Even before the new year started I knew I wanted to meet more trans people.
I wanted to meet more people in general, of course, especially people my age. But I especially wanted to meet fellow trans people. I felt that was a social experience I was missing out on, especially after recent milestones in my transition. I had trans friends online, sure, but not so many in person. I wanted connection, community, people to share the more intimate aspects of my journey with. I’m very happy to have found them.
T4T connection takes so many unique and beautiful forms… but I have to say, the sex is amazing.
Sleeping with someone who shares the same complicated and sometimes fraught relationship to their body, as you do to yours, eases a lot of the tension you might otherwise feel at the prospect of explaining yourself to someone who hasn’t lived that experience. There’s a mutual recognition of that delicacy, a trust that cushions the vulnerability inherent to sharing your body with someone. Especially when your body is a work in progress.
I’ve had flirtations with people who at the time identified themselves as cis men, and there was an element of distance introduced by how they didn’t really understand me. Sometimes, despite their best efforts, a cis (or yet-to-be-realized trans) person just doesn’t get it. Or sometimes they might dismiss your gender as an accessory, something trivial, something they can change or ignore.
I’ve had potential sexual partners who behaved in some combination of the above ways. One struggled to understand gender at all and on some level decided I was a woman. Another thought I was a man and referred to me as such, saying “Oh, you know what I meant” when I corrected them. They generally acted as though I was being pedantic by asserting myself.
It’s a real turnoff to be denied self-determination based on what someone assumed was in your pants when they first saw you.
The first time I approached intimacy with another trans person I faced none of these issues. We each already had the social context for the other’s identity and shared mutual respect for and understanding of the ways in which we move through the world. We knew how we’d like to be treated. We were on the same page at the start, and neither of us had to invest time and energy into flipping the other to that page ourselves.
Transness is aptly named. The latin root “trans-” means across or beyond. Transition. Transcendence. A body in motion. Going somewhere means you’re leaving something behind.
Some people would desire me as who I’ve been over who I am or who I’m becoming. That’s a losing game.
Here I am, moving and changing, becoming, gaining the clarity and agency I need to define myself with every step. Here we are inventing ourselves, learning to love our bodies by loving each other. Trans love is spitfire. If the world won’t love you, I will. If you don’t see your beauty, I will. This journey will last us the rest of our lives. and tThere are those who would put us in the ground even for trying, but that only means that our every breath or smile or kiss is rebellion.
I wish I knew how to share this joy with cis people too. But some experiences are too inherent to their own nature, aside from groups who experience similar struggles for bodily autonomy and comfort. But to others, to feel it would mean being changed. It would be transcending.
Like me. I am a creature in motion.
It follows, then, that I would want someone who can keep up.
Not to say that one can’t or shouldn’t form meaningful romantic or sexual connections with cis people. Some people are more informed and respectful than others, and it is absolutely possible to find someone you click with even if you are from very different walks of life. But if you’re trans and looking for a bit of advice, try meeting more trans people. Community is built on connection. I don’t know what will happen to us in the coming years. But I do know we need to be there for each other, as friends, lovers, teachers, advocates, and most importantly as people. I’m proud of us. Let’s keep on living.
