A reader writes: “I am madly in love with a guy I have been friends with for two and a half years. He has recently started showing a romantic interest in me but is taking things extremely SLOWLY with me, which I respect because we both have very difficult pasts.
“Recently, a person who works with him told me that he was born a girl. At first, I was in shock, then angry that this person had ‘outed’ him behind his back. I must admit, the first time I met him, for a split second I thought he was a very butch girl, but after talking to him, I quickly realised he was a man (or so I thought).
“However, this is so not an issue for me. In fact, I wouldn’t have him any other way because he wouldn’t be the person I fell for in the first place. My problem is that I know he is holding back on the relationship because he is scared to tell me. He keeps saying things like he is scared he will let me down if he is not what I want, etc.
“I don’t want to take the choice out if his hands of telling me by saying I know already, but I can’t go on like this. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a heterosexual woman in love with the best man I’ve ever met. How can I make it safe for him to tell me? His happiness is really important to me, so should I walk away, even if it kills me to do it? By the way, it’s not just the coworker who told me. I’ve had other confirmation, so I do know for sure.”
I have gone around and around about this in my mind and have come to a particular conclusion, which I will eventually get to. Readers will probably have their own thoughts, and many might disagree with me. But here’s how my thinking process went:
I believe that each person has the right to come out (or not) when the time is right for that person, and no one should be deprived of this right by being outed by someone else. So my first thought was that you should not say anything to him and that you should wait for him to come out to you in his own time and in his own way.
But then, the fact is that he has already been outed. That’s an unfortunate fact, but it’s true, nonetheless. So by you not saying anything, it has turned into a kind of game. Everybody knows, and everybody knows that you know – except him. So he’s lying awake at night worrying about how to tell you and afraid that you’ll dump him, not realizing that you already know and that you’re not going to dump him. So he is suffering unnecessarily.
Based on that, and combined with my first thought, my second thought was that you should drop hints that would let him know that being trans is not an issue for you. I was thinking that this could somehow come up in conversation – that you could say things like “I wouldn’t care if you were trans or gay or 80 years old – I would still love you.” Or when he started whining about how he might not be the one you want and so on (and, yes, that is whining), you could say, “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me break up with you.”
My thinking behind this was that it would open the door for him to tell you, and he would still get to tell you in his own time and in his own way. But then I realized that this is also a game. You’re trying to find times when saying things like this would be appropriate (which might be difficult), and he still doesn’t know that you know.
So I finally came to the conclusion that you need to tell him that you know. How he will take this is anyone’s guess, but it eliminates the game playing and it lays your cards on the table.
Even though I have used the word trans to refer to him, I really don’t know how he identifies and you don’t either, so I wouldn’t necessarily use that word. But I would suggest saying something like “I know that you have something that you’ve been afraid to tell me, and I think I know what it is. Someone told me that you were labeled female at birth. I want you to know that, if this is true, it doesn’t make any difference to me at all. It’s a non-issue. But I’m happy to talk about it if you want to.”
Now the game-playing is over. He might want to know who told you this. It’s up to you whether or not you want to tell him. It’s likely going to cause a rift between him and this person. You can always say, “Does that really matter? The point is that none of it matters to me.”
Now, of course, it probably does really matter to him who told you, and the person who told you was wrong to do so, so if your guy gets mad at this person, it might be for the better. Hopefully, it will prevent this person from doing it again. So you have to decide how important it is to you to keep this confidential.
If someone outed me when I didn’t want to be outed, I would want to know who it was so I could talk to that person. And holding back that person’s name if he demands it is more game playing. So you will have to decide what to do if (really, when) he asks you.
I’m not going to tell you that this might not all blow up in your face. It’s possible that this is not what he is concerned about with regard to with your relationship, and that it is a non-issue for him, which is why he hasn’t told you. When you bring it up, then it becomes an issue.
But based on how you describe the situation, I think that not telling him that you know is a form of game playing, and if you want openness in your relationship, then somebody has to get the ball rolling.
But before you do anything, I would suggest that you read the Comments section, because I’m pretty sure that some readers will not agree with me, and they might have additional information that would sway you one way or the other. Some readers might also have been in this position themselves and will have a better idea of what will work and what won’t, and what the ramifications might be either way.
Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that he realizes that his own insecurities could jeopardize this relationship. So I hope that, if you do tell him, he takes it in the spirit with which it is intended, and I hope that it takes a load off his mind so that he can concentrate on the benefits of this relationship.
This post originally appeared on Matt Kailey's award-winning website Tranifesto.com. Republished with permission.
