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.

Kim, people can say what they want. I actually have no power over them. However I do understand science and so I know that the idea of a female or male brain has no validity.

Brains have plasticity. They change even as an adult in response to our environment.

Can I ask a really silly and hopefully not offenive questionaabout crossdressing.
Is ot the act of crossdressing that makes someone a transvestite, or is a transvestite what they are, and the crossdressing meets a need? Someone mentioned eddie izzard, and I have ro say, without ever giving it kuch thought id always assumed it was just part of the act. I have a relative who seems to wear wome s clothes, he is a teenager and whenever I see him its just accessories - jewellery and shoes but I imagine thats him toned down for family parties. I wouldn't be surprised if when out with friends he is more extremem but I always assumed it washis style rather rthan a desire to wear womens clothes as such. Never really thougbt about the distinction - if there is one.

Kim - I don't know how I would explain it. But then I don't have a child so it is unlikely to be an issue for me.

"Biological sex" is also a cultural construct (and legal ones) - there is far more than XX/XY, most outside of these will never know as the most are not obvious, and many infants and people have had their bodies mutilated to fit into one of these two categories and those who have fought for the rights to be recognised as a different sex have had their rights taken away (such as being able to marry if they get classified as intersex). Many animals obviously show more than two sexes but are often divided between the two with subdivisions all to keep this cultural framework within science. The desire for one to be science and the other to be culture ignores how culture affects science and the progress of science (today it is more about what will be funded than needs as an example).

Gender and sexuality are related but not connected. Here is a visual and simplistic way to discuss and explain sex, gender identity, gender expression, romantic attraction and sexual attraction, all of which are different. Not perfect, but a good start particularly for young people alongside conversations that discuss this as normal: when they were born they were assigned as X because of how their body looks, as they grow they may question that and choose to assign their own identity. For crossdressing, I would put that under gender expression.

And it's not a gender change, ones gender is not related to whether or not one physically transitions. Many trans people do not transition at all, either because they do not want to or barriers in the way. People can be trans and not go through with any surgery or only do top surgery. It is very much within patriarchal systems to presume ones body defines one gender.

The gender one identifies with has little to do with what one wears, plays, or aims for - there are butch trans women and femme trans men. Reducing trans people to just wanting to play with the other gender (not opposite, that supports the binary and patriarchy, there are far more than two genders, even facebook's limited rollout had over 40) doesn't actually show a good understanding of trans people and is part of the barrier to getting real acceptance. It is how one identifies - cis people are never made to explain their gender and why they are cis and yet trans people's gender is always reduced to what people presume they like.

Many animals obviously show more than two sexes but are often divided between the two with subdivisions all to keep this cultural framework within science.

The only reason animals such as the group we belong to, mammals, have 2 sexes is to be able to reproduce. I'm pretty sure there are no other sexes among mammals than male and female. What purpose would that serve?

I know a lot of Trans people, and I am married to one - went through transition during our (long) relationship. No one has ever said that they feel it is anything other than biological.

I know one trans person but I would be hesitant to ask them about the issues that have been discussed in this thread. Like FrontForward, I'd like to thank posters for sharing their nsights and opinions.

StealthPolarBear, I dated a transvestite (I didn't know he was a cross dresser to start with - he told me he shaved his legs because he was a cyclist). For him, it was a means of meeting a sexual need - he got a thrill from passing as a woman and then (he told me) when the sense of need left him, he felt humiliated by being out in public in women's clothes. (Which he also enjoyed). I found the humiliation angle quite unpleasant. It is just one person's view, though.

Yes dinosaurs that sounds unpleasant. If he felt like that, how does he view us ladies who wear lady clothes everyday in public? Are we being humiliated too?

There was that case a while back, I think it was a trans woman teacher who had been hounded to her death. I asked my DS at the time "what would you do if [name of his male teacher] came in one day and asked to be called [name generally taken to be typically female]", and he just said "I'd say ok", and was pretty bemused that it could be a problem. Kids are pretty flexible thinkers, when they are allowed to be - their whole job is learning new things, all the time - so I've always thought that left to themselves most kids wouldn't blink an eye at people they know who transition. (Parents, though, are another matter.)

The only other things I have to add to this thread is that it seems to be pretty accepted amongst current scientific thinking that there isn't any such thing as a "female" or a "male" brain - not that this should matter at all when deciding whether to treat people with decency.

Also, there isn't, amongst the trans people I know, any single body of "trans opinion" (just as there isn't any one single body of "feminist opinion"), and I know both gender-critical trans people (specifically several trans women who have fully transitioned and who live fully as women, but who regard their gender as male, and who don't id as "women" but as "trans women" and are fine with that) and trans people who take a more traditional view of trans identity ("I am a woman and have always been female, whatever the shape of my body"). Assigning one set of opinions and identities to a very varied group (whatever that group is) is rarely helpful.

I've been reading carefully and it's been very interesting but some of the latter discussion has really confused me.

'Traditional'knowledge was: has penis, attracted to girls = boy. Has vagina, attracted to boys=girl.

Then, of course, I learned that being attracted to the opposite sex isn't a given. Got that.

Then came the idea that some males identified as female and vice versa. Got that, with some confusion as to resultant sexuality.

But, the notion that there is 'no male/female brain'along with the notion that you don't need to have female genitalia (either by birth or medical intervention), along with the fact that once transitioned you can either remain attracted to people of your assigned sex by birth or be attracted to people of your transitioned sex, leaves me baffled in the extreme.

If there is no difference between the male and female brain and no need for different sex organs and no need to confine yourself to sexual attraction to the opposite sex.... What does transgendering actually achieve? What difference does it make? I don't get that.... What am I missing?

Lougle, I think that there is never going to be agreement on this issue, and that male and female mean different things to different people, and I can live with that. There's no need for people to put their meaning on to me or for me to put my meaning on to other people, in the general course of my life or their life.

And that is how I'd explain it to my kids, who are older than the OP's, so it isn't a useful piece of advice for her.

Some Trans people have body dysphoria. They do want surgery to change the appearance of their body. For others, it is about "living as a woman". In practice this means others acknowledging the individual is a woman.

You can acknowledge other people in the way they want to be acknowledged without having to concern yourself with exactly what that may or may not mean, or start applying their meaning to your identity, especially if the person in question is one of a tiny, tiny minority of people asking for very little other than a bit of dignity.

Otherwise it becomes like endless debates between Christians about who is and is not a Christian, or endless debates on the definitions of racism as to which groups are and are not people of colour.

You can certainly acknowledge people as they wish, but without understanding I don't think you can truly accept it. I'm trying to understand.

To be fair, Kim, in my small area of the UK I have come across precisely 1 'trans' individual, who I haven't even seen, let alone spoken to.

I'm trying to understand what has been shared on this thread.

My original question has been answered.