I'm sorry this is ff the original post. But I believe that you are not born trans that it's a choice and they has been a lot of recorded evidence of that. The problem is we stereotype if your a boy as a kid it's not ok for you to play dolls or any girl stuff as society puts it and Visa versa with girls. It's just more excepted. You hear she is a tomboy but you dont hear he is a tomgirl. Anyway I'm not explaining this very well. So I feel it's a choice and it sucks for us spouses and the families around them.it messes up alot of peoples lives.

Look, just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My first example was 4 and 5 year olds who just know they are boys or girls contrary to their genitalia. The gender expression part is just icing on the cake.

When I first learned about my spouse, I didn't get it. I asked over and over again, "How do you know you are actually a woman? How do you know what it feels like to be a woman? I only know what it feels like to have female genitalia and to look like and be treated like a woman my whole life. THAT is what created my feelings of being a woman." I'd ask my husband over and over, that if he didn't have that experience, what makes him so sure he is a woman." He has never answered that very well and I still don't truly understand it, but I believe there IS something else. Us CIS people just don't recognize it because it is hidden when it is so intertwined and congruent with the rest of our gender identity.

Maybe I am too old and too empathetic, but there is no way that most of the transfolk I am aware of have chosen to be trans to follow a trend (or chosen for any reason). Even when they are given the latitude to express themselves however they want, as feminine or masculine as they want, there is still something else. And I have seen them fight AGAINST that desire/need for that something else in order to spare their families, and it doesn't usually end well.

Also, I have witnessed too many young children that were completely sure of which "sex" they were without the social constructs even being involved.

The idea that anyone chooses to be trans is like the idea of choosing to be gay. It is pretty offensive to those who would do anything to choose NOT to be trans.

That said, being trans usually sucks and often does mess up the lives of those around them. And being trans causes a lot of messiness that people (both trans and CIS) respond poorly to. Really, I feel your pain. I have been there. I am still there. But blaming your spouse for being trans is not going to help you through this. Blame them for how they are acting now if you want and address those issues. Or try to figure out where on the trans spectrum they are. Maybe it is not as drastic as either of you think. But take it slowly, communicate, and be nice to each other if you hope to make it through together.

Agree with Gallinorosa on this. Being trans isn't a choice, because even if it weren't due to brain anatomy differences, there would have to be a mental illness to cause someone to voluntarily remove genitalia and make drastic changes to one's person in the way typical trans people do. If you think about it, mentally healthy cis people have difficulty even contemplating some of the things trans people joyfully volunteer for. It's entirely possible our spouses didn't understand themselves before they came to this conclusion, or that they simply didn't tell us, or that they shoved the feelings so far down below that they forgot they were there for many years. But this was not a choice.

The only choices there are (and even this will vary from person to person) are how far one can bear to go in their transition, and the pacing- even this is not truly optional. Thus, why I refer to it as transitioning kindly vs. not.

"He has never answered that very well..."

No one has. That's the problem.

"Also, I have witnessed too many young children that were completely sure of which "sex" they were without the social constructs even being involved."

The social constructs are always involved. Unless that kid is living in the middle of the woods without any outside contact, or something. it's all around us everywhere all the time.

"The idea that anyone chooses to be trans is like the idea of choosing to be gay."

I don't think they "choose" it either. Just like I don't think anorexic people, or schizophrenic people, et cetera choose those. It doesn't mean that you tell anorexic people that they're right, they actually are fat. Or tell schizophrenic people that the voices in their head are real and should be listened to.

The equivalency to homosexuality does not work for me. Gay folks don't ask others to deny reality. They just want to love people of the same sex because that is who they are sexually attracted to. Trans people want "cis" people to consider them and refer to them as the opposite sex despite all evidence to the contrary.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, GR, but I think you and I are at an impasse.

i am not mad at you, and I only wish you the best with everything, but I just don't think either of us is going to convince the other.

Gallinrosa - Agree 100% with everything you have said in the above post!

There is no way anyone will ever convince me that my spouse chose this life. The stories I have heard from her just verify what I already knew to be true. At 3 years old she lived in a tiny mountain town, not accepting of anyone "different" and she did not have a word for what she was. She knew she wasn't gay, but looking in the mirror did not match the outside. A 3 year old does not knowingly make these choices. There wasn't even a choice that was made. She felt like a freak because she didn't know what she was or how to explain it to people. They don't understand their own brain and the social constructs of our society. They understand I should look like this and have these parts and I do not. They way she reacted in later years to these feelings are all choices and based on societal reactions she had received in those early years. She is comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, just like a man, but knows that her parts don't match what is inside. When people call her dude or sir it hurts and she doesn't want it too. She tells me everyday how she wishes she wasn't trans and didn't have to put us our herself through this. She isn't a militant trans woman yelling at anyone who identifies her incorrectly and blaming the world for her problems, just someone trying to heal and be who she always felt she was.

And if you feel it is a mental disorder like schizophrenia or bulimia then you should possibly talk with more of the community who have been through this. I'm sure there are mentally unstable people within the community, however this does not define a transgender person.

"
"He has never answered that very well..."

No one has. That's the problem.
"

I don't think this is a problem. It is like trying to explain blue to a blind person. But the blind person does not deny that blue is real for the rest of us. They just except that it is something that is not and never will be part of their experience.
_____________________________________________

"
Gay folks don't ask others to deny reality. They just want to love people of the same sex because that is who they are sexually attracted to. Trans people want "cis" people to consider them and refer to them as the opposite sex despite all evidence to the contrary.
"

I guess this statement only makes sense if you have a certain specific definition of "reality". I mean some people (not me) think that romantic love is about procreation and that since two gay bodies cannot procreate, that their love "denies reality". And certainly, if you can accept that reality goes beyond what we can see and that a person can have the brain of one gender and the genitalia of another, then being trans would not be denying reality at all.

And actually, if you did want to compare transgenderness to schizophrenia in any way, it would be that they are both uncurable and they both are likely to be difficult to live with without treatment. Treatment isn't to tell schizophrenics that their voices inside are real, nor is it treatment to tell a transperson that they have the genitalia that they don't. That is about where any parallels between the two conditions end.

I know you don't mean to be a jerk and I am not one to jump into conflict. Nor am I one to be a cheerleader for the trans community. But your ideas are very offensive towards anyone who is transgender. Your wife may have other conditions contributing to where she is, but not all transfolk do.

I will say that in dealing, often poorly, with being trans their whole lives, given that society is generally so transphobic and binary, many older transfolk have a slew of other issues that developed over the years while they hid and suppressed and suffered in private. And many of them, if they are willing to see what it has done to them, will take years to grow beyond those other problems.

Good luck to all of us :'(

Gallinorosa I do agree with you. And will also add this:

With regard to the gender binary- it has always been a myth caused by inadequate understanding of human biology- there are multiple ways a person can be born intersex- where a person has some genitalia/ sex characteristics from either gender. For example, people with androgen insensitivity syndrome are technically XY but are born unable to react to male hormones. Thus, while they are genetically male, they appear female.

So to say gender variation beyond the binary is unnatural is simply inaccurate.

And for most of us, if we think about it, our problem is not so much that our spouse is doing something unnatural, but that they are doing something we do not wish them to do. Whether that be remove parts of their anatomy that we think of as beloved old friends, change their personalities, or wear clothing we do not find attractive.

Will post something on the stages of grief at some point, as I know I went through this, and I get the impression everyone probably does.

CF, agreed. And to further your point, it isn't simply that they are doing something we don't want them to. It is usually something we were not prepared for that goes against what we have come to know about them over the years. It is a surprise and out of character (and as many people phrase it, "not what we signed up for").

I can agree that I feel misled, but not intentionally. It feels like a bit of a bait and switch from when I said "I do" 21 years ago. But my spouse did not knowingly do this to me.

The grief is real. And it sucks that you have to resolve the grief and also the whole other issue of "where does this go now?".

Part of me is tempted to ask my spouse if she's willing to go back to pacing her transition for my sake. But she hasn't sounded interested in considering my opinion for weeks, and I've asked about the asexual business plenty of times now...

Which as you said, is the issue of 'where does this go now?'

GR,

"It is like trying to explain blue to a blind person."

So we're the blind people? 99% of the population?

"can accept that reality goes beyond what we can see and that a person can have the brain of one gender and the genitalia of another"

I don't accept that. because I don't believe that gender functions in that way. I think gender is a set of "rules" that society enforces. I don't believe it is an innate thing. I don't feel like a man because of any inner feeling. I know I am one because of physical characteristics, chromosomes, and how people perceive me. Since I don't have a strong "gender identity," the trans community would try and push agender on me, but I'm not. Then they would try to put "cis" on me, which would mean that I am 100% cool with all expectations society has for me because of my sex, which I'm not. And I don't think many people are.

I'm having a hard time coaxing up a lot of empathy for a community of people who are gleefully pushing this idea onto my wife despite the repercussions it will have to my family, including my young daughter.

I also think part of it is that the old guard of transsexuals are often quite different from the current transgender crowd, who don't believe they have to do anything but self-ID. No therapy, no surgeries, etc. Just "I am a man/woman because I say I am." It feels like in the past the people just wanted to pass, and be accepted. it's not like that anymore. I had a lot more compassion towards trans people before the last 5-10 years, when things have gotten so post-modern, that nothing means anything, and terms like "lady penis" have been used seriously.

CF,

I am 100% behind people with actual diagnosable intersex conditions. They should have the right to refer to themselves in any way they see fit. Most people taking up the trans identity now have no reason to believe that is the case with themselves. But again, there's that conflation of sex/gender. I think they are distinct. But i think they are distinct in a way that the transgender community doesn't. i think they are distinct in the way that 2nd wave feminists did.

Do you think a complete personality change is natural?

I just really don't mean to come off as mean to either of you. I just need a place where i can say these things to people who could potentially be sympathetic. I'm in pain every single day. My life feels 90% terrible. While my wife goes out with friends, and the small amount of time she is home, is super cold to me, and even when i tell her how sad/lonely/ignored I feel, she just kind of shrugs at me. No remorse. So I just cannot give the benefit of the doubt to people who could not care less about me. (Not you all.)

SportRocque: I've been hurting a lot myself, and this was the situation I was in when it initially happened (it's relevant.) My coworker came out as a transman, and I would sit there and talk to my husband about it and say wow, that must be scary! Imagine your spouse suddenly coming out as trans! You're not, are you? And he'd laugh and say no, I'm male, no worries. I'd asked a few times. Also, because I valued my coworker, and wanted him to feel supported (and have always supported LGBT issues anyways), I joined the LGBT student committee where I work. Then in months to come, she (my spouse) came out.
Being devastated by this coming out made me feel like a hypocrite. Was all of my support nonsense and fluff? If I supported trans people in the outside world, why couldn't I support my own husband's transition? So I went into a transgender support chat room, figuring they would keep me honest. The transpeople in that chat room were the ones who taught me that:
1. Grieving is normal and nothing to be ashamed of.
2. You, and everyone around the trans person has to transition with them. It's OK if this takes time to process, and you are not immediately happy about it. Again, being freaked out, and crying about the changes is normal. It's also OK if you find yourself unable to function as a homosexual/ asexual. Some even told me a gender change voids the marriage vows in their opinion.

-And yes, there are a few folks in there that are either extreme/ just lost a spouse who think you should be able to function as a homosexual on the spot and be fine with it on the spot. Remember however, some people just lost their whole family to what was a dire necessity for them.

***3. Being trans and new to transition does NOT entitle a transperson to be a jerk about it. Although my spouse may need to transition to save her life, I have feelings too, and my spouse should still have some respect for them.***

4. There are couples that frequent that chat room and what they will tell you is the same as all of the other articles about trans marriages that survived: the trans person was patient with the cis spouse's feelings, allowed room for grieving, paced their transition process in accordance with BOTH people's feelings. Note- this doesn't mean the cis spouse got to cancel transition, they just got to play a role in the process, with one couple telling me they waited for the cis spouse to be ready for HRT a few months after the therapist recommended it.

Note however- this took work from BOTH sides to manage.

TLDR; not even the trans people will condone a trans person being a cold-hearted asshole to their spouse just because they came out. Best they say is, transition involves a second adolescence, and for some, this is even before the hormones start. They'll tell you some will behave better once the HRT starts, and some will be like adolescents when they first get on HRT.

That's why I keep saying people who transition kindly. Some manage to do it kindly.

the website (and I do recommend trying it, because they can be helpful): www.susans.org/chat
just don't get into the sinners/hell business, or start beating up on trans people in general. They will support you and help you if you are polite to them in return.

SportRocque, your wife sounds like she is behaving terribly towards you. That is unfair and if she is interested in salvaging the relationship - or in just being a good person - she should consider looking for a *good* therapist to go to with you. You might also both benefit from going to see someone individually.

This is not meant to sound all doom & gloomy, but I have been going through this for over a year (wow... seems like yesterday). My spouse has been nice and not moving quickly at all. But I am still in a good deal of pain. I have nearly destroyed my business because depression is making it so hard to work. I am on medication and am seeing 3-4 doctors or therapists, yet I still cry easily at many things that trigger me and I wrestle constantly with the fear of the future. I know part of that is because I have been with my husband for over 23 years and have two kids and this was COMPLETELY out of the blue. I know it is partly because of a long slow degradation of our relationship because of how he evolved in dealing with the mounting dysphoria he was having (and hiding). I am only saying this to maybe give you something to consider while you think about your expectations. Even in the best circumstances, this will be painful. You will need to try your hardest not to let the pain be your only guide.

One thing a therapist told us which has been helpful is that we each have to take responsibility for our own feelings. This is not to say we can be assholes to each other. But you will help yourself if you do not feel dependent on your wife to make you happy. As you can ascertain, I am still working on this because I am not consistently very happy yet, but I do feel more in control than I first did. It is a slow process.

I think the strength of the people I have met here over the past year or so is that they do not make you feel bad for feeling bad, they can empathize with your situation, and they are generally trying to be helpful in whatever path you decide is right, whether it is sticking together or separating - though I think a lot of us are *trying* to stick together.

I think the only part of what you said that came off wrong was that it is fine to think your own wife is being brainwashed by some bad transpeople, but it sounds offensive to lump all transpeople in the "bad" group and assume they were all brainwashed. We will be happy to help you navigate your feeling about your wife and her friends but we don't need the sweeping generalizations applied to our own loved ones.

We are sympathetic to your pain though. Let us know what we can do to help support you.

I think we as humans have a need to identify as something and this can happen pretty early on. Like, kids can be obsessed with gender--just watch how some kids can make fun of a girl who likes Star Wars or a boy who wears nail polish. I think this is why some people realize they are trans early on. There's a lot of psychological stuff that goes on with kids as they grow (i.e. object permanance! aka why peak-a-boo is so fun with babies); we really don't have a full understanding of it, really.

I heard of a study once that monitored people's sexual reactions to different stimuli, because what they found was that women were turned on by everything and that gay men were only turned on by porn with men and heterosexual men were only turned on by porn with women. I thought that was interesting, but that seems to say something about sexuality and sexual orientation, but that doesn't really speak to gender identity really.