On Loving My Partner

December 14, 2025December 14, 2025 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

It’s a really bizarre contrast to see conservatives repeatedly attacking trans people as my partner transitions. If you don’t know, my partner and I have been together for twenty years, and together, we have grown as people while growing closer. She was very accepting and encouraging when I came out as nonbinary, and when she started exploring her gender a year or two ago, I wondered if she might also be trans. Over the course of many months, she started wearing leggings and non-masculine clothing, and near the end of 2024, she came to the realization that she was a trans woman and her transition journey began in earnest.

I have always suspected my partner was queer. She gave off major queer-coded Disney villain energy, and while she agreed she was probably demisexual, that’s where the queerness ended in her mind. She gravitated toward queer and trans people and never embodied the typical cis dude attitude or aversion to color or feminine clothing. Selfishly, I had assumed this was my f gender attitude running off on her. The more we talked about gender stuff, the more I side-eyed things she said because they were very egg-like (an egg is a trans person who doesn’t yet realize they’re trans).

“I wish I had been born a girl.”

“I don’t think I actually liked [girl from middle school]. I think I just wanted to be here.”

“I make all my characters girls, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

If you know anything about eggs, you need to let them come out of the shell on their own or with very gentle help. I waited, I listened, I suggested things she might like, and when she came out as a trans woman, it felt more like a natural progression rather than some mind-blowing revelation.

My partner has started her transition against the background of the second Trump administration. Conservatives (and some dems) have thrown transgender people under the bus, and England has done its damnedest to make trans peoples’ lives miserable. Meanwhile, I’ve watched my partner become a happier person with every passing day, and I’m more convinced than ever that hormone replacement therapy is a miracle drug. Within a week of starting estrogen and a testosterone blocker, her skin started getting softer. Other changes came rapidly, and with each one, there was a new spark of joy.

She got bras, she got a purse, she got a new coat and boots, we used a laser to remove her facial hair (a work in progress), and slowly, she started presenting even more femme before she came out to my mom and family. She was understandably nervous to tell other people, but when she did, my mom immediately started using her new name and pronouns. My partner came out to the rest of my family right before Thanksgiving, and it went well. Ever since she came out, a weight has been lifted from her. The new hormones had already bolstered her mood and chipped away at the self-loathing, but coming out freed her.

Every day I watch someone I have known for the majority of my life change and grow in ways I never thought possible. She has somehow become more herself while becoming someone new, and I am honored that I’m able to be a part of it.

I often think of the spouses or parents who treated their trans loved ones as if they died or betrayed them, and I can’t imagine that. The sheer joy rolling off my partner as she tries new things and feels more herself makes it more than clear that this is the best decision she could have made. Doing something new is scary, and more than anything, I’m proud of her for making the leap and choosing to love herself and embrace the person she was always meant to be.

I used to joke that I’m a wife guy, and now, I truly am.

Personal Life

To My Partner

June 15, 2025June 15, 2025 Kara Jorgensen3 Comments

This Friday will be my twentieth anniversary with my partner. Yes, you heard that right, 20 years. My partner and I have been together since we were fourteen. We went to high school and college together and have gone through our own respective gender journeys together. I finally figured out the words for my gender back around 2017 or so. I have always felt like being a woman didn’t fit me, and once I heard the term “nonbinary,” I realized that I had been feeling dysphoria for years and started to do things to make myself happier and more in line with my feelings regarding my gender. None of these were huge changes because I’m incredibly stubborn and refused to dress femme for years before that. Now, I am just more aware my dysphoria and less willing to please others while making it worse.

My partner, on the other hand, ignored the fact that she was dealing with dysphoria for years. She tried to double down on dressing masculine while in college, but it didn’t make her feel better. Last year, she thought she might be nonbinary because our discussions of gender made her more comfortable to explore her feminine side. And this year, she realized she was actually a trans woman, and we figured out how to get her gender affirming care. She is close to the three month mark on hormone-replacement therapy, and she is the happiest she has ever been. More than anything this year, I am so glad to have my partner feel more like herself and be on her way to being the person she truly is. Twenty years and two gender discoveries later, we’re still together.

I love my partner more than anything or anyone. She is my best friend, my biggest supporter, the best pet co-parent, the one I turn to when times are tough, and the one I want to see flourish more than anything. If you’ve never seen someone you love transition, it is a beautiful thing. Every day I see my partner become more herself. She is so much happier, even after a few months. She has new pronouns and a new name, but she’s still the person I have loved for twenty years. I look around at everything that’s going on with trans rights being under attack in the US and UK, and I cannot understand how people can see others transition and not think it is something beautiful. It is a righting of a biological wrong, and the mental health results speak for themselves. My partner has battled depression for as long as I have known her. She still has depression, but it is night and day since she started on estrogen and t-blockers. Her mood is better, she’s more emotionally even, and when she is sad, it isn’t the same level as past depressive sadness.

As if to spite the transphobes (and because I love her deeply), I have thrown myself into being as supportive as possible. What’s funny is so much of what I’m doing to affirm her has been dysphoria-inducing to me. I have sat here racking my brain about what she could need or what people tried to give me that I hated when I was hitting puberty. My partner has been collecting more feminine clothes for a while now, many of which came from my wardrobe because they were too feminine for me, but I have added to the pile. She now has a purse or two, bras, and my favorite surprise for her was a Kaboodle with some starter make-up. My partner will probably never come out to her family because she doesn’t think they’ll accept her, and I want her to feel as loved and accepted as possible.

When I first realized I was nonbinary, I was afraid my partner would be upset or confused that I wasn’t a woman. She was fine with it, unconcerned, and she has supported me in my weird little guy-ness ever since. That sort of acceptance paved the way for her own journey of self-discovery, and I am honored that I get to be on that journey with her to smooth the way and support her in every way I can. Being a t4t couple has only made us closer and stronger, and I will do anything to make sure my partner has the best life she can possibly have no matter the political climate and no matter what people who don’t know her say.

To my partner, may you have the best life and the life you have always wanted. Here’s to twenty years, and many, many more!

Writing

Introducing Flowers and Flourishing

November 13, 2022November 13, 2022 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

If you’re part of my newsletter (see the menu on the top bar if you want to join) or like to check out my works in progress page, you’ve probably seen me mention Flowers and Flourishing, which is going to be a newsletter freebie for all of my subscribers and will be going out in early 2023 (I’m hoping for January, but we’ll see). My plan is to launch this book as a freebie first, and eventually, I may add a few more short stories along the way (also free to subscribers). Once I have those, I will package them into a larger work that will be something like Flowers and Flourishing and Other Stories from the Paranormal Society, which will be available for purchase at online retailers. I do not have a timeline for that yet because I haven’t written or conceived of the other short stories, except for Flowers and Flourishing and one idea I have brewing about the origin of two side characters in The Reanimator’s Heart.

But I digress. So what you’re probably wondering is what is Flowers and Flourishing about. Below is a little aesthetic board I created for Louisa and Agatha and beneath that, the blurb.

The plan had been simple: arrange a marriage of convenience with her best friend, get him a position at the Paranormal Society, and get the hell out of California, but even the best laid plans go awry. What Louisa Galvan never accounted for was Felipe being transferred to Manhattan or finding a woman like Agatha Pfeiffer.

Agatha hadn’t asked to be a plantmancer. Her dream had always been to become a professional artist, but after hours sweltering in the Paranormal Society’s greenhouses, painting is impossible. In exchange for time off, Agatha is expected to convince Louisa to stay at the Manhattan Branch, but she quickly finds her reasons are wholly selfish.

As their feelings grow, Louisa realizes she has two choices: continue to hide or reach for a life she never knew was possible and convince Agatha to come with her. But Agatha and Louisa aren’t the only ones conspiring. Can Louisa convince Agatha that she deserves the life of her dreams or will their love wither on the vine?

As you have probably guessed, Flowers and Flourishing is a sapphic story set about twenty years before the events of The Reanimator’s Heart and Kinship and Kindness. It is the story of how Felipe’s lavender marriage wife, Louisa, came to meet and fall in love with her partner Agatha. Louisa is a cis lesbian who happens to be a jaguar shifter while Agatha is a bi trans woman who is a plantmancer. It’s a pretty low blood pressure novella with some steamy moments and nods to the queer artists of the past. I hope you’ll join my newsletter and stick around for this novella when it releases in January.