfront about it”. What I’ve finally been able to surmise from these reactions is that none of them had figured it out, or could ever have guessed it if I hadn’t told them. So don’t let anyone tell you they knew all along. It’s just standard shock-reaction to the fact that they had their convictions about gender suddenly shaken. And I guess most of us here have a fairly good idea of how strong these convictions are, even in someone who is actively trying to deconstruct gender. When people stare at you on the street, try to be sure first if it’s not your shoes or shirt they’re laughing at, instead of immediately thinking you’ve been “read”…

    thank you all for the intriguing conversation so far.

80. Outside of your mind, then, how is she anything “other than a woman”? And what sort of responsibility does she have to bear for what goes on inside of your mind?

    Thomas is aware that I identify as “other than a woman” because of remarks I’ve made elsewhere and upthread (although the reference upthread isn’t bright and clear to someone unaware of the history). The fact that, without the knowledge, it isn’t obvious but might be highly relevant is an argument for it not being as simple as “You should ask” or “You should tell”.

81. I don’t mean to hijack the conversation by any means, but I’d like to throw out an analogous situation that might help with this the “disclosure” issue.

    I’m a hetero female who had the, er, extremely dubious honor of experiencing my first real sexual activity as a rape. Needless to say, this has had a great impact on my sex life. I still have a strong physical reaction if, during sex, the guy happens to touch or even brush against my neck. It’s ugly and confusing for both of us, and best avoided by finding a time to tell my partners this before things get going, which means that one-night stands are pretty much out of the picture for me. All things considered, I’m personally more comfortable keeping it that way.

    The thing is, I’m not really under any moral obligation to say anything, much as I don’t think someone who self-identifies as one gender is obligated to disclose what basically amounts to a chromosomal accident. The onus isn’t on me to advertise my situation, and if I wanted to keep it to myself that would be well within my rights. It’s not a fault, it’s not physically harmful to my partners, it’s just… good to know.

    Maybe this is just the way I operate, but if I’m going to be physically intimate with (and vulnerable to) someone, I need to trust them enough to be able to tell them things like that. Still, I’ve found that things generally go more smoothly if I can be open about it, and I imagine it’s similar for any other “unconventional” identities, etc. If I fail to warn a guy to avoid the region between face and tits, odds are good I’ll end up having a wigguns and he won’t know why. It’s kind of a mood-killer. Plus I generally find it helpful in weeding out unsupportive (or bigoted) assholes.

82. Dustin, I’m in an English department, so multiplication ain’t my strong suit. I was trying to combine genotypically “male” women and genotypically “female” men, and apparently my mad math skillz don’t add up. I’m not surprised…still, Thomas ought to be sure he has all prospective lovers typed just in case, you know.

83. to J Swift, Thomas, others in the subdiscussion of “is there a moral rule?” (and/or to those who think the question is obviously silly…)

    For those who have a consequentialist approach to moral theory, a few factors might be relevant in deciding whether one has an affirmative obligation to disclose X, where X is a characteristic some people may find disturbing/shocking/what-have-you in a sex partner:

    The prevalence of X. The more rare X is, the more I (as the X-bearer) might have the obligation to disclose, since the other person would have less reason to expect it.

    The prevalence of X-phobia. The more prevalent, the more likely that failure to disclose will result in harm, and hence is to be avoided. (Thus, if X-phobia is rare, but X is fairly common, it makes much more sense for there instead to be an obligation to -ask- rather than disclose.)

    The severity of X-phobia. The more severe the expected reaction, the greater an obligation.

    The likelihood of X being discovered anyway, after-the-fact. This, I think, tends to push in the direction of disclosure: even if you don’t agree that it is *only* a bad outcome if the other person eventually finds out, it’s almost certainly a *less* bad outcome if they remain blissfully ignorant.

    (Now of course I’m talking subjective probabilities here, but you get the point.)

    The obvious problem with this sort of reasoning is that it allows others’ irrational, unwarranted phobias to impose moral obligations on others. As many commentators have pointed out, why should anyone have to coddle anyone else’s bigotry?

    And that retort certainly has something to it. But *if* we acknowledge that it’s bad to do something that is likely to hurt someone’s feelings–which, after all, is much of what’s so awful about the Tucker Max story: the callous disregard for inflicting severe emotional distress–it’s not obvious why bigots’ feelings should be *entirely* disregarded. After all, most bigots were *brought up* bigots; the prevalence of even the least rational strains of homophobia shows that it takes unusual qualities to overcome bad upbringing, etc.

    But still, there are reasons the bigots’ hurt feelings might count much less than would more warranted hurt feelings: the experience might serve to correct their flawed emotion responses, which is a good thing. Furthermore, the *costs* are different, insofar as it may feel much more bothersome/humiliating/cowardly to go out of one’s way to accomodate irrational bigotry.

    All of which is highly speculative and may just make people think that welfarist, well-being oriented consequentialism is a mistake entirely. But I do think that we should try to fit this situation into the moral general case of “how should we act so as not to cause others to suffer emotional distress” — and, given the prevalence of unwarranted beliefs in our society, knowing how to answer this with respect to such beliefs is an important question.

84. Thomas ought to be sure he has all prospective lovers typed just in case, you know.

    That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he want to do that, when he said he was concerned with how his lovers self-identified, not with their chromosomes or their bodies?

85. Scott, I think you missed or didn’t understand my first, long comment above. You said:

    To think, Thomas might be married to a “man” right now. Best get “her” tested, Thomas. After all, your definition of gender’s a hell of a lot more than skin deep.

    I might be. I don’t give a rat’s ass. What I said was that I’m concerned wiht hom my partners identify. And I believe it’s my burden to ask, not their job to disclose. Now, do you have a snarky attack on what I actually said, rather than on StrawThomas?

86. sophonisba, because in the end, any non-normative position necessarily entails a period of confusion. I’ve been close to four transexuals in my short life, and all of them have been gender- and sexuality- confused at one time or another.* Not because they didn’t know what they wanted, but because they tried to toe the line between what they were expected to be, what they felt they were, and what the community (be it hetero- or homosexual) would accept. I hate to make explicit what I tried to leave dignified and unsaid, but what my friend couldn’t cope with were the conflicting feelings. He tried so hard to be hetero, fell for a “man” who knew “he” was a woman, then couldn’t cope when she went through with the gender reassignment surgery. From what I know–granted, as an outsider, and I welcome corrections from all those who know better, as I’m extraordinarily thick sometimes–but from what I went through with him, I took that the pressures of society combined with homosexuality and transexuality to form an equation he couldn’t fathom. He thought he knew what he was, met a “man” who was a woman, couldn’t cope with homosexuality, then took his own life.

    I hope it’s obvious I don’t present this as an example of how transexuals drive people to suicide. I mean nothing of the sort. It’s just that in the deep, deep South, any non-normative identity meets with internal confusion and external hostility. My friends had to, how to say it, write their own script? And they did so more and less successfully. (One of my friends is, from what I can tell from Google, a filmmaker and activist of some celebrity in San Fransisco. Others haven’t been so lucky.) All of which is only to say that Thomas assumes that something as “natural” as heteronormative self-identification is as clear-cut in the transexual community, and in my experience, that isn’t the case.

    *Obviously not in the same way.

87. Thomas, I think I may have done a horrible job at being subtle, and apologize for that. (And I can’t help being snarky, it’s in my blood and it rises especially high when I try to be earnest. Sorry about that. I still think I have a point, only I made it terribly.)

88. I’ve worked in mental health for years. People who deliberately commit suicide generally have thought about it for a long time and/or have been extremely depressed for some time (some preteens and teens may be exceptions, as they are more impulsive and less likely to consider consequences; otherwise, it’s rarely an impulsive act).

    If people were so fragile that one sexual encounter could do them in, humans would have died out long ago.

    If Grady did indeed have a friend who committed suicide a week after a sexual encounter gone wrong, well, he had a LOT more going on in his head than that. If Grady is so desperate to blame it on a transperson, then I would guess that Grady is carrying around a load of guilt because he probably feels (like many surviving friends of people who committed suicide) that he should have known or he should have done something.

    Grady: if this is the case, it is NOT your fault. It is NOT the transperson’s fault. It is NOT the fault of the young man’s parents, or his church, or society, or that bully who beat him up in the third grade or anyone but the young man himself; you know, the guy who held the implements of suicide and then used them.

    Should transpeople be upfront? Sure, although if the operation’s been completed, and the body matches the internalized gender, then I don’t know that it really matters that much; after all, the bits match my expectation, and the orientation matches the bits.

    Now herpes — there’s something my partner had damn well better tell me prior to sex.

89. gee, maybe the friend killed himself because he was just coming to terms with his queerness and the only “friends” he had to confide in were homophobic shit-for-brains trolls.

90. joholly takes the high road and is probably right to do so.

    well, if fitz/grady really had a friend who killed himself, I’m really sorry; but you know, somehow I am thinking that repeated efforts to crash a feminist internets board under two different names is a funny way of acting out one’s survivor guilt.

91. (mods delete 89 if you like)

92. >it’s not obvious why bigots’ feelings should be *entirely* disregarded. After all, most bigots were *brought up* bigots; the prevalence of even the least rational strains of homophobia shows that it takes unusual qualities to overcome bad upbringing, etc.>

    Well, I’ll tell you where the rubber meets the road for me: when accomodating the solipsistic (for that is ultimately the problem here) bigot’s feelings is putting a drain on mine. I am a selfish little bugger; I take care of my own feelings first; off you go, putz.

    if I feel sufficiently detached then sure, I might listen for a while. if there’s any flicker of someone home in there, i might even get a tad sympathetic and offer more of an exchange. if there’s not, well, sometimes it’s entertaining at least.

93. Waitaminnit, that was FITZ?

    Oh, awesome. In a totally sickening way, of course.

94. I think this thread sums up a lot of what I’ve already seen on this subejct elsewhere:

    – most trans people disclose for practical reasons of safety, wanting to know if the person they’re with has a problem / is a bigot / is going to freak out, and in some sitatutions, wanting to be more open about their lives
    – those first two reasons become less pressing if the trans person is post-op in such a way that allows them to pass completely (usually just trans women, at this point) but the third one can still be a big deal
    – most trans people who pass don’t disclose “instantly” by walking around with “TRANNY” written on the forehead in permanent marker, or anything close to that, because you know, you might not want that to be the first thing someone focuses on, and it’s understandable to want to gauge someone a little more first, what the potential is and what kind of background they come from, before you take that risk
    – ethically speaking, why should someone’s mistaken expectation (everyone who looks non-trans IS non-trans and has certain genitals) which they’re aware could possibly be wrong (most everyone knows of the existence of trans people, even if they believe it’s unlikely they’d meet one) automatically be the responsibility of a minority group JUST because of rarity and the stigma of “abnormality?” The argument always eventually comes up that “you’re the weird one, so it’s on you” and might be oneof the core differences of opinon between the normatively-bigoted and everyone else.

    And the interesting one:
    – there are more and more contexts, especially in big cities with diverse queer scenes, where people could be reasonably expected to know that there are trans people around who might not be immediately identifiable as such. Trans people are no longer staying just in trans-centric bars and clubs, but are all over the place in queer scenes, along with a lot of individuals dating completely outside such places.

    For the individuals moving in broader societal contexts, it’s hard to say at this point that you could pragmatically expect someone to know “hey anyone could be trans.” In queer circles, it’s increasingly true that people COULD be expected to know that. And that will probably spread, and there might be more ludicrous responses like the one of that gay guy who wrote into the SF paper saying that he was “sexually assaulted” by a FTM who didn’t disclose, or something like that. Queers are going to have to deal with this first, I think.

95. Thesis: Grady/Fitz. Antithesis: sense, grammar, and decency. Synthesis: so banned.
    Alternately, ‘benosted’ might have something to do with the Latin ‘noster,’ which is sort of ‘our.’ Shortly: owned.

    Poor Fitz. Didn’t have the Hunan decency to play like a person with actual arguments again.

96. to J Swift, Thomas, others in the subdiscussion of “is there a moral rule?” (and/or to those who think the question is obviously silly…)

    You know the problem I’m having with the moral rule discussion? If I divide it into two categories, I get:

    Long-term relationship: But wouldn’t someone in a long-term relationship be bound to meet people who knew you pre-transition, anyway? So that the question would be when to tell, and not whether to tell?

    One-night stand: I’m having trouble seeing how anyone gets to expect anything out of a one-night stand with a stranger, whether it’s “Of course this person should disclose X, Y, and Z before sleeping with me,” or “Of course this person shouldn’t expect that I’m obliged to disclose X, Y, and Z if not asked.” You don’t know each other, so how could you realistically expect anything much at all in the way of shared assumptions?

97. But that transwoman isn’t a mind-reader. You’re asking her to pre-emptively assume that he might have a problem with sex with transpeople — which many transpeople assume for their safety anyway. But she doesn’t know, and he does. So why is it up to her figure out that she needs to tell him, when he knows it’s an issue that matters to him?

    Exactly. I once had a one night stand with a woman while I was dating (and having sex) with her sister. When she found out I was dating her sister, she freaked out. She confronted me and screamed at me about how I should have told her I was already involved with her sister before we had sex. But I’m not a mind reader. I didn’t know that it would be such a big deal for her. If it was such a problem for her (it wasn’t for me), it was her responsibility to ask if I was dating her sister, not mine to volunteer the information.

98. RM, was she angry (as litigators might say) in her own right, because you were sexually involved with her sister and that squicked her? Or was she, so to speak, raising her sister’s objection based on a (possibly misinformed) belief that you were bound to be monogamous with her? Because, well, the latter makes a lot of sense to me. I wouldn’t be too thrilled if I thought my sister’s significant other were cheating on her.

99. Scott, now that we’re past the sniping at each other, I’m not sure I follow the point you’re trying to make.

100. how could you realistically expect anything much at all in the way of shared assumptions?

     Lynn, exactly. All one knows of a casual partner is what one sees and is told; and what one sees is frequently an unsound basis for extrapolation. So, if there’s something one needs to know about a casual partner, ask.

101. Thomas, it was the squick factor. She said I tricked her into sex by not disclosing my relationship with her sister. That relationship was very casual, and we both were seeing other people (which is probably why she never told her sister about it – it wasn’t a serious relationship – just friends with benefits).

102. A little late on this–intriguing and useful thread, folks. Thanks. Just wanted to suggest the response I use when someone blathers like this:

     Self centered narcissistic radicals who want the whole world turned upside down so you can feel normal.

     My response is something like this:

     Oh, and you would be among the self-centered narcissistic reactionaries who want the whole world to remain exactly as you imagine it to have been since forever so you can feel normal. That’s so morally superior.

     And I would probably comment on the rampant redundancy and apparent inability to use commas as well, especially if I hadn’t had coffee yet. As I have not yet this morning.

103. Lynn, Thomas, RM:

     Yes, you don’t know the person, and so you’re drawing on very limited information. But precisely because of that, it strikes me as a bit head-in-the-sand to ignore one’s prior knowledge about what does and doesn’t squick out the population at large. For example, in RM’s example, I would actually assume that a large fraction of the population would be a bit bothered by my being in a sexual relationship with their sibling during the same period as I had a one-night stand with them; incest taboos are really, really, really common, and the example definitely edges into that territory. I would think, based on this assessment, that I ought to disclose. Denying this strikes me as simply bad decision-analysis: yes, we have to take action based on limited information, but that’s a reason for -using well- all the information we -do- have, rather than for pretending we know nothing at all.

     Going back to what Lynn said about ‘having almost nothing in the way of shared expectations’: again, I think this exaggerates. If one shares a one-night stand with someone, it’s at least evidence that both parties share enough of a cultural-linguistic framework to navigate all of the (often rather bizarre, to an outsider) social cues involved. We take all of this for granted, just as we take for granted stuff like proper conversational distance, etc. And so I don’t think it’s silly to acknowledge our own awareness of common propensities in the relevant populations, -even if- these propensities are bigoted and blameworthy.

     To reiterate: I think that we can blame bigots for their bigotry, and call upon them to reform themselves, while simultaneously thinking there is -some- ethical responsibility not to gratuituously -and foreseeably- cause them emotional distress.

104. Yes, you don’t know the person, and so you’re drawing on very limited information. But precisely because of that, it strikes me as a bit head-in-the-sand to ignore one’s prior knowledge about what does and doesn’t squick out the population at large.

     Oh, by all means, if you’re going to have one-night stands, it’s prudent to draw on your prior knowledge about what does and what doesn’t squick out the population at large. But it’s still highly likely that your prior knowledge, about what obviously is likely to squick a lot of people (or only likely to squick a few weirdos) won’t match your partner’s prior knowledge of what seems equally obvious.

     For example, in RM’s example, I would actually assume that a large fraction of the population would be a bit bothered by my being in a sexual relationship with their sibling during the same period as I had a one-night stand with them; incest taboos are really, really, really common

     Yes, RM picked one of the rare taboos that is so super common that you’d pretty much have to be an idiot to assume the default is “not squicked by this.”

     If one shares a one-night stand with someone, it’s at least evidence that both parties share enough of a cultural-linguistic framework to navigate all of the (often rather bizarre, to an outsider) social cues involved.

     So they have, but that doesn’t mean that once they get to bed together, they’ll share even an understanding as basic as “hey, idiot, it’s totally not cool to grab my head without warning and thrust it toward your crotch.” Let alone more sophisticated understandings of what they should have told each other beforehand.

     If I were to have lots of one-night stands with strangers, I guarantee I’d be frequently seriously squicked, because the population of people who are interested in one-night stands contains lots of people who consider things normal which thoroughly squick me, and some of them are weird and counterintuitive enough to me that I could never possibly think of all the questions I’d need to ask to screen them out. So I don’t have one-night stands with strangers.

105. And here we have the crux of it. They dont need to tell any prospective partner anything. Any aversion to one sex or another is simple bigotry. They are morally untouchable and not responsible for the natural consequences of their actions.

     That’s not what the point is. The point is that people shouldn’t be off and killing themselves because of it, and if they do, people should discuss what was going on in that person’s head that they would want to commit suicide, not blame someone specifically for it.

     …Which is just how I think all suicide should be handled.

106. Scott,

     From what I know–granted, as an outsider, and I welcome corrections from all those who know better, as I’m extraordinarily thick sometimes–but from what I went through with him, I took that the pressures of society combined with homosexuality and transexuality to form an equation he couldn’t fathom. He thought he knew what he was, met a “man” who was a woman, couldn’t cope with homosexuality, then took his own life.

     I’d be careful about drawing too many generalized conclusions.

     My ex-husband is MtF. I did not know about her gender issues before we started dating, got engaged, got married. It was a full two years into our marriage that it came out. I felt like my world was falling apart.

     We got divorced.

     It is not because I worried about what society might think; or because I have anything against transfolk; or anything like that. I was deceived. In a big way.

     So, a fundamental issue, I think, is: if someone gets involved in a serious relationship with a transperson, do they know of the person’s trans status ahead of time?

107. Does a transsexual have a moral obligation to tell their partners?

     I’d say that if we are talking about a “one night stand”, it probably doesn’t matter.

     The “suicide” line strikes me as very similar to the old rape defense “lookit what she was wearing”. In this case, the TS is being blamed for someone else’s actions, and that person’s apparent inability to take responsibility for their own actions. What would these guys have done if they got someone pregnant? Probably run for the hills rather than pay child support.

     In regards to long term relationships, I think that the picture is arguably very different, and the partner has a legitimate right to be aware.

     Amber’s case is not that unusual – many T*s try very hard to “be normal” – including getting married – before they hit some emotional crisis that forces them to examine themselves – often many years into a relationship. Should the TS have disclosed their status earlier? Perhaps – if they understood it, and most likely only have the vaguest inkling. Denial is an odd force in humans, and one that perhaps is underestimated in the surprise of the moment when a couple learns that one partner is transgendered.

     As other, far wiser people have said, “People don’t come with guarantees”.

108. As other, far wiser people have said, “People don’t come with guarantees”.

     Yep, I’ve heard that and many variations a million times. Figured I was taking a risk, posting my comment here. After getting tired of hearing that my pain didn’t matter and what my SO was going through was soooo much worse, I got fed up and started an online support forum for (current or former) SOs of transfolk.

     Anyway, sorry for the tangent there.

109. Anyway, sorry for the tangent there.

     I don’t think it’s a tangent, or that your pain doesn’t matter. I know that people have mourned me because I’ve transitioned, and that I also have undergone all kinds of changes related to sexuality. I know that transitioning is rough on relationships even when everyone’s informed, and that the necessity of the change does nothing to allay its effects.

     Given the difficulty I had coming out, however, and how terrifying it was, I have trouble assigning blame to your partner. It’s terrible that her being closeted resulted in the destruction of a marriage–formally and emotionally–but it doesn’t seem any less complex than the original scenario.

110. Given the difficulty I had coming out, however, and how terrifying it was, I have trouble assigning blame to your partner. It’s terrible that her being closeted resulted in the destruction of a marriage–formally and emotionally–but it doesn’t seem any less complex than the original scenario.

     It’s not a matter of assigning blame but recognizing that the fact that she’s trans doesn’t automatically make her blameless or above reproach. It also doesn’t mean my pain and turmoil should be minimized; obviously it is not the same exact thing that each of us went through, but we were in it together, and it affected both of us profoundly, albeit differently. I know that’s not what you were insinuating, piny; but over the last several years I have become very used to the emotionally-charged conversations about this issue (and the situation in my life personally) and I know it can be difficult for people to listen to what SOs have to say and understand that it’s not an indictment of the transperson or a denial that they should be who they really are, just that, we need our own safe space to talk about our issues. (Hence, my support forum.)

     Wow, sorry for the run-on! Did that make sense?

111. It’s not a matter of assigning blame but recognizing that the fact that she’s trans doesn’t automatically make her blameless or above reproach.

     Right.

     I know that’s not what you were insinuating, piny; but over the last several years I have become very used to the emotionally-charged conversations about this issue (and the situation in my life personally) and I know it can be difficult for people to listen to what SOs have to say and understand that it’s not an indictment of the transperson or a denial that they should be who they really are, just that, we need our own safe space to talk about our issues. (Hence, my support forum.)

     Right. It makes sense, and I think that the SO forum is a great idea. I know that there are a lot of forums online and IRL for SOFFAs in continuing relationships–including some people specifically oriented towards transpeople.

112. adding to this, Amber, I’d never ever blame a SO.
     My girlfriend is still with me, and I told her I’m a girl after she’d known me as a boy for a year. I expected the worst (and it did come, from my parents) and I braced myself for what I told Maria, but she just laughed it off and said she’ll still love me and want me and be with me.
     We’ve been together for 6 years, and have discussed it a lot. We both agree if I had told her earlier, we would have stopped dating, and if I had told her later she would have felt betrayed. And I wasn’t ready to tell her either before that time, for my own selfish reasons. People have been dumped by their partners for less…

     Transfolk don’t come with manuals, and neither do SO’s.
     I expected my SO to feel betrayed and break up with me, I didn’t assume she would bow to my every whim. Which is more than I can say for some m2f’s, really. I’m more than a little disturbed to say this, but most early-stage m2f’s seem to obsess over themselves. OK, a big fork along the way, a new life awaiting, but is that reason enough to ignore everyone else’s wishes? It kinda reminds me of how some guys want to keep their wives and girlfriends/boyfriends. It boils down to male privilege and boys being taught to be more assertive than girls.

     I was afraid I’d lose my girlfriend when I came out. But my two f2m friends were even less confident than that.. One of them will only date gay guys for one-night stands, and the other one isn’t even dreaming of dating yet. And while a lot of the m2f’s I know (and every one of the f2m’s) are feminists, I’m not sure if there’s something to be said there about gender-specific “spouse-betrayal”.

     Because of bad experience, to my mind at least, feminism and decency between two people in a relationship are above transsexual issues. What I mean is, TS status isn’t a pardon for narcissistic behaviour. Are we going to be confirming the psychiatrists now?

     Anyway, Amber, I’m not sure if sympathy is all that’s needed, but you have ours…

     (forgive my english, I’m greek)

113. If you don’t mind sharing, I’m interested to hear your preferences and the reasoning behind them.

     sorry i haven’t shared sooner, but i’m embroiled in a personal situation with my ex that directly relates to this.

     when i embarked in my first marriage, back in 1986, i thought i was a crossdresser – that was the only term i knew of that at that time that even came close to what my “preferences” were. frankly, i thought i was sick and deranged, and that being married to a “real” woman” would “fix” me. i have since learned that i was drastically wrong.

     i was divorced in 2000 (or there abouts – the dates seem to blur over the years) and began transition right away. my ex absolutely hates me, and blames me for everything that went wrong in our marriage. that we were totally incompatible seems to be of little consequence. frankly, i am still too close to the situation to make any kind of objective evaluation. one fact remains – i waited until we were divorced until i started transition. i don’t blame my ex for hating me though – if i knew now what i didn’t know then, i would have told her upfront, and she wouldn’t have married me.

     since then, i have been *extremely* upfront about who and what i am. frankly, i’m rather angry about the fact that i feel so vehemently determined to make sure any potential partner knows about my past. because of some unknown factor, i’m classed into this “group” called “transsexual”, and because transsexuals are somehow “different” than everyone else, i’m faced with violence, disgust, discrimination – you name it. but primarily for safety reasons, i’ve disclosed as soon as possible to any potential intimate partner – even one night stands – asap. the reason – fear of getting the crap kicked out of me – or worse, killed. that’s the bottom line.

     as frankly, i am very happy i’m now married, so i can dispense with disclosing my intimate medical history with every tom, dick, and harry. in fact, i’ve since become a rather private person.

     i will say this. i now flirt back to every man who flirts with me. i wear a wedding band and my engagement ring, and if any guy takes it upon himself to flirt with me despite my rings, i’m comfortable in not disclosing. as far as i’m concerned, any flirting that goes on will go nowhere because i’m married. if the guy has any other ideas, he’s severely mistaken. and if he has issues flirting with someone who he later finds out to be trans, it’s on him. what the heck is he doing flirting with a woman who is so obviously married. though frankly, many guys i’ve encountered don’t seem to think that married women are “off limits”, so to speak.

     i have known many trans women who are not upfront. they wait until the relationship grows before they disclose. personally, i can’t imagine putting all that emotional energy into a relationship with someone who may not want to date me, but that’s not really for me to judge. i just thought i’d offer that to the men who jump so quickly and easily into those “one night stands”. we are among the female population, and in many cases, you cannot tell us from the “real” woman. let the buyer beware…

114. nexyjo, respectfully, not all transfolk are women. and not all transwomen are heterosexuals.

115. plus some transfolk are “also” queer and/or don’t want to pass as one of the two genders. Are they morally obligated to state their precise position on the gender continuum scale to every nosy inquirer?

     I remember this dialogue with a random woman on the subway in my days of being a genderfucked “boy”:
     – Aren’t you a man? (demandingly)
     – Maybe.
     – You are a man. Then why do you have your fingernails painted?
     (sparkling purple if I recall)

     To which my girlfriend replied by french kissing me in front of the woman, saying “because *my* fingernails are short”

     Really, the woman was quite behind the times, she was wondering why an effeminate boy would kiss a girl, OR ELSE why a str8 boy would have painted fingernails. But still, the mere existence of queer people gave her the right to be self-righteous. She didn’t deserve to have her curiosity satisfied.

116. nexyjo, respectfully, not all transfolk are women. and not all transwomen are heterosexuals.

     christina, i apologize if i stated my response in a way that positioned all transfolk as heterosexual women. i was speaking from my own experience, which is from the perspective of a heterosexual transwoman.

Comments are currently closed.