Thanks for the prod, RE and Harriet! I've sent her a message. The other issue is I'm not sure of her sexual orientation; she mentioned boyfriends, which doesn't necessarily mean she's straight, but nor does her dancing with me mean she's not! I'll keep y'all posted. Hope you all enjoy your weekends.

@100 Harriet bythe_Bulrushes: Congrats on scoring the highly sought after HUnsky Award! May all the very best come forth your way soon.

@90 BiDabFan: I'm eagerly waiting for the day I can just click offending trolls permanently off with a remote control button, as Susan Sarandon, Cher, and Michelle Pfieffer did in finally ousting devilish Jack Nicholson from the TV screens in The Witches of Eastwick. There really seems to be a rather alarming number of cyber-Cujos on the rise out there, lately.

@89 BiDabFan: Thank you for your comment regarding past SL columns from previous weeks (Months? Years?). I have made a point to let others go back to that particular week's installment upon responding when there is a post made late in the game, spilling into the following week. JACKS' comment thread is still running? I left that behind last week!
By the way, regarding trolling zombies, beware of sanguisuga--he's rabidly on the prowl.
There definitely must be an epidemic going around.

Griz, don't play that game. If anyone goes to that comment section, they'll see exactly who was trying to stir up shit. Besides, your assumptions are completely off track.

@117 sanguisuga: No bullshit, then, and that goes for you, too. I don't give a rat's ass if you're into true crime. Why did you and others (i.e.: seatlleoriginal "I went to Ted Bundy's girlfriend's house when I was little; she was a single mom and her daughter and I went school together. He used to play with us, and swung us around airplane style") try to bait me just to bash me later after I made valid comments? For the record, when you, by your own account, were just a baby in 1973 I was nine years old and growing up outside La Conner, Washington when Susan Elaine Rancourt, one of Ted Bundy's 36 brutally murdered victims, was killed at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, her remains strewn at Taylor Mountain. Our family lived 10 houses down the beach from the Rancourts. Susan graduated from La Conner High School i the class of 1973; my older sister, only three weeks older than Susan graduated from Anacortes High School that same year. Both my sisters were attending college in Seattle at that time. I'm amazed they were never victims of Ted Bundy, especially if Northgate Mall was said to have been a favorite stalking site of his.
As for "stirring up shit", I believe that honor should rightfully go to Nathalie Graham for conjuring up ghosts of Ted Bundy and whether or not Northgate is haunted, all conveniently just in time for Halloween, and the latest 40th anniversary sequel to John Carpenter's slasher movie. There are many of us who would prefer that Ted Bundy, 29 years and 9 months after going to the electric chair at Florida State Prison--unlike the fictional Michael Myers--stay dead. If you or anyone else is out to gang up on me, here in Savage Love: Meow and Forever, this kitty is going to scratch back.

@117: I didn't call you a cranky little bitch or a dumbfuck. You're stirring up your own litter box here, Sporto.

Okay--good. Back to Meow and Forever.

This was discussed, Griz. Don't bring shit from other threads into completely unrelated ones. If you want to rail at me on the Bundy thread go right ahead. But that has nothing to do with the conversation here, and you trying to drag it over here just shows how unreasonable you're being.

@118 Of course I have. But whether or not my pet gets me off isn't necessarily a marker for good behavior. There are so many extenuating circumstances that can surround a scene. Sometimes I don't want to get off, sometimes I just want to play.

Oh Sangu, you seem to be copping it everywhere. What Ted Bundy thread?
We have gone into Scorpio Dadddy, and these elections are making everyone jumpy.
Oh yes, heterosexuality off the rails. My son had his 21st last weekend and some sweet young hetro couples came over, then they all went out clubbing. Depends where you look.

@122: Okay then, this kitty scratches back. You dug your own litter box, Sporto--now lie in it.

@124 LavaGirl: See my lengthy comment @119 here in SL. I agree---heterosexuality is definitely off the rails in the glaring Err of Trump.

Politically Daddy, women are at the edge, now that Brett Baby is a SP Judge. Not only will he protect Trump, he’ll be more than happy to go after women. The sluts, as he sees us. The doormats, as he treats his wife.
Being an optimist, I hold out hope for my tribe, the hetros. Women have woken up to what a crock the last waves of feminism really were, even the tsunami of the late sixties and seventies: hardly a smooth resolve at all. Capitalism has nicely killed our choices. Which is what we have only wanted. Choices and rights, same as the men.
A shift is going on with the attacks on sexuality, for women for trans people for LGBTI etc communities. Only hetro males seem to be out of the loop, unless they are black. Which leaves..
If a man presents as stuck in patriarchal attitudes and showing no wish to understand how primitive this struggle now is, for our agency, then yes. Off with their heads. /Not in a real sense, not going around killing men. The reverse is true though, men killing their partners./ in a, we have no more time for your shit sense. See the issues with a lot more understanding or get out of the way.

And people wonder why I'm so happily asexual, in VA PTSD therapy, and my favorite happy place is with a mid 70s VW Love Beetle.. PLEASE---let's all stop the batshit crazy

Lavagirl, BiDanFan, sb53, CMD, please email me.

I followed the Bundy thread yesterday afternoon. It is an emotional issue to some as the danger was/is real and unfortunately involved many victims, some of them local.
I didn’t get the sense that the poster who talked about their childhood experience playing airplane with a serial murderer was trivializing and making light of his crimes. If any thing it came across to me as bewilderment and a relief that nothing happened to them or anyone else they knew back then.
I saw no reason to start a fight over there, let alone bring it here.

https://www.thestranger.com/features/2018/10/24/34376418/does-ted-bundy-still-haunt-the-northgate-mall

It’s cloudy and foggy outside, and yet I am in some agreement with Lava today. I think the last US presidential election was about a fading majority fighting to stay in control.

White men, feeling threatened by other forces push hard to restore “traditional values,” meaning the rule of men. This may be the second phase of the white attack.

Issues like women equality; sexual minorities and gender identity all go hand in hand and pose a threat to insecure men.
Lets unite.

Ms Fan/M?? Harriet - Sorry, but I do see particular delight being expressed in some quarters in taking away a gay space and making it bi-normative. This ties in to my frequent comment that a space cannot be bi-normative and homo-normative at the same time. I've nothing against bi-normative dating apps, and approve of their existing for people who want them, but would prefer that they start from scratch rather than enforcing a new code of conduct on people using an existing one. I shall give credit to Ms Fan for considering it a bug that the gays still using that app have to consent to being policed by women and trans/non-binary people, but for many, that is a feature.

One of my newly-right-wing gay friends who won't admit it yet (I've been tempted to start a pool to select the date on which he makes the official announcement that he's a straight-ticket Republican) has been on a major anti-Communism kick for some months now, seeing it everywhere to an irritating extent. There could be a little of that here, too, in the insistence of so many on attempting to make everything non-straight omni-normative. I shall respond the same way, with that line from Clue, "Communism is just a red herring." It was best done by Ms Warren, who as Miss Scarlet went on, "Like all members of the world's oldest profession, I'm a capitalist, and I'll go on selling my secrets - your secrets - to the highest bidder."

Something I forgot to clarify earlier to M?? Harriet is that my couplet, "I will not join your War on Gay / Or change a single 'one' to 'they'." ideally should have called it a War on Gender - it's Mr Horstman's whose is really much more of a War on Gay. I think I wanted to see if you would pick up on my deliberate choice to parody Green Eggs and Ham, and triumphantly point out that the narrator is converted by Sam I Am in the end. But, in fairness, just in case that were to occur to you later, if we have any conversion therapist here, it's Mr H. And I actually agree with him in one respect - if it weren't for the numbers, the "natural community" concerning sexual orientation would be S/B/T/Q/Q/I/A/A/2S/LF/GQ/NB/P/P/+ or additionally whatever else that voracious omnivore has managed to add on. (The MRAs and even many non-MRAs who are sympathetic to men's issues are having a field day with the acronym.)

Ms Herzog's article yesterday trashing Mr Shepard on the day his ashes were buried, shrugging off the Pulse shootings as accidentally occurring at an MM venue, and quoting Julie Bindel's defence of the anti-Shepard book is another example I can use, despite there being some merit in historical perspective. It was a clear attack on the G, designed to invite the inference that nobody ever hates gay men just for being gay and that only lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia, transmisogyny and anything opposed to other letters is actually REAL. Perhaps that's why the other letters want to keep the G in the so-called "community" - with us to kick around, they can forget about how much they all hate each other.

Of course CMD, we all have a common adversary, mad trump and his evil swirling hatreds picked up and acted out by damaged humanity.
What I push against is being re defined, as cis women, out of existence.

@130 CMD: That's all I had said to someone identifying as seattleroriginal, that she was lucky nothing happened. I was amazed that the commenter didn't express any amazement or comment on shock or trauma over having once socializing with a mentally deranged, homicidal psychopath. Then all hell broke loose when I responded to angry retorts. At least three commenters started goading me and I defended myself. How on earth was that picking a fight?
CMD--the story creeped me out because my older sister and I physically fit the description of a Ted Bundy target: 5'2" to 5'7" females, brunette with long straight hair parted down the middle. And I love my Volkswagen Beetle. Ted Bundy drove a battered tan VW Beetle and waited in parking lots for his next unsuspecting victims.
End of story.

@117 & @122, and all other thrill-seeking Ted Bundy fans who wanna know: Please see VelvetBabeAgain's lengthy comment @31 in Nathalie Graham's tasteless article. Now hopefully you'll better understand why I'm so upset and commented as I did.
Jesus Christ I need a fucking drink.

Okay, Griz is shutting up now as we return to the threads in SL: Meow and Forever.

Aunt Zelda,
My response can be found on the corresponding thread. Lets keep it there.

@137 CMD: I read it and replied. Thanks.

Dan and everybody: I apologize--usually I don't habitually drag something from another comment thread here or otherwise. As a woman who grew up in that era I had to speak out. How violence against women can be trivialized leaves me outraged.

@131. CMD. I agree with you that the last Presidential election was--hopefully--the last gasp of something dying.

@132. Venn. My experience would be that a queer or queered space would be both bi- and homo-normative. But you would have a very different experience of the politics of identity and identification--such that you'd feel excluded by the bi-normative. What kind of 'spaces' are you talking about? Something like nightclubs, cruising sites for gay men? There are many gay men who can live with, welcome, in fact, a sprinkling of gay women, including some trans women showing up to be part of a catholic queerness. Virtual spaces? Public space is maybe queered, maybe not, for the most milquetoast manifestations of gayness. It’s certainly not forget-about-it neutral for me. I'm not a combatant on the dating websites--too old, too lazy, too well-sorted already--and would not know what the proportions are like there.

CMD @131: Well said.

Venn @132: Just as you recently suggested a bi woman in a straight marriage should try to see herself as "stuck" rather than "trapped," I'd urge you to see previously gay-only spaces as becoming "bi-inclusive" rather than "bi-normative." It's nice of you to say that bi people have to start from scratch rather than looking in existing places for people who are already there -- just like it's nice of Dadddy to say that JACKS should just risk his job because society is too sex-negative. What would be more financially effective, for Starbucks to start selling tea or for a brand new chain to attempt to spring up from scratch that serves only tea? Which strategy would better serve the tea-drinking public? And what do you mean by "consent to being policed"? How are people seeking hookups "policing" people who don't want to hook up with them? Surely having to avoid women, bisexuals and trans folk is no more onerous than having to avoid bears when one exclusively favours twinks?

@141 Funnily enough, there was a shop here in the US that did try to sell tea exclusively. Teavana was bought out, and subsequently killed, by Starbucks. There still seems to be an online presence and some products sold at Starbucks, but all the storefronts were shuttered.

Dadddy @115: well spun. I had considered that meaning of the word, but it's application in that context is not warranted and, frankly, I'd bought the argument that you're not trolling.

@141. Bi. I agree with the last sentence. Further--let's take a trans woman looking to date a cis straight man. Should she have to tick a 'trans' box on her dating-site gender assignation? No. That would be intrusive. Let cishet men who don't want to date someone trans silently turn such a person down just in the way they steer clear of the hot yoga fans / Paulo Coelho nuts / committed liberal feminists / adventurous rock climbers etc. i.e. whatever other sub-classification of women they're generally averse to.

Trolls abound furbar, see Harriet above. Would rather see a trans woman put herself in danger just to stir.

Sorry, fubar.
Maybe you’re not a troll Harriet just a fool playing with others lives, because wow you are so cool and hip and arrogant. You know trans women are being murdered, for being trans, and here you are encouraging them to lie to get dates.

I have no problem with gay spaces Mr Venn, seems others do. I don’t think it’s such an issue here, as in the US and Europe. People banging on doors to be allowed in everywhere.
There was an attempt to change the Mardi Gras rules for next yr in Sydney to stop any LGBTI police walking. Lucky it didn’t pass.

M?? Harriet - A space cannot be bi-normative and homo-normative at the same time. Anyone entering a bi-normative space is prepared to adapt to a bi code of conduct and be presumed bi. If I were in a bi-normative space and were approached by a woman, it would be inappropriate to cite being gay as the reason for declining. In a homo-normative space, it would be inappropriate of her to make the approach in the first place. Attempts at omni-normative spaces tend to founder; I'd much rather have Pride, like the (British) Open, on a rota, with one group setting the norms one year and then another the next, with each dominant group in turn setting its own standards for inclusion. Far more organic.

Ms Lava - They've had those attempts here, too; some of them have succeeded. Poor police; it's hard enough being in the force and non-straight; they really don't need the friction on the other end.

Ms Fan - I appreciate the kind intention, but the comparison doesn't hold. The married woman entered a monogamous marriage voluntarily and of her own agency. It's not as if the members had any say in the decision. As for being policed, it might be one thing if it were simply a case of enforcing decent behaviour, but I'm informed that SJW overreach is already on the march, and, if not already the case, soon the expression of liking for very ordinary - one might even say, in this venue, standard - actions will be punished for being insufficiently inclusive. One might hope that that's just alarmist, but so much that seemed alarmist has come true of late.

I can see why you'd rather not build your own house when you can just forcibly move into ours, but what we built for ourselves from nothing you ought to be capable of matching.

And we've already seen what has happened when gay groups have tried to be bi-inclusive while remaining homo-normative. It only works as long as it stops there. After the bi men insist on making the space bi-normative, and those with female partners bring them in, the women eventually take over. Or look at the Radical Faeries, which let in women and is now entirely female-governed and policed, to effects quite in contrary to the original purpose.

And there is much greater joy being taken and expressed in taking something from gays than there would have been in building something from scratch. I'll believe you neither see nor share that sentiment, but you are as much better off without us as we are without you. I really am increasingly finding that kicking us around is the only thing that unites the rest of you. You'll still have plenty of Vs, though - Mr Savage still has considerable influence - and they won't fight back. Of course, for many of your cohorts, I suspect that's a bug and not a feature.

Who's up for the highly sought after @169 double whammy (HUnsky + a @69)?

@136: I will always speak up against violence towards women. Such atrocity CANNOT become the social norm, EVER.

Sanguisuga @142: My point proven!

Harriet @144: Given that the cis straight men this woman is looking to date would eventually want to "intrude" into her vagina, if she doesn't have one, she should state that as early as possible. OKC has multiple gender boxes one can tick, and I think that's fine. How would the straight cis men who don't want to date trans women know she was trans unless she declared it? (Also, if you think straight cis men "silently" avoid women they don't want to date, think again! I've seen so many women share messages from men attacking them for having some feature -- generally, being a feminist -- that makes then undateable in their eyes. One reason I've hidden my profile from heteros.)

Venn @148: I have never been in a "bi-normative space" where straight and gay partners and allies were not welcome. If a woman approached you in such a space and you said "sorry, I'm gay," she'd politely end her pursuit. It's not a huge deal.
I am wondering what this "bi code of conduct" consists of!
How about a return to hanky codes? I'd be very happy to have a way of knowing which women were bi and available, aside from their OKCupid profiles.

Venn @150: There's no evidence Grindr was "forced" to become bi-inclusive. Presumably it was a business decision on their part. I wasn't aware of the history of the Radical Faeries, though I know some from back in the day. Anyway, I assure you I would have no "joy" if Grindr stopped serving the gay market, but I cannot imagine that would actually happen. I would reiterate that we've also already seen what happens when people try to create hookup apps for queer women from scratch -- they fail. That in and of itself should serve as proof that the female market segment that will make use of Grindr's services will be a tiny proportion of their business, and you've nothing to fear. (If you were even using Grindr, which you aren't. It would be good to get the views of a gay man who DOES use Grindr, who can tell us how or whether it has affected his ability to get dick.)

@148. Venn. Your talk of 'spaces' is too abstract. What kind of setting are you envisioning? Let's take a dinner party. I'd hope that any dinner party I attended was antihomophobic and antitransphobic i.e. if anyone made comments on those subjects akin to those of the President-elect of Brazil, I'd get up and leave. Beyond that, what happens at a dinner party would seem to me relatively free-form. A woman could engage you in conversation about Rumpole. Or a woman could sound you out romantically, in which case you would decline; and nothing would be thought either of her polite overture or your refusal. Your instance of a putatively gay-only space is a Pride march--and Pride has always (?) been about assembling a coalition of non-bigots. Are there Prides, for instance, where allies are excluded--where you have to be 'gay to be good to go'? One could start them; but, for many, they would go against the spirit of Pride, which is normalizing and self-normalizing.

@154. Bi. Are you saying that on okc, a straight trans woman wanting to date a straight man should ALWAYS tick the 'trans woman' box for gender, and, if she feels like it, either as a supplement or complement, also tick the 'woman' box? You ask how a prospective suitor could know she was trans otherwise. In some cases, it may be apparent from the photos; in others, the transwoman could say in the course of exchanging messages before meeting; and in what will probably be a residual minority of cases, she could reveal her gender history face-to-face with the guy. My point was not about how up-front a transfemale dater should be--either for the sake of her safety or in fairness to men not wanting to 'date trans'. It was more about whether she should be regendered by the parameters limiting her search.

@151. Dadddy. Your 'it would be sad' if a gay-male culture were lost is pretty much what I feel. I'm not sure it's always characterised by 'cooperation' rather than 'competition' for sex. Homos like hierarchy....

@154. Bi. What drove me off Grindr was sending a guy a photo of my ass and his getting back to ask for a photo of my dick.... Dispiriting on so many levels. In this spirit nothing would soothe my soul more than a queering i.e. a pluralization of that site's norms.

"It would be good to get the views of a gay man who DOES use Grindr, who can tell us how or whether it has affected his ability to get dick."

bi guy that uses grindr, reporting for duty
1) there always were trans-men, trans-women, and queers of all sorts on grindr.
As did attention-seeking women (i believe "fag hag" is the term), bi\kink couples, and such. They always were an insignificant minority, and honestly, they will always be, grindr is a shit platform.
They just left corresponding fields either empty or try to represent what they offer in a context of a hookup, i.e. a trans boy\trans girl would choose "bottom" and that would be it. So nothing changed community-wise as far as i can tell.
2) fields for "pronouns", "gender" and such are largely ignored anyway. I would even speculate that virtually no one uses filters other then age. Remember "tribes"? Yeah.
3) the only related thing that irks me about grindr lately is that all of advertising, 100% of it is about trans\drag stuff and sjw scolding looking for hateclicks. If i wasn't that frugal coughbroke*cough* i would buy a premium membership and not see that as well. Other than that this minor thing it has in no way impacted my ability to get dick\ass, nor it made in not a "gay" space
Also couples moved to feeld, and it's very much alive, at least here in Europe.

Harriet @155: Yes, that is what I am saying. As should people who are married/long-term partnered/decidedly non-monogamous. Post-op trans women are perhaps a different story, but if you don't have the genitalia or marital/relationship status one might expect, one should disclose that as early as possible. In real life, "as early as possible" can sometimes be awkward, but in online dating it's simple -- just put your potentially dealbreaking stats in your profile and then no one will have to waste your time or theirs. I don't know why people WOULDN'T want to pre-screen out partners who have no interest in them. Trans women in particular would be saving themselves from potential violence or verbal abuse by simply ticking the relevant box that would allow, as you say, straight male vaginophiles to silently reject them before even making a doomed first contact.

Yasunori @157: Thank you. Never heard of feeld, may be worth checking out.

@158. Bi. I think you're making too much of the post-bottom surgery / non-bottom-surgery distinction for transwomen. The danger is that insisting on this would allow someone to say that a trans woman who hasn't had bottom surgery isn't YET a woman, isn't FULLY a woman, won't be a woman until she's been operated on.

Why would a transwoman want to categorize herself just as a 'woman', not as a transsexual? Well, the answer is obvious: a transwoman does not want to be recognised as a trans person, but as a woman; she feels she is a woman, possibly that she always has been a woman, and now wants other people's reactions, wants her social reality, to reflect that fact. I know that what I'm talking about (women's adopting this social identity) is not hypothetical, in that I know transwomen who are on dating sites merely as 'women looking for men'. But I don't know how widespread the phenomenon is among the population of single trans women looking for male partners. A fair proportion, for sure, will be searching in a more focused way than just calling on 'all men looking for women', including by highlighting themselves as trans; some will be on niche, rather than generalist, sites, and some will be relying on scenes and communities, not broadly available sites, in their search.

I think some transwomen also dream or fantasise of meeting a straight cis guy, and the guy falling for them, not caring that they're trans, or not even seeing it. This is part of the 'romance' or fantasy of transition. It must happen relatively rarely--though I don't know ... but it's the scenario that's most warming or moving for some people, that most endorses their identity-claim. Why should a transwoman have to give up this fantasy to set up a dating-website profile? It's right, for me, to object to this as a forcible regendering.

I don't know here. Gender and genitalia are not the same thing, and if not possessing a certain type of junk does not make you less a gender, then the opposite is also true and possessing a certain type of junk does not make you more a gender, so I can't get behind the argument that this is only regendering in one direction.

But I do get that we are in a world now in which gender and genitalia do not align all the time, so if I'm out assuming that a gender has a genitalia that's on me- my bias.

The question of when to disclose is going to vary by situation- I can't imagine why you wouldn't disclose before a hookup, but I suppose we could argue that the responsibility should be instead on the person with a genitalia preference to state what junk they are looking for instead of on everyone else to state what genitalia they have. I don't think that's very good advice though from a safety point of view, much less common courtesy.

I'm attracted to men. I'm also penis-centric in my sexuality. Let's say a super hot man has a vagina (or even a penis that doesn't function). I'm not going to stop thinking he's hot. I might still want to kiss him, flirt with him, etc. But I'm not going to want to have sex with him. I want a dick in my sex, and a real one. On the flip side, if I had a trans woman friend whose company I really enjoyed, I could conceive of a situation where she wanted a blow job and I decided to be a pal and give one so long as it didn't involve any other physical affection between us and we could go right back to being pals. Because I'm attracted to men. And I'm attracted to cocks. And other people's vaginas are like other people's noses to me. Makes no sense to pretend there could be some situation in which I'm suddenly no longer attracted to cocks or suddenly attracted to vaginas simply because I fell in love with a man who had a vagina. This is not possible. Saying I'd no longer want cock or suddenly start wanting vagina if I met the right man is just as offensive as telling me that I could become a lesbian if I met the right woman.

So romantic fantasies are dangerously unrealistic, but this very specific and unrealistic fantasy should be indulged despite the risks? Let aside the possibility of harassment and violence, it doesn't make sense unless the straight man who falls for the trans woman was already open to different genitalia. He might be strictly straight and only like women, but if his genitalia preference is for pussy, there's no way he's going to be OK with its absence and even less cool with the addition of a dick. In order for this straight man to be with a trans woman with a dick, he'd ALREADY have to have a fluid genitalia preference. It's not like he's genitalia preference is just going to disappear suddenly because he met the right girl. Maybe he didn't know he could be interested in cock until he met her, and maybe that's really thrilling for them both to discover together, but I do know that is not how my sexuality works and plenty of other people know as well, and I don't think I should have to run around indulging other people's fantasies just to prove this. Maybe responsibility should be on the rest of us to state our genitalia preference when we know we have it, but I'd say until that's a norm, everyone should try to be pretty clear and respectful as possible.

EmmaLiz @160: "I suppose we could argue that the responsibility should be instead on the person with a genitalia preference to state what junk they are looking for"

He already has, when he listed himself as straight.

Sure, there are a small minority of straight men who wouldn't mind if a woman had a penis. There are another small minority of bi-ish men who round themselves up to straight on dating apps because they prefer women and a lot of straight women don't want a bi man. But the odds are overwhelming that a straight-identified man, like you, likes his women with vaginas. So does the trans woman wait for someone to message her, check his profile, see whether he's listed himself as straight or bi, and if straight, reply "Hi, yes I'm interested, I have a penis, is that okay?" and run the risk that he will lash out at her for wasting his time, or just put it on her profile to begin with, thereby KNOWING that everyone who messages her is okay with her having a penis?

I look at this as analogous to being poly. I would view it as pointless to create a profile where I implied that I was single (not stating one is poly implies that one is single, just like stating one is a woman implies that one has a vagina), get people interested, and then tell most of them that I'm not available for what they want, instead of just putting "Poly" in my profile (not to mention "Bi," as that's going to turn off a lot of lesbians) and saving all of us the hassle.

Harriet @159: The trans woman isn't giving up the fantasy. When one creates a dating profile, does one "give up the fantasy" that one will meet the person of one's dreams on a holiday or at a nightclub or at the grocery store? Of course not. If one were to meet organically like this, it's entirely possible (and has happened with at least one couple I know) that boy meets girl, boy and girl start chatting, girl says "I'm trans" and boy says "I don't care." But that is not the etiquette of dating sites, and if a trans woman pretends it is she is risking verbal and physical abuse. I certainly don't think anyone should be FORCED to reveal anything they don't want to, I just think it's a really terrible idea to not be up front when one has the perfect, awkwardness-free opportunity to do so.

If I were a trans woman and I had my name or face pic on my dating profile, I might not state on my profile that I was trans -- especially if my neighbors, and colleagues and random acquaintances don't know I'm trans and don't need to know.

There's plenty of time to assess a prospective partner's feelings before we meet. I would try to ask about their awareness of LGBT issues, just as I currently assess a man's possible misogyny before meeting him in person.

BiDanFan @161 -- so, no, I wouldn't lead with "Hi, yes I'm interested, I have a penis, is that okay?" By the time I mentioned my (hypothetical) penis, I would already know that they had met other trans people, were generally progressive, and were not going to freak out even if they didn't want to meet me any longer.

@147: Lava, thanks for emailing me. Was your son able to help you download my latest mp3s? If so, I'd love to get your feedback. I've heard some encouraging news so far.

Griz doesn't have anything to add to the current comment thread. Congrats in advance to the lucky HUnsky +69 and possible Two Hunsky winners. I'll try again tomorrow in Dan's next Savage Love installment for 10/30/2018. Meanwhile, I'm once again off to get comfortably numb, chill out, and call it a movie night.

@164 - a straight trans woman looks for a straight man to date for the same reason a straight cis woman does -- she's straight.

Hunter @164: Asking for a friend?

EricaP @162: That seems like a lot of work to go through with someone for whom trans is a non-starter. During my online dating career, I've learned to disclose up-front my age, my dad bod, and my British orthodontics. It has saved a lot of wasted coffee dates.

@169: Congrats, Hunter, on scoring the coveted HUnsky + 69 award double whammy! Savor it wisely.

EricaP @162: It's extremely uncommon to put one's name on their dating profile. If she's trans and closeted, she could post a vague main photo, I've seen plenty of those. Or she could hide her profile from straight people, thereby avoiding the cis male vaginophiles. And again, if she's post-op and so passable her trans status would be news to friends and neighbours, she has no unexpected penis to disclose and it's a non-issue.

Hunter @164: Perhaps because she is both straight and a phallophile. Or perhaps she is looking for either a cis man or a trans man, but the overwhelming majority of men are indeed cis so that's who's going to reply to her ad. Or perhaps she is pansexual but, again, the majority of people who are interested in dating women are indeed cis men. In short, she's looking for cis men for the same reasons any non-lesbian woman is.

@161. Bi. We aren't giving different advice to a transwoman dater (dating men) re whether to disclose. It would be risky not to. But I'm standing more emphatically than you on the point-of-order that 'a trans woman is a woman, period'. Let's say there are two gender options on car insurance (maybe there should be more). A transwoman checks 'woman'. Why should a dating-website registration be different? At the very least, a man telling the site 'I want to see women' and not unchecking a 'trans women' box should be served up an indiscriminate mix of cis (mostly) and trans women.

As it happens, I don't know any straight trans women who found a straight cis male partner who 'didn't care'. The only transwoman I know well enough to talk about these issues with from a personal angle is much exercised, rather, by the 'cotton ceiling'....

@168. Hunter. A particular transwoman could like or have a taste for masculine (or just cis-)men. Without being fully-committed trans myself, my taste in men runs strongly to the masc.

Harriet @172: I'm not talking about what box a trans woman should tick if the only options are "male" or "female." Of course she should tick female. I'm talking about the very specific situation where the trans woman is seeking people she will eventually want to be having sex with, in which case it IS their business what's between her legs. Ideally a dating website does have more than two gender options, and ideally those searching for "women" will be shown all women, cis and trans, and can skip past the trans profiles if they are not interested. But anyway, as we aren't giving different advice, I think we can stop boring everyone else with this line of discussion.

@174. Bi. Well, at least two people were following and chimed in. I like it when two people have different instinctive responses but can work out an arrangement or procedure both agree to. Civilised, I call it-- ;)

Harriet.. yes. A trans woman is a woman, we all agree there. She isn’t however, a cis woman. You still with me? In a dating / romantic sense if a cis man wants only to date cis women, then it’s a waste of everyone’s time for a trans woman not to disclose early. And as I mentioned above, It Can Be Fucking Dangerous for the trans woman, if sprung on some cis men way down the path.

BDF @171 "if she's post-op and so passable her trans status would be news to friends and neighbours, she has no unexpected penis to disclose."

A trans woman can be perfectly passable with her clothes on and yet have a penis. Some trans women never have that surgery (for reasons of health or expense). They are neither pre-op nor post-op, but non-op.

"she could post a vague main photo, I've seen plenty of those."

Yes, that's one option. Another option is posting an attractive face pic but not revealing her pre-op or non-op status until she knows the person better.

fubar @167 -- if you don't see a difference between publicly disclosing your dad bod versus the state of your genitals, I don't know if I can explain it. I'm not proposing getting coffee without disclosing, but just bringing it up in a private conversation, like mentioning one might be HSV+.

EricaP @178: Yes, I dated a non-op trans woman; I'm aware they exist. I said that if a trans woman is both post-op AND passable, she has nothing to disclose. (If she's post-op and not passable, there's also nothing to disclose; those potential suitors to whom she looks too masculine will weed her out based on her photos.) If she is not passable, her friends and neighbours would not be surprised to come across her profile with the trans box ticked, so your hypothetical what-if is void -- she's already out as transgender. If she is non-op and passable, and doesn't want to out herself to neighbours, she could use a vague photo. Yes, waiting to disclose is another option, but I've already discussed at length the reasons I would not personally advise this option in an internet dating scenario. (A third option is Surprise Penis, which goes to show not every option is a -good- option.)

Grizelda, my son is returning home from his gf’s now she’s just started a full time job. I’ve asked him and yes all possible. I’ll email you after I hear your music.

A passable trans woman is still not a cis woman Fan. Why would you encourage people to lie around seeking intimate relationships. Yes out in the world, ticking the woman box on forms.. when seeking intimacy I don’t see the point. It’s not like the man won’t get to know at some point, so why begin with duplicity.

LavaGirl, a passable trans woman not revealing her medical history on her profile is no more a problem than anyone not revealing STI status (or mental health status) on one's profile.

There's plenty of time to reveal the relevant information before meeting for coffee.

I don't know so much about bottom surgery. Googling reveals conflicting info. I know that a small percentage of trans people have had bottom surgery, and I see a bit about contracted vaginas that say that sometimes sexually a trans woman with bottom surgery can experience sex and orgasm like a cis woman. I don't see anything similar about transmen with bottom surgery- that the constructed dick will not function like a natural dick. In any case, these are extreme and specific, and I don't think anyone should be discussing their very detailed medical history with people up front like that.

In any case, I don't think anyone is claiming that a trans person should wait until they hook up with someone to reveal what junk they have, especially since that is dangerous. (Right? Or are people claiming this?)

It seems like the argument is over whether or not trans status should be revealed up front on a profile rather than in subsequent exchanges before meeting, and while I'd assume that it's more convenient and less awkward to reveal these things up front, I also assume that people personally experiencing this situation would have more experience and might sometimes prefer to reveal it in the way that Erica suggests, and I think the answer is that there is not a hard and fast rule. Individuals have different styles.

As for the analogy of revealing other deal breaker statuses, like marriage or poly, I really do think this depends on context. If you are going on a date with someone face to face in the hopes to determine if you are compatible and enjoy each other's company, then having sex is a possibility but not the purpose of the immediate date- people might hope to get laid, but it's not the point of the initial encounter. IN this case, I think not revealing that you are trans up front could be dangerous in reality, but in an ideal world, it would be nothing worse than a waste of someone else's time. You should reveal soon before anything physical, but I can understand the point of view that a lot of people may not know what they are open to until they have the possibility of it in front of their face- lots of folks might (without second thought) weed out trans people in the hypothetical that they might not in the flesh. But again, back up here in real life, it's dangerous to advise something like this.

But in terms of hook ups- where the point of meeting someone is explicitly and immediately to fuck- everyone needs to know all about what is going to go down. What junk you have is absolutely immediately relevant and there is no reason not to reveal that in the very first impression. In this way, yes the existence of what junk you have is analogous to other info like your dad bod or whatever else, except that it's far more important.

So I could perhaps see on OKCupid as a dating site arranging communication and/or a first date with someone without revealing trans status- I don't think this is wrong for the transperson though it might be dangerous.

I can't see the same on a hookup site.

For the record, I think it's flipped for marital status. If you are having conversations with the person generally (like a date) you need to tell them right away- beforehand even. If the expectation is to get to know you, even a little, then your marital status is relevant. If you are just arranging an NSA hookup, then you don't have to reveal unless they ask. If the expectation is just to fuck, then they don't need to know anything about you that is not relevant to that sexual encounter.

This is all hypothetical though as I'm not right now seeking sex from new people and back when I was, there really weren't so many visible trans people and I never even thought about dating/hooking up with trans men or my husband dating/ hooking up with trans women. New world- wonder what the kids think. Yasunori's post is the most interesting from a personal experience point of view, and mostly I read that it's no big deal. I wonder how this experience would differ from the view point of a trans woman herself, especially one that passes (as one that does not would not be in a position to need to reveal anyway).

"and I see a bit about contracted vaginas that say that sometimes sexually a trans woman with bottom surgery can experience sex and orgasm like a cis woman."

lol this should say "constructed vaginas"- not talking about vaginal contractions here nor contracts you sign with a vagina.

yasunori @185 - yes, if most people use a site for quick hookups, it makes sense to disclose unexpected genitals and STI status. I was thinking more of dating sites like OKCupid.

@180 LavaGirl: Thank you, and your son for being able to help you download my mp3s. I look forward to your feedback and thoughts.