Trans actress Tommy Dorfman has announced her engagement.
Revealing the news on a recent episode of Rachel Bilson’s Broad Ideas podcast, Dorfman playfully said her partner was “just a gay girl”.
The actress, best known for playing Ryan Shaver on 13 Reasons Why, came out as trans in 2021.
“Coming out is always viewed as this grand reveal, but I was never not out,” she said at the time.
“Today is about clarity: I am a trans woman. My pronouns are she/her. My name is Tommy.”
Dorfman’s gender affirmation also heralded a change in her personal relationships.
After being married to Peter Zurkuhlen for five years, she filed for divorce. Telling Time that “what I’m interested in is not necessarily reflected in a gay man.”
‘I had this unresolved, unexplored thing’
On the podcast episode, Dorfman reflected on this time in her life and the decision to start exploring her attraction to women.
“I knew I was interested in women in a way that I hadn’t really been aware of since high school,” she told Bilson.
“I had this unresolved, unexplored thing.”
She said she began her search for love by going on dates with girls, to “feel that out again, and not feel ashamed about it”.
However, she said that pursuing relationships with women hadn’t been without its anxieties.
“I was really scared to admit that I was perhaps attracted to women because I felt I had such safe relationships with all the women in my life because they thought of me as a gay man,” she said.
“Because they thought of me as a gay man, they were like, ‘Oh, like you’re the safest person in the world,’ and then suddenly, I transition and I become a little bit more threatening, in my head.”
Now loved-up with her fiancé, Tommy described the relationship as “very affirming”.
Adding that she is “the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with”.
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