Straight male, and no. It skeeves me out, but a large component of that may be based on the fact that the medical procedures are so rudimentary. If a guy is old enough to make the decision, he’s already old enough to have a male skeleton and his voice is too deep. It’d be like dating Bea Arthur, but with a crudely-assembled vagina that lacks a clitoris. Also, in my incredibly large sample set of knowing three transsexuals, I’ve noticed a pattern: you just can’t get them to talk about anything other than their being a transsexual.
I know this is about post-op, but as a gay male friend of mine pointed out to a somewhat conservative straight female friend (you know the type, not too conservative to have gay friends but likes to debate against them), who do you think is hiring the MtF transsexuals who still have male sex organs but can ‘pass’ as women? Not gay men.
Uh, wait a minute. Trans women are not men and it’s a major insult to be referred to as such.
Surgeons these days are constructing very well made vaginae and highly sensate clitorides. The usual parts are all there except for the cervix and other internal organs. Also, not all have male voices; you’d be surprised how good a person can sound after some voice coaching, and some don’t even need that.
Find one who isn’t out to everyone around her.
I answered bi and it doesn’t matter, but I unfortunately have to echo that I’m not completely sure about trans men because of the penis thing. I’ve never seen FtM genitals though so can’t say for sure. As for women I would unhesitatingly date one who passes whether she’s pre- or post-op.
Straight female, and although I’d like to think I’d be enlightened enough for it not to matter, I fall into the camp who would care about the genitalia issue. I don’t think we’d make each other happpy.
Oh I’m glad to hear that. I studied ancient Greek enough that the declensions are almost second nature… it’s good to be able to put that knowledge to use.
heterosexual male. I don’t see how it’s possible replicate a different sex through surgery. Dating with the intent of marriage/family would be out of the question. If it was possible to do it through gene therapy and growing the right parts that would be a different story.
I’m a straight woman, and if a post-op transsexual “pinged my radar” as male I might very well be attracted to him. However…
… the FtM surgery isn’t as good as the MtF last I heard. Basically, at best you’re talking about a man with, from the viewpoint of normal, that is “vast majority of men”, is (how do I put this without causing offense?) possessing genitals that are significantly different from those of normal men who were born men. I’m honest enough to say yes, that could be a show stopper for me.
On the other hand, I’m already married to someone who isn’t physically normal (although his genitals are) so clearly handicap or deformity is not inherently a deal breaker for me. But it’s not a turn on, either.
So I’ll have to say maybe/I don’t know. Because I really don’t know.
I find the current results very interesting, especially the bisexual section - both that they have the biggest “no problem” majority, but that there just about as many bisexuals voting “no problem” than there are homosexuals voting for ANY of the options.
This is pretty much where I’m at. I don’t care that someone is trans per se, but sex is very very important to me in a romantic relationship. My understanding (and if I’m wrong, feel free to correct me and I’ll gladly revise my answer) is that with current technology there’s just really no good solution for bottom surgery for FTM.
For women, no issue at all. Knew a trans woman once, and while she wasn’t my type, if she hadn’t told me I would have had no idea that she used to have a guy’s body. I didn’t think of her as a guy at all – I usually didn’t even think of her as “trans” unless someone else reminded me – so much so that when she was telling stories of her elocution lessons, and presented us with an example of what her “guy voice” sounded like, it was really, really weird.
Lesbian here and… as to the OP, I don’t know. It would depend on the person.
I have actually been friends with several MTF transsexuals. For starters, a couple of these friends had serious emotional problems and I find that neither attractive nor would touch that dating scenario with a ten foot pole. (My minimum requirement for a partner is a certain level of sanity!) The others just weren’t really my type.
Also – and maybe this is just a chip on my shoulder – I have found that the transsexuals I’ve known tend to overemphasize gender roles to a degree I find annoying. I’m a woman, and I don’t need to wear makeup or heels or skirts or mince around prettily to be a woman. I just am, and who cares if my leg hair is long enough to braid, etc., etc. Yet every MTF I have been acquainted with has focused on external markers of femininity to a degree that makes me uncomfortable. Logically, I totally get it. If you are transitioning, it makes perfect sense to explore and adopt traditional aspects of femininity. But I find it a big turn off.
Gender ambiguity is more my style… so any MTF or FTM I dated would have to identify more with the fuzzy middle ground than with a given gender role. (Of course, all this is theoretical since I am happily married to my lesbian partner… but that’s my opinion anyway.)
I have dated a few trans men in my time. None of them, as it turns out, had had as many interventions as the OP specifies – genital reconstruction is less prevalent among trans men than among trans women, for a variety of reasons – but this wasn’t a major factor in the relationship (at least for me; one of the men in question had some issues about it).
One thing is that it takes a hell of a lot of work to get other people to gender you correctly, especially for people with particular body or facial types.
I also think it’s interesting how often the feminine performance of trans women is critiqued, because it mirrors the way the feminine performance of cis women is critiqued; it’s assumed that they are wrongly equating womanhood with these things, not that they simply prefer to present in a way regarded as traditionally feminine. Feminine presentation is “marked” in a way that other kinds of gender presentation is “unmarked.”
Incidentally, many of the transsexual men and women I know are androgynous or non-traditionally-gendered.
Straight male. I’ve seen some MtF trans porn that wasn’t too bad. I don’t find male equipment the least bit appealing however. If she were young and extremely feminine I’d probably go for it. Unfortunately there are probably no pornstar-level MtF’s willing to go out with me, and your average MtF won’t do.
This, basically. I can respect a man who feels that traditional gender roles aren’t important. I can’t respect a man who acts like they are important, and instead tries to dodge the question by redefining the word “man”.
I studied ancient Greek enough that the declensions are almost second nature… it’s good to be able to put that knowledge to use. 