Got a question that would scandalize your group chat? That’s what this column is for. Go Ask Alex is an anonymous space for queer readers to ask the questions they’re afraid to ask anyone else — about sex, love, life, and everything in between. It’s judgment-free and completely anonymous.
Dear Alex,
I'm really scared. I just broke up with my boyfriend of almost eight years.
He was my first real love and the first person I ever moved in with, etc. He's been pretty abusive ever since the start of our relationship, but he was one of the only people who (mostly) accepted me as a nonbinary person.
He's always been very selfish as a sexual partner and has always made me top (when we do have sex), even though it makes me incredibly dysphoric. When I was supposed to have bottom surgery, he made me get a flight home and cancel my surgery. I'm terrified that I missed my only chance at ever being able to be in my real body, one that doesn't make me dysphoric.
I'm scared I'm never going to find another partner who will accept me as a polyamorous person. I don't know anyone else who's willing to be with someone who wants to be with other people romantically and sexually.
I want to get out of where I'm at and start over, but I have no resources to find another place to stay or to start over in another city. What do I do?
Sincerely,
Venom
Hey Venom,
No, you can't stay there, so the only choice is to leave. That's hard but not impossible, and you have help. You have us.
By "us," I mean the gay mafia, the queer brigade, your comrades, the countless gay and queer people reading this who are concerned for you, pained to read about one of us going through this, and wishing we could be there right now to help and support you.
The biggest challenge with anonymous advice is that I can't offer location-specific resources, since I don't know where you are. If I did, I'd be tempted to buy a plane ticket, fly there myself, and drive you somewhere, anywhere, away from him.
You did the hardest part. You ended an abusive relationship. But I assume, from your question, that you still live with him, so now you need to take advantage of your global community, one that’s filled with organizers and activists, people who know how to mobilize, who know who to call, where to go, and what to do. An army of lovers cannot fail.
Experts say the actual moment of leaving is safest with a plan. Make that plan with a trained advocate at a crisis line, a counselor at an LGBTQ+ community center, someone who does this all the time. You do not have to figure out logistics on your own at 3 a.m.
The Network/La Red is a survivor-led organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, that works by phone with people across the United States. Their hotline is (800) 832-1901. It's free and runs around the clock. They are one of the few organizations built specifically for LGBTQ+, polyamorous, and kink survivors of partner abuse, so you won’t have to explain your relationship to anyone. They do safety planning and even run a housing program, the Housing Pathways Program, for people leaving abusive partners. You do not have to already be gone to call them or even be sure you are leaving. You can call and ask what leaving safely could look like.
Also, Trans Lifeline, at (877) 565-8860, is a peer support line with an extensive resource library online. It’s run by trans and nonbinary people who take calls from across the country. They have a hardline policy against calling police or emergency services without your consent.
If you're in the U.K., Galop runs a national LGBTQ+ abuse and violence helpline at 0800 999 5428, and the site states explicitly that it offers support to trans and nonbinary folks. Elsewhere in Europe, call lines vary by country; your own country's national LGBTQ+ organization can point you to local abuse and housing support in your language.
If you're in the U.S., CenterLink has a directory of LGBT community centers, which you can filter by state. Your nearest LGBTQ+ center may be the fastest way to find help.
The fear you’re feeling is by design: his. That’s what abusers do, babe. They convince you they’re “the only one who understands you” or that “you’re the only one who understands them.” They make you believe no one else will accept you, even when they don’t.
How do I know this? I have my own abusive relationship story, Venom.
When I was very young and newly HIV-positive, I had an intense BDSM relationship with a dominant who pushed me to go off my HIV meds. Eventually, I moved with him to San Francisco, where I was, in every way, dependent on him, and in that house near Golden Gate Park, no pharmaceutical medications were allowed.
He was my shelter, my income, and my base to look for work, all in one. That’s a common trap, and depending on who you ask, it’d fall under the terms "survival sex" or "financial abuse." When your housing, money, and ability to work all run through the person harming you, leaving feels impossible. Abusers engineer that dependency.
Babe, I say all that because I suspect you may be in a similar situation. If part of why you feel stuck is that your home, or your health insurance, or your basic stability is tied to him, you are being held by economic control, one of the most common tools abusers use. You are financially cornered. The people at the numbers above are trained to help those in these situations.
Here's what happened with my dominant. One day, things blew up, and he did the right thing by buying me a plane ticket home. But even then, in my escape, it was still his power, his release, his letting me go, and even after I stopped talking to him, I felt shame for going off my meds, and that shame made me stay off of them in a way that’s hard to explain now. A year later, I got very sick and walked into the Los Angeles LGBT Center, where a kind, patient queer person explained the facts, told me explicitly what kind of relationship I had been in, and told me that if I didn't start meds again, I could die.
That is when the reality of what my relationship had been became clear: He was a classic conspiracy-theorist antivaxxer type who believed AIDS was a hoax, and I had believed him over my doctor and every health article I read, because I loved and trusted him. Granted, I was very young, but that's how powerful and dangerous love and trust can be. “He loves me,” I thought. “Why would he want to harm me?” He was HIV-negative, so he had no skin in the game; he gambled with my life, not his own.
It is frighteningly easy to be deluded in love, easy to trust someone and, in that trust, come to believe things that are simply not true. It happens every day. That's why one of the most important things to protect, especially in a relationship, is your own clear-minded sense of reality. Always check in with yourself and ask how safe you feel disagreeing with someone.
This guy has, at least on some level, convinced you, after eight years, that a man who made you cancel your gender-affirming surgery was also your only shot at being loved as you are.
He was not. He is not.
About the surgery: There was nothing final about that canceled flight. I suspect part of your terror is that the surgery felt possible because of him, maybe through his insurance, his money, whatever, so losing him feels like losing the body you deserve. But gender-affirming care is something you can pursue again; it's not a one-shot chance, never to be offered again. Don't give up. Try again when you are safe and stable, and when the choice is fully yours, as it wasn’t last time. Without him, the path still exists.
And about the polyamory: You are afraid no one will accept a partner who wants multiple partners. Babe, surely you know there are countless poly people in the world! I'm polyamorous, and I have a large, loving community of poly people in my orbit. My relationships work because my people treat me with honesty, integrity, support, and clear communication, and you deserve nothing less than that. Wanting more than one love doesn’t make you unlovable. If anything, it opens you to love, gives you more lessons in how to love, and forces you to communicate love more clearly. Being poly, when it’s good and healthy, makes life better, not worse.
The National LGBTQ Institute on Intimate Partner Violence, a project of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, writes that "being polyamorous is a valid and meaningful part of your identity, and not the result of trauma," and warns against the way poly people are sometimes "told that their desire for multiple loving connections is a sign of confusion, brokenness, or instability. This is a deeply invalidating narrative that wrongly attributes your identity to harm rather than recognizing your agency and sense of your own self."
They even name the tactic your ex used. Abusers weaponize stereotypes about polyamory and nonmonogamy to "isolate survivors, control their other relationships, or justify jealousy and possessiveness.”
The stereotype of poly and nonmonogamous people is that we're "slutty," "hedonistic," "flirtatious," "noncommittal," and so on, and this bullshit framing gets used to justify jealous, controlling behavior. The Institute writes: "Abuse is about power and control, not relationship structure."
You call him your ex, so you've already taken the step of ending things. Good. The next step is getting out of the house. The phone numbers and websites above can help.
It sounds like this guy told you that you were lucky to be loved by him, or loved by anyone, and that love, for someone like you, is a rare and fragile gift, hard to find, impossible to find again. No, hon.
Love is everywhere. Love is what I’m feeling right now, thinking of you, hoping you are OK, and wishing you strength. You are the rare and fragile gift. I am so fucking proud to have a cool nonbinary person named Venom in my queer community, and there are people out there who want to love you with the body you deserve and alongside all the others who want to love you, too.
I don’t know why so many people think love is rare. The great lesson of being human (and being poly) is that love is a core instinct, something we are all born seeking and live our lives to do, which means we all have to bring it somewhere, dump it on someone, get it out, give it, so why not to you? The world is filled with people hoping to be mystified and baffled and totally consumed by love, so give them a chance to meet Venom.
I want you to get out, start over, and see yourself the way everyone reading this sees you, as someone deserving of love exactly as you are.
Hey there! I’m Alexander Cheves. I’m a sex writer and former sex worker—I worked in the business for over 12 years. You can read my sex-and-culture column Last Call in Out and my book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions, from Unbound Edition Press. But be warned: Kirkus Reviews says the book is "not for squeamish readers.”
Here, I’m offering sex and relationship advice to Out’s readers. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com.
