i think i was as dismayed as most trans people to find the guardian scraping the culture war barrel ever further last saturday by featuring a classic self-victimising ‘trans widow’ (cis women whose heterosexual partner comes out as trans) narrative in an op ed by phoebe mcdowell. the piece (poorly) attempts to end on an empathetic note, but concluding that ‘our relationship is irreparably destroyed but i’m happy for [new pronoun] in their new life’ felt tired, predictable and not at all representative of my own life experience.
so, i’d like to tell a different story.
it’s a story about a man i’ve known and loved for what’s getting on for most of my adult life. it’s a story about me, and how we’ve grown together in some ways, but stayed absolutely – crucially – the same in others.
it was 2006 and i was a uni student at leeds visiting a friend in york. and, at a stranger’s house party, is when i first met will.we just kind of hit it off. we had some amazing drunken chats about theatre, culture, british comedy. i found him fascinating and sort of debonair in a rumpled-tweed-jacket sort of way.
over the next couple of years, we kept in touch via msn messenger (yes, we’re old). i’d fancied men before, but had never entirely understood my true feelings. i’d tried doing things with men as drunken fumbles at parties. i’d kissed men. sometimes a bit more. they were always gay men but i didn’t really feel very gay myself. i just felt like me, and i knew that was absolutely cool – to just be me. i just wasn’t entirely sure who ‘me’ was. sometimes i got the sense i was meant to be something else entirely, but i didn’t honestly know what.
i tried to style out all the ickiness i had about my body by trying my hardest to degender my appearance. to pacify what i didn’t even recognise as dysphoria by doing what i could.
by the time i was studying my post grad, i’d been thinking a bit more about why i didn’t really know myself. part of me always thought i probably ‘should have’ been born a girl. i knew what trans people were, but i thought (or wanted to think?) that the whole idea of a gender binary was a really regressive mindset, and i fought the idea of it. it seemed a bit ridiculous to me. i avoided mirrors, i wore a lot of black, i tried to style out all the ickiness i had about my body by trying my hardest to degender my appearance. to pacify what i didn’t even recognise as dysphoria by doing what i could.
besides, i was very career-focused. i wanted to go to london and do some work experience. by this stage, will – who was three years older than me – was well-established there and doing well. i wanted to know everything about the city and what i’d find there, and i wanted to learn it from his angle, because we got on and i cared what he thought.
it felt right, and it felt important and i had that feeling that i fitted into him perfectly.
for hours, we talked and talked about his exotic-sounding london life. one day, i was passing through the city to attend a conference and we met up. i remember the night before worrying so much about how i wanted to look when he saw me, and i didn’t know why. i had all these feelings about how i wanted to look. strong, yet vulnerable. smart, but innocent. someone he’d respect, but want to care for.
i didn’t even really smoke, but when he arrived at the coffee shop we were meeting at, there i was lounging against the wall, with a marlborough light in my mouth. trying to look cool. arty. nonchalant.
we spoke about all the rubbish we still enjoy wittering about to this day: blackadder quotes, how many plays we’d seen jane horrocks in, how every single tv show julia davis makes is an undercelebrated piece of genius. we ended up in a bar. we kissed. went back to his. and we had sex. i’d had sex with men before by this point, but not like this. at all.
and the lingering memory i still have is how we fell asleep with me as the little spoon, snuggled into his arms, him protecting me from… i don’t know. but it felt right, and it felt important and i had that feeling that i fitted into him perfectly.
he hadn’t let on to me, but as a straight-identifying man who had only ever had interest in – and relationships with – women, he had never even come close to expecting to take me home that night.
you’re probably picking up all the gendered clichés here. will dismantling my determined attempts to be androgynous, me realising ‘i was the girl’ because of how he treated me and how he made me feel. but at the time, they were just feelings. i wasn’t ticking lists of femme things and experiences i wanted done to me. i wasn’t thinking of gender politics or expressions. being with him just felt right. i remember thinking, fleetingly, that maybe i was falling in love, and i just decided to enjoy that.
although, it turned out maybe it was only me who was enjoying it. after we’d said goodbye the next morning, i didn’t hear from will for three months.
one day, after i’d pretty much given up on him and stopped wondering what i’d done wrong, i got an email from him. it was a long email, and it explained how sorry he was, and how it took a minor medical emergency and time in hospital to make him realise that life was actually for living and he couldn’t waste time worrying about things like sexuality or who he should or shouldn’t love.
the morning after our first time, he had been terrified.
he hadn’t let on to me, but as a straight-identifying man who had only ever had interest in – and relationships with – women, he had never even come close to expecting to take me home that night.
so had i misread all the signals before our meeting? how we riffed off each other, loved the same things, cared for each other. no, he said. he felt the same about everything. he just hadn’t really thought what it all meant until things got physical that night.
but he was sorry. and he didn’t want to lose me.
i’d taken a job on the south coast by then, and i wasn’t very far away from him. so we decided to go for it. to become a thing. so we did – we were will and deadname, the couple, and it was lovely.
to will, i was apparently kind-of-a-girl. no matter how i looked or presented. he saw that. and if he saw it, why was i insisting to myself i wasn’t?
all our friends treated us like we were gay. we tried the gay scene, we did our best, but it didn’t seem to chime. i still wasn’t drawn to gay men, and he wasn’t drawn to men at all. we could tell our friends didn’t quite understand our vibe either. one day i said to will: “i know you’re not gay. i know we’re not gay as the thing we are. but surely you must like men because you’re with me?”
he looked really grave and he said, “i don’t see you as a man. not in any way. if anything, i think i see you as a woman. and i know that’s a really weird thing to say, and i’m sorry, but it’s how i feel. i’m not gay. i wouldn’t mind if i was, but i just don’t see you as a man, so being gay doesn’t feel relevant. but also, i don’t have to see you as anything particularly – you’re you. and i l love you.”
he just thought he was being nice in his considered, logical way, but it hit me like a force eight gale of realisation, because i knew exactly what he meant. maybe even better than he did. i didn’t see myself as a man either, and never had. but i’d never really thought of myself as much more than an awkward, disaffected male who hated my reflection.
but to will, i was apparently kind-of-a-girl. no matter how i looked or presented. he saw that. and if he saw it, why was i insisting to myself i wasn’t?
once i’d stopped crying, i asked him if we could work on this. together. like a project. would he be there for me while i tried to figure out if maybe i was a girl and what he saw, and i felt, was true? to figure out if my christian upbringing, or my fear, or even some latent homophobia i may need to work on, or whatever thing i was processing, was holding me back?
transitioning whilst in a relationship can hold many complexities and have several outcomes, but i reject the narrative that a transition is a death to be mourned, or an impasse, or the tragic, instant full stop on a life together.
we decided to use our love for food and restaurants as the starting point for me to present as a woman. i found it fun occasionally being given the ‘woman’s’ menu with no prices on it, or being given my coat back before will. it was artifice and roleplay – but that’s dining.
dinners shifted to weekends away, which became week-long and even fortnightly holidays. our sandbox project was just growing bigger and bigger. it was like a ripple from the centre, as we told close friends, less close friends, our parents, and finally i broke the news to my professional community that yes, i was a woman.
years had passed, and my transition had been seamless. i was lucky to have by my side one incredible man who saw the woman inside me, in many ways before i did, and was happy to step out with me. anytime, anywhere. long before hormones or laser treatment, when i was making all the bad fashion choices and suffering the wardrobe malfunctions of any trans woman starting out.
he took his time and he held my hand and supported me through the weird bits, whilst waiting patiently for the great bits; the family christmases, the work party +1 invitations, my body starting to more closely resemble what it should, and the joy we both felt from my new confidence in that body. the unification of all the broken up, disparate parts of my existence as they slowly came together.
the union of my life, before… just over ten years in, i’m sending off my gender recognition certificate to finally unify both our lives.
the formalised marriage of the man and woman we are is going to happen. it’s going to be the party of the century (with all the best food), and i can’t wait.
transitioning whilst in a relationship can hold many complexities and have several outcomes, but i reject the narrative that a transition is a death to be mourned, or an impasse, or the tragic, instant full stop on a life together. i don’t and cannot see it that way.
i am blessed to have witnessed the beautiful way a partner can look at a transition: sitting calmly and rigidly in the eye of the storm, gritting their teeth, and trusting me to know who i was and how i would grow.
a transition is a journey from one state to another, and will jumped feet-first into that journey, and never, ever let go of my hand.
and i’m never letting go of his.
all names in this article have been changed for confidentiality reasons