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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: March 4th, 2024

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  • Ayo. Fellow pan/demi cis guy dating an MTF person for about a year now, I’ll share the lessons I’ve learned so far while trying to figure out the exact same balance with my partner.

    The biggest piece of advice I can give is - If it’s transition related she probably knows more than you. Even if she doesn’t, my recommendation is to be weary of accidentally man-splaining shit to her. I annoyed my partner more than once because I found a thing I didn’t know was an option and was excitedly “explaining” (not on purpose, but still) a thing she has known about and formed opinions about for years already.

    I can’t know this for sure but I’d wager your partner has heard of both the surgeries you’ve mentioned and knows the pros/cons. Might be wrong, but worth pondering for a moment imho.

    I learned to start such conversations with “hey, do you know about xyz thing - i read about it and it seems interesting.” and then the most important part - shut the fuck up and listen. She probably has opinions and you should value them more than yours.

    I find my best helpful stride by observing what she’s working on, then picking up on the things that make her uncomfortable or seem to block her path and offering to help with those. I try very hard to never suggest any path, and when I do express an opinion or suggestion I try to explicitly tie it back to a desire she’s expressed to me previously. “You said you wanted X, i was thinking it might be helpful if I did Y part for you?”

    Example - she’s high anxiety about going into a makeup store but wants to learn and play with some makeup. So marched my big dumb ape self into several Sephoras and stuck my big dumb face in front of several beauticians and told them that my gf is trans and asked for advice and showed them photos and carefully watched how they reacted until one went awwwww and started being super helpful. I got her card to offer to pay for a makeup lesson.

    You know what? She’s still too nervous to go, but now we know the name of a person we know is going to be happy to help her. She feels supported because the thing I did was the result of listening and noticing what was blocking her, which imho is more important than the outcome.

    I guess my goal has evolved from trying to find tangible things to help with to trying to do things that make her feel empowered. Transitioning is not an easy thing, there’s a chilling effect on progress because the world seems aligned against our community. If you can make her feel like she has an ally in that fight she’ll accelerate naturally.

    It’s normal to be excited and want to help, my advice would be to grab that feeling and wrangle it.

    Does she already have a blahaj? If not, highly recommended as a gift idea. ;)