i can’t shake this deep fear that my partner still sees me as a woman
hi mixed feelings,
I recently came out as nonbinary. It’s truly been a sigh of relief and I’ve never felt more comfy in my skin. But there’s one thing that’s eating away at me: I’m AFAB and my partner is a cis man. He uses my new pronouns and respects my new boundaries when we have sex — no problems there so far — but the issue is I can’t shake this deep, deep fear that in the pit of his heart, he still sees me as a woman. Part of the reason I feel this way is that he identifies as straight. I have no doubts that he’s still attracted to me as I shift my gender presentation, but there’s a small part of me that can’t reconcile the idea of him being straight, but dating me, a person who is not a woman. Like, make it make sense? How do I shake this feeling? What is the best way for me to have a conversation about ways he can treat me differently so I feel my gender presentation is being truly understood? — Mx.Understood, they/them
KB Kinkel is a writer based in Massachusetts, where he teaches English and creative writing. He is the author of Blood Machine, an original collection of poems publishing late 2025, which won the 2025 Chapbook Open from Finishing Line Press. He is the recipient of the TQ32 Poetry Prize, and was long-listed for the Frontier Award for New Poets. His poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Prelude, The Rumpus, Poetry Online, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Cambridge, MA.
dear Mx. Understood,
At the beginning of Catherine Barnett’s poem “Envoy,” the speaker puts on a skort. To be seen wearing it, she thinks, will symbolically enclose her within a sphere of domesticity, normalcy, femininity.
Later, alone in her house, the speaker finds a palm-sized imperial moth and envies the exposure of her most vulnerable, authentic self. “Something about the way she waited there,” she writes, “made me want to rescue my copy of Maslow from the basement and study the hierarchy again.” In Barnett’s rendering of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, love and belonging are “pretty basic,” while “transcendence” is the cap on top. In choosing to glimmer, alone, in her bark-brown beauty against the fading light, Barnett’s moth “had chosen transcendence.” No skorts, no performance for her.
Being fully seen and understood by one’s partner lives in the “love and belonging” slice of Maslow’s pyramid. Important indeed. But to come home to one’s authentic self and to feel, as you have, “a sigh of relief”, the true comfort in one’s skin? Transcendence! And yet, I think it is possible that a higher transcendence exists — the marriage of your own self-actualization and your partner’s recognition.
In some practical ways, your need for love and your need for self-actualization in your relationship have both been met. Your partner uses your pronouns and respects your physical boundaries. But still, you carry a “deep fear” that he still does not see you as nonbinary — as you truly are.
The disjunction you’re marking here between your partner’s apparently open-hearted endorsement of your authentic self and your gnawing uncertainty about his complete and accurate recognition of your gender identity reveals a slippery reality about the relational challenges we face as humans, especially those of us on the trans and nonbinary spectrum: it’s hard to truly know how others perceive us. As you’ve experienced already, this unknowing can cloud even our closest, most intimate relationships — especially when those relationships bridge the gulf between how we were known pre-transition and our authentic presentations of self.
Your query raises a number of vexingly important questions. What does it mean to be fully known and seen by those we love? What happens in moments of rupture between our transcendent expressions of self and our desire for belonging and inclusion? Can we be fully held and loved as our bodies iridesce on screen doors, briefly and perfectly alive?
a long conversation
When my partner and I got married, our officiant, a beloved professor and friend, found a way to quote Nietzsche. Though he isn’t known for his romantic sentiments (or his success in romantic enterprises, unfortunately), Nietzsche’s statement on marriage from Human, All Too Human is as fitting here as it was in our ceremony. “Marriage,” he wrote, “[is] a long conversation … Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time that you’re together will be devoted to conversation.”
Good conversation, in romantic relationships and otherwise, is dialectical. It not only reveals but potentiates new truths — understandings made possible only through the synthesis of distinct ideas. Like you, I think conversation might be the best starting point for you and your partner. It sounds as though there is a diamond-strong foundation of respect in your relationship (“he’s a good man, Savannah!” was the brainrot playing in my head as I read your letter) so I am confident that conversation will be clarifying, if not always comfortable.
I’d suggest beginning by checking in with yourself about your own wants and desires. You’ve already done the self-exploratory work of coming into your authentic self. How do you want to be seen and loved moving forward? How do you want your relationships to be categorized or understood? What does it look like for you to feel fully seen as nonbinary in your relationship? What behaviors or actions do you need from your partner to confirm you are loved as you truly are? Really allow yourself some visionary, best-case scenario thinking — it’s no less than you deserve.
Leading questions and curiosity could also be an entry point to conversation with your partner. You might consider asking him the same questions you considered for yourself. Although you are the one who has recently experienced a major identity alignment, he might find examining his needs and desires similarly illuminating. Many questions can work here, but I’d suggest asking each other how gender identity and presentation factor into the ways you each move through the world, and how they inform your respective conceptions of love, intimacy, and desire.
Because it’s clear that the possibility of your partner still seeing you as a woman is bothering you, I would suggest addressing this directly. You know the forms of discourse that work best in your relationship, but again: if you feel nervous, maybe questions are a way to begin. For example: is identifying as straight an important, defining component of his identity? If so, is he willing to make space for a queer relationship, as yours inherently is?
You can also feel empowered, I think, to ask for the affirmation you need. Shane Diamond, Director of Advocacy and Communications at GLAAD, suggests asking for affirmation and giving grace: “Gender and sexuality are fluid and can change over time - as have yours,” Diamond says. “If there are specific things that your partner is doing that you feel are too feminizing for you, let him know and ask for a shift. It sounds like he’s already pretty supportive, and remember that this dynamic is new for him, too.”
One of the wonderful things about being human is that our identities and beliefs about ourselves aren’t fixed. Everyone changes over time in and beyond our relationships, and with the right dialogue, your relationship can navigate areas of novelty or discomfort.
get your lemon
Not long after I met my now-husband, we went for a date that ended in a long drive through late autumn fields. Razed rows of beans and kale made a jagged line under the cloud-smeared moonlight. We drove in his tiny, smashable car. We were sort of already in love, though neither of us had said the words out loud.
I had the aux, and I played him Alligator by The National. Because we could not yet say the words, we were sharing everything we loved with each other. When “The Geese of Beverley Road” came on, I sang all the words out loud and cried. I remember the huge moon as a watery, dizzy sphere. The postage stamp windows fogged a little in the cold. I sang the words in my clear, high, pre-testosterone voice. Serve me the sky with a big slice of lemon. I was being weird; unhinged, even, but he didn’t seem to think so. I knew then that he loved me.
I also realized then, in some way, that I was trans.
Though I didn’t have the language for it yet, I knew what I wanted — my sky! my lemon! — was inclusive of, and exceeded, a partner’s love. Everything around me tingled with the fear and delight of being alive. I had found love that could last, but feared that within me lay dormant something that might render love impossible or transient.
It would be several years more before I came out as a transgender man. By that time, my husband and I were already married. Though I believed he would still love me when I told him I was trans, I was afraid of rejection and loneliness. But I told him.
Reader — he loved on. And while there have been learning moments for each of us in the years since, our partnership has been strengthened by our more nuanced understanding of the interplay between self, partner, and world. We maintain dialogue about how to honor each other, inclusive of direct asks for acts of affirmation. Each moment of uncertainty, approached with an intention of care, has strengthened our connection.
One of the greatest gifts of being trans, I think, is the knowledge that new truths are often just beyond our understanding, shimmering within the grasps of those willing to reach for them.
I can’t say for sure whether your conversations will lead to the affirmation you need and deserve. But I think it will. More importantly, I hear in your voice the certainty of someone who knows themself fully. So while I don’t think you will, please: don’t ‘put on the skort.’ Make sure you get your whole sky and your lemon. You have arrived in yourself, always already (trans)cendent.
