Transgender Support Group
This community is here to support and help the large population of transgender people. If you or anyone you know identify as transgender, this is the place to share your feelings and experiences and speak with others who are going through similar things in their lives.
Hi. This can get a bit complicated but I have to talk to someone who is unbiased and possibly has experience.
I am a pregnant straight female. I have been with my boyfriend for almost 5 years and our son will be born any day now. Very early in our relationship my boyfriend confided in me that he crossdressed, but that it was more of a sexual thing than him being actually transgender. It never bothered me and luckily we are the same size so he would wear my clothes and everything was great. After I became pregnant he started getting depressed and finally told me he believes he actually is transgender and thinks now that we are going to be parents, he would never have the chance to see it through. Needless to say I was hurt and confused, as he always insisted he didn't want surgery and it was more of a fantasy we kept to private times. I still consider myself straight but can't imagine my life without him and can see if he doesn't at least look into it further, I could loose the love of my life and father of my child to suicide. I will do anything to protect him from that. We live in the south, and while my immediate family is pretty accepting of everyone, I know it will be confusing and hard to explain. I want to fingure it out as soon as possible so we don't end up blind-siding our child when he's older and have it be normalized for him at an early age.
I am worried about us not working out as a couple, but if it's that, or my son doesn't have two parents that love him, I would rather we co-parent seperately and find relationships that make us happy. I love my partner so much but he's even warned me that the hormones and treatment he would receive could change his personality. I don't care about his body as long as he is still him, ya know? I'm also worried that he wouldn't find me desirable anymore. Is this possible? Could transitioning change his personality or his sexual prefences? I'm trying not to be angry at him for not confiding in me before I became pregnant, as we would have been able to see if our relationship could go through this change, especially considering my pregnancy was an accident and we had always planned to adopt if we wanted kids anyway.
I know it's selfish but I am hoping the therapy he wants to take will show him that he is more non-binary and can be happy in his body. My best friend's twin recenetly passed away due to complications with a hysterectomy when he was on the path from female to male and with the current state of affairs in the US, I'm so scared for him. It feels like either way his life hanging in the balance, and there is only so much I can do to protect it, but if he was non-binary and dressed and acted as he pleased, he would be in less danger from himself and others.
Sorry about the long post. It's hard to get out what I'm trying to convey and my being pregnant makes things a lot more complicated. Basically the long story short is, I love my partner and would like to stay with him, but I'm not sure how to deal with his possible transition.
***Please be aware I am using he/him pronouns but this is at his request until he gets therapy, as he doesn't see the point of labels and knows it's just a way of getting his attention. If he decides he is more comfortable with she/her or they/them, I will make the change according to his wishes.***
As for my case I can defenitely say transitioning (without hormones or surgery so far) changed myself and relationships (as well as sexual preferences) but in a way that made my own and other peoples lives better because I'm overall calmer, more self-confident, have closer relationships, am more honest to myself and so on. I feel like my personality didn't change to much, it just got stronger (I was really confused about what I was and wanted before). I still like the activities and people I liked and before :) I'm sure that, if you both work on it, transitioning won't destroy your relationship. About the sexual preverences I'm sure you and your partner will find a way to work that out so you both feel comfortable with it.
For the fact that you are afraid that something could happen to your husband if he's getting surgery I would suggest you talk to him about it and you could then find a way together if he ever wants to get surgery then there are safer ways that have only few risks which your husband could take.
You seem to have a really trustful and openminded relationship so I can just encourage you to try to work things out and give both of you a lot of time to adapt to the situation. I understand how scary this situation is to you but I'm sure both of you will be able to sort this out and will be great parents for your child.
You partner would most likely greatly benefit from gender therapy. You mentioned that you live in the south, so I'm not sure how many gender therapists are around, but if you can't find one, any therapist would be helpful to even just sort out their thoughts.
If your partner decides to transition, or is even unsure about transitioning, taking small steps can help sort things out. When I was first thinking about transitioning, I had my close friends try both male pronouns and gender neutral pronouns for me to see how it felt. I also changed my wardrobe and my hairstyle as these are all things that can be changed back should I decide I don't want to medically transition (hormones/surgery).
Now, as far as your partner's personality and sexual preferences changing: hormones can affect the way a person thinks and even slightly how one behaves, but should not go as far as to change their personality. I base this off of my own experience with hormones, the experience of many of my friends on hormones, and a great deal of research before my own transition began. In regard to their sexual preferences, every I know that has medically transitioned, has only broadened their preferences. When I say this, I mean that the majority of people I know have started to identify as bisexual or pansexual after undergoing hormone therapy/surgery, they have not simply switched from liking only sex/gender to another.
You mentioned that you hoped your partner could identify as non-binary, especially for safety reasons. While I understand where you're coming from, I want to dispel that myth. In the LGBTQ+ community, trans* people are at the bottom of the totem pole. But within the trans* community itself, non-binary people are really towards the bottom of that list as well, simply because they are not very well understood and many trans* people (unfortunately) attach a stigma to non-binary people because they think they simply can't make up their minds on which way they want to go (much like lesbian and gay individuals towards bisexual people).
I realize this is long, so to wrap it up, have a very serious conversation with you partner, find your partner a therapist, try to stay open-minded, and message with any other comments/questions/concerns you may have :)