Trans Widows Escape Committee 5: And so it continues...

Dear @LilithArtemis You will find comfort, reassurance that you are not going mad (he is already mad) and practical advice, both financial and psychological advice, here. @TinselAngel has a website called www.transwidowsvoices.org. Mine is www.transwidows.com. There is room for many more in years to come, I hope! There are also useful Twitter accounts. Mine is "at STranswidows" and hers is "at Transwidows". I find Twitter a really useful place to learn and make new connections.
Our approach is called "gender critical" because we think that "gender" is a cult or "religious" belief: no one can change sex, and the word "gender" has been used to confuse people, most seriously in the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Unfortunately Google censors us with our traditional views so it is really difficult to bring up GC sites, but Mumsnet does have excellent GC threads. You may have read about campaigning groups like www.sex-matters.org and www.womensrights.network which really helped me.
First of all, he is not coming back emotionally. He is weak in the head - my now dead trans ex-H toyed for almost all his adult life with himself and only himself. It is a sexual fetish (Prof Sheila Jeffreys). He told no one what he was thinking about until he was ready to leave us (me and two children aged 10 and 12). When I met him he had two failed marriages before me - yes, big red flag, but I had no way to find out why because only a psychiatrist would have picked up the small clues he dropped.
Practical things: do you have a separate income or earnings? Do you have a share in your home? Can you change the locks and keep him out? You say that he is your ex-partner: have you consulted a solicitor to work out a financial separation and terms for permanent separation?
Lastly I would not encourage contact between your daughter and him. He is taking a drug called estrogen which is why he has "trance-like reveries". I have a photo of my trans dead ex-H in the year before he left: his eyes are pink, he slouches, his hair is shoulder length and he is not paying any attention to us, his family sitting around him. He is a "zombie".
You have the strength to face the truth. He doesn't.
Lots of hugs.
Una

Hello there.

I'm really happy to have found this forum as I don't have anywhere to go to say how I'm feeling without being responded to as though I'm an evil bigot who is losing my grip on reality. I feel like I'm in 1984.

My now ex-partner and father of my 5 year old daughter is having his first appointment at a gender clinic on Monday. He's been on the waiting list for 3 years.

I just don't know what to do. We can't afford to move out of this home, although at the moment he is staying at a friends in order for us to have space and especially to protect our daughter. I cannot bear being around him. It is like he has become a completely different person. He is furious or nonplussed (or a strange mix of both) about the fact that I don't believe it is possible that he is a woman, I can't perceive him as such and that I am passionate about women's sex-based rights, especially for my daughter's sake. He calls me every name under the sun for not seeing us both as the same thing. He hates any talk about women's rights or even trans rights. I know more about the trans rights movement than he does. He doesn't want to hear the reality for anybody. All he talks about is how sexy he looks, how much he wants breasts, and there is a distinctly fetishised nature to his particular case. And he is flaunting this in front of our daughter. Not only that, he ignores her now. I have to almost shout at him to snap him out of his strange trance-like reveries so that he will listen to her. It's heartbreaking to see and I'm filled with hatred and resentment for him because he couldn't care less about our daughter or me (although that ship has sailed). If I ever mention that I am concerned that he ignores our daughter or doesn't care about her, every time without fail, he says he is putting himself first for a change. It is unbelievably juvenile, narcissistic and heartless.

I'd like to add, this isn't somebody who has felt that he has always been a woman. This is a person who was a crossdresser for about a year as a teenager, didn't dress or even think about it (which he still maintains) for his entire adult life until he was forced to stay at home through Covid when he suddenly decided he was a woman before just as suddenly saying it was just a mental breakdown, before now around 3 years later, suddenly deciding he is a woman again, although this time with a deeply concerning fetishised edge to his behaviours and speech.

I'm angry for me, I'm angry for my daughter, I'm angry for all the people on this waiting list who need this service and have to wait behind somebody like him.

He never was this person. I don't know who he is now. I don't know where he has gone. I'm scared for me and my daughter and worst of all, I am not allowed to say any of this.

What is going on?

No it was meant for another poster. @talkingdeadscot sorry.

sorry - I don't use twitter. I can only imagine that what i had posted was a little too close to the truth for some.

Sorry that was meant for talkingdeadscot! Not the OP

@TinselAngel Sorry but I just read this about your double mastectomy. He sounds awful!

@RebelliousCow Can you Tweet the same content? I am at STranswidows on Twitter.

I didn't see it...??

Any idea why my post might have been deleted?

Sorry for intruding but in case anyone is interested Michael Knowles has uploaded an interview with Tracy Shannon a Trans Widow on Twitter (YouTube has censored it). I know Knowles is a devout Christian (and there will always be the accusations of everything’s about the Religious Right) but we all know this situation affects people across the board.

@determinedtomakethiswork I did put the word "father" in inverted commas. He had been their biological father in the past. But later it was clear to me that his behaviour became so irresponsible towards his children and so hostile towards me that he was NOT a father in his behaviour - he wanted to be an "older brother" to them?! He even said that! He simply could not be left alone with them without a responsible adult to supervise because he didn't understand his role. I helped the children to understand and their affection turned into curiosity mixed with bewilderment: like me, they asked themselves: "Why is behaving in a way that no other father does?"
I think that my decision is harsh, but logical. It ties in with other contributions above.
We witnessed all a complete breakdown of personality.

@Bunshine - would you consider starting a thread about this? I find it really interesting and I expect it will be interesting to a lot of posters too (but us non trans widows try not to post here too often, we are here to read and learn in quiet support).

I broke their natural affection for their "father".

I find that very chilling.

@RebelliousCow Thanks for your insight on this. Its difficult for me to parse the two honestly, in my ex's case. Because, yes, some of the behaviour was a bunch of that catty, mean girl negative aspect of the 'feminine', but other parts of it felt less feminine (in the Jungian sense) and just straight up antisocial evil (shadow). It's like the emergence of that other persona somehow opened up a door into the abyss. And living with that day to day was shocking and terrifying, what he was suddenly capable of. So, perhaps it's a mix of the two, or we can simply say it brought many other traits to life which were very unexpected.
Another weird aspect of this was that, as time went on, like clockwork, he'd mention a Thing He'd Never Do (ie shaving his whole body, doing his brows, growing his nails, going out outside the clubs, etc etc etc the list was endless). And it seemed to me he meant it at the time. That was his line. And yet, in almost exactly three months, that's what he'd be doing. Another aspect of masculinity lost, another grieving process for me. Another boundary broken, another cycle begins. It was exhausting. But, I still ask myself, was he lying to me about that from the start? Or, as these wheels got set in motion and his pursuit of these dopamine hits escalated, did the 'host personality' (I've heard it called this) just get crushed under the wheels with the rest of us?
A friend of mine had an ex that appeared to completely disassociate when dressed, and spoke (very negatively) about himself in the third person when using a feminine name. She literally didn't know who she was talking to in those moments.
I suppose what I'm trying to convey in short is that it's pretty annoying when activists say, it's the same person underneath. Like, no, as this condition progresses, it is not the same person. They get, like, eaten or something. Again and again, it appears to be the 'shadow' aspect of this person, like their negative, emerges, and this new persona also appears to have no moral compass. I often ponder what the spirit behind that transformation is.

Some of what you are saying relates, I think, to the concept of the anima in Jungian psychology. The anima is, as you suggest, the unconscious feminine persona. What seems to have happened is that the unconscious has risen up and swamped him; taken control. But because it is a shadow element - it is immature, raw, unprocessed and unmediated.

When I see very camp, waspish gay men ( and many drag acts), I often feel I am witnessing a case of possession by the anima. The anima can be a very negative female image ( bitchy, emotionally turbulent, manipulative.....)

Not sure if.you said you have kids Tookabig? Anyway, I hope you're okay. Beyond the wondering and bewilderment, it's really sad and disappointing that people change in this way.

@TinselAngel I made the point that he was NOT a father to them: he behaved like an "entitled child". I know that you and I differ on this question. I lived in fear for about 4 years that my Trans then-H would go to Court.... but he didn't. I think that he recognised somewhere deep down inside him that he had hurt everyone in his/my family by his outrageous, tormenting behaviour towards me. I would never, ever hand over the most precious people in the world to be his "playthings". It has worked out well for my children. And he had 16 years from the time he left to the time he died to show that he understood something of our point of view. He never said a word that was compassionate or showed any empathy. He was a cold, manipulative, dangerous man. I would never ever have allowed him to have time with them unless he was supervised by a responsible adult.

@socialworker222 My trans still-H used to send emails to my/our two children. He wanted to be an "older brother" to them. It was extremely unhealthy and irresponsible. I intercepted these emails because I had the children's passwords. I printed them out. Then we went through them sentence by sentence, word by word and I explained: "This is a lie, this is a half-truth, this is a manipulative statement". I introduced them to textual analysis at 10 and 12, much earlier than normal. He did not come to visit them once. Seeing this behaviour through a more detached eye, they were much more searching and then critical of his "non-parental" behaviour. I broke their natural affection for their "father". He didn't behave like their father. He was an irresponsible child of a peculiar, malevolent and manipulative sort. They thanked me eventually when they reached their mid- twenties, and have been able to develop emotionally and in their educational and professional lives without his cloying narcissism.

@TinselAngel Dr Burgo has taken in depth histories of these 3 patients and is viewing AGP through the lens of shame. I had never heard of Dr Burgo, but having watched his speech I am following him on Twitter and seeing how this different viewpoint develops. My now dead Trans ex-H was so deeply ashamed that he never said to me more than 2 sentences about his transsexualism. My stepson (different mother!) confirmed that shame was the most salient trait in his father/my ex-H. I think that Genspect are keeping an open mind.

This totally resonates *Tookabig". My ex behaved in a consistently cold and unempathic way towards my children and me from his announcement onwards. I attribute it partly to the disconnection of secretly researching, networking and planning that consumes so many men doing this, which meant by the time he told me, he had mentally moved on and 'left' us all. He was rapidly buoyed up by supporters putting comments like 'Hot!' against clearly ludicrous social media posts of him dressed up, and by his growing obsession with his appearance and clothing. I have never quite worked out if he was always narcissistic and hid it, or it exploded with this big decision. It has helped me to accept I will never know (even if I asked him frankly he told so many lies I would not trust him). Whether the seeds were there or not, the reality is that you, like many women, are now dealing with an entirely self-obsessed person. The greatest shock for me has been that this also extends to children who no longer come first, and whose needs are trampled by those of the adult male. So you may want to ponder it, but freedom can come from not giving it your precious time and energy. Men who transitioned since the media storm around Caitlin Jenner are double fuelled by the mass validation and celebration all around them. But those left behind see it as it is. Many of our friends, and his previous friends regard him still as male, and a cruel, entitled idiot spending his time creating his new hyper'feminine' persona and posing for the social media camera instead of being a father. It's all very hollow and rather pathetic compared to reality.