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6th Preview of She’s Not the Man I Married

Excerpt from Chapter 6 – Genitals Are the Least of It

So while I knew that Betty was a little sexually unusual and not your typical guy, I didn’t have any idea early on that his crossdressing meant anything but that he would prefer to be a little prettier than most men when we made love. But that wasn’t the whole story, and after subsequent conversations and discoveries about his transness, we both started to realize that the male sexual role was not his favorite. While some might say that his crossdressing should have been a huge road sign, plenty of crossdressers are very happy with a traditional gender role in the bedroom: They want to be on top, just in panties. Through time, I realized that not only did Betty’s eyes light up when I took the lead in some way—in any way, really—but I was having way better sex, too. It was terrifying. All along I’d thought I was terrifically liberated about this stuff; other boyfriends had preferred nonmissionary positions—who doesn’t?—but I’d never been in a situation before where I had to acknowledge that taking the lead felt good for both me and my partner. That is, I had to own it. If I “ended up” on top, in the dark, in those moments of sexuality when no one talks about what just happened, or is about to happen, it seemed okay. But if I were to say out loud, “Hey, I like this,” all hell would break loose emotionally.

When you cross a taboo in a secret, private way, and you don’t have to talk about what you like, it can just make sex a little sexier.

But when you do have to talk about sex—say, if things aren’t going quite right between you and a partner—then it can be terrifying to admit what feels good. Like just about everyone else, I had messages in my head that being aggressive sexually as a woman made me a slut, or a pervert, or another socially awful thing I wasn’t supposed to be. But for Betty and me, the choice was between acknowledging these feelings and desires and their taboos, or arguing about sex indefinitely and eventually breaking up over it. The latter wasn’t an option.

What was happening in a very private, intimate space between me and Betty involved whole hordes of people: boyfriends who’d called me a nympho, my mother’s implied reminders to be a “Christian lady,” my years of being called or assumed to be lesbian. I was worried about all the labels I wasn’t fitting, and I was even more worried about which ones really could be applied. Betty brought her own horde as well: her guy friends who bedded any woman who was willing, ex-girlfriends who expected her to play the male role, and even one ex who left her for a woman. Then throw in all the cultural voices of religion, morality, and gender correctness. One of the most difficult tasks we had was asking all those people to leave our bedroom and kicking them out when they didn’t want to go.

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First Event Keynote: Me

Well, the news is out: I’m going to be the keynote speaker for TCNE’s First Event next year. The event will be from January 17th – 21st, and in addition to the keynote I will be doing a reading from the new book and (I think) doing a workshop for partners.

We have never otherwise been to First Event and are very much looking forward to it.

There’s a thread about this on our boards where you can check in with others who might be going, too – so do come!

Read the press release below the break.
Continue reading “First Event Keynote: Me”

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What It Is

Two threads from a week or so ago got me thinking about what you might call The Big Picture. First, there was one about whether or not the mHB message boards have become a little cheerleader-y when it comes to people transitioning, and the other was Donna’s sad report of an altercation with her son.

I didn’t want to write this at the time, but wanted to give Donna – & the others reading – some time to feel a little better.

But in one particular post, our resident poster buddha pointed out that so many threads are more about the slippery slope than avoiding it, per se. In a few private emails, others pointed out the same thing, & one person in particular said she found the way the boards have changed quite in keeping with what I wrote in My Husband Betty, in (of course) Chapter 5, the Slippery Slope? chapter. When I think about the people who first came to the boards, it doesn’t take long to name quite a lot who used to identify as crossdressers who have recently transitioned, are transitioning or who are about to transition.

Most of those people have also seen their relationships fail, which is where Donna’s thread about her son comes in, because I found myself wanting to say something along the lines of this is exactly what I’m always going on about. We hate it. We don’t know why it’s hard, nearly impossible, to accept a gender change in our loved ones, but we do. And in talking about it with Betty I realized that as much as transness is impossible to understand for someone who isn’t (me included), I think it’s equally impossible for a trans person to understand why it’s so hard to accept a change of gender in someone they love, whether that person is a parent, friend, sibling, child, or partner. We want you to be happy if you change gender, but I think plenty of us who love you never quite are, or maybe, just maybe, it takes much longer for us not to be angry about it, still.

& I don’t know why. I don’t have any huge conclusions, here, except to say that I find myself feeling more precariously lucky when I look at the growing list of transitioned former crossdressers who are no longer with the women they were married to when they first crossed my path.

Sometimes, honestly, I don’t want to do the math. I don’t want to know what kind of statistic I’m up against. I worry that the only reason Betty and I have managed so far is because she hasn’t transitioned, and I still fear she will, and I fear, even more, that a year and a half after she does, or ten years after she does, I will say the same kinds of things Donna’s son said in a fit of anger.

For good reason, that worries me sometimes, sometimes way more than I want it to.

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Praise for She’s Not the Man I Married (#3)

“Written from the rare perspective of the spouse of a transgender person, Helen Boyd’s new book is a daring love letter for her partner, their relationship, and any couple who has dared to love outside of the traditional gender script. Part journal, part queer studies, part liberation manifesto, Boyd fearlessly surrenders her own comfort zone to illustrate how there is a cost for everyone — trans or non-trans — to function in our world constructed by engendered expectations.”

—Abigail Garner, author of Families Like Mine

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Partners, Why Not?

For the past three weeks I’ve been co-moderating a Trans Partners’ group at the LGBT Center in Manhattan, and for three weeks we’ve had outright pathetic attendance.
In the meanwhile, I get emails all the time from partners, and I’m in groups online where they post, and they’ve got plenty to say. This group is cheap/free, and yet very few people are coming, and I can’t figure out why.
So partners, why aren’t you coming? Is your partner stealth/closeted & you’re scared about outing him/her by showing up? Do you think it’s a huge bitch session? Do you think it’s a bunch of cheerleaders? Do you think you have nothing in common with other partners? Do you think your stuff isn’t important enough to talk about? Would you rather not think about your partner being trans altogether?
I know you’ve got stuff to talk about, because you write to me, and to other partners, and you post in groups online.
So tell me why you’re not coming.

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5th Preview of She's Not the Man I Married

This preview of She’s Not the Man I Married comes from Chapter 5: Wearing the Pants. I read from this chapter the other day at Columbia, but not this section.

Women in relationships with trans people often already feel forced to accept change they’re not excited about, and so they dig in their heels. But one of the things I ask partners to do when I’m giving workshops or lending an ear privately is to define what “feeling like the woman” in the relationship means to them and what it would take for them to feel that way. “Feeling like the woman” is not about the natural order of things but about how you feel about the person you love, and how the person you love makes you feel about you. When we partners say such things, we usually mean some specific things: Some women mean they want to be seduced; others really like the little mash notes or presents their husbands have left for them; still others want the sense of security that having a provider-husband gives them. For me, it was Betty’s love and attention, her pride in our relationship, that always made me feel “like the woman.” It was the little things he did that made me feel prized; he always kissed me before he went to the restroom, even if I were engaged in a conversation and might not have noticed he’d gone and come back. Identifying those things that make you feel the way you want to in a relationship helps you preserve what makes you feel valued and special. For us, it provided the chance to work things out despite these seismic shifts in our lives.