In response to this last post, I received this short email:
“My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser”
This is where you loose me Helen. You say you don’t use words like “Husband or Wife”….but then you write books using that exact terminology.
Very confusing.
I responded:
I wrote that book 6 years ago. My thinking is surely allowed to change, no?
He responded:
Convenient. No?
& I responded:
Is that how you’d talk to Betty about her decision to transition? That it was “convenient�
My partner was a self-identified straight drag queen when we met, with a male identity.
She is living as a woman & doing what paperwork she can to reflect that.
One of the reasons I can’t & don’t use “husband†anymore is because people then start using “he†pronouns about my partner. She is not a he. To avoid that, I avoid the gendered terminology that leads to it.
When she had a genderqueer/androgynous presentation, she didn’t mind mixing up the pronouns – as I did in the 2nd book. Now, “he†chafes her, doesn’t fit.
So sue me for having had to make adjustments – especially ones that are entirely out of consideration of my partner’s gender.
Please don’t write back. Your response was rude beyond belief. I shouldn’t be justifying it with a response at all, but I like to give people a fair shake.
If I stop using “husband” then it’s somehow just “convenient” that I’m doing so. Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with my partner’s change in gender! *sigh* I’m having one of those days.