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.

He's not having to defend himself plenty, he's taking everything we say and twisting is so it's about him. He wouldn't have to defend himself so much if he didn't make everything about him.

This is absolutely not what this thread was about. Kim is entitled to call herself a woman and it's very disrespectful to use the word 'him' when you know full well that kim identifies as a woman.

Oh fucking hell massivee xpost (bloody hate my tablet) Clearly the time for reasonable discussion on this thread has passed. Sorry kim, I'll ask again on a less heated thread another time.

Kim is not a woman. Kim has a penis. People who were born with a penis are men. How hard is that to understand? Were you asleep that day in school?

Kim is a woman. Whether you accept that or not.

Erm, no. I don't think Kim would say that and I have read the thread and you apparently have not. Please God tell me you are not actually a nurse?

sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/gender_reassignment.pdf

This might be of interest to those who are interested in the nature verses nurture argument for gender.

I studied it in Psychology and it's actually very interesting and telling. And sad.

Brian, who after an accident was castrated as a baby. So steps were taken to turn him into a girl. The parents decided to raise him as a female, thus Brenda. Despite knowing nothing about actually being born as a boy, 'Brenda' rebelled against being a female. It never felt right. He/she tried to kill themselves.

Thanks, Flora - but that gets us no nearer to the question of why identifying as a different ethnicity is not acceptable but identifying as a different gender must be.

Nursey, Brian's parents knew he was a boy. Of course this will have impacted how they treated him.

You just can't have a debate with you people. Offensive rubbish, personal attacks...

The only person pretending to be a special little snowflake Queen here is you. You seem so desperate to protect this status as a woman you claim to hate, so much so you would ostracise a person who has willingly gone through extremely intrusive and ivasive psychological and physiological procedures to right the wrong that happened at birth.

It would be interesting to know what you thought about hermephrodites.

stickem yes there is a lot of unknowns to the story, it's interesting to read about though. I didn't post it to back my side of the debate up, just as something to think about.

That article says nothing about transgenderism. The poor boy was 21 months old when he was castrated and the doctors decided to turn him into a girl (cos a girl is just a boy with no penis, right?). What those doctors did to him and to other people as they were creating the concept of "gender" is appalling and the unit was rightly shut down.

This case has been appropriated to the transsexual cause as has intersex and homosexuality because there is no actual evidence to support the actual existence of any scientific or biological reason why men born with a penis and having fathered children can actually be women.

nursey what was the wrong that happened at birth? What is it that is wrong?

with but that gets us no nearer to the question of why identifying as a different ethnicity is not acceptable but identifying as a different gender must be it's because women are not important enough to be put first. Women must always put the feelings of men first.

Nursey, what is a woman?

stickem it is a true story what I was demonstrating is the age old argument of nature verses nurture in regards to gender. There is no right and wrong. No-one knows. But the fact there are people all over the world who feel born in the wrong body suggests something more than nurture.

Where have I said that I would ostracise people like Kim?

plenty it would depend if you're talking about sex or gender, two different things. But I do believe people identify with one or the other on a personal level, regardless of body parts.

Like people have different sexualities.

Hi all,

HUGE apologies for being late to this thread.

We have received many reports and we are reading through now.
We are going to lock this thread until we can read it properly.

Transphobic language is not acceptable on Mumsnet and we ask that folks people respect others when posting.

We will post and reopen this thread as soon as possible.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your reports.

We've now had a look at the thread and deleted posts which clearly broke our guidelines.

As you can imagine we're completely snowed under by the heartbleed stuff so we haven't given the thread a close read. Do feel free to report any individual posts you think we might have missed.

Thankyou Rebecca and Amy