Tommy Dorfman confirmed her engagement during this week’s episode of Rachel Bilson’s podcast, Broad Ideas. The actress, who is best known for her role in 13 Reasons Why, did not specify the identity of her partner, but did confirm that she is set to marry a woman. Tommy did share that her fiancee is a cisgender woman, and opened up about she began to explore her feelings for women after divorcing ex-husband, Peter Zurkuhlen, in February.
“I knew I was interested in women in a way that I hadn’t really been aware of since high school,” Tommy explained. “I had this unresolved, unexplored thing.” Tommy and Peter had gotten engaged in April 2015, and were married a year and a half later. They split in 2021, with Peter officially filing for divorce in Feb. 2022. After the split, Tommy began exploring what it was like to be with women. “I was like, ‘This is the year that I’m gonna go on some dates with girls and feel that out again and not feel ashamed about it,'” she revealed.
Tommy publicly came out as a transgender woman in July 2021, but confirmed at the time that she’d already been living as a woman for almost a year. Her transition had an affect on her relationship with Peter, who identified as a gay man. “I love him so much, but we’ve been learning that as a trans woman, what I’m interested in is not necessarily reflected in a gay man,” Tommy explained at the time. “So we’ve had incredible conversations to redefine our relationship as friends.”
When Tommy transitioned, she opted to keep her birth name, as it was given to her as a tribute to an uncle who died before she was born. However, she confirmed that she’d be going by she/her pronouns following the transition.