“We Faced Every Change Together”. Couple’s Intimacy and Sexuality Experiences from the Perspectives of Transgender and Non-Binary Individuals’ Partners.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of transgender and non-binary (TGNB) individuals’ romantic and sexual relationships. The present study explored, from TGNB people’s partners’ perspective, how the couple experiences sexuality and intimacy, the effects from gender dysphoria in these relational domains, and how dysphoria is managed. For this purpose, 99 partners of TGNB individuals were recruited for an online study. Participants were asked to answer the following open-ended questions: “In the intimacy and sexuality with your partner, are there any parts of your or your partner’s body that are/were off-limits?” “How did you manage this before, during, and after transition?” The data were analyzed through thematic analysis, and four overarching themes emerged: 1) Positive Aspects of the Relationship; (2) Challenges; (3) Strategies to Manage Dysphoria; and (4) Expected Improvement through Access to Medical Affirmation. The results suggest that gender dysphoria is one of the main challenges in experiencing intimacy and sexuality, but TGNB individuals and their partners can rely on several relational and practical resources to navigate it and enjoy positive experiences with intimacy and sexuality. The findings provide valuable information about how TGNB individuals and their partners build healthy and fulfilling relationships, and they can help clinicians better understand both members’ perspectives in these romantic couples in the context of couples’ therapy and sexual counseling.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [A.A.]. The data are not publicly available because they might contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Notes

1 Transgender is an umbrella term, used to refer to anyone who has a gender identity that differs from their gender assigned at birth (Bilodeau & Renn, 2005; Tate, Youssef, & Bettergarcia, 2014). Thus, this term includes both those who identify within a binary gender (man and woman), and people (often referred to by the umbrella term non-binary) whose identities do not align exclusively with binary categories; these people may identify consistently with more than one gender, have a fluid identity and move within the gender spectrum, identify with a third gender, identify as not having a gender, or have an identity entirely outside of the concept of gender (Butler, 2012; Factor & Rothblum, 2008; Galupo et al., 2018; Galupo, Pulice-Farrow, & Ramirez, 2017; Harrison, Grant, & Herman, 2012; Richards et al., 2016).

2 In few cases, participants describe their polycule’s resources and challenges in their experiences with intimacy and sexuality with a TGNB partner, as not all the people in the sample are part of a monogamous couple.

3 Transgender people, binary or non-binary, whose identity falls on the masculine spectrum (Martin & Coolhart, 2019).

4 This term tends not to be used today, as it was originally used in a pathologizing sense and is, therefore, potentially offensive (Prunas, 2019). It is used here to quote an outdated theory by a specific author (Benjamin, 1966).

5 Elastic tape used to give the chest a flat appearance.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.