Trans people in UK could face rape charges if they don't reveal gender history

Hi there. I would like to start off by saying that I appreciate very much that you seem to be trying to be courteous/thoughtful. That said, I'd like to address some points of what you said:

I don't want to have sex with someone who was once a man.

The reality is that trans women were never truly men. They were masculanized by testosterone and given the wrong equipment, but that doesn't make them men. I'd say that many"pre-everything" (to use the common phrase) closeted trans women feel as if they're essentially wearing a man-suit, and putting on a male persona so as to not stick out. Please understand that there is a distinct difference between crossdressers (generally homosexual males who put on women's clothes for short periods of time) and actual trans women, who live as women, think like women, act like women, and well, are women, 24/7 (once they've come out and have transitioned). This includes trans women who may be pre-op or who do not intend on having genital reassignment surgery. There are a variety of reasons for this, such as:

  • cost (too expensive, not affordable)
  • intense physical pain during the recovery period (not everyone can stomach this)
  • difficulty of finding a surgeon to perform the surgery (not everyone has the means to find/get to a surgeon)
  • fear of surgery
  • insufficient genital dysphoria (feelings of anxiety and the like due to one's genitals) to outweigh the above downsides (i.e., they may dislike their genetalia but not enough to outweigh the above for them to seriously consider having surgery).

Also, some trans women who are pre-op (or who never plan to have surgery for whatever reason) may feel very uncomfortable about their genitalia and may not wish to do anything with it at all when having sex with a partner.

There is a theme of deception that permeates this entire thread. The deception as seen by people here is this: you expect that genitalia matches sex, and if you discover otherwise, then clearly the person who did not inform you ahead of time was intending to "deceive." (I have put deceive in quotes because whether you think that this is a deceptive act depends entirely on expectations; for reasons of probability, for the typical heterosexual cisgendered male, encountering a trans woman is exceedingly rare, so this is not unrealistic to feel. For people in the trans community who often date in that community, the expectations are therefore different.)

I will say that my mind is not made up about if trans people should feel obligated to share that they are trans or if they are pre/post op earlier rather than later. However, the point I am trying to make is that if a trans women does not disclose this information ahead of time, it is not because they are trying to deceive. Trans women are people. We have feelings and desires like everyone else. (Perhaps I should note that I am a closeted male-to-female transgender woman, though I am lesbian; I am attracted only to women.)

Dating and relationships can be very difficult for trans women. It is also very likely that trans women will face violence related to their identified gender. Many trans women of color in particular have been brutally murdered after being "discovered." There can be a lot of fear as a trans woman in disclosing prior history to a potential partner; some trans women may feel unable to share this information out of fear or violence/retaliation, or just hoping desperately to enter into a relationship with a man they find attractive.

If you don't like penis, that's okay, but I think you should try to embrace the idea that trans women are women regardless of what equipment they may currently have. I.e., if you dislike penis, well, you dislike penis, but what you dislike in that equation should not be "they are a man" but "I don't like male genitals," and that would be okay. Trans women who are post-op should therefore be fine--if there's anything to dislike about them, then what you should dislike shouldn't be their history (which should be irrelevant), but other mental/physical characteristics.

Regarding why I think history should be irrelevant, consider someone who was born intersex (which is, like crossdressing, distinctly different from being trans). Suppose you met a very lovely person that you see as a lady. Skip some steps, and you have sex with them. They have a vagina. Would it matter if they were born with a pseudo-penis (e.g., iirc, the labia can grow during early development to form something that looks kind of like a penis but isn't) and had it surgically removed? Would they be any less of a woman? Why is it different if a person is born with what is essentially a female brain (research would suggest that quantity of white matter in trans women's brains matches that of cis females, not cis males) but male genitalia and experience male puberty? Please understand that, because of the feminization of transgender women's brains (due to an "insufficient" amount of testosterone at certain stages of early development), having male genitalia is often cause for severe genital dysphoria among trans women, and having outwardly male features causes its own (separate but related) dysphoria. It would appear that a common reason for trans women transitioning is that they can no longer handle essentially pretending to be male and the depression and anxiety that can come with dysphoria.

I hope that you read at least some of this and consider at least some of what I have said. I apologize for the wall of text. Thank you.

/r/worldnews Thread Parent Link - gaytimes.co.uk