Wrapped up in gender systems
Trans woman Katelyn Burns tells us
It’s really incredible that a lot of cis people are so wrapped up in gender systems that they view a loved one’s transition as a literal death. It’s a sickness of the mind.
If your partner transitions, you are not a “widow” and claiming so is insulting to actual widows.
Wait…what? It’s “cis” people who are wrapped up in gender systems? But if that’s the case, why transition at all? What even is transition in that case? If gender systems are not something to be wrapped up in, what can possibly be the point of transitioning?
Surely Burns has it backward. Surely it’s the person who transitions, and wants (say) his wife to agree that he’s now a woman, who is wrapped up in a gender system. If he’s not wrapped up in a gender system why can’t he just wear a skirt and enjoy knitting (or whatever it may be) without all the fuss and bother and disruption of transitioning.
But I guess this is just one more of those “blame the women” things, which, ironically, just reminds us all that “Katelyn” is a man.
It would be interesting to see some citations on the “literal death” claim.
Surely if anything, it’s trans folks retroactively changing their birth certificates that are effectively killing someone, at least from a legal perspective?
Excuse me? If your what does what, now? Is this an actual thing? I expected ‘loved one’ to be referring to a son or daughter, a sibling, a close friend. A partner?The next part of that sentence seems to suggest that the transition isn’t necessarily a mutually-agreed thing, either.
Really? I thought that the idea of the ‘deadname’ was because that person no longer exists. A person who no longer exists is dead. If one was married to a person who no longer exists, one is a widow or widower. On top of that, if the person one married no longer exists, then can one be considered to be married to the person they’ve become? I married a woman named Wendy. If Wendy transitions to a man named Walter, and if, as TRAs insist, a transman is a man, then whoever Walter is, he certainly is not my wife.
Then again, if, as has been claimed, the deadnamed person never actually existed (a transwoman is and has always been a woman, has never been a man, therefore that man could not have ever existed), then the partner could never have been married to the transitioned person because one cannot marry a non-existent person.
Of course, there are more complications. The word ‘widow’ suggests that the transitioning partner is the husband. Would this mean that if the woman wishes to continue with the relationship, must she now call herself a lesbian or bisexual? Is her once heterosexual husband now her lesbian wife?
My head hurts!
Yes, I know someone who is considering transition, and can’t understand why his wife has a problem with it. Seriously? I married a man. If my husband became a woman, then he is no longer my husband, because I am not interested in a same sex relationship (nothing against them, just not who I am). If he still has a penis, he is still a man, and to expect a wife to have sex with a female with a penis is just…weird.
I suspect this is a lot of autogynophilia at work. “I want to have sex with my wife as a woman, so I’ll become a woman”. Then: “My wife doesn’t want to have sex now that I’m a woman, and I’m so bummed, I think I’ll call her a TERF.” Yeah, that’ll go over big.
He’s still a man regardless of whether he retains a penis.
@Acolyte of Sagan #2
Shannon Thrace would like a word.
http://thetranswidow.com/
Colin, what a cracking blog that is. Thanks for the link.
He really needs to look up the word “literal”.
No worries, though, I’m sure the folx who consider “deadnaming” a thing (LITERAL VIOLENCE!) are all perfectly well-adjusted.
Sackbut @4: I stand corrected. Yes, he is still a man. Man isn’t defined solely by penis.
AoS, you nailed it with the “deadnaming” point. It’s very inconsistent to use that term then complain when someone considers your pre-transition self to be dead.
@2 It is totally a thing, and more and more women are starting to speak up about it and share their experiences, online and in real life. I think Sheila Jeffreys very briefly mentioned the abuse the female partners of ‘transitioning’ males are subject to if they don’t wholeheartedly go along with the project. The gender-critical community is being justly called out for not seeking out, supporting, and elevating the stories of women who have been treated in this way, and I’ve taken that calling-out to heart. We focus on the men in the picture, and they harm they’re doing to women in general, but often ignore the women in intimate relationships with them whose lives they’ve destroyed.
You’ve done a good job covering the issues ‘trans widows’ have to face, but you’ve left out one I heard someone talk about recently–now that your spouse is a real, true, honest-to-god woman, he joins women’s groups and attends women’s events, so you now have nowhere to go to get away from him, and to find emotional support for what you’re going through. Other women, including your female friends, think your ‘wife’ is stunning and brave, and are either baffled or angry if you express anything but unqualified joy at him finding his ‘true self’ and unqualified support of his ‘transition journey’.
I mean, you can even be happy that your (former) husband has done something that makes him happy, and is now living his best life–but even the happiest (former) wife is surely going to grieve the loss of, or at least significant change in, her family, and experience some confusion about how to position herself with respect to him, the rest of her family, and her social group. But apparently that’s not allowed–as women are supposed to do, she must take it completely in stride and adapt and conform instantaneously to whatever configuration of their relationship he requires, and whatever behaviour or demeanour he requires from her, without expressing any of her own inconvenient emotional needs. He’s the one who deserves the emotional support, and acknowledging anything she’s going through would just detract from that.
This is exactly what I expected. When my ex left me for another man, many of my friends (the liberal ones) were all “oh, you’re so lucky to have been married to a gay man” and if I made any indication that I thought he treated me badly (he did – it wasn’t a good situation at all) or that a woman with a normal libido might not want to be married to a man who has no libido where women are concerned or that it might have been a little wrong to marry a woman without telling her you cannot love a woman (it is possible he didn’t know it; I think he knew, or suspected, because I realized I was a trophy wife, dumped because my anorexia made me no longer a trophy), then I was to be ostracized, vilified, and punished for being an anti-gay bigot. For some reason, too many people think that any group that is historically oppressed (gays, minorities, immigrants, etc) must be all nice people. To suggest that they have their share of not nice people (probably in about the same percentage as other groups) is to be an evil, racist, homophobic, Republican leaning bigot.
The woman never matters in these things. In fact, women are the only minority that doesn’t count in the there are no bad people in the oppressed equation.
@12 Oh I forgot that one–not only do you not get any support, or any appreciation that just maybe this is a challenging situation for you, but any intimation you might make that that’s the case, and that maybe it would be appropriate to acknowledge you have a life and feelings too, actually makes you the bad guy and you’re immediately wrapped in some caricature of evil. (At least your ex wasn’t trying to join any women’s groups! But lord knows, no matter how horrible the status quo was, it must still have felt like a horrible betrayal.)
A dear ladyfriend of mine’s husband transitioned. He and the various online resources she could find on the matter insisted it was her duty to continue loving and supporting him through and after transition despite the marriage ending. The wife is basically expected to table their own emotions re: the divorce and prioritise those of their husband and his transition, which are MUCH more significant than anything she could possibly be dealing with. So gross.
Yep. This comes out of that “women are naturally nurturing” nonsense.
And how anyone who believes that could accept people like Rachel McKinnon, Hannah Mouncey, or Jessica Yaniv as women is beyond me.