Supporting a trans friend through a divorce

[Anonymous]

One of my closest friends transitioned to a man four years ago. He is married, to a beautiful, smart, funny, successful woman and they have an adorable 8 year old kid. Recently he confided in me that he wants to get a divorce. In his mind, he's a totally different person now with new desires... for example, as a woman he was a lesbian who had never even kissed a man, and now is interested in exploring being with men as a gay man, among other things. I want to be supportive of course, but my gut feeling is that this is kind of a midlife crisis situation, possibly exacerbated by the hormones he's on, and he will come to regret this decision. I know his wife had a hard time when he decided to transition (she had also identified as a lesbian), but she stuck by him and loves him and will be blindsided by this. If it was a straight male friend of mine I would definitely try to make him see what he's giving up in favor of the excitement of being single again, but I don't want to dismiss or discount the unique challenges of being trans and having such a major life shift. Any advice welcome.

[Anonymous]

Wanting to explore new options with a new identify is fine, but blindsliding a supportive and devoted long-time partner is not." I think therapy and a trial separation are both needed.

[Anonymous]

It's too thorny for you to weigh in on what your friend should do, or even how he should handle it.

I would let him know you care about him, his wife, and his kid, that you support his transition and want to be there for him, but that given your friendship with his wife, you feel it's not right for you to offer advice or weigh in. Encourage him to see a therapist (I'd be a little surprised if he isn't already given the recency of his transition) and to talk to his wife about his feelings.

Other than that, I don't think you need to do anything. Whether and how you can support him through a divorce will depend a lot on how he handles it, how his wife handles it, and what the friendship dynamics are that grow out of that. Hopefully you will never be asked to pick a side and can just show up for both of them as needed.

[Anonymous]

He sounds incredibly selfish.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PP he sounds selfish. The gender identity is different from his sexuality and who he is attracted to. He sounds like he has been BI all along and just never explored it.
He chose to get married and made a commitment to his wife. She had stuck by her commitment even with his changes.
He is being a jerk.

[Anonymous]

Some people are just not happy. Transitioning doesn't solve the problem. Divorcing doesn't solve the problem. Nothing will solve the problem til they work on themselves.

I've got a friend going through a divorce right now. She's not going to be any happier divorced. She'll be just as unhappy. She needs to work on herself.

Could this be a similar situation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people are just not happy. Transitioning doesn't solve the problem. Divorcing doesn't solve the problem. Nothing will solve the problem til they work on themselves.

I've got a friend going through a divorce right now. She's not going to be any happier divorced. She'll be just as unhappy. She needs to work on herself.

Could this be a similar situation?

This. Some people are never happy.

Your friend’s wife is a saint, by the way.

[Anonymous]

Is he experiencing hypersexualization due to (too much?) testosterone supplementation?

[Anonymous]

Trans woman here.

It's incredibly common for a person to identify as straight before transition and end up straight the other way post transition. In some cases this happens as soon as the person comes out but before they start hormones. In my view the people that have this happen were always attracted to people of that gender but had internalized homophobia before switching genders. At that point they viewed themselves as straight and it was easier. Others found their sexuality flip while on cross-sex hormones. In this case I think some people had difficulty differentiating between attraction and envy while others actually did experience a sexuality flip from the hormones though I would guess this is the least common.

I've never met anyone that started out gay and ended up gay the other way but I've read (people talking about themselves online) of it happening as well.

For people that started out bisexual, they typically end up bisexual. Often with a preference flip. So they might have been bisexual 75/25 one way then after transition that preference is 25/75.

Many people's sexuality doesn't change during transition.

Some trans people prefer to date other trans people. This includes all varieties such as two trans men, two trans women, and a straight trans couple with a trans man and a trans woman (straight with extra steps ). This list isn't all inclusive and doesn't include people with nonbinary identities.

Many trans people are poly and want to explore their sexuality. Obviously if he went into transition married he should not get divorced just to explore his sexuality. That's a selfish thing to do. If he is legitimately gay the other way or his wife is only a lesbian then those are absolutely valid reasons to end the marriage. A straight person should not stay in a gay marriage with a trans partner. A gay person should not stay in a straight relationship with a trans partner. Those two situations are incredibly common reasons for transition to end a marriage. In some cases the trans person isn't compatible as well (as mentioned in the sexuality flip). That would be a good reason as well. Straight cisgender people get divorced for reasons far more prosaic than this. Like money. People not being compatible after transition is definitely a reason to get a divorce.

As a trans person, if I had a trans friend in this situation, I would ask him if he was still attracted to women and if he loves his wife. I'd ask if their relationship is rocky because of his transition and tell him I'll be there for him and support him no matter what happens. But you're a cis woman and while you've just downloaded a bunch of knowledge about trans sexuality changes into your brain, I'd suggest you approach any discussions of this very carefully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my closest friends transitioned to a man four years ago. He is married, to a beautiful, smart, funny, successful woman and they have an adorable 8 year old kid. Recently he confided in me that he wants to get a divorce. In his mind, he's a totally different person now with new desires... for example, as a woman he was a lesbian who had never even kissed a man, and now is interested in exploring being with men as a gay man, among other things. I want to be supportive of course, but my gut feeling is that this is kind of a midlife crisis situation, possibly exacerbated by the hormones he's on, and he will come to regret this decision. I know his wife had a hard time when he decided to transition (she had also identified as a lesbian), but she stuck by him and loves him and will be blindsided by this. If it was a straight male friend of mine I would definitely try to make him see what he's giving up in favor of the excitement of being single again, but I don't want to dismiss or discount the unique challenges of being trans and having such a major life shift. Any advice welcome.

Some messed up people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my closest friends transitioned to a man four years ago. He is married, to a beautiful, smart, funny, successful woman and they have an adorable 8 year old kid. Recently he confided in me that he wants to get a divorce. In his mind, he's a totally different person now with new desires... for example, as a woman he was a lesbian who had never even kissed a man, and now is interested in exploring being with men as a gay man, among other things. I want to be supportive of course, but my gut feeling is that this is kind of a midlife crisis situation, possibly exacerbated by the hormones he's on, and he will come to regret this decision. I know his wife had a hard time when he decided to transition (she had also identified as a lesbian), but she stuck by him and loves him and will be blindsided by this. If it was a straight male friend of mine I would definitely try to make him see what he's giving up in favor of the excitement of being single again, but I don't want to dismiss or discount the unique challenges of being trans and having such a major life shift. Any advice welcome.

As a person who dated multiple transmen before marrying (and later divorcing) one, this story is pretty commonplace. It was a reason I chose to only date post-transitioned guys, rather than guys that were just starting.