Relationships can become complicated when one person is still figuring out something deeply personal about themselves while the other is trying to understand where they fit into that journey. Sometimes, what begins as a difficult confession can also uncover feelings that neither person expected to have.
The OP is an 18-year-old man who has been dating his 19-year-old girlfriend for seven months. She recently told him that she thinks she may be transgender and is considering whether she wants to transition someday. He tried to support her, but after learning more about transitioning, he realized something that left him surprisingly confused.
He may actually feel more attracted to the person she could become than the girlfriend he has known so far. Now he wants to be honest without making her feel pressured into changing her life for him. Scroll down to see what advice he received!
He realizes he may be more attracted to his girlfriend if she transitions, but struggles with how to tell her without influencing her decision
Sometimes the most confusing feelings arrive when attraction, love, identity, and expectation suddenly overlap. A person can discover something surprising about themselves without immediately knowing what it means, and that uncertainty can be especially intense when someone they care about is involved.
The OP’s situation is complicated because he is not simply reacting to his girlfriend coming out as potentially transgender. He has also realized that his attraction may be stronger toward a masculine version of her, while admitting that he has never felt deeply invested in his previous relationships. That creates two separate questions.
He needs to understand what he wants from a relationship, while his girlfriend needs the freedom to understand who she is. His excitement about imagining her as a man may be meaningful information about his own attraction, but it cannot become evidence that she should transition.
Even with good intentions, telling someone that he wants hormones or surgery could place enormous emotional pressure on an already uncertain person.
There is also a fresh perspective worth considering: the OP may be discovering that the problem isn’t simply that his girlfriend could become a boyfriend. He may be learning something about his own sexuality and what kind of relationship feels authentic to him.
Being attracted to a particular transgender man would not automatically dictate a specific label for him. Attraction is personal, and he does not need to solve his sexual identity in the same conversation in which his partner is exploring gender.
Psychologist Walter Bockting, PhD, has explained through the American Psychological Association that transgender people do not all follow the same transition path.
Some transition socially, some pursue hormones or surgery, and some do not transition medically at all. He emphasizes that psychologists can help people explore and affirm their gender identity while also helping loved ones understand the process.
The APA similarly advises people not to assume that being transgender means someone wants particular hormonal or medical treatments, because each person’s transition is different.
That is probably the most important distinction for the OP. He can absolutely tell her, “If you discover that you’re a guy, I won’t automatically stop caring about you.”
He can even honestly explain that he has been thinking about his attraction and that imagining her as masculine surprised him in a positive way. What he should avoid is framing testosterone, surgery, or transition as something he wants her to do for the relationship.
His girlfriend needs room to ask herself, “What do I want if nobody else’s relationship depends on my answer?” The OP deserves that same freedom when asking, “Who am I attracted to, and what kind of relationship do I genuinely want?” Those questions can coexist without either person having to provide an immediate answer.
There is one other issue that may deserve attention: he admits he is dating largely because his father expects him to have a girlfriend and eventually marry.
That sounds separate from the transgender question, but it may be the most important revelation in the entire post. Before trying to help his girlfriend decide whether to transition, he may need to decide whether he is genuinely choosing this relationship at all.
Supporting someone does not mean steering their identity toward the version that makes the relationship more exciting. Sometimes genuine support means saying, “I care about you enough to let you figure yourself out, even if neither of us knows what that means for us yet.”
These are the responses from Reddit users:
These commenters urged him to reassure her while letting her gender journey remain independent of his feelings
These Redditors teased or encouraged him to reconsider his sexuality based on his attraction to her as a man
These Redditors suspected the post was fake, joking that its premise sounded too absurd to be genuine
Should he tell her that imagining her as a man made him feel more attracted to her, or could that unintentionally pressure her? And does attraction have to come with a label before it can be understood?
