How does it matter? You can challenge them on it and try and combat it based on this argument, but it’s a separate matter from whether or not a transgender person tells them that she is transgender. As long as a substantial number do think it is ‘weird and gross’, irrespective of the source of that feeling, I think the obligation on a transgender person to tell them that they are transgender(in case they’re headed for a sexual encounter) remains.
They probably wouldn’t because they wouldn’t expect to find themselves in bed with a man in the first place, and they can avoid that situation.
Of course they’re arbitrary. What does that change?
How does this fit in with your (apparent) belief that a post op transperson doesn’t have the obligation to inform prospective partners about their…previous gender?(I’m not sure of the right language to express that, sorry). I think uninformed consent is not really consent.
As I said, I think you do have the right if you can reasonably be expected to find something disagreeable and you have that obligation if you have a characteristic that you can reasonably expect a prospective partner to have a problem with. There’s obviously no objectively right position on this, but there’s my opinion for what it’s worth.
It matters because your personal biases and preferences don’t imply an ethical obligation on another person’s part.
Lots of people think lots of physical characteristics are “weird and gross”: many US women find uncircumcised penises disgusting, for example, and in this modern age of waxing many men are grossed out by full bush on a woman.
I’ve already agreed with you that it’s generally a good thing for potential sex partners to air out their quirks before getting jiggy. But that’s a far cry from saying that they’re ethically obligated to do so or that they’re somehow being deceitful if they don’t.
It changes the validity of using them to justify making demands about other people’s behavior.
If someone’s arguing that it’s, say, a violation of nature or the laws of God, or a serious danger to mental health, or something of that sort, for a heterosexual male to unexpectedly encounter a penis on a sex partner, then I see why they would consider it morally necessary for such a partner to warn them in advance about having a penis.
But if you admit that a woman’s penis is just one instance of various very rare and widely unappealing genital configurations, and that the basis on which we classify some such configurations as more significant or “weird” or “gross” than others is fundamentally arbitrary, then the case for insisting on an ethical obligation to warn prospective sex partners about them is much weaker.
It fits in fine. You have no ethical obligation to volunteer information about any (noninfectious) sexual/genital characteristics in advance. But you have the right to terminate your consent to any and all sexual activity as soon as you find out that your partner has any characteristics you don’t like. And you have the obligation to accept your partner’s terminating their consent as soon as they find out that you have any characteristics they don’t like.
(Oh, and I believe the term for what a transgender person is transitioning or has transitioned away from is their “assigned gender”.)
And my point is that what counts as “disagreeable”, and what counts as a “reasonable expectation” of disagreeableness, is so riddled with cultural biases and subjective preferences as to be essentially useless as a realistic guide to conduct.
Yes, as I said, we should certainly encourage people to get things out in the open with prospective sex partners verbally before they do so physically, so to speak. But enjoining that on them as a moral imperative is fatally vague and open-ended, IMHO. People should not end up feeling deeply betrayed or guilty just because of a difference of opinion about how “disagreeable” some characteristic or other would seem.
And in particular, straight men should not worry that their manhood or masculinity or heterosexuality is somehow called into question if they happen to find out that a woman they were sexually attracted to while they believed she was cisgender in fact has (or had) a penis. Once we get rid of that particular social anxiety, most heterosexual men of course will still not be interested in having sex with women with penises, but I think a lot of the outrage and horror and anger about the possibility of finding out that a potential sex partner has a penis will dissipate.
And, to bring this discussion finally back to the OP, I’m inclined to think that lighthearted and non-derogatory comic songs like “What She’s Got” seem more likely to undermine that transphobic taboo than to reinforce it. Which is IMO a good thing.
A large part of it has to do with prejudice against transgender persons.
Why do I believe this? Because of the reaction.
If a man finds himself in bed with a cisgender woman and is surprised by encountering a third nipple, excessive hair, an “ugly vagina” (men’s sites talk about this a lot), strange and disturbing tattoos, horrible odor, hidden fat, or some other physical “defect,” the reaction is typically to either grit their teeth and go through it anyways, or make an excuse and get out of the situation, and never call back.
If a man finds himself in bed with a pre-op transsexual woman and is surprised by finding a penis, the reaction tends to be violent. Sometimes very violent. Sometimes deadly. This is easily Googlable and I have personal experience talking to the women who were beaten and survived. I have a personal friend who was outed during the flirting stage in a bar, who was beaten unconscious, and I know of a transwoman who lost teeth when she got into a bedroom with a man and told him prior to undressing.
The difference in the reaction tells me that it’s not just “surprise,” many times it’s bias. No I can’t cite a research paper on men who got in the sack with unknown pre-op transgender women, because there are none. But it’s a simple fact in the community, and it’s why it is rare for a transwoman to try and hide it prior to sex.
Then you can’t assert it as a fact. It’s an opinion, based at best on anecdote and subject to the usual confirmation bias. You’re a scientist, you know that already.
A “woman with a dick” is an oxymoron in my book. And I don’t consider post-op operation to do much to change that. I do feel bad for the person, for it’s obviously a pretty bad deck of cards to have be played by mother nature and I’m ok with going through the act of calling the person her and whatever else, and am against official and professional discrimination. But I’m not going to pretend that in my personal life I consider the person a woman. So maybe I’m transphobic according to your definition. I don’t really care. These words have long since lost all meaning and bite.
Ah, I see. That is my mistake then. Allow me to amend that to “it’s a simple ‘fact’ in the community.” I’ll leave my claim as opinion and wait for anyone to present a fact on the specific topic. I’m sure someone will soon…
I am curious why you presume to lecture me on science when you were the touting a couple of studies showing poorer quality of life and suicide outcomes for transgender people, yet you refused to respond to my rebuttal with my technical paper which cited 29 studies in detail and reviewed more than 100. I for one admit when I make mistakes.
The plural of anecdote isn’t data by any means. Anecdote in limited quantities does not become science (unless the goal of the science is to record anecdote). But handwaving it aside without any consideration is also silly and ignorant.
I can imagine the thought process: “I haven’t seen peer-reviewed studies showing that not telling a male sexual partner I have a penis they aren’t expecting is no worse than not telling them I’m a cisgender woman with excessive body hair. So despite the fact I know all these other transwomen who were beaten, even murdered for doing such, I’ll continue down this path of not informing until I see a write-up in the technical journals. Q.E.D.”
In other words, in the real world, when actual bodily harm and lives are at stake, sometimes an individual person has to make a judgment call for themselves based on their experience and that of others, to err on the side of caution.
Would you want to now before sleeping with a woman that she in fact had male genitalia?
Trying to obfuscate the issue with “cultural bias” and “transphobia” is just your unwillingness to admit that, yes, in some circumstances, it is okay to pass judgement (with regard to sexual activity) on another person.
Because your rebuttal was not much more than a restatement of your disagreement with Cecil. I was asking for evidence that SRS results in objectively-measurable improvements, such as a reduction in suicide or criminal arrests. I am not aware that you or anyone else has produced such evidence.
If we are discussing science and get nothing but opinion and anecdote, refusing to concede the point is not hand-waving.
I agree - transgender people should be more careful to ensure that their prospective sex partners understand the special sense in which they are using the term “woman”.
So even by a metric of “suicide rates” (really now, is that how clinical psychologists assess effectiveness of all treatments, everywhere? Or by arrest records?), since 2004 the odds are against you.
Honestly, I don’t want to be a bitch, but I did my time - I spent the money and time to read through and research more than a hundred papers to get to the heart of the 27+1 studies. You may think I had a preconceived or self-fulfilling thesis, but honestly I tried not to. I can’t say I had no bias, but then I can’t say that anyone has no bias.
Until I see the same sort of serious legwork from anyone else, I need a more substantive, researched criticism to feel I have to defend it. My work stands on that page, and all of the references are cited.
This is a thread about opinion and people’s versions of morality of disclosure prior to sexual relations. Almost all the posts, and even the very OP, are about opinion.
My educated opinion is that there is transphobia involved on its face because of the typical reaction in my experience to such a revelation. I take it you aren’t asserting that the opposite is true, that there is no greater risk to a transwoman compared to a cisgender woman when a male partner has a “surprise” in bed.
It’s also a logical fallacy to assume that all opinions carry the same weight. I have my hash marks working within and for the transgender community. My “opinion” is not fact but on this subject I’d say it’s worth more than any random person’s.
That’s true. An opinion without evidence to back it up is worth nothing, especially in GD. And an opinion based on studies from PubMed is going to be better founded than one based on a blog post.
If you are attempting an argument from authority, that doesn’t work. Being transgender gives no more insight into the efficacy of SRS than having cancer qualifies you to talk about Laetrile.
in that case why do continue to claim it has no effect on suicide rates? I noted on my link ( which you refuse to read thoroughly) that very issue.
Seriously, I’m not seeing an attempt even at legwork here.
And I’ve criticized it before.
Um, I work professionally as a counselor and patient advocate, and am listed as an associate at the Institute. I also help train new counselors. I’m also trained and am a mandatory reporter as I help transwomen who are working the streets, and I am called in to high schools to assist counselors. And yes I get paid for my services although I do donate all income.
You on the other hand have absolutely no qualifications or experience to speak on this subject. Think again before you start attacking my Q&E.
…let alone the fact that you still haven’t proven why your contrived metrics of suicide and arrests trumps all the research others have done (which you still have no response to, and you haven’t even read it by your own admission that you think it’s no different from an SDMB thread rebutting Cecil) where they actually determine the quality of life improvements-which in case you forgot was the entire point of the original debate. Quality of life.
You moved the goalposts from the initial discussion. The point of the initial discussion was Quality of Life. I’ve proven that quality of life is improved. We’re in violent agreement that there is no good evidence that suicide rates are reduced.
Anyone claiming that suicide rates or arrest records are the criteria for success or failure is ignorant. So I go by the claims of researchers in the large majority of the studies I reviewed that quality of life is improved. That’s the goal.
Actually you did, by the snide assertion that I knew no more about transgender treatment and science than any lay person who was also transgender. An assertion not supported by the tens of thousands of words and hundreds of citations I’ve provided on this subject over the last year.