Dear “trans widow”,
I’ve been seeing a lot about you on twitter lately. You’ve even made the Sunday Telegraph. It feels good, right, to feel seen? That’s probably what led you to seek out women in similar situations when your partner first announced they wanted to transition. You probably sat on Mumsnet or searched hashtags on twitter, looking for people who knew how you felt, who could make sense of your fear that your life was about to change and you didn’t have control over it. You found them and they told you that you were right to be afraid, and more – that a grave injustice was being done to you and you should have the right to stop it. That felt good, didn’t it? To have some semblance of control.
I get it. You see, I am an actual widow, in that my husband – the dear beloved bones of him – is now ash in an urn. He took his own life, after a period of several months when his behaviour became more erratic and worrying, when he did things that were strange or perhaps even cruel, and I felt helpless. He was very terribly ill with major depression; he died, and I couldn’t save him. There have been so many times this year I wished I could control what was happening, felt that if I could we could be happy again. I know a lot about fear and resentment and love tangled together into a knot that makes your stomach hurt all day.
But what your spouse wants, what your spouse is doing, is not yours to control. And they are not dead. They are not mentally ill because they want to live in a way that feels more authentic, more like the real “them”. Perhaps you feel they are no longer the person you once loved. It is very hard, to feel that the person you love is no longer the same, to fear that they are going somewhere you can’t follow. To that I could answer – that can happen in any marriage, not just when someone decides their gender identity no longer matches the one they were given at birth. If you marry someone, you are making a commitment to them not at one moment in time, but through all the ways they may change in the future. But there are plenty of reasons people can change in a marriage that mean they are no longer compatible, and it’s alright then to say goodbye. That kind of goodbye is not like the goodbye I had to give. You will grieve if your marriage ends, but it is not a death. Trust me: I sat in a room with my husband’s body for an hour. I kissed his face and his hands, felt the ways that they were the same and utterly not, felt the keen pain of knowing that the spark of him was gone. You might perhaps kiss your partner and know it’s for the last time: but it is not the same as knowing that after you kiss them no one will ever kiss them again, that everything in them has stopped.
You may worry about the pain your children might feel. They may well grieve, if your marriage breaks down and your spouse moves out. They may cry and act out at school and be worried about what their parent’s new identity means for them. These are understandable concerns to have. They are not mourning a death, not like my little girl, who screamed for her daddy at the funeral, who sobbed don’t let them take him away. No one is taking your partner away, even if it feels like it. The media and your online friends have encouraged you to think there’s some kind of malignant trans cabal who have stolen your partner, who have taken away your happy life. But there isn’t, and you are as responsible for the future (or not) of your marriage as your partner is. If it breaks down, that is a genuine reason for grief. There is no right or wrong in grief; you feel what you feel and it’s important you work through that without ascribing moral judgment to your feelings. But you are not mourning a death. Your children still have both parents.
Grief is normal after a major change in your life. Accept it. Learn what it means to work through it. Buy a book on grief recovery. Work out how you are going to rebuild your life, with your partner or without them. Don’t pretend you are mourning a death. There are already too many of us in the widowhood club. I hope that none of you reading this ever come to know what it’s really like.
Rachel E. Moss 
Well said.
I’m sorry for your loss – this is a moving piece. I wish it didn’t need to be said.
I was in my late 50s when my dad died, and like your little girl, I didn’t cope well when his coffin was lifted up at the end of the funeral service. All I could say was ‘I want my daddy’. I still want my daddy, 3 years on. My mum is a widow. She’s getting better at dealing with it. The ‘trans widows’ need to find a different description for themselves. Because, really, they have no idea how the real thing feels. It’s time that the TRAs etc stopped stealing women’s words, places, descriptions, and spaces. Before the resentment reaches a place it can never come back from.
Your answer to this was to blame trans people for the words TERFs use to spread their bigotry? Way to miss the point.
Hi, you read the article incorrectly. Trans widows are not trans people who are widows, they are wives who’s partners have transitioned, so the wives say that they have been “widowed”, as if their partner has died. Transgender people did not create the term, transphobes did.
First, I am sorry for you loss. Losing a parent or a spouse is an emotional wound that time never really heals.
For the latter part of your comment, I feel I need to make sure that you aren’t laboring under a misapprehension, because the more I re-read your comment, the more I feel that you are.
The term ‘trans widows’ refers to the PARTNERS of people who choose to transition, not the trans people themselves. The term comes from those women choosing to equate the transition of their spouse with the death of a spouse. It is not a term coined by trans people, or one that we would EVER apply to ourselves or our partners, no matter how our relationships may breakdown. The term is deeply offensive to us, almost as offensive as it is to women who have lost a partner to death.
I can tell from your stance that you have no love for trans people. That is your choice. I would ask that you not shoulder us with responsibility for the slurs which are used to hurt us.
Best wishes.
This has nothing to do with TRA’s stealing anything. This is how the spouses have labelled themselves. It’s generally not seen in a good light by the trans community either. I didn’t die simply because your perception of me changed. I’m still here and I’m still the same person I was before. I might look a bit different in future and it’s understandable that this can put a lot of strain on the relationship…..but I didn’t die. You’re grieving the person you thought I was, but you’re not a widow.
Speaking as a “TRA etc” I would like to point out that we have “stolen” nothing, and ask you to stop exploiting (in your case, someone else’s) grief in order to grind your axe on transgender people, as per the article.
Maybe try directing your ‘wrath’ at the right target.
‘Trans widows’ are cis women (so meet your definition of ‘women’ rather than ‘TRA@) whose partners transitioned and they can’t find it in themselves to be decent human beings so act as if it is like the person they were allegedly in love with has died… because divorced/separated just isn’t dramatic enough for them.
In this context “trans widows” are not trans people who are widows; “trans widows” is a term applied by TERFs to cis people whose spouse wishes to transition.
(cont.) So, if anything, the ones who should stop stealing words, are TERFs.
Or, perhaps, the GCs could stop for a moment and realise that if they have to reach so far into delusion and spite to call themselves widows when the person they love is very much still alive, that maybe, just maybe they’re on the wrong side of this. I don’t think it’s down to the people who are being resented to bend to those doing the resenting.
I think maybe you have misunderstood what a ‘trans widow’ is, based on the last couple sentences of your comment. ‘TRAs’ haven’t ‘stolen’ anything here.
Perhaps instead of blaming the “TRAs”, maybe consider whether the resentment is actually deserved in the first place. It’s funny, when people fought for women’s rights, there were lots of opponents, yet now history shows those opponents to be in the wrong; when people fought for the rights of people of color, there was significant opposition, yet history now shows those opponents to also be in the wrong. People fought for equal rights for gay and lesbian folks, there was (and still is) plenty of opposition, and just now society is shifting, which will one day become history proving the opponents to be in the wrong. Yet somehow, people are fighting for equal rights once again, there is (once again) vocal opposition, and the opponents firmly believe this to be something magically different… something something history repeating itself…
TRAs? Never heard that one before what does it stand for?
Your TER nonsense is not needed here. I hope you work through whatever it is that causes you so much misery you feel the need to spread it around, but until then, your views are poisonous and unwelcome outside of GC hate groups.
You’re blaming trans women EXISTING for the shitty actions of cis women? Excuse me??
Dear Actual Widow!
Perfectly said 👏🏻
Regards
Another Actual Widow!
Xx
yes. sometimes I wished my dad was a trans widow, but, no, mom really died. she didn’t changed. she died.
this is different
Thank you for this. Marriages end for many reasons. A transition doesn’t have to mean the end, but it can, and it’s not a personal offence to the non transitioning partner. Move on. Support them. Or if you don’t support them, then shouldn’t it make you happy that you can move on to someone else you don’t feel the need to try to change? The trans widow term is horribly offensive and I am sorry that these circumstances caused you to write this, but truly thank you for writing this.
grumpyeuryale: “Trans widows” are not trans women, they are cis spouses of newly-out trans women. They are appropriating the term widow for themselves when it doesn’t fit. Trans women are women and are not stealing anything.
So it’s fine for men to appropriate the word women, and mother, and wife, but vile and bigoted for women to self ID as trans widows? Funny, that. Men can define themselves any way they please and we must validate them, but women must stay in their boxes and put up or shut up. Woman, know your place! What place? Any place men allow you.
Your misogyny is showing.
You are ridiculous and sad.
I too am an actual widow and don’t object to the term “trans widow” because when the person you loved possibly for many years is gone from you/dead to you there is a loss that I can see may feel like a bereavement to that person and indeed to children involved. The person who has transitioned is still alive but the person you loved isn’t.
I too am an actual widow and don’t object to the term “trans widow” because when the person you loved possibly for many years is gone from you/dead to you there is a loss that I can see may feel like a bereavement to that person and indeed to children involved. The person who has transitioned is still alive but the person you loved isn’t.
That’s ridiculous. They haven’t DIED. Which is the biggest difference. They are ALIVE still. Otherwise divorce people all over the world could call themselves “widow” or “widowers”. That’s disgusting. The person you loved is still ALIVE. Just because YOU determine love to be conditioned based, doesn’t mean that person died. They are still alive and they are the same person on the inside.
I can’t imagine what kind of horrible person you must be to shame women who don’t want to stay in a relationship, for any reason she chooses to want to leave. All love is conditional in some degree, and it’s gaslighting sophistry to pretend otherwise. Stop trying to encroach on women’s boundaries, it’s abusive.
Where did I say they shouldn’t stay in a relationship? Do you know what’s actually abusive? Pretending someone whose alive, is dead. It IS abusive to devalue someone’s who is actually dead, so you can whine about how you’re the “real” victim. When your ex is very MUCH alive.
or should*
You are LITERALLY belittling a woman who actually is a widow, because YOU want to play victim. Stop trying to be manipulative.
Funny. “Trans” people consider use of their old name to be an offense they call “dead naming.”
So it appears only the “trans” people themselves are allowed to consider their former identities to be dead, but are offended when their spouses feel like widows when left abandoned by that very same rhetorical death.
How horribly one-sided.
No trans person uses the term “dead name” to suggest they are actually dead.
It is not. They no longer use that name. Trans “widows” are still living. Why the “”? Someone dying is not the same as breaking up. Not Sorry “L”.
Just because someone is “dead” to you, doesn’t mean they are actually dead. And to compare yourselves to people who are actually suffering a lost, is horribly soulless of you. Let me give you a example, even though you think trans people are *icky* in say, even a year, you change to thinking that trans people are “hey okay” (I doubt it, but go with it) You can STILL reach out to your ex. When your partner actually dies, you can NEVER REACH OUT TO THEM AGAIN. You can’t tell them how sorry you are about the silly arguments, because they’re dead. They’re not coming back, you can’t have a conversation with that person, they are dead. Trans “widows” can have conversations with their ex’s, they just CHOOSE not to. Widows don’t have that choice. Because why??? Please stop making me saying widows partners are dead. It’s gross.
Except the children generally don’t experience it as “loss” as you suggest, unless the non-transitioning parent takes the children away — but that’s not the fault of the transitioning parent, that’s a *choice* made by the one who is separating.
I get it if the non-transitioning partner feels they can no longer stay in the relationship. I get that there can be a very real sense of loss. But there’s no reason that sense of loss has to be imposed on the children too; they should be able to still see both parents, and children in general are some of the most understanding and accepting people when it comes to someone transitioning.
I also see how *actual* widows can feel that these people calling themselves “trans widows” for making a personal choice to not continue the relationship is belittling of the nonconsensual and often unexpected loss suffered through the death of a spouse.
“If you marry someone, you are making a commitment to them not at one moment in time, but through all the ways they may change in the future”
One of the most ridiculous arguments i’ve ever heard try to be made around this subject. Not changing gender for heavens sake.
Praise almighty our lord above.
Find another word then and move on. How about “autogynephilic men who abandon their family to pursue their kink”?
No.
“Trans widows” aren’t transgender. Didn’t you read the article?
Fun fact: women are “autogynephilic”.
Also, it is very seldom (unless their family rejects them) that trans people are the ones leaving their families — the abandonment is almost always the other way around, with the partner ripping the kids away from them and making a huge dramatic deal out of it (like calling themselves “trans widows” when no one died).
Lastly, it’s not a goddamn “kink”, it affects every aspect of a trans person’s life, and often their sexuality is one of the aspects *least* affected. A kink, on the other hand, is all about sexual gratification.
Why can’t trans “widows”? They’re not actual widows. Why do ACTUAL widows have to find another word for widows? Jesus Christ, the entitlement!
Trans Widows have every right to be sad, angry and feel serious loss when their husbands transition and as such the term if 100% appropriate. You have suffered a loss and I’m sorry for that, and yes you are a widow as well, both can be true at the same time.
What a ludicrous comparison.
Are you just the same person, making troll and insensitive comments?
As a trans woman amicably separated from her wife of around 20 years, I want to thank you for writing this. I’m so sorry for your own loss and for the hurt this belittling of widowhood must cause. Love and hugs x
You know I have a feeling that a lot of the “people” who are belittling Rachel, a actual widow, are just the same person.
I am a widow and have no desire to belittle Rachel or anyone else .
As a widow I feel differently to Rachel in that I don’t feel offended by the term Trans widow as I can see there is a sense of loss in regards to the person they fell in love with as being gone from them.
They’re not gone. They are very much alive.
You could literally call yourself a “widow” every single time you have a heart break, if we listened to that trans widow nonsense. No one is dead or gone.
They are gone from you in the sense that the person you loved has disappeared. Hence the term “dead name”
I am coming here commenting as a cis man, and I’ll try to thread as carefully as I can.
I fully agree with the fact that “Trans widow” is an unacceptable appropriation; comparing having a spouse who transitioned to having one that died is, frankly, offensive, disrespectful and clearly meant to cause pain to trans people in general (and as a side effect to widowers).
However, some of the comments in the article strike me as unfair. Not to the people calling themselves “trans widows”, necessarily, but to all the people whose partner has transitioned in general.
Something like “you are as responsible for the future (or not) of your marriage as your partner is” might be true in general, but I cannot see how it applies to a situation where someone married a person of a given gender (or a person who passed for a given gender; or a person who at the time identified with a given gender), to then find out that it’s no longer the case. Surely this sort of agency into enacting a change or circumstances (and therefore a certain higher level of responsibility) is warranted, regardless of the fact that transitioning definetely is in itself by no means something to be “guilty” of?
And again, “that can happen in any marriage, not just when someone decides their gender identity no longer matches the one they were given at birth. If you marry someone, you are making a commitment to them not at one moment in time, but through all the ways they may change in the future”. This paragraph really strikes me as dismissive – yes, a lot of things can go wrong in a marriage; a lot of change can be caused by circumstances beyond either party’s control, and without actual blame to be given; and without arguing that anyone should “blame” the transitioning spouse, I still feel that equating something so fundamental and existentially defining as gender identity (and by consequence, sexual attraction and preference) with other changes is belittling, whether deliberately or not.
So while I appreciate – and again: share wholeheartedly – the argument that using the term “widow” is deeply wrong, and causes hurt, and I understand that it’s likely being used (also) in an attempt to attack trans people, I still feel that we try and not diminish the impact that going through such an experience can have on people, men and women alike.
To be honest Tim, people whose partners transition have got the full weight of the British media’s support behind them so I doubt my blog post (about my husband dying!!) is going to change the balance in a way that makes your concern more pressing.
So did you get enough attention bashing other women? Feel better? Make any money? You’ve made it abundantly clear you are incapable of empathy and use your widowed status as an excuse to rail on women who won’t sell their souls pandering to men in case there might be a little crumb in it for them. You might get equally vile people clapping you in the back buy you must know they’d throw you to the wolves as quickly as you did other women. But hey you might make a pound or two in the meantime. Pathetic. You are an absolute disgrace.
do you…really think that blogging makes people money? What an amazing takeaway from this post.
Wow, I am extremely shocked and disheartened by the people here and by this author. I am sorry for the author’s loss. Losing a loved one is incredibly painful. However, no one gets a monopoly over widowhood, loss, and grief. Guess what people who’s spouses who experienced severe traumatic brain injury or dementia, can feel a sense of grief, loss, and widowhood, because their spouse is no longer the spouse they had. Their marriage is no longer the same, and may fall apart, and end. If we live in a world with free speech, then trans widows are allowed to use the terminology trans widow. If you want to police people’s language and you want to live in a society where your speech is controlled, there are variety of totalitarian countries with supressed free speech to you. I can refer a few to you.
Trans woman call themselves female. I don’t agree with it, because technically from a chromosomal standpoint they are not. However, it they feel that they are female, then fine. I’ll respect it and use the word female. I am mature enough and adult enough to keep my feelings to myself. I do believe trans women are women. But I am not going to write a think piece and insult trans women for calling themselves female, because I don’t believe it. Or somehow fight and take the word away from them. Why would I do that. I don’t own the word. Moreover, I don’t want to hurt someone. I am going to respect who they are, their identity, pronouns, and whatever else. Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. The same applies for trans widows. You may not feel the same empathy for them that you may feel for the trans partner, but a trans widow is still a person in pain, has their own feelings and lived experiences, and they are allowed to have them. One person does not get to dictate over how the other person needs to feel and react.
A trans widow is a trans widow, they are not saying they are the same thing as a widow. Your article and many of the people who commented here are incredibly harsh, insensitive, and obtuse. A trans widow is a person who feel like they have lost their spouse. Now hear me out, often times when transitioning men and women will change their names, and they express that their old names are now “dead names” and it be hurtful and detrimental to their wellbeing and transition to refer to them with their dead name. However, a trans widow, married their partner with the dead name and the former gender. To them it’s a huge loss. You can’t say that it’s not, because it’s not your experience. At this point the trans person may be further along in their transition. They may have thought about their gender identity and sex for many years. However, the spouse has not. The spouse has only know their partner as the deadnamed and former gendered identity. The trans widow, has a certain vision of the future and now it has to radically change. To the spouse it can be major psychological shock. They need time to psychologically process this change, to not only support their partners, but to also process their own feelings. Not everyone is capable of doing this. Hence the problems during this time, and marriages and relationships falling apart. It would be simplistic and unfair to say the trans widow is transphobic. Feelings are complex and people entitled to them. To some people their partners transition can feel like a major betrayal. I’m not saying that it is right, but it is their feelings and that is their experience, and they need to process those feelings and they need to be able express those feelings if there is ever to be hope for the relationship to last. The trans person is not the only person with feelings during the their transition. I think this where trans widows feel alone, isolated, and unsupported.
I can’t imagine if my partner decided to change genders, it would make a significant impact on our relationship. I am not sexually attracted to women, if my partner transitioned to a woman, started hormonal treatments, and had surgeries, I am positive my sexual attraction would leave. I might love my partner as a person, but I may not be in love with them in the way a spouse should. I probably would not want to be sexual with them. I have never been sexually attracted to women and I don’t think it would change if my partnered transitioned into a woman. Unless you are someone who is pansexual, bisexual, demisexual, it can be very hard to adjust and shift one’s sexuality. Anyways, back to trans widows, they are grieving the spouses, because that spouse, that life is no longer there. Yes the physical being of the person is there, but the same way that the deadname is gone, the former spouse, the dreams of life with that former spouse are gone. And they are not going to come back.
Some trans widows feel like their partners personalities change during their transitions, and they feel like it often changes for the worse. Maybe their relationship already had problems and the transition just made it worse. But again, no one here has a right to dictate and tell a trans widow his/her feelings about these changes. Just like no one should dictate how the trans partner feels. However, not everyone can handle all of the changes that transitioning may entail. If these changes mean the use of hormones and surgeries, that it can be a lot to contend with. Especially in many of the cases with these trans widows, they have children and also need to keep their head straight in order to take care of and parent their kids, while also trying to support their now transitioning spouse. It’s a reality, and denying that reality to trans widows, is frankly selfish and narcissistic. If the relationship already had problems prior to the transition, and then transition made it worse, then obviously the relationship and/or marriage will end. This can be very incredibly sad and it’s a major loss. The author states that her spouse will never come back, which yes is true. However to trans widows, their former spouse–the one with the deadname and previous gender, will also never return. Even if they want it to return it never will. That partner is forever gone. The key word is forever. The forever loss of their former partner, is why trans widows, feel like widows and feel a large sense of grief and loss. Because they will never have their former deadnamed previous gendered spouse again. A trans widow, knows that she is not the same as widow. No one is making that claim. Thats why she calls herself a trans widow. However, the finality of loss is a death to her, and that sense she is a trans widow.
And to everyone here judging trans widow. I challenge all of you envision your spouse or partner coming to you an stating that they are transitioning. Then you cope with it. I highly doubt that all of you would be able to maintain the your relationship. Some of you yes, but not all of you.
Freedom of speech is…being able to do things like write this blog post and express an opinion. Which I did, in what I think were fairly gentle and generous terms. That you see that as an attack on free speech suggests you have enormous privilege, having never had your opinions pushed back against.
What rubbish. No, being a widow does not entitle you to define whether or not women have a right to be devastated by their husband’s decision to “transition” to a female appearance. For almost all those women, their marriages are over, and the men they fell in love with are gone. If anything, the author of this piece does an excellent job of underscoring what a lonely and painful journey it is for trans widows, who, rather than being recipients of compassion for what they’ve lost, end up being scolded by prigs like Rachel Moss who think they should shut up and celebrate their husband’s new lifestyle.
Oh, and Moss should also consider she has no right to define women as “cisgender” in facilitation of transsexualism. We are women, period. That’s what we were from the moment of conception, and that is the prism by which we are seen and how we live. Our “lived experience,” as the trendists like to say.
My condolences to Rachel Moss for her loss. I lost my father to suicide, and it’s a wound that never fully heals. But that doesn’t give me, her, or any other survivors the right to define other people’s losses and grief journeys.
Your condolences, at the end of this screed, mean absolutely nothing.
I am sorry for your loss. I am sorry for the “trans widows'” loss too: it is hard when your partner changes, and their desires are so different from yours, and you feel that they disrespect you. But, those who use the term use it to affirm their own righteousness in objecting to their ex’s transition.
They have no right to object to their ex living their truth. When they can no longer live together they should attempt to reach as amicable a separation as possible. “Trans widows” stewing in their resentment, and other people egging them on, does no good. It prolongs their pain and makes it harder to remake their lives in a healthy way.
I have been going through this with my husband for the last 3 years, today is the first day I have come across this term and actually found people with similar experiences to me. Before I felt completely alone and suicidal, lots of help and encouragement for my spouse out there but I’m suppose to just shut up and put up with my life being blown apart, or else I’ll get labeled something. I couldn’t give a damn about how other people live their lives and think they should be free to do what they like but when it lands on your doorstep, and you have been consistently lied to and downtrodden for years it’s very different. If you haven’t experienced this then you have no clue and have no right to comment or pass judgment on.
I’m sorry you’ve felt suicidal. I say very clearly here that it’s natural to feel grief at the breakdown of a relationship. I simply ask you not to compare it to a bereavement. That I can make such a measured request and attract such vitriol is breathtaking, frankly.
If your husband was a gay man, you might feel equally betrayed and deceived, but you would not doubt the reality of his sexual orientation.
As a trans woman, before I decided to transition I spent a long time in terrified denial. I desperately wanted to appear to be a normal man. So I had female partners, but put on a front with them.
So I think as well as your own hurt, please recognise that your husband has been hurt too. Without the terrible transphobia so prevalent in Britain, they might have been able to transition before marriage. They would have been their true self, and you would not have been lied to. The fault for your pain is not entirely with your husband.
Brilliantly written. I applaud you.
I am a both a widow and a ‘trans widow’ (although I wouldn’t personally use that term).
My first husband died when I was 33, leaving me a single mum of a a five year old, four year old, a two year old, eleven month old twins girls, and (unknown to me at the time) pregnant with my only son.
He was only 25. My soulmate and my first love. We were married six years. He gave me six beautiful children. I lost my entire world in one night.
At 34, I married my ex-spouse. We were married for five years. She helped me raise my children, and for that I am forever grateful. When she came out as a trans woman, I was devastated. I am a heterosexual woman, I am not attracted to other women. I affirm her as a woman, and I knew I wasn’t comfortable remaining married to a woman. We tried for a while, it when she started presenting female and HRT, I was no longer attracted to her in that way.
She did not die, but overnight my life changed. It was a similar loss. It was the loss of my marriage, my life partner, and secutity in my life, for myself and my children.
Divorce can be as devastating as a death. I do t agree with the phrasing of ‘trans widow’. My ex is not dead, but the person I loved is gone. I’m so happy for her, and her new life. It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt to lose the man I loved.
I’m 46 now. I’m remarried. I’ve gone on to have two daughters with my current husband. I pray this marriage lasts, I pray for the health and safety of my husband and children, and as awful as this sounds, I pray my current husband never turns out it be trans.
I mourn the loss of the two great loves of my life. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I don’t mourn my ex-spouse as if she had died, but I do mourn the person she was when I married her, and I mourn my marriage.
This article is completely rude and condescending about a topic you know nothing about. How dare you minimize what others are going through. Yes it’s very sad you lost your husband but that’s not as bad as someone losing their child, you should be grateful your kids are alive and not dwell on your husband’s passing, is that tit for tat who’s had the worst suffering attitude helpful to anyone? No it’s not. Keep in your lane and allow others who are going through different trauma to gather in theirs.
I think you’ll find the only person who’s being condescending here is you.
loss is loss, it not a competition where the some losses score more points than others!
I am very sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing this, I was quite moved.
As the wife of a husband who transitioned last year, I absolutely dislike the term “trans widow” and agree that our spouses are still very much alive and it is an insult to actual widows, something I have thought from the first time I learned the term.
Sending you a warm hug from across the pond.
There is a difference between dead and living. If death is used as a metaphor that’s fine. But it’s a metaphor NOT reality. When a spouse dies there is nothing metaphorical about it. It’s cold, stark, devastating and unbelievably real. Please don’t appropriate my reality as your own. Because you have no idea. You are completely clueless as to the pain. Completely. And as the author said I hope you never have to experience it yourself. It is an emptiness that cannot be filled and I would wish on no one else. Get a group people. You cannot co-opt a whole world of hurt to make an example. You fall short. And look like an idiot. Maybe you are. I struggle to see these people any other way. Your experience is different than mine. Please, please stop trying to say they’re the same.
Im sorry for your loss, I’m a widow and understand the pain.I don’t object to the word ‘widow” being used to describe other peoples loss and pain that isn’t from a death.
I can see a person who loses the person they love to a change of identity may feel the person they loved is dead to them and gone forever. I dont agree those who use the term ‘trans widow” are idiots and dont think the word “widow” means the same thing as the death of my husband. At the end of the day we cant compel or dictate the legal speech of others ,only our own. Free speech means we may offend or be offended , so, we will all offend and be offended at times.