Being pre-op I will defer to those who are farther along in their journey than I am, but IMHO the issue is not the same. If one has to actually tell an SO they are a CD then it may be because (a) they are at that moment presenting as male and at some point they will be en femme, and at that time they feel that their SO will think this bears explanation or (b) they are presenting as female and when the dress comes off they will probably be asked for an explanation as to why there are boy parts underneath the dress.
In other words, in whatever mode they present they are not generally presenting full time, and I could see where the CD herself would feel compelled to offer some disclosure. And for the SO, if she sees that she is dating a man she may be surprised to see he has a feminine aspect to his character that she had not bargained for. This, as well as society's difficulty with gender variance, may cause a problem. But with a trans woman what you see is what you get (remember, we're talking about post-op here), and there is no changing presentations between boy mode and girl mode.
Having had SRS means that she lives as a woman, all the time and that it all looks like it should, all the time. That's the whole point of SRS - to align body image and soul image to ease gender dissonance. Having to explain something that would only be generally discovered by a gynecologist sort of defeats the purpose of being able to live your life as your true gender. If you have to constantly explain that which is gone and in the past then how are you to live your life fully?
Put this in natal woman terms. What woman would tolerate being told she MUST divulge things about her past that have no bearing on her important relationships? If she quit smoking, flunked college, had a bad relationship with someone, a failed business, overcame drug addiction - all in the past, let's move forward. She may choose to discuss it if she believes that the relationship will be helped by the information, but if not then why burden someone else with something that's been overcome? And either way, that is her choice, not anyone else's.
The theme we keep coming back to is the presence or absence of primary sex characteristics. The secondary ones (bodily changes brought on by hormones) are no different than those of natal women. The tertiary ones (wardrobe and grooming) are also equal to that of natal women. There is absolutely no difference!
So the sticking point seems to be the primary sex characteristics (natural vagina and reproductive system). If a natal woman was meeting someone who wanted to start a family her hysterectomy would be an issue, unless the man was willing to adopt children. But that would be something discussed if the relationship got serious, not at the outset. And does a woman (natal or trans) really need to say anything more than "I can't have children. How do you feel about adoption?"
To state that a woman (natal or trans) is being dishonest by not discussing things like that early on, or until (or unless) it was necessary - or even at all - is simply narrow-minded, arrogant and cruel, and the criteria that's been used in this thread to justify that viewpoint have been transphobic and cissesxist.
