Welcome to Love Transcends, a special project by Cosmopolitan that celebrates the resilience, wisdom, hope, and joy of the trans community as its members navigate romantic love. Through in-depth interviews and personal essays, trans people share what it’s like to date, hook up, break up, and fall in and hold onto love in the midst of sweeping anti-trans legislation and attacks on personal safeties and freedoms of expression. Click here to see the entire collection.
My trip to Vegas last spring was supposed to be about throwback hip-hop and R&B vibes. My siblings, my best friend, and I had traveled to town for the Lovers & Friends Festival. Think Usher, Ciara, Nelly Furtado. But hours after we arrived, the event was canceled due to high winds. So we made alternate plans to see Lil Wayne at a club on the Strip. And in the midst of the chaos, something...well, someone unexpected happened.
After my bestie and I split up to find a better vantage point to watch the show, I almost passed this guy who eyed me with lust and limerence. The wash of crimson light in the hallway might’ve been a warning sign if I’d had one less Hennessy and Coke. But we both slowed down, and our bodies instinctually twisted in each other’s direction.
By that point, I had put romance on the back burner. Being a 30-something Black trans woman thriving in her career, living a life full of travel and opportunity, with an unconditionally loving family already seemed like more than I could have ever dreamed. The fact that the right long-term partner remained elusive seemed like a cosmic balance. Besides, I know the bullshit the media doles out to women about “having it all” has never included me.
I’ve often felt plagued by a series of curses. The first is my overarching attraction to men and masculinity. Not unlike cis straight women, I often dream out loud about being a lesbian. Nevertheless, my relationship experiences have solely featured cis and trans men, as well as a few nonbinary transmasculine individuals.
Most of my queer and trans dates have been full of intimacy and stimulating conversation, while those with cis straight men have been a mixed bag—containing some of the most traumatizing experiences. In my memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation, I detail some of the disappointing characters: the would-be hookup who hypothesized killing me because he was shook that he was attracted to a trans woman. The guy I met in an Oakland bar who sexually assaulted me in an attempt to prove to another guy, who’d just outed some homegirls and me, that I wasn’t a “man.”
I may never fully shake those moments, but I’ve been fortunate to dodge the worst outcomes. Black trans women are all but guaranteed to account for most of the fatal anti-trans violence reported each year. And despite what most ignorant cis people online spew in comments sections, most of the perpetrators are cis men who have pursued romantic or sexual relationships with us.
My other dating curses anecdotally reflect the data, like Pew Research Center findings that Black, college-educated, and queer adults are more likely to be single than their respective counterparts. Pew struck again when it found that Black women are the most likely of any category of race and gender to be unmarried. Even more, another study found that most people don’t view trans folks as viable dating partners, and those who do are almost twice as likely to consider transmasculine folks versus transfeminine folks.
Also, people’s desire for a monogamous, committed relationship seems increasingly atypical. Maybe I’m influenced by my parents’ near 30-year union or my torturous Venus in Cancer astrological placement, but even the idea of accepting a situationship before someone views our connection as worthy of commitment seems unsettling.
Yet somehow, as I stared at this gorgeous man in that club hallway, none of these concerns came to mind. Meeting him in the wild, not on an app where I had to sell myself as if I were on the auction block, felt refreshing. I didn’t overanalyze when he nestled his firm hand in the crease of my back. Like a master cartographer, he traced the skin left uncovered by my slinky black minidress.
“You’re beautiful,” he said with a hint of an accent. (I’d learn he was of Guadeloupean and French descent.)
“You’re kind of beautiful, too,” I whispered with a mesmerized smirk.
Through devouring eyes, we shared scattered notes from our lives. He said he was an engineer from France. Who knows if that was true? I didn’t mention being a recently published author or an award-winning activist. Tonight? The edges were softened. I was just a regular girl who worked in media and on feminist and LGBTQIA+ causes.
We slipped into an empty stairwell and kissed passionately. Maybe it was the liquor in both of our systems, but it felt right. We exchanged numbers and promised to see each other again before leaving the city.
Over the next two days, we spent as much time as we could together. Sharing meals, sightseeing, and dancing in crowded clubs. I was living that old cliché, feeling like we’d known each other forever. For the first time in a long time, I got to be present, to feel what it’s like to be excited by someone.
Waking up on the morning of my departure date, a heaviness rose in my chest. We’d kept mentioning the intensity of our connection. He asked me to change my flight to stay a few more days. Expectations and hope started to set in: What if he’s the one? Would we do a long-distance thing? Could this be real?
As we headed to our final brunch, my dread only grew. I knew that feeling, that urge to share my whole truth. My rawness and vulnerability were palpable.
“You seem like you want to say something. You should just say it,” he said.
Sometime between receiving our drinks and waiting for our Tex-Mex entrées, I shared that I am trans. I did my best to hold my tears in. I’d experienced so much rejection. But he didn’t overreact. In fact, he seemed slightly surprised but very chill.
“I’ve never been with a woman who’s transgender,” he said as he rubbed his chin. “I’d love to hear more about your experience.”
I was shook by his gentle curiosity and grace. Usually, I expect some kind of denial of attraction or impenetrable ignorance because that is what U.S. culture indoctrinates into damn near every cis straight man. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t of this culture that his reaction was so different.
I obliged, hitting the top lines of growing up in a traditional family, figuring out my identity, embarking on my transition, and how my experience had fueled my activism and career. He maintained an intrigued expression, then assured me that my identity didn’t change how he saw me. He felt something special with me.
Just as I started to relax into what might be a new phase of whatever the hell we were doing, the “but” came. Mr. Frenchman shared he had a vision for himself that included having a family the “traditional” way. That is, biologically. I wryly joked about surrogacy or even adoption. But he wasn’t interested in compromising on his dream, and I held on to mine that I deserve the right guy who doesn’t see my infertility or inability to bear children as a deal-breaker.
What really stung was what he said next: Before he’d learned I was trans, he would have considered a long-distance relationship. It made me wonder if I were an infertile cis woman, would he have been so quick to dismiss something deeper? Besides, why were we even talking about kids already?
Still, I couldn’t help but imagine a world where we took walks in his corner of France, planning a life together. Our connection felt like a promising start after years of drought. But it was just another thing that fizzled out.
It took me months to get over that fling. It hadn’t been like the endless tepid “talking” stages I had endured—it’d felt so reciprocally explosive. It reignited a desire for romance I’d mostly relinquished.
I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I feel a spark like that again, especially in a social climate where men seem to be growing more closed-minded. I’m not necessarily convinced by the conventional wisdom that “my person is out there,” “I have to manifest the right partner,” or “if I just focus on other things, it’ll come.” It’s not that I’m a pessimist. It’s that I’m a romantic realist—and I’ve made a commitment to building a life that’s fulfilling with or without romance.
As I’m often told, I’m still youthful, and I just might encounter the “right” person or series of people at some point. Ones who explode all the data and narratives that say I don’t deserve a passionate, transformative love. But for now, at least, I’ll subsist on flirtations, fragments, and flings like the one I had in Vegas—taking the glimmers as they come.
This story also appears in Cosmopolitan’s Summer 2025 print issue.
If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual violence, consider reaching out to the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 or using this online chat feature. In a crisis, you can call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to speak to a trained counselor at no cost to you. For an expanded list of resources specific to the trans community, click here.
