Transgender help.

theoretica

I can see that it matters whether she is legally a woman from the point of view of if you have a legal stick to wave. However it won't affect how people feel about her.

You say yourself that you were shocked and imply it took a while to come to terms with it. These older women will have had their opinions formed decades ago when prejudice (on the basis of race, gender, age...) was socially accceptable and this may be the first transgender person they have knowingly come across. They may well be shocked and feel out of their depth. I suggest that you tell your partner, but together aim to help these women come to terms with it. The guidance from the WI headquarters may be useful, but hopefully talking it over, as you came here to do, will help them too.

moneyistooshorttomention

purpleshoes wrote: »

Did you think your lesbian friend was going to jump your bones?

Your post reads as narrow minded from start to finish sorry to say.

If I were "narrow-minded" I wouldn't have had a transsexual or a lesbian for a friend, despite being heterosexual female myself.

I wouldn't book a male friend into a shared room with myself - just in case he started getting "tempted", so I treated the lesbian friend exactly the same way. Actually, too, I was pretty attractive when I was younger. Middle-aged "fade into the furniture" these days, but it wasn't always so.:) I did get quite a few unwanted "passes" made at me.

I would guess that, to most of us, we just "get on with it" and accept the sex of body we were born into?? I may be wrong there. I can certainly recall a point (must of been at some point whilst I was a teenager?) where it struck me quite clearly that I had got the body of one particular sex and what attitude was I going to take to that point. I decided I wasn't unduly bothered which sex body I had and that there were advantages and disadvantages to both (basically "I might get discriminated against for salary" v. "The Government is less likely to try and get me involved in any war they decide to fight") and decided it didn't really matter which sex body I had and I would just try and take advantage of the advantages of being a woman and minimise the disadvantages of being a woman iyswim. I presume its the hormones that accompany having a female body being all "very conventionally lined-up and fully working" that equals "Whew...that's okay then, its the opposite sex I'm attracted to". If it hadn't been the opposite sex, then I'd probably have thought "Darn it. Will ignore hormones and forget about the whole sex issue then. It aint that important" and got on with my life.

Maybe some other peoples hormones or something have a "stronger pull" on them?? That's a genuine thought there..as personally I've found it pretty easy to ensure I myself was the one that made my own decisions in life (ie rather than my body dictating them to me iyswim).

Somerset

HPoirot wrote: »

It would vitiate their constitution which more likely than not offers membership to women only - not men, not girls, not boys.

Exactly, it's the WI. The way I read the OP was that they happily accepted the partner as a woman, so no issue's there. The problem arose when the partner became a man again for the purpose of the funeral. You can't really chop and change your sex according to needs of <insert occasion>. I appreciate why it was done but I can also understand the misgivings of the WI.

notanewuser

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I wouldn't book a male friend into a shared room with myself - just in case he started getting "tempted", so I treated the lesbian friend exactly the same way. Actually, too, I was pretty attractive when I was younger. Middle-aged "fade into the furniture" these days, but it wasn't always so.:) I did get quite a few unwanted "passes" made at me.

Unbelievable.

Bean83

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

If I were "narrow-minded" I wouldn't have had a transsexual or a lesbian for a friend, despite being heterosexual female myself.

I wouldn't book a male friend into a shared room with myself - just in case he started getting "tempted", so I treated the lesbian friend exactly the same way. Actually, too, I was pretty attractive when I was younger. Middle-aged "fade into the furniture" these days, but it wasn't always so.:) I did get quite a few unwanted "passes" made at me.

I would guess that, to most of us, we just "get on with it" and accept the sex of body we were born into?? I may be wrong there. I can certainly recall a point (must of been at some point whilst I was a teenager?) where it struck me quite clearly that I had got the body of one particular sex and what attitude was I going to take to that point. I decided I wasn't unduly bothered which sex body I had and that there were advantages and disadvantages to both (basically "I might get discriminated against for salary" v. "The Government is less likely to try and get me involved in any war they decide to fight") and decided it didn't really matter which sex body I had and I would just try and take advantage of the advantages of being a woman and minimise the disadvantages of being a woman iyswim. I presume its the hormones that accompany having a female body being all "very conventionally lined-up and fully working" that equals "Whew...that's okay then, its the opposite sex I'm attracted to". If it hadn't been the opposite sex, then I'd probably have thought "Darn it. Will ignore hormones and forget about the whole sex issue then. It aint that important" and got on with my life.

Maybe some other peoples hormones or something have a "stronger pull" on them?? That's a genuine thought there..as personally I've found it pretty easy to ensure I myself was the one that made my own decisions in life (ie rather than my body dictating them to me iyswim).

Are you kidding me?! Have a read back through what you just wrote - either you're making some sort of sick joke, or you actually are the most prejudiced person on the planet. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I really don't think I am) but I think you just implied that lesbians are sex-crazed and will jump on any woman they see (and especially you apparently) and that gay people are gay because they can't control their hormones.... Never read such ignorant twaddle in all my life.

Tropez

Bean83 wrote: »

Are you kidding me?! Have a read back through what you just wrote - either you're making some sort of sick joke, or you actually are the most prejudiced person on the planet. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I really don't think I am) but I think you just implied that lesbians are sex-crazed and will jump on any woman they see (and especially you apparently) and that gay people are gay because they can't control their hormones.... Never read such ignorant twaddle in all my life.

To be fair, I don't think she's prejudiced or necessarily ignorant, I just think she's guilty of very poor phrasing.

What she appears to mean is that just like she wouldn't share a bedroom with a man because it would be outside her comfort zone (understandable, a lot of women wouldn't room share with men) sharing with a gay female would also be out of her comfort zone. Now, yes, of course, it's actually quite silly - but then it is also quite silly to think that all men would want to jump the bones of a woman they shared a room with (I've shared beds with women I have no interest in!). I think there's actually a kinda strange equality to what she's saying but she just isn't making her point very well.

Errata

HPoirot wrote: »

It would vitiate their constitution which more likely than not offers membership to women only - not men, not girls, not boys.

.

It's all a bit rum because now the WI ladies don't know if the person is going to turn up dressed as Henrietta or Henry.

BrassicWoman

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I feel very sorry for people who marry a member of the opposite sex and THEN find out that...whoops...they aren't actually iyswim.

Yes, that's exactly how it happens. "Whoops." Like coming home with ice cream when you meant to buy cake.

I would suggest you read some LGBTQ information to help you phrase things more appropriately. Because what you are writing here is very offensive.

summerspring

Tropez wrote: »

I don't know. I worked with a transgendered woman for several years. Never suspected anything or gave it any thought. She looked like a woman, sounded like a woman, dressed as a woman. Only know about it now because she actually told me before she left.

They say it's the hands that give them away. A former male can put make-up on, grow his hair, take hormones to grow breasts, have 'the operation', but changing a man's hands is pretty difficult, unless he is born with small feminine hands to start with.

I remember the transsexual on Big Brother a few years ago. I don't think most of the housemates knew, though one or two of them did comment on how strong 'she' was and one jokingly asked if she was a man. I think the viewers all saw her as a woman, I know I did.

summerspring

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I feel very sorry for people who marry a member of the opposite sex and THEN find out that...whoops...they aren't actually iyswim. To me, my mind struggles as to why someone would stay with someone who regards themselves as a different sex to what the spouse "signed up to", as I certainly wouldn't and would think "I married a man...so if they aren't a man any more...then..oh well...divorce it is then".

You have been very very forgiving to stay with someone who turned out to be a different sex to what you "signed up to".

Strange things happen in life.. Someone I knew married a man who turned out to be gay, and he left her for another man! OK not quite as extreme as him changing into a woman, but it still caused her a lot of embarrassment, I think.

It's all very well saying other people should be accepting and p.c. about these things but in the real world people do gossip, laugh, joke and make comments.