Quote from: Jessica Merriman on March 13, 2014, 09:09:03 PM
I just think about a topic like this ending up on a cis site where trans people are called "losers", "deceivers" or "dime a dozen" because we think we have a pass on not disclosing our true selves. I can see this from a flip side of the coin. It can breed contempt for us and further complicate OUR lives as well if they think we are ALL trying to hide ourselves and intentionally deceive. This will not do us any good in the long run and keep us where we are now. I am just trying to see this issue from both sides. How are we ever going to get people to accept and trust us with this issue out there. Just food for thought, no judgment intended. 
If one judges from ->-bleeped-<-, which is probably the most popular general online forum, then people are reasonably understanding of non-disclosure, even for pre-ops actually. Because 1. it's a privacy issue, and 2. transwomen are women, pre-op or post-op, and it's the sex partner's prejudice that causes them not to be perceived that way, and one shouldn't condone prejudice. So the only reason for a lot of people to suggest disclosure is for safety reasons.
For the record, I agree that full disclosure is *ideal* politically (it educates people), but I don't think it's unethical not to disclose to someone who you don't consider an important part of your life. People don't disclose possible disqualifiers about them all the time. It doesn't hurt anyone or ruin anyone's life to sleep with a transwoman once or a few times.
I think there might be some idealism here form people who haven't extensively lived this experience. I was *really* out for a few years in grad school, and it was *really* exhausting to have to answer all these questions when you just want to have sex with someone. It's really not sexy. Sometimes you just want to have fun, casual sex and it really ruins the mood to be talking about all this heavy stuff. For better or for worse, I haven't managed to integrate "By the way I'm trans" into my seduction routine.

So yes, I'm having sex tomorrow with someone I haven't disclosed to and it's going to be awesome and fun (we've done it before so I know that). I don't feel dishonest about it because he can't tell the difference, and his only reason to potentially reject me would be him being transphobic. We might get more emotionally involved and at that point I'll tell him. But for now we're just having fun and I don't feel an obligation to tell him.