How my husband became a woman …

I totally agree that we need to talk about AGP in terms of addiction. Also to be clear about the escalation - maybe a comparison with sex offenders in that they often start out with seemingly lower-level offences such as flashing before progressing onto serious offences.

Yes, it's almost as if it's not a real 'condition' at all, just an excuse to act out their fetish in public, and somehow get sympathy for it - hmm....

No, he's still a man, red stilettos and all. His poor poor kids.

If someone genuinely had a condition where their male body felt strange and alien, with the female parts missing.

Would they really express it by wearing sexy feminine undies?

Seems an odd way to react.

I've spoken on the trans widows threads before about my ex partner (thankfully we didn't marry or have children, although came close) but in my ex's case it was definitely AGP, with early memories, since childhood, of feeling excited/ashamed when wearing/caught in his mother's or sister's clothes or shoes. IT worker, watched too much porn, self-absorbed, arrogant etc. (What can I say, we met when I was very young and didn't know better.)

I know I'm well rid, and my life is good now, but it's hard to come to terms with the painful fact that this so-called 'transition' (which isn't real anyway) is happening more and more because of the trans lobby/taboo to provide anything other than social acceptance, even when it causes so much pain to the family - whose concerns get swept away by the self-centredness (of the individual) and often ignored by wider friends / family, too.

I'm very grateful to Tinsel and others who are trying to show the other side of the 'stunning and brave' nonsense. It needs to be discussed and (one day, I hope) more effective treatment given to help these people. But I'm not holding my breath.

Another thing that strikes me is the kindness of the wrier (ex-wife) and her assumption that her ex-husband had some sort of gender dysphoria. When actually it sounds like he is a common-or-garden AGP - the pattern of dressing up in girl's clothes as a child , but not getting through puberty to a realisation he is gay, is quite typical apparently, of men who have this particular sexuality.

But we're not supposed to talk about this diversion from either hetero- or homosexuality ...

Men can have such particular and peculiar sexual obsessions in a way that women simply don't. Very abstracted, simple and mechanistic in nature - relying on objects and visual clues.

Absolutely. A female colleague of my mum went through this in the late '70s. Came home and caught her husband dressing up in her clothes. Promised he wouldn't do it again. Caught again and the wife said "OK, you can dress up, but only in the house". Next thing she knew, he was seen by the neighbours hanging out the washing while crossdressing. Then venturing to the shops. However understanding his wife tried to be, he took a mile for each inch given. Ended in divorce, of course.

A lot of people talk about transwomen behaving male pattern behaviour. If you read this article and substitute another addiction (gambling, alcohol etc, as people have mentioned above), then Charlize sounds exactly like every other selfish, deceitful, uncaring deadbeat dad who abandons and disrespects his family.

WHERE WAS CHARLIZE when Charlize's daughter was sectioned? Why would Charlize not rush to be at their child's hospital bedside, doing their best to help them?

(My DH can be a bit whatever but he has always put the children's health and wellbeing first (unless the rugby is on. It's a house rule that you wait until the match has finished to go to A&E, unless delivering a baby - he started to ask if I could hang on...))

Kudos to Tinsel and all she has done for years now to raise awareness of the very real situations these women, and their children, bear.

Yes, she is managing to bring this into the sunlight, but damn, it's an uphill struggle.

Even when an article like this makes it perfectly obvious that it's a fetish, it's still shrouded in the language of an ideology or the 'condition' of being born in the wrong body.

Glad to see it in MSM though. It wouldn't have been written that way even last year - sympathetic to the wife and children. Hopefully the next article will be more forthright about the sexual element.

Good to see an article on this issue, but depressing to see this poor woman referring to the issue as her ex being "genderfluid". The press has a long way to go still, to reveal the existence of the condition we're not allowed to mention here, as well as the fact that his damaging and irresponsible behaviour is not just a one off but a very familiar pattern happening to who knows how many families.

Actually I think we could just say ' they are trans'. No need to give any more info or pretend that it's possible for a man to become a woman. We need a language that deals with the reality of the situation, that way we stick to facts. Trans indicates that the person is biologically one sex, but wants to pretend to be something else.

Was waiting for this thread. I saw the article and immediately thought of Tinsel and her threads and the brilliant support she offers. We knew a gay man who was speaking to my husband about a 'stunning and brave' bloke who transitioned in public after his wife died. My husband sent him the link to Tinsel's website - you never know what the wife and family have been putting up with behind closed doors. Our friend had never even considered the family.

"Language is not neutral. It is not merely a vehicle which carries ideas. It is itself a shaper of ideas"

"This monopoly over language is one of the means by which males have ensured their own primacy, and consequently have ensured the invisibility or 'other' nature of females." ~ Dale Spender

He is entirely at fault as he had this fetish as a boy and never revealed it to his girlfriend before they married. The epitome of selfishness.
Additionally there is the warning for all married SAHM to check your husband's finances and pension plan regularly!

And you're so right about language being power.

Like if I can get you to say (through bullying, or intimidation or shame etc.) that a red pen is actually blue, then I have exerted some power over you...

It may not seem like a big deal, but there is a psychological element to controlling the language people are allowed to use.

Every time we have to call men women, we give them power over us.

Good to see the Mail covering this.

"I am still utterly bemused by how my ex handled it. Some psychotherapists think that some people transitioning go into a state where they cannot think of anything other than finally being able to be free. They've spent all their lives not being themselves and, when they do come out, they feel it's their time now.

I get that. But, with all the kindness in the world, it is still a huge challenge for your children, your family, your life partner."

Sums things up well.

I agree, and it's why I find the people who just go along with pronouns or think that gender neutral language is fine and isn't a big deal so infuriating.

Language is extremely important (which is why they are so focused on controlling it). Being able to accurately and truthfully describe something is a fundamental part of our shared understanding of each other and the world, and having to lie or misrepresent something in language only adds to confusion and obfuscation (which is what they want).

They are offensive but that's what Charlize was doing when pretending he was a woman. He was wearing fishnets, stilettos and the sort of underwear women don't wear day-to-day (if ever). He was putting on a wig. He was then being more selfish than any woman is allowed to be without being harangued from all sides. He didn't become a woman. He became a parody. The visuals are appropriate for that.

I guess that's a part of womanhood they're not interested in?
That is exactly tight. Many that I know ( through work) just cherry pick the bits and act out bits they like about being a woman. I have said to some that I guess they don't want the shitty side to being female, I.e statistically more likely to suffer DV, more like to suffered sexual assault, negative pay differences etc.

I see what you're saying, but I even prefer "identifies as a woman" (which is still total bollocks) to "became a woman".

These phrases just permeate down through our language until they become a kind of "truth" and accepted as fact, when we all know it to be a complete fiction, both legal and biological.

But we don't have the language for any of this @HootyMcBooby76, do we? I find myself saying 'male to female' etc in the full and certain knowledge that such a thing is impossible. How else to express such a weird idea? Men who masquerade as women expesses my view accurately, but is that so the other way round? Are transmen masquerading as men? I wouldn't say that as I think their motives are usually quite different.

One thing's for sure: the difficulties around language in this area are intended so that we lose power and they gain it.

It was Fae. I remember reading an article. Unsurprisingly it did affect her exams. I think she's since forgiven her father. Or reconciled might be a better word.

No, he is not a victim.