What do you actually call it when a trans woman loves a woman?

Love is Love

There is this question that lingers with me in quiet moments, not because I hear it all the time, but because it sometimes comes up within me. It is not an attack, not a judgment. It is simply there: What do you actually call it when a trans woman loves a cis woman?

I am a trans woman. I am a woman, full stop. And the person who loves me is also a woman. A cis woman. Our love is real, deep, playful, and sometimes complicated, just like any other.

And still, I sometimes stumble over labels.

Lesbian? Straight? Queer?

“Would that make us lesbians?” I ask myself from time to time. Sometimes I think yes, because it is true. Sometimes I think no, because it does not feel completely right. And sometimes I simply think: we are us, and we love each other.

The word “lesbian” is more than a neutral description. It is a cultural image, a historical space, a political statement. And often that image is still shaped by the idea of two cis women.

That is where I do not quite fit in. Or rather, where we do not quite fit in. Not without it pinching a little. And that is okay.

Love does not always need a label

The woman who loves me does not see me as a footnote, not as “trans” in parentheses. She loves me as a woman. As a person. She calls me her “person of the heart.” Her own identity, whether lesbian, queer, pan, or simply herself, belongs to her. And I do not claim a label for us that does not feel right to her.

And me?

I am a woman who loves. Maybe I am a lesbian woman. Maybe I am simply a woman in love. Maybe I am queer because my path has not been a straight one. But I am not confused.

Relationships beyond the norm do not need an apology

I know that our love sometimes unsettles other people. Because it does not fit into the usual boxes. Because we show that love is bigger than gender categories. And because we make visible that the world is more diverse than many people believe.

But I have stopped making myself smaller just to fit into some label. Our relationship does not need an explanation. It does not need a stamp.

Maybe we are simply this: us. I love a woman. And she loves me. That is everything, and at the same time, everything.

Yours, Lizbeth