Are the wife and children really fine?

[DancingBarefootOnIce]

A man I used to be close friends with recently came out as a transwoman on Facebook. I was a bit surprised as when I knew them in their 20s they were just a typical man. They’re now mid 30s and married to a woman with three children.

Anyway in their post the second sentence was something along the lines of “Don’t worry my wife and children are fine”. I’ve seen it before in stories like this or when someone comes out as gay.
It’s almost like there’s going to be an accusation of homophobia or transphobia if they’re not alright with it. It just doesn’t feel right. If my partner or father came out with something like that it would change so many things in thinking about past relationships etc.

@AssignedBlobbyAtBirth

I wouldn't be OK with it. Live and present as you want but I do not agree with telling children there is an internal feeling that makes you a woman. It is faith based and is not reality. Unlike religion (usually) not believing leads to abuse and accusations of bigotry

This sounds a lot like the homophobic rhetoric of yesteryear, "Do what you want, but keep it away from the children".

@DownWhichOfLate

Women was a perfectly adequate word until men tried to muscle in on it. So let’s stick with that and the man can prefix away to describe themselves.

Why would a man want to call himself a woman? Doesn't make sense to me.

Well it’s never a transman coming out being happily supported by his husband is it???

I do actually know a couple like this. Married young. The wife came out as trans after having their kids, never seems to have bothered the husband. Both however have always been very alternative and gender fluid. They seem (as far as one can tell from the outside) very happy. I do wonder how the kids are doing. But as a family they do seem very close, very loving, so I would assume the parents have that at the forefront of their minds as well.

I guess the only thing I would worry about would be any sort of blocking off of any potential upset, anger, worry, or even questions about the changes in their parents with some sort of blanket "Why would it even matter, I'm still me, love is love, it's all just variations of normal, what even is normal anyway" that might seek to wave those feelings away. The kids have to live in a world where their peers will not share the values they are being raised with; where the majority of families don't look like theirs; and will need explicit support understanding, coming to terms with and managing that. It can't all just be taken as read. I don't think. But then I'm not the one trying to raise my kids in this set of circs so possibly I have no idea.

What's homophobic is 2 males calling themselves lesbians. Its the modern day version of " you haven't found the right man yet"

Doesn’t make sense to me either, but men want to call themselves trans women that’s up to them.

I loath this lazy idea that the wife might be bisexual. That's not how bisexuality works, that you would for a certainty fancy your partner if they started presented like the opposite sex or altered their body to resemble them. @ElaineFuchs perhaps if you're not bisexual yourself you should stop assuming you know what bisexual people might do.

I thought the c*s word was banned here? Odd how one small section of society can dictate how others talk about them but 50% of the population can't.

Innit Gaspode

Strange how some peoples language on this board is policed to within an inch of its life while others can throw around tha banned term cis with abandon

@OnceMoreWithoutFeeling

Well it’s never a transman coming out being happily supported by his husband is it???

I do actually know a couple like this. Married young. The wife came out as trans after having their kids, never seems to have bothered the husband. Both however have always been very alternative and gender fluid. They seem (as far as one can tell from the outside) very happy. I do wonder how the kids are doing. But as a family they do seem very close, very loving, so I would assume the parents have that at the forefront of their minds as well.

I guess the only thing I would worry about would be any sort of blocking off of any potential upset, anger, worry, or even questions about the changes in their parents with some sort of blanket "Why would it even matter, I'm still me, love is love, it's all just variations of normal, what even is normal anyway" that might seek to wave those feelings away. The kids have to live in a world where their peers will not share the values they are being raised with; where the majority of families don't look like theirs; and will need explicit support understanding, coming to terms with and managing that. It can't all just be taken as read. I don't think. But then I'm not the one trying to raise my kids in this set of circs so possibly I have no idea.

I think the latter part is really important. There's a huge stigma about being transgender in our society. We should all do our part to be as inclusive and compassionate towards trans people as possible, and be good examples for our children. Maybe the next generation will be just a little bit better

@RoseslnTheHospital

I loath this lazy idea that the wife might be bisexual. That's not how bisexuality works, that you would for a certainty fancy your partner if they started presented like the opposite sex or altered their body to resemble them. *@ElaineFuchs* perhaps if you're not bisexual yourself you should stop assuming you know what bisexual people might do.

I am bisexual, of course this doesn't give me the right to speak for all bisexual people, and I don't claim to, I can only speak as to my own thoughts and feelings.

I love my partner for who they are, not their gender. If they were to transition I can say 100% I would stand by them and support their journey and not lose an inch of love.

C** is bollocks and extremely offensive. Women are women due to our sex determined by our biology. We don’t need a prefix. As pp said, males can find another pretend prefix for themselves and leave us with our word.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g report any posts that continue to use the term. I expect the posts already here would stand since I gather the poster is using it to describe themselves. But no one will be calling me c** thanks.

Do you object to every adjective in front of "woman"? Like "stop saying 'tall', tall women aren't a sub category of women, we are women"?

Tall women are a sub-category of women. As are short women. And thin women. And fat women. And (even!) ginger women.

Cis women are not a subcategory of women. It is the implication that they are that is offensive.

@ElaineFuchs cis isn't a thing.

I don't think you can say 100% how you would feel in any given situation you haven't been in tbh. Anyone who does is being narrow-minded imo.

I think people should live how they want, but expecting other people to squash their feelings or feel a particular way about anything that affects them is not the way to a freer society. Quite the opposite. To say any feelings should not exist (by dismissing a feeling as transphobic, eg) is counterproductive because if you can't name it you can't process it. Much like forms of oppression.

A phrase that I saw recently emphasised that when narcissism reaches a certain point, all announcements are framed as inevitably centred on the only one person who matters in a family unit.

Your family is living [X's] best life and have no other function than to support that.

I won't report actually, as I find it very revealing that Elaine is ignoring all requests to desist. I expect any lurkers will spot it too, along with Elaine's fairly obvious attempts to provoke us into posts that could be reported or screenshot for Twitter or both.

If they were to transition I can say 100% I would stand by them and support their journey and not lose an inch of love

You talk as if they would be the exact same person. Changes in life just don't work like that. Things change people. Sometimes fir the better Sometimes for the worse but people do change. Those changes can and do change how you feel abiut a person.

"I am bisexual, of course this doesn't give me the right to speak for all bisexual people, and I don't claim to, I can only speak as to my own thoughts and feelings.

I love my partner for who they are, not their gender. If they were to transition I can say 100% I would stand by them and support their journey and not lose an inch of love."

@ElaineFuchs I mean, clearly I defer to your superiority here, being ever such a better person than everyone else...

@Movingonup22 - as it happens I do know a trans man who was supported by his husband and they are still together very happily. But yes, it's relatively rare, and I do imagine there's less expectation on a man to stay with ftm transitioning partner, though I don't think it's necessarily always a strong pressure for wives of mtf transitioners either, but we generally don't hear those stories as much as they're less emotive.

@ElaineFuchs

Maybe this woman's wife is bisexual or pansexual?

I think it depends what you mean by "not alright with it".

If you mean that her wife and children might be troubled by their exposure to societies transphobia (for instance being bullied at school for having a transgender mum) then that's a valid concern. The UK is home to some terrible transphobia.

If you mean that her wife or children might be themselves bigoted towards her, then that would be transphobic and should rightly be called out as such!

(And just to help prevent this being misinterpreted, I wouldn't consider it transphobic for a straight woman to want to end a romantic relationship with a trans woman who's recently found herself).

Congratulations to them all!

And here is a prime example of why women and children trapped in these kinds of relationships can't speak out for fear of offending extreme genderists.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I won't report actually, as I find it very revealing that Elaine is ignoring all requests to desist. I expect any lurkers will spot it too, along with Elaine's fairly obvious attempts to provoke us into posts that could be reported or screenshot for Twitter or both.

It’s rather a tedious tactic isn’t it.

I am a woman. Nothing more, nothing less.

I was born a woman and I will die a woman. That is what my biology dictates.

You can call yourself a non-imaginary unicorn if you want but you don’t get to impose your nonsensical ideological make-believe terms on me.

AssignedBlobbyAtBirth

"I wouldn't be OK with it. Live and present as you want but I do not agree with telling children there is an internal feeling that makes you a woman. It is faith based and is not reality. Unlike religion (usually) not believing leads to abuse and accusations of bigotry"

This sounds a lot like the homophobic rhetoric of yesteryear, "Do what you want, but keep it away from the children".

But she just doesn't think that the children should be indoctrinated with the ideological interpretation of what transgenderism is. She is not saying that the father shouldn't transition or that he should be kept away from the children or that the father's transition shouldn't be explained to the children. She is only saying that she wouldn't want her children to be taught that being a woman is an internal feeling. Presumably she would rather explain it (just as many transgender people do) based on a factual understanding of sex, gendered norms and feelings about those things?

I don't see the link with homophobic rhetoric?

[quote AllThingsServeTheBeam]@ElaineFuchs cis isn't a thing. [/quote]
What do you call the class of people who's gender is the same as that assigned to them at birth?

That’s because there isn’t a link. It’s a tired old trope that people try to invoke but it really doesn’t work at all.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

A phrase that I saw recently emphasised that when narcissism reaches a certain point, all announcements are framed as inevitably centred on the only one person who matters in a family unit.

Your family is living [X's] best life and have no other function than to support that.

According to the poster, the very second sentence of this coming out post was about others. Doesn't sound self-centered to me