@100 what is the practical difference to me (a ciswoman), encountering another woman, if she was raised by parents who thought she was a guy? How does that other woman's upbringing affect my life? And if it doesn't affect my life, why should it affect how I treat her?

If she looks and acts mostly the way I expect women to look and act (again, there is a range of ways of looking & acting like a woman) -- I treat her as a woman.

@106: The same can be said of any two cis men. There are a lot of experiences in life that are specific to having been born in a certain time or place, or to a certain type of family, or of a certain race or ethnic background. The vast range of possible life experiences that any one person has, distinct from any other person, dwarfs the commonality they both may share from being the same gender.

The practical differences between a cis man and a trans man based on their upbringing are no greater than the practical differences between any two cis men.

"I'm not saying you should treat them any different."

Oh, okay. Then let me clear up my miscommunication @83. What I should have said was:
"Unless I'm a doctor treating the person, or their spouse trying to have children with them, there's no reason for me to treat a transman any differently than a cisman."

@ 109 - While that case could be argued 25 years ago, it is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Parents of trans* children are much more likely to get their children appropriate medical care early today than they were in the past. And as acceptance for trans* people grows and the science advances, trans* people who transition as adults will become less common.

Google Kim Petras. By the time she was 16, she had completed her transition. Yes, I am sure she saw a lot more doctors than most kids, but needing extensive medical care is not an experience unique to trans* people.

@109 you say "I will always know what it's like be a man, just as a dude from the congo will"

but wait, how in the world do you know this? It is no way sensible to ascribe the subjective perceptions of other to yourself. You can only claim this in virtue reifying some arbitrary notion of what it means to be a man. It's exactly this arbitrary notion that we are disputing.

@111, yes, and let me say that I personally have no idea what it means to be a woman, even though society tells me I am one, and I was raised as female. I feel human, and creative, and kinky, but I don't feel like a woman. I know what having my period feels like, but I also know ciswomen who never had a period. I know what giving birth feels like, but I also know ciswomen who never gave birth.

@113 Cis people and trans people are statistically likely to have differing experiences, but that doesn't make either person's experience of their gender less valid, nor does it make a transman not just as much of a man as a cis man. The differences pretty much matter socially in precisely one situation, when discussing what it is like to be cis or trans. You appear to be saying that because a transman is likely to be treated differently in childhood than a transman was (which is not a given and not always especially true, but can happen) that that means we should view him as a different gender. That would also imply that if you had been treated as a girl in childhood, then you would not be in the same category as other men right now. It just seems odd to place so much weight on how other people view you and treat you. It also has rather disturbing implications for oppressed minorities who aren't treated as fully human, since they also would not know what it was to grow up being treated as such, but that does not make them any less human.

@113, no the idea is that *of course* there are differences. But there are also *of course* differences between all sorts of men and women. Singling out trans-ness as the specially relevant difference is arbitrary. It's just as arbitrary as singling out as specially important the difference between men who grew up rich versus those who didn't. Of course there will be real differences between those groups, but that doesn't mean that it should be used to constitute the 'real' man dividing line

@116, a man with unusual or nonfunctional equipment is well advised to bring that up before intimacy, to avoid unpleasant surprises. That's true for cis-men with a micro-penis or any other configuration outside the normal range.

The rich/poor analogy is relevant to JF’s assertion that being trans* has relevance to anyone not a sexual or reproductive partner or providing medical care: someone brought up with money might relate to imoney or rich people differently from someone who won the lottery. But practically, it's still not relevant for anyone except an accountant or a business partner, and even then it might not be a must-disclose detail.

JF, if two people are clicking romantically, sexually and as friends, it is really not necessary for a trans woman with bottom surgery to disclose trans* status before hitting the sack. The relevant pert is that they click. A trans woman without bottom surgery, or a trans man will have to disclose if they are taking off their pants because the genitals will not be as expected — not because their childhoods were special.

It is absolutely not necessary for anyone else to know. We all come with baggage. We assume the person in front of us has baggage. We have ways of buying toilet paper and dancing in clubs and dropping kids off at daycare for which baggage has no practical relevance. That’s what “practical” means. It means my baggage is none of your goddamn business.

Clearly as two people become intimate significant histories will be shared. If the trans* person is out or physically appears trans* then sharing will skip the “you should know that I’m trans*” bit and go straight to “this is how it is and was for me to be trans*.”

There is a discourse within a sector of the self-described rad-fem community (hi mydriasis!) that identifies only Womyn-born-Womyn as real women. That’s who you sound like.

@116, I think the confusion becomes clear when you say this:

"Now you may think that's arbitrary, but it isn't. It's a very real difference"

It's not a contradiction for a difference to be both arbitrary and very real. None of us are doubting the realness of the difference, but we are taking issue with that particular one-of-many-other-very-real-differences being specially important in a way that fundamentally distinguishes it from other differences. Because maintaining that, as we've be saying, is not tenable given the bewildering variety of people personal experiences across the world and across the centuries.

@JF, thanks for writing that nice note. Made my day!

I'm on the left, but I find this term annoying in the extreme. Does everything have to have some specialized term no one has ever heard of? Come on, I've been living in the S.F. Bay Area for 30 years and hadn't heard this term until a year ago.