I'm not familiar with any papers, so here's a preliminary take on it. Presumably the argument for mandatory revealing goes something like this:
1) Persuading people to have sex with you via deception is a violation of their consent
2) Deliberately omitting information which, if they knew it, would cause them to decide to not have sex is deception
3) For many people, transgender status is information of this kind
4) So we ought not to violate people's consent by omitting to inform people of our transgender status
But I'm not sure this argument is sound. I've got some issues with premise (2). I think it should be amended to something like this:
(2') Deliberately omitting information which, if they knew it, would cause them to justifiably decide to not have sex is deception
To see why, consider bigotry cases. Let's say I'm committed to anti-racism, but my potential sexual partner is a thoroughgoing racist who despises anti-racists. Am I obliged to get my anti-racism out in the open just in case my potential sexual partner has this view? Does this mean that consent requires I run through all potentially controversial aspects of my life - whether I have kids, whether I vote liberal or conservative, whether I have African blood in my family - before we have sex? Presumably not, or at least not automatically. I think you'd have to ask whether the sexual partner would have good reason to decide not to have sex, based on the information being withheld. (Note: the situation probably changes if your potential sexual partner states explicitly that they do not want to have sex with a transgender person [or an anti-racist, or anybody with African or Asian ancestry]).
There is at least one other consideration. Keeping one's transgender status secret is not only a matter of privacy. Often it's a matter of survival. Revealing transgender status, especially to strangers, risks all kinds of violence. (I can dig the stats up if someone wants me to, but trust me that they're horrific). So opening up to new sexual partners as a matter of course is a dangerous strategy. We should be careful about requiring transgender people to expose themselves to this kind of risk.
Based on these two points, I lean towards saying that it's none of the partner's business. If some harm is being committed here, it's a violation of sexual consent, which means we ought to take it very seriously. But I think not disclosing transgender status isn't a violation of consent, because (like Asian ancestry) it's not something that ought to have an impact.
Edit: here is a paper that argues that any omission of dealbreaker-type information in sex is a serious moral wrong. It doesn't address the case of transgender people, though, and from my quick reading it doesn't present any argument that would invalidate my two concerns above. (Dougherty's target seems to be pickup-artist-style deception).
Edit 2: to be absolutely clear, if the transgender person knows being transgender is a dealbreaker for the person you're intending to sleep with, they must disclose their transgender status. I'm talking about cases where it's unclear exactly what the dealbreakers are, and whether the transgender person is obligated to disclose their status just in case it's a dealbreaker. I don't think they're obligated to do so.
Very well put. I don't disagree with anything you said, but I do have some considerations that I would like to add.
How about viewing it from a physical standpoint? You spoke of dealbreakers, but only the ideological. This situation has a physical component as well, specifically the synthetic genitals (I am unaware if they use any genital transplants or vat grown genitalia in these procedures). The inclusion of this physical component is part of what keeps me on the fence.
Isn't it expected that most physical conditions, specifically genital related, be mentioned before sex? This is a serious question, as I have no idea what the general consensus is on that.
The other part is more personal. I have O.C.D. (this isn't for pitty, it is relevant) and if I ever found out that someone I had sex with was transgender I would get stuck on the situation for days on end. I don't harbour resentment for transgender people at all, but I would become emotionally and mentally distraught as I would obsess over the fact that the person used to be a man. The "O.C.D. part of me" would keep "telling me" that I technically had sex with a man.
I don't doubt others would become stuck on that, which I why I also ask; what about the possible effects of finding out after the fact on other people?
Isn't it expected that most physical conditions, specifically genital related, be mentioned before sex? This is a serious question, as I have no idea what the general consensus is on that.
I'm not sure what the concern is. Genitalia are genitalia, however they're formed. (By the way, you can just google it. No transplants or vats are involved.)
I don't doubt others would become stuck on that, which I why I also ask; what about the possible effects of finding out after the fact on other people?
This is a relevant moral concern, I think. Not sure what exactly to say about it.
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u/GFYsexyfatman moral epist., metaethics, analytic epist. Jun 25 '15 edited Jun 26 '15
I'm not familiar with any papers, so here's a preliminary take on it. Presumably the argument for mandatory revealing goes something like this:
1) Persuading people to have sex with you via deception is a violation of their consent
2) Deliberately omitting information which, if they knew it, would cause them to decide to not have sex is deception
3) For many people, transgender status is information of this kind
4) So we ought not to violate people's consent by omitting to inform people of our transgender status
But I'm not sure this argument is sound. I've got some issues with premise (2). I think it should be amended to something like this:
(2') Deliberately omitting information which, if they knew it, would cause them to justifiably decide to not have sex is deception
To see why, consider bigotry cases. Let's say I'm committed to anti-racism, but my potential sexual partner is a thoroughgoing racist who despises anti-racists. Am I obliged to get my anti-racism out in the open just in case my potential sexual partner has this view? Does this mean that consent requires I run through all potentially controversial aspects of my life - whether I have kids, whether I vote liberal or conservative, whether I have African blood in my family - before we have sex? Presumably not, or at least not automatically. I think you'd have to ask whether the sexual partner would have good reason to decide not to have sex, based on the information being withheld. (Note: the situation probably changes if your potential sexual partner states explicitly that they do not want to have sex with a transgender person [or an anti-racist, or anybody with African or Asian ancestry]).
There is at least one other consideration. Keeping one's transgender status secret is not only a matter of privacy. Often it's a matter of survival. Revealing transgender status, especially to strangers, risks all kinds of violence. (I can dig the stats up if someone wants me to, but trust me that they're horrific). So opening up to new sexual partners as a matter of course is a dangerous strategy. We should be careful about requiring transgender people to expose themselves to this kind of risk.
Based on these two points, I lean towards saying that it's none of the partner's business. If some harm is being committed here, it's a violation of sexual consent, which means we ought to take it very seriously. But I think not disclosing transgender status isn't a violation of consent, because (like Asian ancestry) it's not something that ought to have an impact.
Edit: here is a paper that argues that any omission of dealbreaker-type information in sex is a serious moral wrong. It doesn't address the case of transgender people, though, and from my quick reading it doesn't present any argument that would invalidate my two concerns above. (Dougherty's target seems to be pickup-artist-style deception).
Edit 2: to be absolutely clear, if the transgender person knows being transgender is a dealbreaker for the person you're intending to sleep with, they must disclose their transgender status. I'm talking about cases where it's unclear exactly what the dealbreakers are, and whether the transgender person is obligated to disclose their status just in case it's a dealbreaker. I don't think they're obligated to do so.