Could you stay married to a TRA?

Having said all that, your partner is a woman and whilst I feel exasperated by the women who support this ideology I also feel a great deal of sympathy. It's being done to them. Female socialisation has been exploited to groom them. The stakes are so much higher for women who dare to resist. I don't blame those who go along with it.

Yes I do feel some sympathy too. Sadly a lot of women just cannot, or won’t, see.

I think I'd really struggle. My DB is gay and TWAW and the whole thing has been very difficult for our relationship. It's been discussed a couple of times, become extremely heated, and by mutual and unspoken consent we simply don't refer to it. This works because we don't see each other that much. But I've had to quietly unfollow him on Twitter because I find it so upsetting to see someone who I love so much, who is fiercely intelligent and in all other respects so critically minded in his approach to ideas, spout such misogynistic garbage.

I simply don't think I could cope with it in a spouse. I don't think the 'agree not to talk about it' tactic could work when you live in the same house, and when it's something that's important to both of you.

I couldn’t be with someone who actually believed such stuff

It would make me think not such good thoughts about their critical skills

And especially telling my kids

Sorry Sappho so hard for you

I wouldn’t even be friends with someone who believed this either

But then that’s easy for me as I don’t have any friends or family who do

Hard for you 💐

I would be very worried in case they are thinking about transitioning themselves...which can and does happen. I really hope not

Sorry, I’m getting carried away.

I hope you find your way through this with as little pain as possible for everyone, @SapphosRock.

Really sorry, Sapphos.

I probably couldn't, no. I'm an argumentative bugger. My marriage foundered - partly - on political & religious differences.

But I hope you guys work it out .

As for 'your views and concerns for female people are .....

Difference of opinion is one thing. But that's plain disrespectful again. I'm fairly sure you're managing not to call her and her views any derogatory names implying her views and feelings are worthless.

Well clearly I didn't manage to stay married to one, so no.

.......your last couple of posts changed my perspective. It would be rather like living with a partner teaching our children a religious set of beliefs as fact

That's intentionally imposing a personal adult political belief on a child, with conscious knowledge that you're taking advantage of the child's innocence to train them in a belief that you as an adult know at some degree is plain not true. In order to further your personal politics by trying to fix it in the minds of the next generation. I don't think the next generation are going to be lining up to thank us in the end. And it's utterly disrespectful of you and your beliefs.

No. I married someone with different political views (although we've met in the middle somewhere along the way) but I could not be with someone who denied biology, ignored our lived experience and de-valued and what it is to be a woman.

I don't think I could sustain a relationship with someone I would judge to be blind to biological and societal reality, disrespectful of my identity ('cis fragility', ffs) and who was active campaigner against my rights. But it's easy to say that in theory... In practice, if the relationship was and had been good, probably I'd try to go on with it. Probably wouldn't work long-term because I tend to pick at things, and I wouldn't be able to not see what I was trying to ignore.
Very sorry you are in the position you are, SapphosRock. &

I'm so sorry to hear this Sappho and sending hugs. Only you can find out if your partnership can weather this - is it possible to call a moratorium on discussing it at all (esp if you are worried about what she is telling the kids) and then take each situation as it arises.

It is one thing discussing your opposing views to the whole ideology but it may be easier to deal with an individual situation ie. if either of you decide to do something specific to further your activism, an event or campaigning, then you talk about that specific instance and deal with it in smaller chunks.

How would she feel about your kids in mixed sex sports when they are old enough?

This isn’t just a political issue though. It’s not just a difference of opinion. It is much more serious than that. On so many levels.

You poor thing, it sounds tough.

I think I could actually. I've lived and loved people whose politics drove me up the wall. I AM a political person, and feel strongly about this issue, so its not that, I don't know what it is - I just would think they were stupid in this area, but I would compartmentalise it from everything else.

"she looks at me like I've lost my mind a lot of the time."

That would be the tipping point for me. Love dies where there is no respect.

"No she genuinely believes being a woman is a feeling and people are wrongly assigned as male or female at birth. She's teaching this to our kids too."
What ages .?

So many worms spring from those last posts! She genuinely thinks being a woman is a feeling? 🤯 She’s teaching your children this? She calls you cis? Those would be massive red lines for me yes! I understand you might be ok with being called cis. Most of us here aren’t though.

But all that aside...does she respect that you don’t believe. Or is your lack of belief “transphobic” or “hateful”? I think if my partner genuinely did not respect my difference of belief it would be the end for me. And if he taught any children we spawned TWAW as fact rather than “mummy believes X, mama believes Y” then I’d have a real, real big issue.

No I couldn't deal with that, because it would be like being married to someone who was hugely sexist in other ways too. It would be a basic incompatibility. I'm sorry you're facing this crossroads though.

I'm not on mumsnet as much as others and don't recognise your username but it sounds like this has been a problem brewing for a long time for you?

I am married to someone who's very devoutly religious. There are things we talk about and things we don't, there's compromise on both sides - but at no point am I forced to agree with his views. I do #bekind but I would not lie in church or anything.

Could I be married to a raving Maggie loving Tory? Someone who supports in a party who gives money to the rich and takes from the poor and disadvantaged. Nope.

TRA fall into the latter category for me. It's no longer simply a benign belief that makes the believer happy.

She accuses me of being anti trans and even thought I would have a problem with her meeting up with a TW friend (I obviously wouldn't) and she looks at me like I've lost my mind a lot of the time.

If my spouse acted like this, I would quite seriously want them to go to the doctor. I would think they only heard one word in ten of what I said (hearing issue?) or they were experiencing paranoid delusions.

As you in particular have always struck me as a very compassionate, balanced poster (far more so than I!), I am even more bemused that your spouse could come up with such an absurdity.

Sappho, I'm so sorry you are wrestling with this!

Can you schedule a 'can we survive this?' conversation? A walk where you talk together about how to manage your relationship with this glaring issue in the middle?

You can each acknowledge how important the other person's beliefs are to them, and that beliefs change with people's experiences.

You can each reassure the other that you wish no ill will to any individual.

You could identify what makes your relationship difficult- her concern that your affiliation will endanger her job, yours that she'd sacrifice your privacy and security on the altar of pretending TWA just the same as W.

What I'd struggle with most, I think, is a loss of respect for someone for believing all this tripe.

The thing is, your views changed. Hers could too. But how long can you wait?

If you have children together then it's even messier