Ask The Flytrap: Am I Living in a Romance Novel or Do I Need a Reality Check?

Welcome to your new favorite advice column from your favorite feminist journalism collective! New editions are published every Wednesday. Read on for the drama, the tea, and the commiseration—and if you want to submit a question, scroll on down to the bottom of this post for more info.

Let's get into it:

Hey Flyteam,

Trying to abridge the story, attended an all boys high school and was deep in the closet now nearly 20 years after graduating I found out I’m a woman and after connecting with a local group I found another woman like me.

And I can’t tell if we are having real feelings because it feels so serendipitous that a classmate a year behind also went through a similar deep closet as well. And it feels like fiction to have survived and met after decades. 

We flirt A LOT.

Could this be more like soro-sisters or how can I tell if we might be a thing?

— Boy School Later in Life Sapphic Yuri

Dear Boy School Later in Life Sapphic Yuri,

Firstly, congratulations on discovering yourself!

Only time will tell whether this thing you feel with your former classmate is a thing but I would caution you against rushing in. Your letter doesn’t say how long you’ve been out as a trans woman, so forgive me if I am off with some of my assumptions.

When you first come out of the closet, your emotions are like a live wire, you get jolts of electricity from everything, ESPECIALLY human contact from other people. Imagine you spent your entire life wearing thick gloves and after 20 years you’re finally allowed to take them off and start touching things with your own skin. Everything you touch will feel like the most amazing thing you’ve ever felt. That’s what it’s like when you transition and you start spending time around people who are seeing you for who you are for the very first time.

This, of course, is incredibly exciting for those of us freshly out in the world, but it also leaves us vulnerable. Beware of more experienced trans gals who still cruise around the trans support groups for freshly out trans women to date. I am always side-eyeing these folks.

But if the power differentials in your trans life experience are similar, I would say it’s great to at least explore your feelings with this woman! I speak from experience when saying that you only learn through experiencing. This person could be the one, or they could end up something you look back on in 10 years with cringe. More likely it’s something in between.

Good luck!

— Katelyn Burns

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