Trans widow and feel so much pain for her

[Hotandbithered]

I know this is not actually my grief but DH has a good friend who we have known throughout our marriage, let’s call him Steve.

Steve was married to Jess and had two children.

We spent a lot of time with them over the years. Camping trips, dinners, bbqs, birthdays. Steve was your classic sort of male really. He was quite attractive, funny, polite, well educated and both he and Jess very successful, had a beautiful home.

Anyway getting to the point. Almost out of the blue (to us at least), a few years ago Steve began transitioning. He is not short of money and has had facial surgery multiple times, paid for himself. He is extremely supportive of the trans community and recognises he is lucky he can access this sort of treatment.

Jess stayed with him through this, went to the appointments, talked to their kids about what this meant (primary age) and tried to stick in the marriage. It’s now broken down and they are doing their best to be great co parents to their children.

Jess’ grief is immeasurable. This couple always seemed so in love, so respectful of one another. She says she feels like her husband has died yet she has to experience this new person in his place, like he’s been stolen from her. I too have felt this obviously to a much lesser degree, but its truly life changing to even be affected by it even a little bit.

I should add that I have no strong views on what or who people choose to be but I suppose I am shocked that a person can live a lie for so long and especially put their children through it? DH has tried to be supportive but I think struggles more with Steve’s new interests more than anything, as in they don’t have much to talk about anymore as Steve is consumed by this (I suppose understandably) and his focus on what makes him a woman rather than anything else.

I don’t know what I am asking really. Just feel grief for Jess and for DH and wonder if others have been through similar how they navigated it.

There is nothing sexist about that image. I was as free to collect and play with Lego in the 70s and 80s as my male relatives. Nobody batted an eyelid. You're massively reaching. There are billions of examples of regressive stereotyping, in toys and in life, but this is not one of them and even now, Lego is not massively guilty of it, compared to other brands.

The Kardashians and their ilk and social media making out that women only care about their looks and the size of their arse is what has perpetuated it and made the situation worse after that brief lull when kids could play with whatever toys they wanted. That's why we've now got deluded men thinking being a woman is about skirts and heels and makeup and and ridiculous looking 5ft women pretending to be men who think being a man is about tattoos and vest tops and going to the gym. All valid identities and pursuits, for anybody, but why has it got so narrow and restrictive ?

Google 'sissy porn' if you dare. Some men get off on humiliation and they see being a woman as the most humiliating thing they can be.

I have replied to other questions, however most of my replies have been removed (not by me, via a moderator just like many other replies from other people on this thread)

I did state in one that got removed that it was my last reply, but here I am responding once more.

You claim I have derailed this thread (me, singular) people have gone on and on in this thread about her ex, and have made it about a "fetish" in which I hoped people would see that being trans isn't a fetish. But I'm not going to carry on with this train of thought right now.

Yes, this woman is mourning the loss of her husband yes her friend should be supportive of her, I completely agree. But non of us know the full story, we haven't even heard from the wife's side. Which makes this all feel lump sided.

I agree that the wife should find a safe spce to talk this over so she can hopefully move on in life with a better understanding and outlook, however I don't have the resources for this, I do recommend her going to therapy even family therapy especially for the children involved.

But that doesn't exclude the tyrant of hate towards a community of people.

And as I type this, please know there is a difference between a trans person and someone who has a kink, they can have both. The majority of people have a kink of sorts some more mundane than others, and some that I honestly cannot get behind or support.

I am not going to comment further on this, as I feel everything I say is getting misconstrued or I am not articulate enough to word my opinions to the point of transparency.

I hope all parties in this matter find a common ground and move on, however that maybe.

I am talking about the 50s.

If you can't see the gendering in that advert you haven't studied enough subliminal advertising.

Like you I am baffled how we came so far from them until this century and how disastrously backward we've gone since then.

I disagree, sorry. Plenty of gendered subliminal messaging and overt gender discrimination came after, and before I'm sure, but I dont see it in that packaging. Certainly not compared to the Lego Friends misstep, which came much later in the 2010s and where all the minifigs were girls and what happened in the late 90s, early 2000s when toys started to come in blue or pink variants and packaging and 'boys toys' didnt have a single girl on them.

Thanks for the posts everyone.

I agree it was the mummy (new name) thing that got to me.

Quite defensively of women, too, I suppose, I hate that Jess is having to shoulder so much pain to keep the peace for the kids but Steve who professes to be a woman actually is doing the opposite of what most women do every day for their kids: sacrifice their own comfort and make decisions for their kids’ best interests above their own.

But it’s so strange because Steve honestly was the ideal man. Attractive, kind, funny, intelligent. It makes my head spin and he is now completely obsessed with his new identity, DH had dinner with him recently and said there wasn’t much to talk about anymore

Well, that's patriarchy and misogyny for you, innit. Especially of this utterly regressive fake civil rights movement. Which for those who do remember and know their history (both of the fight for women's rights AND gay rights in this country and remembered what the Beaumont society et al were like) you'd realise has always been a deeply regressive, male centred and deeply conservative one, entirely based on backwards sex stereotypes and which is sending both women's and gay rights back decades. I'm horrified how much of the social history of our country and the fight for rights has been lost. And how many well meaning people have been taken in by this utter patriarchal bullshit and are cheering it on.

He's a fetishist. He's not a woman and he's not the "vulnerable" one in this situation. There is a script, just as there is with other men who, say, cheat on their wives or abuse them, It's a new reality that he wants to rewrite the past to fit. He is not being "denied rights" - this isn't the 1950s. he expects his demands, perceptions and wishes to override both hers and their childrens' in service of his new fetish. "Gender" is just stereotypes.

Always the (actual) female person who is meant to be "kind" and subsume her reality, needs and entire identity to the male person. Who is co-opting whatever he imagines "woman" is for his fantasies, rewriting her history, gaslighting, coercion... ugh. It's narcissistic abuse, it is SO not the new gay rights and it's not in any way progressive.

Support Jess, OP. She's really going to need you. Because there will be a lot of people (including women, sadly) who deny her right to have any feelings about this at all and like to minimise it, while they rush about basically plumping the cushions for him and centering him in everything.

He's been consumed by his fetish, which is is now living through full-time. There are men who realise that they have AGP and they manage it, unfortunately no one is telling him the truth and instead just indulging his fetish.

I think at times we underestimate just how all-consuming a paraphillia can be, sometimes it leads men to do criminal behaviour, but in this case it's leading him to destroy his body and destroy all his relationships.

I suppose that if I wanted to ‘live as a man’ I could put on trousers and a shirt and no one would really notice but if my husband put on a dress then people would.

I know I posted on this a few days ago but my sister and I spoke about the Caitlyn /Bruce Jenner situation. Caitlyn was extremely annoyed that Kris who she had been married to for 20 years, refused to be married to a woman. The book that was written about his transition voiced some undisquised hatred because she would not acquiesce. It would be a great read at this point.

Sort of has though emotionally....

Hm. It's the facial surgery that the OP talks about that makes the equivalent here a woman gaining a beard and receding hairline and deep voice (by taking testosterone). Permanent 24/7 changes.

In your example the costume can be taken off or switched back. In this case its permanently changing who you look like (as well as pressing for changes to what people call you + denying that 'Steve' existed).

That is a simple way of looking at it. Jess feels she has lost her husband. She has in a way. Shd has a new versuin in her life. Someo e she doesnt recignize. She feels her marriage has been a micjery. She has no clksure.

She has lost her husband; he no longer exists, according to his own account.

I am totally bemused at this notion that although she has lost a husband, she has gained a new friend. She hasn't. Would you want a friend who lied to your children, lied to you, used money that was intended for all of you to enhance his own life and nobody else's, and forced you to do as he told you to? I would not, and really can't see why she or anyone else should welcome such a viper into their life.

The children do not still have the kind person who was their dad in their lives, do they. They have an unpredictable stranger who actively denies he is their dad, while, horribly, looking like a person similar to the one they knew for much of their lives. They do not deserve this sort of treatment, from him or anyone. I suspect that nightmares will be the least of what they suffer because of his behaviour.

Agree with every word.

Me too