Independently discovered someone I'm dating is transgendered


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quincyl is offline quincyl Post #1  May 18,2009, 8:36am
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This is my first post to this board, so bear with me.

A couple months ago I met someone on Match.com. We're both college professors in a large city, so we already have a bunch of stuff in common already. We love discussing our students, the tenure process, and what we love doing on our summer/winter breaks. I've seen this woman about half a dozen times or so. Our conversations flow effortlessly.

I wanted to see this woman exclusively, so I tried to learn as much about her as possible from google. She's a scientist, so I could track her publications. The odd thing I found is that beyond a certain year, all her articles were published under a different first name. (For example, and I'm making this up, the woman I know as Jane was publishing under John in her earlier work.) This was odd, so I kept digging and eventually found several pics of her over time. From then to now, those pics revealed she had morphed into a woman, from a man.

Now, the only thing I know for certain is that she's transgendered. I don't know if she's in fact transsexual. Thankfully, we never made it that far!

I called up to discuss this whole thing, and she never took my call. It always went to voice mail. Later she emailed and broke things off with me. She said that the age difference between us was too great -- she's 6 years older. She also said that we had different dating styles in the message. Finally, she said that if there was anything she did to hurt me, then she was truly sorry.

In hindsight, the only thing I can recall that could have given this person away was a statement in her profile..."I am far from being a traditional woman." What the heck does that mean?? The other thing is her voice was somewhat lower than most women, but not abnormally lower.

All of this happened a month ago, but it's really chilled me out on the whole online dating thing. I have no romantic interests in this person. I'm only interested in pursuing (real) women. In many ways I'm somewhat torn. I feel sorry for her because I can only imagine that it's tough meeting single men being transgendered. But at the same time, she outright lied.

What are your thoughts on all of this? How should I proceed? Should I contact Match.com and report this person? How would you react to being put in this situation?
 
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noseyparker is offline noseyparker Post #2  May 18,2009, 8:44am
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Wow! A shocking story, and one which I'm sure your match must have anticipated. I believe it would be useful to mention this to Match.com, if not to out her/his deception, then for Match to consider a classification for transgendered persons. I doubt there are many natural born heterosexual males who would be interested in a LTR with a male turned female and vice versa. I don't know the PC term for this, so pardon me!

(PS I am curious as to how you made the link between Jane and John)
Last edited by noseyparker; May 18,2009 at 9:12am.
 
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quincyl is offline quincyl Post #3  May 18,2009, 8:50am
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noseyparker wrote :
(PS I am curious as to how you made the link between Jane and John)
I looked at the person's publication record. Early in "her" career, the by-line in her papers was "John Smith". Later, it was "Jane Smith." Virtually all faculty have some type of resume posted for their colleagues to view, but hers just had initials in lieu of a first name.
 
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noseyparker is offline noseyparker Post #4  May 18,2009, 9:07am
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I endorse your feeling that this is a deception. Surely 'she' must have expected that someone would discover, especially being a published author. But I believe that many persons initiate communication without considering the effect of their actions on others. At some point, reality hits them and they go 'poof!'. I wonder sometimes, if 'skeletons' like this, might be why some matches suddenly stop communicating with us.

Do you intend to mention this to Match.com?


quincyl wrote :
I looked at the person's publication record. Early in "her" career, the by-line in her papers was "John Smith". Later, it was "Jane Smith." Virtually all faculty have some type of resume posted for their colleagues to view, but hers just had initials in lieu of a first name.
 
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quincyl is offline quincyl Post #5  May 18,2009, 9:16am
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noseyparker wrote :
Do you intend to mention this to Match.com?
I honestly don't know. Still mulling over what I should do. It's all somewhat eerie at the moment...
 
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noseyparker is offline noseyparker Post #6  May 18,2009, 9:26am
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I'm thinking that if you prefer not to out your match, you may make a simple inquiry about their policy on transgendered persons. This may be more prevalent that you imagine. I encountered someone on that same site, some years ago, who I believe may also have been transgendered, based on some of the things 'he' said to me. I'll spare you and other readers the unsavory details of that interaction.

quincyl wrote :
I honestly don't know. Still mulling over what I should do. It's all somewhat eerie at the moment...
 
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DDjr is offline DDjr Post #7  May 18,2009, 9:29am
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I have one hard and fast rule for dating:

I will never date someone that is currently a man, was previously a man or is hoping to be a man in the future. PERIOD.
 
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lucky173 is offline lucky173 Post #8  May 18,2009, 9:31am
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Uhh yeah… odd story.

When you called her to ‘discuss this whole thing’ and she never took your call – did you mention why you were calling?? It seems coincidental that she emailed to break things off with you AND also mentioned about having done something to hurt you – what might that be about if not this particular subject?

It would seem to me that she must have knowledge or awareness of the fact that this information could be relatively easy to discover about her (to those who don’t already know her), considering her profession. And yet, she’s online dating, and involved with you for how long, and never brought it up?

How long ago was the name/photo change that you found? A year ago? 5 years? 10?

This doesn’t seem to me to be necessarily an outright lie; BUT she should have been forthcoming about this, considering the information is easily accessible in the first place.

Would I report this person to match? Hmm, without elaboration here as to my initial back and forth reasoning with myself – yes I think I would feel a bit bad to do so, but I would.

How should you proceed? Aside from ending communication, if that’s what you choose to do, you proceed exactly how you proceed after you end any of ‘couple of months long’ interaction with someone.

How would I react to being put in a similar situation? Hmm.. probably similar to how I react to most situations I find myself in, I take them for what they are at the moment. I force myself to really see them for the truth of them, even if I don’t like the truth of them. I find something positive to take away and hold onto from it, and learn a lesson from the negative of it, it is what it is. Be angry if you’re angry, be sad if you’re sad, shocked if you’re shocked. And hell, you gotta laugh at this one – sorry, but you do! It’s also difficult not to have a little bit of sympathy for her. A TON of appreciation that you learned what you learned when you learned it, be really happy that things like this usually don’t happen twice!
 
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lucky173 is offline lucky173 Post #9  May 18,2009, 9:32am
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noseyparker wrote :
I'm thinking that if you prefer not to out your match, you may make a simple inquiry about their policy on transgendered persons. This may be more prevalent that you imagine. I encountered someone on that same site, some years ago, who I believe may also have been transgendered, based on some of the things 'he' said to me. I'll spare you and other readers the unsavory details of that interaction.

Same here nosey.
 
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BlueEyedLizzie is offline BlueEyedLizzie Post #10  May 18,2009, 9:49am
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Does Match.com have a policy against transgender and transsexual individuals? If they don't there's nothing they can do anyway.

If it makes you feel any better your story is the first I've heard of this kind of thing on pay sites. Usually you find that he's just a jerk or she's stalker crazy. I'm thinking you just got really unlucky.
 
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