Powerful R4Woman's Hour 'transwidow' interview with a woman describing the devastating impact of her husband's transition on her, their marriage and children.

[R0wantrees]

'Michelle's' experience described in an interview today is very moving and powerful.
She describes how the voices of the partners, wives and children of men who transition are silenced.
Its a very eloquent and nuanced discussion & important listening.
'Michelle'

'Yesterday and today we look at the impact of the decision to Transition on marriage and family relationships. Yesterday we heard from Stephanie Jones when she transitioned from male to female and became, as she describes it, a "stranger in her own home". Today we hear from Michele whose ex-husband transitioned after they had been married for 16 years.'
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001xsf

I hope someone transcribes her words

Wordthe that is why they are so focused on transing kids

Some late transitioners say they are glad they waited until they had fathered children. I wonder if they realise how selfish they sound? They get to experience family life as men before "migrating" to womanhood - what about the impact on their partners and children?

Wow. Now that was stunning and brave. Brava to Michelle for telling her story.

I feel that autogynephilia is a key thing but its hidden, perhaps because it's just difficult for people to grasp?

I'm guessing it's the extent of it that might be difficult to grasp Wordthe. Actually falling in love, and lust, with yourself.

But I don't think anyone has the slightest problem understanding cross dressing arousal.

They're just not making the connection. Between fetishist cross dressing, (graduating to autogynephelia), and the born in the wrong body narrative, which has been marketed, quite masterfully, by the trans lobby.

As soon as I read about AGP, I thought right, that's it. It's so obvious to me that the parodying of women is a sexual thing. Open and shut case, the laws will just reflect this.

So I was quite shocked at how brushed under the carpet it was. In the whole of Maria Miller's 98 page trans equality report, it isn't even mentioned.

As more people realise, I think scales fall quicker. Because it's so obvious.

It's like me not realising that Boy George was gay. When I was a teenager. As soon as I did, I thought oh fucking durrrr.

It's like me not realising that Boy George was gay. When I was a teenager. As soon as I did, I thought oh fucking durrrr

Me and my friends used to talk about which member of the Village People we most fancied .

I feel that autogynephilia is a key thing but its hidden, perhaps because it's just difficult for people to grasp?

I found an accessible book edited by Dr Az Hakeem which was published last year. Dr Hakeem writes the introductory chapters which provide clear explanations for many aspects including chapter 4, 'Autogynaephilia The Men Who Want Vaginas'
The remainder of the book is made up of essays providing a range of perspectives by different writers.

TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria

"This book, the first of its kind, presents an easy-to-read, jargon-free guide to help anyone understand the terminology, the concept and the day-to-day reality of gender dysphoria and related concepts.

TRANS is a book for everyone - insightful enough for professionals, but accessible enough for all. Put simply, TRANS explains what gender dysphoria is, how it affects people, and what is available, medically and psychotherapeutically to support people with gender dysphoria."
www.amazon.co.uk/TRANS-Exploring-Gender-Identity-Dysphoria/dp/1911246496?tag=mumsnetforum-21

background
"Dr Az Hakeem is a Fellow of The Royal College of Psychiatrists and is a Professional Patron, Founder and Trustee for The Shaw Mind Foundation, a Mental Health Charity whose aim is to raise awareness and reduce stigma in relation to Mental Health.

He is one of the small number who has trained as both a Consultant Psychiatrist and a Consultant Psychotherapist, and prior to working in the private sector he worked as a Consultant Psychiatrist in both Adult Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, within central London, teaching hospitals affiliated to UCL."
www.priorygroup.com/consultants/dr-az-hakeem

(screenshots from open access available at link)

Listening to that just now, I feel like I've been thumped in the heart.

Michelle and her children.

I listened and I thought it was great to hear it talked about.

DH does a hobby that is largely men. On an online hobbyists group they have there was a thread with a few of them ‘coming out’ as trans and writing about it. The wives only got a passing mention when talking about them going out as a group with the wives ‘all the girls’. The whole thing stunk utterly of AGP and I was furious that the feelings and experiences of their long suffering wives who has their lives turned upside down wasn’t even worthy of a remark alongside the stunning and brave narrative of what a thrill the whole thing was. So utterly self centered.

As soon as I read about AGP, I thought right, that's it. It's so obvious to me that the parodying of women is a sexual thing. Open and shut case, the laws will just reflect this.

Just adding the rider that yes, not all tw are AGP. The really useful, statistic would be just many, though. Officially.

*how many

That was really powerful. Even read by an actor, you can hear the anger and loss and sheer bafflement. I can't imagine just losing the person you love like that.

I feel that one important thing that stops people from realising is that they can't get past the fact that a man who turns into a woman is seen as a person who is taking a huge hit

Going from male to female is seen as a massive loss of status
A bloke in a dress is a focus for ridicule
then there's the surgery taking hormones etc all things which are seen as negatives

People grasp these things and then they just are fixed with this conception of a person who has taken a massive hit and therefore deserves sympathy understanding eccetera
Once the male to female transsexual is a framed in this way it becomes very difficult to see this person as the exploitative Predator because the two frames are mutually exclusive

like the optical illusion where it's a duck or a rabbit you can see one or see the other but once you see it as a one type of thing you are unable to see the other type of thing

Apologies for clumsy wording I'm sure these points could be made more concisely

Just managed to listen - wow! Fabulous that Michelle did this, so courageous. And heart breaking.

Can't believe I've just heard the word autogynephilia on daytime Bbc.

Regarding how she described the character change in her husband. This is difficult to talk about (I've name changed); a child I taught around 8-9 with asd and mild sen who was very gender non conforming / obsessed with pink Disney girly stuff Hannah Montana etc had a very different character when they were given time to dress up, long hair etc. Behaviour could be very different in an otherwise really lovely friendly child. I remember commenting at the time. It would even happen if they wore a 'girls' hair clip etc. (This child was later seen by the Tavistock and decided they were happy with their body and possibly gay, and just enjoyed fashion. I hope this is still the case. Media stuff at the time and older siblings talking about it to them convinced them they were a girl/ woman trapped in a boy's body which prompted eventual referrals. Parents were amazing throughout.)

Further, on the lack of understanding of autogynephilia, could it be that men in general are more focused on masturbation and so this thing of having a sexual relationship with yourself seems more accessible to them,
Women perhaps are more likely to see sex as a couples thing so that the other person is more the focus of sexual desire, what I'm getting at is maybe it's harder for women to grasp that you can be sexually attracted to yourself, because of the way that we're socialised, cultural norms eccetera?

I query also how many trans widowers there are?

And the born in the wrong body narrative, this is crucial, I think it contains the seeds of its own destruction because it very quickly becomes absurd (I'm really a dolphin in the body of a human etc) but still needs to be resisted and questioned because it doesn't make any sense at all

Once the male to female transsexual is a framed in this way it becomes very difficult to see this person as the exploitative Predator because the two frames are mutually exclusive

I completely agree. There is an assumption that punching down would only be done if it was absolutely 100% crucial. Because otherwise, why on earth would a man debase himself so much?

I'm reminded of a fairly long running, dated joke about men growing breasts, and so never needing to go out on the pull.

I genuinely think they imagine those newly acquired breasts will fulfil a sexual desire.

So it was no surprise to me, when India Willoughby dismissed their breasts as nothing on celebrity Big Brother. Not at all self-conscious of showing them, didn't care about them, and said they weren't sensitive at all.

Nothing like actually having breasts, in the slightest.

It's a very weird phenomena, here is Pippa Bunce, looking longingly at themself.

And it being rebranded as gender fluidity.

I saw a really good treat by a woman who had been in prostitution and said this stuff is familiar. She described it as some men having "overbearing sex drives" which seemed apt.

How often do women have such overbearing sex drives that they'll devote their lives and huge energy to gratifying it?

So many men just don't get how weird it looks from a woman's perspective. For example Hailey Heartless doesnt know the whole thing of dressing up your big belly in a bin bag looks utterly undignified and ridiculous and instead believes 'terfs' secretly want to enter into that world.

Gagging for sex/wanks/orgasms is a lot of men's normal - so it is invisible/unmentionable to them like water to a fish.

Women on the other hand are gullible and believe the 'born in the wrong body' horseshit because overbearing male sexual motivations are so mysterious to us that any other narrative seems more plausible.

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I don't see how transactivists square the TWAW narrative (and often TW have always been W even at birth in the more extreme trans doctrine believers) with expecting the wife of a man who transitions to stick with him.
According to their their doctrine he has "really" become a woman and being a woman is a completely different thing to being a man with different brains and all sorts of stuff otherwise they'd just be happy being feminine or less masculine men and not bother with the dressing up and pronoun stuff.
In that case why would any woman who has chosen to marry a man and is heterosexual want to be married to someone who is a woman?
There is no logic there even without the autogynophilia self absorption element.

I can sort of just about get it. Many of these men are incels. The notion that they can suddenly have a compliant, available woman sitting on thier bed, any time they like, must be quite compelling.

Checking out their reflection as a woman in the mirror, could quite easily lead to some kind of identity fracture.

@Datun, that Pippa Bunce photo of him looking longingly at himself, I think that really speaks volumes
He is totally in love with himself
it's a modern day version of narcissus gazing at himself in the pool

I feel that autogynephiliacs do contain The seeds of their own destruction because they cannot resist the preening and the parading, the looking so pleased with themselves because they fooled everyone

and that photo of Pippa Bunce ....I feel as if that really speaks to what is going on

@datum
How do you know the majority are incels?
The woman today said she still had intimacy with her husband before he transitioned.
It would be interesting to know how many trans widows had stopped having any form or sexual intimacy with their husbands before the husbands transitioned.

t would be interesting to know how many trans widows had stopped having any form or sexual intimacy with their husbands before the husbands transitioned

Que?