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

TehCookie

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darkcalling said:
In the short term no, especially if sex doesn't come up.

But in a longer relationship I think honesty is important.

That said it probably wouldn't matter to me that much since I'm not sure I want kids, and If the relationship had gotten that far without the influence of booze and whatnot then they've obviously fooled me.

Heck if you met this girl

http://www.sarinavalentina.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sarina-valentina-012.jpg

just walking down the street, would you ever think she was born a boy? She was and I wouldn't care.
I would have to question if that was born human and not some plastic alien race.

However if you're having sex wouldn't you notice? If I was gay I would have a hard enough time dating someone with fake boobs, I couldn't date someone with a fake sex. I wouldn't say that they're obligated though, but I think they should.
 

jezcentral

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For a fling, no.

For something longer, yes. Not least because the other person should understand that having children will never happen in the current relationship. Also, if that person rejects you, it was never meant to be.
 

Tanner The Monotone

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I mean, if the person is flirting at a bar or something, no. But if you expect to go somewhere out of the bar or do something in the bar, then yes.
 

Torrasque

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As others have said, if it is a long thing, then yes absolutely. If it is just temporary, then no.
Just like if you date someone for a while, you should know what they are allergic to or if they have some kind of heart condition. When I meet someone, I don't tell them about my complete medical and mental history, that is too much information too soon and they probably don't give a damn. But after a while, they should know all that kind of stuff.
 

hazabaza1

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I'd be pretty fucking creeped out if I did anything more than being friends with someone post-op. So I say yes. Definitely yes.
*cue people raging at me*
 

Rheinmetall

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By all means yes. A relationship, even if it is a short one, is relied on honesty. This isn't any minor issue for someone to look over.
 

targren

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"Obligated?" No.

"Is it a dick move to keep it a secret?" Yes.

What kind of relationship are you going to have keeping secrets like that?
 

Savryc

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If it's just a fling then nah, if dude/gal X feels icky and insecure because the vagina/penis he/she entered/mounted wasn't always there than that's his/her problem and judging from some of the comments in this thread alone I wouldn't blame anyone for lying to these barely-above-adolescents. If you're just gonna sling around your respective junk at the bar you don't get to complain about what ends up in your lap. Risks of the game, baby.

But if it's heading to something more serious then yes for reasons of trust and to see whether your prospective partner is actually worth your time I would say it should be something you tell the other half. Do you really want to spend your time with someone scared of the icky trans-cooties? Well the only way to find out is to tell them.

Although with truly pathetic comments like this...

Acrisius said:
I'd be fucking furious if something like this was kept from me and I was being deceived. I'd probably slap the person with all my strength and tell her/him to get out of my life faster than the speed of light.
...I'm not surprised some are too fearful to admit to it. Think you have some anger/trust issues to work out there buddy, might want to look into empathy too.
 

Suicidejim

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Brief sexual fling, not really necessary. Anything even approaching a serious relationship though, then they need to tell their partner.
 

Charli

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Some degree of openness about it would be pertinant I'd think, it's no different from a woman hiding something else like an unhealthy love of cats or something...

Just... common sense, isn't it?


So yes, I'd think it would be something to talk about because if he's not okay with it then you're just wasting your time aren't you.


Edit: Oh as a one night stand? Well that's no relationship, so who the hell cares. I would think that would be obvious, you're not sharing life stories nor entering into anything particularly meaningful, if you're uncomfortable knowing after the fact, well you shouldn't have put your dick in it so readily then huh, same goes for a girl with an STD, you didn't take the time to find out so you take the risks.
 

Cyfu

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Yes. just yes. imagine having sex with a woman and find out that she's a dude, that's wrong on so many levels
 

CrystalShadow

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Macgyvercas said:
Personally the question on my mind is that if you have sex with a post op transexual who used to be the same gender as you, is that considered homosexual or not?

Oh, and yes, they should disclose, but I don't think they're legally required to.
That's a very common question, but I find it incredibly silly. It implies that a person's sex is based on some magical immutable quality completely divorced from any physical reality.

I mean, the basic question this implies is:

If a man is attracted to someone that looks and acts like a woman, are they gay?

Stated like that the answer should be blatantly obvious, yet somehow we get drawn into some kind of mythological 'gender at birth' thing that doesn't really seem to make much sense.

requisitename said:
Epiku said:
requisitename said:
"Snip" seems so wrong here.
See, this is why I thought I had taken quite a distasteful route.
You are right in what you say. I was more trying to compare the pain of being brought back to a horrible place, and, yes, some TG people are okay with that title, okay with that life. But others, just want to have it in their past. (perhaps I should have used a "killed another human in wartime" thing, but many people can get upset with that, too. My apologies. ;_; )

For some, it is a conscious choice to "go through with surgeries" in the way that it is conscious choice to choose life over death. (for some, not all, I can only speak from the perspective I understand.)
I can understand the being upset over feeling deceived or betrayed. That's where I see the "honesty is the best policy" way.

But, I also see the amount of pain something like that can bring up in the TG person. It is something that can kill them (emotionally and maybe literally if they are suicidal over it).

But then that always brings up the question of if they are so willing to deceive, then are they worthy of love anyways? And.. that's where I get hung up.

But I do see how it is a betrayal of trust and how many would be upset to learn their partner deceived them.
I don't view it as necessarily distasteful. I apologize if I came across that way. I just don't see them as at all comparable. :) I can see killing someone in wartime as being much more comparable because it is technically a choice you make (regardless of the reasons). I don't think there's really a good analogy, though.

I have a friend who was transgendered in high school and is now a guy. He and I have discussed at length what went into the decision making process and I must admit that, although I accept it and I'm glad he's happy, I don't understand it at all. I really think it's something that you probably *can't* truly understand unless it's part of your own life. I would think, for instance, that once you've made the decision and gone through with it, it would be so freeing to be able to be who you are. But, as I said, I can't claim to understand it.

As for worthy of love.. I really think that everyone is, regardless of what they do. It's perfectly possible, however, to love someone and not want to be with them because they deceived you.
The analogies made here are problematic, though I can see where they're coming from.

So let's look at the implications.

A transsexual changes their body. This is a choice. But it's only a choice because it has to be. Their body won't change itself.

This is one of the main things separating it from homosexuality insofar as how you are confronted with it.

Being homosexual isn't usually considered a choice. It's just something you are. And when you 'come out' all you are actually doing is being honest with yourself about this.

Transsexuals face the idea of 'coming out' as well, but to them it is merely a first step, because what you're facing if you are trans is an issue that isn't resolved merely by admitting you are. Your body is a source of conflict, and it takes a lot of effort to cope with. All that surgery and hormonal intervention isn't done just on some kind of whim, it is a medical intervention intended to reduce this innate, ongoing discomfort as much as possible.

But... This discomfort is caused by feeling as if you are one thing, when the biology of your own body mostly implies you are something else.

Being reminded of this fact is generally traumatic in and of itself. All the more so if you think you've finally managed to put it behind you.

So, this is more than merely a question of honesty, but also a question of being expected to constantly revisit something you'd rather forget.

Now, not everyone is that insecure, but on the whole, a transsexual doesn't want to be constantly reminded of what they used to be. (Or that some people still think of them that way, which in some ways is even worse.)

OK, so you can't expect others to play along with that just because... But at the end of the day you are expecting someone to basically do themselves psychological damage for the sake of being 'honest' with someone else.

In any event, while I can't tell you this expectation of 'honesty' is wrong, I do find it somewhat disturbing how much it potentially trivialises the transsexual's own perspective.

TehCookie said:
darkcalling said:
In the short term no, especially if sex doesn't come up.

But in a longer relationship I think honesty is important.

That said it probably wouldn't matter to me that much since I'm not sure I want kids, and If the relationship had gotten that far without the influence of booze and whatnot then they've obviously fooled me.

Heck if you met this girl

http://www.sarinavalentina.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sarina-valentina-012.jpg

just walking down the street, would you ever think she was born a boy? She was and I wouldn't care.
I would have to question if that was born human and not some plastic alien race.

However if you're having sex wouldn't you notice? If I was gay I would have a hard enough time dating someone with fake boobs, I couldn't date someone with a fake sex. I wouldn't say that they're obligated though, but I think they should.
OK, this kind of doesn't make sense.

... 'If I was gay?' - ah. OK, That makes more sense if you're a woman.

Still, it's interesting you choose to call it a 'fake sex'. Though I guess I shouldn't really be surprised that people think things like that.
As to whether you'd notice if you were having sex, that really depends on how observant you are, and whether or not you're actually looking for it.

I mean, how many vaginas have you seen? Enough to be confident you know what's normal and what isn't?
What do you think you'd see (or feel), that obviously different if you were confronted with a 'fake' one?

Yes, there probably are differences in most cases. They say fake breasts feel different to real ones, owing to the implants having a different consistency to normal breast tissue.
(Not that a transsexual's breasts are necessarily fake in this sense. Some have implants, some don't. Almost all have been taking hormones, but while this is artificial in some sense, the breast development that results is really no different from what any woman develops during puberty.)

But the point remains, how would you know what's fake and what isn't without a point of comparison? To say you'd know, is to say you've experienced something else which looked or felt different. (It also implies that what's different is specifically because it's 'fake', and not say, just random variation; No two people are alike, after all.)

OtherSideofSky said:
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.
 

INF1NIT3 D00M

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axlryder said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
axlryder said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
It's 'For all intents and purposes'. Unless you're talking about... specific intensive purposes >__>

But anyway, I think they have an obligation to reveal it to their partner at some point. It is a major thing and I don't think it's exactly uncommon knowledge that someone may feel uncomfortable dating someone who use to be another gender. As such it seems only fair to tell it to someone you're involved with. Not at the beginning, no, but at some point before things get too serious. I mean if they don't I wouldn't say punish them or anything, but it doesn't seem right to not mention something that your partner may very well care about before you get too involved with them.
haha, I always write "intensive purposes" even though I know it to be wrong. bad habits and such. 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? Why?
Sure. Because their partner might care, and being in a relationship they should consider things like that. It's relevant because it might bother their partner, and that it might does not seem to be such an unlikely or unthinkable thing.
Fair enough, that's the point I've been fowarding, but this trans I've been talking to is basically saying that it objectively doesn't matter and is no different from any other past medical issue so really they have no obligation beyond the child bearing aspect to inform their partner. It's really frustrating, because she's partly right, and I honestly can't think of a good reason why, once a person has been made "female" with hormone therapy/ops and such, that someone should take issue with being in a relationship with them (beyond child bearing of course). I still think she should tell them, but I can't think of a good reason why men would care, so I feel like I'd just be saying "some dudes are bigots" or something.
Wait, do you know Danny? Did he get his operation(s)?
Well, if you're not talking about him, then I know a guy who wants to become a woman, and never plans to tell the multitude of men he would spend his life seducing/having sex with (It really is fascinating having a gay male friend who wants to undergo surgery to become a nymphomaniac woman). I know exactly what you mean. I'm pretty sure the correct wording is "Some dudes are bigots". I would also add that some may not have any problem with transsexuals, but may not be interested in dating one. It's still a relatively new thing in our culture. Even if someone's progressive and open-minded, they still may not know how to properly process that information. In essence, it's hard to find not just someone who isn't a bigot, but someone who is able to accept that knowledge and think of their partner as solely being their new gender.

It may be hard to talk about, and they may well come across a great many bigots or people who are not interested. It's one of those things that one must accept when becoming a transsexual. Lying about it, or lying by omission, is not going to provide a stable foundation for any relationship. It really sucks, but your friend is going to have to find someone who likes them for who they are now, and will not dwell on who they used to be. Admittedly, that's going to be a small number of people, but better to date someone who cares about them regardless of their past, rather than someone who would leave them at the drop of a hat after finding out.
I don't suppose your friend has to tell any of his/her one night stands, though. If a barhopping twenty-something decides they want to sleep with this friend without asking questions or getting to know him/her, then they don't really need to be force-fed any information.
 

somonels

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Yes, not telling is still misleading and a serious offense... mostly toward the other party.
 

DEAD34345

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Morally obligated, yes, definitely. If it gets anywhere beyond just flirting, anyway.

You might not think it is important, but there is a very high chance that your potential partner will think it's important, and it should be his/her right to choose. If you're worried that they might not want to be with you if they find out, then DON'T BE WITH THEM. It's their right to decide.
 

j0frenzy

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I think the issue is between two people who are not me.
Personally, if I was dating a post-op and didn't know it, I'd be a little hurt they didn't feel like they could trust me (but that has more to do with me, in that I don't date spontaneously so I would know the person long before we started dating). On the other hand, I do see how a post op could not feel safe and would need time to become comfortable enough with a partner to bring it up. I think it is up to the individuals involved, aka not me.
 

waj9876

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Yes, yes they should. It's wrong to keep that kind of information secret. It's like telling your partner "Oh, I forgot to mention this, but I've been lying about my age for five years now, I'm not 24, I'm 29." Not too bad, but still kind of wrong.

...I think people like me have it easy when it comes to this kind of thing. I'm a bisexual who tends to prefer girls over guys. So if a girl I was dating, maybe even loved, told me she used to be a guy, I'd probably just be mad that she waited so long to tell me this information. I'd eventually forgive her for lying to me(I'm still saying her, as that's what they would be identifying themselves as.) after a little bit. And then we'd probably just cuddle for a while. I would be mad because I would have been up-front about my sexuality and she'd have no reason to think I'd have a problem with this.


I know this thread wasn't very specific, and could easily mean the other way around, but a male-to-female transsexual is more common than a female-to-male transsexual. Though I'd probably have no problem with this too if I really liked the person.
 

Lady Larunai

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The only obligation is to inform them you can't have a child..

You don't feel the need to inform your partner you had your appendix removed, why should they inform you they had another just as useless organ removed, for all intensive purposes they were female before, during and after transition... To tell someone they were male is just as much of a lie to them..

There is no reason that they should inform anyone apart from that persons own prejudice, especially if there is no physical way of knowing, there is no trust issue either, they didn't cheat you or lie to you, to them they were always female wether you like it or not and you should treat said person as such.

Why should they inform you anyway?

The issue is yours not theirs.