Just found out my ex is trans

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of transwomen are attracted to/date women. So no biggie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you have to process? It doesn’t affect you. It was somebody you knew 20 years ago. Are usually this self-centered?

+1 I can’t imagine finding anything to ‘process’ about a relationship I had with some 20 years ago unless it came to light he was a mass murder or some other horrific criminal while I knew him.

Weird exception since his becoming a mass murderer or criminal *also* would be 100% NOT about you….
So again—why is this something that OP needs to process? It isn’t about her and doesn’t impact her. It’s gossip about someone she used to know, and she finds it curious and titillating….but it literally has no impact on her at all.

Different pp here. I agree with you that that she obviously finds it titillating for some reason but she frames it as something that needs to be processed (How do I process this?). Yes it would be an interesting thing about someone I used to date but that would be it.

Here's what I think is happening, the OP is a bisexual woman in a straight marriage. Many bisexual people are in straight marriages because it's easier to have kids that way and the straight dating pool is a lot larger. It's also easier to just fit into society since it was basically made for straight people to exist. This leads a lot of bisexual people to feel erased. They're still queer but they feel like they aren't seen and may even feel invalid or "not queer enough" compared to other people that are either in same sex relationships or are trans (asexual people often feel this way too). Her ex is going to be living as a queer person in the world. It's obviously not easy to be a trans woman but there are in-group benefits that a visibly queer person gets that a bisexual in a straight marriage does not.

So my guess is that she's titillated by it and probably somewhat jealous even if she doesn't say it in her post because her ex who she thought was cis is now going to be living a completely different lifestyle than her and while I'm sure she's satisfied with where she's at, there's always going to be questions of what her life could have been if she had gone down a different path.

I think the transwoman seemed like a man at the time and fooled OP. I don’t know that her sexuality in necessarily not straight (if she’s straight in every other relationship?) but I’m interested in the idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you have to process? It doesn’t affect you. It was somebody you knew 20 years ago. Are usually this self-centered?

+1 I can’t imagine finding anything to ‘process’ about a relationship I had with some 20 years ago unless it came to light he was a mass murder or some other horrific criminal while I knew him.

Weird exception since his becoming a mass murderer or criminal *also* would be 100% NOT about you….
So again—why is this something that OP needs to process? It isn’t about her and doesn’t impact her. It’s gossip about someone she used to know, and she finds it curious and titillating….but it literally has no impact on her at all.

Different pp here. I agree with you that that she obviously finds it titillating for some reason but she frames it as something that needs to be processed (How do I process this?). Yes it would be an interesting thing about someone I used to date but that would be it.

Here's what I think is happening, the OP is a bisexual woman in a straight marriage. Many bisexual people are in straight marriages because it's easier to have kids that way and the straight dating pool is a lot larger. It's also easier to just fit into society since it was basically made for straight people to exist. This leads a lot of bisexual people to feel erased. They're still queer but they feel like they aren't seen and may even feel invalid or "not queer enough" compared to other people that are either in same sex relationships or are trans (asexual people often feel this way too). Her ex is going to be living as a queer person in the world. It's obviously not easy to be a trans woman but there are in-group benefits that a visibly queer person gets that a bisexual in a straight marriage does not.

So my guess is that she's titillated by it and probably somewhat jealous even if she doesn't say it in her post because her ex who she thought was cis is now going to be living a completely different lifestyle than her and while I'm sure she's satisfied with where she's at, there's always going to be questions of what her life could have been if she had gone down a different path.

I think the transwoman seemed like a man at the time and fooled OP. I don’t know that her sexuality in necessarily not straight (if she’s straight in every other relationship?) but I’m interested in the idea.

I’m pp and sorry! I didn’t read carefully and wasn’t aware OP self IDs as bi. My bad!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you have to process? It doesn’t affect you. It was somebody you knew 20 years ago. Are usually this self-centered?

+1 I can’t imagine finding anything to ‘process’ about a relationship I had with some 20 years ago unless it came to light he was a mass murder or some other horrific criminal while I knew him.

Weird exception since his becoming a mass murderer or criminal *also* would be 100% NOT about you….
So again—why is this something that OP needs to process? It isn’t about her and doesn’t impact her. It’s gossip about someone she used to know, and she finds it curious and titillating….but it literally has no impact on her at all.

Different pp here. I agree with you that that she obviously finds it titillating for some reason but she frames it as something that needs to be processed (How do I process this?). Yes it would be an interesting thing about someone I used to date but that would be it.

Here's what I think is happening, the OP is a bisexual woman in a straight marriage. Many bisexual people are in straight marriages because it's easier to have kids that way and the straight dating pool is a lot larger. It's also easier to just fit into society since it was basically made for straight people to exist. This leads a lot of bisexual people to feel erased. They're still queer but they feel like they aren't seen and may even feel invalid or "not queer enough" compared to other people that are either in same sex relationships or are trans (asexual people often feel this way too). Her ex is going to be living as a queer person in the world. It's obviously not easy to be a trans woman but there are in-group benefits that a visibly queer person gets that a bisexual in a straight marriage does not.

So my guess is that she's titillated by it and probably somewhat jealous even if she doesn't say it in her post because her ex who she thought was cis is now going to be living a completely different lifestyle than her and while I'm sure she's satisfied with where she's at, there's always going to be questions of what her life could have been if she had gone down a different path.

I think the transwoman seemed like a man at the time and fooled OP. I don’t know that her sexuality in necessarily not straight (if she’s straight in every other relationship?) but I’m interested in the idea.

I’m pp and sorry! I didn’t read carefully and wasn’t aware OP self IDs as bi. My bad!

I’m the pp you replied to. I wonder if she actually wishes she could have explored a relationship with an out trans person? She hasn’t really come back to the thread has she?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My best friend just let me know that my college boyfriend came out as trans. Mind you, this is someone I dated 20+ years ago but I’m a bit in shock. I myself am bi, so maybe this makes sense, but he never struck me as effeminate in any way.

Has anyone else btdt? How do I process this?

(I’m happily married and that relationship ended really poorly, but it was my first serious relationship and I’m just in shock right now)

Ouch. If it was his first serious relationship also, it could have had a major impact on his mental health and lifestyle choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend just let me know that my college boyfriend came out as trans. Mind you, this is someone I dated 20+ years ago but I’m a bit in shock. I myself am bi, so maybe this makes sense, but he never struck me as effeminate in any way.

Has anyone else btdt? How do I process this?

(I’m happily married and that relationship ended really poorly, but it was my first serious relationship and I’m just in shock right now)

Ouch. If it was his first serious relationship also, it could have had a major impact on his mental health and lifestyle choices.

What does this mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are people coming down on OP so hard? she's allowed to have mixed feelings about someone she was involved with changing genders. It's a normal part of processing massive change

but this person isn't in her life and hasn't been for 20 years. What change is there for oP exactly?

People have weird feelings when they find out things about people they had very influential relationships with. And it is frequently difficult to parse out exactly why.

I think people feel like, when they find out someone they were in a serious relationship had a different se*uality or something like this, it makes you doubt yourself. How did I not see that? I thought I knew them well? What does this mean about me? Was I subconsciously attracted to that part of them?

All kinds of random weird thoughts because we think of attraction and this kind of stuff as very private and there is a lot of shame about it in our culture (on every angle of the spectrum) and so questioning what you thought about your own inclinations and judgement happens.

I think this is NBD and OP will quickly get over it. This just made them reexamine a probably profoundly impactful relationship and wonder what it means about them. The answer is likely nothing! But dredging up old feelings is always disconcerting.

This exactly. The people suggesting OP is weird to 'have feelings' about this are being purposefully obtuse, and dare I say, 'woke'!

OP has learned that a core and fundamental part of her ex was essentially a facade. You would have to be an unfeeling robot to not want to reflect on that. The facade was obviously not nefarious or purposeful. But it's still a very big deal to find this out. A person's gender is fundamental to an intimate, sexual relationship.

But OP claims she is bi, so there would be more fluidity in this. Under her own pretence it shouldn’t matter. Maybe she was attracted to the more female traits that this person had.

Also, Gender identify and sexual preference have nothing to do with each other. You can prefer the opposite or same sex, even if trans.

There may have not been a facade at that time. Or maybe there was. But the relationship didn’t last, and this may have been the reason. It’s been 20 years.

Again, she found out that a very impactful relationship was built around a lie essentially. Not a malicious lie, probably not even an intentional lie, but a fundamental lack of understanding about her partner.

That makes people doubt themselves.

And I feel like there’s a lot of process policing going on here. Sometimes if I have a negative interaction with a retail worker I need to process and overthink what went wrong. If I found out my first serious relationship was with someone who changed that dramatically afterward I would definitely be rehashing it excessively in my head for awhile.

And again for the people in the back, you actually cannot control whether or not you have an emotional reaction to something. You can control what you DO about that reaction but not the reaction itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are people coming down on OP so hard? she's allowed to have mixed feelings about someone she was involved with changing genders. It's a normal part of processing massive change

but this person isn't in her life and hasn't been for 20 years. What change is there for oP exactly?

People have weird feelings when they find out things about people they had very influential relationships with. And it is frequently difficult to parse out exactly why.

I think people feel like, when they find out someone they were in a serious relationship had a different se*uality or something like this, it makes you doubt yourself. How did I not see that? I thought I knew them well? What does this mean about me? Was I subconsciously attracted to that part of them?

All kinds of random weird thoughts because we think of attraction and this kind of stuff as very private and there is a lot of shame about it in our culture (on every angle of the spectrum) and so questioning what you thought about your own inclinations and judgement happens.

I think this is NBD and OP will quickly get over it. This just made them reexamine a probably profoundly impactful relationship and wonder what it means about them. The answer is likely nothing! But dredging up old feelings is always disconcerting.

This exactly. The people suggesting OP is weird to 'have feelings' about this are being purposefully obtuse, and dare I say, 'woke'!

OP has learned that a core and fundamental part of her ex was essentially a facade. You would have to be an unfeeling robot to not want to reflect on that. The facade was obviously not nefarious or purposeful. But it's still a very big deal to find this out. A person's gender is fundamental to an intimate, sexual relationship.

But OP claims she is bi, so there would be more fluidity in this. Under her own pretence it shouldn’t matter. Maybe she was attracted to the more female traits that this person had.

Also, Gender identify and sexual preference have nothing to do with each other. You can prefer the opposite or same sex, even if trans.

There may have not been a facade at that time. Or maybe there was. But the relationship didn’t last, and this may have been the reason. It’s been 20 years.

Again, she found out that a very impactful relationship was built around a lie essentially. Not a malicious lie, probably not even an intentional lie, but a fundamental lack of understanding about her partner.

That makes people doubt themselves.

And I feel like there’s a lot of process policing going on here. Sometimes if I have a negative interaction with a retail worker I need to process and overthink what went wrong. If I found out my first serious relationship was with someone who changed that dramatically afterward I would definitely be rehashing it excessively in my head for awhile.

And again for the people in the back, you actually cannot control whether or not you have an emotional reaction to something. You can control what you DO about that reaction but not the reaction itself.

OP is allowed her feelings. She can process it like anything else in her life. What I would hope is that she comes to the realization that this has nothing to do with her. Unless she’s going to the ex and doing counselling together, she has no idea what was going on and should not pretend to. The option of being trans was not even on most people’s radar 20 years ago, including on that of many people who are trans now. Relationships often don’t work out, for many fundamental reasons. Again, there may have been no willful deception. This persons “masculinity” may be part of who they are, even as they change to present female.

Again, if OP really wants to “process” this, she should go to sources that can actually help, and DCUM is really not it. How a predominantly white, rich, straight bunch of cis woman are going to actually help is lost on me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are people coming down on OP so hard? she's allowed to have mixed feelings about someone she was involved with changing genders. It's a normal part of processing massive change

but this person isn't in her life and hasn't been for 20 years. What change is there for oP exactly?

People have weird feelings when they find out things about people they had very influential relationships with. And it is frequently difficult to parse out exactly why.

I think people feel like, when they find out someone they were in a serious relationship had a different se*uality or something like this, it makes you doubt yourself. How did I not see that? I thought I knew them well? What does this mean about me? Was I subconsciously attracted to that part of them?

All kinds of random weird thoughts because we think of attraction and this kind of stuff as very private and there is a lot of shame about it in our culture (on every angle of the spectrum) and so questioning what you thought about your own inclinations and judgement happens.

I think this is NBD and OP will quickly get over it. This just made them reexamine a probably profoundly impactful relationship and wonder what it means about them. The answer is likely nothing! But dredging up old feelings is always disconcerting.

This exactly. The people suggesting OP is weird to 'have feelings' about this are being purposefully obtuse, and dare I say, 'woke'!

OP has learned that a core and fundamental part of her ex was essentially a facade. You would have to be an unfeeling robot to not want to reflect on that. The facade was obviously not nefarious or purposeful. But it's still a very big deal to find this out. A person's gender is fundamental to an intimate, sexual relationship.

But OP claims she is bi, so there would be more fluidity in this. Under her own pretence it shouldn’t matter. Maybe she was attracted to the more female traits that this person had.

Also, Gender identify and sexual preference have nothing to do with each other. You can prefer the opposite or same sex, even if trans.

There may have not been a facade at that time. Or maybe there was. But the relationship didn’t last, and this may have been the reason. It’s been 20 years.

Again, she found out that a very impactful relationship was built around a lie essentially. Not a malicious lie, probably not even an intentional lie, but a fundamental lack of understanding about her partner.

That makes people doubt themselves.

And I feel like there’s a lot of process policing going on here. Sometimes if I have a negative interaction with a retail worker I need to process and overthink what went wrong. If I found out my first serious relationship was with someone who changed that dramatically afterward I would definitely be rehashing it excessively in my head for awhile.

And again for the people in the back, you actually cannot control whether or not you have an emotional reaction to something. You can control what you DO about that reaction but not the reaction itself.

OP is allowed her feelings. She can process it like anything else in her life. What I would hope is that she comes to the realization that this has nothing to do with her. Unless she’s going to the ex and doing counselling together, she has no idea what was going on and should not pretend to. The option of being trans was not even on most people’s radar 20 years ago, including on that of many people who are trans now. Relationships often don’t work out, for many fundamental reasons. Again, there may have been no willful deception. This persons “masculinity” may be part of who they are, even as they change to present female.

Again, if OP really wants to “process” this, she should go to sources that can actually help, and DCUM is really not it. How a predominantly white, rich, straight bunch of cis woman are going to actually help is lost on me.

I mean maybe it’s just me but when I post on dcum I’m not thinking “what do a bunch of rich straight cis white women think about my question?” I’m thinking “I have a question that I think might get a negative reaction or cause embarrassment if I said it out loud to another person so I will ask it in this completely anonymous forum to get a gut check”

She’s processing it by effing thinking about it and posting here. Likely saying almost nothing about it IRL. That’s just fine.

[Anonymous]

What does you being Bi have to do with him being trans?

That irrelevant. Desiring to be the opposite sex is not the same thing as being homosexual.

That said, this would shock anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of transwomen are attracted to/date women. So no biggie.

Thats because transwomen are born male. Most males are attracted to women and are hetrosexual.

Transwomen's sexuality don't change when they take synthetic hormones and surgeries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of transwomen are attracted to/date women. So no biggie.

Thats because transwomen are born male. Most males are attracted to women and are hetrosexual.

Transwomen's sexuality don't change when they take synthetic hormones and surgeries.

Two trans women who are both still attracted to women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of transwomen are attracted to/date women. So no biggie.

Thats because transwomen are born male. Most males are attracted to women and are hetrosexual.

Transwomen's sexuality don't change when they take synthetic hormones and surgeries.

Two trans women who are both still attracted to women.

The way it works is that they’re both males that are attracted to women but like dick. So since they are attracted to women they are straight males. They see each other as women so they’re two straight males that like dick that see one another as women and are therefore both gay but in a straight relationship. They are so gay that they circles around to straight.