He Broke Up With Me Because I’m Trans. Can I Make It Work?

When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at [email protected] for your own chance at enlightenment. 

Dear Shon, 
I’m a trans woman, and for a year now, I’ve been seeing this guy. He’s very hot and cold but overall so incredibly sweet, kind, funny, and handsome (and so on). We were official for about a month, but he came to my place one day and told me we had to break up because I’m trans and he didn’t want his friends and family to know he was in a relationship with me.

Despite him trying to break up with me, I’m still seeing him. I still love him, and I’ve told him so—even if he won’t say it back. I’ve never felt so safe and comfortable around another person, and ironically this is probably the healthiest (and definitely the longest) relationship I’ve ever had. I really believe he loves me, even if he is so emotionally unavailable and frankly cowardly that he can’t seem to admit it.

Part of me knows that this is temporary and will end someday, either because I just can’t take it anymore or because I find someone else who actually does want to be with me. But I want to find a way somehow to make it work because he is such a sweet man and so good to me, most of the time. What should I do?

Yours, 
Wishful Thinking

Dear Wishful Thinking, 
It was really brave of you to write to me. I want to begin with that because I know, from experience, how difficult it is to admit that you’re still in a relationship in which you’re not being treated well. You’re not alone. So many women I know are quietly accepting hurtful things in their relationships with men they wouldn’t readily admit to their friends out of fear that they’ll sound naive or that voicing the reality of the situation will dispel the desperate hope that somehow, someday, he will change and things will get better. I don’t want you to feel naive or give you false hope, so let’s look at this calmly.