An FTM and MTF transgender Israelis who have been together for six months share their stories to give back to the community, because thanks to other transgender people who appeared in the media, were they able to put into words the feelings welling up in their minds, and realize they are not alone.

It’s late at night at the corner of Montefiore and Nachalat Binyamin Streets in Tel Aviv. She’s a tall blonde, delicate and impressive, dressed in black. He holds her hand, bristles cover the delicate skin of his face. He is muscular – after all, he’s a personal trainer – and confident. All the people around look at them, but not because that they are a transgender couple, that part they miss. What attracts the attention is the height difference between them. She’s very tall, and he is much shorter.

They enter a gay-friendly neighborhood bar, and even there everyone stares. “First of all, they look at us because of the height difference. They don’t get that we are trans. Look how strange people are, what they are paying attention to,” said Noa Cohen, 34, a hairstylist and a hair salon owner on Ben Yehuda Street in the city. “A big woman and a small man – it immediately draws attention,” adds Tal Shantzer, fitness instructor, 29.

In the past Noa was a boy named Idan, who from an early age knew that God had made a mistake, because he is a woman. She knew Tal from a long time ago, through the life of the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. He too was born in the wrong sex, but didn’t change his name – he remained Tal (which is a unisex name in Israel). But only six months ago they became a couple.

“Many people don’t get that we are trans,” says Cohen.” It’s hard for people’s to see something that is outside the framework of what they are accustomed to. The transgender community breaks all these conventions. It is amazing to me. ”

For both of them this is the first time that they are in a relationship with someone from the transgender community. Until now they went out with straight people, but it never worked out. “She was abroad, and we began corresponding on Facebook,” Shantzer recalls. “Every day I came home from work just waiting to correspond with her.”

“I did not think there could be a connection between us, but when we met that night at a club, I was excited like I never was before by a man. I went out with two or three men in my life, and it was not the same. We had a crazy connection from the first second; he wooed me, he invested – he’s still investing”.

Shantzer and Cohen found in each other the understanding that was not found in others. “It’s not that in the past I was turned down or rejected by men,” says Cohen. “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but most of my serious relationships were with straight people. They were very aware of this, it is very intriguing to men; they like what is forbidden. But with none of them was I having what I have with Tal, no one understood me like he does.” Shantzer also admits that the joint starting point made the first connection between them easier. “Since I started to go out with transgender women it’s another world. You come from the same place, all is very similar.”

Did you know how to treat her because you yourself were a woman and you knew what she needs?

“I can’t say that I was a woman,” says Shantzer. “I wasn’t a girl, I was a boy. People who knew me in elementary school would tell you I was a girl-boy. Never was there any female in me.” Cohen identifies with Tal’s words and adds to them: “I was just talking with my mom the other day and we remembered how when I was little, we used to come to the house of my Moroccan grandparents and I used to run to my Grandma’s closet and change into her clothes, with heels. Even then my grandfather and grandmother knew God did me wrong . Grandpa would say all those years ago to my mother – this is a girl, not a boy. Do you get it? This 80-year-old man, a very religious man, would tell her that. ”

Shantzer and Cohen are confident in themselves and their relationship. They hold hands and kiss regardless of other people’s looks, without asking themselves what others think of them and if they feel embarrassed or not. They said that this confidence is the result of long inner work that allowed them to understand their own gender identity and sexual orientation. “There’s no connection between your gender and your sex. The fact that you’re a female doesn’t mean you’re a woman,” said Shantzer. “All the self-confidence that you see here doesn’t happen in a second. It’s not that we made this change and we are proud of it. It’s a long process of many years. Now I’m so at peace with myself that I’m able to go out with a six-foot tall girl when I’m less than five-foot-two. I’m at peace with myself and it’s fun – I don’t care. ”

For Cohen and Shantzer transphobia is not an abstract social problem, but a part of the reality of life. Cohen says that she has suffered a painful rejection in the workplace because of her gender identity – and at the businesses affiliated with the LGBT community. “Twelve years ago I started working in one of the most prestigious salons in Tel Aviv. All the employees were gay and the owner was a closeted gay. I worked there for two days and he told me that he’d get back to me. For the first time I was never contacted again regarding work. It was a total surprise because I’m very good at what I do. I called to ask one of the employees why they didn’t want me, and he told me that someone told the owner that I was trans and he didn’t want to hire me. It still exists in gay people- there are many gay men who have difficulty with it. Apparently I made this person dubious. I can’t step into his shoes and say why he decided that, I can only feel sorry for him that he was so narrow-minded “.

Shantzer describes the mounting tension before the surgery and the big change, the fears and the wondering what would happen the day after. “What’s going through your mind is the question of how you’ll manage afterward. Who would want me?” He says. Cohen adds: “For a long time there was this stigma, that these people live their lives alone. Why would any man want me and not an regular woman? It’s not easy to go out with someone like me. Peer pressure is a terrible thing. You’re in love and everything is fine, but then comes the criticism, family and friends say to him: Don’t you want children? The environment puts on a lot of pressure, and he gets confused. ”

Cohen tells about a crisis she herself has experienced with a partner in the past: “His friends started saying to him: What, are you gay? That is so ignorant. People hear the word trans and immediately see a man. That’s what interests you? That I used to be a man? What misery”. Shantzer continues her words: “There are many men who really want to get to know a trans woman, but are ashamed of what people would say. It also works the other way. When a woman dates a trans man, reactions are usually: are you a lesbian? What’s going on there? Why do you need it? ”

Cohen and Shantzer indicate that only thanks to other transgender people who appeared in the media to tell their stories, were they able to put into words the feelings welling up in their minds, and realize they are not alone. “I still have the first article I read about Dana International. It’s cut out and saved at my mother’s house,” Cohen reveals. “I was 14 when I read it, I realized for the first time that a boy can transform into a girl. On the day I was reading that article, I realized there is a name to what I feel. I realized what I was. There were gay men in my high school, but even then I already felt different from them.” Shantzer: “I will never forget watching the TV show of Dan Shilon. He interviewed a trans guy named Sivan. I sat on the couch at home with an open mouth. Then I realized that there are other people who are like me.”

Cohen and Shantzer chose to be exposed and to tell their story, about the desire to start a family together and have children, so that others who are in the same situation understand it is not as bad as you might think at first. “If there is one child in the country who logs into Walla! News and reads this interview and it helps him dispel fears – it’s worth it,” says Cohen.

“Public visibility helps people to accept themselves,” concludes Shantzer. “When I was in the army and I started taking hormones, I was helped by someone like me, a trans guy I would call every day. He guided me about what to do and how to get along. I was full of fear, and he showed me that transgenders can live a normal life,” said Shantzer.