Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we discuss something super important for a lot of trans folks, and yet it so very often goes south and impacts us in so many ways: CIS SPOUSAL AND PARTNER SUPPORT DURING TRANSITION.
It’s a fairly well-known thing in the trans community that a whole lot of relationships do not survive transition. I wanted to provide you with some hard numbers on the amount of trans people that have been forced to divorce or lost partners after coming out.
But despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find any data on it. My hope is when the more detailed results of the 2022 US Trans Survey are released, there will be some information in there about it. I did a couple trans tuesdays on THE 2022 US TRANS SURVEY RESULTS.
Those early insights didn’t include any information on relationship status, or whether coming out affected that, and almost nobody studies trans people or issues at all (which is part of why that 2022 US Trans Survey was so important).
There’s a couple of interesting articles about it, though they of course lack any statistics because we just don’t have those. Here’s one from a lawyer who works in family law and specializes in helping trans clients through divorces.
And here’s an article about a trans woman who went through a divorce, and how horrible it was for her (BECAUSE she was trans, on top of all the other ways divorces can be horrible).
All of that means that, like so many things about trans life, this is anecdotal. There aren’t enough studies done on us, much less BY trans people, for us to have hard numbers for a lot of things. See other ways this impacts us in the trans tuesday on ANECDOTAL TRANS HEALTHCARE.
The fear of losing a spouse or committed partner (and thus also possibly children and a home) is a very real one that nearly every trans person faces when coming out. It shouldn’t be that way, but this is the world we live in.
Part of the remarkable privilege I have as a trans woman is that I *didn’t* lose my wife, or my kid, or my home when I came out as trans to them. I talked a bit about that in the trans tuesday on my own PRIVILEGE (and time and money).
And just really quick, I’m also remarkably privileged because I just so happen to be very very white, and if you don’t understand how every vector of marginalization a person faces compounds the roadblocks they face, see the trans tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY.
And I cannot even properly put into words how important the support of my wife Susan was to me. She was the first person I came out to, the first one I told I was pretty sure I was trans back in 2015 (even though I knew i couldn’t fully transition until 2020).
It’s not like there weren’t any bumps in the road or adjustments to be made, it’d be ludicrous for anyone to think that would be the case. But we love each other and are best friends and have always had great communication (which is vital for any relationship to succeed).
And so we… worked it out. Together. She actually HELPED me figure out some things I could do to start my transition in “socially acceptable” ways. For a little more on that, and how exercise was one of the ways that worked for me, see the trans tuesday on BODY HACKING.
Now she’s bisexual, so the fact I’m really a woman and not a man didn’t impact her attraction to me in a negative way (maybe actually the opposite, which is another way I’m incredibly privileged actually).
And while I completely understand someone not being the gender you (or they!) thought they were could impact how attracted to them you feel. Sure. That’s just how things work sometimes.
But here’s the thing.
When you commit to someone in marriage (or any other long-term romantic relationship), you are COMMITTING TO THEM, are you not?
There are so many things in life that can impact how attracted we are to our partners. NOT to pathologize transness or to in any way compare these two things in any way but the most superficial:
I’ve seen so many people ask things like “if your spouse was in a horrible accident and was disfigured, would you stay with them?” And that’s ableist and bullshit and wrong to even ask on a fundamental level, right?
Because the answer is, OF COURSE YES (if you truly love them and aren’t a horrible ableist monster, but if you are well then there’s your problem). In that instance you may not feel the same attraction to them, and that may be difficult, but it doesn’t change your feelings for them.
So how is a trans person coming out any different (in that ONE superficial way, I am in NO WAY comparing being trans to being disabled)? Their appearance may change, their clothes or hair or voice or name might change… but they’re still YOUR PERSON, the one YOU LOVE and CARE ABOUT and WANTED TO SPEND YOUR LIFE WITH. And I’m going to tell you something now that you might not believe, but it’s absolutely, totally, one hundred percent, and in all other ways true:
I have ZERO attraction to men whatsoever, but if my wife discovered she was a trans man I would fully support her, help with her transition in any way I could, and absolutely stay married to her for the rest of my life. SHE. IS. MY. PERSON.
And if it’s about sex, look, there are other options, ways to figure things out. Sex is important to a lot of people. I like the sex! The sex is good. But it’s not REMOTELY the most important thing in my relationship with my wife, y’know?
Now look, divorces and breakups happen for a lot of reasons. I’m NOT talking about those, and I’m NOT talking about trans people coming out and finding their true selves, and realizing their marriage isn’t right or what they really wanted. Those things happen, that’s life.
I’m talking about how trans people come out and so often spouses draw a hard line. “If you transition, I will divorce you.” “If you transition, I will take the children and you’ll never see them again.”
I know multiple (MULTIPLE!) trans people whose spouses are preventing them from transition, using the threat of lost homes, families, relationships, and children hostage to demand the person they claim to love continue living a lie FOR THEIR OWN COMFORT.
AND IT. IS. SUCH. TOTAL. FUCKING. BULLSHIT.
How can you ask the person you CLAIM to love most in the world to continue to be unhappy for your COMFORT? For those with dysphoria, how can you ask them to continue living a life of isolation, pain, and agony FOR. YOUR. COMFORT?
That’s not the deal. That’s not how relationships work. That’s not how any of this works! Again, not to pathologize transness, but it may help some of you to draw this allusion:
For those of us who experience GENDER DYSPHORIA, it’s just about the absolute worst thing in the entire world in ways you cis folks might not truly understand.
I know multiple trans people with dysphoria whose spouses won’t “let” them transition, who are holding their relationship, home, and kids hostage. I know how it hurts them, the pain they go through… not seeing a way out and not knowing what to do. You shouldn’t be forcing them to make those choices! It’s unconscionable.
And again, not to pathologize transness, but like… If your spouse or partner fell down the stairs and broke their leg, and getting a cast so they could heal was a terrible inconvenience to you, would you ask them to just not do anything about it?
Would you tell them if they got medical help for a problem they have, you would DIVORCE THEM and TAKE THE KIDS and KICK THEM OUT?!?
This is why I just don’t understand it. How could you ask ANYONE to suffer through this shit for your own comfort? How could you ask anyone to put YOUR OWN DISCOMFORT over their very real pain and anguish of being forced to live a lie?
How can you WANT THEM to LIVE A LIE just so you don’t feel weird for a while?! HOW? HOW? HOW? HOW? HOW?
How is that love? How is that partnership? How is that even remotely an okay way to treat ANYONE ON EARTH, much less the person you love the most?
It breaks my brain.
By the way, this is super SUPER tied in with a little thing called CIS GRIEF, where when trans people come out, cis people routinely put their own feelings above ours. It’s insidious, it’s awful, it’s a problem.
And if you’re not okay with being seen as married to or in a relationship with someone of your own gender, or a trans or nonbinary person, then you’ve got some homophobia and transphobia to work through. And that’s on YOU, not your spouse or partner.
I know it changes things, absolutely. Susan and I went from appearing to be a cishet couple to being an obviously queer lesbian couple, and that changes how the world reacts to you and how you move through it. But it’s something you adjust to and figure out TOGETHER.
I don’t know what I’d have done if Susan wasn’t okay with me transitioning. I never in a million years thought she’d ask me not to transition, but I was still terrified to tell her, to come out to her, to speak the words out loud that could change everything.
Because they COULD change everything, right? Even though it shouldn’t. Even when I KNEW she’d accept me and love me no matter what. Because I’d seen it happen to so many others, and I know how cruel this world is to trans people.
I don’t think I would have been able to find the strength to transition if she hadn’t always, always, ALWAYS given me the space to explore, experiment, try things out, and find myself. It was Susan that saved me from the terrible home life i was in when I lived with my parents.
And it’s her that saved me when I came out to her, because she didn’t just “let” me transition and find my true self, she HELPED ME DO IT. And I don’t know any clearer way to explain to you that THAT’S HOW IT SHOULD BE.
We talked. I told her about what I was going through, how I’d felt my whole life, what living with dysphoria was like, how I looked back and saw through my life that THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE (that I was trans) (yep, there’s a trans tuesday about it).
She never, ever, EVER made me feel bad about any of it, for any reason. She listened, and asked questions, and then basically said “well if that’s what you need to do, let’s figure out how to do it.”
And I don’t know if I’d have been able to go through everything transition entails if I didn’t have her by my side the entire way. She’s my eternal cis backup, she fights for me and defends me and helps me and loves me, the way a best friend and wife should.
In fact, cis spousal or partner support is so rare for trans people, a whole lot of us are exclusively T4T, or “trans for trans.” Meaning we only date or look for relationships with other trans people, who know what we’re going through and won’t abandon us because of it.
To the cis folks listening, you do not know, YOU DO NOT KNOW, how important and vital your support of us is when we come out to you, and THAT GOES DOUBLE if you’re a spouse or romantic partner in a long-term committed relationship of any kind.
WE NEED YOU TO BE THERE FOR US, because society makes transition really difficult (and it shouldn’t! It absolutely shouldn’t!), just like you need US to be there for YOU.
When you’re married to someone, or committed to them long term, that’s what you signed up for. It’s what loving and caring about someone is: helping them when they need it. Because you want them to be happy, and not in pain, and not living a lie.
And we need you to support our transitions.
THAT’S THE JOB.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com