If someone is a post-op transsexual, are they obligated to tell the person they are pursuing/dating?

[Psykoma]

As a newly post op transwoman, my moral compass says:

One night stands: No, neither party is using the other as anything more than a bag of meat.
You have reservations about the type of person you might sleep with? Don't do one night stands.

For attempting a real relationship: the guy would know before I give a response to his first 'want to go out?'.

 

[Right Hook]

However, let's say this particular person doesn't feel as though they're obligated to tell their partner. They think it's just part of their medical history and not relevant to anything beyond child bearing. Would you tell them they're wrong to feel that way and that they have a responsibility to inform their partner?

It isn't just "part of their medical history" though. When you choose to pursue a relationship with someone, shit like this becomes pretty important. It is a major part of who they are regardless of what they decide to classify it as. I have a terminal illness but I just consider it part of my medical history so I don't tell anyone (obviously not the same but I'm trying to make a point). That is their opinion and not necessarily that of their partners, you are obligated to tell them something like this.

 

[Cavan]

By nature, the "woman" was a man. By my standards, with the info revealed, no amount of work will convince me that "she" is a real woman. The only person it would be unfair to is me, if I had been lead on into such a relationship.

That sentence alone just shows that you really don't understand and probably never will, the problem is how you see yourself and not with them and the one really being unfair is you.

There is no leading on, you met them as a woman, inside and out they are a woman, and a genetic defect doesn't make them any less of a woman, past is of no concequense.

Also your makeup argument is flawed, you are purposefully trying to deceive at that point, had you had plastic surgery it would be different and you wouldn't need to lie as it would be your actual face, If the girl you tried to get with Was actually a man and was just tucking it in maybe your point would be valid...

I have a comparison for you, that will maybe make 'you' understand (and i'm actually sort of proud of this one).

Imagine that you were a former prisoner(the metaphorical state of existing within a gender that feels wrong to you), you are now free..but that doesn't change the fact that you used to be there. The morally right thing to do would be to tell people how things used to stand, so that they can understand how you have come to change and will be able to comprehend how you may respond to things in the future. Being out of prison doesn't automatically wipe clean all memory that you have been there, either legally or within your family and friends, and it will follow you and impact what you can do (such as having children, but within this metaphor lets say it limits certain jobs), and if you didn't tell your partner you would have to add additional lies to the lie of omission of not telling them.

How would you feel if somebody had spend over a decade of their life in prison and never told you and acted as if it had never had any impact on their personality and they refused to share that portion of their life with you in a relationship?

I would argue also that you point on plastic surgery is invalid, if somebody had had plastic surgery and had something that wasn't a gender change done, I would want them to be entirely honest with me about it, because it's not something to be ashamed of.

To end with, YOU do not decide what is or isn't important to the OTHER person in a relationship. Be honest with yourself and with them.

 

[Raika]

I have a comparison for you, that will maybe make 'you' understand and i'm actually sort of proud of this one.

Imagine that you were a former prisoner, you are now free..but that doesn't change the fact that you used to be there. The morally right thing to do would be to tell people how things used to stand, so that they can understand how you have come to change and will be able to comprehend how you may respond to things in the future. How would you feel if somebody had spend over a decade of their life in prison and never told you and acted as if it had never had any impact on their personality and they refused to share that portion of their life with you in a relationship?

Right, because being transgender is the exact same thing as being a convicted criminal.

Are you serious?



The ignorance of society never ceases to amaze me. You people still think that the transgendered community just exists to deceive you and turn you gay? Don't fucking flatter yourselves.

 

[Cavan]

Right, because being transgender is the exact same thing as being a convicted criminal.

Are you serious?



The ignorance of society never ceases to amaze me. You people still think that the transgendered community just exists to deceive you and turn you gay? Don't fucking flatter yourselves.

Could you not jump to insulting conclusions? Take away from the prison comparison the idea of being trapped and having a history. Nothing more. It's an analogy not a direct link.

I was trying to find a suitably important thing that you would feel obliged to tell somebody in a relationship to then transfer across.

I can understand that this is a sensitive subject, but I at no point implied that transgendered people are deceitful or that they have any interest in me personally.

 

[gideonkain]

Yes, I really think you should tell a sexual partner what gender you were born as.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Well, I'm pretty sure the state of modern surgery means it will become obvious as soon as they decide to have sex, so it's probably a good idea to broach the subject before then. As much as cosmetic surgery has improved, doctors still cannot, to my knowledge, give people new, functional genitalia. Whatever discussing that in advance would do to the relationship is nothing compared to what it would do if left to be a surprise.

Functional in what sense?
It's true that genitalia is not functional in the sense that you are infertile. But I don't think that's what you meant.

I have it on reasonable authority that quite a few people can't tell the difference.
(This has included gynaecologists, whose job kind of requires they know what a vagina is normally like.)

There are functional problems at the moment, yes. But they don't exactly stand out like a sore thumb, and they mostly cause issues that have nothing to do with anything you'd want to be doing with another person.

(But do affect keeping it all working correctly long-term.)

That is, artificial female genitalia is pretty good. The latest experimental techniques solve almost all remaining practical issues, except those related to actual reproduction (which admittedly is a much bigger challenge.)
I have no idea how close it would seem to a real vagina, but it has no remaining functional issues that directly affect the ability to have sex, and it solves the much bigger problem of the tendency of artificial vaginas to try and close up (as if they are an open wound)

The mainstream techniques are a little less good, but still far from 'non-functional'. There are frequently problems surrounding self-lubrication, and the afore-mentioned tendency for the body to try and treat it like a wound, which requires constant work to counter-act, but otherwise has no bearing on it being 'functional' or not.
Results vary depending on the skill of the surgeon, but assuming the surgeon is skilled, look pretty much like the real deal.
There's also no problem with sexual pleasure. The ability to orgasm is there in about 2/3 of cases, which is pretty much identical to the figures for the female population.
The only thing that is usually very apparent is the lack of a cervix...
Which might be something you'd notice if you are a gynaecologist, but I doubt it's something you'll pick up on otherwise unless you go looking for it.

Artificial penises are a little less successful. They usually look reasonably OK, though not exactly perfect, but they do have some obvious problems.
The big one is that they do not have normal erectile tissue, so a pump is used instead.

This works just fine for sex, but it is of course a little strange, so it'd be difficult to hide.
Again, it doesn't present any problems for sexual pleasure, though it's somewhat further removed from ordinary men because there's no ejaculation, and generally no real need to stop the way most men usually would need to.

I'm curious where you get your information from though with regards to why you think surgically created genitalia isn't 'functional'.
You're hardly the first person I've heard say that, but it quite clearly is at least partially functional, so whatever you mean by that is a little unclear to me.

(I mean, you can have sex with artificial genitalia... So whatever 'lack of function' you're referring to has to be more subtle than that. - Aside from which, more people than you might think can't tell the difference, so it's not even something that's necessarily really obvious to others - even if it does present a few issues that are quite obvious to the person whose genitalia it is...)

Eh. Sometimes I'm really not convinced people have a realistic understanding of what things are really like. (And that's to say nothing of people that look at research from the 1970's and conclude it's obviously still like that in 2012...)

But then again, we're discussing a topic here that relies for it's very validity on the idea that you'd be able to be in a long-term relationship with a transsexual and not know about it.

It's kind of ironic that you've got groups of people saying they'd be able to tell, while at the same time discussing something that has at it's heart the idea that it's something you'd easily be able to hide from another.

I was referring primarily to problems with self lubrication and child-bearing (is it not the ultimate function of reproductive organs to, you know... reproduce? Shouldn't people at least be aware if someone they're with can't do that?) in the case of artificial vagina, and you yourself admit the differences in the case of penises are quite obvious when it comes to having sex. I would add that most images of such organs I have seen were more visibly apparent than you suggest, although the research and images in question are now six years out of date (I am not in the habit of reading medical reports on these matters regularly), so great advances may have been made in that time.

In any case, operating on the assumption that the fact could be easily concealed in all instances, I do think that there is a moral obligation not to conceal it from a long term partner. It seems like something that would be too indelibly tied to identity and personal history to admit of an honest relationship in the absence of such a disclosure. There is no obligation to parade it through the streets, but it seems... wrong to conceal such a large part of one's past from a person with whom one is on intimate terms.

 

[Lightnr]

Uhhhhhhhhh ARE you SERIOUS???
They should say something on the spot!
If for nothing else - the other person needs to know that they are with someone they cannot reproduce with.

 

[Chalacachaca]

Yes, I want to have kids someday and it would be quite akward if Sandy can't conceive because she was born as Andy.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Spoiler: Older stuff

Well, I'm pretty sure the state of modern surgery means it will become obvious as soon as they decide to have sex, so it's probably a good idea to broach the subject before then. As much as cosmetic surgery has improved, doctors still cannot, to my knowledge, give people new, functional genitalia. Whatever discussing that in advance would do to the relationship is nothing compared to what it would do if left to be a surprise.

Functional in what sense?
It's true that genitalia is not functional in the sense that you are infertile. But I don't think that's what you meant.

I have it on reasonable authority that quite a few people can't tell the difference.
(This has included gynaecologists, whose job kind of requires they know what a vagina is normally like.)

There are functional problems at the moment, yes. But they don't exactly stand out like a sore thumb, and they mostly cause issues that have nothing to do with anything you'd want to be doing with another person.

(But do affect keeping it all working correctly long-term.)

That is, artificial female genitalia is pretty good. The latest experimental techniques solve almost all remaining practical issues, except those related to actual reproduction (which admittedly is a much bigger challenge.)
I have no idea how close it would seem to a real vagina, but it has no remaining functional issues that directly affect the ability to have sex, and it solves the much bigger problem of the tendency of artificial vaginas to try and close up (as if they are an open wound)

The mainstream techniques are a little less good, but still far from 'non-functional'. There are frequently problems surrounding self-lubrication, and the afore-mentioned tendency for the body to try and treat it like a wound, which requires constant work to counter-act, but otherwise has no bearing on it being 'functional' or not.
Results vary depending on the skill of the surgeon, but assuming the surgeon is skilled, look pretty much like the real deal.
There's also no problem with sexual pleasure. The ability to orgasm is there in about 2/3 of cases, which is pretty much identical to the figures for the female population.
The only thing that is usually very apparent is the lack of a cervix...
Which might be something you'd notice if you are a gynaecologist, but I doubt it's something you'll pick up on otherwise unless you go looking for it.

Artificial penises are a little less successful. They usually look reasonably OK, though not exactly perfect, but they do have some obvious problems.
The big one is that they do not have normal erectile tissue, so a pump is used instead.

This works just fine for sex, but it is of course a little strange, so it'd be difficult to hide.
Again, it doesn't present any problems for sexual pleasure, though it's somewhat further removed from ordinary men because there's no ejaculation, and generally no real need to stop the way most men usually would need to.

I'm curious where you get your information from though with regards to why you think surgically created genitalia isn't 'functional'.
You're hardly the first person I've heard say that, but it quite clearly is at least partially functional, so whatever you mean by that is a little unclear to me.

(I mean, you can have sex with artificial genitalia... So whatever 'lack of function' you're referring to has to be more subtle than that. - Aside from which, more people than you might think can't tell the difference, so it's not even something that's necessarily really obvious to others - even if it does present a few issues that are quite obvious to the person whose genitalia it is...)

Eh. Sometimes I'm really not convinced people have a realistic understanding of what things are really like. (And that's to say nothing of people that look at research from the 1970's and conclude it's obviously still like that in 2012...)

But then again, we're discussing a topic here that relies for it's very validity on the idea that you'd be able to be in a long-term relationship with a transsexual and not know about it.

It's kind of ironic that you've got groups of people saying they'd be able to tell, while at the same time discussing something that has at it's heart the idea that it's something you'd easily be able to hide from another.

I was referring primarily to problems with self lubrication and child-bearing (is it not the ultimate function of reproductive organs to, you know... reproduce? Shouldn't people at least be aware if someone they're with can't do that?) in the case of artificial vagina, and you yourself admit the differences in the case of penises are quite obvious when it comes to having sex. I would add that most images of such organs I have seen were more visibly apparent than you suggest, although the research and images in question are now six years out of date (I am not in the habit of reading medical reports on these matters regularly), so great advances may have been made in that time.

In any case, operating on the assumption that the fact could be easily concealed in all instances, I do think that there is a moral obligation not to conceal it from a long term partner. It seems like something that would be too indelibly tied to identity and personal history to admit of an honest relationship in the absence of such a disclosure. There is no obligation to parade it through the streets, but it seems... wrong to conceal such a large part of one's past from a person with whom one is on intimate terms.

Well, child-bearing is an important function yes. Without it the whole reproductive system wouldn't exist.

But it's hardly the only function. And when you think about it, probably the least used functionality overall.

Aside from which, there are plenty of other reasons why a person might be infertile.
But anyway...

As to pictures, I'm not sure what you were looking at if you did research it at all. One of the inherent problems with that kind of stuff is it's easy to be biased, both in terms of what you end up seeing, (if all the pictures you saw were from one surgeon for instance), and in terms of your frame of mind when looking at them.

For instance, if I showed you 1000 women at random, without telling you anything about why I'm showing you those pictures, would you pick up on the same things as if I showed you 1000 women and asked you to tell me which of them are transsexuals?

The mere suggestion that some of them might be would probably influence what you're thinking.

Or... Let's say I ask you to give me an impression of what a transsexual looks like...
What are you going to base this off?
Presumably, whatever images you've seen that you know are of transsexuals.

But... If someone doesn't stand out as being unusual, how will you know they are transsexual, unless they tell you so?

And if you take this into consideration in general, would it not seem quite obvious that since the only transsexuals anyone notices are the ones that are obvious, that they then conclude that all transsexuals can be easily identified?
(Because they formed their idea of what a transsexual is from a sample set that did not include those which are not easy to spot.)

For that matter, if I show you a really tall woman, you'd probably find that somewhat unusual, but otherwise think nothing of it.

If I tell you it's a transsexual though, there's every chance you'll assume that this is an obvious reason for why this person is tall, even though they may be totally unrelated facts.

Or, if someone sees a woman, and find out it's a transsexual, it's surprisingly common for them to point out 'male' features that 'prove' this...
Yet, these features are frequently within statistical realms of what's normally possible anyway.
So it is in fact not 'proof' of anything, just a person using a whole heap of meaningless details to back up and find evidence for something which they found out about through totally unrelated means.

Did you realise what something really was because of it's unusual features?
Or did you notice it's unusual features solely because you were told in advance there was something unusual about what you were looking at?

Uhhhhhhhhh ARE you SERIOUS???
They should say something on the spot!
If for nothing else - the other person needs to know that they are with someone they cannot reproduce with.

Yes, I want to have kids someday and it would be quite akward if Sandy can't conceive because she was born as Andy.

Lol. Oh right. How silly of me.

Because the first thing anyone does when they meet a prospective partner is ask if they're fertile right?

Because everyone, everywhere will blurt out within 5 seconds of meeting someone that they are infertile, and cannot have children.

You know, yes, that's important. If you're in a long-term relationship.
But does telling someone you're infertile immediately oblige you to tell them in exact, painstaking detail, why that is the case?

Meh. ;p

 

[loc978]

Well, if hshe didn't that would make for some awkward sex...

"I did, I swear I did!"
"That was not an orgasm. Why are you faking?"
"I'm not!"
"There's no way that was a female orgasm."
"errr..."

...pretty sure those nerves can't be synthesized...

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I have a comparison for you, that will maybe make 'you' understand and i'm actually sort of proud of this one.

Imagine that you were a former prisoner, you are now free..but that doesn't change the fact that you used to be there. The morally right thing to do would be to tell people how things used to stand, so that they can understand how you have come to change and will be able to comprehend how you may respond to things in the future. How would you feel if somebody had spend over a decade of their life in prison and never told you and acted as if it had never had any impact on their personality and they refused to share that portion of their life with you in a relationship?

Right, because being transgender is the exact same thing as being a convicted criminal.

Are you serious?



The ignorance of society never ceases to amaze me. You people still think that the transgendered community just exists to deceive you and turn you gay? Don't fucking flatter yourselves.

Nobody said that a convicted criminal is the same thing as a transsexual, they were giving a similar example. Answer the question instead of pick the example apart.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I have a comparison for you, that will maybe make 'you' understand and i'm actually sort of proud of this one.

Imagine that you were a former prisoner, you are now free..but that doesn't change the fact that you used to be there. The morally right thing to do would be to tell people how things used to stand, so that they can understand how you have come to change and will be able to comprehend how you may respond to things in the future. How would you feel if somebody had spend over a decade of their life in prison and never told you and acted as if it had never had any impact on their personality and they refused to share that portion of their life with you in a relationship?

Right, because being transgender is the exact same thing as being a convicted criminal.

Are you serious?



The ignorance of society never ceases to amaze me. You people still think that the transgendered community just exists to deceive you and turn you gay? Don't fucking flatter yourselves.

Nobody said that a convicted criminal is the same thing as a transsexual, they were giving a similar example. Answer the question instead of pick the example apart.

It would be stupid to answer the question if the example can be picked apart and shown to be wrong. If the example sucks then the answer to the question is irrelevant. Don't tell him to answer the question, defend the example first.

Mortai Gravesend, go respond to somebody else, I don't care to engage in anymore conversations with you than I have to.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

is pointless and contributes nothing.

Then stop responding to me. Feel free to have the last word, because I'm not responding to you

 

[Hunter65416]

For a long term relationship yes, because the guy or girl might want to have kids one day or something, with a short-term relationship maybe not...actually no ive changed my mind, yes no matter what because a short-term relationship could easily turn into a longterm one.