Being in a relationship with a transgender person apparently does not imply any difference from being in a relationship with a cisgender person. The couple demands faithful, frank, sincere and respectful behavior from both partners. If one of them fails, the situation will deteriorate in the same way and reconciliation will require the same efforts and the same concessions.

What will differentiate the situation of the transgender couple from the situation of the cisgender couple is the transition made by one or both persons of the transgender couple. During the transition, several factors are important for the relationship that the transgender person has at that time.

These factors are all related to the transitional state of the person's body: very significant changes in the body over a very short period of time, change in legal identity, change in the attitude of this person in his relationship with his or her partner. His own sexual preference as well as that of his or her partner is often questioned.

Some transgender people may also feel that during their transition they are so focused on themselves and their own bodies that they feel they cannot afford the time needed to maintain a stable and lasting relationship with someone they they will feel like they give up too often. And it is on this feeling that the duration of the couple depends.

An endocrinologist, specialist in transidentity, estimates that out of ten couples in which one of the partners enters into transition, five divorce with a crash mainly because the cisgender partner does not accept the state of "fait accompli" in front of which he (she) is put and simply feels that transitioning is a betrayal.

Of the five remaining couples, four will divorce but in a "more civilized" way and the reasons for divorce are often related to the sexual orientation of the partner. Indeed, if in a heterosexual couple, the man transitions to the female gender, his companion, remaining heterosexual, will not be able to change her sexual orientation to become a lesbian. Finally, the last couple remains united against all odds despite the importance of the handicaps that the cisgender partner will often have to bear, face and overcome. This is how the wife of a transgender woman once said to her whom she had married decades before as a man the following sentence: "outwardly, you have changed a lot but internally you have remained the same and for me that's the most important thing." What a beautiful declaration of love !

In 2008, a study designed to compare relationships between transgender women and men with heterosexual cisgender couples found no substantial differences in relationship and sexual satisfaction. The success of the relationship was attributed by the partners to respect, honesty, trust, mutual understanding and frank and open communication within the couple. For some unknown reason, transgender people find it difficult to talk about sex for various reasons, but experiencing sex in a harmonious and pleasant way within the couple helps to improve the situation.

After the transition, the situation improves greatly and it is easy to understand. The transgender person is finally themselves and they behave as their gender identity indicates to them. This situation is easier for transgender women than for transgender men. This is due to the fact that surgical techniques perform better on the bodies of transgender women than on the bodies of transgender men.

Testimony of a transgender woman who is in a relationship.

The couple that turns square or round ?

I am alone in my couple... strange... married and alone !!!

I sincerely believed for years that I had succeeded in being a man like the others... but with the disgust of looking at myself every day in front of the mirror to shave myself... this damn beard... to make me vomit...

I just had a few particular ideas... almost nothing for a man...

For example, I had the recurring urge to cut off my man's penis... what could be more ordinary...

I wanted to have developed breasts.... common banalities for a man....

When I think about it, my blindness makes me smile....

The children... I often asked my wife if they were really mine... She replied almost outraged that they were really mine...

Ah good!... I have my doubts... They are nothing like me...

Nothing in common, no open-mindedness, no generosity, no respect for difference....

They would rather love a father image than love their father...

As a transgender person, I am a victim of my own image.... my old image of course....

They refuse everything I am, en bloc... it's more comfortable for them...

They are simply selfish and my happiness is in fact of no importance to them... their little comfort above all...