“I did extremely well in any video games with dating elements, like Persona 4, but virtual dating and real dating are two very different things. I could master playing as someone else, but as the old cliché of dating advice often goes, I needed to be myself.”

“It would have been nice to share my entire truth with her, but because of the Standards of Care, I didn’t; I feared my story would be seen as diverging from the typical trans* narrative too much.”

“Our commitment was never in question. I just hadn’t faced the possibility that I could be, not someone’s boyfriend, but their girlfriend. That was the part I had to think about.”