Jack & I met almost four years ago, through a group chat for local climbers. At first, I thought we would never really mesh as climbing partners and it was only thanks to my Italian climbing buddy that I gave the friendship between me & Jack a second chance and it wasn’t until almost a year & a half later, in the autumn of 2023, that we started getting really close. Among other things, that fall I opened up with him about my grief from the recent losses of my father and my European queer ex-lover, and discovered that Jack, too, had lost his father prematurely. Since then, our friendship has been growing steadily and we’ve gotten very close despite some differences.
On paper, he’s “straight”, he’s one of my cis-het guy friends. But there’s always been something different about him compared to my other cis-het male buddies and something different in the relationship between me & him. He is one of my few cis-het guy friends who’s known me since before starting the medicalization of my gender journey, so when Jack met me, I still looked like an “athletic young woman” (even though I was already using “they” pronouns and he knew I didn’t identify as a woman). Jack, as all my other buddies, has been a wonderful ally in my gender journey and, as with all my other buddies, we have a lot of “male camaraderie”. But in the friendship between me & Jack there’s also always been more tender elements, we’ve both been very vulnerable with each other in ways that are often difficult between men. And Jack is different from my other straight guy friends because he’s a bit of a “hippie” or of a “spiritual guy” and, while not queer himself, he queers the world (e.g. life styles, relationships, etc.), i.e. he’s open and curious and willing to explore.
This curiosity of his led us to have sex together when he accompanied me to Chicago in November and celebrated my birthday & gender-affirming paperwork with me.
That was four months ago. It was a lovely experience for both of us at the time, but then we never got a chance — or avoided chances — to talk about it.
Last week, something very upsetting happened to me, something so upsetting that I haven’t been able to share it with anyone other than my closest non-binary friend in Europe and my gay running buddy here. On Friday night I felt in pieces, with the intensely painful need to be held and the wrenching knowledge that nobody could meet that need for me. Belatedly, I replied to a text from Jack about meeting for chai, telling him how I felt and that I’d just spend the evening by myself because I knew nobody could hold me. Then, I went incommunicado for a day and a half.
When I turned my phone back on yesterday, I found some messages and missed calls from Jack, worried about me, and then he came over to visit me in the afternoon. I opened up with him and told him what was upsetting me; and finally, I asked him if he could hug me, and I snuggled up to him and let myself be held.
I thought this would last just a few minutes but then he brought up our shared experience in Chicago and, at last, we started talking about it — not only about that one night & morning of sex we had “far away from home”, but also about how we’d felt since then and how he still feels about it now, about what “feminine vs. masculine sides” he sees in me, about what it means for me to “be desired physically/sexually as a man”, about what things we’d be willing to try/do sexually together or not. And then, jokingly (he’s got a very good sense of humor), he said, “But dude, I’m straight!” So I replied to him, teasing, “No way! You’re at least bi-curious! If you want, I’ll tell you you’re straight but I’m a guy and you’re talking about wanting to have sex with me, so I’ll let you figure that out for yourself. I’m a man with a vagina, but I am a man, and that’s where I draw my line!”
While we were having this conversation, with me cuddled up in his lap, he got aroused (he admitted it himself) and it did flatter me; but the conversation and the feelings went way beyond the physical or sexual aspect. There was a deep sense of love and connection and sharing of vulnerabilities and safety. I know, I can feel, that he sees me, and likes me and loves me, in my entirety. He desires me and wants to have sex with me because I am me, because of the affection and connection and trust that there is specifically between me and him.
And so would I — want to have sex with him because of the affection and connection and trust that there is specifically between me and him.
It would not fill that need that I was feeling & mentioning a couple weeks ago about wanting to be desired physically/sexually as a man. That would still remain to be somehow met in some other way, I guess. But it would probably help me fill some even deeper need or “hole in my soul”: that of learning to accept myself, truly and wholly, as a nonbinary transman, with all of the different parts of me that, both physically and mentally/emotionally, are a clear (& to some, like Jack, still visible) mix of feminine and masculine. Admittedly, I haven’t made peace with this, yet, for myself. And maybe, if Jack & I could really be friends with benefits, it might bring me some healing and acceptance towards my own self and those parts of me that will forever be “female”.
It feels scary. I don’t know if Jack & I are really ready to face a relationship of this kind together, if I’m ready to explore everything that it could open up for me. But I know it has a huge healing potential (for both of us), as it could help me to see my being a transman as a feature, not a bug…
The Little Prince and the Fox 