What do they call him/her now?

There's a guy at my workplace who dresses in women's clothes.

First, I couldnt tell if it was a man or a woman. Until I saw him closer and heard him talk. Now it's obvious it's a man.

Anyway. He wears dresses and skirts and he has boobs too.

Someone I know told me that he knows someone who knows him and apparently he is going through a sex change. He is married with kids and is intending to stay so.

What will the kids call him/her after the sex change has taken place? Can't go from being a daddy to being a mummy surely?

I wonder if it's all very strange for them. Especially for the wife. 

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Comments

  • Yes..  must be a unusual situation for all concerned I suppose...    does he use the male or female toilets...?

     

  • Good point! I've never followed him there. I don't sit at the same side of the office as he does. Maybe I should become a bit of a spy and find out!

  • I think they will call her whatever she wants them to call her.........if a friend or family told me they wanted to be called by a different name I would respect that and make every effort to use the name they want.............

    it does not depend to me what toilets they use.its just respect taht people can be called the name they choose...........

    I'm sure she will have worked out with the family what she wants to be called

  • GertieGertie ✭✭✭

    Someoe I used to work with went through the same thig. 'She' would use the female toilets.

    Everybody was told to consider her female and to treat her accordingly, so I bought her an apron and a cookbook and told her to get back in the kitchen.

     

  • I think he is still a he for now.

    I often think about these people who are willing to go through such extreme operations and changes just to accept themselves.

    I know its about a feeling of being born to a wrong body, but I wonder if in the end its just about accepting yourself and your body for what it is and getting on with it.

    I mean if he/she has the sex change operation, will she then keep having sex with her wife and does that make her a lesbian?

    I mean if you take a person who is neither a man or a woman, who has been born with both sexual organs, what must they go through to accept themselves? Surely they can decide in themselves if they prefer to live their lives as a man or a woman but it doesnt take away the fact that they are both and neither.

    Surely there is a bit of both in all of us.

  • My wife used to work with someone, who was a married woman with kids. She then ran off with another woman and bacame a lesbian, then had a sex change , and became a bloke.

    We always found it a bit confusing, because she was a straight woman, then a gay woman, then a straight bloke! and you wernt allowed to mention anything about it to him/her. image

    Each to there own, i spose, but I hope that at some point they dont think theyve made a huge mistake and wish that they could go back to how they were.

     

  • A friend of a friend is a female to male transexual. It has been a bit awkward a couple of times where my boyfriend has accidentally used the pronoun she instead of he.

  • Elli..........it doesn't matter if they have had the surgery or not........if they wish to be known as female and dress as a female then people should try and respect it and refer to them as she.............as that is obviously what they feel is what they are inside...

  • Elli of the North wrote (see)

    I think he is still a he for now.

    I often think about these people who are willing to go through such extreme operations and changes just to accept themselves.

    I know its about a feeling of being born to a wrong body, but I wonder if in the end its just about accepting yourself and your body for what it is and getting on with it.

    I mean if he/she has the sex change operation, will she then keep having sex with her wife and does that make her a lesbian?

    I mean if you take a person who is neither a man or a woman, who has been born with both sexual organs, what must they go through to accept themselves? Surely they can decide in themselves if they prefer to live their lives as a man or a woman but it doesnt take away the fact that they are both and neither.

    Surely there is a bit of both in all of us.

     

    So who defines whether he's male or female, does he or do you?  Who's better qualified?

  • Thanks Seren, you said a polite version of what's boiling over with me.   I don't think a thread has made me quite so angry in a very long time.

  • Elli of the North wrote (see)

    I know its about a feeling of being born to a wrong body, but I wonder if in the end its just about accepting yourself and your body for what it is and getting on with it.

    Wanting to live in a different sex is a bit more than being unhappy with your height/ shape of your nose or anything different. I can't imagine anyone who makes the decision to come out and do this hasn't gone through a feck of a lot of torment before deciding to make the change.

  • In my language, we dont have a separate word for a third party female/male like you do over here (He/She)

    We only have one and it can mean either a man or a woman. I've always found that confusing over here as I still after 10 years of living here accidentally sometimes say  he about a woman and she about a man. 

    Funnier is that in spoken language we often just refer the third party as IT so I'm nobody to decide...  image
    (i.e.when someone is in the loo,  it is having a shit... And this is no joke) 

    So I always was under the impression that he/she is defined by what you've got in your pants. Other than that I don't think I'm qualified at all to define such matters.

    Anyway. Respect him/her for what he/she is feeling inside, yes agree with that.
    I am just thinking out loud over the internet. No intention to be disrespectful towards anyone. I'm very open minded (sometimes too open minded) and think people should be who they want to be. Partly why I'm interested in what's happening inside people's heads. I can't just go and ask as I dont know him/her.

     

  • Wow! Can we all say "narrow minded bigot"?

    Yes, thought so. And occasionally I wonder why I don't bother looking on RW any more.

    Why would it make any difference at all to you what genitals someone else has, or they choose to do with them? If you're really that curious why not ask the person?

    Fucking pathetic!

    edit: Open minded?? don't make me laugh!

  • How am I narrow minded? Wondering about things that are generally a taboo isnt narrow minded in my opinion.

    Like I mentioned in my post above, how ever third party person is to be referred, isn't really up to me and I'm surely a nobody to decide. And that wasnt the aim of the original post anyway. I think this has side tracked a little bit. If I made a mistake in referring to someone in the wrong way I apologise. 

    I don't quite understand why people have got  such a hostile attitude towards this all of a sudden? Especially when my only intention was to invite people to talk about it. Which is kinda why I started the post in the first place.

     

    Edit: there is a difference in talking about something to try and understand it to talking about something in the aim of being disrispectful.

  • Elli - it's obviously something you struggle to understand and an internet forum is often a great place to pose questions you cannot ask elsewhere.

     

    I agree with respecting the gender that a person feels they are. It's a really tricky situation because many women feel threatened by a 'man' (they identify him as a man because that is what they have been used to) suddenly entering areas which they thought were theirs (toilets or changing rooms).

     

    Should I strip down to undies in front of them?   It would make me feel uncomfortable if I'd known them as a man if I'm honest and not just being politcally correct.

     

     

     

     

  • Even if your second language is English, you come across as literate enough and there's a feck of a lot of difference between having a problem with the female and male pronouns and questioning sex changes. Presumably people in your country aren't walking around acting as 'its' ie neither male or female. . 

     

  • Kwilter, I am not English. This is not my language. We dont have he/she. I'm sorry that I've learned the language incorrect.

     

    F*cking hell cant do anything right, cant say a damn thing the way that people get it. Something I still struggle everyday.

    It's so frustrating. 

    You know what, I leave this thread. Sorry for saying anything at all.

     

     

  • I'm not QUESTIONING sex changes. I'm wondering how it affects in the lives of those who see their partner/parent go through such things and why they feel the need to do it in the first place.

     

    I.e. nowadays such operations are possible. 100 years ago they werent. Surely there would have been people who felt they had born in wrong bodies,  but those days they couldnt have said anything as the society wasnt quite accepting of things like that.  Those people would have had to just get on with it and live with what they were born with.

     

    So I'm not saying anyone entering such operation is doing it half heartedly, I am just wondering if they see it as an option because it's possible. And because it's possible, does it make it easier to make that decision?

     

    But this probably came out wrong as well.

     

     

  • You are not entitled to make any judgement, nor are any of the contributors to this forum.  The HR section of your company should have given you guidance as to the status of this being and appropriate terms of address as and when changes took place.  If you feel that your sense of self worth/human rights have been violated by your companies failure to inform of how to behave in it's/his/hers company then direct your complaint towards them, seeking full financial compensation. imageimageimage

  • Interesting post with lots of interesting comments image Sorry for the long reply.

    Elli, just to clarify something, a person with both male and female genitals has a condition called intersex, its different to transsexuality which is having the physical body of one gender but knowing that you are in fact the other gender.

    For a transsexual its not as simple as accepting yourself and your body and getting on with it. Some transsexuals can do that, for others the pain of being in the wrong body can lead to severe distress and in many cases suicide.

    When people are going through gender reassignment and are living as a female then they will prefer it if people use the correct pronouns, she, her, Miss or even simply their name. Same goes for female to male transsexuals with he, him, Sir etc.

    Most transsexuals will ignore the odd slip up with pronouns because, if they have decided to go through reassignment while continuing to work at the same place that they have been, they know that people will need time to adjust to things. It tends to be more embarassing for the person that makes the slip up when they realise it. Of course its obvious that you are deliberately using the wrong pronouns, name etc. then it feels really offensive.

    What she gets called by her family will depend on the particular family. Some continue to be called Dad, other families come up with another name altogether, some may even agree to them being called some variation of mum.

    The toilet issue is a difficult one but there are lots of possible solutions. It also depends on the feelings of the rest of the female staff. If they are happy for her to use the ladies then it shouldn't be an issue. You're not going to want to do anything that any other female would want to do, use the toilet, tidy up hair and make-up and then get back to work. If there are objections then it could be that its agreed that she only uses the toilet when nobody else is in there and that there is a way to let other female staff know when she is in there. Alternatively, if there are toilets that are purely single occupant then it might be that she uses them. Don't forget, if she was to use the male toilets then it would be just as awkward for any men that might be using them.

    At the end of the day, nobody wants to make anyone feel uncomfortable. All that's wanted is to go into work, do what your paid for, be treated with respect and dignity, and then go home to your family and friends. Basically to do what everyone else does, each and every day, but with the sense that your body and mind actually fit together properly and aren't completely at odds.

    What she is doing is very hard and takes a lot of courage. It can cause immense difficulty with families and friends. Transsexuals can lose family, friends, jobs and homes when they undergo gender reassignment.

    Can you imagine what its like to go out each day not knowing whether its going to be a good day and everybody will treat you as a female or whether you are going to suffer verbal abuse, physical abuse or even worse. Its not something that is done lightly.

     

     

     

  • WombleWomble ✭✭✭
    King Kong, I'm old enough to have worked with at least three transgender people and on no occasion has there been any guidance given out by HR. I think to do so would simply point the finger to make sure the person had even more to deal with.
  • Elli of the North wrote (see)

    I'm not QUESTIONING sex changes. I'm wondering how it affects in the lives of those who see their partner/parent go through such things and why they feel the need to do it in the first place.

     

    I.e. nowadays such operations are possible. 100 years ago they werent. Surely there would have been people who felt they had born in wrong bodies,  but those days they couldnt have said anything as the society wasnt quite accepting of things like that.  Those people would have had to just get on with it and live with what they were born with.

    So I'm not saying anyone entering such operation is doing it half heartedly, I am just wondering if they see it as an option because it's possible. And because it's possible, does it make it easier to make that decision?

     

    Its very stressful on the family and can result in a family falling apart. It can end marriages and relationships if the other person can't deal with it. In fact in the UK, even if the wife/husband in a marriage can deal with it, in order to get a gender recognition certificate, which effectively allows a transsexual to get a new birth certificate in their new gender, then the couple have to get divorced.

    100 years ago people either struggled with it and managed to cope through some means or they ended up killing themselves. Someone that came out and said that they were a woman in a man's body or man in a woman's body would most likely have been thought mad.

    Just because its possible through hormones and surgery to go from being male to female and vice versa doesn't make the decision any easier. Depending on where in the world you live also has an effect as in a lot of countries you wont be able to get treatment at all, in other countries you have to fund all of your treatment privately. In the UK its possible to undergo gender reassignment through the NHS but it requires jumping through a lot of hoops.

  • What excellent respnses there JvR. Very helpful. Elli won't be the only one with questions.

  • Vixx76 wrote (see)

    Well put JvR. image

    Thanks Vixx. Its about the first thread that I've seen in ages that I feel strongly about.

  • At the end of the day he/she has made the decision to go through with this, and a bit of support from their work colleagues would go a long way to helping them fit in. It is the 21st century.

    Live and let live.

  •  

    100 years ago people either struggled with it and managed to cope through some means or they ended up killing themselves. Someone that came out and said that they were a woman in a man's body or man in a woman's body would most likely have been thought mad.

     

    I read an interesting book recently called Colonel Barker's Monsterous Regiment, which tells the (true) story of Valerie Arkell-Smith who spent a large proportion of her life living as a man (during post WW1 years). It is a fairly stange case as she even married a woman who claimed not to know she was not a man.

    The book also describes the stories of a number of women who lived as men around similar times, including at least one who was charged with 'masquerading in male attire'. The book talks more about motives in terms of life being difficult for women and men having more freedoms, but it does make me wonder whether there were some cases where women did feel they were in the wrong body and so tried to simply live as male.

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