I do not know that Caitlin Jenner, Elliot Page, legions of high school students declaring themselves to be trans are opening themselves up to personal violence in the USA in 2021. I think the burden of proof is on you there. It is becoming accepted.
That’s a really strong rebuttal, because millionaire celebrities are absolutely representative of the struggles faced by average trans people.
Meanwhile, in the real world:
Unless there’s a lot smaller number of trans people than I’ve heard, it sounds like the odds of a trans woman being killed by an angry man aren’t a lot different than any other woman’s? Nearly 1800 American women were murdered by men in 2019, and those 37 deaths in the HRC report lumped both trans and nonbinary folks together.
If that’s true, then the safest place to reveal their status is on their dating profile before they actually meet anyone in person.
Which protects against physical attacks, while opening you up to online harassment. And not all dating happens online. A trans woman is sitting in bar, and a guy asks if he can buy her a drink. What’s she supposed to do, show him her Tinder profile before she replies?
Handle it like any other woman?
ALL women run a risk of being harassed on dating sites. Typically, the sites don’t even give out actual emails. Someone harasses you, you notify the site and the harasser gets kicked off.
If a trans or any woman wants to engage in bar hookups, I would suggest venue awareness.
Do cis woman generally start off conversations with new people by saying, “By the way, I have a vagina?” No? Then you’re not actually advocating they handle it “like other women,” are you?
Also, when a cis woman says, “I do this to make myself safe from being attacked,” do you also lecture them about how their concern for their safety is unfair, because it could potentially cause you a minor inconvenience?
Or at a laundromat, or at a coffee shop, or at work. The point was that not all dating starts in an app. People still meet people in real life.
Does that include not revealing that they’re trans if they’re not sure they’re talking to someone with whom it’s safe to do that?
A phone number from someone who doesn’t know your trans is not that useful to the trans person. The trans person can drag things out as long as they want, the opportunity is still going to be at 3% at best, because the trans person has chosen to keep a key piece of information concealed. The trans person can either realize their low percentage strategies and change them, or continue with low percentage, dangerous strategies.
A virginal woman can wear revealing clothing and go to the local meet market and get some attention. “Why don’t they call me back?” Because you are hanging out somewhere where the guys you want don’t go.
Why can’t the homosexual man just slap on a football jersey and flirt with the guys down at the sports bar the way a woman can? After all, they both want the same thing. But most men aren’t homosexual, and the ones that are perhaps aren’t hanging out at the sports bar.
In all of these situations, people are experiencing frustrations because their behavior does not match up with who they are or what they want. A phone number given to a trans woman is going to be of the most value when the giver has a good idea or is certain that the receiver is a trans woman, and that is what he wants. There are likely places the trans woman can go to make this more certain. Again, making it clear the the trans person is a trans person is critical to the process.
Not everyone approaches dating like they’re trying to optimize efficiency at an Amazon warehouse. There are concerns other than “what’s the smallest amount of time I need to invest in order to get laid.” Such as, again, “Is it physically safe for me to reveal this fact about myself to this person?”
Like I said, venues matter. Maybe you’d get the answers you want at somewhere other than SDMB.
I agree with everything Miller has said.
It’s possibly relevant that I have a lot of trans and non-binary friends.
Not in the context of this conversation, they don’t.
Buddy, I’m not looking for answers from you. I already know you’ve got nothing to offer on that score. I’m here to try to show you why your attitude on this subject is seven kinds of fucked up.
What’s fucked up about his attitude? I’m not sure what argument you’re making or what solution you’re putting forward that would be effective in minimizing the risk of assault to trans people in the dating world.
Nobody here thinks there is any excuse for assault based on a person’s gender identity or sexual preference or for wearing something “too revealing” or having too much to drink, etc. In an ideal world, none of this would happen. But in the world we live, all these things do happen and what’s been suggested is possible ways for trans people to mitigate the risks. Now maybe you think the suggestions are inadequate. But what else would you have people do except offer advice they would almost certainly give their own family member navigating the fraught dating world?
My argument is that we should allow trans people to take the steps they feel are necessary to feel safe when dating, including choosing their own moment to reveal to a potential partner that they’re trans. Jay-Z’s argument is that this unacceptable, because it very slightly increases the odds that he’ll end up on a date with someone he’s not interested in fucking. He has since tried to recast his position as offering dating advice to trans people, which has been an unconvincing pivot, given that nobody was asking for advice on the subject before he started offering it.
Agreed.
You’re right, that doesn’t seem fair. Why should trans people take all the risks? 
I certainly agree with all of that but could it not be the case that delaying such an announcement also perhaps increases the chances of unsafe confrontations?
I’m going to let the people who are directly affected, and who have personal experience, figure that out, and not lecture them on what I think they ought to do. Also, not every date arises from an obvious “pre date”. It may make sense to say “trans man” on a dating profile. It almost certainly doesn’t make sense to wear a sign that says “trans man” every time you go out in public.
I think it probably does, even though it will necessarily shrink your potential pool of dates it filters out non-starters and doesn’t waste your time or anyone elses.
Absolutely. It is no-one’s business in 99.9% of public interactions.
Here’s a story I told in a near identical discussion a couple of years ago:
She’s now almost certain the guy hadn’t noticed, at first, that she disclosed her gender identity in her ad. And afterwards, he was so upset he had kissed a trans woman that he went on this awful abusive and harassing binge afterwards. But that’s the kind of thing that can sometimes happen to everyday trans people who disclose their gender identity to people they haven’t established trust with.
I’m not sure what the solution here is. NOT disclose in the ad? This guy would still show up then, he’s still going to get mad, since now it’s not in the ad at all and she can’t tell how he’s going to react. Plus, the next ten men are just as likely to react the same way, since she isn’t weeding out the ones who won’t respond to a trans woman ad, and she can’t tell, like most of us can’t, how someone is going to react.
Some men don’t read the ads. They just take a look at the picture and send out mass contacts, figuring some women will not respond or flake anyway, and this way they can get as much opportunity as they want. This also has the effect of the women getting things they don’t want, things they stated they don’t want. Because these men don’t read the ads, don’t care about the woman’s conditions, figure it’s up to her to enforce those conditions. In this case, not reading the ad backfired on the man from his perspective.
My perspective in those situations is if there is an important issue, before being involved, you need to mention it more than once, and maybe follow up with research as well. It’s an application, some people are going to try to bluff their way through. But you’ll get a whole lot more inappropriate responses if you don’t check at all.