Michael Phelps' girlfriend comes out as a transsexual

Those are fair points, and you'll have to forgive me if I don't understand some things sometimes. I mean, if I had a significant other, and he or she told me they had been another gender, it wouldn't matter to me at all in terms of sexuality, only in the hope that my SO would feel safe enough to tell me. Being gender blind is a nice thing to be, but it also means I have to make extra effort to understand why others would be upset. On a similar note, please let me know if I say something wrong, or stupid when it comes to transgender and intersex issues. It's certainly not my intent to make such a mistake, and I'd rather know so I can correct such behavior. In short, if I'm not getting something very important, smack me over the head.

Great posts, Nova. Also, what John said -- feel free to smack us over the head when we seem to clearly misunderstand one of these everyday issues you face.

Regarding the OP, s/he may have been trolling, or s/he might not have the tools or language to adequately formulate thoughts on the issue. If a high school student (as claimed), then there probably is a huge lack of experience and naivete, so we might cut some slack in FiddleForks' direction.

I think you have unfairly misrepresented the OP's question, which had nothing to do with taking a negative view of trans-people, but rather raising the question of whether or not it is correct to employ potential deception in an imtimate situation. That, to me, has nothing to do with a negative view of her gender situation, but rather raises questions of morality over the power of trust. I think that if you want to make this a transgender issue then you're taking away from the real question the thread poses.

Oh, and FWIW, I've read some articles about this and the woman in question was born intersex, so she wasn't actually "born a boy" in the conventional sense and therefore a lot of the press has been misleading....which is, again, why the question posed by the OP really have no place being distorted into a transgender issue.

Well, it's like many honesty issues in a relationship, especially in these days of meeting people online.

"Well, I used to be thin. And I'm not actually a lawyer. And I'm not from San Demos. And I didn't have a supporting role in Porky's II. And I have two kids. But I still think we should hook up!"

the OP explicitly made it a trans issue, in short the worn out business about being "tricked" into having sex with a trans woman.

The OP clearly implies by the very nature of the question that a trans woman is a second class woman, or not a woman at all. The premise that "deception" is an issue, indeed a moral issue rests entirely on that idea.

No, sorry, I disagree with this strongly. It's not a no-win scenario; you can have intimate relations with men who want to have intimate relations with you. As I said, it wouldn't stop me -- most likely I'd be curious above anything else. But I do have the right to make that decision. As with anything else, you don't get to decide my consent for me. And this is just plan wrong:

Who the hell are you to tell me what is and isn't of concern to me and my sexual preferences? Sexual attraction is not merely a function of morality.

Now, if we were speaking exclusively about superficial one night stands, you might, might, perhaps possibly might have a bit of a point. But if we're talking about the trusting and sincere relationship in which I'd want to have sex with another human, then keeping such an essential and pertinent fact about your sexuality a secret is downright wrong.

"The OP Implied". That's where your error is. Implied is what you choose to draw from it. I don't blame you, because I know you feel very strongly about transgender rights. But on this I think you are wrong. This is a singular issue which doesn't translate to other scenarios. Like it or not, I think there is a question of honestly here. I think the problem is that you are operating on the assumption that if she had revealed herself as intersex (to be accurate, as opposed to pure transgender) then she would have been rejected. There is no indication of that and, if anything, it is unfair on Phelps to assume that if he had know it would have been a horrifying experience for him and rejected her. No, it is simply a case of blatant honesty. Some people might feel uncomfortable with it. Whether it is morally right to feel uncomfortable with it is a separate debate. But some people have that right nonetheless and what this woman did is assume that Phelps didn't have that right and therefore took advantage of deceit.....and recognising that really doesn't translate into bigotry against transgender people.

This is exactly it. Great post.

Boom, head shot. [/argument]

Being perfectly honest, I think transgenders are more than a little nutty. But, I don't tolerate bullying, abuse of any sort, or stopping them from doing whatever they want to themselves. To extend that is a purely personal and valid argument. An omission can be a lie, hence the term lie of omission. Once you reach a serious, most likely intimate, relationship with someone, neglecting to inform someone of your history is wrong and the very foundation and beginning of the relationship is now built upon a lie. That spells lots and lots of trouble for down the road.

Finally, let me be clear and state that I'm talking about a budding potentially long-term relationship. Those of you that choose to engage in one night stands? Well, you rolls the dice, you take your lumps, no pun intended.

What all are you assuming should be included in the "history", aside from whether someone is transgender and/or intersex? How many partners they've had before, and how recently? Their financial situation (so you can avoid golddiggers)? Family history? Employment history? Medical records? Psych evals?

There is sooooo much people might "omit" about themselves, or personal history that they don't think is as relevant as their partner might think it is. It's just petty to single out trans and intersex people's histories as the ones that others assume they should be privy to.

Yeah, but those issues are icky.

In the context of a potential long-term relationship? Yes to all.


Sent via a Courier Pigeon named Bucky.

'In the context of potential long-term relationship', what does that mean?

Dan Savage commonly refers to his husband Terry (in the context of the beginning of their relationship) as a 'One night stand that stayed for breakfast.'

You know exactly what it means despite the attempt at a cute colloquialism.

Sent via a Courier Pigeon named Bucky.

No I don't. You started off dividing romantic situations in two 'potential long term relationships' and 'one night stands'. The first you said should have up front full disclosure, the second was caveat emptor.

Where is the line between the two?

If it were a perfect world, no one would be questioned for who they've chosen to be a part of their lives. If it were a perfect world, our brains would always correctly identify with our physical gender. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world, and these issues are going to crop up, and they're going to cause disruption. That is something we have to deal with as imperfect humans trying to form relationships with other imperfect humans.

It really is about trust, as I mentioned before. When we are sexually intimate with someone, we're completely vulnerable. We've laid ourselves bare physically, mentally and emotionally, to someone else. To find out later that there has been deception can be traumatic for some people, and to say that there isn't deception is to deny the physicality of things. Believe me, as much as I prefer to take people as they are, who they were can matter just as much. A heterosexual may have difficulty processing the knowledge that they were sexually intimate with someone who was born the same sex as they were. The same applies to a homosexual who was sexually intimate with someone born the opposite sex. Even someone who is bisexual, or pansexual, may have trouble in such a situation. That's why it's a matter of trust. There is a physical deception taking place, whether intentionally or not, and it needs to be addressed before intimate sexual relations take place, otherwise you will make people feel like they've been betrayed in their most vulnerable moments, whether rational or not, and that resulting reaction may not be reasonable or rational.

To put it another way: I have no problem taking someone at face value. If you were born a male, but identify with the female gender, as far as I'm concerned, you're a woman. That also goes for those born female identifying as men. It also goes for intersexed individuals who identify with either male or female. I will take that at face value. For some, they can accept it if transitional surgery has taken place, and then there are people who will not accept your identified gender regardless of how much surgery has taken place. As far as they are concerned, what is on your birth certificate is who you are.

When you date someone, you have no idea how they're going to take that news, and so you hide it from them, and that is the deception. It's not that you identify as a woman, or a man, it's that there is information that could seriously affect someone's emotional or mental stability, and you've chosen to hide it from them. We can all pretend that the world accepts everyone as they are, but that would be foolish, because the world doesn't work like that.

Yes, who you were matters. Your past matters. When you engage in a relationship, or get married, you open up to one another, because the whole idea is to work as one person, and that requires open trust and honest between one another. Holding back on something as integral as gender identification can be severely damaging. Let's frame it one more way: Suppose you married a lovely lady whom identified with you in every way, and you genuinely loved one another. Five years down the road, you finally convince her you want to have children, so the two of you go to the doctor, and you find out from the doctor that your lovely wife, in whom you have confided everything, and have built up a strong bond of trust and friendship, can't have children. That's awful, you think, as you comfort her, and so you ask the doctor why. Well, your wife doesn't have a uterus. You're devastated for her, but she doesn't seem too surprised. Why? Surely she would tell you such a life changing thing? You've discussed children with her before, and she never seemed bothered by the idea, so why isn't this news affecting her like it does you?

Do you see where this goes? Why this becomes a trust issue? Why it started out as a matter of trust? Whole lives are involved in these relationships. Keeping such a secret isn't about being true to yourself, and overcoming adversity, it's about establishing trust; the idea that your life partner deserves to know all about you, and not only what you choose to reveal.

And wherever he and Packard define that line, is somebody supposed to mention their trans identity before crossing, because it's deceptive to not do so? What then, is the meaning of that line?

If you are just casually dating then I don't think there needs to be disclosure but if you think it might be a longer term thing then honesty is the best policy so that everyone knows what they're getting in to. Besides, if the other person thought it was such a big deal would you really want to be with them anyway?

2 things. The first is that not every trans person dreams of being ordinary. They dream of being themselves as the proper gender and being treated as being that gender without the spazmatic overreaction of society's idiots. Many seek lives in show business or as elite people in a field.

The second point is it is victim blaming and reinforces the idea they are lying to say safety is a reason they have to disclose. The reason why their safety is in danger is not their doing, and transphobic bigots understand the threats they are to the safety of a trans person keeps them from blending because the idiots will always out you once you do disclose. So blending becomes irrelevant when you have some loudmouth pointing and laughing, or when you have to use some separate bathroom signaling you are different. They want these things because they cannot discriminate when they have no idea. Today they have less and less idea because of better cosmetic practices like surgeries, and because of earlier get which makes a huge difference. This is also why they fight so hard against these things.

I get the impression that there's a bit of a deceit going on if you really want to claim that you don't understand that line, but ok, I'll play. We're discussing whether it's inappropriate for your partner to end an ongoing intimate relationship upon finding out that you're trans, right? The line between a one night stand and an ongoing intimate relationship is crossed when there is something to end. Which works fine, if you think it through. It means that when you start expecting continued commitment, you share the things the other person might want to know for their commitment to be stable.

Just to clarify, intersex is the 21th century term for hermaphodite, no?

And if that is the case, that's hardly any case for OMG SCANDAL!!!!!! anyway.

This is exactly my point and which is why it has nothing to do with the "defend the transgender person" argument that some would turn it into. If anything, turning it into such an argument is derogatory because it assumes that that the person on the other side of the discussion is holding some sort of bigotry, when, in actual fact, this is an issue entirely unrelated to that. It is a debate about trust, no more, no less.

Yes.

You are using a different definition of "ordinary" than I am. In the sense that I mean the word, the social cultural perception of, let's say, Jada Pinkett Smith and Laverne Cox is different. The former is an ordinary (or "normal) actress and the latter is a TRANSSEXUAL actress. Even someone in the spotlight like Cox would not choose for her gender identity to be the defining trait of her existence.

Well yeah.


There's a current thread on this board in which there's a photo of three attractive girls and it takes less than half a dozen posts beforre some dumb ass says "I think that one used to be a dude" and off we go discussing whether that disqualifies her. Until we get to the day where the one who thinks that point is even worth mentioning is the one who's considered odd, and not the girl he's speaking of, trans women will be unsafe in the persuit of intimate relationships and "normal" lives.

it's a catch 22, but I'll tel you what my position rests upon.

The whole point in transition is to live the life you would have had if you'd not been born trans. There are ways in which this is impossible (I can't, for example, go back and be asked to the prom, or be freaked out by my first period...likewise, my doctor needs to know I have a prostate) but to the fullest extent possible, the heart's desire is to exist in the world exactly as any other woman.

Now, from your point of view, you feel you have a right to know about my past but that opinion rests 100% on the premise that I am NOT just like any other woman. I'm different, potentially LESS THAN. It's true, of course, that if you trust your companion to NOT see you that way then it increases intimacy but you don't know them that well until you are deep into the relationship.

SO when it's expected of me to disclose, it is being required of me that I, by my willful choice, reinforce the very premise I find MOST disturbing - that I'm "abnormal" among women.

I'm not propseing that I get to decide what you have a right to be interested in - I'm objecting to the premise that I'm obliged to reinco0rce the very mindset which diminishes people like me.

The very second I disclose, I affirm the mindset that says I'm obliged to and and also the mindset that trans women are less worthy - even if you as an individual might be the exception to those concepts.

then whence comes the word "trick"?

There's no dispute on THAT point.

Trick, as in deception. If a man or woman believe they are being intimate with someone naturally born of the other sex and that isn't the case you don't think there isn't an element of deception? It's not just about the rights of the transgender person Nova, it's also about the rights of the other person as well. Right or wrong, that person may have an objection should they know the truth and therefore to abuse that right through deceit cannot surely be morally correct?

So you share everything, the moment you want another date? I think you are being very sloppy with this.

He hasn't said that at all. Stop trying to be clever.