That’s why it’s so important for cis people to learn about the trans community in a way that doesn’t ask too much emotional labor from others. So, if you are a cis person who wants to understand more about trans and nonbinary love, stick around.
Also, there are trans people who may fear that living authentically may keep them from finding love they crave. They may have never seen or interacted with a transgender couple in real life, and not know that there is hope for them to love and be loved – maybe even married. This article is for them most of all.
The Trans People we Met
As we set out to meet transgender couples, we wanted to find inspirational stories. However, the most important thing was to find stories that humanized trans love. These trans couples have complex stories that haven’t always been happy or easy. but, all of them have made it through whatever traumas and struggles they have faced to find lasting love with someone who is crazy about them.
Billie and Joe
Despite being assigned male when she was born, Billie knew she was meant to be a girl when still in elementary school. Her friends were all girls, and she loved to play with Barbies and dress up in princess costumes. With the love and advocacy of her mom and dad, she began her transition during adolescence, ultimately having top and bottom surgical procedures.
After college, she went into social work and ended up at a non-profit LGBTQ center, working with trans teens. She met Joe (assigned female when he was born) when they both participated in a round table panel at a local Pride event. “He was stunning,” Billie says. Joe obviously felt the same about her, and they immediately felt the chemistry and connection. Billie asked Joe out on a date and the rest is history!
Joe had also had bottom surgery. So here they were, these two, Billie a transgender woman, and Joe a trans guy. Together they look like any hetero couple. Today they are married, have adopted two kids, and are “living the dream” in their careers and as LGBTQ+ activists.”
Takeaway: This touching story of two trans people demonstrates how involvement and activism can lead to connection and lasting love.
Susan and Sally
Sally and Stuart (Susan) met in college. They shared lots of interests – political activism, writing for the student newspaper, and even the same major – journalism. Throughout those college years, they were almost inseparable, and, yes, they developed a romantic and sexual relationship. As Sally recalls, “We were just the perfect couple. We sailed through college on the same ship, my parents loved him, and his family loved me.
When two people are so compatible, marriage is just a natural next step.” And so, their marriage confirmed their love shortly after graduation and each took jobs with separate newspapers, one at a physical location and one online. Life was good. Over time, they had two children.
About 12 years into their marriage, Stuart (Susan) sat Sally down and told her the truth. He was never comfortable as a man; he knew a long time ago that he was a woman, but bent to the pressures of her family, friends, and, yes, society. So, she lived a lie. At the same time, she told Sally that she deeply loved her and did not want to be with anyone else, ever. She wanted her as her wife forever, but as a woman.
Sally’s first reaction? “I was in shock, of course. And as I tried to absorb what Susan was saying to me, a million thoughts were running through my head. Our marriage was over; I needed to leave and take the kids with me; how could he live such a lie all these years? Where was the trust we had built all these years? I was literally sick to my stomach.”
“I didn’t know anything about transgender people other than the current issues about sports and bathrooms that I covered as a journalist. I did as Susan asked. I began a deep dive of research into the transgender community as a whole and trans women specifically. What I learned was that Susan’s situation was not unusual. Lots of trans women eventually come out after years of hiding their true identities and living a lie. I began to develop a strong sense of empathy for their situations.”
“On a personal level, I knew that I loved Susan with all my heart and did not want to destroy what we had together. And so, we entered couples therapy, with an expert on LGBTQ+ family issues. He was literally amazing. In fact, after one session, we actually went home and made love.”
“The next step, of course, was how and how much to reveal to loved ones and, most importantly the kids. Susan was ready to be open. She publicly changed her name to Susan. She began to wear unisex clothing at work and more feminine dress at home and when we went out. In our career field, there are plenty of LGBTQ+ pros, and his closest colleagues became aware – no one really cared. They had close relationships before and after. Stuart and Susan were one and the same to them.”
The biggest worry was how their loved ones would accept this new relationship and how their lives could be impacted if their families rejected them. Susan’s idea was to visit them and reveal in person, with the hope that they would see that nothing had really changed in their relationship.
“To say that they had complete understanding would be untrue,” says Susan. “But, over time, they did come to see that I was the same person I had always been, and our relationships with them stayed close. As for the kids? They were just the best, even though very young. My 7-year-old thought it was just fine since she had a friend at school who had two daddies.”
Today, Susan and Sally are still happily wed. they focus on their love and their rich life which is far more than just one of them being a transgender woman. Susan has started hormone treatments and is contemplating surgical transition at some point. As for sex? Yes, they are active!
Takeaway: Sally had very real, very valid feelings about this. The person she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with revealed something that challenged the reality she knew. Today, what she has with Susan is strong because she was able to be honest about her feelings while also being open to love with a trans person rather than being so invested in the male identity that Susan shed.
Tia and George
It’s funny how our realities can change change with chance circumstances and meetings. These two were at a national conference by and for trans people. Tia could be called a transgender woman but is actually non-binary; George is a trans guy but also non-binary. The couple met by accident in the buffet line when George spilled hot gravy on Tia’s wrist. The chemistry was quite immediate, according to both, and they spent the rest of the conference together.
“The thing is,” says Tia, “neither of us even asked or cared about genitals or where we were on our journey to be man or woman, if we even were. We were just absorbed in each other mentally and emotionally. We laugh about the myth that trans relationships are all about sex. At any rate, from that first night and certainly after one week, we knew we would spend the rest of our lives together. I went home with George after the conference and here we stay, two people very much in love.”
“Are we man or woman,” says George, “Who cares? Gender is just a term to us, and we don’t need to answer the question to each other or the world. Being male or female is something that is foisted on us when we are born.
We don’t have any choice in it until we decided to buck the system. We’ve talked about transitioning to be fully gender-specific, but it’s not top of our list. Right now, we love who we are together, and life couldn’t be better. We’re also engaged in trans activism, telling our story and encouraging others to search for their own story too.
We’ve even made a few videos about the beauty of relationships between trans people that have really started gaining traction among people who identify as queer or queer-affirming.”
Beyond that, George continues in his “real” job as a professor, and Tia continues her work as an online media specialist.
Takeaway: There is no singular view of gender, sexuality, or anatomy among trans people. Each person decides what transition means for them, and how they view the social construct of gender. Tia and George have a great relationship because they’ve transcended body parts and binary definitions of gender.
TikTok and the Transgender Love of Chris and Owen
Chris and Owen both had very active TikTok accounts. Chris began to follow Owen, a trans guy with a who is absolutely hilarious.
“That’s what attracted me most of all,” says Chris. “He found so much humor in his transgender life, while so many trans people simply talk about their challenges and issues. He provides good comic relief. I kept responding to his posts with the hope that he would notice me more and come over to view some of mine. In short, I was horribly infatuated.”
“It took a while for me to notice her,” says Owen, “but she just kept coming up over and over. Finally, I accessed her account and started responding to her posts. She had an opinion on everything, and I mean everything. But there was a flair I couldn’t resist.”
Finally, Chris and Owen began to exchange texts and phone calls. Their first date didn’t happen for almost a year later, given that they lived on opposite sides of the country.
“Some things are just meant to be,” Chris continues, “and that’s us. Owen is just so funny and outgoing, and I am a bit of a motor mouth myself. But both of us are committed to supporting trans people, and we use all of our social media accounts to promote tolerance and equality.
We also volunteer at an LGBTQ+ youth center. Owen is an adolescent therapist by profession, and his work with trans young people at the center has made a huge difference in their lives.”
When it comes to surgery Chris and Owen keep mum. Both feel as if the status of their private parts don’t need to be the subject of public speculation or discussion.
Takeaway: At the end of the day, trans love just looks like love. One person meets another and they connect over shared interests, sense of humor, and values. That should be the what stands out about these relationships – not whether someone has had surgery or whether they were assigned male or female.
A Trans Guy Gives Has a Baby – The Story of Ariel and Daryl
When two trans people fall in love and want the same things, they are a force to be reckoned with. Such is the story of Ariel, a trans woman, and Daryl, a trans fellow. Their relationship began seven years prior when they met through mutual trans friendships.
Both were living publicly as their true gender identity and had quite an active sexual history. Romantic love, though, had just not been in the cards for them – until they met one another, that is.
“I’m not sure what happened,” says Daryl. “You’ve heard of something hitting like a lightning bolt? That’s what it was like. We locked eyes, and it was all over. My world was forever changed. We spent the entire evening into the early hours of the morning, each of us sharing our story.
As trans people with a long history of the same struggles that all transgender people have faced, as well as the prospect of being a mixed-race couple, we had much to discuss. My hope was that this might be the real thing. Turns out it was, and my guess about us was right on. We’re as much in love today as we were when love surprised me five years ago.”
Two years ago, Ariel and Daryl decided to expand their world with a child. Obviously, Ariel, the trans woman of the pair could not get pregnant. And so, by invitro fertilization, the trans man of this couple got pregnant.
“You can imagine the looks we got as this manly-looking man began to show. And the looks in receiving when he went into labor. On the birth certificate for our darling Monica, the trans man who experienced labor to her is listed as her father.”
Michelle and Augustus Michelle was the married mother of three amazing kids. She had a hard-working and loving husband. She came out as lesbian 12 years into their marriage, their relationship died, and they divorced. She remained a great mom to those children, explaining who she now was, as soon as they were old enough to understand (the youngest was 3 at the time of the split). All three love their mom dearly, and their parent-child relationship is as strong as ever.
Michelle wanted love. That’s when she met Ashley (Augustus), at a support group for lesbian moms. Over time, their relationship grew from friendship to romance, and Ashley moved in. Michelle was almost morbidly overweight, and it was Ashley who motivated her to change her diet, work out, and ultimately participate in short runs around town – many of them to raise money and awareness for the LGBTQ+ community.
A few years into their relationship, Ashley (Augustus) announced that he was trans and wanted to love Michelle as a transgender man. That’s a positive yet emerging change in our world today. People can gain a better understanding of themselves and eventually realize who they truly are.
“It was a jolt, to be sure,” says Michelle. “I thought we had the perfect lesbian relationship, and here I was again faced with a male partner. We did get into therapy right away because our love was so deep and so intense, and I wanted to see if we could use that love to sustain us. That was the best decision we made.”
“We had some deep and sometimes agonizing discussions,” says Augustus (now shortened to Gus), “but through it all, we never once considered ending our relationship. And, part of it comes down to respect for one another too. Ultimately, we had the ability to come to the perfect agreement for how we would move forward.”
Eventually, Michelle and Gus tied the knot, he finished college and became a high school math teacher, while Michelle continued her career with a large telecommunications company. Are they happy? “Intensely so,” says Michelle.
They Got it Right
These six couples should serve as both models and inspiration to anyone who is moving into a trans relationship or who is struggling to sustain one that may be thrust upon them. The one common factor in each of these stories is love – love that sustains them through all of the challenges and struggles and allows them to emerge victorious. They truly show that love goes beyond the body you were born in and that true love doesn’t just survive it thrives when both people can live authentically.
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