TRANS WIDOWS VOICES

By Tinsel Angel

A new website has been launched called Trans Widows Voices which aims to amplify the voices of trans widows.

The running costs of the site were crowdfunded from feminist networks whose members understood that there was need for a platform for trans widows, owned by trans widows. Women were so generous with their donations that the appeal had to be disabled to prevent more donations after it reached £100 over target!

The website offers an opportunity for trans widows to be able to tell their own stories in their own words.  As well as this we hope that it will enable women affected to bring a feminist analysis to their experiences.

Anybody reading this will be very familiar with the stories of men who discover, often in middle age, the desire to “live as a woman”.  Some leave their families to do so, some have wives who decide for various reasons to stay with them.  The story that is told far less frequently is the story of the increasing number of wives and partners who find this turn of events unacceptable and who leave.  Mainstream media narratives usually focus on the women who stay and support or even celebrate their husband’s transition. The accepted wisdom appears to be that that women and families should put the husband first rather than themselves.

The few organisations that support women with transitioning partners tend to be branches of Transgender support groups, so women often do not have confidence that the support given by these organisations is impartial and female centred. Such organisations celebrate the bravery of men who transition of and wives who stay.

We believe that leaving is just as brave.

It is these women who are “Trans Widows”. A trans widow is a woman, usually heterosexual who has split, or who wants to split, from a male partner or husband who believes that he has a gender identity other than man, or who cross dresses.

We call ourselves trans widows because when this happens to us, we feel as if our husbands have died.  Their former identity is wiped out and we are forbidden from calling them by their “dead names”.  For a long time women in this situation did not have a label or an identity to organise around and by which to find each other and make communities, but the term “trans widow”, has enabled us to do this.

Occasionally transgender activists will claim that using the term “widow” is offensive as our husbands are not actually dead, however many widows have told us that they fully understand our use of the term which after all is also often used in other analogies such as “golf widow” and “football widow”.

We are not sure who originally coined the term “trans widow”, it may have been Christine Benvenuto who wrote an excellent book about her husband’s transition

The stories on the website are all anonymous because the women who have written them fear reprisals from their ex partners and their supporters if our identities are revealed.

Unlike many other websites, Trans Widows Voices does not censor women who feel that their husband had a sexual motivation for transition.  This view is usually silenced, but is an experience reported by many trans widows.

Autogynephilia (AGP) is a term which was coined by Dr Ray Blanchard to describe males who are sexually aroused by the idea of themselves in what they see as a female role.  Its existence is strongly disputed by many transgender activists, yet it fits with the behaviour experienced in their marriages, by many trans widows.

Trans widows do not claim to be experts in the motivations of male late transitioners, but what we are experts in is our own experiences.  This website tells our stories and readers can draw their own conclusions.

Trans Widows Voices uses correct sex pronouns on our website as we believe it is vitally important that women are able to use the language which represents their own reality rather than language which is often coerced by their husbands and by wider society.  Some trans widows report that upon starting transition, their ex-husbands ask to be called “Mum” by their children. We strongly believe that having lost so much, we should not also have our maternal role appropriated by our children’s fathers.

There are currently six women’s stories on the website and we hope to add to this in the future as more women who share our experiences, become aware that they are not alone, and that their voices can and should be heard.

We are pleased that trans widows have begun to be offered a voice in feminist groups in recent years as we have begun to speak out and we are optimistic that this will continue and increase as groups such as FiLiA give us the opportunity to promote our stories to a wider audience of women.

You can sign up to the Trans Widows Voices mailing list here