Married Life as a Tgirl

Blog No. 4

If you’ve perused my website before, or watched my interview video(s) you’ll know that I am a very fortunate tgirl. My wife knows of my trans inclinations and allows me considerable freedom. Most of the time, it is a huge blessing and I can generally say that since I came out to her, my life has got better and better and I am experiencing my greatest happiness ever. It’s not perfect, though, and I’ll tell you why.

Like nearly every tgirl’s wife I have heard of, she did not buy in to the female person. She married a man. If she had known, perhaps we would never even have got married. As a consequence, she does not want to interact with Tina or even see pictures of her. The same also applies to my offspring. I am allowed freedom and indulgence: my immediate family all intellectually acknowledge everybody’s entitlement to be the person they truly are. On the one hand, I experience the most wonderful freedom to be that person whenever I want to with no-one looking over my shoulder, and I have been doing so while gradually improving my ‘self transformation’ skills (as well as my wardrobe!) for those few years since I came out. On the other hand, while Tina occupies a massive proportion of my daily thoughts, I can’t really communicate the wonder and excitement of what I achieve as Tina with my family. An instance: the day before I wrote this, I spent an evening with my adult son. We had a great time, discussing such subjects as politics, racism, sexism, religion, nature and football over dinner and a beer, but of course, in my mind, above all those comes Tina, and the whole time I was wishing he would ask about Tina and to see the pictures of me and watch my music video because I am so PROUD of myself. But no, this never happens; and I won’t force these things on them. As a consequence, what seems now to the biggest part of me (other than my role as a breadwinner, husband and father) cannot be celebrated in our family. They know me as my male self: a model husband and father, and they experienced nothing but that for decades.

This, I know, is simply the price I have to pay in order to have my cake and eat it. The amount of trans girls I have encountered who have partners who 100% endorse and enthusiastically participate in this numbers…… maybe 2 or 3. I’m not saying there aren’t more, and I would love to be proved wrong, but that’s all I have noted, and, for instance, I have accumulated about 5,000 Facebook friends, nearly all tgirls or transgender. And even with that handful I am not sure if the partners are fully committed. They may well say so because they love their guys/girls but is it a positive thing deep in their hearts? Is it what any woman is looking for?

So what do I take from this, and what advice can I give? I guess, if you want to be true to yourself and a male partner to a cis woman, I would say balance your feminine times with an absolute commitment to be the best man you can for your partner at all other times. But just don’t expect her to buy into your female self in all ways – everyone is different and this may happen to varying degrees, but be prepared to be ‘on your own’ when you are being your female self. And she may not buy in at all: you are still risking your relationship at that moment you come clean, and you could end up with a very difficult and absolute choice to make. Some women can’t stomach it at all.

Now for something a bit more light hearted. I spent last Thursday evening out with my friend Kristen in Darlinghurst and we started the night in a well known Oxford Street pub. As is usually the case, it wasn’t long before some guys wanted to chat us up. This time it was some New Zealand Navy sailors whose ship had berthed in Sydney. First let me say that despite initial concern, they were lovely guys and no trouble at all. Well, not much. They are probably also extremely skilled professionals at whatever it is they do in their ship, and I learned that the crew can be very different on each voyage. But this group was terribly reminiscent of the cast of ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’ (Brits of my generation will be familiar). There was the boring one, the gay one, the Maori one (OK there were no Maoris in the sitcom) and the tiny one. The boring one was the one who came up to do the initial chat up. His line was ‘hello girls’ followed by a long embarrassed silence, eventually punctured by an invitation to join them for a drink. Despite reservations, we did that, and the gay one was quite good fun, as was the Maori guy, but it took half an hour for them to drag the tiny one out of his corner, he was so shy. It turned out he was the captain (of the group, if not the ship)! A couple more drinks in, though, we were ready to beat a hasty retreat, especially when some weird purple coloured shots got spilled on my very beloved bespoke beige coat… 

As you do, we latched on to a bunch of boys and girls on a work bash and moved on to the local night club, Arq, which was holding a drag competition. I have to say the acts were amazing, some very zany, some imaginative and others incredibly gymnastic. Can’t remember any of their names, though! Lots of fun dancing (in heels), much of it with a wonderful single Mum who was proudly taking her gay son out for his 18th birthday. Diversity is alive and kicking in Sydney!

With my good friend Kristen in Darlinghurst