Just when I think the guardian can’t go lower

I actually thought this was an interesting piece!
As Suited says, at least two wives of TW are not having a sexual relationship and at least one seemed very unsure. I found this quite eye-opening of couples that would go in the Guardian to talk about it (rather than being proud sexy lesbians etc)

The woman and trans man relationship seemed quite sweet, not that I know anything about them other than this article.

Thanks to FWR I know what the Beaumont Society is and its background.

You really can buy good press.

I hadn't thought of it that way, I assumed it was just lazy journalism but actually that makes sense.

If we're satisfied with our stories being represented as just a bit sad and difficult, and confined only to those women who see no other role for them self than as a support human, we're setting a pretty low bar.

But they all stayed Gwynn , the message being that though it's hard staying together is the key message, loyalty, and acceptance sufficient to tolerate it. Which doesn't represent all those who split because it is intolerable, or they don't buy the narrative. Or they feel betrayed, mistreated and deceived to the point where they walk. This only shows half the story and doesn't show.leaving, with all its associated financial, emotional and legal difficulties, as the lived experience of many partners and often an empowering and reasonable response on the part of partners.

There wasn’t a barn door story of the wife being negatively impacted, it’s true. But none of them say it had no impact at all and one left their partner for several years. And all of them mention shock and feeling unsupported and needing counselling and to adjust (but no sexual relations it seems). So you couldn’t say it’s a happy outcome for anyone.

So three years ago The Guardian published A letter to … my transgender husband

Today it would be A letter to … my transgender wife

Amanda wanted her partner’s perspective to be heard in this article, so declined to be interviewed.

For some reason this has really annoyed me.

Before Allie transitioned, she was scared of public displays of affection. Now we hold hands everywhere we go.

Internalised homophobia, surely.

The Guardian has become even worse recently - there was a point when I thought they might be trying to be a bit more even-handed, but in the past couple of months they've gone full-on with the woman-hating. The article about the trans woman doctor gleefully boasting about giving intimate examinations to Muslim woman was a particular low.

I'm not even going to read this one. They really are absolutely vile.

The first story in the article is a gay man with a transitioned male partner who has become a trans women.

None of the couples are at ease with it on a sexual level and one of the couples did split and now live as friends. Another story is just the female partner and her transitioned partner does not give a response.

Two of the trans women say there is little support for the partner.

In fact it’s one of the most nuanced articles I’ve read in the main stream media about this topic as it happens.

They are all pleased their partners are happier emotionally but none of them want to sleep with the other once they have transitioned.

It’s a far cry from the BBC film when the trans women leaps into the family on the sofa and everyone’s delighted.

But it’s very human and truthful.

www.thecut.com/2016/01/what-its-like-when-your-wife-becomes-your-husband.html

Was discussed on this thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4015291-Dont-understand-how-someone-can-be-transgender-This-man-explains-it-all?msgid=99776550#99776550

Isnt this the same way women (are suppose to) react when husband is caught in sexual misconduct & the wife (especially if the male concerned is famous) ie supporting the husband - little loyal wife syndrome - but what she says & what she thinks...
It can be a concern about family/her financial relationship security or her own insecurity
thing is the blighters can't see this - male (arrogance) perspective even (!) in gender change

Yep, where all are the heterosexual males being fine with their female partners transing to being transmen?

I wonder if that has EVER happened? Has anyone heard of an example of this?

Yep, where all are the heterosexual males being fine with their female partners transing to being transmen? Anyone? More tumbleweed...?

Thanks Allourboys. There is one fairly unhappy woman in that five, but they all stayed. Given around half of people leave this is a missed opportunity and very biased reporting. It is disheartening and irritating but I comfort myself that in fact many people would leave and those who stay are more interesting to write about, salaciously interesting (the sex or lack of it), and of course a positive trans story which is all the Guardian can ever offer. Suggest anyone with energy writes in to note their singular reporting.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/22/a-letter-to-my-transgender-husband-why-did-it-have-to-be-all-about-you

And sympathies to the women on MN who are going through this in real life and who must feel their stories are not being told because they don’t fit the ‘acceptable’ narrative.

What confuses me about Shaaba and Jamie Raines is Shaaba’s relatively recent announcement that she is Bisexual. I just watched her ‘coming out’ video on YouTube yesterday. They are about to be married to Jamie and I think intend having a monogamous relationship but felt the need to make a video stating that they are now proudly labelling themselves as bisexual. They admit to quite fancying women and if they were ever on Love Island they would want it to be 60% male and 30% female. It’s such a pointless, thing to announce unless what you are really saying is that you regret not having had a proper relationship with a woman or still want one. Which is a bit sad. Or that if Jamie was run over by a bus she might try a relationship with a woman next (and not one that has transitioned into a trans man complete with a metoidioplasty)

Even if this is something you pondered every once in a while, why the need to say it out loud, on video, as if it was actually important to anyone else but yourself?

My first thought on hearing this announcement was that if you believe yourself to be bisexual then of course you are going to be more likely to be attracted to someone who you knew as a girl/woman before they transitioned into a transman. But of course this has nothing to do with it.

It smacks to me of her wanting to have ‘Queer” credentials because being a ‘straight’ woman in a relationship with a trans man is too ‘heteronormative’ and she might end up getting treated badly by the Queer/Trans community like Amanda Jette Knox, who has a trans husband and a trans daughter (or are they non-binary now?) but is just a boring old woman who now thinks of themselves as a lesbian. It’s another flag she can now wave along with her trans ally flag at Pride.

Shaaba and Jamie are the very media friendly couple who made a video to explain to the world how wrong JKR’s statement was and how transphobic it was and how she should educate herself.Even Margaret Atwood was seduced by the sheer, ‘testily-exasperated-but-maintaining-our-niceness’ of this couple after watching their video. I think they both seem lovely people but they just don’t seem to engage at all with the deeper implications, arguments and impacts of their pronouncements. They just think anyone with any objections is not a nice person or are a bit stupid because ‘look at us - we’re lovely’ a la Jake Graf & Hannah Winterbourne. Real fingers-in-the-ear merchants.

I think it is lovely that people can still maintain their loving relationships through adversity. Many seem to accept that sex no longer plays a part. Some seem resigned and have perhaps had a life of playing second-fiddle in a relationship and this is just another chapter in that book. Some seem to accept the role of ‘protector’ and it becomes more like a mother/child dynamic (which I feel particular sympathy for because not many of the men who are late life transitioners seem to embrace the stereotypical domestic duties of ‘womanlyness’ just the clothes and make-up so the wife is still left cleaning up after them)

I am not surprised that The Guardian didn’t go out of their way to find less rosy stories. But I think there was an air of sadness in some of those stories that wouldn’t have passed many people by. Many people seem to accept change because they don’t think they could ever find love again and some want a quiet life with someone familiar even if they no longer entirely resemble the person they embarked on a relationship with. I hope they are all as happy as they say they are.