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My SO might be trans and I'm scared

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by Brandiac, Jul 5, 2020.

  1. Brandiac

    Regular Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Central Europe
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Some people
    Hi, this is the post that made me think of EC again and come back after many years to share advice and help again. Throughout this post I will refer to my SO as "he" because I have asked on multiple occasions whether he has any feelings of dysphoria and the answer has always been a firm no every time, and that I shouldn't use she yet for a long time, but he has also expressed some uncertainty about the exact details, and how a new name might be needed once, or how he would eventually have sex with me as a girl in the future.
    Also, I'm very kindly asking everyone reading this to give me the benefit of the doubt if I appear to write something "controversial" or seemingly this or that-phobic. I don't mean it that way but I have to express what I feel about the situation or else you won't understand it and be able to reflect on it with the right knowledge in mind.

    But let's start by giving you some background. I used to be on this forum, and I used to be alone. Very much alone. I came here hoping to meet someone nice close to my area. I got a nice temporary friendship out of that, and luck has it that now we work at the same company, but this is not about him. I just had to mention that I'm not a newcomer to EC at all.

    I'm slowly closing in on turning 25 this year, I'm a guy and I've been bi since I came to that conclusion around 16. Remember that two-letter orientation because it will be important. I have been in a relationship for almost 4 years now, and we moved in together in January of 2019. I live very far from any relatives there, so I basically have him and our friends as a "family". In fact our closest two friends (my SO's longtime friend and colleague, and his girlfriend) live right in the next building from us, so it's easy to meet up. I met my SO in 2016 when we both visited an anime convention, but funnily enough we weren't there for the anime at all, because many other subcultes also represented themselves there. I actually almost gave up then and went home. It was my last go-to to hopefully find someone by going to places based on my hobbies. I was persuaded to stay by an organizer of a local sub-meetup and that's how I had a chance to bump into a guy similarly nerdy as myself. We hit it off instantly, shared a ton of our creative works with eachother, and within a month we both lost our virginity together. I was very happy about that because we had a chance to "figure it out" together. But looking back at that time, damn, we were really bad at it, especially me being able to relax myself. I would go back for the oxytocin, but not for the inexperienced sex haha.

    Fast-forward through about 3 years, during which we had like a 85% positive and 15% negative experience I would say (of course, no relationship is without imperfection). The pink cloud has died down, I feel that our long-term goals and generally being a "good team" (I like to remind myself of this) will keep carrying our life together. Our compatibility and lives ahead have ensured that things can keep up even with the early infatuation fading (it's just hormones, what can you do). One time we were playing games with the above mentioned two friends, somehow the topic shifted over to transgender issues, and I expressed that I had talked to a few trans people before either online or in person, and found them really nice and friendly, and I totally stand for their rights and becoming who they were always meant to be, but I could likely not feel sexual attraction to them.

    My SO went for days denying every kind of approach by me. He has had a history of getting angry with me for expressing myself honestly and critically about stuff and then threatening to "go home" or not talk to me for the rest of the day during the first 2 years of our relationship. But this one went on for many days, and I eventually gave in and asked him to sit down and talk because I can not be expected to read his mind and figure out what is wrong. He told me that I hate trans people, and he can't understand why. I just did not get it, I did not get what part of me showing support for trans people and then adding that bit about not really being sexually attracted to them meant that I "hate" trans people. By this logic all gay men should hate women, which is equally ridiculous. But then, I asked why this was so important in the first place.

    He expressed feelings of uncertainty about gender, and possibly being trans. Like I said in the intro, this is not fully figured out at all, but he already knew and seems to be centered around having female breasts, and also not wanting to fully transition, so I would say only have top surgery if anything. So then it made sense, I offended him because of personal involvement and concern. I'm actually not writing down anything I didn't say to him then, but somehow he got it into his mind that I was basically pansexual, I don't know how. I have always been bi, and that would restrict me to being sexually excited by "cis bodies" or I don't know how to put that into words any better. Perhaps our definitions of bisexuality are not aligned? I'm not sure. But I told him that I could not guarantee what would happen if he goes through with this. I would fully support him, but nobody can tell if "I will be sexually attracted to the end result". It's just how I work. I have tried this out with porn and got underwhelming or alarming results even... butts never disappoint me, I'm bi for a reason, but otherwise it didn't do a whole lot. He's also become very active in these circles and I feel like I'm being drawn around by the flow and I can't do much about it. He's very enthusiastic about everyday LGBTQ issues, and I just kinda want to get by peacefully by comparison, so I think I'm disappointing him by not being similarly enthused.

    A bit more than half a year has passed since then, we've had the corona lockdown of course, and I have been growing increasingly aware of the fact that I can't know for sure, but I might be "sitting on a time bomb". As things stand, we are still waiting two more years to leave our home country, and head for one better suited to do our thing and realize who we are. I have bad feelings that I might be using him by not just cutting ties. But how could I? Like I said, I don't know how I will react to the transition, which he said he would only start thinking about in the target country. If I just said "ok, I can't be sure I will still be able to love you in every way when you do that, we should go our separate ways now", I would cause both of us to not be able to escape from this increasingly fascist country nearly as quickly, and I would also cause him to be delayed with any transition plans. And also, I don't want to throw away our rich past, and whatever that would otherwise lie ahead, like creating our own game company together, traveling around the world from our new home, getting into investments, making new friends and visiting them, and marriage even!

    I love him, and I like to think that the fact that I'm willing to stay and help him achieve his wish of becoming a she (or just get boobs, again, it is uncertain), even if that might not be good for me is a testament to that. It is not evil, it is exactly how a parent should support their LGBTQ kid, isn't it? Even if that kid suddenly does not meet their expectations. The difference here is of course the existence of a sexual aspect.

    Combine all of the above with the fact that I have been struggling with my sexual roles lately. I'm a switch, sex is just sex for me, whichever part I take in it, but I am almost exclusively a bottom in our relationship. I have become very experienced at it, there is basically zero pain, but my top part wants to do more. I want to experience being able to let go of my bullying and fat shame-induced hangups. I have a very superego-controlled sexuality, which is always being monitored and never allowed to exist in it pure form and I want to explore it as the instinct that it is. I see my SO as an attractive and "fitting" top, even if I'm not always in the mood for all the dommyness, I like it overall. But when he's the bottom, on those rare occasions, I do not want to be bossed around, I do not want to be told to take an angle that is not that comfortable. I will always keep his well-being in mind, so don't go there and think that I want to ignore that. But I need to stay focused the way I know I can stay focused. Otherwise I'm easy to distract and "get out of action".

    I know what kind of remedy some of you might be thinking about. We are in a special semi-open relationship. The exact meaning of this is that we don't go and have sex with others randomly. We are closed, except for a threesome, or some other formation that ensures we are both there and partaking. We've had I think three occasions like this throughout the 4 years, so it's not exactly a common pastime but it worked, and never caused relationship issues. So that might be a path I could ask both of us to try to take more often, but it's not easy. I would avoid complete strangers because I hate that we never stayed in close contact with any of the "guests" and to me, this is basically just like taking other friends with us to see a movie or hang out. Every once in a while, something we do alone is also fun with friends.

    So what I would like your help on is all of those concerns and issues explained in the above. I'm scared that it will come to a painful decision one day. I hope I won't have to make that decision, but if I do, I hope I can do it without creating pain. It will have been worth it with all these years behind us if we will both have grown, which I can certainly say yes to without even having to think about it. Am I evil by trying to run online for help like this? Am I using him? Am I perhaps a "transphobe"? Please, gain my trust by not attacking me like many activists attack people for their attractions or non-attractions. If EC is not the place where I can say that I am bisexual and I would be happy to be friends with trans people (in fact I kind of am with a musician) but I would not want to have sex with them post-transition, then what is? I can't help it that I'm attracted to x type of body, and that I need to be attracted to both the body and the mind to wake up ol' woody. Is that bad?

    Thank you, and I can't thank you enough for having read all this, let alone if you decide to answer.
     
  2. Aspen

    Advisor Full Member

    Joined:
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    Let me ask you a question: You love your boyfriend. You’re sexually attracted to him now. How can you say, without a doubt, that you won’t be attracted to him post-transition? Making judgment calls based on a few acquaintances and porn isn’t a fair basis. If a bisexual woman only liked to watch lesbian porn and felt uncomfortable watching porn with cis men in it, that wouldn’t make her a lesbian.

    Being bisexual does not mean only being attracted to cis bodies. It doesn’t and suggesting that every bisexual isn’t attracted to trans people is, in fact, transphobic. It’s also a terrible bisexual stereotype and a cause of a lot of biphobia so please don’t state it as a fact.

    The truth is, being trans aside, you can never really know how your relationship will evolve. Your partner can change in other ways—gaining weight, losing weight, changing their hair, developing new interests, evolving as a person—and you can’t know how that will change how you feel about them. I’d also like to point out that you don’t know when or if they intend to transition and what that will look like.

    I think you need to talk to him—both about how he’s feeling about his gender identity, his eventual plans for transition, and how you feel about sex now—and then you need to listen. Not argue. Listen. The fact that you’re looking to leave the country together is an added complication and something to talk about if you realize the relationship isn’t going to work. Are your plans something that you could still do as friends?

    Let’s look at this from a different perspective for a second. You’re worried about breaking up with your boyfriend because you don’t want to realize one day you’re not attracted to him anymore because he’s transitioning. What about him? If you genuinely believe that you can’t love and support him through this, then he deserves someone who can. He deserves someone that will support him in the decisions he makes for his gender identity, and not make him feel like he can’t do those things because he might lose them. Can you be that person?