Head Over Heels From The Heart
Dec. 16th, 2006 11:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
lovelyangel.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
trans(cross-posted from my personal journal)
I very rarely take offense at things; it's a trait that seems to be absent from my mindset. So I have to work harder at understanding other people's perspectives and what triggers their ire. I'm always curious as to what makes people tick. Sometimes I'm puzzled. Last night I sent a message to my friend who had participated in the research for Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay With Cross-Dressers and Transsexuals by Virginia Erhardt, PhD. I wrote:
A Spouse Responds
Did this person get the part about the book giving a voice to the WIVES of cross-dressers and transsexuals? It's not about transpeople themselves, except secondarily, which is what makes it so amazing in itself to me. Almost everything else out there is about the transperson's experience, and of course, one of the things that most of the wives shared was the feeling of becoming a nonentity in the whole process, the whole world revolves around the one who is gender variant. That's something that is ultimately fatal to the relationship if you don't find a way to find your own voice and find ways to get the love and support you need too.
Virginia does include a couple of stories from a much younger generation/perspective, where the gender variance was disclosed at the beginning of the relationship and the relationship existed on much different terms. If that were the real world for most of us, the book would be a very different book and the title would be inappropriate. But, for the vast majority of people in that book (and people I've met in this situation) the circumstance really IS, from a wife's point of view, having to get your head over the fact that you've suddenly discovered that your husband wears heels! Your correspondent puts it well, actually. The first response from the wife is usually, "It's just -- ICK!"
The approach is lighthearted to some degree because she didn't want to write a "poor little you" book to the wives (and any partners or family who might actually care about THEIR experience). She wanted to also include the funny bits, and the benefits that people felt from working through things together, and emphasize the very solid relationships most were able to create in a situation where the usual result is divorce. She chose to chronicle a group of women who had stayed for the long-term in these relationships to see if their stories could point to some commonalities or strategies that they and their partners had used to deal what was to them a very serious threat to their relationships. I hope that our stories will help others who are struggling but want to stay together. (Only one of the women, in the years between the first draft of the manuscript and final submission had subsequently divorced. One or two others look like they may be in somewhat shaky relationships, but the rest really seem to have come to terms with a situation they first thought untenable.)
My thinking in suggesting the book was that the stories, collectively, give support to some things that we know intuitively but had little data for, and also illustrate some surprising commonalities in the experience that I didn't anticipate. For one, something that you have always said to us, most couples facing a partner's transition do split up and probably ought to -- preferably with enough understanding to remain good friends. The stories of those who stayed in solid relationships through transition illustrate the kinds of compromises necessary and the kinds of character traits that make it even possible to think that you might be able to stay together in a healthy relationship (particularly the necessity for a fluid and experimental approach to gender identity and sexuality on the part of the partner, if it is going to be possibly to truly accept going from an opposite-sex to a same-sex relationship. Yes, the person is the same person, but the perception of the relationship is NOT the same). Women whose husbands cross-dress generally find it much easier to stay in the relationship, establish boundaries, and learn to accept or even enjoy their husband's difference. But, since so many of us who have transsexual partners started out thinking we had husbands who "only" cross-dress, I found their stories very familiar as well. In fact, the most surprising thing to me was reading through all the stories and knowing that I could have written at least half of them. They were almost like a story of just the two of us in different stages along our journey. The commonalities were striking -- many more than I expected, which is why I think the book will strike a chord with most others facing similar circumstances.
The book only looks at a small segment of the whole trans community, but I think that is a strength rather than a weakness. Virginia didn't bite off more than she could chew, and kept to the population that she understands the best. It is, of course, not a perfect book at all. But, I really do think it is a significant addition to the literature.
<name withheld>
PS: One final comment, this sentence is terribly offensive to me as one of the wives (I'm actually just shaking as I write this):
I very rarely take offense at things; it's a trait that seems to be absent from my mindset. So I have to work harder at understanding other people's perspectives and what triggers their ire. I'm always curious as to what makes people tick. Sometimes I'm puzzled. Last night I sent a message to my friend who had participated in the research for Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay With Cross-Dressers and Transsexuals by Virginia Erhardt, PhD. I wrote:
Urk. I got one rather negative response to My Recent Post in the LJ Transgender Community.What my friend wrote back was outstanding and worthy of its own post. I thought it was important to share in its entirety.
She said: "Wow, at least on its face this book is so offensive it's not even funny. The snarky title. The abhorrent graphic of the obviously male bodied person carrying red heels. The fact that she feels a need to give the male name of every single person in the book. This is just so patronizing and icky. Maybe that is appealing to crossdressers, but just ick."
I guess I don't know what to say to that, not having read the book myself. Suggestions?
A Spouse Responds
Did this person get the part about the book giving a voice to the WIVES of cross-dressers and transsexuals? It's not about transpeople themselves, except secondarily, which is what makes it so amazing in itself to me. Almost everything else out there is about the transperson's experience, and of course, one of the things that most of the wives shared was the feeling of becoming a nonentity in the whole process, the whole world revolves around the one who is gender variant. That's something that is ultimately fatal to the relationship if you don't find a way to find your own voice and find ways to get the love and support you need too.
Virginia does include a couple of stories from a much younger generation/perspective, where the gender variance was disclosed at the beginning of the relationship and the relationship existed on much different terms. If that were the real world for most of us, the book would be a very different book and the title would be inappropriate. But, for the vast majority of people in that book (and people I've met in this situation) the circumstance really IS, from a wife's point of view, having to get your head over the fact that you've suddenly discovered that your husband wears heels! Your correspondent puts it well, actually. The first response from the wife is usually, "It's just -- ICK!"
The approach is lighthearted to some degree because she didn't want to write a "poor little you" book to the wives (and any partners or family who might actually care about THEIR experience). She wanted to also include the funny bits, and the benefits that people felt from working through things together, and emphasize the very solid relationships most were able to create in a situation where the usual result is divorce. She chose to chronicle a group of women who had stayed for the long-term in these relationships to see if their stories could point to some commonalities or strategies that they and their partners had used to deal what was to them a very serious threat to their relationships. I hope that our stories will help others who are struggling but want to stay together. (Only one of the women, in the years between the first draft of the manuscript and final submission had subsequently divorced. One or two others look like they may be in somewhat shaky relationships, but the rest really seem to have come to terms with a situation they first thought untenable.)
My thinking in suggesting the book was that the stories, collectively, give support to some things that we know intuitively but had little data for, and also illustrate some surprising commonalities in the experience that I didn't anticipate. For one, something that you have always said to us, most couples facing a partner's transition do split up and probably ought to -- preferably with enough understanding to remain good friends. The stories of those who stayed in solid relationships through transition illustrate the kinds of compromises necessary and the kinds of character traits that make it even possible to think that you might be able to stay together in a healthy relationship (particularly the necessity for a fluid and experimental approach to gender identity and sexuality on the part of the partner, if it is going to be possibly to truly accept going from an opposite-sex to a same-sex relationship. Yes, the person is the same person, but the perception of the relationship is NOT the same). Women whose husbands cross-dress generally find it much easier to stay in the relationship, establish boundaries, and learn to accept or even enjoy their husband's difference. But, since so many of us who have transsexual partners started out thinking we had husbands who "only" cross-dress, I found their stories very familiar as well. In fact, the most surprising thing to me was reading through all the stories and knowing that I could have written at least half of them. They were almost like a story of just the two of us in different stages along our journey. The commonalities were striking -- many more than I expected, which is why I think the book will strike a chord with most others facing similar circumstances.
The book only looks at a small segment of the whole trans community, but I think that is a strength rather than a weakness. Virginia didn't bite off more than she could chew, and kept to the population that she understands the best. It is, of course, not a perfect book at all. But, I really do think it is a significant addition to the literature.
<name withheld>
PS: One final comment, this sentence is terribly offensive to me as one of the wives (I'm actually just shaking as I write this):
"The fact that she feels a need to give the male name of every single person in the book."First, it proves the "nonentity" thing I mentioned. Exactly HALF of the people in the book are not given male names -- the WIVES. To your correspondent we are not even fellow travelers in this journey. We don't exist. And even when for our partner, the male person they once were or pretended to be has been long gone, I was married to a man for at least 18 years before my current female partner came to the fore. If I am to tell MY story, I have to talk about HIM as well as HER. Thus, yes, I think it is not just appropriate but absolutely necessary.