Question about gender change

[lougle]

If someone is making a transition to one gender from another, what does their sexuality relate to - their original gender, or their new one?

For instance, if a man is transitioning to become a woman, and is attracted to women, would that make them 'straight' or 'gay'?

If a woman is transitioning to become a man, and is attracted to women, would he then be 'straight' or 'gay'?

I'm likely to have to explain 'gender change' to my children, but it occurred to me that I really don't understand the 'gender' part of it at all.

I understand the physical processes and the medical timeline, etc. (ie. live as new gender for x period, medication, initial reassignment surgery, final reassignment surgery), but I don't understand how someone who has had gender reassignment would identify their sexuality.

I hope I haven't offended anyone - I may not have used the right terminology and may have been clumsy in the way I've asked the question.

I think everyone is in agreement that none of us, cis or trans, want to see penises in changing rooms. I don't think anybody has said that is silly.
Posy, it seems that beanella here diagress with you. We are silly prude schoolchildren apparantly.

Briar I pointed out much muh further up the thread that this is bloody great britain!! We women in changing rooms shuffle around behind towels and are all very english and discreet. No one would see bloody anything and if they did they'd be looking too hard. A transwomen would be the last person to want anyone to see her genitalia so would be more likely to be discreet. If that doesnt make sense to you then i dont know what will.

I dont think you are prudish i thing you are somewhere on the 'point and stare' spectrum of schoolkid ignorance.

Kim, I dont know a lot about mens changing room behavior but i do know it's loads les discreet than womens. My very brave husband has endured male changing rooms at the gym etc. He does avoid them for this reason. He has surgery scars that make it difficult.

I don't want to be insulted and called a schoolkid for caring if someone has a male body in the women's changing room. I have PTSD. But I guess that's just me being immature.

Leaving this weird thread.

I don't want to be insulted and called a schoolkid for caring if someone has a male body in the women's changing room.

But you wouldnt see it. That is my point.

Leaving this weird thread

and I can't decided how to respond to this ^^ .
whether to point out that this comment firms up my view that you are prejudice or whether to say that the wierdness is all yours.

Oh, well done beanella, well done tibbysmum - ignore what women here have actually said, decide what you think they must mean (although they've said the opposite), accuse them of lying for some mysterious unexplained "transphobic" agenda, and then start throwing slurs around.

You have clearly led such privileged lives, the both of you, that you can't possibly understand the very real fears many women have, so you accuse them of making stuff up. Well done you.

Well done, well done. That's totally the way to change minds.

I certainly don’t ignore what women say. I am frustrated that for the nth time any conversation around Trans people turns into a mythical scenario where it seems cis women are under imagined attack from marauding gangs of trans women who have only transitioned (because of course that’s a piece of piss) in order to sit in swimming pool changing rooms waving their ‘rape sticks’ around. I am frustrated that people who plainly are not trans feel it’s ok to ‘explain’ how trans people are and feel. I am frustrated to read utterly patronising comments patting the trans woman on this thread on the head because she ‘makes the effort to ‘pass’ (FFS). I am frustrated that people on this thread think t’s ok to call trans women BLOKES because they still have a penis, no understanding there that it can take YEARS to get the ok for surgery (if they even want surgery). I am frustrated that many think it’s ok to have more than a passing interest in what is in other peoples pants. I am a cis woman, I have given birth to two cis women, I have myself been raped. I’m certainly not so privileged I don’t understand women’s fears. But you know what? It doesn’t stop me from understanding that some women are different from me and that that’s ok.

I'm the one who bought the word bloke into the thread and i've said this more than once now, but for the last time:

I WOULDN'T CALL A TRANS WOMAN A 'BLOKE' TO THEIR FACE.

I wouldn't 'call' them anything to their face because i wouldn't know what causes offence.

But to me, in my head, in a space where i might get naked, a person near me who possesses a penis is a man. A bloke. A guy. A chap. A gentleman.

beanella you are sounding slightly hysterical. This is a public discussion forum. People who have different opinions/feelings/experiences to you aren't simply wrong or childish. You are ranting on as if someone has come on said all trans women should be herded up and locked away!

Frustrated at people .... not understanding there that it can take YEARS to get the ok for surgery

Probably the majority of people don't understand, no. It's not a subject that is widely discussed or understood properly. Talking honestly on places like this thread is one way forward isn't it? Don't berate people who don't understand. Inform them.

I'm with levianne. Attacking people who are trying to understand, accusing them of being transphobic and denying their experiences is very unhelpful.

I have not described a mythical scenario of a trans woman entering a female changing room waving their rape stick around. I described a real situation which happened a few weeks weeks ago to me and my 11yr old. I did not use that emotive language. You have selected the term rape stick (I didn't like it but the person using it did describe why she viewed it like that) out of many many references to 'penis'.

People have really tried to understand a subject which for most of us is incomprehensible. It's aggressive attitudes that make me react defensively. Your rant undid a lot of Kim's very patient explanations. Patronising?

This is all so sad. I'm trying to understand, but it's obvious that there is very little consensus. I can't imagine what it must be like for you, Kim -you clearly have an identity in your mind that you are striving to match your body to, just to be able to be you, without everyone looking or thinking about you.

I almost cried when I read your post about the painful surgeries that you know will not transform your body fully. I can identify a little, I guess, because when I was growing up I was quite tall, slim, small breasted, with quite an androgynous figure. Now I'm in my thirties I've embraced my body and have learned that I just have to make the most of it. I was always confused by the thought of breast implants though -I know I'd be a rubbish candidate because if I had a complement on my figure, I'd think "it's only silicone.....". It must be so hard to be faced with 'least worse' choices, while feeling that it is impossible to do nothing.

I know that the two examples QueenStromba gave were discounted as 'not being real transwomen', but I think that's the whole point - these men were able to claim that they were trans and were given access to female spaces (a refuge and an open-plan changing room respectively) where they then abused women.

No-one is saying that transwomen are a threat to women (as Kim has eloquently said already, men are far more of a threat to women, transpeople and indeed other men), but where the law states that a man who merely says he is a woman can then be given access into female only spaces, there is massive scope for abusive men to take advantage of this.

This is a horrible situation for actual transwomen, especially when waiting for treatment and trying to 'live as a woman' without having had surgery (and I agree, Kim, that the whole concept of the living as woman thing is ridiculous and utterly sexist as it assumes a performance of stereotypical "femininity" somehow means being a woman), and I think the law as it stands - where someone is legally a woman if they state they are - erodes women's rights and puts them in danger, as the two cases quoted show. That's not a reflection on transwomen, it's a problem of abusive men seeking to impose themselves upon ALL women (if you identify as a woman I doubt you'd want a man in a female only space either). It's very difficult :(

Beanella, your aggressive and confrontational posts are not doing your cause any favours. Calling other women prudish, schoolgirlish, telling them to get a grip when they are telling you their real trauma, dismissing their experience - I'm pretty sure that's called bullying.

I agree that the concept of living as a woman is stereotypical. But if you think that, then what do you think feeling like a woman means?

Yes I do Kim. I think there are many reasons for people transitioning. But the public discourse around this is way over simplified and treats people like idiots.

these men were able to claim that they were trans and were given access to female spaces

Yes, but IN CANADA, where the law genuinely is that a mere claim to be transitioning is enough. This is ABSOLUTELY NOT the case in the UK, as per the Code of Practice to the Equalities Act 2010 which I linked to upthread.

If such a change to the law were proposed in the UK I would have no hesitation in opposing it vigorously, as I think would the vast majority of trans women who have at least as much to fear from cis men as do cis women.

Fair enough, Posy - I keep reading on here (admittedly it's not the most reliable source of info but people have repeatedly said it) that under current legislation if a man says he feels like a woman then legally he is one - is that actually not the case in the UK? (I've had a quick google and I can't see it anywhere in the legislation).

Thanks for the link - but the only thing it says on that page is that surgery isn't a prerequisite for a Gender Recognition Certificate. It doesn't say anything about reasons why you aren't having it. I clicked on the link in that page for the handbook and that says nothing about surgery at all.