The "Ethical Imperative" Of Disclosure, or: How To Believe Your Victim Owes You An Opportunity For Abuse
March 20, 2012 at 9:00 am Natalie Reed
http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/03/20/the-ethical-imperative-of-disclosure-or-how-to-believe-your-victim-owes-you-an-opportunity-for-abuse/Another sad and tired cliché of the trans discourse. Another offensive question that cis people consistently ask us so as to assert their privilege. Another way they seize control of the discourse to subtly remind us who's boss. Something I've been skirting the edges of for quite a while but haven't yet dealt with directly.
Ahhh, "It's Unethical To Not Disclose", at last we meet. This battle has long been our destiny.
*activates lightsaber- FWOOOMSHzzzz-*
For those who aren't clear, the ethics-of-disclosure thing is the argument that a trans woman (and yeah, it's pretty much always framed as a trans woman because women, under normative sexual dynamics, are regarded as the object of pursuit and men the pursuers and sexual agents) is ethically obliged to inform a potential partner of her trans status (or "true gender", as the conversation is often framed) prior to sexual intimacy, and that to do otherwise is deceitful and immoral, perhaps "deserving of punishment".
This argument is so compelling to cisgender sensibilities that it is not only used as a means of informally justifying both hypothetical and actual violence, hatred or abuse against trans women, but has even successfully been used as a legal defense for murder.
