“Experience your sisterhood with other women.
You share journeys, joys in ways deeper, more essential, than disagreements and competitiveness.”
Karen Katafiasz, in Celebrate your womanhood Therapy
have never been very close to other women.
I was never close to my mother, and had only a handful of female friends when I was growing up. Even as an adult, I’save rarely met another woman with whom I wanted to be close friends. I’ve always preferred men and enjoyed their company. I could relate to what they related to and there were none of the feminine guiles I observed in women.
However, as time has moved on, I find myself more involved with other women, and in my relationship with Vanessa, I share life with a feminine person. It is a major change within my life’s framework, and one which I find very intriguing.
I never thought of having a sisterhood with other women. In my mind, I had nothing in common with them. Yet, as the years have passed, and my involvement with partners of transgendered men has grown more involved, I find myself feeling a sense of empathy and sisterhood with other women. If a wife, in turmoil at having found out about her husband’s crossdressing, writes or calls me, I feel understanding immediately and sense of comradeship with her. I feel a need to reach out to her and to try to help by being a friend. Working with other wives and partners has been a rare gift in my life; it nearly killed me to leave my involvement with SPICE but for once, I had my priorities in order and those were to be with Vanessa.
I have discovered that we wives and partners have a real need for each other. Even someone like myself, who completely accepts and cherishes her transgendered partner can find herself needing another gender woman to talk to at times. Certainly, I feel the need to help when someone contacts me, even though I know that my help can only consist of "being there," listening, sharing, understanding her pain or fear or frustrations. Sometimes, though, I am contacted by another partner who feels about her partner as I do about mine. This is an extension of the sisterhood we wives and partners share. It is a light in the dark, it is hope for other wives and partners to find their peace and place in their transgendered relationship.
A point of interest to me is that when I speak with someone who is very accepting of her TG partner, I sense the intensity of her love for him/her. That love knows no bounds, it is a thriving, alive, intense, dominant emotion in her life and it overshadows all else in her life. That is how I feel about my partner. He/she is constantly in my conscience, and dominates my days and nights. It is as though she has become an extension of my own being, and when we are not together, I feel a sense of incompleteness. It is only when we are together again that I feel whole. I am not alone in this feeling, for other wives and partners of my acquaintance feel the same about their partners and thrive within their relationship. Perhaps I feel closer to these women than those who cannot accept; it is as though we are on the same wavelength; there is a mutual understanding of how we each feel.
et, when I talk with someone who is struggling with her partner's
transgendered state, I sense her love for her partner, too. There is a
difference, though. The love is there but it is a love with boundaries.
It is a love which hasn't reached a point that it can freely be
expressed. Outside influences constrain it. I like to say to wives and
partners who are struggling so, "What if your husband were disabled or
maimed? What if he were disfigured? Would your love continue to
encompass him?" It is often an eye-opener to women. They freely admit
that such disability or disfigurement would make no difference and their
love for him would continue. Yet, the fact that he is transgendered is a
barrier they seem to be unable to overcome.
I see my partner's transgendered nature as a true and rare gift. I live with two persons, not one. I am blessed with someone who has a serious side and also a fun personality. I am blessed with a passion which only intensifies with the passing of each day, and is at its strongest when the femme side is with me. Although I am sure many women would have no concept of what I am expressing, I actually find myself missing Vanessa when she is not around. Perhaps she allows me to dispel my inhibitions and live out my fantasies without fear or guilt. Perhaps it is simply that I see her as a feminine being, and one I want to share my life with. And perhaps, there would be those who would say that I am a lesbian, or at least have lesbian leanings; well, so what? I see nothing to be ashamed of in this. She is a mixture of both male and female, an entity of parts and uniqueness. I crave the entire person, and that person is who I love. Those women who are like me will understand this - it is loving without boundaries.
We hear so much about the pain that wives and partners experience, yet, rarely do we hear about those wives and partners who find joy with a transgendered husband or partner. It's time that those of us who are able to accept and enjoy these transgendered men begin to share the happiness we have found. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the relationship, including its sexual part, with a transgendered man. There is excitement and fun and laughter to be found in such a relationship, just as there is in a good non-transgendered relationship. Happiness is found in places you might never look, if only you do begin the search. For those of us who have found it, it is important to share our joy, for perhaps it can be a beacon of hope for women who are still struggling with the issues, the fears, the pain. Even in our joy, we must remember that there are those who have yet to reach where we are, and we need to be willing to offer our support and caring as sisters.