The use of the term 'trans widow'

[aibubaby]

I've found this term in poor taste ever since I saw it, and this article I've seen on Twitter is a great look at why.

rachelemoss.com/2021/06/24/a-letter-to-trans-widows-from-an-actual-widow/

Marriages end all the time because one spouse isn't who the other thought they were. It's sad or heartbreaking or difficult, and people have (obviously) got the right to grieve for a relationship which is no longer the same. But it isn't a death and it's thoughtless to describe it as though it is.

In a speech entitled “The Psychological Effect on Wives and Partners of Transsexuals,” Aitchison, the co-ordinator of Women of the Beaumont Society, informed the Gendys Conference in 1998 of the hard facts behind this growing phenomenon:

It is estimated that some 100 hundred women per year are delivered into psychiatric care as a direct result of their experiences [of being wives or partners of transsexuals]. Many remain silent, too traumatised to describe what has happened to them. It is my intention to try to describe hitherto unrecognised mechanisms at work within a relationship where Gender Dysphoria is present, which reinforce female disempowerment and which can ultimately destroy their psychological well being.

Aitchison also detailed specific cases at this conference:

One wife described to me that, just prior to her breakdown, she discovered her husband lying on her side of the bed, dressed in her nightie having adopted what she instinctively recognised as her own sleeping position. “He had stripped from me the last of my exclusivity,” she declared. “I had turned a blind eye to many of his mannerisms although they irritated me to distraction sometimes. If I complained he sulked and ignored me, sometimes for days. I found that it was better to say nothing, just put up with it.”

The specific dynamics and impact of psychological and emotional abuse/ coersive control are better recognised now than they were twenty years ago. However many still fail to understand and recognise the patterns:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminism/3452784-Coercive-Control-a-need-for-better-awareness

Am glad transwidows have got some media attention.

I hope that daughter who was a child at time and used as a prop in their father very public display in brave and stunning new life as a woman gets to reads about trans widows so she can let go of all that damage it dumped on her.

@CavernousScream

YES US ACTUAL WIDOWS DO ALSO OBJECT TO GOLF WIDOW, CYCLING WIDOW etc. For people obsessed with inflexible dictionary definitions of women, you’re not very understanding of why actual recently bereaved women whose spouse has actually died might object to the term ‘widow’ being co-opted, are you?

I ask this with curiosity and sincerity—did you find the terms gold widow and cycling widow objectionable before your spouse die?

Or was it—as is often the case, and I’m certainly not judging—only objectionable after you became a widow?

I’m sorry for your loss.

@PrawnofthePatriarchy

I am a widow. It took DH a year from diagnosis til death. In the end he lost consciousness in his favourite chair and died in the ambulance. Our DC were 7 and 10. So the whole tragic thing.

I know I can only speak for myself but I am perfectly happy that trans widows use the phrase for themselves. It's very apt, in that the man they married has gone forever.

I feel they have it much harder than I did. The betrayal, the creepy sex stuff, the lying. It's like a friend who broke up with her DH while mine was dying. Extreme DV, an affair with her best friend - my friend hasn't a single memory of her marriage that isn't tainted.

Me? Well my DH adored me and our DC. 17 good years. The last year of his life was the best of our marriage. All the petty squabbles disappeared. All that remained was love.

It's a long time ago now. My DC are in their twenties. And I still smile every time I think of him.

I think trans widows should feel free to use the phrase. It makes sense, it's descriptive of reality.

Beautiful post, your love just shines through it. Brought tears to my eyes

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Why is the term "transwidow" not ok as it disrespects real widows, but somehow the term transwoman is fine?

Its says a lot about the influence those different groups have - its expected that male people have the power to change the meaning of words, with little regard for anyone else.

Female people dont have that ability, they always have to put other peoples feeling first.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Why is the term "transwidow" not ok as it disrespects real widows, but somehow the term transwoman is fine?

This times several times.

I can totally understand how it would feel like a death tbh. And, if I were a genuine widow, I would have a problem with it.

Oh joy. The woke scolds can't be satisfied with hounding me everywhere else on the internet and have come here, to what has been for the last 4 years the only true safe haven online for trans widows.

How do you think this makes the women on the long running support thread here feel @aibubaby when you pontificate about our right to name our own experience?

I find it really off-putting the way certain people refer to a trans person's 'dead name' when the person in question is very much alive. So why shouldn't women use the term 'trans widows'?

This is a concerted attempt to bully us off the internet.

To Tinsel from one widow to another.

Tinsel

@aibubaby

Sophocles I don't know who TinselAngel is, but I obviously don't agree with anyone getting death threats on social media, that's disgusting.

Well you know now op don't you? So what are you going to do?

We are told that the reason there are thousands of girls presenting to gender clinics worldwide is because our society is now more accepting. We are told they are not lesbian girls, and it’s silly to think so. Logically then, there should be thousands of females in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who are straight, married, but have always been trans and should be coming out as such just like the males. There should be heaps of “trans widowers” talking about their experiences. But there isn’t. I wonder why?

This means being a trans widow is a uniquely female experience. It seems to me it’s another thing on the list of uniquely female things that certain people can’t stand existing. The attack on the use of the word widow is just window dressing. Really it’s about people not liking the existence of a group of women who didn’t buy into the affirmation of their male partners, marked themselves as “gender crits” and speak up about it openly, clearly outlining the negativity they’ve suffered. They could change their name to “Former Partners of Amazing Trans Women Who Decided to Live Their Authentic Lives But I Decided It Wasn’t For Me” and they would still get abuse for failing to be supportive enough of the males, it just wouldn’t be for the word widow.

When people said to me a few years ago, “educate yourself!”, as well as puberty blockers, sport, prisons etc, what these women go through/have been through has been one of the most eye-opening educations of them all .

Detractors are boring fuckers anyway.

Soooooooo. Many. Boring. Women. Hating. Words (I skip posts quite often)

Your posts are informative, and eloquent Tinsel and co.

This is a concerted attempt to bully us off the internet.

It certainly seems like it. Utterly sickening. I can't really believe that a widow would take the time out to write that blog and complain about trans widows using the term. Utterly bizarre. The use of the word affects no one. Apart from those determined as always, to be offended.

Keeping us fighting for our terms of reference avoids ever having to address the substance of what we're saying.

Yes.

@TinselAngel and others, They cannot silence us all. You’ve got many strong, fearless and determined women here who’ve got your backs.

@TinselAngel and others, flowers They cannot silence us all. You’ve got many strong, fearless and determined women here who’ve got your backs.

💯

'Dead' refers to the name. 'Widow' implies the person is dead. Quite a difference, in my opinion.

And this is just utter sophistry. I think I recognise your turn of phrase from Twitter OP.

@TinselAngel

This is a concerted attempt to bully us off the internet.

Considering I had no idea who you were until a previous poster mentioned you and the trans widows threads on here, it's really not and I'm sorry you feel like that.

As I've said multiple times on this thread now, I recognise that my opinion on the term is irrelevant AND I apologised for speaking for widows by conflating the experience of one widow for that of all of them. It's clearly something much more complex than I was aware of and I'm grateful to the posters who pointed out some of the issues with my post.

But to imply that I've somehow tracked you down into your 'safe haven' to start a conversation deliberately to hurt you is a weird and unfair characterisation.

I'm genuinely sorry for what you've been through and I'm glad you have somewhere to discuss it that feels safe for you - that's something everyone should have in difficult circumstances. Mumsnet has been a great source of support for me at points in the past and I think there's something really valuable about anonymous support from others in similar situations - I'm certainly not trying to hound anyone 'off the internet' in light of that.

I do find it weird that that means there's an unwritten rule that anything that popular or well-known posters might find upsetting shouldn't be posted here, however.

@zzizzer

Tell you what, if everyone gets rid of the words transwomen and transmen and calls them men and women (for the sake of factual accuracy which is being asserted here), then we'll campaign to get rid of the word transwidows too and call them ex's.

Assuming that you won't (because the words above have significant meaning to those groups and their sense of self identity), why would you just wipe out another group's self-developed identity?

Like it or not, the term transwidow has come to mean something culturally. It signifies the women abandoned by their husbands who declare their whole past life (often with multiple children and decades of married life) as a fraud, and tell them that the person is long dead and gone.

I can see why transactivists dislike the reminder that they've hurt people - but it's not really their place to tell those people how to express their pain.

This.

for all widows and for all trans widows. One of my parents died aged early thirties so I have some understanding of how that impacts a family. It is a horrible loss.

I do think that a transitioning husband also can be a horrible situation to go through. I cannot even imagine how to explain that one to children whilst keeping going.

And for all those who think that trans widows have a choice, HOW? I find it offensive.

I have tried to imagine that situation after reading some comments here. Let us pretend that all the horrid stories I have read about on trans widows doesn’t happen. Let us pretend that my DH, fully amicably, one day realised that he was the opposite sex and wanted to transition. All the time being kind, supportive and contributing financially to the family….this does not seem to be the case that often.

Now, I cannot imagine a bigger turn off than a man with breasts that he also is very happy about. And don’t get me started on a man who decided to invert his penis and create a neo vagina. I also would not fancy a man in women’s clothes, happy for everyone to wear what they want, but that is a turn off as well for me. I like men. Why do some people think that women may be able accept all this and continue to share a bed? And stay married? Seriously? It is like an alternative universe.

@TinselAngel

'Dead' refers to the name. 'Widow' implies the person is dead. Quite a difference, in my opinion.

And this is just utter sophistry. I think I recognise your turn of phrase from Twitter OP.

Given that I've never posted about trans issues on Twitter ever (as is probably evident by the fact I was missing lots of info about the 'trans widows' community was informed of it by posters here today!), I doubt it.