Fear

10 May 2024

While I was still closeted, I tried to have a more serious relationship dynamic with a man. It started with a level of warmth, nurturing and attention I had never experienced before from anyone I had spoken to. I was quickly drawn in to what might be possible, but within a very short period of time he was attempting to completely control my life and break my will to resist.

Never in my life had I experienced anything close to a toxic relationship like this. A relationship where the masculine expects complete control over the feminine. Where any failure to behave as expected could be met with ire.

One evening, my friend Annie and I had a movie night. I told him in advance I would be spending time with her that evening and he requested that I keep in touch. So during breaks I would send a text. Apparently this was not enough. I was accused of being unfaithful and not texting him enough during the movie night. He was livid with me.

I remember one moment vividly after the movie ended. I picked up my phone to see a message from him saying I hadn’t texted him enough, and Annie watched my body language completely shift into a pensive, distracted state. I told her we had to wrap this up shortly, so that I could deal with the angry boyfriend. When she left, despite my explanations, he was insistent I was unfaithful. He gaslighted me over and over in attempts to me feel like unworthy trash. He just wanted me to yield and apologize to him. I felt in that moment that if I didn’t immediately end this he would quite literally break me. The really scary part to me is that I know for a moment I considered yielding, and it just reflects the state of vulnerability I was in to even consider such a thing.

I dumped him that night. Shortly after he started persuing my friends, including Annie! He trash talked a bunch about me to one friend because we had a shared an online photo together. Honestly, I don’t know how he thought shit talking a trans girl to another trans girl was going to work out in his favour, but he tried. His game was always about isolation, so telling someone else their friends aren’t good for them fits the playbook.

I felt a bit terrorized by him for a little while, both at the conclusion of our short engagement as well as the subsequent weeks. It also made my next relationship a bit harder at the beginning, because I had residual anxiety from the fear of disappointing a partner and being brutally scorned.

This was one of the last people I met before I concluded I HAD to come out to family for my own safety and wellness. Predators lurk in the discreet corners of queer dating.