You're probably wondering why some girly-girl is standing here before you at a program entitled "The Transgender Monologues." In fact, I think I overheard someone earlier asking their neighbor about whether or not I thought this was supposed to be a reading of "The Vagina Monologues." Well, I was asked to speak to you about what it's like to be the partner of a transgender-identified person.

Being with my gender-queer partner CJ through her gender journey has been quite an experience, to put it nicely. When I first started seeing her, I knew that this little unsuspecting butch dyke had a lot to learn about her gender identity... and who better to teach her than yours truly?

I remember saying to her several times throughout the beginning of our relationship, "Honey, you're transgender," and grinning knowingly whenever she expressed a glimmer of gender-queer hope. "I really don't feel like a girl," she'd say. "I know, dear," I'd think.

She struggled, wavered, swayed... She now understands that, even though society expects it, she doesn't have to claim one of two normalized genders. Her claiming a neither/both identity has certainly been... fun.

"Honey, which pronoun should we use today?" I often think. In the presence of FTM friends and their longtime partners, I feel like an unsupportive or unknowledgeable partner when I say "she" to refer to CJ when they claim her with "he." On an FTM significant others list serve, I often have to put an asterisk next to each pronoun I use, which, at this point of CJ's gender exploration, is usually feminine, and explain why I used that particular pronoun later in my email. It just saves me from being defensive later.

Another fun part of our journey together has been the quest to find a name. We've been through Dixie, Christina (her given/legal name), Chrissy, Chris, Tweek, and finally CJ. It was kind of hard for me to not know what to call my own partner, and often had to rely on cutesy -- like Honey and Love. Through this particular challenge, I have learned a very important lesson: expressing my feelings of love to her and supporting her through this confusing time is much more important than finding the "correct" name to use when expressing this to her.

Probably the most difficult and personally challenging part of being a SOFFA (which, for those of you who aren't down with the lingo, stands for significant other, friend, family, and ally) is the invisibility I face. How, you ask? I'll warn you... this part of my story isn't pretty, and probably won't make some of you very happy.

What I really wanted to talk about tonight is how I, personally, fit into the transgender community. I wanted to address my femme identity as a gender queer identity. When I mentioned my intent for a monologue, I was told that I should discuss, instead or also, what it is like to love a transgender person. While I agree that it's rare to hear from SOFFAs of transpeople, and important to hear about our joys and struggles as significant others, I hate being made to feel that my identity in the context of my relationship, or rather how I deal with my partner's identity, is more important than my own identity and how that relates the transgender community, and that's exactly how that request made me feel.

Now that CJ has come out and found support within the transgender community, I often feel shut out. I feel like the trans community has latched onto her because her voice as a gender-queer with FTM flavor is often an underrepresented one. I'm happy that my partner now has the support that she needs as well as the chance to get involved in gender activism. However, I'm feeling more and more that people are so excited to have her in the community that they forget that I've always been here, that I've always been, at the very least, an ally, if not a trans-identified person, depending on the specific time of my own gender exploration. I feel like now, I'm only remembered in the context of my partner's identity, like, "Oh, let's get CJ's partner to talk about what it's like to love a trans person!"

When I first came out as queer, I immediately knew that my gender expression was strange. My first experience at the gay bar proved that to me when I was pulled aside by two lesbians who asked me if I was aware that I was at a gay bar. Apparently they were too put off by my lipstick and coiffed hair to see my rainbow rings. I never felt truly accepted in the lesbian community because of my femme identity, and felt the only way to fit in was to shed some of my femme attributes and attitudes. The only community that ever felt warm and accepting to me regardless of my gender expression was the transgender community, though now that I'm partnered with a person who identifies as transgender, I'm expected to hide my own identity. I'm expected to talk about my partner because apparently my partner's identification with the trans community is easier to understand or accept. I'm expected to be okay with the fact that my partner's identity is more important somehow than my own, such is the plight of the significant other of a trans person. I'm expected to tolerate the fact that my opinions and gender theories no longer matter, if they ever did at all. I'm expected to come out here and smile when I talk about my partner even though I'm still pissed off and hurt about being made to feel invisible from the request that I talk about what it's like to love her instead of what it's like to love myself.

You wanted to know what it's like to love someone who's transgender? Well, it's not easy, especially when you make me feel invisible in the process.