Lang Can I reply with women do not have penises? Even faux ones.
Because I'd no more like to be raped with a faux penis than a real one if the transman was that kind of risk (which is very highly unusual, but I was talking about that specific example and even then it was not against a stranger)
Outside prison, I do accept transmen are female whatever they think, but I would still find it very unsettling to be changing and maybe having to share showers with a very masculine transman with a faux-penis, say at the gym. Or a Stephen Whittle look alike with a pump up penis.
To be honest it would make me wonder if they are male or female and how do I tell without having a good look at their hips, face etc. I have not seen a phalloplastied faux penis and I don't want to be having to look closely to work it out. I don't need that kind of head-fuck in my life any more than wondering whether a transwoman is a cross dresser or a genuine dysphoric or a transsexual or pervy man.
A butch or GC woman is entirely different and as you say very obviously a woman even through clothes but some transmen do go to greater lengths with their physique and my honed by experienced natural instincts that are pinged by men, would in some cases be pinged by a very masculine transman.
If plastic surgery and hormones weren't available this wouldn't be an issue, but they are and now it is. That is not my doing, it is the transman's intention to deceive/ pass after all.
I want to be able to trust people not have to think twice. And by think twice, sometimes I mean have that instant jolt of fear.
I think if you go to extreme lengths to try to be male and have a pump up penis that can be used to penetrate, then I think you do remove yourself from certain intimate women's areas where it might make other women worry.
Not excluded from women's healthcare, or from general groups, and if self ID is firmly stamped out then not from toilets.
But with where we are with the ambiguity around who is self IDing and who is not, then I think some transmen have excluded themselves from women's intimate spaces where I or another woman or a girl might wonder or worry.
I wouldn't want a smear from a masculine close to passing transman either (although that would be unlikely too I suppose), because again at the moment with all this self iD it would make me question whether it was a male or female. I do not want to have to be questioning that in those circumstances. I want it to be clear and safe and predictable. Same with a counsellor if I have requested female. But again highly, highly unlikely but not impossible.
I would hope that a transman would understand what they are identifying into when they transition, and recognise that males are generally a risk to women and that if you aim to appear as one, then the more you pass the more you are likely to provoke the same reaction from women as a male would in some instances, and I guess is what they actually want to achieve anyway.
Hope I haven't waffled. Just trying to be clear. It is hugely complex and highly unlikely and I am talking about certain specific circumstances and females are a lower risk, though personality disorder is associated with some transmen so there is that too.