Spouses/Partners of Transmen and transwomen...
 

I know I am not the only wife of a transgendered husband, and I am sure there are other transgendered couples here in the world that started out as lesbian identified...

To my transgender-loving couples, how do you fit in?

Thank you!

I am engaged to a transman. I am still "lesbian identified". My partner does not define my sexuality. He is out as a transman and we live as a queer couple. Sometimes he "passes"'and sometimes he does not. He is a butch and I am a femme. Those are our primary IDs if you will. Sometimes we don't feel part of either the queer or trans community. We are not straight. I have read and had many discussions about that I need to change my sexual orientation to honor my partners gender. I have been told that I am transphobic because I am a lesbian. I'm pretty worn out trying to explain myself.

We fit in with all kinds of people. I have a long heterosexual world history and my partner has lived in the queer community since he was a baby butch. Right now we are both happy to know and love people who represent all sexualities and genders.

How do you fit in?

Great thread Mrs. Arcstriker and welcome to the Planet! :)

it seems like all the recent (well, since i've been a member) threads on this topic have stayed pretty quiet, so i'm glad you started this one! :)

one of my partners is trans and butch. he's primarily attracted to queer femmes. i identify as a queer femme and have since before we met. we've never been "lesbian-identified" as a couple...he identified as a lesbian earlier on in life, i never have, and he was at the beginning of his transition when we first got together. he is still pretty early on as far as medical transition goes, having had to stop and start hormones and not having access to top surgery. we both are pretty involved in queer communities and have friends of all sexualities and genders as well. i would say, like julie, that "butch/femme" is probably the most accurate descriptor of the dynamics of our relationship :) at least as we see it.

Thank you so much for posting this! I think this is a really long discussion, and what I know in my 46 years on this earth is that there is no easy answer to who we are.

I know that I for one was straight until I came out as a lesbian, and then I lived the lesbian life for years and I realized that didn't fit me anymore than straight life fit me...My life didn't make sense until I met my husband 8 years ago...

All this said, I went from straight wife, single lesbian, to married trans-wife over the course of about 13 years...

In most facets of my life I haven't fit anywhere, but recently in my life as the wife of a TG spouse I am getting closer to normal.

You say you are lesbian Identified, and I totally understand this. The hardest part of becoming me was crossing heterosexuality, to my lesbian identity, and then to becoming the wife of a trans-man.

I feel like all my life I've been trying to become me, and in this last phase (and this IS the last phase) I have struggled to be "normal"...

I should add that we live in the Bay Area. There are lot of queers here of all types. That is wonderful and we are blessed to be here. There are two organizations where we have felt fully embraced and loved. One is Butch Voices and the other is Brown Boi. We have attended conferences and events for both of these organizations and really felt at home, loved and embraced. That is a wonderful thing!

I came out as a lesbian and left my whole heterosexual life 5 years ago. I met my partner at a Butch Femme Social dance. That was it for me! It did not matter that he was a transman. My heterosexual world community could handle that I am a lesbian but partnered with a transman!? Too much for people to handle. Oh the the craziness that ensued!

At this point I don't care if other people don't understand me. I am so happy being out and that I have found my partner. Life is good and I am very happy to be here and that there are spaces where we can be ourselves and share that happiness!

Our world is a bit different Julieisafemme...(Can I call you Julie?)

We live in a conservative part of New England so our experience is totally different...oh, and we are old as crap (Arc's 51 and I am pushing 46...) I totally agree with what you say, regarding not caring if people don't understand you. I am just happy to be who we are, and it is obvious that you and your partner are happy with who you are too...

As for the spaces where you can be yourselves, I have to ask, where do you find them? So far we don't have a place of acceptance and that is problematic sometimes.

heh!!! I am 46 too! My partner is older than yours! We are not old as crap. I am a teenager again after coming out!

Yes I know that things are very different in other parts of the country and world. We find the spaces because they are right here where we are. Butch Voices does do events in NYC so you should check them out. Does your husband identify as a butch? Greyson does and for him butch is his gender or a third gender or a combination of both. I know this is not how all people see butch. Just his experience.

Arc is more male id-d though he is also fine with being female. We are not part of any community outside of our regular life and neighborhood.

Thank you for planting the seed of an idea BTW that I am not old as crap! (I may just explore that!)

we are lucky in kansas...i know of quite a few ftm folks here. i'm not sure how much of an organized community there is - there's a big transguy campout planned next year after c. moves here so i guess we'll find out more, and i'm hooked up with a state advocacy/educational organization called kstep. i feel blessed and lucky for the queer and trans communities here.

Spirit...

In my community there is no other couple like us. In the "JC" where we got married years ago, the town clerk bought a 3-ring binder to hold all the marriage licenses for same-sex couples when civil union and later same-sex marriage became legal. Because I am a shitty bookkeeper we actually lost our original marriage license and had to go to town hall to get a copy...and the town clerk pulled the blue binder off the shelf that had only one page in it...You get the rest of the story here. Granted, when same-sex marriage became legal in CT, she still had us in our own special binder. Shame on her for wasting tax-payer dollars on a 2-inch binder when she could have done just as well with a pocket folder.

BUMP!........

My partner and I have been together 10 years. I came out in my late 40's - thinking I might be gay and it took me a few yrs to realise Im not. She has never dated a bio male, rather had 4 LTR's with very butch women, all of whom looked male. She has been wonderful in her support and encouraged me when going through transition. We occasionally do the gay scene, since when we met i was a drag king and performed mostly in gay clubs. However as time went on and being of an older generation, we dont go to clubs as most are frequented by much younger, single people and prefer to go to the theatre, to friends and give dinnerparties etc at home. She doesnt ID as gay and I have made my way through, absolutely loving the butch/femme dynamic, which I still do. We're easy going so we fit it pretty much anywhere. We've never encountered any problems from anyone gay or straight, even when i looked female.

I think the posts here show that every couple has different experiences. The discussion of "passing" is a difficult one for all of us. I put the word in quotations because it is not a word I use or a word I like in relation to my partner and how others view him. The funny thing is how it happens or doesn't on any given day. How do people gender us? Greyson was in a big box store yesterday and had two women helping him at the same time and one called him she and the other he. They seemed to be unaware that they were not in agreement about their perception of his gender. Why or what made one see he and the other see she? Its's hard to know. We have no clue when we go out how we will be seen. Are we a queer couple or straight? There can be multiple variations on the same day in the same area around our home.

We pretty much don't examine it anymore. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. I "pass" as a straight woman everyday. That is the femme invisibility. It used to bother me a lot. It bothers me less and less as time goes on. It is hard for me to truly understand how it is for Greyson to have his gender and his sexual orientation up for debate for all who encounter him on a given day.

My hope is that someday people will have the tools to free them from having to make that automatic perception of what or who someone is. That is pie in the sky at this point but I do hope we get there.

Amanda and I both ID as female, though, to my chagrin I can "pass". When we wed, we will both be "wife".

Great Thread!!!
 

we all have a slightly different perspective.

i had always identified as a lesbian before transition, but it never felt quite right on me. i dated many "straight" women, most of which never dated another woman, ever.

once i began to transition, everything made more sense to me, and the past relationships came into focus. i had always been a man, in spirit, if not in form.

when i met my fiance, Gsnap, in 2008, i had been on t for over a year. she is straight, identifies and straight, never been with a woman or even attracted to a woman.
we hit is off right away, and we were friends for almost 2 years (we were both in a relationship at the time)
when our respective relationships fell apart, we started dating. I dated a few other people over the first few months, before i realized that she was all i needed.

people are curious as to how she can identify as straight while she is engaged to a transman, but to question her sexual identity, is to infer that i am not a "man"
as you can imagine, that is offensive to both of us.