Ask a trans person!

[Star Anise]

When I officially "came out" my first "girlfriend", I use quotation marks because as it turns out he was actually trans, I had absolutely no idea about his gender dysphoria and was generally clueless.

It is a real shame because I know now, in my complete ignorance I probably made his experience much worse, which I feel much grief about still. I have gone out of my way to educate myself through online sources, blogs, youtube (which I have already mentioned in another thread has a wonderful trans community) academic discourse...basically any source I could get my hands on...But I am still very conscious of the fact that it is not a "one size fits all" case.

He was the first and only trans guy that I have been with and it didn't work so well...

Where I am, there is a small trans community, and I know that I have felt myself attracted to a few trans guys, and to be frank I would hate to miss out on an opportunity to have a special relationship with someone that happens to be trans...

But the thing is, I am just so damn scared of putting my foot in it, because though I have tried hard to become more educated, I am not trans myself.

which leads me to my squeamish question...

How do you recommend opening up this sort of communication?

As in, this is somewhat new to me, and I am not sure that I will totally understand your experience, but I appreciate who you are and I don't want to hurt or patronise you?

I hear complaints from the trans community about cisgendered people just being a pain in the ass, I really don't want to be one those people

Actually any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.