What if your partner realizes their gender identity is different from what they thought…

With Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com, Andi Cortland from http://www.LevelUpSex.com and Raj.

Cathy: What do you when you’re in a relationship and one partner decides to transition gender and just expressing themselves differently? I’m Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com. 

Andi: I’m Andi Cortland from http://www.LevelUpSex.com. 

Raj: I’m Raj. I’m just a regular guy who happens to be married to Andi. 

Cathy: I appreciate you guys being willing to share. You’ve just been through this process where you’re learning your self-expression around gender. You’re previously married and in a not- 

Andi: We’re still married. 

Cathy: You’re still … I’m sorry. You’re still married. 

Raj: We try to be for the foreseeable future. 

Cathy: You were married before the gender expression, the changes of your gender expression started appearing. 

Andi: Yes, exactly. 

Cathy: So sorry, yes. Thank you. They are still married. What was the process for you? 

Andi: Well, I moved to San Francisco and I saw a wide world of gender possibilities that I hadn’t seen when I was in Atlanta. All of a sudden, I realized that, “Oh, if I want to play with this, I can.” It actually came when I had a date with a lovely trans-woman, and she was saying to me, “Do you play with gender at all?” I said, “Oh, I can do that?” 

Cathy: I can do that? 

Andi: Exactly. It was exactly that reaction, and then I started thinking about it and I realized, “I want to try that,” so I did. That was a year ago, maybe. It’s come by fast. 

Cathy: Well, yeah, it’s been a year, I guess, yeah. 

Andi: Yeah. 

Cathy: How did it feel for you when Andi started sharing this? 

Raj: This was a surprise but not completely unexpected, because even before she started actively playing with it, she’s never really identified as a very traditional presenting feminine person. I was sort of used to that already, but it was still very interesting because of a lot of questions about where this would go and what this meant for our relationship. It definitely affected our sex life, and a little bit of the way we relate to each other. It was challenging but not entirely unexpected. 

Cathy: The challenge like dealing with each other, it’s hard enough to figure out like you may not fit the cookie cutter expression that you’re taught at birth. Also for you, like here is someone you thought you were going down this one path, and were going someplace very different. 

Raj: Right. 

Cathy: What were the conversations like? What sort of conversation that really helped you as you were going through that? 

Andi: I have one. I realized that I wanted to play with dress and men’s clothes. I signed up for Trunk Club, which is a personal stylist service for men. 

Raj: Can we talk about how it happened? 

Andi: Oh, sure. 

Raj: Yeah. 

Andi: You go ahead. 

Raj: One of the reasons I said this was not a complete surprise is that for the last 3 years she’s been stealing my pants. 

Andi: That’s true. 

Raj: We happened to have the same waist size, in terms of pants, even though the heights are different, but she often, basically, borrowed my pants and folded them up and wore them. Once borrowed, they never came back. 

Cathy: She’s good at borrowing. 

Raj: It was a form of borrowing. One day, we were around, she was getting ready to go to work. We had a friend visiting in the morning. She walks out of the bedroom wearing my absolutely favorite pair of pants. 

Cathy: Oh no. 

Raj: I was like, “Are those my pants, my slacks?” She’s like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “No.” 

Andi: That was the first time he told me no, and then I realized that I had to own up to the fact that I’ve been wearing men’s pants for 3 years and I should really just be a grown up and buy my own. That was terrifying. 

Raj: Yeah, she was like, “If you don’t want me to wear them, can I just get my own?” Like, “Yes, please.” 

Andi: Anyway, so then I signed up to Trunk Club, but then I’m terrified that they’re somehow going to find me out as being an assigned female at birth person. They’re going to say, “You’re a woman. You can’t shop with us.” It’s going to happen- 

Raj: At that time, Trunk Club was only for men. Now they have introduced a female- 

Andi: I don’t want women’s clothes, so Trunk Club for women is not for me. 

Raj: I know, but still. 

Andi: I was terrified that they wouldn’t accept me as a customer. Of course, they did. They were based in Dallas and they did a fine job. I was very impressed. I get all my clothes. I get my trunk, and I’m trying them on. The first time I am wearing men’s clothes from head to toe, I’m in my bedroom. I look in the mirror and I cried, because it feels like for the first time, the person that I’m seeing in the mirror is actually me. In that, I feel a wave of relief, but then after that, I feel terrified because I have two partners and they’re both cis straight men.

Even though I am attracted to men and women and all kinds of other genders, I was really worried. What does this mean for my relationship with Raj? What does this mean for my relationship with my boyfriend? Is this something that they’re not going to want me, and they were not going to be attracted to me anymore because I’ve realized that this clothing presentation worked? I just, I cried and cried. Then I asked him to come hold me and I said, “Do you still want to be married to me. This feels really right and I’m really scared.” 

Raj: My reaction was, “Well yeah, definitely.” I didn’t have a problem with that. For me this was not a surprise, as I say. It was something that I’ve been seeing happening, even though I didn’t necessarily know words for it. My reaction was, “Yeah, of course,” and this is how you wear this. 

Andi: He was really good at helping me with belts and leather shoes and collared shirts and figuring out how to roll cuffs back and button them, all these things that if you were raised male you get, and otherwise you don’t. 

Raj: Yeah. 

Cathy: Wow. I really appreciate your courage. When you find yourself walking out in the world like that is really scary, because now it’s the real you and that can be really scary. 

Andi: It’s terrifying. 

Cathy: Thank you for your courage, and thank you for your generosity Raj. A lot of people would’ve had it much less energy and love to get through this. To see everything change in a relationship, it’s not easy at all. Thank you, and thank you both for being willing to share this so other people might see a window into it and learn from what you’ve got through.

If you have any thoughts or comments you would like to share and your questions please leave them below in the comments section. 

Andi: Thank you. 

Raj: Thanks.

 

More articles on improving your communication and relationship skills:

How Do You Transition Your Relationship?

I Love Her But I Think I’m Losing Her!