Still Married after Surgery: Lesbian?

30 October 2010 by kathleen.

When I posted a response to Elizabeth Marie’s comment I left out the hardest part: that the spouse becomes lesbian after the husband’s transition.

I discussed my comment with my partner a few minutes after I posted it.  She immediately pounced on my omission: the social component of a two females living together.  Physical intimacy is no more public between two women than it is between a man and a woman.  But couples are together publicly: at a cookout or a picnic; at the company Christmas party; at the neighborhood Halloween party; at birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and funerals.

I have been a woman at work for nearly three years now.  I see that I am not the same as my heterosexual coworkers.  I am not taking care of children as the 20-somethings and 30-somethings are; I am not devoted to my grandchildren as the 40-somethings and 50-somethings are; I am not constantly dieting so my husband won’t run off with a younger woman.  And I see that those women in the office who do not deny being lesbian, have very little social interaction with the apparently heterosexual women.

The social situation isn’t bad, but it is different for two women living together.  A woman who is fundamentally heterosexual has built a life and created a circle of friends around the interests, needs, and desires of other women who like men.  So, yes: if her husband becomes a woman, she will experience a monumental disruption of social relationships.

I put this post into the category “Sex and Gender Roles” because I can observe what Deborah Tannen described in her book You Just Don’t Understand — that women need and value their relationships with other women more than men value or need relationships with other men.  Relationships are what women do.  I am still learning that skill; transwomen have to learn that it is a skill.

I don’t have an answer for Elizabeth Marie’s spouse.  My partner and I are still working out just how a woman and her transwoman spouse will function in society.  The result is not necessarily ugly or painful, but at this point in our lives together (we married in mid 1976, I transitioned in late 2007) we are still discovering how we work together socially as two women.

When I was still a man, I had no important relationships with other men; I had very little to lose when I transitioned.  My partner risked many relationships; she survived, but how well or poorly she did is not my story to tell.  I will encourage her to write her own post on the topic or to comment on this one.

Posted in Being/staying married, Sex & Gender Roles | 1 Comment »