Tell Me About It

Something seldom mentioned is trans dating. Let’s face it, the pool of people who want to date trans people isn’t too deep or wide.

Study: Transgender Teens Face Unique Challenges while Dating
Transgender and gender non-conforming adolescents face transphobia, experience abusive relationships and may struggle with the decision to divulge their gender identity throughout their transition.
University of Michigan Health
By Beata Mostafavi
January 20, 2021


For many youth, adolescence is a time for developing self-identity and possibly exploring romantic relationships for the first time.

But young people who are transgender and gender nonconforming face a different set of challenges than peers during these developmental milestones, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that transgender and gender nonconforming teens engage in romantic relationships with youth of many gender identities. They also face transphobia, experience abusive relationships, and struggle with the decision to divulge their gender identity to a potential romantic partner throughout their transition, according to the study in journal Pediatrics.

“Adolescence is a time of physical, emotional and social growth. This includes identity formation, questioning belonging and exploring interpersonal and romantic relationships as young people become more independent,” says lead author and pediatric endocrinologist Adrian Araya, M.D., who conducted the study while at Michigan Medicine C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and is currently at Akron Children’s Hospital.

“We wanted to better understand these experiences for transgender, gender diverse, and gender nonconforming individuals who navigate developmental milestones in the context of their transgender identity.”

And I think that it is even harder the older you become.

Transphobia and abuse from cis-gender and LGBTQ peers, however, sometimes hampered romantic pursuits.

Participants described transphobic experiences both online and in person, including derisive comments on transgender identity, as well as having accounts blocked and sometimes banned due to their preferred name not matching their legal name.

“The risk of transphobia in romantic relationships impacts the approach that transgender adolescents take toward romance and influences decisions of identity disclosure,” Araya says. “The fear of rejection can dissuade them from sharing their gender identity with peers.”

I once had to do training for a Domestic Violence shelter, they were taking in a trans woman who was beaten who was running from an abusive relationship. In Massachusetts they couldn’t find a DV shelter to take her in, so they sent her to a DV shelter here in Connecticut.

Navigating Romance When You’re Transgender
American Academy of Pediatrics
By Rachel Y. Moon, MD
January 19, 2021


[...]
I was thus excited to read a study (10.1542/peds.2020-007906) by Dr. Adrian Araya and colleagues at Michigan Medicine (which is early released by Pediatrics this week), in which they conducted qualitative interviews with 30 adolescents who were transgender, gender diverse, and gender nonconforming (15-20 years of age) to learn about how these youth experience romantic relationships.

Important themes that emerged from these interviews include:

Most had experienced romantic relationships – these occurred before, during, and after medical/social transitioning. These relationships could be with partners who were cisgender, transgender, or gender nonconforming.
They find romantic partners through school, work, mutual friends, organizations, and through social networking and dating apps, but describe the dating pool as limited.
They often are confronted with transphobia within the LGBT community, and this makes disclosure of gender identity challenging.
Some describe emotional or sexual abuse within relationships.
Gender affirming hormone treatment is viewed as having a positive effect on romantic health; they gain increased self-confidence and comfort with their own body.

The article notes that the subjects were…

...recruited from a pediatric and adolescent gender services clinic that requires parental support for enrollment. The romantic experiences of these adolescents may be very different from the experiences of those who do not have parental support or who are not receiving gender health services.

I have always thought that love was like lightning, you never when or where it will strike.

I have only dated once since I transitioned. I had known her for awhile, she came to hear me talk at panel discussion at the Legislative Office Building and we dated for a couple months but it didn’t work out.

When a trans women date a person there are server factors that come into play. The first is how well the trans person can integrate in to society, if you are like me and can be identified as trans it is going to be a lot harder on them. We are used to the stares, the giggling, and the disrespect, they are not.

The other thing are the “Tranny Chasers” who want to date trans women who haven’t had Gender Confirming Surgery but then drop us when we have GCS.

The deck is stacked against us.