would you date a transgendered man?

[ecofreeek]

I am in my late 30's and single (divorced). Recently though work I met a man who seemed really nice. We flirted a bit and last weekend he asked me out for a drink. It went really well, nice snog! and we arranged to meet for dinner this week

At dinner he told me that basically he used to be a woman. He has had testosterone treatment for many years and both breasts removed and a hysterectomy. But not the surgery that makes a penis...

I really like him. But I'm a bit freaked out. I guess that's why he told me 'early' in our dating... I dont want any more children s thats not an issue... its the whole man thing - he looks like a man, acts like a man and I would never have guessed that biologically he is not a male...

the sex thing ....

would you date a transgendered man >?

Just seen a youtube video < diagram>. The male reproductive system is quite complicated, and the sperm has to travel upwards from the testes up the tubes in the groin to travel over the Prostrate gland and into the penis, with lots of helping hands on the way.
Think I must have meant the Prostrate Gland, not Gonads.

2rebecca

I think gender identity is difficult to understand for us who are comfortable with their own gender.

We don't know what it feels like to think you are a man, but for everyone else to treat you like a woman, and looking at your body and not recognising the idea you have of yourself with what you see in the mirror.

It could be as if someone went on a coma at 10 years of age and woke up a 50 year old. The person you were wasn't the one in your mind.

*AmberLeaf: this description is entirely NOT within my experience of trans people: "a woman who has had her breasts removed"

My mother and a friend of mine are women who have had their breasts removed (cancer). They are still women.

Prior to dating my first girlfriend, I would have sworn incorrectly I was straight. She was pre-op male to female, and once I got past the body type, she was definately female.

I don't believe that people should treat women greatly different to how they treat men though. I work in a job open to both sexes and have unisexual hobbies.
I don't believe I have one way of treating people I apply to men and another for women. I find all that stuff very sexist, which is one of the problems I have with the transexual philosophy. I want to be treated politley, as a person.

irresponsible2013

Not sure why you've named me in your post?

2rebecca

Genders do exist and recognising that there are differences and to treat them somewhat differently, is not being sexist.
It is sexist to treat one gender better or worse than the other.

I do agree that often transgender people do appear more strongly of one gender than most members of that gender. For example, most male to female are often very much on the top range of femininity, if you can call it that.
It could be that they feel that they have to break with the "old" very strongly, or that what drove them to go through the process of physical sex change was that they felt very strongly as definitive females.

Most of us somewhere towards the middle of the spectrum might not feel the need for a sex change. Some men may just need to dress as women, for example, as some women dress more manly.
Some might have been equally comfortable as a male or a female.

because I am a muppet. Astley is the one I meant, sorry!

I was thinking Im sure I didnt say that!

I'd give it a shot, I'm the type to try anything in the bedroom in the bedroom once.

Worst case scenario a vagina on a man would be too twilight zony for me and I would have to end it, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

What a weird thread.

OP I'm glad you have reached a decision you are comfortable with. Sounds like he wasn't entirely suprised so I hope you can still be friends.

FWIW if I kissed a man and then they told me they were originally a woman, I'd be really cross! I appreciate people's right to have gender surgery etc and can understand that a post op person fully identifies themselves as their new sex and should be treated as such BUT that doesn't mean that I (and I suspect lots of others) would feel that they were actually a man. For me a post op transgender man would ALWAYS, in reallity be a woman; that isn't 'ignorance' or 'bigotry', it's my opinion and we are allowed to have opinions. I would call him him and treat him as a man in every way but if I were to think about him sexually then I wouldn't be able to think of him as a 'man'. I can't see how people say this has nothing to do with sexuality. If a woman sleeps with another woman (albeit one that has taken hormones etc but still has a vagina) how can they not both be lesbisan. A straight woman would find that felt very unatural for them. I expect someone will point out my ignorance, but again it's just a different opinion.

I also fail to see how if someone is XX chromosone-wise and has normally developed male genitals they can be described as having the 'wrong genitals'. They've got the right genitals but, for whatever reason, they don't like them. It's not at all the same as being hermaphrodite or having actually physical abnormalities. Sex, with a small number of exceptions, is binary.

I'd certainly give it a go -- dating is only dating. You can think about all the serious bits if it starts being long term. It might be quite exciting!

Ladymontdore they have the wrong genitals compared to their view of themselves, to their strong sense of who they are. Maybe worth googling gender dysmorphia - its a very recognised condition! Or as I said read Juliet Jaques columns in the guardian!

Also read a column recently where a m-f described it in terms of change or death - the gap between your perception of what you are and your body is so vast that suicide seems preferable to continuing to live with such a profound dissonance. Sadly suicide is not uncommon.

2rebecca. If you think you are a man and you are going out with a woman that doesn't make you a lesbian....

I think it does. This person has female chromosomes and female genitalia. A cat can't become a sheep just because it wants to be a sheep. I do fundamentally disagree with the premise that a man can "become" a woman, particularly if they haven't bothered with gender reassignement surgery. It's all very half hearted and in fantasy land to me.

2rebecca the fact you say 'not bothered ' or half hearted really makes me think you do not understand the situation at all. There is a big range for transsexuals, for example for m to f before they are approved for surgery they have to live as women for a while, meanwhile they take hormones which make significant changes to their bodies, voices ... Then the final step after a number of years may be surgery. Read the columns I mentioned earlier by Juliet Jaques and then see if you still think 'fantasy' or half hearted. It's an incredibly hard process both physically and psychologically.

particularly if they haven't bothered with gender reassignement surgery

I've done more reading on transgendered issues in the last couple of days than my eyes have forgiven me for. Particulary since I can't find my glasses.

But....

It's not a case of "haven't bothered", there are a plathroa of issues involved arpund the decsion to have surgury on the genital. Some of the easiest for people like me who aren't transgendered to understand are

the risks of losing sexual function
the cost
the awful hoop jumping one has to go through in order to get cleared by psych for surgury
the results are not always anything like as good as what was hoped for.

Some people put off surgury becuase they are waiting for medical advances to catch up and offer something better. There are two surguries for transmen at the moment, and both have significant drawbacks.

It is much more involved and full of reasonable and "relatable to" issues than "can't be bothered".

Err No .. Couldn't do it.

Next time anyone sees me on a transgender thread, please remind me to get off and hide it. The ignorance from some of you is astonishing. And dressing it up as 'opinion' doesn't make it any less so.

There is some ignorance on this thread, but it is silly to shout down valid opinions that differ from yours as ignorance or bigotry.

With issues such as this, when people shout down a person saying that a man born with a fully functioning male body is a man and always will be regardless of what bits they have removed surgically, it all gets a bit emperors new clothes-ish IMO.

I think every single person deserves to be happy and live as they wish, I would defend a persons right to identify as they wish.

But you cant call stating facts ignorance it is the exact opposite.

An opinion can still be ignorant, and it's silly and naive to say otherwise.

And if you're talking about me "shouting [people] down", perhaps you could show me where?

The ignorance from some of you is astonishing

The importing to the mainstream of "sweeping statements to scattergun posters" in lieu of debating individual posters and their specific points and the determination to assume the worst possible motivation behind anybody's from the radicalised fringes of the debate is astonishing to me.

Look how well it turned out there, some real changing of hearts and minds and digging people out of entrenched, instinctive postions....NOT.

If all people want from this debate is to sit around feeling more "informed and right" than anybody else, then have the fuck at it.

I'll come back and play if anybody is ever genuinly interested in looking at pratical solutions to very real life impacting issues, on the understanding that compromise can't be a one way street (or it isn't actually called compromise anymore) and the debate can't be run on the basis that X is inherantly the correct postion and Y is inherantly the wrong postion.

In the meantime I won't be holding my breath, cos it pretty much looks like the mainstream is DETERMINED to replicate the dynamic of fringe.

Frankly I cannot be arsed with anything that couldn't be less about working towards real, social change to ease the discrimination burden on a group of people, (with an eye to not accidntaly trampling another discriminated against group in the rush to aid people at the the thin end of the wedge) than it is about chest thumping, waggling presumed moral superiority and carrying on a rabid bunfight that is more than 30 years old.

What a mess.

motivation behind anybody's words

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, loquace

Really Toby? It's not hard to understand...

Yes, really.