Another Brandon Teena . . .

[yosemite]

I’d say that if it matters greatly to you, catsix, it would be incumbent upon you to ask.

A person (with “gender background issues”) who knows (as I’m sure many do) that there is a significant likelihood that most people will care if they knew (when it comes to an intimate relationship), and still keeps silent—well, that doesn’t seem honest. I guess that they have every right to be silent, but I believe most people would not respect that behavior.

Just because it would not occur to a potential partner to ask every possible personal question doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t care if they knew. And if the other party strongly suspects that they’d care, and they keep mum anyway…well…it seems like an honesty issue and a respect issue to me. That’s all I’m saying.

I do agree (after reading Eve’s personal observations on this issue) that it is an obviously touchy situation, and that it is unreasonable to expect that each relationship (or potential relationship) be treated exactly the same. It’s an extremely tough call, obviously.

[Sterra]

A person (with “gender background issues”) who knows (as I’m sure many do) that there is a significant likelihood that most people will care if they knew (when it comes to an intimate relationship), and still keeps silent—well, that doesn’t seem honest.

I think the difference of opinion comes from the way you are approaching it. To someone for whom “gender background issues” are behind them those background issues are probably not going to be very important. If something is not an issue to you it is hard to justify telling the other person if you think they are going to make a big deal about it.

There is also the fact that the person who cares a lot about that probably only cares due to a fundamental ignorance on the subject. Obviously it would be better to be honest about everything, but you generally start at the most important things first and work your way down.