Kimberly Taylor (a pseudonym) shares how, since her transition, she has gone through a journey of exploring love as a trans woman and how that process has shaped her perception of herself.
About five years into my transition, and with a fondness for using Tinder (…and Facebook Dating, Bumble, OKCupid, and even Grindr), I’ve had a wide range of dating experiences with all kinds of men. If you’ve ever heard of ladyboy escorts, YES!, I’m one of them.
Sometimes I look back and think of my romantic life like a video game. The first avatar I used, which was male, made me play in easy mode. The romantic life of a teenager who identified as gay had its own complications, but switching my avatar to female was like entering survival mode.
As I progressed through the game, I unlocked relationships, had to dodge rivals, and collected gold coins along the way. Before leveling up, I faced antagonists who didn’t want me to move on to the next level.
Playing in Easy Mode?
To explain what it feels like to date men as a transgender woman, I need to go back 10 years, when I was 15. My avatar was a tall, skinny metal-music fan with feminine mannerisms who identified as gay. Sometimes everything felt contradictory, starting with my relationship to the word “gay.”
I knew I liked men. I also knew that, to others, I was a man, so that meant I was gay. There was a problem: the men I liked didn’t like men. And the men who liked me weren’t interested in me.
This didn’t mean I only liked men. At the same time that the label “gay” was spinning around in my head, I knew that women were also attracted to me. I even tried having girlfriends and behaving like what I saw as the ideal boyfriend, imitating masculinity (anyone who talked to me for five minutes could tell it was just an act).
Those relationships with women, which ended almost as soon as they began, made me realize that my problem was that I didn’t want to be seen as a man in those relationships. So I suppressed that attraction and relied on a homophobic stereotype: being the “woman” in the relationship.
While the gay men around me had already started questioning the false nature of that category in their relationships and its offensive implications, I felt comfortable being recognized as feminine because I was “less masculine” than my partner. My escape was the stereotype.
My First Love
Let’s jump two years ahead to my last relationship as a man, using the words I had for myself at that time.
I truly fell in love with Albert (also a pseudonym), my first love, who initially had no problem with my femininity. But he was the one who pushed me forward by saying, “Sometimes I feel like I’m not with a man when I’m with you.” And I realized it wasn’t just me who felt it—other people noticed it too.
More or less, and that’s a story for another time, he supported me during my transition. But it took me away from the body he liked, and besides, he didn’t want to have a girlfriend because he was a gay man.
We broke up, and that’s how that level ended. Then I moved on to another level: heterosexual men, and that was reinforced by my everyday needs. They like shemale escorts, and of course I had a chance of being liked.
Switching to Survival Mode
Most of the men I met through dating apps fell into two categories: those who had never been with a trans woman but were curious, and those who were specifically looking for trans women.
I got used to feeling that my partners were ashamed of being with me, and that it was normal. Sometimes that dynamic evolved into: “Yes, I want to be with you, but if I don’t have a girlfriend people will get suspicious, so I’ll have a public girlfriend and meet you secretly to cover it up.” And of course, I agreed!
In my mind, I was lucky to have a man who wanted to be with me, even if only partially, because I believed I was undesirable for being trans. Realizing that I couldn’t offer the same ease in dating that cis women could brought feelings of guilt, which led me to conclude that I only deserved relationships like that.
The next step was meeting men who I later learned were called “chasers” in the community: those who seek out trans women… based on a fetish. In the middle of my transition, feeling much more confident about my appearance and realizing how toxic my previous relationships had been, I met them.
These men had no problem being seen with me at a bar, weren’t afraid to meet my friends, and weren’t afraid to hold my hand in the street—but they wanted me in a body with features that had long existed in their fantasies.
So, What’s Next?
It happened by chance. What happens when you’re not looking for anything. Opportunities that come when you least expect them.
I feel like I’ve only just begun to truly become a complete person, because I finally understand the combination of commands I need to play. Continuing the video-game metaphor: it feels like when you finish a game and can start it again, but now with all the tools you gained after completing it.
Together with myself as I am.
The standards have been raised. I’m still learning what questions to ask to identify red flags, but I no longer feel like I’m starting from zero. I’ve learned to distinguish when someone is with me for who I am from when they are with me because of my characteristics.
I’ve learned to accept the way others love, but that doesn’t mean settling for crumbs. I’ve also learned to prevent dysphoria from ruining my enjoyment, and to experience my body in the present, not based on what I wish it might become in the future.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that whoever loves me will love me completely. He will love trans people, because I love myself as a trans person.
