Should you expect to know what genitals a person has before a first date?

In My Humble Opinion
141

Fair enough.

We once again are talking about definitions.

Definitions are tricky. And possibly dodgy. And possibly squirrely. And I’m possibly not the best person to discuss this particular flavor of definition with you because I, personally, have a very hard time shoving the “trans women are women” bit of definition past my pedantry. By which I mean I’m probably a bigot, and am certainly a pedant, and there’s absolutely no part of my notion of definitions that says that somebody can change something’s definition by the mere act of declaring it so. To my brain, that just doesn’t work.

But we’re not talking about assholes like me. We’re explicitly talking about people who do definitionally accept that trans women are women. And, being a pedant regarding definitions as I am, I note that you can’t claim you’re talking about such people and then say that they don’t REALLY think trans women are women. That’s ain’t right, dude; pick a definition and stick to it.

Which means I dismiss that “woman, but not quite” by definition - so where does that leave us? It appears that you’re saying that a person who does accept that trans women are women can’t possibly be averse to dating all trans women. That seems like an unsupportable position to me.

Firstly I reject the notion that you have to refuse to accept trans women are women to be bigoted against them or simply unsettled because they deviate from your norm.

Also I reject your attempt to dismiss “wants babies” as reason to be averse to trans women just because it applies to more people than trans women. If I’m averse to women under the age of twenty, I’m also averse to people under the age of sixteen. Being a proper subset of an excluded group makes you an excluded group too.

For either of those reasons a person could be averse to dating a trans woman, despite accepting that they’re women, and could thus wish to be appraised of this information before it’s “too late” (whenever that is).

142

A person may not want to date a trans woman because they don’t want to deal with family fall-out. Just like a person may not want to date someone outside of their culture or race for the same reason.

They may also not want to date a trans person because they assume there are extra challenges that would be involved with that and they just aren’t interested. Just like a person may not want to date someone who has kids or who has a disability.

I don’t think not wanting to date a trans woman necessarily indicates a transphobic mindset. Although, if someone is shouting their disinterest through a bullhorn, I think that it is fair to conclude they are a jerk.

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143

As a card carrying member of the Offenderati, why was I not informed of this thread.

#1 It seems that people here think pre-op and post-op are the only options. Some trans women are non-op. They have, for various reaons, decided not to have surgery and live with the genitalia they were born with.

#2 A human being interested in women can screen out say redheads, or women with large noses. But most trans women are not obviously trans women. You can’t say “I have never and will never be attracted to one.” It’s entirely possible that you have been attracted to a trans woman- without knowing she was trans.

#3 Monstro is just tops.

Personally, if I were dating a woman who revealed she had a penis I would want to know if it was circumcised. I can deal with a trans woman. My family can deal with a trans woman. But a shikseh would be trouble.

144

I would actually say the opposite is true and the great majority are pretty obvious, pictures can also be deceptive but I’d argue in person probably 90% or more would be obvious.

145

It’s not a potential dating partner’s responsibility to determine what you consider “normal” or what you think you can “reasonably expect”. If you really need to know whether a potential dating partner meets certain criteria for what you consider “normal” or “reasonable expectation”, it’s your responsibility to ask them about it.

There are a lot of chicken-ass men out there who are scared of possibly being attracted to a woman who turns out to have a penis, and are also scared of possibly offending a woman without a penis by asking personal questions about her genitalia from the get-go. So they try to offload the responsibility for dealing with their fears onto other people, demanding that they should be given this highly personal information right away so they won’t be surprised by it but don’t have to ask for it.

I say that’s cowardly irresponsibility and I say the hell with it.

No, as long as everybody involved is clear and consenting on the rules for disclosure.

But unless the disclosure is officially mandated by the website as a condition of participating (and are they even legally allowed to do that??), nobody gets to whine if other participants choose not to disclose. If you fill out the form with, say, “I am a 100% CISGENDER HETEROSEXUAL DICK-POSSESSING HE-MAN and I am looking for a __100% CISGENDER HETEROSEXUAL (OKAY MAYBE A LITTLE LESBIAN IF SHE LETS ME WATCH) TOTALLY DICKLESS BIOLOGICAL FEMALE FROM BIRTH WOMAN__”, then you’ve made your criteria very clear and you’re entitled to expect that anybody contacting you for a date is in compliance with your criteria.

But if some hot babe on the site that you’d really like to get with has filled out her form with, say, “I am a charming conversationalist, excellent cook and accomplished motorcycle mechanic and I am looking for a sweet guy who makes me laugh”, then you’re not entitled to complain because she hasn’t told you whether she’s cisgender or transgender.

If she doesn’t choose to disclose upfront, and you feel you really need to know before taking even the first step in the dance, then it’s on you to ask her about it. Even though that requires you to run the risk of her possibly being offended and/or dismissing you as a insecure transphobic jerk that she wouldn’t want anywhere near her OEM vagina.

146

I personally feel that a person should list everything about themselves that anybody could consider to be a bad thing, so that the other person doesn’t feel that they were cheated or deceived. The good things can be left to be discovered in conversation.

I also haven’t bothered to even consider trying online dating because I know nobody would ever give my problem-laden profile a second glance.

So why would anybody ever want to disclose anything that other people might take negatively?

147

Not sure if serious question, but if so, as other posters have pointed out, some transgender people feel they’re at more risk from potential dating partners if they don’t disclose their trans status upfront. (That’s not a valid reason for chicken-ass potential dating partners to demand that transgender people disclose their status upfront, of course; it’s the transgender person’s choice to make.)

Of course, some transgender people do routinely disclose their status upfront, and some chicken-ass stupid-ass asshole-ass dating partners still get mad at them about being transgender because they weren’t paying attention:

148

:rolleyes: They’re called “women”. Transgender people who identify as women are correctly referred to as “women”.

If it’s necessary for some reason to differentiate them from cisgender women, then they are called “transgender women”. It’s really not that difficult.

If you personally don’t want to date a transgender woman, either after your wife’s death or behind your wife’s back or in any other circumstances, that’s totally up to you. But there’s nothing untruthful about transgender women on dating sites referring to themselves as “women”. If you feel you need to find out whether a woman you might want to date is transgender or cisgender, it’s on you to ask her.

Although I suppose trying to screen out transgender women by using derogatory assholish nicknames for them is a potentially workable alternative strategy. At least it would probably ensure you’d only date people holding similarly assholish transphobic views.

149

I am in my 60s too, but I don’t use it as an excuse for ignorance.

150

In addition to other reasons people have given:

Not everybody thinks the same things are negative. Or positive, for that matter.

If you’re actually going to list “everything that anybody could consider to be a bad thing”, you’re just going to have to list everything, including all the things you think of as good things. Might take you a while.

151

And I say that’s bullshit. The outlier ought to have the common courtesy to inform someone they know is probably not into that what the deal is before accepting a date.

152

Exactly. Although likewise, I hope I don’t think it should be sprung on a person right as you’re about to do the naughty. Sometime in between. :wink:

And hopefully, the response will NOT be something like, “Eeewww, tranny, get lost!!!” I myself do not think there would be anything wrong with replying, “I don’t know if/think this will work out, but I hope we can still be friends,” or something of that nature.

Really, I honestly don’t know if I could date a transman. I know that he’d have to be post-op if I did, because I’m not attracted to vaginas. I don’t believe that makes me a bad person, or a bigot. Rejection hurts no matter what the reason, and while some are probably worse than others, you can’t force someone to date you.

I’m sure there are trans people out there who don’t want to date other trans people, or don’t want to date cis people. And they have that right. There are people who don’t want to date outside their own religion, that doesn’t make them say, anti-semitic, or islamophobic, or anti-catholic.

Does that mean they’re saying, “oh, if they’re not X, that means they’re not a man/woman”? No, that’s fucking absurd. It means, “this particular trait is not a turn-on to me.” Whether that trait is being trans, short, fat, Republican, a redhead, a Trekkie, a Methodist, a Flyers fan, etc, well, that’s how it works. Dating isn’t fair.

I fear that if we start telling people they’re bigots for rejecting people – for whatever reasons – then it could lead to people thinking they’re OWED a relationship. We’re already seeing that with the incel crowd. Do we really want to reinforce that attitude?

153

I was envisioning radio buttons and checkboxes, not free-form text boxes, and I’d be fine with making them optional, so long as the “search profiles” function offered a way to filter out the “did not disclose” profiles. Seems like a workable solution to me, at least in the online dating world.

154

I think I’ve figured out the problem. Everyone is approaching it as if a relationship is that thing where you are to be served the choices you want.

It’s not. *That *thing is a restaurant.

155

If they know that, which they won’t, in most cases. So then perhaps people who don’t want to date trans people should put that in their profiles.

156

I don’t think so. This discussion is about deciding who you might want to have a relationship with, not picking and choosing what attributes you find acceptable once you are in relationship.

157

<shrug>I always thought dating was supposed to be that phase where you figure out and discover things about each other - and discover whether or not you are compatible.

You can’t possibly know everything in advance, but I guess I agree that you should try to know some things. I think all we have here is disagreement about whether this particular thing is in the category of things that should be known, or discovered.

IMO, because it seems to be quite a private thing, it feels as though it should be something that should not be obligatory to disclose to the whole market.

158

The questions and answers in this thread are making me aware of something.

I like women as companions and friends.

I’m sexually attracted to female people. To the anatomy, the physical configuration, with an especially strong fondness for the morphology of the genital parts. Those female people need not be women. I still find the package sexually enticing.

Inner Stickler writes (pretty far upthread):

** nods **

I doubt that it will catch on as a term, but conceptually yeah. I’m not precisely straight. Straight people are attracted to the opposite gender, not just the opposite sex. Straightness – how it’s done, how the courting and flirting and making out are scripted – is set up as a very gendered sequence of behaviors. I’m the wrong gender to be straight with women and most female people are, of course, women. But I could be straight with female people whose gender isn’t “woman”. Straightbackwards.

159

I wonder how many guys who believe they are entitled to know whether a woman they take on a first date has a dick would eagerly reveal their most unattractive quality to a woman who asks them out on a date.

Woman: “You are so cute! Would you like to join me for lunch one day? Here is my number.”

Guy: “Sure, but I have to let you know that I can’t last longer than a minute. And I refuse to go down on a woman or do anything besides the missionary position. My past girlfriends all left me because I am selfish in bed. I also have dingleberries. Still interested?”

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160

A “woman” with a dick isn’t a woman.

There’s women, and trans women. There’s nothing bigoted about having a preference for one or the other.