Partner could have been trans ----

[Dontsaymyname]

I've changed my name but in my orig name I've contributed to various threads in this forum and have gone from "just be kind" to fully GC.

So i feel a bit weirded out by this. I've been with my gf (and yes, I'm female) for many years. Previously I presented as straight; it took a lot of soul searching to come out.

My gf has never been anything but a quite- butch lesbian. She was also brought up by nuns in Ireland in the 1960s. And she's recently told me that she has always wondered if she might be trans, and that if she had her time again she'd explore that, but no way is she going to upset the apple cart now.

She's also prev said that when she was young, in 1960s Ireland with the nuns, she thought she must be a boy (though had never heard of trans) because she knew she liked other girls but couldn't see how that could be possible if she was also a girl.

No harm done, you can say, but I really don't like the idea that my lovely gf could, if she was 40 years younger, be persuaded to "change sex". I'm grieving this whole idea. I'm just glad it won't happen but I wish I'd never had the possibility mentioned, however theoretically :(

I don’t see why it’s an issue? She doesn’t want to transition now, she’s just saying if she was given that option when she was younger she would have probably considered it?

She’s been honest with you and told you how she feels.

I wanted to be a boy when I was growing up, more so between the age of 7 and 13, I hung out with boys and struggled to fit in with girls. Now as an adult all my friends are male, people have asked me if I am a lesbian 🤔. I am not gay or trans but if I was go in the option growing up I would have probably chosen to be male but I wouldn’t now, I am 100% female and happy with that.

There is nothing to grieve.

I would be curious to understand what that exploration would look like, and why not now?

It's sounds like you've been on quite a journey of different thoughts unfolding. Maybe this is part of that process where your head is putting some different thoughts in to new places in your head. Running a few "what if" scenarios.

It's quite a change from feeling one way about gender identity to thinking completely differently.

It's a very different scenario but my kids were watching a documentary that they'd seen before on CBBC called My Life. It was an episode about a girl whose mum had "become my Dad now" (i.e. transitioned). When I saw it with them a couple of years ago I thought it was absolutely lovely how everyone seemed so happy and adjusted.

Fast forward to now and it was on again the other day. I had to really hold it together to avoid shouting at the TV about what irresponsible programming it was - it didn't help that one of my daughters has recently been on her own gender questioning journey so I wasn't sure what she was making of it all. So many of the scenes were so contrived - even my other daughter pointed that out. I hadn't really thought about the pain that this little girl had been through, losing her mum in a way that can't really be explained. When she mentioned being teased at school for not having a mum any more, the first time I watched it I thought "of course you've not lost your mum, she's just now your dad but she's still the same person" - in fact this is what her "Dad" told her to cheer her up. The programme had been set up to be all positive and happy so I couldn't really see why it was different once she'd had chance to get used to it all. I think now about what trans widows say about their husbands transitioning and the effect on them and their children... That was smoothed over completely in the programme.

Obviously not the same at all, but having a completely different perspective does change how things are perceived, even if the only person who has changed is you (or me, in the case of me watching the programme). However, a programme is absolutely not the same thing as your gf! Nor is she being irresponsible etc.

It's just that your perspective has had such a monumental shift that it probably does take time to reprocess stuff that seemed totally different when you first knew or heard it.

I can hardly start to imagine how unsettling that must be and hope you can make peace with the idea of what might have happened.

She's also prev said that when she was young, in 1960s Ireland with the nuns, she thought she must be a boy (though had never heard of trans) because she knew she liked other girls but couldn't see how that could be possible if she was also a girl.

This is such a brilliant summary of the lesbophobia which i part of the current transactivist thinking. You've described the coercive power of "heteronormativity."

I hope she's OK.

The young kids "exploring" being trans today are trying to deal with the exact same sense of alienation she once felt, but unlike your gf they might have to carry the scars of that experimentation on their bodies for the rest of their lives.

It would put me right off.

Another friend and I have said that if we were teenagers now we'd probably have ended up lesbian. It doesn't necessarily mean anything- it's just a different time.

I know that a lot of butches wonder if they are a man, especially nowadays with all the cultural pressure to transition etc.

Unless she starts calling herself Braydon/ Jadon/ Kaden etc or doing transition-y stuff, I'd just see what she said as a random idle comment.

Another friend and I have said that if we were teenagers now we'd probably have ended up lesbian. It doesn't necessarily mean anything- it's just a different time.

I know that a lot of butches wonder if they are a man, especially nowadays with all the cultural pressure to transition etc.

Unless she starts calling herself Braydon/ Jadon/ Kaden etc or doing transition-y stuff, I'd just see what she said as a random idle comment.

She didn’t transition though . I think we can have healthy conversations about gender. I do with mine and so much falls into the what if pile. It’s hypothetical. It’s not real. You should both feel safe saying everything to one another, no matter how upsetting it might be. It’s normal for things to do your head in in relationships

But if being a lesbian was fully accepted back then surely she would have been happy just to be a girl who likes girls.

Or does she fell like a boy in other ways too??

Well, she hasn't said that - but how would either of us know what "feeling like a boy” would feel like?!

Your cant choose to be male or female. Your born male or female. Its set at conception.

It would bother me. I've heard quite a few women say "I might have done it and I'm very glad I didn't". But it sounds as if your DP feels she missed out on something.

"I'm not going to upset the apple cart now" isn't exactly an enthusiastic embrace of womanhood.

It seems like a non issue but is it that the fact she has said this is indicating for you that she accepts the tenants of genderism?
Is it that that is upsetting you? (it would be a deal breaker for me if a partner was a genderist tbh)

It sounds like your partner had a difficult time as a young butch lesbian in a deeply shaming, hetero normative culture. It's normal to reflect back in middle life and play around with "what if" scenarios, if I were in your shoes I hope I would be able to show her empathy and support, reaffirming to her how perfect she is now, a complex butch glorious woman.

It would disturb me a little as well. In fact, I had a similar situation with a partner who said things along those lines. It's scary and it also shows how the trans movement can draw in people who feel they don't fit in or conform to gender stereotypes. Sounds like your relationship is healthy enough that you can express that what she has said weirds you out a little rather than having to bottle it up so that's good.

I haven't been able to talk to anyone IRL about this so airing it here is helpful.

We are both of an age where gender equality in career prospects didn't exist. She would have loved to have trained in a hands-on apprenticeship (sparkie, plumber etc) but girls weren't allowed to do so, so she has spent her working life in admin rather than practical roles. (at my school, my sister was forced to do cookery & needlework whilst the boys did woodwork &metalwork, which would have been my sister's preference - ah the good old days!!)

For my OH, i think she feels that she never really fitted in with " how girls should be". It's a societal, not a physical, issue (or it was when she was younger -obvs there are more, and more equal, opportunities these days, which makes it all the more puzzling to me that some young people decide they have to comply with stereotypes or else choose a new tribe!).

I wonder how many older lesbians on the butch end of the spectrum felt the same.

I am quite a butch lesbian, I am definitely not trans. The confusing feelings of not being a "conventional" woman is part of growing up lesbian (I was raised in a Catholic environment too). I worry that if I was young now I would have felt extreme pressure to be trans.

I appreciate that it isn't this simple but perhaps you need to explore framing this as being pleased that although she grew up in a homophobic environment which was dreadful she was spared the pressure to transition and so has been able to grow up as a proud lesbian woman who hasn't been encouraged to harm herself with hormones and surgery. Isn't it sad that young lesbians are pressured to change themselves rather than accept themselves, and are being physically injured and erased by this modern form of lesbophobia.

The stories behind almost all adult transitions are ful of homophobia, sexism and abuse in childhood.

Transition in these scenarios makes some sense. The failures of the wider environment causing people to modify their otherwise healthy bodies isn't a million miles away from what women feel they have to do to their bodies in our patriarchal society.

I have sympathy for all people who feel these pressures. Your GF is sadly not unusual in how she feels. It is heartbreaking that young girls now still lack visible lesbian role models and are more likely to think of it as being a porn category for straight men.

The obvious solution is to change the environment. Work towards a society free of sexism and homophobia. Make conditions better for everyone. Sadly powerful organisations and charities who could have easily had this as their remit chose not to do that. It is really worth considering why that is.

We are both of an age where gender equality in career prospects didn't exist. She would have loved to have trained in a hands-on apprenticeship (sparkie, plumber etc) but girls weren't allowed to do so, so she has spent her working life in admin rather than practical roles. (at my school, my sister was forced to do cookery & needlework whilst the boys did woodwork &metalwork, which would have been my sister's preference - ah the good old days!!)

Well yes. I belong to more or less the same generation and there were no female football teams, for example. Only boys got to use the gym equipment in my primary school. I knew I couldn't dream of being a pilot because women weren't allowed, etc. etc.

In Ireland in those days women had to stop working when they got married.

So I, personally, would have jumped at the chance of becoming a man, even though I'm not same-sex attracted.

That is one of the things that makes me so very angry with children being taught this rubbish at schools, when you see the ensuing harm to their health and happiness.

Isn't it more a reflection that she's a happy butch lesbian but has she been subject to trans ideology as an impressionable teen then she could have taken a path which would not ultimately have been good for her? Couldn't she be saying that she's glad to have been born 40 years before all this nonsense?
I was a total tomboy - no interest in make up or clothes, wanted to climb trees and dig holes, boys weren't interested in me etc etc. i hated puberty and the changes to my body. I can totally see how girls like the one I was hear "actually maybe you're uncomfortable because you're not really a girl" and think it solves the issue of being a teenage girl being really hard.

I'm a lesbian. Lots of my butch lesbian friends, some of them not so butch, say that if they'd been growing up now instead of 30-50 years ago they could easily have been tempted down the trans route. We grew up in a society where there were no lesbian role models and where lesbianism was never talked about. If transition had been offered it would have probably seemed like a sensible way of dealign with the 'problem'. It's how they've been tackling homosexuality in Iran for decades.

Just to add that none of them (my lesbian friends) would dream of transitioning now and all are happy to be women, but they don't find it at all difficult to understand how a confused, unhappy young butch dyke from a homophobic family and with no one else a bit older and more confident to show the way, might decide that life would be easier if they could pass as a young man.