Book excerpt: Gigi Gorgeous' 'He Said, She Said: Lessons, Stories, and Mistakes from My Transgender Journey'

Excerpted and adapted with permission from "He Said, She Said: Lessons, Stories, and Mistakes from My Transgender Journey" by Gigi Gorgeous. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright 2019 by Gigi Gorgeous LLC.

From Chapter 12:

Dating a woman was never really on my mind. At the same time, I rarely enjoyed the sex I had with guys over the years. I liked flirting with them, yes, but once it got physical, it was hard to get excited. I’ve never been a huge fan of anal sex. A lot of times, as soon as I’d get into it, I’d be begging for it to be over. And I can’t think of an instance where I really felt connected to a man in bed. But I just didn’t look at women as romantic options.

That’s partly because I lived as a gay man for a long time. As Gregory, I always thought my big relationship would be with a man, and that became true also when I began living as Gigi. When I transitioned, I thought I needed to be the most feminine I could be. I had in my head that I needed to be the epitome of a woman in what I said, what I wore, and who I dated. So dating a man would confirm to me and everyone else that I was a woman.

Around this time ... I became good friends with August Getty, who is an awesome designer. Neither of us remembers how we became friends. Suffice it to say that we got really, really close really, really quickly. Before long we were having “filler” parties where we all had Botox and Juvederm injections at home, or burping contests, which I always won. He also started inviting me on lots of fun fashion trips. So at some point, he went to Paris to show his collection for Fashion Week, and he let me tag along. It was going to be a ten-day trip. He also brought his sister, Nats, whom I’d met before socially.

I didn’t even know she was coming on the trip. We wound up spending every day together. Not just every day, but really every moment. Which was a lot more time than we’d ever spent together before. On this trip, she confided in me that she’d always had a crush on me. During this initial conversation, she was extremely forward, openly hitting on me, making it known. It felt weird at first. I was overanalyzing it. Again, it hadn’t occurred to me that I might ever date a woman. I’d had this very strong idea of gender roles for as long as I could remember.

So there we were in Paris, far away from our real lives, a whole fairy-tale vibe. I thought the fantasy would evaporate when we got back to Los Angeles. Instead, I spent several nights at her house. We weren’t sleeping together (yet). Eventually, at a place called Club Sandwich, she kissed me. Soon after, I had to go back to Canada to work on my documentary. With some time on my own, I realized that maybe I had feelings for Nats, too. I had to sit and think. What is this that we’re doing here? Is this the beginning of a full-on relationship?

Of course, I couldn’t keep it a secret. I told my friends. They’d known me for so long, and they’d known me in my boy-crazy days. Now here I was coming out to them for the third time. First, I’d come out to them as gay. Then I’d come out to them as trans. And now I was coming out to them as a possible lesbian.

They thought I was joking.

I was worried about how Nats really felt about me being trans. I know how to own it myself, but the person I’m in a relationship with has to own it, too. I couldn’t get into another situation that wasn’t totally and completely public.

When I got back to Los Angeles, I really needed to have a conversation with Nats. We were hanging out with a couple of her friends, and one of them came up to me and said, “Do you guys [hook up] or whatever, even when you guys aren’t blackout drunk?” Since that was one of Nats’s friends, I wasn’t completely sure that her heart was in the right place. I asked Nats the hard-hitting questions:

1) “How do you feel about me being trans?”

2) “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

3) “Have people brought it up to you?”

Nats answered my questions like a boss. She took it for what it was. She was super-mature about it, understanding and sweet. She took her place as a part of the community right next to me.

Nats knows that being trans is just equal, that I deserve everything anyone else has. I think it comes from the adversity she’s overcome from being gay herself. She’s dated men and women, but I think she dated men kind of in the way I dated Magda way back in high school.

The experience with Nats thus far has been so much different and so much more fulfilling than dating a man. The sex is great. I connect with her. Every day I unlock more and more things we have in common. I feel like in our relationship, I’m more feminine and she’s more masculine. I mean, I do wear all this makeup, and I’m obsessed with getting glam. That’s pretty feminine, I guess. Of course, she has feminine attributes, if it’s fair to call them that. She’s emotional, she’s sensitive, she cares what she looks like. But I have masculine attributes, too. I definitely feel like I’m controlling and territorial. Though I would argue that being jealous is fairly unisex. Maybe more of these traits are unisex than we realize.

And I don’t even know if it’s a gender thing. Honestly, I feel as if it’s just meeting the right person. At the end of the day, it’s all about the connection.

I may be only twenty-five, but I’ve lived a lot. I’ve lived as a man. I’ve lived as a woman. And I know what I want when it comes to what makes me happy.

I had a very traditional upbringing. Family has always been really important to me. Ever since I was really young, I’d always wanted a husband or a partner. Now I realize it’s about having the right person as your partner instead of looking like the image of “husband and wife” I’d always had in my head. And I always wanted a family with kids. Marriage is absolutely something that’s important to me. It’s the ultimate symbolic step in love. I’ve always wanted to be married. It’s very traditional and romantic. It shows passion, and it shows the world you want to be with this person forever. But it’s not only for the world, it’s for the two people to know for themselves also.

I’m a firm believer that Nats and I will have a big wedding. A ring is great, but the whole thing is going to be mind-blowing. The ceremony, the speeches, the cake, the outfits . . . and the most important part: having the right person to walk down the aisle with.

And since our engagement was already pretty over-the-top (see page 213), it’s definitely going to be expensive.

I think that my relationship with Nats is the real thing. I might want to have natural children with Nats. We’ll see. We have to get married first. And I’ve given a lot of thought to a potential wedding.