Hi. I’m a cisgender man, and I’m dating a nonbinary transgender woman. In fact, I’m in love with her. I’ve never even once questioned my love for her.
You know how giddy you get when you think you’ve found “The One?” That’s how I feel pretty much constantly, and have felt since January.
But a lot of other cis folks out there in the world have been questioning my love for her on my behalf, and it’s been… pretty fucking irritating, I gotta say. People have been saying shit like “Trans people should disclose their transness before we start dating” or that somehow sex with a trans person is weird. It’s all culminated in that “comedian” going on that radio show and proudly proclaiming that if he ever found out a woman he’d date is trans, he’d kill them. Because it’s “gay” to date or god forbid fall in love with a trans woman.
Yeah, “great” “joke.”
There’s a lot of stigma around trans people for some stupid fucking reason. A lot of it has to do with folks’ having a view of biology that hasn’t changed since the sixth grade and a view of romance and relationships that hasn’t changed since the 1700s. But that also means that there is a lot of stigma around the kind of relationship that I’m in at this moment, and it means that there is actually significant danger involved in my girlfriend even just searching for a relationship.
Trans people, especially trans women, and especially black and brown trans women, are stuck between a rock and a terrifying hard place when it comes to dating cisgender people. “Trans panic” defenses in an assault or murder trial are admissible in 47 states, last I checked. That’s where, when the partner of a trans person finds out their transness, they flip the fuck out and… well, your imagination works just fine. But on the other hand, y’all want trans people to “disclose” their transness to you up front? Why? Why would they do that, if it could mean state-allowed injury or death in 47 fucking states?
I just… I don’t understand this. I physically do not understand this. I cannot wrap my brain around this.
I fell in love with my girlfriend because she’s a delightful nerd to be around. I like talking to her. I like holding her. Since she’s Deaf, I like learning ASL from her. As someone with a sometimes-awkward relationship to queerness (I’m panromantic asexual), it’s kind of refreshing to be in a sometimes-cringe-inducingly heteronormative* relationship with her. I don’t _have to_ think about queerness all the time, even though we still definitely do because we’re nerds.
I don’t “view her” as a woman. I’m not “pretending” that she’s a woman, and neither is she. That’s what she is.
And she didn’t have to tell me up front.
There is a problem in society with how cis people interact with and talk about trans people. We are, collectively speaking, often openly fucking hostile to them in both word and deed. It’s a pervasive problem, going all the way to the Oval Office and infecting the mind of the man they currently call “President.” How else are we to interpret his tweets, when he calls trans people a “burden” in the context of military service? Do they somehow become less of a burden as civilians in his mind? I doubt it very much. And when the president of the United States shares your shitty worldview, you find yourself empowered to do and say things you might not otherwise do in the context of “civilization.”
Something needs to be done about this problem, and I’ll tell you who needs to do the work to fix it. Here’s a hint: it isn’t trans people. It’s on us. They’re just trying to stay alive.
It’s on us to try and dispel myths about transness. It’s on us to not give leeway to “jokes” that hit their punchline with “murder trans women.” It’s on us to not literally fucking react violently to the existence of trans people when we come into contact with them.
I don’t know where to start with this, but there are some great resources online. I’ll post some here as I come across them.
But I’m not going to apologize for or qualify my love in the meantime. And neither is she.