the ethicyst

What Other Personal Details Must Queers Disclose Before ‘Cultivating Romance’?

New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen didn’t mean to say, or imply, or intimate, or even possibly plant in the back of your subconscious the notion he thinks transgender people should reveal their Big Secret on the first date.

“[T]he particular details of each couple will affect this decision,” he writes in a response to some original concerns over his advice for an Orthodox Jewish single who found herself set up with a FTM fella. “But my job — the point of the column — is to suggest a general approach to such questions.”

Okay, but Randy still talked about how he might “panic” from oversharing on the first date — an idea the trans community deals with on a daily basis — and threw the revelation of one’s transgender identity in the same column as the revelation of carrying STDs. If we’re going down this road, then I must insist all gay men with micro-penises reveal their condition before “partners cultivate romance,” and all lesbian women who don’t trim their cho-cha do the same.

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