It’s tough out there for anybody to find love, but perhaps more so for people who feel they are in the wrong body. Meet Erin Anderson. The 22-year-old recently transitioned from male to female and finally found love with a man who had rejected her before her transformation!
Erin first approached the object of her affection, 28-year-old Jared Norris, on Facebook. She says she knew of him and thought he was cute, so added him as a friend but Jared didn’t reciprocate. Of course, this was when Erin was still living as Aaron, and Jared wasn’t interested.
Two years later, Erin had transitioned after having breast augmentation and hormone replacement therapy. It was at this point that she and Jared reconnected. “He liked one of my pictures on Instagram – by that time I had come out as trans and a woman,” Erin explained.
She continued, “I decided I was going to be upfront, so I sent him a message with my number and within five minutes, I got a message from him and we started talking.
“The next day was my birthday, I hung out with him and a week later we were dating officially on Facebook and have been together ever since.”
Erin admitted that she had dated a bit before Jared but was never able to have a serious relationship because her partners were always too scared to tell their friends and family that she was trans. However, Jared was different. He was open about Erin’s transition from the beginning.
“[Boyfriends] would tell me they really liked me but couldn’t risk their family knowing I was trans and that was what hurt the most. But Jared didn’t fear that, he told his family that I was trans and everything, he doesn’t care what other people think,” said Erin.
The pair have now been together for two years and are going strong, but that doesn’t mean things have always been easy. After officially coming out as a couple, Erin and Jared received abuse and even death threats.
“It wasn’t really well known that I was dating a trans woman at first, but when everyone found out, it was a big shocker. I received a lot of death threats online with one guy saying ‘I will beat you up f***’ which kind of sucked and was depressing,” explained Jared.
“It’s always the same rigmarole things like ‘I hate you’, ‘You’re disgusting’, ‘You’re dating a dude’ and other comments,” he added. But the couple doesn’t let the haters get them down. Jared and Erin ignore what others think and just focus on their love for each other.
Jared is proud of his “beautiful” girlfriend who is “willing to be herself” and now often jokes about how he had rejected her two years prior to getting together. Now, he just tells people who question his relationship that “love is love”.
