Sorry to hear that your spouse wants to divorce. I hope you both find a way through. I can't remember if you said you are seeing a therapist? That could really help.
I've always believed that very few of us are totally 100% heterosexual, just like very few of us are 100% one gender. I've always felt that there is a lot of fluidity in most people.
I've been less repulsed than I thought I would be at my partner's changes, and am even able to fondle the boobs in bed - something that I really thought I would NEVER do in a million years.

I am 100% female just as God made me. I'm sorry but a person is not born trans its a choice. A choice that's hurts a lot of people around them. I just wonder what's going to happen to all those that are following in this trend that have surgery. Then what. Be happy with the body and gender god gave you and quit destroying your life my families life my kids my life and even yours.

Actually, it's not a choice. It's biology. For at least some people, there is a legitimate anatomical difference in their brain- their brain more closely resembles their gender of choice. They apparently aren't able to use this information in a medical setting yet, but at least they have been able to confirm that it isn't a choice. This is scientific american but I can find a professional journal article if you need.

What IS a choice is whether or not they take your feelings into consideration. There's nothing involuntary about being mean. We've probably all seen accounts of/ spoken to people that transitioned and did so in such a way that their spouse didn't feel as badly hurt, even if it meant the marriage didn't survive.

And as I've said, for my part, what hurts isn't so much the gender change as the personality changes, and getting rejected by my spouse.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain/

I wonder how much neuroplasticity is a component of this, though. We used to think of the brain as this kind of static thing, but there’s been more and more evidence of it changing quite a bit with time. If you start to believe that you are more like the opposite sex, and begin to live as someone of the opposite sex, could that not change your brain to more resemble one of said sex?

I also find the brain difference arguments underwhelming. Our brains all have more commonalities than differences. I would bet that in a really large study of many different types of people, it would not be so easy to differentiate brains based on sex, they’re more like a changeable patchwork than a set stone sculpture.

Lise Eliot and Cordelia Fine have a lot of interesting work/writing in regards to some of this.

On the business of neuroplasticity: I have wondered similarly! If the best way to treat autism, a condition children are born with, is through educational methods, and not brain surgery/ drugs, than is it possible there is a way of dealing with this that doesn't involve surgery/ drugs? If our behaviors affect our brains, can we utilize this fact to improve things?

I have heard a theory about serotonin and the high they get from it mess up their brains
And yes the cross dresser to trans didn't happen with my husband until he started obsessing over trans sites too

I'm sure my partner would not choose to be trans, knowing how much it's affected my mental health. That being said I've always wondered if he would have "discovered" he was trans, if he never started frequenting the trans subs on Reddit. Those places are real echo chambers.

My partner stays away from trans sites and forums. He ventured into one a year ago, and got scared off and never went back. He does read articles and blogs though, and I too think if it wasn't for the internet, he'd never have realised he was trans.
I think if he did frequent the sites, he'd probably feel more 'encouraged' to go further than he is. I read and post on them though, and too find them scary, although often very helpful in terms of helping me to understand.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. There are too many people who feel they are a different gender than their bodies are as early as 4 or 5 years old. What makes them so certain at such a young age, in spite of the fact that everything around them is telling them otherwise.

Then for many, many people - my spouse included - they spend decades being the gender of their body. They think they are. They are in that role. They dress and act as that gender. Everyone around them confirms this. But their brains don't shift then because of neuroplasticity.

They are suffering their whole lives and usually don't have any idea why, so when they finally see it on the internet or in a TV show, it is the a-ha moment. In the which came first question, they are trans, so they seek out those sites. Not the other way around.

I am sure feeling like there is a larger community behind them changes how they feel and act because it gives them some comfort and strength that they have never had. But I don't think it creates transgenderism.

There are some misdiagnoses, but for the most part I think people who think they are trans usually are to some degree. There are way too many older transfolk who really don't want to be -- who are suffering a lot because of their condition -- for it to be a made up thing that is chosen.

But back to the original post, it does suck that your spouse jumped to divorce so quickly, CF. There are A LOT of things going on and likely, a lot of unseen reason for different behaviors. I think many trans people are quick to dump their spouses because they cannot deal with the guilt of hurting the spouse they love so much. Or they are afraid of being rejected, so they make the first move towards separation to "spare themself" from being rejected. It is a messy time which is why it helps to move slowly and carefully and often get professional help in sorting it all out.

Agree with GR - you'd have to be nuts to choose to be trans.
I've talked to my partner about this quite a lot - what was it that made him realise? What made him buy that first pair of female knickers? He says he doesn't really remember, but he found male underwear uncomfortable, so thought he'd try Sloggi, and found they felt 'right' and I think THAT is when he had that 'aha' moment. Then it escalated to more underwear, more lacy things, shapewear and bras. At around that time he started to read up about it on the internet, researched, actually looked for support and therapy - he went to a general counsellor at that time. This was maybe 4 years ago or so, so he hasn't had a lifetime of it. Or if he had, he didn't know what it was.
He wouldn't have read about trans issues, or seeked them out if he didn't have these feelings. No one forced them on him. He didn't choose it. He still doesn't really know 'how trans' he is, but he is definitely on the trans spectrum somewhere.
Like YS, if he could choose, he wouldn't have put me through this hell.
The therapist he is using now is part of the clinic, so of course is biased. While I don't think many gender therapists are necessarily wrong, there are many, especially in the UK, who only see black and white, with no room for gender fluid. He got hormones after only 2 phone sessions, so there was no great insight into his psyche at all. He also admits that he told them what he thinks they wanted to hear, to be sure to get the hormones.
I would LOVE for him to be wrong about it all, and not trans at all, but it is something he has to pursue at the moment, until he gets his answers. They may not be the answers I want, but I am here for him.

GR, what does it mean to a 4 or 5 year old to be the wrong sex?

To be the wrong gender? It means when the teachers say, "Boys on this side of the room. Girls on the other side," they go to the wrong side and are convinced that they in the right place. It means they get frustrated and cry when someone calls them a "boy" or a "girl" and they know they aren't. It means they hate the clothes they are given and want to dress in the clothes of their opposite gender sibling. It means they fight for the hairstyle that they think suits them but looks inappropriate to the rest of society. It means they make up a name that sounds more correct to them than the gender-specific one they were given. It means they get teased for all these things and for mannerisms and interests that don't match what they look like and they are tormented and don't understand why and then often just suppress their feelings in order to fit in and get by better.

But then one day, after they have followed the rules of society and married and had kids and done all the things they were supposed to do but they are still feeling wrong, sometimes to the point of uncontrollable anger, or depression and suicide... well then it pops out again because apparently suppression is not a great permanent solution.

That is the experience of my husband and that is also the experience I have heard more commonly.

It sucks for them. It sucks for us spouses. There is no way to get past the suckiness. I hate it for both of us.

What do you mean by gender? I think of gender as a violent social system that hurts people of both sexes by forcing people into boxes.

What does it mean to be a girl or a boy if we're not defining it by chromosomes, genitals, gonads, etc?

Clothes? Hairstyles? Interests? Mannerisms?

Can girls not wear boy-ish clothes? Can boys not have long hair? Can a girl not prefer sports to dolls? Can a boy not prefer dolls to sports? Can a girl not be stoic? Can a boy not be animated and talk with his hands?

Sure, there are people will be jerks to them for not falling in line with stereotypes, but to tell them that the reason behind it is that they're in the "wrong" body? I cannot get behind that.

Well, as for the wrong body and transness- there are folks who identify as gender nonconforming, and there are folks who identify as transgender.

My spouse has explicitly expressed a dislike for the male parts present on her body. Some people don't express this explicit dislike.

Apparently she has felt this for some time. Whether she was keeping this from me or repressed as she said, I'll probably never know.

In my partner's case it certainly wasn't from childhood. He lived happily as a boy, and says he had no confusion. He loved sports, girls, cars etc, and went through puberty relatively unscathed. Dated, had sex, played in a band. It was really only in adulthood that he started to think there was something 'missing'. He actually thought everyone felt like that. He got married, divorced (nothing to do with TG issues), had an affair (with me, I was married with 2 small children, don't hate me), we got together, had kids etc. All very 'normal'.
The gender issues only really hit him as he approached 60. He suddenly hated aging (he was ok in his 50s) and started to question things, and then it all started. He's looked back at his childhood to try and 'find' anything that gave a clue, but other than being a bit curious about his sister and her clothes and mannerisms, there is really nothing that comes to light. He occasionally put on his mum's clothes or shoes, and his ex-wife's underwear but I think lots of people do that - childhood curiosity and all that. My ex husband occasionally wore my panties and he's as cis-male as they come!
So not everyone is a 'classic' case, but it doesn't mean they are not trans.
I see what you're saying, Sport Roque - I worry that there is maybe too much of a tendency now to assume that some children are transgender. But I think in those cases there is a good deal of therapy/psycho-analysis etc before any hormone therapy is doled out.
I was a tomboy and played with boys' toys and often wished I was a boy in my childhood, most of my friends in my students days were guys, but that doesn't make me a transman. I never thought I WAS a boy.