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.