Partners

When I do cultural competency training one of my slide about the hardships that we face has a bullet that says “Attacking friends of the target.” In other words we are not the only ones who face harassment and discrimination our partners or those who we hangout with also face discrimination.

I just came across this article from last year about partners of trans people.

It's time for the partners of transgender people to come out
The Daily Dot
By Thomas Matt
August 10, 2015

#LoveWins, right? That is the victory cry of the marriage equality ruling. But please excuse the bitterness of those of us who know that, for now, that is not true. As a cisgender man who is attracted to trans women, I would like to know when our love will win. With the recent marriage Supreme Court ruling, as many prematurely declare victory and move their protest signs from the streets to the archives, trans women and the men who love them are still seeing their love lose. We have just witnessed our chances of love get dealt another painful blow.

Yet another “scandal” has erupted about the “embarrassment” of a famous cisgender man caught with a trans woman. The rapper Tyga recently had his alleged text messages leaked, which indicate that he was having relations with a trans woman named Mia Isabella. This story was intended to shame and embarrass Tyga, who has denied the affair.
[…]
Janet Mock, a journalist and writer who has written about the problem of shaming trans relationships, recalled the Mr. Cee “scandal” on her show, So Popular!:

It did little to unpack the harmful misconceptions that continue to plague men who desire trans women, a conversation that I do feel these men—who desire the bodies of trans women—need to be having amongst themselves and with their communities. I am not invested in defending or making excuses for the millions of men who desire trans women's bodies in secret, either on the Web, via affairs and flings or through sex work. I am invested in what this public shaming does to the women who are kept in the dark, who are made to feel that they are unworthy of love and acknowledgement, who are made to feel as though they are only deserving of ridicule, harassment, and violence.

Mock is absolutely right that it is my community that needs to organize, self-educate and start treating trans women better. There are no excuses. The problem is that most men who date trans women keep their relationships a secret. They fear losing the privilege that they have for being cisgender and male if they start to openly love trans women.

Not only is it difficult to find someone who loves you but it is also hard to find someone who is willing to go out in public with you. This is especially true if you do not integrate that good into society.

I know a number of trans women who are dating and some of them their partners do not want to be seen in public with them. While others will go out with trans people as long as it is not near where they live or work.