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.
No, that's not impossible, but I think it becomes more and more difficult if you change "may not be attracted to you" to "will treat you like shit". Because you can imagine attracted vs. not interested, but it's impossible to hold people in tension as like 50% probability of totally okay with you and 50% violent disgust. I think people can't be like "Well, I'll be an awesome friend to X, while investigating him as a suspect for the murder of my father."
It's just (depending on your psychology) way easier to believe that people who act like they like you actually do like you. In a relationship or in a friendship, usually people are willing to decide if they're okay with your problems as they come up, without you having a special self-loathing moment where you run down the list of everything wrong with you. I think transpeople are usually aware that transsexuality is a huge thing with a lot of people and make sure to disclose at some point, but not everyone is aware. And you know, maybe their last boyfriend was like "Why would I have a problem with that?" Wow, maybe people aren't such hard-asses about it, oops no wait.
One other thing is: sometimes you're stealth and nobody knows. Worse than getting beaten up, disclosing could bring your life down around your ears. I mean it's still super questionable not to disclose but it gives you some perspective.
...and when you get naked it's reasonable to assume that people may look at you with prurient interest.
This is a bit of a digression, but, I totally disagree. You're in a single-sex locker room, the only people there are men, and you assume that everyone is straight (for whatever strange reason). Why would you expect to get looked at sexually?
And even if it were reasonable to expect that, it doesn't constitute implicit consent. (Obviously! Like it's reasonable to expect that you may get groped on a crowded subway car, but getting on the subway is not consent.)
Well, wait, I'm not actually trying to say that gay people shouldn't be allowed to swim, but I think it is a situation where you could say "Oh, you're under false pretenses* and it's peeping," and you have second thought because it's too fucked up to prohibit gay people from changing rooms.
Also, re: yuki_onna,
But her thought experiment does--why shouldn't it be the responsibility of the transphobic to police his own sexual encounters?
Umm~ I wanted to at least ask that question, but my thought experiment was just a thing that I don't really take seriously. I think it's unreasonable to ask guys to do that because a) transpeople are fairly rare so it would be a huge waste of energy and b) asking a woman if she is transsexual happens to be an enormous fucking insult.
*: Because the assumption used to be that someone was straight, right, just like the assumption used to be that someone was not transsexual.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 03:13 am (UTC)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.
No, that's not impossible, but I think it becomes more and more difficult if you change "may not be attracted to you" to "will treat you like shit". Because you can imagine attracted vs. not interested, but it's impossible to hold people in tension as like 50% probability of totally okay with you and 50% violent disgust. I think people can't be like "Well, I'll be an awesome friend to X, while investigating him as a suspect for the murder of my father."
It's just (depending on your psychology) way easier to believe that people who act like they like you actually do like you. In a relationship or in a friendship, usually people are willing to decide if they're okay with your problems as they come up, without you having a special self-loathing moment where you run down the list of everything wrong with you. I think transpeople are usually aware that transsexuality is a huge thing with a lot of people and make sure to disclose at some point, but not everyone is aware. And you know, maybe their last boyfriend was like "Why would I have a problem with that?" Wow, maybe people aren't such hard-asses about it, oops no wait.
One other thing is: sometimes you're stealth and nobody knows. Worse than getting beaten up, disclosing could bring your life down around your ears. I mean it's still super questionable not to disclose but it gives you some perspective.
...and when you get naked it's reasonable to assume that people may look at you with prurient interest.
This is a bit of a digression, but, I totally disagree. You're in a single-sex locker room, the only people there are men, and you assume that everyone is straight (for whatever strange reason). Why would you expect to get looked at sexually?
And even if it were reasonable to expect that, it doesn't constitute implicit consent. (Obviously! Like it's reasonable to expect that you may get groped on a crowded subway car, but getting on the subway is not consent.)
Well, wait, I'm not actually trying to say that gay people shouldn't be allowed to swim, but I think it is a situation where you could say "Oh, you're under false pretenses* and it's peeping," and you have second thought because it's too fucked up to prohibit gay people from changing rooms.
Also, re: yuki_onna,
But her thought experiment does--why shouldn't it be the responsibility of the transphobic to police his own sexual encounters?
Umm~ I wanted to at least ask that question, but my thought experiment was just a thing that I don't really take seriously. I think it's unreasonable to ask guys to do that because a) transpeople are fairly rare so it would be a huge waste of energy and b) asking a woman if she is transsexual happens to be an enormous fucking insult.
*: Because the assumption used to be that someone was straight, right, just like the assumption used to be that someone was not transsexual.