Allegra's Trans Experience

I’m not just a trans woman. I’m a lesbian too.

My journey to discovering my gender and sexuality, and the relationship between the two, has been anything but linear. When I first started questioning my sexuality, I thought I might be demisexual since I only seemed to catch feelings for people after making friends with them, and on top of that I was afraid of deeper intimacy with people. But turns out, that fear came from gender dysphoria.

I didn’t understand my gender and was wearing masculinity as, well, a mask, plus I didn’t understand my body either. I felt empty, like something was missing from my body and my soul, and I was repulsed to most forms of intimacy beyond cuddling and kissing because of that.

Even so, I was dating people while questioning my sexuality and gender. I thought that I was bisexual for the longest time, since although I’ve only dated women, I also deeply admired a few certain male celebrities/fictional characters. Plus, nearly all my friends were bi, and I was getting more and more in touch with my emotions. So I had to be one of them in some way, I just didn’t know what way. All I knew was that I did mainly like girls, just not in a straight guy way.

When I came out as a trans woman, I still thought I was bi. But then, a year later, I went out on a first date with a girl in Madrid while I was doing an English teaching program there. When I explained my sexuality to her, she asked me “Are you sure you’re not a lesbian?” And that’s when it hit me.

I am a lesbian. I just liked fictional men since they were usually kinder and more loving than most men I met in real life. And I’ve had bad experiences with men. But those experiences aren’t what made me figure out I was a lesbian. What did was the realization that I could never feel the same way for a man that I could feel for a woman. I was just afraid to call myself a lesbian since I was still new to being a trans woman, and I was afraid that I didn’t pass enough and that transphobes would see me as a straight guy. My last relationship, short as it was due to long distance and constant confusion about where I stood in it, did help me realize that and I am grateful for it.

I’ve also learned that when I catch feelings for someone, I’m inspired by them. Seeing them and giving and receiving love from them makes me want to better myself. So when I started feeling deep admiration for someone in my life, I often thought “Do I want to be with this person, or do I want to be more like them?” Turns out, in most cases, it was both. I started picking up on little things they did, or their acts of kindness, and practiced doing them myself. Not necessarily to impress them, but to understand them better. Plus it was so much fun!

Anyone who knows me in person knows that I love hugs. A lot. I’m always hugging my friends and letting them know how much they mean to me. That’s always come naturally to me, but I was forced to repress it for years before finally meeting someone who would love me for it. That someone was my good friend Seriah, who I met when I was a freshman in high school. We were track teammates, and she would often give me a hug as I held the door open for the other athletes before we went off to practice. Her hugs and positive energy made me feel so safe and loved, which inspired me. I wanted to give my other friends the same feeling that she gave me when she hugged me.

My friendship with Seriah also helped me build confidence, too. I admired her for being her authentic, passionate self and not seeming to care how others thought of her. She was super kind, but she also fought hard for what she believed in. Through her, I realized that the more I got to know who I was, the more I could fight for that, too. I also realized that I could be my own authentic and passionate self, and be loved for it.

That question of “Do I want to be with them, or do I want to be them” helped me understand how my lesbian and trans-feminine identities intersect too. I realized how much I loved women who embraced their womanhood and defined it in their own ways rather than just abiding by patriarchal gender norms. I would see lesbian couples on film and wish I was one of them, since I felt that lesbian relationships resonated with me way more than straight ones. I fell in love with Chappell Roan’s music shortly after I started transitioning too, since her themes of embracing queerness and womanhood resonated so heavily with me. “Pink Pony Club” became my all-time favorite queer anthem, and “Good Luck, Babe!” helped me heal from the breakup that followed me coming out and embracing my queerness and womanhood.

After realizing I was a trans woman who loved women, I also realized I wanted a relationship where I wasn’t forced into a male role (which was a huge problem in my first two relationships) and where we could both embrace our femininity and queerness as well as each other’s. I didn’t just want to have a girlfriend, I wanted to be a girlfriend too. My favorite joke to make about my identity is “I loved women so much I became one!”

Of course, being a trans lesbian presents unique challenges too. Transphobes and fake feminists (or TERFs as they’re well known but I refuse to call them real feminists) like to say that trans lesbians are just straight men preying on gay women. But they couldn’t be more wrong. After all, a lot of trans lesbians end up dating each other. Plus, the fact that most of us have had to fight super hard just to become women in the first place is proof enough that we’re real women. In this day and age especially, when trans women are being attacked on the regular just for being ourselves, why would anyone bother to pretend to be one just to date a lesbian or bi woman?

Trans lesbians have to give up an extra layer of privilege since we’re choosing to be ourselves over not just being men, but being straight as well. We face both homophobia and transphobia on a regular basis. On top of that, even in cis gay, lesbian, and bisexual spaces, there are people who define their sexuality through genital preferences and try to denounce trans people for not being “real men/ women” (think those that say “LGB without the T” and whatnot). And that includes a loud minority of transphobic cis lesbians that flood the Internet and try to exclude trans lesbians from lesbian spaces, framing us as male invaders. When in reality, we’ve had to do even more to de-center men and the patriarchy than most of them have. And we’re proof not only that there’s so many different ways to be a woman, but also that there’s many different ways to be gay as well. When we break free of what we’ve been told love should look like, learn to communicate and understand each other’s needs and values, and truly celebrate our individual queerness as well as queer love, we form relationships more beautiful and loving than one could possibly imagine.

As for my relationship status, I’m single right now. I’m taking time to come back to myself after my most recent breakup a month and a half ago. But once I decide to date again, I would love to be in a relationship that is emotionally safe, and where our queerness is celebrated. I wonder what it would be like to date another trans woman. I bet it would be easier to feel safe and understood, and to bond over shared experiences with her. But whether my future partner is cis or trans, if they’re right for me, they will rise to meet me where I’m at, and we will grow into our favorite selves together.

As I said earlier, I’m deeply inspired by those I love. So I hope to find someone who’s inspired by me.