Resources for Partners of Trans People

ln two million marriages, one spouse is gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Having a spouse or parent disclose his or her same-sex attraction is a shattering experience fraught with pain, confusion, anger, and a profound loss of self-esteem. Amity Pierce Buxton spotlights this exploding phenomenon and reports constructive coping strategies that spouses and children have used to resolve problems of sexual damage, family breakdown, deception, and homophobia. Illustrated throughout by riveting personal narratives, this expanded edition of The Other Side of the Closet traces the family’s journey from initial trauma to eventual transformation. This invaluable source of information for spouses, families, and professionals is based on Dr. Buxton’s eight years of research, including interviews with 1,000 straight spouses and children, her own personal experience, and her counseling work with spouses of gay, lesbian, and bisexual partners.

Shannon is no stranger to alternative lifestyles. Raised by Christian parents in Bluegrass country, she fled to the city, scraped together an education, worked for drag shows and befriended poets and anarchists at clothing-optional parties. By the time she settled into her 14-year relationship with Jamie, she had dated women and experimented with polyamory.

So when her husband begins crossdressing, she sees no problem–she enjoys flouting the straight world’s pointless rules. Trouble is brewing, though. Jamie’s dive into the world of identity leads to shifting values, sexual dysfunction and a crippling depression. Still deeply in love with the kind, outdoorsy folksinger she once knew, Shannon is committed to working through these challenges. But she is blindsided by the unusual demands of gender dysphoria and learns the hard way that compassion, communication, and even love sometimes just aren’t enough.

How to Survive Learning That Your Partner Might Be LGBT+

TEN STEPS FOR DISTANCING (adapted)

Head Over Heels gives voice to thirty ordinary women who live extraordinary lives as partners to crossdressers, transgenderists, and male-to-female transsexuals. These unique women discuss, with honesty and great candor, how they first learned of their partners’ gender issues, how they’ve coped with the emotions that followed, how they’ve dealt with concerns about privacy/secrecy, and how they’ve handled disclosure to children, friends, and family members. Far from a collection of “happily ever after” stories, these narratives are filled with pain, courage, curiosity, and joy as each woman struggles to redefine a relationship that includes intimacy, social acceptance, dignity, and respect. Author: Virginia Erhardt

When presumably heterosexual spouses turn out to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, the unexpected revelation overshadows its devastating impact on their straight wives and husbands. Unseen-Unheard opens the window on their remarkable journeys from trauma to transformation. Authors: Dr. Amity Pierce Buxton and R.L. Pinley.

There are two known types of transgenderism. One is associated with homosexuality and the other with autoheterosexuality: a sexual attraction to being the other sex. n Autoheterosexual: Attracted to Being the Other Sex, Phil Illy curates evidence from more than a century of sexual research to present a superior model of transgenderism. This intensely researched book will help autoheterosexuals understand themselves and bring greater self-awareness and agency to the decision-making process around gender transition. Gain a better understanding of not only this most common form of trans identity, but also other forms of trans identity based on attraction to being something other than what you’re born as. Author: Phil Illy

This book illustrates the difficulties inherent when a wife or girlfriend finds out her man has had or wants to have sexual contact with other men. But many times, the man is not gay or even bisexual. Of course, some men with gay sexual interests are gay men in a process of self-discovery; they are “coming out.” These desires may only reflect a different side of a man’s sexuality or some response to childhood trauma or experiences they have not fully processed. Here Joe Kort and Alexander P. Morgan make the distinction between gay men and “straight men with gay interests” clearer to women who want to know how they can overcome these revelations. The authors explain the many reasons why straight men may be drawn to gay sex; how to tell whether a man is gay, straight, or bisexual; and what the various options are for these couples, who can often go on to have very fulfilling marriages.

Providing an essential tool that is currently missing, this book gives guidance and advice specifically designed for this situation, alongside activities, quizzes, and personal anecdotes. By combining portions of the author’s self-exploration-as the partner of someone who began to transition after 17 years of being in their relationship- with the experiences shared by those who attended her workshops, this workbook examines the challenges, uncertainties, and possible grieving some partners experience throughout the transition process. With space for responding to reflective questions, exercises and games, this workbook offers partners a safe haven to discover their own wants and needs and will be of interest to both couples and individual counselors. Author: D. M. Maynard.

Written by cutting-edge researcher and sex expert J. Michael Bailey, The Man Who Would Be Queen is a frankly controversial, intensely poignant, and boldly forthright book about sex and gender. Based on his original research, Bailey’s book is grounded firmly in science. But as he demonstrates, science doesn’t always deliver predictable or even comfortable answers. Indeed, much of what he has to say will be sure to generate as many questions as it does answers. Are gay men genuinely more feminine than other men? And do they really prefer to be hairdressers rather than lumberjacks? Are all male transsexuals women trapped in men’s bodies, or are some of them men who are just plain turned on by the idea of becoming a woman? And how much of a role do biology and genetics play in sexual orientation?

There are few topics in sex research as compelling and confounding to researchers, clinicians, and the general public as that of transsexualism. Upending normative notions of gender, eroticism, and identity, it poses significant scientific and clinical challenges. The book addresses a fascinating and largely unexplored topic within the study of transsexualism: The feelings and desires of conventionally masculine men who are attracted to women yet want to become women themselves. Through a collection and discussion of vivid first-person narratives, the book provides an in-depth examination of these men’s unusual propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of themselves as women and how these men’s sexual feelings influence their decisions to seek or undergo sex reassignment. These narratives about autogynephilia by autogynephilic male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals provide the first comprehensive documentation of the erotic ideation that underlies the most common form of MtF transsexualism. The narratives provide empirical evidence for Blanchard’s theory of MtF transsexual motivation, and thus are of interest to researchers and theorists studying the phenomenology of MtF transsexualism. The narratives are likely to be eye-opening to psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, and other professionals who work with MtF transsexuals: Most clinicians probably do not fully appreciate the erotic underpinnings of their clients’ condition. A better understanding of their clients’ autogynephilic feelings and motivations would enable these professionals to provide more empathetic and effective clinical care. Author: Anne A. Lawrence.