My intent is not to be defensive, but I’m curious... what surprise are you referring to?

@miffy have you not heard the song Lola by the kinks?

@ArdentAtheist that’s my point. That song was about someone obvious.
No one knows with me, nor with several of my friends. I’m friends with one trans woman who either doesn’t tell her partners at all, or only after many months of sleeping together.
It sounds like your surprise would be based on a deep voice, or discovering that she had a penis, or something like that. Is that right? In which case, what about someone like me? We wouldn’t surprise you in any of those particular ways. The surprise would only occur if you were explicitly told, or somehow ran across the information.

@miffy Thank you for explaining, apologies.

Okay. In that case, why not have a gender axis -- man/woman/transfeminine/transmasculine/nonbinary -- and a history axis trans/cis?

One is identity, the other is simply history.

You seem to assume I am suggesting the removal of the system. I never was. It's better to be able to tell the system you're trans than to not have that option. But there's a significant difference between being trans and identifying as trans.

I'd simply like some way to weed the bigots out, without the implication that my gender is "transwoman" and not "woman".

My preference would be to keep things as they are. It leaves people the option to declare their trans status/history, or simply profile as a man or a woman, as they see fit. If you wish to declare your trans history in your profile or select one of the trans options, then that's entirely up to you.

A direct question, asking you to check a cis, trans or 'not telling' box, is far more invasive. It would expect someone who is living stealth (or simply profiling as a woman on here) to either out themselves or outright lie.

I don't accept that there's any difference between being trans(gender) and identifying as trans(gender.) Since gender is a matter of identity, your sincere sense of who and what you are is the only thing that matters here. No need for gender dysphoria. No need for a desire to transition. Just sufficient time spent mulling the subject over to find out where you fit in. If you declare yourself to be trans, and you are being sincere, then you are trans.

If 'trans' meant 'transsexual', then that would be a different matter. But it doesn't. Though I see plenty of moves afoot to try to appropriate the term to mean 'transsexual' to the exclusion of those who are TG (by the accepted definition) but not TS.

@NicoleCadmium What if 'rather not say' was the DEFAULT option? Edit: or you merged 'cis/rether not say' into one option?

Also, side note, there's a huge difference. There are people in history that identified as, say, trans female but turned out not to be comfortable as female, then detransition -- and turn to be fine with living as cis male. (some of these cases were actual instances of autogynephelia, which I believe is a real thing but very rare...)

There are people who TRY not to be trans, who tell themselves over and over "I have to be male, I'm a male" -- but they can't do it!

So there are people who are trans, but don't accept it (don't IDENTIFY as trans). And there are people who identify, but aren't. Being trans and identifying are two different things. One is hard-wired personality. The other is politics & labels.

Funny how the lines in the sand always land exactly where they suit the people drawing them. I'll clarify what I said earlier: your own sense of your own gender is a matter of identity. Since it's a matter of identity, it's entirely down to how you sincerely identify.

Trans women: How dare you say I'm not a woman! I can really be a woman even though I wasn't born with a vagina.

Also trans women: How dare you consider yourself trans! You can't really be trans unless you have gender dysphoria.

We can either respect each other's sincerely held identities or not. Those who choose not to respect other people's don't get to complain when people choose not to respect theirs. I can accept that there are times when, for the purposes of discussion, it's useful to distinguish between dysphoric and non-dysphoric, but to make that split 'really trans' (born this way) and 'not really trans' (lifestyler/transtrender) as you're doing above, is something I feel deserves to be challenged.

@NicoleCadmium Um... what. I don't get what you're talking about. I'm not drawing any lines here that don't suite nonbinary people, as far as I can see.

As for trans people without gender dysphoria, there may be genuinely something like that. I haven't met anyone like that, but I'm totally fine with accepting their identity.

Seems like you're making a lot of nasty assumptions.

No nasty assumptions at all. You have said that there are people who are trans who don't identify as trans, and people who aren't trans, who do. You've overridden their sincere identity with your own understanding of the word, just as some people do when they won't accept trans women as women, because their definition of 'woman' is 'an adult human who was assigned female at birth.'

That person you're saying is trying so hard to convince themselves they're not trans? If they say they're not trans, they're not trans. Labels generally only become problematic when you start applying them to others in opposition to their sincerely held identities.

It might just be a matter of semantics. I think what you're saying is valid in that there are a multitude of reasons why someone assigned male at birth might want to live in the traditionally female role, either part or full time. But the way you're saying it is problematic. You've made a very clear distinction between 'being' trans and 'identifying as' trans. Since I see sincere identity as the only thing that's relevant, I have to dispute that.

@NicoleCadmium Um... no. There are people out there that stopped considering THEMSELVES trans.

You misunderstood me. And the fact I believe there's a distinction between being trans and identifying as trans doesn't mean I'm going around assuming that people who identify as trans aren't actually trans.

Not as if I'd know better than they know themselves. But I do believe it's possible to be mistaken, at least in theory. Also -- I tried very hard to be cis. it didn't work. This was not a choice for me. I was trans before I ever identified as such. I didn't "become" trans by starting to identify as female. Male identity just wasn't compatible with who I was.

Identifying as trans is a side effect of being trans. If you see it differently, well, we can agree to disagree.

Yup. And those people who stopped considering themselves trans... well they're no longer trans. They've moved on from that label. If that's what works for them, then fair enough.

In all honesty, I have less of a problem with the assertion that there people who are trans who consider themselves not, than I do with the assertion that there are people who are not trans, who consider that they are. But you say precisely both in the last paragraph an earlier post (3rd below my reply to your original.)

It's the argument that transmedicalists (aka 'truscum' use to invalidate trans identities, particularly in people who are genderfluid, genderqueer, bi-gender, or otherwise not showing the degree of commitment (sufficient dysphoria to create a strong impulse to surgically transition) that transmedicalists feel is necessary to qualify as 'trans.' They use this argument to excuse their wilful misgendering of people who aren't up to their standards. It's the good old trans hierarchy in action: "early transition post-op is more trans than late transition post-op is more trans than pre-op is more trans than non-op is more trans than TV is more trans than CD."

While I've come to realise over the last few posts that this isn't what you're trying to do, it wasn't so clear to me earlier in the conversation. But anyway, why can't we just say "Everyone's transgender (in every sense) if they sincerely identify as transgender"? Why does there have to be a distinction between identifying as transgender and being transgender? I can accept it in the case of the word 'transsexual' because sex is tangible. Gender is not, and is purely a matter of identity and the social roles that go with it.

@NicoleCadmium Because there are neurological correlates to identity -- which makes identity an objective question in theory. In practice, we treat it as subjective. But in the far future when it's possible to compare subjective qualia, it will be undeniable that qualia are objective in the sense that they're part of the brain, and the brain has a physical reality that people can observe and agree upon.

@Admin It's a very tricky subject! I was hoping that by opening this thread everyone with strong opinions would explain their identity and how they feel comfortable.

NicoleCadmium for instance is a case I never expected, as I'm someone who simply identifies as binary (female), whereas they seem to have an identity that doesn't fit within the gender binary.

So having transfeminine/transmasculine/nonbinary options may be good, or perhaps being able to simply type your gender into a box it case it's one of these statistically atypical options. (So that you aren't stuck trying to evaluate whether a specific term is mainstream enough to be worthy of inclusion, over and over again...) Anyone who feel strongly enough thus would have the option to have a custom thing in their gender box.

And I suppose you could have the system filter out gender nonconforming people for those not interested. Anyone who uses the box is implying they're somehow gender nonconforming. So I guess that's a good way of dealing with the needs of the bigots and/or people who are simply looking for easy, typical hookups...

As for how the system should deal with the "trans history & circumstance" factor, maybe the site should have a separate question for whether you're trans/cis? Although honestly I'm only interested in using it so my trans homies can find me. No chasers pls. Perhaps this is better modeled as a question for the profile-building interrogation thingy?

Oooor maybe you could just use the current system but have the system ask the trans/cis and female/male questions separately?

These are just the solutions I've come up with off the top of my head, so they may be kinda stupid. This subject is really complicated!

@Admin Well, one approach would be to have two selection bars: one would be gender (e.g. female, male, transmasculine, transfeminnine, nonbinary...)

...and then the other could ask whether you're AFAB (assigned-female-at-birth) or AMAB (assigned-male-at-birth) or just cisgender (in which case, it's assumed you're AFAB if you're female, and you're AMAB if you're male). Of course a "rather not say" option is fine too.

The system can assume anyone who puts in their own gender... or who picks AFAB with a male gender, or AMAB with a female gender -- is gender nonconforming (generally under the umbrella of 'transgender'. Then you can do your internal matching logic on that basis!

Since many people don't know what these terms mean, may be a good idea to put a little question mark with hovertext that explains AMAB/AFAB (would be good for educating people interested in learning about trans issues!)

As for gender question, should be fine to simply have the gender one be "female, male, other" -- and may be good for the "other" thing to let you actually enter your preferred gender so it shows up on your profile -- so it covers all the bases. (I noticed Facebook doing this -- and I think it's the best approach I've seen!)

I think this is what I'd pick as a system, after thinking about it a bit more. Let me know if it seems practical or not.

Addendum: Honestly, to me -- just reflecting on it, it seems really like it might be a bit too much logic to implement for a simple undertone issue.

I think you could achieve a similar effect (and less confusing for cisgender people who aren't aware of trans stuff) just by having one category and labeling it "gender & physical sex at birth" "Trans" implies opposite physical sex at birth. "woman" is the actual gender. Simple.

If that language seems like it might be a bit too confusing to some, let me know! I'm sure I could come up with a few other things!

Addendum 2:
Also, as a side note -- THANK YOU for changing the "transwoman" thing to "trans woman" -- to imply the trans thing is separate from the woman thing. That's a huge improvement (definitely made me more comfortable!) and I really appreciate you putting the effort in to be inclusive! I'm sure everyone does

Oh, definitely! I'm not saying they're doing it to be malicious! I'm actually impressed they thought of trans people at all, since we're such a minority. I just think the wording may need a bit of adjustment for people to be happy.