Think the way people use the term 'trans widow' is insensitive to actual widows?

[justmaybenot]

The wives of men who have transitioned often use the term 'trans widow' and some of the responses to this letter from an actual widow have expressed some envy for someone whose husband has died rather than transitioned. AIBU to think it's overblown and deeply insensitive to liken the experience of your dh transitioning to the position of someone whose dh has actually died? This is the letter rachelemoss.com/2021/06/24/a-letter-to-trans-widows-from-an-actual-widow/

@Thisisworsethananticpated

I’d imagine most widows wouldn’t give two fucks

Who identifies as a ‘widow’ anyway

It’s not 1918

What else should we identify as? If I say I’m single then that feels disrespectful to the man I was married to for 24 years. I’m not married any more. There isn’t another word for widow status.

I agree Boriskilledmyhusband.

YABU. The husband doesn't exist anymore so the wife is to all intents and purposes now a widow.

YABU

Why the interest OP?

YABU. It's not up to me to police the language of women who've experienced something I haven't.

@DrSbaitso

Someone told me on here the other day, in all seriousness, that two intact male people can form a lesbian relationship.

It’s all utter nonsense.

That’s what happens when you allow people to play word soup with actual, defined words and terms.

I won’t play along.

A young Scottish woman who has recently de-transitioned has written very thoughtfully on the subject of how her mother "was a grieving mother with nobody and nowhere to turn to, because her grief was painted as transphobic and hateful, when in fact it was the opposite" while she was going through the reassignment process (and her mother was supporting her but finding it incredibly difficult herself).

As a mother who has lost two children, I don't see this woman grieving for her living child to be insensitive to me. And I don't see that trans widows being called such is insensitive to widows either. I feel a lot of empathy for that mother. I don't feel she was taking anything from me for describing herself as grieving or bereaved.

People grieve many things in many ways.

@CreepyPasta

Are you not getting the responses you want from your identical post on the feminist board OP??

I didn't post on the feminist board, I tried to search to see if anyone else had posted on this but the mumsnet search didn't turn anything up/wasn't working

Yes. YABVVU.

I am very torn about the writer of the blog, on one hand it seems wrong to criticize someone in the midst of their grief, but on the other it seems it was just written to be seen as being 'right' I'm not entirely sure she actually believes half of what she has written, but one is not allowed to sway off the path.

@DrSbaitso

Someone told me on here the other day, in all seriousness, that two intact male people can form a lesbian relationship.

Of course it’s serious. It’s part of Stonewall’s official definition. This means trans widows are told, by their partners and Stonewall, that they are now in a lesbian marriage. Not only that, because the transwoman has always been a woman, but only just realised it, the marriage has always been a lesbian marriage but it’s only just become apparent. If the trans widow does not consent to being in a lesbian marriage, and wants to exit the marriage, they can do so with the spousal veto. But Stonewall, activists, and people motivated to shut up trans widows by targeting them on social media, think this veto should be removed.

archive.li/FQBa7

Spousal Exit Clause NotBadConsidering! It's not a veto

@justmaybenot can I ask why are you offended by women seeking support from one and other?

Are they telling you that you must call them transwidows? Are they even asking you give them a moments thought? No. Unlike other fractions of society.

Isn't that how transpeople themselves ask to be spoken of?

To talk of your husband (not wife) would be dead-naming.

If someone has a problem with this line of thought, it should be taken up the trans community I guess.

No, I'm not trying to provoke any particular response, I just think that the letter cited above makes some good points and as her husband actually physically died she's worth listening to as she has this direct experience. I'm trying to understand my own responses to all this and wondered what other people thought. I don't really understand the spite against her (or the absolute aggression against me here).

But yes- they're actively campaigning to take away trans widows legal rights yet we're the ones who are "insensitive".

You never see this sort of tone policing deployed against men, only women.

Women have to be "sensitive" support humans at all times.

I wonder how the OP can identify which group must be affirmed and celebrated for taking whatever words and spaces they fancy, and which group must be scolded for their lack of sensitivity in daring to choose their own terms? hmm

It's a head scratcher for sure.

And op? Is this not quite getting the reaction do you anticipated?

Everyone knows that transwidows are being targeted because they are getting mainstream media coverage now, and have given evidence to the government.

What better way to stop them than to prevent them being able to identify themselves and each other.

Another female cohort, whose name must be erased, eh?

You must think people are silly. And horribly misogynistic.

Funny that.

I don't really understand the spite against her (or the absolute aggression against me here).

Neither of these things has happened. This is DARVO. The spite and aggression over the last week have been against trans widows.

Also more tone policing, we evil women are not only "insensitive", we are now "spiteful" and "aggressive".

@TinselAngel

Spousal Exit Clause NotBadConsidering! It's not a veto

Apologies, didn’t mean to use their language

Trans widows are not using the word "widow" in its usual sense. They've prefixed it "trans", qualifying the meaning, clearly, as different to a woman whose husband has actually died. In much the same way "transwoman" has the prefix that makes the word accurate, and different to an actual adult human female.

As others have said, if it's OK to use the words "woman" to describe an intact male, "lesbians" for two intact males and "deadname" for the former name of a living person, it's hard to see why "trans widow" would be offensive.

@AfternoonToffee

I am very torn about the writer of the blog, on one hand it seems wrong to criticize someone in the midst of their grief, but on the other it seems it was just written to be seen as being 'right' I'm not entirely sure she actually believes half of what she has written, but one is not allowed to sway off the path.

Of course I can sympathise with her grief, and she’s entitled to feel however she feels. I’m not berating her specifically. This is not personal.

I do think people who come here to this well-known women’s space to pronounce on this and similar issues, proceeding to lecture women on ‘being kind (read: shutting up)’ and who expect me to back down on crucial matters of women’s and children’s protections and safeguards in law, legislation and society or to roll over and let people trample all over my and my daughters/sisters/mother’s rights (and those of every female in the world) when I know damn well the immutable truth of biological fact - as does everyone else - and surrender to their bullying attempts or put up with their ideological nonsense, need to examine their heads.

It’s not going to happen. You’ll never silence me. You’ll not subjugate me.

justmaybenot

Can I ask do you have the same objection to the term trans woman as you do transwidow? If not, why not? Why is it different?

@TinselAngel

I don't really understand the spite against her (or the absolute aggression against me here).

Neither of these things has happened. This is DARVO. The spite and aggression over the last week have been against trans widows.

Also more tone policing, we evil women are not only "insensitive", we are now "spiteful" and "aggressive".

Well there's a fair amount of aggression on this thread here tbh, saying I want to provoke a response and so on. And the person who wrote that article has been attacked on twitter. I thought her letter was pretty compelling, and she's writing out of her direct experience. Is there no way to discuss any of this with a modicum of civility? I'm taken aback with a lot of the trans discussion myself, I do think having the cultural and bodily experience of growing up female shouldn't be discounted the way it sometimes is but it's very very difficult to have any even slightly reasonable discussion about any of this it seems.

@Wtfdoipick

justmaybenot

Can I ask do you have the same objection to the term trans woman as you do transwidow? If not, why not? Why is it different?

I prefer trans woman than just 'woman' I think. I'm probably in tune with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I haven't talked about this on MN before or even read any of the threads about it.

@justmaybenot

No, I'm not trying to provoke any particular response, I just think that the letter cited above makes some good points and as her husband actually physically died she's worth listening to as she has this direct experience. I'm trying to understand my own responses to all this and wondered what other people thought. I don't really understand the spite against her (or the absolute aggression against me here).

Seriously, you think that males can claim the word wife, mother, sister, daughter, woman, lesbian? But womem mustn't claim the word transwidow? Despite the fact that many of the spouses of these women have claimed they have always been female, since they were born, and have a 'new' birth certificate to reflect that very assertion.