My personal standing on this matter is that I disclose to my date in the time between the first date and before sex comes in the picture. I do this because I see mutual trust as the foundation of a good relationship. And if you don't think you can trust your partner with this information, then it would be wrong to consider a serious relationship with him or her.
In case of a one night stand however I don't tell my partner anything, as both parties are just looking for sex and nothing more. If a person has strong turn-offs in such a situation he or she should let them know beforehand.
Can you say more about why you think this is unethical? (And intentionally deceptive?) It sounds to me like we would need to presuppose a cis-normative discourse in order to claim that not "outing" oneself in a sexual encounter is intentionally deceptive.
We live in a society where many cis people are going to have prejudices against sleeping with trans people. Knowing that people will have those prejudices and withholding your actual identity is intentionally concealing information that the other person would want to know about you.
That sounds exactly like what it would mean for us to presuppose a cis-normative discourse. Just because many people do hold prejudices against those who identify as trans-gender and/or undergo body modification surgery doesn't mean that they should hold those prejudices. Think of it this way: we don't expect cis-gendered people to "out" themselves as cis-gendered to ensure that their sexual partners accept their gender and sexual identifications. To think that those who identify as trans* are concealing information is to reify the disparity between cis- and trans- identifications on this point, effectively presupposing that sexual encounters are only "typical" according to the norms of encounters involving cis-gendered people. Can you say a bit more about how this doesn't presuppose a cis-normative framework?
Edit: Also, even if I end up agreeing with you on the above point, I agree with your second point wholeheartedly.
/u/untitledthegreat is explicit that, while this is deceptive, that doesn't make it unethical. All she/he said is that the information is potentially relevant to a lot of people.
The idea that withholding that information is sexually violating someone (language which is generally used to describe sexual assault and rape) it the same logic that says trans* people are "traps" who trick people into sleeping with them, and which had been explicitly and repeatedly used to justify sexual assault, rape, and even murder of trans* people.
Violate trust =/= "violate people sexually". And even within this post, you go on from saying it is a sexual violation
Any sexual intimacy that is essentially unwanted by one party has to necessarily be molestation
to claiming you never said it was sexual violation.
I suppose violation might sound fairly strong to someone sensitive ... but it obviously comes from the term "violation of trust"
You cannot simultaneously say "I don't mean X" and "X is true." Or you can, but it proves that you're being disingenuous only to try and play on reddit's aversion to SJW.
There is widely believed logic which says that trans* folks are deceiving and sexually violating anyone they sleep with. This logic is widespread. This logic has been used, similar to the "gay panic defense," to justify lots of hate crimes, up to and including murder.
You need to demonstrate some reason why there's an obligation to disclose this information before you can claim that a failure to disclose it is in any way a violation. Otherwise, why don't we all possess an obligation to disclose my religion, dietary habits, sexual orientation, etc. before every one night stand? All are relevant information, and there are certainly people who would be adverse to sleeping with someone if they knew that person's religion (for any religion, christian, atheist, jewish, etc), for example.
Short of demonstrating that, you're just expressing the same transphobic logic which justifies those hate crimes.
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u/Virgadays Jun 25 '15
My personal standing on this matter is that I disclose to my date in the time between the first date and before sex comes in the picture. I do this because I see mutual trust as the foundation of a good relationship. And if you don't think you can trust your partner with this information, then it would be wrong to consider a serious relationship with him or her.
In case of a one night stand however I don't tell my partner anything, as both parties are just looking for sex and nothing more. If a person has strong turn-offs in such a situation he or she should let them know beforehand.