IMO the solution is to teach people to not be transphobic and not harass others. Not sure exactly what would have been the perfect fine line for my acquaintance to have walked in that example, but quite clearly sometimes disclosing in advance is the wrong move.
From my interaction and reading from trans women who date, the safest option in most circumstances is to disclose in public prior to any intimate encounters after some level of trust and goodwill has been established.
You’re misrepresenting what I said. I never “advised” transgender people to refrain from pre-emptively disclosing their transgender status to potential dates. In fact, I said more than once that they’re perfectly free to do so if they want to.
But neither they nor anybody else have a responsibility to disclose that private personal information unless and until they want to.
In other words, you’re the one giving advice (and rather overbearingly so), and claiming that you’re only trying to be helpful.
Miller AFAICT is correct that the most helpful thing cisgender people can do for transgender people’s dating success is to just get used to the fact that transgender people exist, and they don’t owe you or anybody else advance notification of their transgender status.
Agreed on both counts. As is so often the case with members of frequently marginalized and victimized groups, the lion’s share of the advice and demands and disapproval are being directed at the people being victimized, rather than at the people who are jeopardizing their safety.
Browsing r/asktransgender, it seems that many opinions on when to disclose are given merit. This is because there are pros and cons to both.
Some disclose as early as possible to not (potentially) waste their and their dates time. Other opinions are like one on a transman who got more matches and dates when they did not disclose in their profile and (almost?) none when they did.
Not disclosing right away can sometimes get your foot in the door, as it were, and that can in fact be enough since while a person might swipe left (i.e. reject) on someone who says they are trans on their profile, after they meet that person they might find out that them being trans was not a dealbreaker after all, just like anything else someone thought is a dealbreaker might turn out to not have been so important.
Not disclosing early can get also weed out those who just have a fetish for trans people.
I dunno if this would help, and I’m not really in the dating scene, much less online dating, so I couldn’t participate, but what if people started putting, “No bigots, homophobes or transphobes” on their dating profile.
Then those who are worried that they may accidently find themselves attracted to a transgendered person will be able to filter by that. Those who don’t want to date bigots, homophobes, and transphobes won’t have to find out that about their date after wasting their time. And transgendered individuals will have a better chance of meeting someone worth their time, with less chance of a violent reaction.
This is likely a very good idea and I completely forgot that some people do in fact put stuff like this on their profile.
This is a good idea!
Sure, there are many potential strategies and timelines for negotiating the hazards of dating while transgender. And as I’ve said, I totally support transgender individuals making their own decisions about whether and when to come out to their dates, based on their own best judgement.
(As long as it doesn’t involve deliberately deceiving or lying to another person, of course. It should go without saying that presenting as a woman without pre-emptively disclosing that you’re a transgender woman Is not “deceiving” people. And declining to answer questions about one’s gender identity is not “lying to” people. People have a right to maintain their privacy about personal information as long as they’re not actually falsifying it. If other people don’t want to date them without finding out more about them, fine, they don’t have to date them.)
Don’t forget that this whole kerfuffle started with my objecting to Jay_Z’s aggressively dictatorial declaration back in post #103:
That is WAY too demanding and prescriptive for anybody who claims to be merely trying to help or “advise” transgender people. Anybody is entitled to their own opinion about dating strategies in general, but nobody gets to lay down the law for transgender people as an entire group about what they “need to” do regarding the disclosure of their personal information to strangers.
I agree that this is a good idea, and I would strongly support cisgender people who don’t want to date bigots, homophobes or transphobes adopting it as well.
That way, a declaration of “no transphobes” won’t be automatically parsed as “I personally am transgender”. Of course, it may limit some dating opportunities for some people who don’t consider themselves transphobic but want to avoid going on any dates with someone who may turn out to be transgender. But that’s just one of the risks you take when you date among strangers.
So I’m thinking “are there any other analogues in dating” and I’m not diminishing the importance of the topic, but people de-select potential partners due to smoking, religious preference, desire to have kids…which are all big ticket items and may not come up on the first date.
I guess I’m saying, it’s important if it looks like a bedroom encounter is imminent, but maybe not before that, and the offended person needs to handle it with grace (if only saying it made it so).
It’s not a terrible idea, but I doubt it’s going to be terribly effective. You’re still going to have the people who just don’t read the bio, the people who hold bigoted beliefs but don’t recognize themselves as bigots, and the people who just don’t disclose they’re a bigot, either in a “Doesn’t matter, had sex” mindset, or a “Once she gets to know me, she’ll see I’m right about the Jews” mindset.