Transcending the closet: Part II
Surviving the transformation

Ben, a female-to-male transsexual, has been in a loving relationship for 20 years now. Married to his male partner when still female-bodied, Ben has managed to maintain his marriage throughout it all. "It wasn't easy. When we started as a couple, this wasn't an issue - it was in the background. When it started to be an issue for me, we talked about it a lot. We didn't know what to expect. Are we still going to be attracted to one another? I am not the person he met 20years ago," says Ben.

"Some of the issues were all the unknowns. It was very stressful, on me, on him, on his relationships. He didn't know-how his friends and family would react. He would learn to talk about me without using pronouns. People would ask him, 'How's the wife?' How do you answer that? So for him, a lot of the stress came from being out in the world. Also, we went into it kind of naively, thinking, 'I won't be any different, I'll just look different,' but that's not really true. Hormones can have an effect on your personality too.

"People see us as a gay couple now, but he's not bought into the labels and the boxes. Gay means so many things. It can refer to sexual orientation, but it also has to do with politics and identity… it's a complex issue. Gay and lesbian, heterosexual and homosexual - it's irrelevant." Summing up his relationship and his decision to transition, Ben states, "It's been tough, very difficult, but I know I made the right choice. I was lucky too; I picked the right one."

Is love blind?
If you were in a relationship with a man who wanted to undergo some degree of transformation into womanhood, would you still love him? If your female partner felt more like a man inside, could you support her decision to change?

Maintaining a relationship can be challenging at the best of times, but if one partner is struggling with his or her gender identity, the strain and pressure can be unimaginable, for both the trans person and the partner.

If a person struggles with Gender Dysphoria, ignoring the intense shame, confusion and pain is often the only way to cope. Denial can be very powerful, and some individuals can bury feelings for 20, maybe even30, years before they realize they have to deal with these feelings that won't go away.

Ruth Dulmage, a social worker who has many transgender clients, explains, "Life gets really busy, and a trans person may not even think about it, often for many years. Because this is very scary for them, and it involves so much pain and shame, they push it down and just keep right on going with life. They proceed with marriage, they end up having kids, and life goes on.' Suddenly, life slows down a bit and they realize,' I need to find out more about this.'"

But facing up to these feelings after establishing a relationship is doubly hard to deal with. Will my partner understand? Will I lose my relationship? Will my partner take my kids away? These are real worries, and ones that will test even the best of relation-ships to the breaking point.

"There certainly are some couples who are able to stick together and get through it. Communication is the key. The partner of the trans person needs time to start to understand and get information - they too need support. They are at such different stages. They haven't had years and years to think about this, and it's often a huge surprise for them. They feel lied to, there's a trust issue, and some people can never get past that," says Dulmage.

Helma Seidl of Making a Difference Counselling and Consultation gives an idea about why it's so hard to maintain a relationship. "Very few couples will stay together because there is not enough knowledge provided for them to help make informed decisions. Even if the couple breaks up, there might be a better chance for the transgender individual not to lose everything and everybody if they seek counselling. In most cases, the individual has a hard time coming to terms with their gender identity, therefore couple treatment is often started when the couple is far apart and a lot of damage is already done."

Dulmage also says that the unexpected doesn't always have to be negative. "The partner may care about this individual and love this individual, but this isn't what they had wanted. This may not be what they bargained for and committed to, but for some people, this is an opportunity to start challenging all of those gender expectations and all the social rules. They come to realize that the gender stuff isn't what's important, it's the person they've fallen in love with."

Joanne Law, a transgendered activist, and Karen, a male-to-female occasional cross-dresser, both had marriages to women that didn't survive their transformations. Law has two wonderful children from her marriage whom she still maintains a loving relationship with. "My daughter took me out on Father's Day and said, 'This is Blank Day.' I'm lucky that my two children have not gone away."

- printed in Capital Xtra, Issue #100, Dec 7, 2001. Photo of Helma Seidl by Shawn Scallen.