Thread by @SecretGamerGrrl

So today's quick glance at my feed shows that a whole hell of a lot of people just within the past day or two had their first encounter with a bigot referring to herself as a "trans widow."

"Widow" means "woman whose spouse has died," so "trans widow" thus means "trans woman

whose spouse has died" and there is absolutely no circumstance, not even when when talking about bigots creative language choices, where it is ever remotely OK to use that phrase to mean anything other than that, and absolutely fuck anyone who ever does so, you horrible monsters.

Obviously, when bigots appropriate the term, they use it to mean something completely different, but now that you've read the above let's proceed just saying The Term, shall we?

Anyway bigots use The Term to describe hypothetical cis women who somehow manage to marry trans women

despite the fact that they are raging bigots whose entire existence is consumed by a hatred of trans women (which of course these bigots assume as a natural state for all women in all their propaganda).

We are meant to believe that these hypothetical cis women somehow fail to

notice that the women they marry are trans, or indeed that they are women, as these trans women they are marrying are not out as trans yet at the time they get married, and already this whole notion is losing plausibility, because while it can take many years to realize that you

are, in fact, a trans woman, the working theory you and the rest of the world go on, typically speaking, is never that you are a super virile manly man of the sort that women who are interested in men and not remotely interested in women find attractive.

Basically, if you are in

the position of one to someday resemble The Term in real life, you're getting into a relationship with "a man" who is "really really in touch with his feminine side" and generally has the sort of general tastes and mannerisms of a lesbian (or bi woman), because that's what you're

actually dating, presumably for a long stretch of time, then marrying, then continuing to be married to for several years before she works this out properly. You really can't be that close to one of without seeing a ton of signs, whether you correctly interpret them or otherwise,

and if you think, as a woman dating a not-yet-out trans woman long enough to really get to know her, that you are perfectly straight, you are incorrect in your self-assessment regardless of whether she eventually comes out to you. I don't make the rules, make peace with that.

So continuing along on our journey to fantasy land, your hypothetical wife who you hypothetically love takes the really brave step of sitting down with you to explain that continuing this lifelong draining performance of pretending to be a guy (which most likely was never very

convincing to anyone more than a passing acquaintance) is killing her, and she has to drop it, maybe start seeing a therapist, maybe get on medication to fix a hormone imbalance that's been causing her intense distress and keeping her brain from properly functioning, maybe plan

on some surgical things down the line so she can stand the sight of herself in mirrors someday, and your response rather than to offer comfort and support to someone you presumably love and have known for years is to... be a gigantic heartless drama queen throwing a hissy fit and

declare that the person you married is "dead." Presumably right to her face. Then storm off to commiserate with a bunch of fascists on a forum full of child abusers and rape apologists about the horrible burden you're facing by way of being a heartless monster.

And THAT'S the

cleaned up hypothetical best-light of the person using The Term version they want you to believe happens!

Meanwhile over here in reality, it's not uncommon for people who come out as trans to end up getting divorced soon after, but "shock at this sudden surprise" is not a reason

I've ever seen seriously cited, personally. What I have seen is spouses of newly out trans people doing the uncomfortable math described above, realize they aren't as straight as they always pretended they were in light of more obviously damning evidence and feeling the need to

go process that or rationalize themselves back into denial. I've seen people want to get divorced because their newly-out-as-trans spouse was the primary source of income for the family and there's a nasty habit of our careers coming to swift brutal ends right after we come out.

I've definitely seen cases where it turns out someone's entire marriage was secretly based the whole time around an abuser seeing all those trans-and-in-denial flags, recognizing that they're also flags of being a depressed isolated doormat, and manipulating the hell out of them

on that basis, then getting the very rude awakening that transitioning gives them the confidence to no longer dutifully accept that abuse and be emotionally depending on their abuser. And I've seen instances where transitioning causes some combination of major changes in the body

sexual responses/drive or sexual orientation of the person who is transitioning that in one way or the other leads to some manner of deal-breaker in the bedroom. That one doesn't necessarily make anyone "the bad guy" if it's a marriage ender, but if you'll forgive my bluntness,

if you're married to someone and they lose the ability to ever get an erection, or gain a lot of weight, you can argue that as reason to get divorced, but you sure as hell can't do so in an angry imperious tone without coming off like some horrifically self-centered monster.

And you know, I also know plenty of people who were married, came out as trans, and then just... continued to be married and not only had no problems as a result things actually got much better for both of them because hey turns out when people aren't living painful lies and are

doing things that make them happier, healthier, and for lack of a better term more properly in sync and vibing with the universe in a way they were never capable of before, they're a lot happier and full of life and more enjoyable to be around. Go figure.

Anyway we don't have to

guess which of these cases we're dealing with when bigots are throwing The Term around, because it takes like half a second of exposure to any of these people to be 100% certain they are massively abusive monsters who are just inherently incapable of any sort of love or affection

for any living creature, and are barely capable of forming coherent sentences as their vocabulary is full of like a hundred different gross euphemisms, code-words, and reflexive lies, with The Term being a very obvious example. So you can go right ahead and assume they are, as is

so shockingly often the case, speaking about a purely hypothetical situation as if it were personally affecting them or if they are speaking from experience, they are definitely freaking out because the victim they've been keeping trapped in a deeply abusive loveless relationship

for years might be close to finally getting out...

... or thanks to the incredibly screwed up laws around marriage and transition in the backwards isolationist joke of a country that is the U.K., trans people who are married are not allowed to start transitioning without their

spouse's permission, nor are they allowed to just get a divorce when said spouse refuses to give that permission on the grounds of being an abusive monster: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_i…

Also how weird is it that you can't just get a divorce in England? The country that famously broke

away from Catholicism just so some guy could get a divorce? Over weird unreasonable expectations and stupid gender crap no less!

Anyway, again, my condolences to anyone being reminded of a serious loss by this particular flavor of gross bigot getting mainstream attention. And

again I'm baffled that everyone is having this conversation NOW, when I encountered The Term for the first time like within a week or two of registering an account on this unmoderated hellhole of a website that lets such people launch disgusting attacks on innocent people at will