Differences In Romantic Relationships

For most of my adult life, no one has questioned my choice in romantic partners. This is because I have dated almost exclusively white, cisgendered men, or men whose self-identified gender correlates with the sex they were assigned at birth, and am a white, cisgendered woman myself (Thomas, June 13). I grew up never questioning the normalcy of this sort of coupling, as it was a mimicking of the images from the media I had been with bombarded with as a child. By the age of seven I had already been sold on the idea of falling in love with a man, marrying him, and raising a large family. As I grew older this ideal slowly began to collapse, firstly with a rejection of marriage and secondly with a rejection of having children. The final blow to …show more content…
From a few older women, for example, I have been told that “I dated women when I was a student, too.” This suggests that my current relationship is part of a “phase” that I 'm going through, which will come to an end once I have transitioned out of young adulthood. Once I reach full maturity, it seems to be presumed, I will return to having romantic relationships with men and forget all about my flings with other women. Women of my own age group have reacted in a number of different ways, and some of the comments I have heard include: “I get it, men suck,” “But you still mostly like guys, right?” and, quite baffingly, “So you have the best of both worlds.” The first of these comments proposes that my choice in partners is an explicit rejection of men as love interests, or that is a choice made merely as a reaction.The second demands reassurance that I am, in fact, “mostly” straight, due to my history of relationships, and also serves to question the seriousness of the relationship and my emotions. The final comment suggests that my partner is somewhere between a man and a woman and that, while I seek an emotional connection with a woman, my sexuality is not deviant because I am maintaining a physical connection with a …show more content…
My girlfriend and I have been referred to as “lipstick lesbians” in that we both perform femininity in a way that is socially acceptable. However, I occupy a place of cisgender privilege in that my gender identity as a woman is never questioned. My girlfriend, on the other hand, as a trans woman has, since the moment she came out, had her gender doubted, challenged, and opposed publically. For example, after learning about her relationship with me, her family and friends asked her questions such as “But I thought you transitioned because you like guys?” and “Are you sure that you are a