Heartbreak - - Isn't there a kinder way?

Rosebuds
July 1995

HEARTBREAK - - ISN'T THERE A KINDER WAY?

By Ginny Knuth, ETVC, San Francisco

Reprinted from The Sweetheart Connection, Spring 1995

Recently, a woman called on the phone to tell me that her husband had left her to become a woman. She had known he liked to wear women's clothes and lingerie; she tried understand his needs and went along with his gender-related desires. He had never indicated he was unhappy with this arrangement until the night he told her he couldn't deal with the situation any more and he was leaving her right then to begin a new life toward a goal of sex reassignment surgery. He bluntly told her he wanted nothing more to do with her or any of his past, called his parents and her parents and told them of his decision. arranged for a place to stay in a town 100 miles away, and walked out of the house, never looking back.

As she related this story, I could feel the heartbreak, the pain and the anguish as though it were my own. She spoke between her tears -- a woman cast aside like an old shoe, left with emptiness and despair, abandoned, confused, resentful and HEARTBROKEN by the special man she had nurtured, cared for and loved. "How can he treat me this way? What happened seemingly overnight to make him turn on me? Tell me what I should do! ... help ... help... help!"

Unfortunately, this story is not unique.

After several years of working and playing with the transgender community, it is clear to me that there are some individuals who MUST change their gender to match their soul. It is still not clear to me why this is so, but it is a fact -- it must be done. It is not this fact that I argue with. Instead, it is how the individual deals with those he has loved and who have loved him. Isn't the, "I'm getting rid of you so I can be free to be me," attitude just a selfish, expedient way to get out from under the stress that you created alone?

Wouldn't it be a lot kinder to treat the woman who has been your friend and confidant with a little respect by openly discussed her needs and concerns as well as your own? For instance, are all your bills paid, and will she have a financial security if you leave? Is it clear to her your decision was based upon your personal need and not an argument or disagreement with her in other words, IT'S NOT HER FAULT! Will you agree to counsel together with a MFCC for a while until she has built up her self-esteem to where it was before the wall fell in on her?

Those who walk away from the lives and loves they have built will not easily replace them. If you do follow the transition path to its ultimate goal, you may well find a need for what you were so quick to throw away -- a true friend.

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