Stephanie Hayton in The Times

The Economist had a piece years back (I remember reading it during one of the lockdowns) about the number of quantum physicists who end up converting to Roman Catholicism. So it's obviously a thing.

It's not uncommon for physicists to be religious, I recall somebody saying (I can't remember who) that they think "I'm so clever that if I can't understand something then it must be God".

People aren't always logical, are they? I am completely mystified as to how someone can have a PhD in physics and still be a practising Christian, but she seems comfortable with it. People find their own way of reconciling contradictions, or at least not thinking too hard about them.

I think that the family are trying to be make the situation work for them. And this article is Stephanie explaining how she remains in the marriage and that is absolutely her choice. The way she works through this is interesting, I think it is clear that there is plenty of unpick from her words in light of the situation. But ultimately, while I find interesting, it is also clear that staying within a relationship such as this, requires a certain amount of rationalising that others outside the relationship are going to find shaky.

The more of these stories that we see, I find a commonality of the rocky foundations of twisting the story to make it fit a belief system rather than being based on unvarnished truth. Some humans are more capable of living with this than others.

I found the original article really odd, and very sad, and disturbing, but I think that JT should be commended for that. She's a journalist writing up an interview that is supposed to evoke a feeling as well as presenting specific facts and quotes, and she did that well. This is not a Year 3 writing exercise in which success/failure is based on whether the children used clear sentences, an appropriate number of adjectives etc. There was a LOT in that article that was said and implied without JT having to express it directly.

As for the SH article - it reads to me as deeply deeply sad. Whether or not Stephanie did that on purpose when preparing the piece, I could not say. But certainly, that's what is evoked when I read it.

My impression was that she is quite private but is tired of being used as a figure for other people's views, so she clarified her position. I agree it was quite short, but perhaps she doesn't really feel she owes us or anyone else a lot more.

I agree she doesn't. It's her husband who has brought her into this. I'm sure she's not seeking the limelight.

Great post, so I'm repeating it.

Like others I thought it was interesting but incomplete. Tinsel’s post above provides valuable context.

Very religious people can behave in ways that seem contradictory to their faith to others so I’m uncomfortable with statements that Stephanie would or wouldn't be doing something because she is religious. The truth is we don’t know.

She’s committed to stay with DH so what she says is going to reflect that.

Personally I think consuming large quantities of sissy porn is not exactly in line with Christian (or feminist) ideals.

I was hugely uncomfortable with her use of the term ‘genital intimacy’ as it looks like an attempt to place the missing sex within marriage as a purely mechanical act that is missing. Although I agree with her there are other types of intimacy and it is possible to have an intimate relationship without sex. Some marriages survive when one partner can’t have sex for medical reasons and they are still intimate relationships.

It did read a little like damage control as the book and DH are not being received as well as expected.

Both Hayton’s appear to think they are cleverer than anyone else.

I found this a more helpful perspective. I think there are parallels with the situation of someone whose spouse has had an affair. The wronged partner has a difficult choice between leaving, and staying in a marriage which has changed. Either choice is full of pain. Staying means working through a long process of trying to regain trust in someone who has not been trustworthy.

Both partners are flawed; everyone I know is flawed, I certainly am. Trying to negotiate a relationship when you have been deeply hurt is tough. It’s even harder if you retain suspicions that your partner hasn’t completely renounced the hurtful behaviour. But even when you have been ‘cheated on’, the relationship isn’t one way. The ‘innocent’ partner isn’t completely innocent - she or he has done things and said things that hurt the ‘guilty’ partner too, though that is no excuse at all for the ’guilty’ partner’s bad behaviour. And the ‘guilty’ party still usually has some good qualities!

So Stephanie has chosen a difficult path, and is almost certainly still conflicted. Having her life and choices put firmly in the public domain, and then, albeit sympathetically, criticised … that must dredge up some of the hurt and confusion of the years before she came to a position of some peace.

Everything about that article is odd. The timing of it, suspiciously like a damage limitation to the previous article. Weirdly truncated. The picture ‘at home’ of DH even though the article is, supposedly, by, and about SH. The intimacy stuff - almost like the ‘friend’ (what ‘friend’ I wonder?) was desperately trying to get her to look for the bright side of what she does have despite the huge amount that she had quite obviously lost. And just the air of who’s she trying to convince, us or herself? Odd.

I happily describe myself as a terf and have done to on a number of occasions in the workplace and in social gatherings. You don't like it, I do. In the same way, I didn't use ultra as a slur.

I wouldn't personally use she pronouns for DH. But I can understand why The Times did. I think to go from that to claiming that JT is TRA-adjacent and as good as a handmaiden, which some people were doing on Twitter over the weekend, is a purity spiral too far and risks damaging the whole GC movement at the very point that it is going mainstream.

Come on. That's so patronising. She's a smart woman, clearly. Just because you see no value in her faith doesn't make it a "trauma response."

When you're in a relationship like that, you do feel sometimes that by setting boundaries you are making active choices and so are not a "passive victim". But in retrospect when you've got out you see that they are not true choices as you are always bull dozed into them.

It can be difficult to accept if you have been a victim of abuse. I always minimise what I went through by saying that my ex was at the mild end of the AGP spectrum and I've no doubt he probably tells all and sundry that I abused him by telling him hard truths and trying to persuade him not to transition.

Stephanie obviously thinks that a woman with a good job who does presentations, like she does, is less likely to be an abused "victim" than some other type of woman. But abuse and coercive control is not class, career or education based it can happen to any of us. It's maybe also difficult for women who identify as clever (which Stephanie must be to have a physics PHD), to admit they've been abused.

Women often only start learning about abuse once they have exited an abusive relationship, whilst you're in one there's no energy left for dealing with it. Abused women are not a passive "other" and staying is not always the "strong" decision.

Unfortunately this hostage statement reinforces rather than distracts from any suspicion of abuse.

I imagine that if I was in her position with, I presume, mainly religious friends and a husband who was celebrated by the entire gentry left, I would think differently to how I do and certainly would have found it difficult if not impossible to leave.

I don't judge any trans widows for making different decisions to my own, it's important to leave the door open for them.

@CantDealwithChristmas
"Disagreement's fine but I follow a lot of ultras and redfems across a number of platforms and some of them were absolutely going OFF on JT in a really personal and uncalled-for way."
^
If calling a man a "he" and using correct sexed-pronouns, and being angry that Hayton said Magdalen Berns was a "fellow activist" makes us "ultra" radfems then... I think you're in the wrong room.^

The tone in which "ultra" was used to describe us women who have reached the point of needing to draw a hard line, is very much like "t3rf".

It's perfectly possible to be a strong, intelligent career woman and have an manipulative, dishonest husband.

There's no escaping the conclusion that Debbie is telling lies - he has been public about several different versions of his AGP and they obviously can't all be true.

1, Before they married he told Stephanie that he 'had cross dressed a couple of times but it was in the past'.

2, In direct contradiction of that he's now claiming that he first had the urge to cross dress aged three and the urge has been so strong that for decades it was like 'a beach ball he was trying to hold underwater'.

3, He's also claiming that it was watching copious amounts of sissy porn that made him want to transition, ramped up his urges to cross dress and made his mental health decline, pushing him to want to be seen as a woman.

4, In contradiction of that he's also claiming that while he knows he's a man, he's scared of going back to being seen as a man in case his 'mental health' declines.

It seems odd to me that Stephanie, when finally given a chance to put her side, talks about her interest in truth but doesn't mention her husband's lack of honesty. It will be interesting to read other things that she says in the future.

Yes. I found this discordant too.

While I also understand that her faith includes seeking 'truth', the 'truth' here is that D Hayton is a male and pronouns are sex based.

It is like Stephanie is using the same 'faith' style basis of belief to then believe that D Hayton should be called 'she'.

Thanks for pointing that out @OldCrone In the rest of the article, the use of Debbie in place of she or her is very noticeable and clunky.

The cynic in me wonders who wrote that first paragraph, the 'setting the tone' start of the article. To my eyes it doesn't quite match the rest.

But like I say, that's just me.

I'm pleased that my friends helped me get the fuck out when told them what was going on, rather than giving me a list of other types of intimacy.

It seemed to just be a sort of declaration that they don't share "genital intimacy" (very weird label) but are still the best of friends and a good match and intimate in every other way. I kind of wanted to know how the transition impacted her and how she felt, but I guess she doesn't need to share that. Odd article really, wanting to claim her voice but not really saying anything (yet). They are an interesting couple though. And from what I know, I like Debbie's take.

Interesting that SH doesn't use any pronouns to refer to DH.

She does. She uses female pronouns for him.

I am Stephanie, and I am married to Debbie. In case you haven’t heard, Debbie transitioned from male to female in 2012 and has written a book about her story, gender politics and why gender ideology is a bad idea. Her voice is important because she has lived through transition and challenges gender groupthink from the inside.

We heard quite a lot from Stephanie in this interview in 2020. (Interview is transcribed in 4 parts, link goes to part 3.)

Stephanie had no say at all. Debbie said he would leave if Stephanie wanted him to. Eventually she asked him to leave. He refused. Then Debbie gave Stephanie a tiny space to have her input.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/4053058-Debbie-and-Stephanie-Hayton-interview-transcript?reply=100925534

Kristen [interviewer]: Did you think about leaving at any point, did you think about divorce or was it, 'let's keep it together for the kids and the family'?

Stephanie: We decided, I can't remember why, but we decided that maybe we should take time out to chat once a fortnight or so and we went out to a local arts centre on the Thursday evening and we would chat about how things were going. And Debbie's life at the time did revolve around Debbie. It was what Debbie wanted; Debbie was choosing. I had no say apart from at maximum, 'Just kind of slow down very slightly' and one of these Thursday evenings, I just said, 'Well look you keep telling me that you're going to transition, you're going to keep going. Even if you have to leave, even if you have to walk out, I think maybe we need to separate because I can't cope with it anymore,' and Debbie said, 'Okay if that's what you want, then that's what we'll do.'

But my daughter was about two months away from her first set of significant School exams, which are taken at age 16 in Britain. And so two weeks later, we went back on a Thursday evening to this local arts centre and Debbie said, 'I've been thinking and I'm not going to move out. I want to stay' and at that point, I really just felt, 'Well, I've got nothing here. All along, you've been saying that, if necessary, you will leave and eventually I've got to the point of saying okay, you need to leave. And you're now saying you refuse.' So again, actually that was a turning point for Debbie. I think Debbie realized that if she wanted to stay within the family, she needed to actually start thinking about the family a little bit more, rather than just what she wanted and how she was going to do things. And after that, I started having a little bit more of a say and Debbie would ask my opinion about things and I felt that my opinion was actually making a small amount of difference, maybe not huge, but a small amount of difference. And we got through my daughter's exams and, at that point, you know, it was then three months after I'd said, 'I think you need to leave'. And things were better, though a long way from perfect but much better than that very, very low point.

If Stephanie is happy, then good for her.

It doesn't sound to me like a "feisty" life, personally. Or a relationship that is passionate and desirable to me. It's not a choice I'd make for myself.

But lots of people live as friends with their partners and accept a loss of intimacy through choice for very many reasons, including economics, illness or disability etc.

That said, I'd be very uncomfortable with Stephanie's life being the "expectation" of a partner in this situation and I worry that this is what is being somehow promoted. Although Stephanie does acknowledge that there are lots of other voices to be heard, she does suggest that marriages change and maturity demands acceptance - for her, this means that she needs to change what she wants from her marriage rather than dissolve her marriage due to her Christian faith, but her decision is not a template for everyone.

(I don't dislike DH and admire her in some ways, but I think she needs to clarify her position on the guidance she wrote for schools and really accept the realities that come with being an AGP).

My reflection is that the article is odd.

Interesting that SH doesn't use any pronouns to refer to DH.

My first impression was that she has been asked (coerced) into writing this. Hence why it is confusing with no clear narrative.

SH has important things to say but isn't allowed (possibly by herself) to express them. But her feelings still leak out.

The article made me feel very worried for her mental state tbh, especially given her implied claims that she is fine.

But that's just my impression. I was going to say only SH knows how she truly feels, but after that article I'm not sure she does; the internal conflict seems palpable.

All this time I've been thinking, 'When are we going to hear from Stephanie Hayton?' and now we have and I feel kind of voyeuristic even for reading, let alone talking about it and speculating about what she might really mean. So I'm going to stop. I hope she and their children are OK.

I found resonance with Stephanie in her interview with Stella O'Malley in the 'It's Time to Talk' video as has every woman I have shared this with.