This is Chase.
He fell in love with
Elan.
Elan: We’re a Tinder love story.
When they first started dating,
they were both women.
But Chase had always felt
he'd been born in the wrong body.
Chase: Before I transitioned,
I was never comfortable
with who I was.
And two years ago, he decided
it was finally time to change.
Elan: I wouldn't say that like I knew
he was going to come out as trans
but it definitely did not surprise me
with him being trans.
It just doesn't matter to me.
But Chase's transition hasn't gone down well
with everyone.
Chase: There's some people that made it kind of difficult and upsetting.
Chase: We have been together for a long time.
That's the day you said,
I love you …
Elan: And this was the day that you asked me to be your girlfriend.
Yeah.
We're a Tinder love story.
I was
in a relationship
with like a cisgendered male before
and was like, “You know what?”
“I'm just going to have Tinder set to"
"just females.”
His picture was like maybe six or seven other people
and I had no idea who it was gonna be
but I was down for if it was any one of these people.
Chase: And saw her profile and I was like,
“No, I was like, “This girl's like way too beautiful,”
“I’ll never see you again," I'm like swipe right.
And then the next morning we matched and I was like,
“Okay, now what?”
Elan: And we talked literally all day.
Chase: Non stop for three days until we decided
to like speed up our first date.
Elan: I decided to speed up our first date.
I was like “I don't want to wait any longer.”
Having struck gold on Tinder, the pair have now been together
for almost three years and will shortly be celebrating
their first wedding anniversary.
Chase: Before I transitioned I just never comfortable with who I was.
I tried to discover transitioning about
10 years ago or eight years ago,
I'm wearing makeup. I don’t.
Like it was always a constant in my mind I was just too afraid
. Obviously, because like there's a lot of people who transition
who lose family members or lose relationships.
It was over two years that we had been together
It was actually a week before we got engaged.
I was like, “Oh my God, I don't want to get married.”
“I want to be your husband. Like, I don't want to be your wife.”
Elan: I wasn't surprised.
The dynamic of our relationship always leaned more to like a male female couple.
Him being trans it just doesn't matter to me.
Like, it really doesn't matter like if I connect with you, I connect with you.
Having made the choice to transition along with Elan’s support
the couple's next challenge was to reveal Chase's decision to those around them.
Chase: Coming out as gay is one thing but saying like the person you know
is going to completely switch to a different gender
there's a lot of unknowns, right?
Like, you don't know what you're gonna look like.
We wanted to come out to her parents first
And your parents were just so like, “yep okay that okay makes sense.”
And then the other hand, there's some people
that made it kind of difficult and upsetting.
Elan: When we first
when I met everyone, it was like your grandma's 80th birthday.
Elan: And I have never felt more uncomfortable in my entire life.
Chase: A lot of my family have been great.
Elan: There are some people who didn't necessarily adapt to it immediately.
A couple comments I got were “I can't accept that.”
I've prepared myself for exactly those comments
And you can't expect a lot of people in your life to be like as amazing as supportive
as she has been or immediately be like
“yes, he, him, you're a dude.”
Like it's been really upsetting because you just
Elan: Want acceptance.
Chase: You want acceptance. Obviously who doesn't? But when you don't get it
Unfortunately in my situation, it wasn't a surprise.
It’s like a knitting needle.
So you have to like, vacuum it.
I started T on September 10th of 2019.
It's been like really cool, like the changes that have happened like,
obviously physically, there's like, I now have facial hair,
which is like a huge giveaway, which has been nice.
For a while I was super proud of one belly hair
and now there's more than [inaudible]
Elan: How far we've come.
Chase: Yeah. How far we've come.
It's like kind of like a humbling experience like every week
when you have to put together a needle
so that you can like be who you want to be.
Even if it hurts? No.
Elan: Just remember how good of a nurse your wife is.
Chase: You're great at it though.
The worst time was when we went through a drive thru once too.
And I was trying to order something and I had the worst voice crack
and she just starts howling and I'm just like,
"Can you finish the order please?"
Like I'm hoping anyways that it'll get more deep than it is now.
Due to Chase’s experiences of coming out as trans,
the couple also decided to start a YouTube channel
to document their journey.
Elan: The way that we wanted to approach this transition
was just different from other people.
It's not all about the person who's like physically going through it like
as a partner you go through it as well.
Chase: There's a plethora of trans men talking about
"this is one month, in two months and so on."
It's personal. It's not family oriented. It's not,
"Well, now that I'm changing, how is my wife adapting to it?"
"And how is our relationship and how does that work through our marriage?"
Elan: We've been extremely lucky. We haven't really gotten a lot of hate online.
We've still like mostly get positive comments.
Chase: There's the typical people who are like, “Oh you'll never be a real man"
like, "you're never gonna be a real father.”
Elan: Goes and says like for me to grow up and be a real woman like …
Chase: He's an emotional vampire.
Like it's a running joke now or it’s like
[inaudible] one of those emotional vampires.
Elan: It’s just over and over.
Chase: it’s just like, “right.”
Elan: But that's so funny that we have that just to remember forever.
Chase: You paused that on a really good moment there.
Elan: Our next step is trying to get pregnant and have a family so
we're definitely very excited about that.
Just continue to grow like within our relationship.
Chase: You don't ever expect to be as supported
as you hoped and dreamed for.
But that was my case.
I have been like so fortunate that you just loved me.
I would have never imagined in any of my life like
this would be my reality is having a wife who's just like
so exceptionally supportive and perfect.