I don't think that simultaneously not hating yourself and realizing that a lot of people may not be attracted to you if they know something about you that you're withholding is impossible. I'll absolutely concede that it's a tough row to hoe, and it utterly blows that the current culture makes that such a fraught and difficult process -- but just because doing the right thing is difficult or frightening doesn't mean that it's OK to skip that part.
Was a time when a gay person had the virtual certainty that if they came out they'd be gaybashed and lose their friends and job and having their coming out treated with unmitigated revulsion. Nowadays that's still a problem in some places and in some circles, but it's absolutely not a problem in many others -- and all that change made in, what, two or three generations? There are people who were alive then that are still alive now. There's hope, and I think it's a very realistic hope, for that level of social acceptance.
I think that in certain social circles it's already not that big of a deal -- not that the straight guys in those circles are necessarily champing at the bit to sleep with a transwoman, but if confronted with the prospect they're not going to react with revulsion or violence -- and I think that the attitude is spreading. Things are getting better, and hypothetically it may end up that having sex with a transperson will be seen as such a nonissue that you've no longer got to seriously worry about informed consent issues. But we ain't there yet, and frankly I don't know if we ever will be.
Your locker room analogy doesn't hold water, really, when you're comparing it to one-on-one sexual encounter. When you change in public, you're getting naked, and when you get naked it's reasonable to assume that people may look at you with prurient interest. It might actually hold up in certain sex club or orgy scenario, where you show up to fuck whatever looks good and the implied agreement is "no names, no questions" -- in that case, if someone has sex with a transperson the onus of responsibility would be on them, not the transperson.
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Was a time when a gay person had the virtual certainty that if they came out they'd be gaybashed and lose their friends and job and having their coming out treated with unmitigated revulsion. Nowadays that's still a problem in some places and in some circles, but it's absolutely not a problem in many others -- and all that change made in, what, two or three generations? There are people who were alive then that are still alive now. There's hope, and I think it's a very realistic hope, for that level of social acceptance.
I think that in certain social circles it's already not that big of a deal -- not that the straight guys in those circles are necessarily champing at the bit to sleep with a transwoman, but if confronted with the prospect they're not going to react with revulsion or violence -- and I think that the attitude is spreading. Things are getting better, and hypothetically it may end up that having sex with a transperson will be seen as such a nonissue that you've no longer got to seriously worry about informed consent issues. But we ain't there yet, and frankly I don't know if we ever will be.
Your locker room analogy doesn't hold water, really, when you're comparing it to one-on-one sexual encounter. When you change in public, you're getting naked, and when you get naked it's reasonable to assume that people may look at you with prurient interest. It might actually hold up in certain sex club or orgy scenario, where you show up to fuck whatever looks good and the implied agreement is "no names, no questions" -- in that case, if someone has sex with a transperson the onus of responsibility would be on them, not the transperson.