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.

Grennie, yes, I was going along the lines of describing what a person describing themselves as transgender may or may not mean. There are of course disagreements that woman should only mean X, transgender should only mean X and lesbian should only mean X.

Withextradinosaurs, I am offering no solutions as to how to resolve the issues that exist. There are lots of newspaper articles discussing cases like the one you describe, particularly in the US. And now I sound rude, which I really don't mean to!

I was just explaining to the OP that a person referring to themselves as being transgender may not have any plans to get surgery.

Yanbabe great to see heads screwed on! Hopefully he wont be driven into joining exploitative and downright dangerous FTM support groups that have been popping up over the last 5-10 years. Do tell him to be careful, there are some fab groups i'm sure but there are also some nasty deviant people that have put themselves in positions of authority and are frankly dangerous.

transbareall.co.uk/

For example, I would not want my vulnerable transitioning teen involved with this lot.

Looks professional and supportive but they also offer courses in 'needle play' and have links to fetish pornography.

Nice people being funded by NHS to do research. Lovely.

jeesus that's scary!

There have been some issues within the family I believe (especially the older generation) but my friend and her DH and most of our other friends have been very laid back about the whole thing.

It was a shock when they told us and it's kind of hard to get your head around at first but this is someone who was heading towards some pretty severe MH problems (including eating disorders) and finally admitting how he feels and finding that most people were supportive seems to have really turned his life around.

Yes. I just checked the link to 'after dark' retreat that is advertised on the page.

It is now a dead page but not so long ago it advertised the needly play workshop! It is unbelievable that they work in and around gender clinics with vulnerable and young people.

Yes. They are charismatic pair 'Lee and Jay' I would kidnap my teenager and leave the country if he ever went near them!

Thats good news Yambe I hope it goes well for him. There are loads of very normal people about who have had gender reassignment treatment! Hopefully he will beable to just get on with his life. Do tell him to be careful though if it is ever appropriate. The problem is is that a lot of people in that position are isolated due to family and friends rejecting or finding the transition difficult. It they end up with the wrong kind of support it could be quite damaging.

The key is just to be able to lead a normal life.

I agree that some of the "support" groups for young Trans people on the net can be really unsafe. Of course young people who think they might be Trans need support. But I have heard young people who transitioned and later detransitioned saying that the people in a Trans "support" group, had encouraged them so much, they had pushed them into doing it.

Young people can be really vulnerable, so it is important that they find a reputable support group.

I think it is also important that young people know that some people do detransition and never to feel like they can't do this. They need to know they have family support whatever.

I wonder if being trans means you are more likely to be in a same sex relationship die to the nature of who you are friends with/being party of gay community. I now 2 trans people (1 m2f, 1 f2m) and both are in same sex relationships. Interestingly the f2m was female when I met them and had a girlfriend. Now male with boyfriend although boyfriend is a transvestite.
In theory I would have thought that if someone is transit they would be attracted to someone of opposite sex (to sex changed to) and that would be part of why they felt so strongly about changing their sex. But actually it doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

In terms of describing to a child, I'm not sure toy need to go into whether gay or straight. But I would say that any classification along these lines would be based on sex changed to.

Hi almond, thanks for replying. I hope it wasn't a rude question. I haven't looked very much at media reports as I thought they would be rather sensationalist. If there are some good articles you would recommend, I'd be interested to know them.

Grennie I agree wholeheartedly with what you have said about intersex babies no longer having surgery. The general consensus years ago was that it was 'easier to make a hole then build a pole' and that led to many many people being assigned to the wrong gender. Imagine, after living your life for fifty years as one gender, you find out completely by chance that you're actually the other gender. Everything you though you knew about yourself is wrong. How utterly mind blowing. Thankfully, in that case the person involved went on to become the second person in the UK to have the gender on his birth certificate changed, and met and had children with someone that made him very happy indeed.

It is whatever they say it is! No one can say except that person.

Would you even make reference to their former gender once they've undergone transgender reassignment? Personally I wouldn't, so I would say if a trans woman (male to female) is attracted to men that would make her straight.

Tumblr is a good place for finding out about Trans* issues.

Gender dysphoria is more complicated to explain than 'born in the wrong body'. I'm crap at explaining it but there is a blog called fuckyeahsexeducation which is really really good at it!

Is there a trans community?
I imagine, from my limited experience that there is a gay community in so far as gay people seem to frequent, quite naturally, the same places as other gay people.
So I imagine trans people do the same with other trans people.

Then again my youngest DS is gay and he is friends with everyone and even doesn't mind going to the pub to play pool with his Dad!
But he prefers the gay bars in town because, he says, they aren't as lairy and rough as the 'straight' ones and of course his gay mates go to them too.
Who knows, but all the pigeon holing is wearisome.

Good question about whether there is a Trans community. I would say there seems to be for some, and not others. Some Trans people do mix socially a lot with other Trans people. Others transition, and then seek to assimilate. Some of the latter group may actively avoid being friends with any Trans people in case others realise they are Trans.

There are some good blogs on Tumblr. There are also a lot of young people on Tumblr who think their experience of being Trans is the correct or authentic one. Given the average age on Tumblr is probably about 17, it is not surprising that that seems to be a fairly common attitude.

Yeah, can't be easy because then you leave yourself open to all the bastards and bigots in the straight bars.
We were in a gay club a while back with a few friends, there was a trans cabaret and a trans DJ, it was brilliant.
DD, who is not gay, works in a job where there are quite a few gay men and we met some of them there too.
I have to say that they were far more welcoming of us than an ordinary pub would have been of them.
BTW, the trans cabaret was a Miss Imelda, she was fabulous!

Kim, I am also on tumblr, and I agree with Grennie that a lot of trans people post on there, so you end up hearing a lot more about the topic than on other sites. It does also skew young, so there is a perspective on that skews towards the widest definition of trans.

There's also a lot more stuff on there about separate sexual and romantic orientations and so on.

Lougle, you're pretty close with this:

"I'll just stick to 'some people are told they are a boy when they're young, but when they get older they decide they want to live as a girl'."

apart from "want to live as". "Are"" is simpler, and in most cases more accurate.

Why does it matter how Grennie is so knowledgeable about this? We all have our areas of expertise, don't we?