I’m not disputing that what you recommend may well be preferable for the personal safety of transgender women (and I’m sorry that it has to be that way). But I think it’s worth emphasizing that in terms of ethics and etiquette, it’s up to the non-trans-accepting person to state their deal-breakers up front.
Just as it would be up to them to let a potential partner know up front that they didn’t want to date, say, a non-Christian, or anyone who’s had more than three sex partners, or anyone with children, or anyone with any Finnish ethnic heritage, or any other characteristic they consider disqualifying for any reason.
Especially since, as I mentioned, many men seem to have a notion that a transgender woman (especially one who hasn’t had SRS) is somehow equivalent to a gay man pretending to be a woman in order to trick straight men into having gay sex with him.
Men have every right to turn down a woman for being transgender if they don’t want to date a transgender woman, for whatever reason, just as they have every right to turn down a woman for being anything else they don’t happen to be attracted to. But they don’t have the right to treat a transgender woman as though she somehow “cheated” or “tricked” them just by presenting as a woman. And to me, a man expecting a transgender woman to voluntarily announce her status right away, unasked, strongly suggests that bigoted “transgender is trickery” attitude.
It’s absolutely the responsibility of the transgender person to put those facts on the table as soon as anything turn in a dating direction. It’s such an uncommon thing that you can’t possible expect the man to be upfront with his opinion on this. The same with any other information which is likely to interfere or prevent normal couple interaction, intimacy or sex. I’d consider it fraudulent behaviour, leading on, and be completely livid.
Incidentally there was a case from UK a little while back where it turns out the “man” a girl thougt she was having sex with (several times) was in fact a woman. And another case from France, where the young stud a woman thought she was having sex with bindfolded was in fact an old dude. It’s close to something resembling rape by deception.
One partner’s being transgender doesn’t “interfere or prevent normal couple interaction, intimacy or sex” in any way unless the other partner is non-trans-accepting.
In which case, it’s up to the non-trans-accepting partner, the one for whom the issue of transgender is such a REALLY HUGE DEALBREAKER THAT WOULD MAKE THEM CATASTROPHICALLY UPSET AND EMOTIONAL, to be clear about where their boundaries are.
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Incidentally there was a case from UK a little while back where it turns out the “man” a girl thougt she was having sex with (several times) was in fact a woman. And another case from France, where the young stud a woman thought she was having sex with bindfolded was in fact an old dude. It’s close to something resembling rape by deception.
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Congratulations, you have just provided a perfect example of the misconception I referred to in my last post.
Having sex with a blindfolded person who believes that the person they’re having sex with is a completely different individual is indeed dishonest and fraudulent at the very least, and arguably actual rape at the worst.
But a transgender woman is not being deceptive or fraudulent by presenting her own individual identity as a woman. A transgender woman is a woman. Some women are transgender. If you don’t like transgender women, don’t date them.
But ethically speaking, if there’s any particular characteristic you really really don’t want in a sex partner, it’s on you to take the initiative to screen your potential sex partners for it. Your boundaries, your due diligence.
Once again: transgender women are not gay men trying to trick straight men into having gay sex.
We’re in agreement with each other, but I’m simply saying I’ve seen too many beaten transgender women as a result of not revealing early that they were transgender, such that I cannot in good conscience recommend to my peers anything other than being up-front. One of my closest friends (and a co-worker, actually, at one of my side jobs) was beaten to unconsciousness after she simply flirted with a guy at a bar, and suddenly his friends came up and said “OMG don’t you know that’s a DUDE!” To cut a long story short, she woke up in the alley behind the bar, thankfully with nothing broken. No one in the bar helped her, no one called the police, and no one cared - she was just “another tranny trying to trick someone into sex and turn them gay.”
So there’s the ideal, and then there’s what I have to work with to protect my community.
I’m not trans-accepting if you absolutely want to make it a requirement that one should be ready to have a emotional and sexual relationship with a trans-person. And you don’t think the complete absence of a vagina would not only slightly interfere with sex – but make it in fact impossible? Of course other forms of sex could be tried, but we’re already so far removed from the norm that it’s not reasonable to expect other people to be ok with it. And the sex change operations are nowhere near where it makes anything resembling the real thing. And for those with a dick – come on. Yes, many or most men would be revolted to have another dick in their bedroom. That doesn’t mean they hate men or are menbigots – it just means that they don’t find it in the slightest attractive. And that’s only touching on a few of the physical aspects. Personally I’m not really attracted to a girl who hasn’t grown up as such. Other people may feel otherwise, I don’t care.
Congratulation to me. Happy am I. I do not see a trans-woman as a girl in the context of a person I’d want to have a relationship with. Many people feel this way. Why is it so important for you to force the issue? They’re not entitled to anybody’s intimate acceptance. And as long as they’re not massively discriminated against otherwise. I’m perfectly happy to see trans-women as females in other contexts where I’m not assumed to have an attraction to them, and they’re not unduly imposing their views on others.
Perhaps the woman identified herself as a man. Perhaps the old dude identified as a young stud.
You don’t really get to dictate to anybody how they should see the world. A transgender woman may be a woman to you, other people may feel otherwise. As long as they’re not hurting anyone their view is a legit as yours.
I don’t dislike transgender women, I just don’t want to date them. I don’t dislike men either, don’t want to date them though.
Unreasonable expectation. That would be reasonable if it was a common issue. Say if I didn’t want to date somebody with children, or somebody who didn’t want children, or somebody who lived on another continent, or whatever. For highly unusual circumstances it’s the responsibility of the other part to divulge the information.
I, for one, can’t imagine a situation in which etiquette would demand that I preemptively declare to a romantic partner “Just so you know, if you’re actually a man, I’m not cool with this”.
It’s going to be an exceedingly rare situation where a non-trans-person is going to be dating a trans-person that they don’t know to be trans, so to put the burden on the non-trans person just seems backwards to me.
Wrong. All Una did was detail the process by which a person would be able to obtain a doctor’s note detailing a formal diagnosis. Re-read her post if you need clarification on the matter. That is not the issue. There are multiple problems with what she is arguing, so let me keep it brief.
One, educational and social decisions are rarely if ever left in the hands of a doctor alone regardless of whether someone has a note detailing a formal diagnosis. Doubly so when the doctor has no connection or accountability to the school. Whether it’s getting extra time on the SAT or getting a 504 plan, the student’s doctor is part of the process, not the ultimate arbiter. Doctors are generally not in the business of social policy, but rather medical diagnosis. Just as a doctor declaring someone disabled doesn’t mean s/he gets to declare when and where others or society itself has to build wheelchair ramps, a doctor’s note declaring someone transgender shouldn’t mean a school must abide by their accommodation prescription.
Further, there is no test for a diagnosis of transgenderism beyond the evaluating whether a person is expressing a sincere belief and exhibiting certain behaviors and inclinations. It’s not like diagnosing a common physical ailment. Why are people concerned with ceding such control to unaccountable doctors? Mainly because even though the vast majority are sincere and try to do their best by their patients, outsourcing this sort of power often results in situations like you see with emotional support animals and school testing accommodations among other things. What starts as a way to help people in need becomes a complicated web of unverifiable rules and regulations that often don’t account for anyone but the person suffering from whatever. The road to emotional support alpacas (see the article) is not generally fraud or corruption, but rather plenty of sincere people who are actually suffering deciding that their medically diagnosed problems trump everyone else needs regardless of anything else.
Now if doctors decide their patients and the medical community is best served by having dozens of different genders, so be it. I have no problem with anyone wanting to live their lives as pangender, bigender, trigender, or whatever else. I have no problem with the guy with BIID thinking his leg doesn’t belong on his body, or the the person with such crippling phobias that they feel the need to be around a dog or turtle or snake all the time. Where I have issues is that societies don’t function optimally when every single person’s condition, diagnosis, or idiosyncrasy must be treated as worthy of any accommodation they desire because of some vague civil right they have to not suffer ever. I am not arguing for cruelty, I am arguing for dialogue and balance that includes everyone else who is not suffering from whatever condition. I’m fine with some school deciding to let whomever use which ever locker room, but I am not okay with some student and some doctor thinking they can unilaterally impose such a decision on everyone else. That’s really not progress, and it’s certainly not moving us in the right direction.
Wrong again. “Genetic heritage” is not the biological component of socially constructed racial categories. When your genes result in certain phenotypic outcomes, people use that to determine your race, but one is only correlated with the other. The whole reason race is a social construct is because it’s NOT based on your genes by and large.
Regardless, please answer the question of why a Black person whose skin is magically turned white is not White?
Didn’t you just argue gender has a genetic/biological basis?
You missed the point. I was refuting your supposition that bathrooms were not segregated (and designed) based on anatomical and gender differences rather than only gender differences.
Are you under the impression that dwarfs cannot use toilets?
No, she didn’t. Read the post. She is not arguing for the inclusion of anything more than self-identification and a doctor’s note. All she did was clarify the typical requirements for a doctor’s note. It’s not a strawman at all. Doubly so because self-identification is a large part of the basis for which one would receive an official diagnosis.
What else determines race in your opinion? If a man who looks like Brad Pitt tells me he is Black, how do I determine whether that is true?
It’s not. I explicitly stated so.
So being fully male or femle means having a gender typical name IYO?
No, she hasn’t.
How would you know if no one deigns to call anyone who looks like man out for being in women’s locker room? More importantly, I doubt you will see people gaming the system en masse. What you see generally is people feeling their needs and desires are ignored at the expense of someone who has an atypical gender identity.
And their response, which seems similar to the judge in the case I cited, was that the segregation policies of locker rooms is based on gender and sex.
My needs and desires are ignored all the time. I dislike shopping with lots of elderly people clogging up the aisles. I prefer being around intelligent and attractive people. I need to get through security quickly to catch my plane. The guy with Tourette’s who rides the same subway as me makes lots of people uncomfortable.
But that’s life. Being in public means dealing with all kinds of people on a daily basis, even when you’d prefer not to be around them.
brickbacon, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s your goal here? I honestly can’t tell if you’re just having fun arguing (which, totally cool), or if you have a larger point you’re working around to.
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First, I think the issue of trans people in the changing room is complicated, much more so than restrooms, where there are usually stalls.
My preferred solution would be to have a single changing room with at least several privacy stalls for those who prefer not to be naked in public. It would be nice if the US could get past some of our body hang-ups.
yup. And personally, I think that solves more problems than it creates. Ymmv.
I find the question, “is a transwoman a woman?” a complicated one. As best as I can tell, a transwoman (who has not had surgery) is a person with a woman’s brain in a man’s body. For most purposes, the brain is more important. I’m not sure about locker rooms. Making local decisions case-by-case has some appeal.
Fwiw, I used to sometimes use a co-ed naked sauna as a teenager, and did not find that uncomfortable. I think members of both sexes tend to be better behaved when people they might be sexually attracted to are around, and that generally argues for mixing the sexes.
As for dating, I think a trans person should mention it before undressing. If you have anything really surprising hidden under your clothes, I think you’d do best to mention that.
I am married, so I’m not interested in dating anyone. But hypothetically, if I were dating, trans would not be a deal breaker for me. BUT, if I discovered a date was trans when the clothes came off, I would be shocked, and might well say something hurtful or rude. I’d rather not be put in that situation, and I think a potential partner would prefer to avoid it, too.
I’d think it might come up in the “tell me about yourself” stage.
Someone who is still so conflicted about their own body that they would cry before revealing their prior name would be a deal breaker for me. I am not a good enough, or sensitive enough person to successfully date someone with that serious an issue.
The post lays out multiple steps that are required for a doctor;'s note, including objective criteria to be applied in weighing the claim prior to the “note” being written. By glossing over that and saying that all that is required is a doctor’s note, you argue that this is a trivially met requirement.
By analogy, I might say that piloting is not complicated: all I need to fly a 767 is a piece of paper. Being an attorney is not complicated; all I need is a couple sheets of paper. Being a doctor is easy: etc.
What these formulations elide is that those pieces of paper are not available unless a host of additional requirements are met.
Actually, that raises a good question. Let’s pretend for a moment that despite being married, you ARE interested in dating and having sexual relationships with others. But you have discovered that many potential dating partners, when learning of your married status, break off the relationship, even though they never explicitly asked you ahead of time if you were married.
Does anyone believe that this represents a failure of due diligence on the part of those partners, or would puzzlegal have an affirmative social obligation to disclose a marriage before sex with someone else?
I think there are two conflicting ideas about the obligation to disclose.
Obligation: if you proceed with a relationship by not disclosing a fact about yourself that probably would cause the other person to change their mind, you’re acting unethically. You’re committing a lie of omission, controlling the other person’s behavior by denying them all the facts they’d need to make an informed decision. Tell people if you’re herpes positive, or married, or a Tea Partier, or a player who never calls back, before you have sex with them–it’s only fair to let them know what they’re getting into.
No obligation: if you withhold personal information from someone because you believe they’d act on that information in an unethical/illegal/bigoted manner, you’re acting ethically. You might not tell an antisemitic neighbor that you’re Jewish; you might not tell a potential employer that you’re pregnant; you might not tell a new buddy at the bar that you’re gay. In these cases, you’re still denying them the ability to make an informed decision, still controlling their behavior–but because you’ve got reason to believe their informed decision would be unethical/illegal, you’re in the clear.
The question becomes, which of these scenarios is most applicable to dating? Is failure to disclose trans status more like failing to tell a date that you’re a player, or is it more like failing to tell a neighbor that you’re Jewish?
Incorrect. First, those aren’t requirements, they are the typical steps. Second, I think everyone is aware that doctors generally do due dilligence before giving ANY diagnosis, so while the typical steps may be edifying, the fact the the are prerequisites before a doctor will give you a note is not at all illuminating or surprising. As such, your critique is baseless, and repeating the claim I did is certainly not a strawman of any sort.
First, your analogy fails because you preface each one with editorializiation that begs the question. I didn’t say “getting accomodation a as a transperson is easy. All you need is a doctor’s note”. I said people argue that all you should need ito be granted full accommodations is to self-identify and have doctor’s note. Do you not see how that is different? To use your example, if someone said all you need to become a pilot is a pilot’s license, that would strictly be true afaik. That person isn’t implying being a pilot is easy or that there are no steps one must take in the pursuit of the license itself.
The problem is that the term “a doctor’s note” is generally associated with kids needing an excused absence from school or something relatively trivial. You’d never say someone needs “a doctor’s note” to get ADA accommodations at work, for example. You’d more likely say you’d need a doctor’s report or recommendation, which suggests stronger weight and analysis behind it.
I am not sure I have an ultimate “goal” beyond presenting how I feel and responding to people who respond to me. That said l would hope that people would appreciate that not everyone who feels there should be reasonable limits to accomodation is some cruel, insensitive bigot. I think too many people on this board wish to treat any debate on this issue as someone personally attempting to convince transperople to commit suicide. Public policy should not just be in the hands of doctors and the aggrieved any more than it is in the hands of the majority. Yes, accomodation is a valid and worthy goal, but it doesn’t mean every group should be able to force society to change in fairly major ways without their being at least some dialogue and debate.
That said, even if agreed with you, context matters. We are not talking about an excuse for school. One would think the level of scrutiny would be commensurate with the seriousness of the diagnosis outlined in a note.
But fine, if you prefer the term doctor’s recommendation/report, I’ll try my best to oblige.
Accepting for the sake of argument these distinctions, I’d suggest that no one is acting unethically or in a bigoted a manner by saying, “I am a cisgender straight male, and I prefer not to become sexually intimate with a person who has a penis, regardless of that person’s gender.”
