Ask a Queer Therapist: How Can I Help My Trans Partner Accept His Body?
“My transgender partner of 3 years is struggling with dysphoria. It has now affected our sex life to the point that we barely touch more than a quick smooch. If I try to initiate anything, I am shot down, and told that he is having a bad dysphoria day. This has been going on for about a year. We don’t even have sex monthly anymore. I feel lucky if I get to see him naked even twice a month out of the shower. How can I help him accept his body, and get back our sex life? If I bring it up, he gets upset or angry. He has even put me down for needing to masturbate. Please help, I am lost.”
Dear Lost,
It sounds like you and your partner are both struggling here significantly, and I’m so sorry about that. We obviously know that dysphoria has a significant impact on those experiencing it, but it’s important to remember that it will inevitably also impact the romantic or sexual partners of that person.
Unfortunately, you probably won’t like my answer to your core question, “How can I help him accept his body, and get back our sex life?” but hear me out first. How can you help him accept his body? You can’t. His acceptance of his body has absolutely nothing to do with you, even though it certainly contributes to the dynamics of your sex life with each other. You can say all of the loving and affirming thoughts you have, show all of the desire and affection that you feel, but ultimately whether or not he accepts his body is going to be up to him.
So my first piece of advice is to suggest that you stop focusing on how you can help him accept his body. If you do this, you can start moving on to other things that you actually can do.
I also suggest that you begin to let go of the hope/expectation that you will “get back to” your sex life. This thinking implies that you want to go back to the way things were, but it sounds to me like you both need to find a way to move forward into a sexual dynamic that feels good for both of you, where you’re at now. I don’t know what your sex life looked like 3 years ago, or how your partner felt about it then. But from what you describe, it sounds like going back to something would require negating whatever your partner has been going through regarding his gender identity since then. I’m sure that’s not your intention or desired outcome. It’s also important to consider that your partner might not want to go back to the type of sex you previously had together. Dysphoria aside, the evolution of his gender identity might include a change in the type of sex he is interested in having or exploring. This might include boundaries surrounding his body (where he wants to be touched, how he wants to be touched, if he wants to be touched) or a change in how he feels about initiating sex, or any number of other things. My point is, you need to consider that your future sex life together might look very different than it did in the past, even if/when you start having sex again.
(Note: This probably goes without saying, but if the two of you aren’t in individual and couple’s therapy, I recommend that you both start!)
Your letter mentions what happens if you “try to initiate anything,” by which I assume you mean anything sexual. But what happens if you try to initiate a conversation about how you are both feeling in the relationship? I don’t mean how you’re feeling about your sexual relationship, but how you feel about the relationship as a whole. For some people, in addition to the physical pleasure that sex brings, sex also brings an emotional connection and a deeper sense of intimacy with a partner. I don’t know how important emotional connection or intimacy is to you or your partner, but let’s assume you both feel that sex plays an important role in both of those things. If so, you need to explore together how it feels to be missing that connection to each other, and perhaps consider other, non-sexual ways that you can deepen your emotional connection and sense of intimacy with each other. I’m not suggesting that you do this as a substitute for sex, but the more disconnected from each other you both feel, the harder it is to come back together.
You mention that the lack of sex has been happening for the last year, and the two of you have been together for three years. I’m curious what the relationship was like for those first two years, both sexually and otherwise? How big a role did sex play in your relationship? What was the degree of emotional intimacy that you had those first two years? How important was sex to either of you in previous relationships? I know it’s a lot of questions, but I’m trying to demonstrate that the sexual dynamics in long-term relationships are not just about what’s happening in the moment. You both bring histories into the relationship (sexual and otherwise) and you’ve also created a history together within the relationship. Even though you are both naming dysphoria as the reason you’re not having sex, it may be that something else is going on as well. It might be a lack of intimacy, a need for distance, not feeling connected in other ways, etc. Even though you’ve been in this relationship together, it’s possible that you’ve been having very different experiences inside of it.
I’m disturbed by your comment that you have been “put down for needing to masturbate.” It sounds like your partner might feel that your sexual needs are threatening to him, or to the relationship, and that he’s expressing that fear through anger. To be clear: masturbating is a perfectly natural and “normal” part of sexuality, regardless of how much partnered sex someone is having. It may be true that you masturbate more than you otherwise would if you and your partner were having sex together but also, maybe not. Either way, you should not be criticized, shamed, or put down because of it. It sounds like you have a lot of empathy for your partner, but empathy should not be used as a justification for tolerating being treated that way.
Speaking of empathy, if I was seeing the two of you in couple’s therapy, I would ask your partner what it feels like for him when you affirm his gender identity, or show sexual desire for him? We assume that it feels good to receive compliments or to be treated as desirable (in the context of a consensual relationship) and for most people, that’s probably true. But when someone struggles with dysphoria, the opposite might actually be true; the person’s nervous system might not know how to tolerate those expressions of wanting and desiring. If that happens, the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and ultimately shuts down. I don’t know if this is what’s happening for your partner, but if I was your therapist, I would want to find out.
I will end with this: regardless of what’s happening for your partner, you have a right to your sexual wants and desires, and you're allowed to feel (hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, sad, insecure) that they are not being met. However, at some point the question becomes less about what your partner is or is not doing, and more about why you choose to stay in a relationship that does not meet your needs? I’m by no means suggesting that you end the relationship, but I am suggesting that you remember that staying in it is an active choice that you are making. Is it worth ending a relationship because your (sexual) needs aren’t being met? Only you can decide.
Warmly,
A Queer Therapist