it's been something i've thought a lot about ever since getting on estrogen and progesterone and my sexual response changing so much that i describe myself as having "phantom pussy" sensations. when they occur, they're impossible to truly resolve and the best i can hope for is being able to sidestep them, but a lot of the time they end in frustrated, heartbroken tears

i think a big reason why it took me so long to accept this course was that my longest, pre-transition relationship was marked by that girlfriend being pretty explicit about not wanting me to express femininity and requiring me to /perform/ boyfriendness, as it were. any time i wasn't topping or actively giving her pleasure was a turn-off for her. the thing i could never reconcile about it was that she was both bisexual and nonbinary: i thought my transformation would be as appealing to her and her was to me (we started out cis4cis), but no such luck.

the next few partners i had since then didn't get the brunt of this feeling i had even if they did see snippets, but they were largely ambivalently supportive about it, which was a welcome change of pace and maybe would be the ideal response in a good world

but as i told @eri about this, not only was she firmly supportive, but she said she's excited and even into it. like she's hyped to have me as her partner do that.

... i hadn't realized how much i needed that to undo my past until i had it from her. i have a well-documented tendency to scrounge joy from things as long as i see they make my partner happy - stemming from my upbringing and buttressed by that pre-transition relationship - so it's so easy for me to make a kind of uneasy peace with my body as it is. but without that - and actually having the opposite of that - i feel so much lighter making that call for myself

just recently, i told that ex of mine - we're still good friends - about my plan and accidentally painted myself into a corner by mentioning obliquely that i've historically had a hard time feeling like choices like this are okay/not selfish. it was honestly a bit jarring to see that she was a little bit defensive about it, with the standard normative talking points of "well, everybody finds different things attractive"

which is totally fair, everyone gets to choose who they're with... but that's also not the stance a transitioning person needs from their partner. especially with how even for someone who knows they need a big medical intervention, the process can come with temporary fears to proceed where you need encouragement instead of "well if it's scary, then it might not be for you"

in that moment i vividly felt so grateful that i'm not in a relationship with her anymore but instead with @eri

now i have what i need

#transfem #trans #transition