From now on, I was in an LGBTQ+ family’: my husband came out as trans while I was on maternity leave

With regard to the Harry Potter ban in her household, it tickles me how when I was about 10 years old it was fundamentalist Christians trying to stop their children reading the books because of fears surrounding witchcraft. Now that I've grown up, it's the 'progressive' parents who are trying to stop their children from reading it! Oh well, the children will rebel, as children do. Maybe when the next generation rebel, they'll be the ones to free us from gender woo-woo and will all lively happily in a world where those of the female and male sexes can be themselves, do what makes them happy, wear what they like and love who they love without pretending biological sex doesn't exist and needing to alter their bodies to be their 'true selves'.

The stuff about how she viewed women before - when I used to speak about “the average woman”, it was a lazy, self-reflective assumption: we bled, we fed, we bred. I would sit happily discussing the books I had written, all the while perpetuating the idea of “woman” as white, fertile, able-bodied, straight, cis.' - this is a confession of sin. It's not really relevant whether she was actually a racist homophobe who despised disabled women.

The point is to self-flagellate for two reasons - one is to paint women who disagree in the worst possible light, and the other is to get the psychological pay off of publically saying "and I was like these wretches until I repented of my sins!"

I've said so many times, don't underestimate the psychological reward for women who comply and enforce the conditioning. When you ask why they do it, that's nearly always the answer. We all do what we do for some reward. For some women, there is one for being an enforcer.

Themiserychick I read your story on the Trans Widows thread. I read the thread and the posts Tinsel and others share because I want to understand the impact this is having. I'm so sorry about what you've been through at a time when you need so much support I hope you're finding it helpful to talk about it here.

I don't get "me, me, me, look at me, I'm so not like the other girls" at all. She seems to be describing a boringly normal relationship which is similar to what you'd expect in the 21st century. But maybe all the other women she knows are Stepford wives, in which case she would think her relationship with her husband was a bit special.

I agree that she's about 100 years behind the times with the liberation and 'notions of femininity' bit though. And I've no idea what an 'androgynous wardrobe' is.

A few months ago I discovered that my partner had been taking hormones (bought off the internet from overseas) to become a woman while I was 7 months pregnant with our second son. So I found myself relating to what she was going through.

But then there was the "and we all lived happily ever after!" and the rhetoric that the trans woman is more important than the trauma they put you through because they're being their authentic self. It's pushed so hard, that's why I've found myself here and in GC spaces.

It is pretty baffling, Flo.

Honestly what kind of person watches their wife go through miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding and then concludes that they must be a woman too? And what kind of people cheer them on?
I know I'm repeating myself but I just can't get over it.

I read this earlier. I feel for her - wouldn’t wish those circumstances on anyone - but the conclusion is just SO disappointing. And her ex husband is an absolutely despicable individual.

I think, had I suffered such a long and gruelling string of traumas, the thought of potentially facing more trauma in the form of an acrimonious split from a partner and acknowledgement of how much they had selfishly failed me, I might well swerve into the tempting and apparently appealing/heartwarmingly on-trend option of explaining it all with the 'pressures of transition' and ending with a rejigged happy-ever-after-of-sorts. The 'wrong body' is a strong myth that many are buying into at the moment (although I think the shine's wearing off) and she lives in Brighton, surrounded presumably by a very woo-friendly community.

I'm not judging her. We all do what we can, many people struggle with self deception and cognitive dissonance on some level, especially when trying to raise a small child and not fall apart. I hope she finds peace.

What I don’t understand is why she is claiming she did.

Because she's bought into the ideology.

Damian Barr who made that awful joke about the trans person who had attempted suicide? 'Tittering sickly' Damian Barr?

You need better friends, love.

If she’s really saying that she used to think black women weren’t women, and disabled women weren’t women, then she’s admitting to a really astonishing and deranged racism & contempt for disabled people. She would have been utterly off her head.
In reality of course she didn’t think this for a minute. (Surely?) What I don’t understand is why she is claiming she did.

instead of the husband having an affair, he decides he's "really" a woman

No idea whether the man in question had lifelong dysphoria, or a gradual deepening of attraction to himself as a female, but if the latter it's almost a kind of affair with the self, isn't it?

I felt like it was a jumble of different painful experiences and a need to pull them together into a cogent argument, that is unconvincing even to her.

The whole book maybe less so, but I did feel this was a rag-bag of painful situations. I thought it was fairly self-pitying in some ways, and in other ways, not quite quite self-pitying enough (about the husband)

I hope she has support.

We both bristled at the borders of gender stereotypes. I wantedwomen to be liberated enough to be as strong and powerful as they wanted, untethered from ragged old notions of femininity. Anatomy is not destiny, I would tell anyone who listened. Meanwhile, D bucked against equally tatty old suppositions about masculinity, had a largely androgynous wardrobe, andwas far better at housework than me. Sure,I did all the cooking(it was a passion), but perhaps this was finally the sort of gender equality I had longed for

That is one of the "me, me, me, look at me, I'm so not like the other girls" paragraphs I found extremely annoying.

It's a load of tosh. The first part about wanting to be liberated, blah, blah, blah might have been novel thinking 100 years ago but for anyone born after say 1959 (picked as it's my birth year) it's no more than I would expect from anyone with half a working brain. Except her own thought process of putting it into action is pretty poor- why should she be surprised her husband is better at housework than her?

Then there is the utter nonsense about her husband's "largely androgynous" wardrobe - so basically the same as any other man who isn't required to wear a formal suit

The poor woman. You'd think that just for a few months after she'd been through all that, her husband could have supported HER. What a total shit.

I've never seen how clearly it is about re-centering the male ego and running away from the responsibilities of being an adult man. Without assuming any of the support human role assigned to females.

She so almost gets it, and then boom - she's pathetically grateful that the father still does some parenting, and she is willing to suck up almost anything to keep it all nice for her child.

this has to be the most breathtaking act of appropriation that I've seen in a very long time.

It really is Floisme

Binglebong I thought you explained it well. You do often witness people getting really close to the nub of it and then pulling back/changing focus.