Transgenderism and Rape-By-Deception

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BornInMarch

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Imagine you meet somebody who looks like a woman and who you think is biologically a woman. You talk to this person, hit it off, and eventually get married. Then later on, after you’ve gotten married and slept with this person you discover that this person is transgendered, is biologically a man, and has been keeping this secret from you the whole time. Would you care, and if so would your reaction to this new information be negative?

If you are like most people than you would care and would have negative feelings, but don’t expect sympathy from the transgender community or from liberals in general because both groups have large numbers of people who think your hypothetical spouse did nothing wrong. If you look up “should transgender people out themselves to potential romantic & sexual partners” there is a large number of people who argued that they should not, that potential partners don’t have a right to information that might influence their decision, and that they shouldn’t even mind.

Am I the only one who thinks this is very unethical? Sex isn’t a right, convincing someone to sleep with you by use of deception (which includes withholding or otherwise hiding information that might cause them to reject you) is rape, and most reasonable people would consider the biological sex of their potential partner to be relevant information. I would certainly feel raped if a transgender person gained my consent/hand in marriage by pretending to be cisgendered/normal, but legally I wouldn’t be able to successfully claim rape or even emotional distress. Am I the only one who thinks this is madness?
 
I couldn’t really imagine this happening. I couldn’t imagine them being trans would never come up until the two individuals were married. Firstly because I don’t imagine that many trans people are trying to pursue a chaste life, but mainly because I don’t see why a trans person would want to marry someone who had an issue with trans people. It’s an almost transphobic scenario, in that it separates the trans person from any actual human motives. In this scenario the trans person is just evil and is trying to trick the good cisgender person into marrying them, for some insidious reason.

I don’t see how it’s rape to deceive someone into sleeping with you. I know guys who consider it acceptable and “cool” to lie to women to impress them so they can pick them up at clubs. It’s a really common aspect of that kind of pick up artistry. That doesn’t make it okay, but it certainly isn’t rape. In fact, it’s considered quite acceptable in the straight dating world for men to lie to women or at least to embellish aspects of their life or personality to get what they want. Again, though, this is a case where a fictional trans boogeyman is created totally separated from any human motives - why would a trans person lie to a potential sexual partner about their genitals when they would have to find out eventually anyway?
 
BornInMarch said:
Am I the only one who thinks this is very unethical? Sex isn’t a right, convincing someone to sleep with you by use of deception (which includes withholding or otherwise hiding information that might cause them to reject you) is rape, and most reasonable people would consider the biological sex of their potential partner to be relevant information. I would certainly feel raped if a transgender person gained my consent/hand in marriage by pretending to be cisgendered/normal, but legally I wouldn’t be able to successfully claim rape or even emotional distress. Am I the only one who thinks this is madness?
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I’d call it unethical, yes, but I wouldn’t call it rape. I am uneasy about the whole concept of “rape by deception”, and agree with Regular Atheist that if everyone who lies in order to convince somebody into having sex is a rapist, that would be a whole lot of rapists running around out there, and not all of them would be men, either.

I do recall one court case involving “rape by deception” that resulted in a conviction, but that involved a man who would call his victims on the phone pretending to be their boyfriends and convincing them to follow a quasi-S+M scenario by lying on their beds blindfolded and keeping the door open for him, then he would come and have sex with them.

However, most of the time, people are not dependent on actually looking at their sex partner, to know who it is, and more importantly, who it is not. Hopefully most people here can understand why.

So, I’m sure for many of this man’s victims, the experience would be, they were expecting to have sex with Man A, only to suddenly find themselves having sex with Man B. I also recall the defense for the man claimed that all of the alleged victims knew they were NOT actually having sex with their boyfriends, and so there was no rape involved.

I also recall a CAF topic that dragged on for weeks, about a man who found out his wife lied about her sexual past, and he agonized over whether his marriage was valid, and he stated emphatically that he would NOT have married his wife knowing the information. But he never accused his wife of being a rapist, no one even brought up the idea.

And while I also tend to agree with Regular Atheist this scenario would be quite rare, it is sadly NOT rare for closeted homosexuals to get married, and deceive their spouses, not about their sexual identities, but about their sexual orientation. Are they all rapists, too?
 
I have heard about a story of this from Brazil. I am not sure of the authenticity, but I saw it recently.

It is a good question you bring up. Will that be considered rape-by-deception.

But you do not have to go so far as to marriage. What about one night stands? When the other person finds out latter? Would that be rape-by-deception?

Very interesting concept.
 
rock022 said:
I have heard about a story of this from Brazil. I am not sure of the authenticity, but I saw it recently.

It is a good question you bring up. Will that be considered rape-by-deception.

But you do not have to go so far as to marriage. What about one night stands? When the other person finds out latter? Would that be rape-by-deception?

Very interesting concept.
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I’m glad somebody here doesn’t think my concern is dumb.

I mentioned marriage because many on this forum tend to oppose pre-marital sex, but you are right that one night stands should also be considered in the question about consent.
 
Bonnie said:
He felt “assaulted,” not “assuaged.” Either way, something sounds off about this story.
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You know I meant to say assualted; everybody makes typos and this forum only allows us to edit posts for a certain amount of time.

To the main point, what sounds wrong about the man’s story?
 
BornInMarch said:
Imagine you meet somebody who looks like a woman and who you think is biologically a woman. You talk to this person, hit it off, and eventually get married. Then later on, after you’ve gotten married and slept with this person you discover that this person is transgendered, is biologically a man, and has been keeping this secret from you the whole time. Would you care, and if so would your reaction to this new information be negative?
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Or a man. I sincerely hope that before one gets married that something happened in the bedroom but if the person did wait okay. If my potential mate didn’t want me to know they were trans that is up to them. I would feel hurt for not being told sooner, because they felt the need to hide it from me, but I would accept them and love them all the same.

I
f you are like most people than you would care and would have negative feelings, but don’t expect sympathy from the transgender community or from liberals in general because both groups have large numbers of people who think your hypothetical spouse did nothing wrong. If you look up “should transgender people out themselves to potential romantic & sexual partners” there is a large number of people who argued that they should not, that potential partners don’t have a right to information that might influence their decision, and that they shouldn’t even mind.
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The partner didn’t do anything wrong. It is their privacy on their bodies. They are the ones who decide whom to tell. Again I would feel hurt that they felt they needed to hide but I would love them all the same.
Am I the only one who thinks this is very unethical? Sex isn’t a right, convincing someone to sleep with you by use of deception (which includes withholding or otherwise hiding information that might cause them to reject you) is rape, and most reasonable people would consider the biological sex of their potential partner to be relevant information. I would certainly feel raped if a transgender person gained my consent/hand in marriage by pretending to be cisgendered/normal, but legally I wouldn’t be able to successfully claim rape or even emotional distress. Am I the only one who thinks this is madness?
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How does ethics get into it? I also don’t think you understand what rape is. Did you consent to sex? Did they? If yes to both it isn’t rape. I guess I am not most people because the person is what matters not what is between their legs. Again that isn’t rape.
 
OP, I’m not saying it isn’t wrong to lie to people to convince them to have sex with you and/or marry you.

But, I’m wary of calling it “rape”, because we already have a tendency to call a lot of things “rape” that aren’t. As I type this, here’s a Moral Theology topic asking if gossip is “spiritual rape”. There’s a post in Non Catholic Religions about ex-Catholics that actually equates poor cathechesis to priests raping boys, and claims "People leave because they were intellectually, morally and physically raped by the leadership. "

And in the secular world, many gamers will brag “oh yeah, I totally raped him” to simply mean, they defeated their opponent in some overwhelming way. Some also will say “I got totally raped” to simply mean, “I got cheated”.

If we just keep expanding what “rape” means the word will become meaningless. And then you wind up with people questioning the whole concept. Or differentiating “real rape” or “legitimate rape” from the other types.

Now, last I checked, lying to people is sinful anyway. It’s also wrong to lie to people to convince them to, say, invest in your business, or contribute to your charity. I’m not sure I’d call someone who does that a “thief”, though. Just a liar.
 
The Crying Game (1992 film — 25 years ago!) saw this coming… deceptive, confusing, but it’s not rape.
 
Regular_Atheist said:
I couldn’t really imagine this happening. I couldn’t imagine them being trans would never come up until the two individuals were married. Firstly because I don’t imagine that many trans people are trying to pursue a chaste life, but mainly because I don’t see why a trans person would want to marry someone who had an issue with trans people. It’s an almost transphobic scenario, in that it separates the trans person from any actual human motives. In this scenario the trans person is just evil and is trying to trick the good cisgender person into marrying them, for some insidious reason.
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I would generally agree that this would be a non-issue, but I’ve honest to God argued with trans individuals who said that their hypothetical spouse had no such right to their “medical history.” Not even to disclose prior to marriage that they were sterile, let alone that they were trans.

I don’t mean to paint with a broad brush. Before my coming back to Catholicism I was quite liberal and was quite dumbfounded to find this attitude. Other trans individuals I knew denounced it, too. But it’s out there, and I’ve seen others (“cis” individuals) defend it.
 
Beryllos said:
The Crying Game (1992 film — 25 years ago!) saw this coming… deceptive, confusing, but it’s not rape.
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Also recall it being played for a joke in the original Beverly Hills 90210; Steve, who was portrayed mostly as the stupid sex-crazed kid (or at least, the MOST stupid sex-crazed kid even when compared to others on the show), tries to pick up a woman at a gas station, who turns out to be transgender. But it was obvious that the audience was supposed to laugh at Steve and how stupid he was.

I also recall the stage play “M. Butterfly” about a Frenchman who falls for a Chinese male “female impersonator”. But I’m not sure if this “female impersonator” was truly “transgender” or just playing a role. As in the context of traditional Chinese drama, that forbade females from performing, so all the female roles were played by men. This is also the case for Kabuki theater in Japan.

Certainly, some of those men who played female roles were also gay, or at least moonlighted as male prostitutes for men (and you don’t actually have to be gay to do that), but not all of them. Maybe some of them truly were transgendered but I doubt most of them were. Especially since many such actors would marry, have children, and eventually pass on the role to a son.

Only males acting, was also the case for Elizabethan theater, including Shakespeare, and AFAIK there was no male prostitution angle there, though certainly many of his works such as the sonnets have homoerotic elements. Though it does provide an interesting context for his comedies that feature women posing as men; the audience would actually be viewing male actors pretending to be women pretending to be men.

I’ve even heard that in some productions of As You Like It, when the male actor playing Rosalind recited “her” monologue at the end, he would remove his wig and reveal his true sex to cap off the comedy.

Wesrock, I’m not sure the idea that a spouse has no right to know about your sexual history is a specifically Trans concept. I’ve certainly seen my share of comments from straight cis posters that “past sexual history is completely irrelevant to the success of a marriage, and it’s none of your business what someone did in the past”.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
Also recall it being played for a joke in the original Beverly Hills 90210; Steve, who was portrayed mostly as the stupid sex-crazed kid (or at least, the MOST stupid sex-crazed kid even when compared to others on the show), tries to pick up a woman at a gas station, who turns out to be transgender. But it was obvious that the audience was supposed to laugh at Steve and how stupid he was.

I also recall the stage play “M. Butterfly” about a Frenchman who falls for a Chinese male “female impersonator”. But I’m not sure if this “female impersonator” was truly “transgender” or just playing a role. As in the context of traditional Chinese drama, that forbade females from performing, so all the female roles were played by men. This is also the case for Kabuki theater in Japan.

Certainly, some of those men who played female roles were also gay, or at least moonlighted as male prostitutes for men (and you don’t actually have to be gay to do that), but not all of them. Maybe some of them truly were transgendered but I doubt most of them were. Especially since many such actors would marry, have children, and eventually pass on the role to a son.

Only males acting, was also the case for Elizabethan theater, including Shakespeare, and AFAIK there was no male prostitution angle there, though certainly many of his works such as the sonnets have homoerotic elements. Though it does provide an interesting context for his comedies that feature women posing as men; the audience would actually be viewing male actors pretending to be women pretending to be men.

I’ve even heard that in some productions of As You Like It, when the male actor playing Rosalind recited “her” monologue at the end, he would remove his wig and reveal his true sex to cap off the comedy.
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Thanks for that historical perspective. Indeed, Shakespeare goes way back!
Wesrock, I’m not sure the idea that a spouse has no right to know about your sexual history is a specifically Trans concept. I’ve certainly seen my share of comments from straight cis posters that “past sexual history is completely irrelevant to the success of a marriage, and it’s none of your business what someone did in the past”.
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This also came to mind in connection with keeping secrets from willing sexual partners. Secrets, white lies, and deceptions abound, and I don’t see that as being on the same legal footing as consent or lack thereof.
 
NM505StKate said:
Or a man. I sincerely hope that before one gets married that something happened in the bedroom but if the person did wait okay. If my potential mate didn’t want me to know they were trans that is up to them. I would feel hurt for not being told sooner, because they felt the need to hide it from me, but I would accept them and love them all the same.

I

The partner didn’t do anything wrong. It is their privacy on their bodies. They are the ones who decide whom to tell. Again I would feel hurt that they felt they needed to hide but I would love them all the same.
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This reveals a very immature understanding of marriage. Take out the issue of transgender for a minute. If I found out that my husband lived a significant portion of his life under a different name and identity and never told me until after we married, I would feel (and be) very betrayed. I would look at him and wonder who he really was, who I married, and what else I don’t know. This would be compounded by the fact that everyone else in his life would have known (parents, siblings, long time friends, etc).

The devastation that would cause is almost unthinkable.
 
BornInMarch said:
Imagine you meet somebody who looks like a woman and who you think is biologically a woman. You talk to this person, hit it off, and eventually get married. Then later on, after you’ve gotten married and slept with this person you discover that this person is transgendered, is biologically a man, and has been keeping this secret from you the whole time.
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Prior to getting married, I had to get an official copy of my baptismal certificate (which, if I recall correctly, would have also recorded on the back the date of my confirmation, and whether or not I had been married previously).

While I know that in some states it is possible to get things like name and gender legally changed on one’s birth certificate, I can’t imagine that that would extend to getting one’s name changed in a church’s sacramental records. While I don’t recall whether or not I also had to get an official copy of my birth certificate, wouldn’t a mismatch between the names on one’s birth certificate and one’s sacramental records raise a flag?
 
BornInMarch said:
To the main point, what sounds wrong about the man’s story?
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The fact they were married for 19 years & he didn’t have a clue. I know a lot of men are pretty clueless about women, but this is well beyond the norm.
 
BornInMarch said:
You know I meant to say assualted; everybody makes typos and this forum only allows us to edit posts for a certain amount of time.
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A typo is like your misspelling of assaulted - we all do that. But assault & assuage are such different words I thought that you thought they meant the same thing.
 
Bonnie said:
The fact they were married for 19 years & he didn’t have a clue. I know a lot of men are pretty clueless about women, but this is well beyond the norm.
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Well you know transgender people try to look like the gender they identify as, and the surgeons who perform their reassignment surgeries try to make them look that way as well. Apart from that there are some women who are female in both biology and identity who still have a masculine physical appearance, so that isn’t an indicator of a woman’s biology either.

Now none of this is deception; they’re trying to make their outside reflect what they honestly believe their inside is. My only concern is when they pretend to be cisgender in order to find a mate who otherwise wouldn’t approve, instead of simply finding somebody who doesn’t mind their biology. Generally if you let me and others live our lives then I’ll let you live yours.
 
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