The Trans Partner Handbook – A Guide for When Your Partner Transitions
Individuals who transition from one gender to another are often in some degree of a relationship, and over 55% of these relationships endure through the transition process.
While more resources are emerging for trans people themselves, there is very little information available for their partners. Through first-hand accounts and vignettes of successful partnerships, this book presents detailed descriptions of everything involved in the transition process, with specific guidance for those supporting a partner in transition. Topics include disclosure, mental health, coming out, loss and grief, sex and sexuality and the legal, medical and social practicalities of transitioning. In this essential guide, people whose partners are across the transgender spectrum speak out on their own experiences with personal advice and support for others.
When this was written many of our members contributed to this very insightful book. It contains experiences from many different partners
The Reflective Workbook for Partners of Transgender People – Your Transition as your Partner Transitions
Partners of people in transition go through their own transitions and may or may not be conflicted as to whether they will remain in their relationship. This unique self-help workbook was created for and focuses on the partner’s perspective and own journey. By providing the support and structure needed for partners to reflect, this resource helps navigate the unexpected transition that affects both of their lives.
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
This has come as a highly recommended read by many of our members.
Love Lives Here
An inspirational story of accepting and embracing two trans people in a family–a family who shows what’s possible when you “lead with love.”
All Amanda Jetté Knox ever wanted was to enjoy a stable life. She never knew her biological father, and while her mother and stepfather were loving parents, the situation was sometimes chaotic. At school, she was bullied mercilessly, and at the age of fourteen, she entered a counselling program for alcohol addiction and was successful.
While still a teenager, she met the love of her life. They were wed at 20, and the first of three children followed shortly. Jetté Knox finally had the stability she craved–or so it seemed. Their middle child struggled with depression and avoided school. The author was unprepared when the child she knew as her son came out as transgender at the age of eleven. Shocked, but knowing how important it was to support her daughter, Jetté Knox became an ardent advocate for trans rights.
But the story wasn’t over. For many years, the author had coped with her spouse’s moodiness, but that chronic unhappiness was taking a toll on their marriage. A little over a year after their child came out, her partner also came out as transgender. Knowing better than most what would lie ahead, Jetté Knox searched for positive examples of marriages surviving transition. When she found no role models, she determined that her family would become one.
The shift was challenging, but slowly the family members noticed that they were becoming happier and more united. Told with remarkable candour and humour, and full of insight into the challenges faced by trans people, Love Lives Here is a beautiful story of transition, frustration, support, acceptance, and, of course, love.
The author Amanda Jette Knox is worth following on Twitter @themavenofmaven
I Know Who You Are, But What Am I? A Partner’s Perspective on Transgender Love
What does it mean for a partner if the person they love changes their sex?With a refreshing voice of raw honesty and vulnerability, Ali Sands journaled her search for identity as her partner physically transitioned from female to male. Beginning with the awareness that her partner is transgender, through hormone therapy and multiple surgeries, Ali and her partner experienced many physical and emotional changes.
In this courageous and gripping memoir, Ali shares her experiences as she navigates her partner’s transition. Holding strong to her love for her partner and her belief in her own truths, Ali persevered through family rejection and found that chosen family supported her journey. She also grew an enduring love and power found in committing to an ever- changing relationship.A poignant and searching account of a brave woman who almost lost her own identity even as she helped the love of her life establish his. -Ira Wood, The Lowdown, WOMR-FMSands’ story is…[an] unflinching view into the rollercoaster of a rapidly changing relationship. Sands spares no detail, from weekly testosterone injections to reconstructive surgeries to her own emotional challenges as [her partner] begins to navigate the world as a man.
She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband
Helen Boyd’s husband, who had long been open about being a cross-dresser, was considering living as a woman full time. Suddenly, Boyd was confronted with the reality of what it would mean if her husband were actually to become a woman-socially, legally, and medically. Would Boyd love and desire her partner the same way? Boyd’s first book, My Husband Betty, explored the relationships of cross-dressing men and their partners.
Now, She’s Not the Man I Married is both a sequel and a more expansive examination of gender in relationships. It’s for couples who are homosexual or heterosexual, and for readers who fall anywhere along the gender continuum. As Boyd struggles to understand the nature of marriage, passion, and love, she shares her confusion and anger, providing a fascinating observation of the ways in which relationships are gendered, and how we cope, or don’t, with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to our marriages and relationships.
She Said She Said: Love, Loss, & Living My New Normal
“My husband wanted to be a girl!”
Imagine discovering the love of your life, the father of your three children, the person your devoted your life to and moved halfway across the world to be with, was living a deeply concealed lie.
Late one night, without warning, Anne’s husband of ten years delivers the news “I have gender dysphoria”. Her world shifts in an instant. How could she not know? How could she be so completely oblivious? What does this even mean?
Anne begins examining, researching and recording events in an effort to retain some sanity. These events trigger a powerful and intimate memoir. With clarity, empathy and candour. She Said She Said provides the rarely heard voice of the partner of someone going through gender transition.
Humour, goodwill and a great deal of personal courage are required – and that was just to get through the first Mother’s Day!
Transgender Health: A Practitioner’s Guide to Binary and Non-Binary Trans Patient Care
The number of people coming out as transgender continues to rise, and this book shows healthcare and medical practitioners how to deliver excellent primary and secondary care to gender diverse patients.
This guide provides accessible and practical advice on tailoring the social and ethical aspects of practice to the needs of each individual. Beyond setting out how clinical procedures should work for gender reassignment, it explains how to use language and pronouns in a respectful way, provides information on transgender services and resources, and offers insights into the challenges commonly faced by transgender people in both medical and social contexts. Based on cutting edge research and the lived experience of the author as a non-binary person, this is essential reading for all those working to meet the needs of transgender people in healthcare settings.
You Be You!
This is an illustrated children’s book for ages 7-11 that makes gender identity, sexual orientation and family diversity easy to explain to children.
Throughout the book kids learn that there are many kinds of people in the world and that diversity is something to be celebrated. It covers gender, romantic orientation, discrimination, intersectionality, privilege, and how to stand up for what’s right. With charming illustrations, clear explanations, and short sections that can be dipped in and out of, this book helps children think about how to create a kinder, more tolerant world. Published: 2019-07-18
80 pages 222 x 140mm ISBN 9781787750104
Life Isn’t Binary
On Being Both, Beyond, and In-Between
‘Barker and Iantaffi have written the book we all need for this moment in time.’ – CN Lester Much of society’s thinking operates in a highly rigid and binary manner; something is good or…
Reaching for Hope
Strategies and support for the partners of transgender people
Can relationships survive when one partner comes out as transgender?
For many couples it isn’t easy. Adjusting to new realities which present themselves takes time, patience, education, and soul searching. The process can feel scary and isolating. Reaching for Hope offers companionship for the journey in the form of reassurance, support, and strategies, all delivered in bite-sized nuggets, so you won’t feel overwhelmed by information.
Can your relationship survive? That remains to be seen. But this book offers help, if you’re willing to try.