Nobody Wants This
Last week, a reader asked me to report about trans widows. Indeed, not only have I done so in the past, but I wrote an article last year about what that reporting was like. The article was canceled for a variety of reasons, and because I don’t like being threatened, I put the subject to bed. I think their stories are important and need to be studied and represented—but it’s not an easy task. Some women, of course, have been treated horribly by their autogynephilic husbands, but not all autogynephiles are abusive, and not all trans widows are completely innocent victims. No matter what, these women deserve attention and study.
I’ve resurrected the article below.
The most common media narrative about women married to men who transition—that is, women whose husbands become their “wives”—is how much better life is for them.
Take the experience of writer Lauren Rowello, detailed in The Washington Post. At first, she “struggled with my own internalized transphobia, expecting to mourn her body hair, mannerisms, deep voice and broad shoulders,” she wrote, “but the transformation hasn’t been a hurdle for me.”
Jess deCourcy Hinds wrote in Insider that her now-wife not only seems so much happier, but is more sensitive to a mother’s plight. Hinds’ wife “offered to push the toddler’s stroller so I could shop unencumbered,” and takes the kids to the gym and trampoline park more than she did when she was their dad.
Rather than rage at being deceived or blindsided, these women celebrate their partners’ transitions, discovering their sexualities were more fluid than they thought, finding peace in the new arrangement.
Such stories follow the suggestions of the Trans Journalists’ Association, a censorship group/journalists’ affiliation organization, dedicated to shaping how the mainstream press reports on gender issues. Their style guide cautions: “While loved ones of trans people often need to process that their loved one is trans, it is overdone and unoriginal to emphasize the grief of cis family and partners.”
In fact, those partners’ stories are underdone and quite original—and grief is but one painful aspect of what they’ve experienced. A cohort of “trans widows” has been alternately ignored or impugned, their traumas minimized or denied as their former husbands find themselves celebrated after coming out as women.
Their stories need and deserve to be told. But I discovered just how hard that can be to do.