1. If you date men, you are always in potentially fatal danger. Be aware.
2. Make certain, before you even consider a date, that your partner is FULLY aware of your status and is not significantly bothered by it. Never date anyone who does not know about you.
3. Be aware that in our society, men who are secure enough to accept you are rare. there are predators who attack transsexuals, confused sorts who seek to use and then punish transsexuals, and those who try to be accepting but fail, often violently.
4. Be honest, be aware, and be very, very cautious.
5. Some men may only like you because of your transsexuality, and may find you uninteresting post-operatively. Be sure of the attractions that occur.
6. It is not all dark, but you will have to search more carefully, and be more aware, than nontranssexual women. Even with all the above, know that it is possible to find caring partners and loving friends.
The reasons
Dating both pre, and even post-op, involves concerns that nontranssexual folk do not have to concern themselves with. Some of these issues are serious.
Most, if not all of the dangerous issues revolve around sexual and gender insecurities. These insecurities are not dangerous in the transsexual, they are very dangerous in nontranssexuals.
Our culture still has a lot of bigotry and mindless hatred in it, and much of this evil comes from religious origins.
Homosexuality and Gender Threat
Early Christianity, Judaism, and to a lesser degree, Islam, became dominant in the western world by virtue of being warfare based religions. The universe was spiritually divided into an Absolute Good, and and Absolute Evil, and the basic premise was that the Good and True believers in the faith had to overcome everyone and everything else. To accomplish this, two things had to be done: one, the group, tribe, and religion had to concern itself with converting by any means possible other groups, and two, it had to become as populous as possible.
This last requirement is the basic reason behind homosexuality being made into a crime and an Evil. More babies means more tribe members. More tribe members means more ability to conquer and convert. Homosexuality produces fewer babies than heterosexuality. It cannot be tolerated by a belief system bent on domination.
You may be a woman, but be you pre-op or post-op, the social stigma of ever possessing a penis is there. If you date a man, those old Judeo-Christian issues in our western society kick in, and problems can occur. Sometimes these problems can be fatal.
Transsexuals and the Foundations of Assumed Truth
Transsexuals, by their existence, threaten basic assumptions and truths about gender and religion. The ‘Evil’ of homosexuality is shown to be the violent nonsense it is when the transsexual enters into the equation. Am I, a post-op, a woman? A surgically altered man? Something outside the scope of current belief and understanding?
As for the pre-op transsexual, then all possibility of a clear answer becomes lost. Is a pre-op a woman, a man, a woman in some ways, a man in others? To the average, simple mind, the result is paradox, confusion, and the destruction of neat, tidy categories and labels. It is hard to believe in religious prohibitions when reality itself shows the limits of them. If the word of god is so limited, so meaningless, the universe itself becomes upset for some folks. They find themselves adrift, without answers, forced to think, perhaps for the very first time. They begin to question themselves and their place in the universe, they are filled with nagging doubts.
Scared, confused people can be very dangerous. They can become violent, they can kill.
Far too many transsexuals have been murdered by men that just could not handle the issues they were forced to confront, the doubt they felt, the insecurity they suffered, or the ‘Truth’ that came tumbling down.
Sometimes the conflict is so severe, that men become convinced that the only way to restore their lost faith is to destroy that which caused it to be questioned. Such men deliberately seek out transsexuals to punish, humiliate, control, or harm them.
These same issues can also lead to other reactions besides murder. Some people are attracted to the forbidden and the rejected, and find it exciting. Such folks will find you desirable only as long as you fit this category.
Other folks try very hard to accept the transsexual, but fail at the task, because the conflict between what they were raised to believe, and what they want to be accepting about, is too much. In the end, sometimes the original ‘Truth’ wins out, especially because society supports it.
In all cases, the root cause of this nastiness is fear and instilled hatred of homosexuality, and this comes from only one place, religion. It is pervasive in our culture, because our culture is steeped in Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.
The Game Of ‘What Am I ?’
If you are a Male-To-Female transsexual and you are attracted to men, then what is really going on? Are you gay or straight or what? The answer depends on how one chooses to look at the transsexual.
If what matters is identity, is the mind and the heart, then you are a heterosexual woman with very standard desires.
If all that matters is the birth shape of the skin, in the past, present ot future, then you are an altered gay man experiencing homosexual desires.
If all that matters is the current cut of the skin, then a pre-op is a gay man and a post-op is a straight woman.
If the transsexual is considered a unique creature, a ‘third sex’, then all definitions become moot…perhaps being some shade of bisexual might come closest.
The problem is that, however you may define yourself, others will create definitions of their own over which you have little or no control.
What you must do is to be conscious of this, and determine what you want, and what you are willing to do, accept and teach, to get what you want. You must also be aware of the very real dangers involved.
It is not fair that this should be so. It is not fair that transsexuals should be forced to be so cautious, so concerned with safety, so endangered. It is not fair that religious dogma should brand transsexuals and homosexuals both as evil or as misguided, or even simply as distasteful.
But it is real, and you have to deal with that, or possibly die.
On the positive side, however, real, decent relationships are not impossible. They can and do occur, because there are men out there who can sort themselves out, and get past this inculcated bigotry or fear.
I know of such relationships personally, and am even involved in one: in my polyamory, or group marriage, one of my spouses is male. But it does take a little more effort and searching than the nontranssexual woman must face.
Selectively Out
All of this does not mean that the transsexual must wear their transsexual status as a badge, or be out to everyone, everywhere.
The key is to be selectively ‘Out’, to carefully choose who to tell and when and why. This is something the individual transsexual must be in control of, if at all possible.
Each circumstance must be evaluated on it’s own merits, but there is a general rule of thumb to follow:
Tell men up front, as early as possible
Why? because 93.7 percent of all violent crime, on the planet earth, is committed by men. Women just do not commit violent crimes even faintly as often. Women do not rape, murder, kill for hate, fag bash, mutilate, dismember, shoot, eviscerate, disembowel or torture unto death nearly as often as men do.
I will not bother with a discussion of the possible reasons for this, suffice to say that in the debate all sides are correct: the reasons are cultural, biological, genetic, and social all at the same time. Why this is true is not important.
What is important is that it is true, across the globe, in every society, everywhere. Even if violence is all but nonexistent, what violence there is will follow this statistic. Learn the one thing all women must:
Be afraid of men.
Nontranssexual women learn this from an early age. 3 out of 4 women learn it the hard way, in America, at some point in their lives. When you live as a woman, love as a woman, exist as a woman, you automatically are the heir to the perils of being a woman. To think yourself immune or to fail to be aware of this, is suicide.
Even more extreme, the status of being transsexual, even post-op, put one at a greater risk than that of nontranssexual woman.
Save your own life. Be up front, be ‘Out’ to any prospective male date.
Different For Women
This article is concerned with MTF transsexual woman who wish to date men, primarily because this is the group in serious statistical peril. Why not an article about the issues of dating as a lesbian?
Perhaps in time, but in general, the issues there are more about rejection and social bigotry, rather than physical violence and death or dismemberment. Your author identifies as being primarily lesbian, or if you prefer, a ‘polarized bisexual’: dedicated to reducing reflected glare off of sexual surfaces.
Although this may be a terribly politically incorrect thing to say, because of the vastly smaller risk of getting dead or mutilated, it is reasonably safe to date with women without outing ones self, until the relationship reaches the point of sexual involvement.
Because one is less likely to be killed, one can hope to become close friends first, before revealing the Big Secret, if one is living in secrecy of any degree.
The value of doing this is simple: it increases slightly the odds of being considered a human being, and therefore also increases the possibility of not being immediately dismissed out of bigotry, political dogma, ignorance, or blind, mindless hatred.
Because women are less likely to disembowel you for being a transsexual, you have a chance to escape having to suffer outing yourself immediately.
You have a chance to be seen, for a while at least, as something other than a politically unacceptable Frankenstein monster.
This may be enough time to cut through the bigotry and be truly seen.
Conclusions
The content of this article sounds quite frightening, and this is not without some rationality. However, there is also a danger in becoming paralyzed by fear or concern. That danger is loneliness.
What I suggest that you do is to be aware of the dangers and issues, but also realize that they are indicative of probabilities. It is very possible for you to find joy and and love, it is just my intent that you live long enough to find them.
Be smarter than those who would harm you, and you have the edge. Be aware of the very real dangers, and select carefully, mindful of your own precious safety.
The concerns for the MTF transsexual woman are a bit more severe than for the nontranssexual woman, but not insurmountable.
Keep your wits sharp and be careful out there.
transsexual.org/dating1.html – 2002
news.lgbti.org 