Transitioning spouses

submitted by Yellowlamp from self.GenderCritical

I've been reading the reddit post about the woman that asks for advice about her husband transitioning. It somehow hit me that I've read a lot of stories that follow this pattern.

Woman and man marry. They have kids. Man comes out a a trans woman after X amount of years married. Woman struggles about it at first but they work it out. Now woman is bi/lesbian. So happy. Woman is so supportive of her new wife. The end.

Yes, I believe these kind of stories can have happy endings but a lot of the times I think the woman is "forced" (by her spouse, by her kids, by her gendered education that women need to please others and put their needs aside...) to stay married even if she doesn't fully accepts it. I actually remember a documentary I watched when I was still a TRA about a man transitioning and staying married to his wife and the wife looked SO SAD. Even if I supported that the man had the right to transition if they wanted, I felt so sorry for that poor wife.

And this got me thinking: we know a lot of stories like this, but why don't I know any with a straight man finding their spouse is trans? I have never seen a story about a man marrying a woman, the woman transitioning and the man staying with him and saying he's now gay/bi/pan. I'm sure they exist (can someone link me one, I'm just curious now) but they are not as common.

Why is this? Does it have to do with women being taught to put their needs to one side? Because this happens in lesbian couples too,I know a handful of lesbian couples where one (or both) the partners come out as trans/NB and they are still together. But I don't know any gay couples where this happens. Is it maybe because women come out as trans earlier in life than men?

What are your thoughts about this topic? Am I wrong to think there are differences?

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[–]materialrealityplz 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

About the wives being taught to put their needs aside, yes.

"We find that only measures of wife's illness onset are associated with elevated risk of divorce, while measures of either spouse's illness onset is associated with elevated risk of widowhood."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26315504/

[–]FlickingMarvellous 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Is it not that most TIFs are lesbians, whereas late-presenting TIMs tend to be straight AGP?

[–]sisterinsomnia 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I read one story about a man whose wife transitioned and then left him, but I didn't save the link, sorry, and I can't remember where I saw it. In general, those who transition later in life and have families seem to be men with AGP, however. Not all wives of those men stay with them and there is a concept called "trans widows" which applies to them. I think they have an online site, too.

[–]zephyranthes 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There was a famous case in Russia (changing sex is legal here and those who do so can mix and match their rights and privileges, while homosexuality is criminalized). Look up "Юлия Савиновских". Trans-identifying woman, straight husband, two children of their own, one from her previous marriage, and two special needs adoptees. Someone found her blog, where she spewed hate toward women (not even "TERFs" - all women, for our female biology; excluding threats, this was some of the most vile shit I've ever read) and reported her to Child Protection, who, after much waffling and weaselling, decided to take away the adopted children.

Every single mainstream publication closed ranks around her. "It was creative writing! It's fiction! She's just interested in transgenderism! Sociology is not a crime! How do you even dare to accuse a true and honest woman, a MOTHER, of being a horror$$$$$? She had her tits cut off for health reasons! How do you dare call her a man? Can't women cut off their tits? Must they suffer because of your misogynist paranoia? Do you hate breast cancer survivors?" She herself testified in court to that effect. Feminist lawmakers worked in her defense and harassed the Child Protection office. Eventually, she emigrated to France and then Spain with her husband and birth children (note: for Russia, this is peak privilege) and came clean: "I'm a man because I'm beautiful, women are biological refuse, etc etc" The MSM rags changed their tune and started whining about transphobia, while feminist lawmakers admitted they knew it all along and had been openly lying to the public.

This is to say that while trans-identifying men as a group harm women more, an individual trans-identifying woman can be as misogynist as any man.

[–]sisterinsomnia 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Some trans men show open misogyny online.

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And offline. I have met a couple of TIF patients IRL who are my age and have teen children and are cutting everything out/off and I despair for their kids who they gave birth to 😢

[–]Dravidian 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I will never believe someone that truly feels like a woman could hold it all these years, present as a dude, have children and a career, and suddenly transition at 50. They're all autogynephiles and suddenly society gives them the green light to live their fetish out in public and/or are pissed that their wives get more attention than they do. They're so selfish.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think the women in the hetero relationships are taught to center the man. I also think there's an element that like suddenly being in a "lesbian" or "queer" relationship - they are mostly white couples, who suddenly have a reason to not fall into the evil oppressor (white, cishet middle/upper middle class) category that's currently being socially demonized. You also have the few who reject it (the trans widows) who are socially ostracized, and I'm sure some of the accepting women see the threat of losing their social circle as reason to support.

The women in lesbian relationships aren't really changing the partner's identity (I've yet to see a lesbian couple with a partner transition that starts claiming "actual man" and straight relationship status), and you never see a gay male committed relationship where one transitions, probably because they've already accepted themselves as they are and found a partner who accepts them as they are. We're also in a time where western society's progressive side no longer really gives a shit about gay men but are still fetishizing lesbian women. (I do think most transitioning later in life lesbians I've met are doing so from internalized misogyny/homophobia due to the fetishization of lesbians).

[–]Anna_Nym 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Evan Urquhart and his wife mostly fit the lesbian couple description. He and his wife have both written about how his transition raised identity issues for them because of that change from lesbian couple to straight couple.

One of the lesbian detrans women I follow on Twitter also wrote an article about the tensions that transition caused for her marriage. I can't remember exactly what she wrote, but I think it's on 4thWaveNow. Of course, she detransitioned.

I don't know if you're familiar with the writer Danny Lavery/Mallory Ortberg of the Toast. Pre-transition, Mallory identified as a lesbian woman. Post-transition, Danny married Grace Lavery... a not-particularly-passing transwoman. Grace is also fairly far in the "I have always been a woman and have never had male privilege" camp of trans writer (despite getting tenure while holding herself out to the world as a man and IIRC, graduating from an elite all-boys school). They also both identify as queer and as a queer couple. I've always wondered how they reconcile this with their simultaneous claim that they are a man and a woman, which should make them just a boring straight couple.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The irl example I was close to did not end well. Sib transitioned midlife while sib-in-law was still undergoing inpatient treatment for clinical depression. After recovering, sib-in-law came home to live out the rest of their life in an un-asked-for supporting role as a "transitioner's faithful spouse."