Thread by @transwidows

As ever at this time of the year our thoughts turn to the women who still feel trapped in these relationships.
Unable to get out of the insidious drip, drip, drip cycle of compromise and boundary pushing. #transwidows

The women who feel pressured into accepting the unacceptable for fear of what society will think of them if they leave.

The women who stay to keep a lid on the secret which will blow their family apart. Worn down by being the secret keeper.

The women spending Christmas Day pretending everything is OK whilst with every fibre of their being wishing they were somewhere else.

The women continuing to do all the wife work, and more, while their “other half” escapes into feminine stereotypes and appropriates their oppression.

The women forced into sexual practices that they are not comfortable with, by a partner who claims to want to be submissive but is still calling all the shots. (Really this is shockingly common).

The women desperate to keep their children innocent and their lives stable and to protect them from bullying.

The women trying to make the best of Christmas for their children with hardly any money to spend, because it’s been spent by somebody else on clothes, wigs, make up, nights out.

The women who have made the decision to leave and who know that this is the last Christmas they will spend with the man who they married in good faith and who fathered their children.

The women who fear being called bitter and transphobic and being shunned by their friends and family because they find themselves unable to tolerate the intolerable.

So to people who criticise #transwidows for leaving and to others who criticise them for not leaving sooner- have a think about how you would feel in their place.

And to women who feel trapped in these relationships. There is hope. There is a life on the other side free from being a bit part player in somebody else’s fantasy

Solidarity sisters ✊🏽
#transwidows

And finally, spare a thought for those women in the most insidious position- those whose husbands have become well known transexual feminist “allies” lauded as stunning and brave by the very women who should be centring the wife. #transwidows

@threadreaderapp please unroll