(I deleted this post by mistake, this is a copy retrieved from Google Cache. Unfortunately I lost the comments that came with the post, sorry commenters!)
An acquaintance of mine surprised me a few months ago, she disappeared off to London to have her GRS. Why a surprise? She'd never said anything about her medical history and I'd never asked her, so from her demeanour I just assumed she'd transitioned much longer ago than in fact she had.
Good luck to her, as far as I am aware her recovery has gone very well.
There is a significant group of transwomen though who leave you in no doubt by referring to their GRS in practically their first breath on meeting you. Whether they are fresh off the plane from Thailand or twenty years down the line, it's their only opening topic of conversation.
I have to say, I find this to be rather wearing. It's Too Much Information, I simply don't want to know unless the conversation turns to GRS independently, in which case it's valuable to have another first-hand view. If I meet a woman it's usually safe for me to assume she has a vagina by myself, nothing needs to be said, it's unimportant. Natal women don't tell you they have a vagina on first meeting, at least if they are not the kind of natal woman who stands on street corners wearing little more than their underwear.
I wonder sometimes whether I'm not reading the situation properly. On many such occasions the chances are I'm presenting as the scruffy bloke, so am I in fact being propositioned? After all, why else would a woman want to remind a bloke she has a (presumably available) vagina on first meeting? I was always very poor at picking up on such cues when I was younger, so maybe nothing seems to have changed. Since I'm happily married and in general the people who tell me they have a vagina are not my type anyway, perhaps I should prepare answers that let these ladies down gently while making it clear that I'm not available for sex.
Sometimes though the conversation descends into the farcical. One such lady felt it necessary to inform me unprompted that she experienced ejaculation, something of which she seemed inordinately proud. I felt that saying "Why what a coincidence, so do I!" would not be appropriate under the circumstances.
ReplyDeleteRight, having made an idiot of myself deleting this post, I've scoured my email for the comments.
Jess said:
You are a wicked lady, with a incisive wit.... ;)
Shirley Anne said:
Can't say the same thing has happened to me. Usually people divulge that sort of information out of necessity or it just cvomes up in the conversation.
Shirley Anne x
Stace said:
I had someone at the clinic, who I had never met before, inform me that she can still come!
I'll be honest I had no idea what to say, I think I went with 'Err, good...'
Sometimes there is definitely too much information!
Stace
I said:
As long as it's incisive not shining :)
I think I get this because as someone presenting as male while mtf trans they think I will be impressed by it. Sigh.
Dru said:
I've encountered the phenomenon, too; fannliness worn as a badge of status, rather than with the hope that it will bring all the boys to the yard (presumably, but let's not go there anyway). I guess that with the lumpen fascination with operative status (I walked past a bunch of teenagers the other week, who were lounging on the pavement working hard at being annoying, and I caught a snatch of conversation "...pre-op transsexual" -could it be me they were talking about, I wondered for a mo, but no, it wasn't..... ) -with all that, some folk are a bit Stockholm Syndromey about it all. Or something.
"I felt that saying "Why what a coincidence, so do I!" would not be appropriate under the circumstances. "
ReplyDeleteIt might not have been but the thought did make me chuckle.
Its seen as the winning move in the game of trans top trumps even if the other persons not playing.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience an invite to the party zone hasn't yet begun with the other person talking about their lady garden but maybe i'm not up to date with current rituals or perhaps its an Oxfordshire thing :-)