By Kristin Kalbli

The character Ted Lasso is, in my opinion, a delightful pop sage of our times, and one of his most impactful platitudes is undoubtedly, “be curious, not judgmental.” Observing that he had been misjudged his whole life, he noticed that if his detractors and bullies had merely been curious about him, they would have asked him questions — questions that would have led to mutual understanding, and maybe even compassion.

This June — this Pride Month — when the attention is so enthusiastically focused on the LGBT community, I want to make a tiny plea regarding the wives of husbands who come out as transgender: spare just a moment to be curious about their experiences, their stories, and their knowledge, instead of judgmental.

Because their stories need to be heard, and because the judgement they are facing out there in the world, even in the rawest moments of the shock of initial disclosure, when they aren’t even sure what is happening with their spouses, or what the situation requires, is staggering. The judgement casually tossed their way before they’ve had a chance to register what this will mean for their spouses, their families and themselves; before they can even ask themselves to what degree they can be supportive, stay in the marriage, or need to leave it; before they’ve even had a chance to sit down and ask themselves if they can possibly conceive of themselves as a lesbian, is unjustified, misguided and frankly, callous.

This is a heated moment in the discourse around transgender identities, and if anyone is caught right in the middle, it is straight wives whose husbands come out as trans women, and their children.

As a Support Contact for OurPath and the host of the OurVoices Podcast, I hear their stories every day, and I promise you, they are struggling with an emotional and phycological leviathan almost no one can fathom unless you’ve lived it.

So, let’s be curious and start by asking who are these women whose spouses are coming out as trans? First thing to note: these women are from every possible political and religious bent, from conservative Christians to liberal atheists. One woman told me, “My kids have been at Pride parades since they were in utero.” That still didn’t prepare her for her spouse coming out as a trans woman. That’s something all these women have in common: nothing prepared them for this.

Next, let’s ask, are they always women whose husbands come out as trans women?

The answer is no, OurPath supports a teeny, tiny handful of men (as in you can count them on less than one hand) whose wives have come out as trans men.

Are they always straight people?

Also no. We have supported a teeny, tiny handful of lesbian, bisexual and queer women whose spouses come out as trans, because yes, this happens to them too, and they need support as well — support that is not always available in traditional LGBT spaces (per their report).

(From here I’ll proceed by referring to straight wives because they are the fastest growing population of people we support).

Do these marriages always end? Some do, some don’t. Some women find they can weather their spouse’s transition, incorporate a spouse’s trans identity into their lives, even celebrate it, and genuinely feel their spouse’s transition was a growth opportunity for the entire family. Other women do not, and this is not some kind of failure on their part. Sometimes the psychological turmoil of the spouse’s transition is so intense as to be unendurable, and for the welfare of the wife and children, the marriage must end. (We must be clear that transition is self-evidently emotionally and psychologically turbulent, and it is willfully blind to ignore that the entire family is profoundly impacted, at times in ways so severe they rise to the level of abject harm).

So, let’s be curious about what kind of judgement these wives face, regardless of marriage outcomes: whether they stay in their marriages or leave, it is highly likely they will be judged by someone for making the “wrong” choice. Whether they re-conceive their own sexual orientations and identities or choose not to (as is their right), they may be judged for making the “wrong” choice. They may be judged as not being supportive enough of their spouses, they may be judged for no longer finding a transitioning spouse sexually or romantically attractive, they may be judged as being transphobic or bigoted, depending on how they handle the world rocking news that their husbands, whom they thought they knew, have felt they were women their entire lives.

But if you could read the posts from these women, as I do almost every single day, and you could feel their palpable shock, profound disorientation and lostness as I do, I hope you would feel curious, not judgmental.

If you could read, as I do, their pleas for help in their distress, their desperate seeking of advice, their frantic need for someone to reassure them they will be ok, their kids will be ok, that they will survive the psychological tornado they have just been swept up in, I hope you will be open about her pain in those moments, not judgmental.

When you hear their compassionate intentions to “do the right thing,” to be supportive of their spouses even while their minds are in utter chaos, they haven’t slept in weeks, they just called a doctor for a prescription for anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications, I hope you will ask questions.

When these women’s hearts are heavy at the incremental fading away of their husbands — a complicated, drawn out grief, like a slow bloodletting that unfolds over the weeks, months, years of transition, and never resolves because there is no closure, I hope your first instinct will be empathy.

When you hear the early pleas to hear “success stories” of couples who stayed together, because she is hanging on for dear life hoping to keep their families together, and on the back end hear the amount of self-deprioritizing it is taking her to do that, I hope you will not condemn her. (Counting “success stories” as only those where couples stay together through transition overlooks that any outcome enabling a wife to live according to her own authentic sexuality and vision for her life is a success, whether divorce is involved or not.

If you could listen to their fear as their families’ futures are instantly plunged into an abyss of unknowns, I hope you would not be inclined to judge them.

Instead, be curious when a woman says to you:

“I need help. I have been my spouse’s biggest supporter. I taught her how to wear makeup and shared my clothes with her. I took over parenting so she could focus on her transition with voice lessons, hair removal, and surgeries, etc. I’m effectively a single parent. I’m tired. I have nothing left over for myself.”

“Our 6-year-old daughter is nervous around my spouse when they are dressing as a woman. I try to talk my spouse up to our daughter, but it doesn’t help. What should I do?”

“If he was always a she, was there ever really an us?”

Be curious when a woman tells you:

She’s had to remove all the family photos that depict her spouse as a man; she’s not allowed to talk about memories from the time before transition; she feels like her own memories are forbidden, and even having them is transgressive.

Her spouse’s wig looks unnervingly like her own hair, her bras and dresses are mysteriously missing or misshapen, or there’s a bag of women’s clothing from Goodwill sitting on the kitchen table that she has mixed feelings about.

Her spouse’s transition seems to be happening so fast her head is spinning. Disclosure was only five weeks ago, and now her spouse is on HRT and has appointments for hair removal and facial feminization surgery. She can’t get her bearings.

She feels like the husband she knew has died (but at the same time, has clearly has not died), and that she does not recognize the person who has taken his place. And she misses him so profoundly she aches from it.

She would prefer not to share the honorific “mom” or Mother’s Day, and she’s being told this makes her selfish. She feels she can’t object when a day dedicated to commemorating the sacrifice of her body through nine months of pregnancy and the intensity of childbirth might not be reserved for her.

She is mourning the loss of little things, like her husband’s beard, which she used to love to touch, and which was one of the things she adored most about his face.

She has been asked to live with her spouse as a lesbian and is told she can just decide to change her sexual orientation, like turning the TV on or off.

She tells you sex with her spouse has become a minefield; she is tiptoeing in the bedroom lest she trigger her spouse’s dysphoria, she is asked to take on a masculine role during sex (which she may or may not be comfortable with), or she witnesses new sexual behaviors in her spouse that are anathema to her own arousal and pleasure.

When she whispers all of this to you because she doesn’t know who is going to call her transphobic, or a bigot, simply for responding (inevitably imperfectly) to an incomprehensible family transition not of her own making and which she did not see coming.

I have listened to the stories of these women for five years now. My husband was only gay and emotionally and psychologically recovering from being his closet door, and clawing my way back to a stable sense of reality still took years.

Imagine, just imagine, the upside-down world these women are living in (because most of us have no idea), and be curious, not judgmental.

And then, maybe, find compassion.