Hi, everyone! I’m at the very beginning of my journey, having only recently cracked my egg and realized I’m trans. I’m still mostly closeted, having only come out to my wife, a few select friends, and my therapist. My biggest concerns thus far are centered around my wife and our son (about to be entering middle school next year).
I have no doubts about who I am and who I want to be, but I’m not really sure how to move forward in a way that minimizes the upheaval for them. My wife is cis and has always considered herself straight, so she’s unsurprisingly having some difficulty with labels and fears for the future, though she’s also trying to be supportive. But she’s also feeding into some of my own fears, and stressing the potential impact not only on our lives, but on our son, too. She’s also repeatedly expressed concerns that I’m going to want to move faster than what she’s comfortable with (even if that’s not fast at all).
Anyone who’s been through similar on their journey, I’d love to hear your perspective and how you managed to handle it to continue on your journey. I know I’m not alone, but it’s a challenge and any suggestions on how to avoid pitfalls are more than welcome!
Sorry that I’m late to the party. My egg cracked last month. 31 MTF and I’m also figuring things out. My wife is also cis and she’s also struggling to support me. I’ve been all over the emotional map these days. I have a daughter, but she’s only a baby so maybe that’s a bit easier to deal with. I’m not really through this journey so I’m not much help in terms of advice, but you’re definitely not alone.
im still satisfied with starting at 49 even with all my struggles. i needed to and so i did. i can only advise what i know. transitioning has been worthwhile and im toughening up now that im standing alone. the harder the fight the more im sure i am on my own side now and taking care of me. im a garbage transsexual and on that point i could not be happier all things considered. fanning the flame of my own being has been amazing. accept what feels right in the face of your fear and do that thing. be brave. <3
Transitioning can be really tough, and a lot of people find themselves in your position.
When you marry a straight woman and you turn out to be a woman, it can lead to the end of the marriage. And getting to that end can be a difficult, embittering, and painful process drawn out over years. Lots of trans women don’t feel they have a right to transition (because of how the dominant narrative is that we are selfish and immoral for wanting to transition), and so many of us never do, or we capitulate to the fears of the straight spouse and don’t take some of the most important steps for our well-being. We hold on, we capitulate on our needs and our identity, and we think we’re being responsible and good for doing so.
But not taking transition steps because of a straight spouse who is afraid of losing the person they married isn’t necessarily as responsible at it may seem to us - trans people who capitulate and don’t take seriously their biological & hormonal needs can be much worse for their family than they realize.
They can think they are being responsible and putting their family first, but all they are doing is delaying the inevitable and risking everything in the meantime. Suicide rates are very high for trans folks, and social & medical transitioning is the only known treatment that improves trans welfare. In my view, not transitioning is the more irresponsible option, even in this situation. You can’t help who you are, being trans isn’t a choice - it’s genetic. Finding out you are trans is not that different than finding out you have another genetic endocrine disorder like diabetes or hypothyroidism, foregoing the only known useful treatments for that disorder is not a reasonable option, not only is it not what is best for your well-being, but by extension it is what threatens the well-being of people who care about you and depend on you.
Either way, here are some common pieces of advice I try to give:
- find yourself an individual therapist who is trans affirming, well credentialed, and ideally has worked with trans patients before
- find a couples therapist that is trans-affirming, ideally someone who has experience with trans patients
- start HRT ASAP, like it should be the first step. It’s extremely low risk, the effects take months and years to happen so you need to get that started now, and the mental benefits will help you become a more stable and happy person making it easier to handle all the other difficulties and making you a better spouse and parent. For most of us this is necessary medical treatment (which I understand can be hard to take seriously when you’re not on HRT, which is why I’m emphasizing it). Read this article several times, I highly recommend monotherapy injections, even if you have a needle phobia, like I do. I specifically don’t recommend oral or sublingual routes (these can cause mood swings and inadequate & inconsistent blood estrogen levels), and anti-androgens like spiro commonly causes negative side effects.
- get very educated, read everything you can - I highly suggest Julia Serano (Whipping Girl, Sexed Up), as well as The Gender Dysphoria Bible, etc.
I should say, this conflict doesn’t always result in the end of the marriage. Some people stay together and make their marriage more platonic. Some straight spouses learn that their sexuality was more open than they realized, and they continue to love and be sexually compatible with the person they married.
It’s often not obvious to us what our needs are, so be careful about making promises. The first several months after social transition I wasn’t sure I would ever want a vaginoplasty, and within 6 months of transition I was increasingly dysphoric and aware how bottom surgery would help me. Spouses sometimes push for promises to take things slow or gatekeep … the system will gatekeep you already, going slow is only going to hurt you. So be careful about making promises you shouldn’t.
Either way, I hope you are both able to make responsible choices that mutually respect one another’s needs. Your wife shouldn’t settle for a marriage with someone they can’t be attracted to (they can’t help that they’re straight), and likewise you shouldn’t settle for a where you are required to forego necessary medical treatment and consign yourself to suffering in a body and life that is not yours.
Thank you so much for the detailed, thoughtful response! The Gender Dysphoria Bible is one that I’ve already started working through at the suggestion of one of my friends, but I’ll definitely add those other resources to my list.
I don’t think I’ve been in any danger of self-harm, but it has been eye opening how I can now look back and see signs of depression that I’d been pretending didn’t exist, and how much relief I feel having opened up to her and facing this part of myself, even with all the anxieties about things that may or may not happen. I do think I want to begin HRT, but I also don’t want to just charge ahead in without her. I understand what you’re saying about not letting her hold me back for my own sanity and health, but I think I’m going to need to find the balance between keeping her trust and doing what I need to do for me.
I also fear what impact coming out more broadly might have on our son, especially at his age, and remembering how miserable middle school could be. And I recognize that a lot of my fears and hesitations are based on societal dysphoria (thanks, Gender Dysphoria Bible!), but I’m struggling to get over that hurdle.
There are so many book recommendations, lol - just let me know if you want a list.
I wouldn’t say suicidal ideation is the same as self-harm, and that was meant to just be one example of harm that comes from not transitioning - dissociation, depression & anhedonia, anxiety, drug abuse & other addictions are all examples of other harms that are commonly found in trans populations and which improve with gender-affirming care:
I had no idea that I was depressed, anxious, or suicidal until I started HRT. Within a month or so I was having what felt like randomly happy moments throughout my day, and I noticed I no longer felt like it would be objectively better if I were dead. It turns out I had been passively suicidal since I was 13, and this was the first time since then that I had genuinely (irrationally!) felt happy to be alive - even when engaging in otherwise stressful events, like running errands. It is a bizarre experience.
All this to say, I completely understand if the benefits of HRT seem theoretical or unlikely, or that you don’t really struggle that much or that it’s not that important (and certainly not that important relative to your marriage and family, etc.).
I’m not sure there is much I could have said to myself pre-transition that would have made me take this seriously, and I had no kids and a spouse that wanted me to transition (because she wanted what was best for me). I felt transitioning was selfish and irresponsible, and I worried it would disrupt relationships with my in-laws. And it did! But looking back it seems absurd to me that I dismissed transitioning because of them (even knowing now that my fears came true and I lost those important relationships). I mostly feel immense grief and regret at having not transitioned a decade ago, of having dismissed my dysphoria as just a likely fetish or clothing preference (and not seeing or understanding it was much more than that).
I do think I want to begin HRT, but I also don’t want to just charge ahead in without her. I understand what you’re saying about not letting her hold me back for my own sanity and health, but I think I’m going to need to find the balance between keeping her trust and doing what I need to do for me.
Definitely need to find a balance (it would be worrying if you didn’t care about your wife’s needs), but that balance probably also shouldn’t be not taking HRT because your wife is afraid of you becoming a woman.
This is part of why a couples counselor might be helpful, to mediate those conversations and ensure some fairness and proper perspective.
There is a lot working against you as a trans person. People don’t understand trans folks, we are not well-liked and we are vilified as a political scapegoat. There is immense pressure against us socially, and this means it is hard to stay grounded in reality and what is evidenced. So from my perspective it’s important to compensate for that anti-trans bias by being clear-sighted about the clinical significance of transition and its medical necessity, mostly because I know most trans people drag their feet to please others.
I have endless stories of people who don’t transition or who delay or slow their transition for some reason or another, and the reasons are rarely legitimate and are often based on misinformation, anti-trans bias, or simply another person’s preferences. For example, one trans woman I know can’t get bottom surgery despite her dysphoria because her wife wants to continue having penetrative sex. Even more of us just never even consider social or medical transition because of what it would mean for our relationships.
So, I get it - it’s hard, but it’s also important, so working on finding a way forward is important.
I also fear what impact coming out more broadly might have on our son, especially at his age, and remembering how miserable middle school could be.
In the past people have pointed out that by not transitioning you also communicate something to your kid about what is or isn’t acceptable, that it provides a poor role model and message. I understand the concern, though - I just think if you’re like the rest of us, you’re likely to be a much better human and thus a much better parent if you transition. Those are the clinical facts.
Yes, please, on additional reading recommendations! I’m still early enough in all of this to not know most of what I don’t know.
I really appreciate the advice and suggestions, and I’m trying to reframe my perspective. That was a really good point about inadvertently teaching some of the wrong lessons by giving in to fears and external pressures driven by societal bias.
EDIT: and it’s maybe even more important you model taking transition seriously for yourself given that being trans is genetic and your kids are more likely to be trans than the rest of the population (so how you handle your own trans-ness will certainly influence them, and that might be even more impactful if they turn out to be trans as well).
Reframing your perspective is important to protect yourself, but it’s also important to bring the people in your life along with you - it’s no good if your perspective has changed but your wife’s hasn’t, for example. Otherwise you can expect increased friction as you gain the education and perspective she needs as well. Either way, you definitely need the education for yourself regardless, esp. since you can’t rely on other people (doctors, psychologists, employers, friends, etc.) to know or understand already.
OK, so I already mentioned the most important ones:
- Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl and Sexed Up
- Gender Dysphoria Bible
- An Introduction to Hormone Therapy for Transfeminine People by transfemscience
- What We Know Project, Cornell University, “What Does the Scholarly Research Say about the Effect of Gender Transition on Transgender Well-Being?” (online literature review), 2018.
I would also add:
- Mia Violet’s memoir: Yes, You Are Trans Enough
- everything by Casey Plett (Little Fish, A Safe Girl to Love, etc.)
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
- Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Also:
- Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues
- Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness
- Jacob Tobia’s memoir: Sissy
- Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer
- Lewis Hancox’s Welcome to St. Hell
- Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw
When I first transitioned, I also read like every peer reviewed science article I could find, so on the science end, I recommend finding and reading:
- autopsy of trans brains finds trans women have brains more like cis women than cis men: Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF. A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity. Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46. doi: 10.1093/brain/awn276. Epub 2008 Nov 2. PMID: 18980961.
- MRI studies find that most people’s brains are more complicated than just “male or female”: Joel D, Berman Z, Tavor I, Wexler N, Gaber O, Stein Y, Shefi N, Pool J, Urchs S, Margulies DS, Liem F, Hänggi J, Jäncke L, Assaf Y. Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Dec 15;112(50):15468-73. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1509654112. Epub 2015 Nov 30. PMID: 26621705; PMCID: PMC4687544.
- synthesis of the findings from the autopsies and MRI studies: Joel D, Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab D. The Complex Relationships between Sex and the Brain. Neuroscientist. 2020 Apr;26(2):156-169. doi: 10.1177/1073858419867298. Epub 2019 Sep 11. PMID: 31509086.
- Saraswat A, Weinand JD, Safer JD. Evidence supporting the biologic nature of gender identity. Endocr Pract. 2015 Feb;21(2):199-204. doi: 10.4158/EP14351.RA. PMID: 25667367.
- Korpaisarn S, Safer JD. Etiology of Gender Identity. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 2019 Jun;48(2):323-329. doi: 10.1016/j.ecl.2019.01.002. Epub 2019 Mar 18. PMID: 31027542.
- Sex isn’t really as binary as we thought, here’s an overview article of the new ways science are thinking about “biological sex”: Ainsworth, C. Sex redefined. Nature 518, 288–291 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/518288a
Science related videos I recommend:
- Julia Serano’s overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZymYiwoRoC0
- Sex & Sensibility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQplt7Chos
- Sapolsky lecture on brain sex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nsQDX_OHNE
- Sapolsky lecture on “human sexuality”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOY3QH_jOtE
- segment of Sapolsky lecture about the biology of trans folks (summarizes the repeated Swaab autopsy findings): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QScpDGqwsQ
Also on the academic side:
- Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues, and anything else written by trans philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher (e.g. “Trapped in the Wrong Theory”, “When Selves have Sex”, and esp. “Evil Deceivers and Make Believers”)
- anything by Florence Ashley esp. “What Is It like to Have a Gender Identity?” and “Don’t Be So Hateful” (Note: you can download any of their published articles from her personal website)
- everything else Julia Serano has written
- every video by ContraPoints, but esp. trans related videos like Are Tr*ps Gay?, JK Rowling, Autogynephilia, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, Pronouns, Transtrenders, Gender Critical
There is more, but I think this is a lot for now anyway.
This is fantastic, and will definitely keep me occupied for a while. Slow reader here 😅
I am too, it took many months to work through all of these 😅
Also, if you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out ❤️ And best of luck to you!
I’m sure I will! Thank you again so much!
Hey! I don’t have much for advice, but I want to say you are so not alone! Almost 2 years ago I was in almost the same exact boat. It did take me longer to get comfortable with the idea I am trans and what to do with it, and my kids were a bit younger, but same! Same concerns.
My wife was also very hesitant, but came around to loving me for me and well see how the changes go. I haven’t done anything too drastic yet, (neurodivergent tendencies make me stupid cautious and very slow to change) but I’m super interested in HRT. That alone was difficult to actually admit to myself.
Idk where exactly I wanted to go with this other than let you know others have gone through almost the exact same scenario.
Also put together a bit after figuring myself out, “oh shit!” one of my kids might be too!
Thank you! Not feeling alone is itself such a huge relief and weight off my shoulders. I was a bit surprised (but pleasantly so, in a way) to read in the Gender Dysphoria Bible how many of us don’t recognize we’re trans until later in life. It made me feel less mad and ashamed and whatever other negative feelings I had with myself for missing all the earlier signs.
you might be interested to learn about hermeneutical injustice, let’s just say it’s not a coincidence we have trouble recognizing we are trans, it’s a consequence of our society and its values
I wish I had some actionable advice, but all I can tell you is to take it one day at a time. Unless your wife is very in tune with your body then it will be months on HRT before the effects become visible.
Thank you! One day at a time is something I keep telling both myself and her; she’s the type of personality to spin out scenarios over the next decade, and it’s just an overwhelming amount of “what ifs.”
