Trans of Thought: The Dating Game

I’ve never been very good at dating. In fact, you might say I am downright awful at it. I just never learned to do it when other people did. When I was a young teenager, I was inhibited by the fact that there was a lot of shame wrapped up in my interest in girls. Of course, not in the same way a typical lesbian would experience it, because there was none of the taboo of same-sex attraction. However, I found it incredibly confusing to process the fact that, not only did I have the strong drive to be with a girl, I also had an equally strong desire to BE her.

Here was something not even hinted at in my grade school human sexuality class. There was a great gaping chasm of missing information if you were anything except cisgender and heterosexual. I don’t recall if I even knew about transgender people back then, but I do remember an intense curiosity to know what it was like to grow curves. It was also around this time I started to make a habit of “borrowing” clothes from my sisters, trying them on in my locked room and pretending I was the female version of me.

Needless to say, I was wracked with guilt over my behavior, and in the absence of any sort of competing explanation other than that I was sick or perverted, it remained a secret. Dating a girl was thus a tricky proposition, because it would only have been a matter of time before she found out my secret. So I didn’t date, or even kiss a girl, all throughout my teens, which stunted my social development. It wouldn’t be until I was 21 that I finally kissed a girl, had sex and went on a date. It happened in that order too and with the same girl. I ended up marrying her.

Many years later, after my divorce, I found myself back out in the dating pool with scant knowledge about how to play the mating game. Dating for any middle-age divorcée is not easy, but in my case it was additionally complicated by the fact that I was now a transgender woman who hadn’t had “the” surgery and now identified as a lesbian. Besides the fact that I hadn’t had a female adolescence where I would have learned the basic ins-and-outs of womanhood, I was soon to find out that having male genitalia, or even formerly having them, would limit my dating.

I think it is safe to say transgender people of just about any age or variety have a tougher time finding an accepting partner. Coming out for us is a continual process, even once we have self-identified our orientation. I cannot simply enjoy dating other women, carefree in the knowledge that all my LGBT cards are on the table. I know that at some point I will have the nervous task of telling my new prospective partner that I am also transgender. I also know that if don’t tell them, you can be sure that someone else will.

I’m often asked by cisgender friends at what point do I reveal that I am transgender. The answer is: sometimes never. Everyone handles this differently, but if there won’t be a second date, there is no point to telling her. At best, it would invite all sorts of highly personal questions that could quickly devolve into Transgender 101, complete with an explanation of the state of my genitals. At worst, it could get violent. For straight transwomen dating cisgender men, the stakes are higher, as coming out too often leads to death. Indeed, some of the earliest advice I got was to come out in a public space for the sake of safety.

For all the perils, I am one of the lucky ones with a choice to come out and that has made my dating pool wider. The difficulty for a transgender person without that choice is significant. All the regular avenues, from the brutal picture-based dating apps to a friend setup, would present challenges in finding acceptance based on gender identity as opposed to physical appearance. Most people I know have trouble making that leap. Perhaps not coincidentally, most trangender people I know are single.

Despite my good fortune, I am transgender and that is still seen as a dating “gotcha.” I once had a lesbian tell me she couldn’t set me up with a friend because it could end her friendship. I also once had a lover’s phone light up on the nightstand with a message from her best friend saying, “Did you know Maia is transgender!” The thing is, I just want to be loved for who I am and not rejected for who I was. Isn’t that what we all want?

Melody Maia Monet is a photographer at Southern Nights in Orlando and a singer with the band Mad Transit. She can be reached at monet@alumni.princeton.edu.