Would you stay with your partner if they decided to transition?

[RedRobyn2021]

I'm watching an episode of Queer Eye where this transwoman's partner said they stayed with them after they decided they wanted to transition and it got me thinking

If your partner decided they wanted to transition would you stay with them?

Absolutely not.

I'd find a way to Co-parent with him but if he decided he wanted to be called mum or mummy I think I'd flip!

I'm Mum, he's Dad.

@Thelnebriati

I feel like I was used by a man who pretended he wanted a relationship and sex life. He didn't. He wanted to use me as a mirror to act out his own fantasies, and it was grim.

I'm so sorry to hear this. Were you able to talk to anyone about your feelings?

@beautifullymad

There are so many No's on here. It's taken me a bit by surprise.

If you love the very bones of someone, how can you not support them and carry on being married to them?

Surely you are married to the person and not their identified gender.

I'm not saying I wouldn't struggle with the transition but my answer wouldn't be to leave.

Am I missing something?

Yes you are

www.transwidowsvoices.org/our-voices

Absolutely not . And I'd resent his AGP fantasy ruining our relationship.

Not a chance in hell.

However, if DH did say he was going to, it would be so far out of character that I'd be extremely concerned about his mental health!

Thanks @TinselAngel you're very wise and I appreciate this must be quite traumatic for you
Thanks for educating me

@NoWordForFluffy

Not a chance in hell.

However, if DH did say he was going to, it would be so far out of character that I'd be extremely concerned about his mental health!

I suppose this is true. I said no quite flippantly thinking if the trans people I’ve personally experienced (who I definitely would not want to be in a relationship with) and the stories I’ve read of what partners have gone through.

But if it was my actual husband who suddenly said this I think I’d assume he’d had some sort of break from reality given that it would be so entirely out of character.

No way. I love my DH (much to my own detriment sometimes) but I would be out the door and half way down the road before he even finished that particular sentence.

And I would take our cat with me.

It's not about the genitals. Women and men aren't the same creatures with a different assembly between their legs. They have developed along different reproductive paths and their bodies are designed to do different things. This isn't an accident or quirk. It's the result of about 2 billion years of evolution.

Whenever I see someone wide eyed and demonstrably ignorant about why MTF transition doesn't actually make a female person, I admit I start to think that person must be male IRL. I just don't see how any female person could finish puberty and exist in a female body without working out how very different it is to a male one and why it's not just a man with modified groin bits...which is actually rather offensive.

@TinselAngel
That's a truly heartbreaking site, this description stood out to me:
"I had lost my lover’s body to synthetic hormones; and I had lost his mind to the cult-like tenets of queer theory and transgender identity politics".

Men can't become women. That's just science. Of course men can choose to wear feminine clothes and make up. But thankfully the world has moved on and stereotypes aren't what they used to be. So if a man wants to wear nail varnish and be a nurse, or a woman wants to be an engineer and drinnk beer - that's fine! They can do that. And thank goodness that my daughter can play rugby and my sons can enjoy baking. But they are still the same sex. It's backward thinking to suggest that if you have certain feelings then you must be a woman / a man. No - just be you. But your sexual organs are what they are.

@lucillelarusso

Thanks *@TinselAngel* you're very wise and I appreciate this must be quite traumatic for you Thanks for educating me

Hear hear.

I have learned so much from tinsel and other women. Its not, in many cases, a nice fluffy change of gender identity, it can be profoundly harmful to other members of the family, and its OK to say no.

No

I have the experience of family members going through this and it ended very bitterly. The initial plan was to try to stay together and be very open and honest and thus worked for a little. They stopped sex because the wife was not attracted to female presenting people but they started to explore an open marriage and kept talking.

However the wife met someone else and formed an emotional connection. The husband reacted really really poorly and it all exploded in the worst way possible.

To be honest I think talking to the husband, there was probably a recognition that the marriage would end in time (the wife was only in her early 30s so not really reasonable to assume no sexual element to their marriage) but they had always been very close and a good parenting team.

However so much was on the husbands terms - their changes, their needs etc that the wife became a spectator in her own life and it got too hard. The husband was always a jealous type with a tendency to lose their temper and couldn't hack her looking at her own happiness (we'll leave to one side that the husband also came out as bi and went through a very man heavy stage that they thought their wife would want to hear about all the cock they were getting - to this day I cannot understand how they thought this was anything other than hurtful and thoughtless at best!)

My dh always said that the husband was always a bit of a twat and that changing how they presented didn't change that about them!

Not a chance

Note: I am not saying all women should be able to feel this; just that for those naturally inclined to find both sexes attractive, physical changes such as genital surgery and breast implants, aren't going to be the sexual dealbreaker they might be for a woman who has no sexual attraction to women.

I'm bi. I'm attracted to very specific things in men and very specific things in women. Dh transitioning would take him firmly out of the former category and for various reasons, he'd never met the latter.

I asked him how he'd feel the other way. Short hair, wearing masculine clothes, breast reduction absolutely fine. Anything more would be a deal breaker apparently.

@TinselAngel thank you for posting that - it's an absolute eye opener and I think that all women should be aware of this before being so fast to support men in their sexual fetishes.

In my OH's case, it would mean his personality had completely changed.

He's always been very at home in the body he has (which has changed over the years, both with age and how much exercise he's doing). He has never ever EVER been, "Oh x or y can't do whatever because they're a man/woman".

So in my case it's a bit like saying, "if your partner had a complete personality transplant...?".

Question for the heterosexual women on here who would stay with a transitioning partner as 'genitals do not define them'. Would it not be an issue for you to be redefined as a lesbian as a default? Would you really not find it repulsive for your previously male bodied person to grow breasts, talk in an imitation of a femininie voice? Completely change their whole face in feminized surgery. How would you feel about being redefined as a lesbian but still be with a partner and having PIV sex as 80 percent of men dont have have their genitals removed. How would you reconcile that trans women are women, when you had no clue for however many years that the man you were with was a woman. If it is that easy to mask, then how do you know that the 'woman' isnt also a charade

I would worry DH had some very acute mental health problems. If he didn't want to address those then I'd not stay in the marriage.

No, though I’d be supportive and remain his friend.

I’d stay with him without issue if he wanted to wear dresses and heels and the other trappings of ‘femininity’ as long as he didn’t medically transition or start larping as a woman, I have no issues with feminine men or masculine woman but I would be deeply uncomfortable with any hormones or surgery.

I guess for me my husband would then be a woman because that's how he identified and I would respect that.

I hadn't really considered the impact changing his genitals to basically non-functioning ones would have but we've had long periods of our relationship without sex, and it's been hard, but I've stayed with him because he means more to me than sex.

For those suggesting I must be a man to think like this. I'm not. I'm a mid-thirties woman and I've lived as a woman all my life. Although only recently realised I'm bisexual.

@RocksOnTheHill

I guess for me my husband would then be a woman because that's how he identified and I would respect that.

I hadn't really considered the impact changing his genitals to basically non-functioning ones would have but we've had long periods of our relationship without sex, and it's been hard, but I've stayed with him because he means more to me than sex.

For those suggesting I must be a man to think like this. I'm not. I'm a mid-thirties woman and I've lived as a woman all my life. Although only recently realised I'm bisexual.

You said earlier: "I don't understand how if they'd transitioned they wouldn't then be a woman?"

Surely you must understand that no matter what your husband does to his body, it's never going to be a female one like yours?

@CrossStichQueen

I couldn't. For my husband to declare he is and always was a woman would make a mockery of our marriage plus I am not attracted to males who present as women.

This

I chose to marry a man , not a wo-man .