Understanding and coping with mourning in transgender relationships
I don’t know when it hit me exactly, and frankly I’m still not sure I get it completely. But to a large degree those around me are mourning my death. Or to be more frank, the death of a part of me. That part is my male person.
What is hard to understand from my perspective is that I’m the same me I’ve been all along, indeed I’m more me than the me that was before (body wise there’s more of me too – but let’s not go there). There was a time not too long ago when my ability to function was greatly impaired and reduced to finding appropriate male models to work from in order to get through the day. That becomes embarrassing when you pick the wrong one and debilitating when you can’t find one at all. Bizarre as this sounds, this was my way of coping – then that didn’t work anymore. Fast forward to today and my current status as “trans-person”, not full time but definitely someone who is grappling with this issue on a day to day basis sometimes successfully and sometimes not. While it’s very common for those of us who are transgendered to focus on ourselves I’m often way more concerned about the people I love so much and what their reactions are and how they are doing through this. And you know what, sometimes their reactions are emotionally incredibly painful to me. And I think I’ve finally understood why.
What I’ve learned is that, for you or I who are transgendered, there is a grieving process for those around us with whom we’ve decided to share our unique nature. My therapist warned me of this but I never really listened I don’t think. I’m not an expert, I’m a learner, but some of this might be helpful to you too.
When you look for a listing of the stages of grief you’ll see there are five of them, and they have an order and a varying intensity depending on the person and what the scenario is. They are:
Stages of Grief
| Grief Stage | Description |
| Denial | First stage in the grief process. Generally characterized as numbness, avoidance, isolation or direct denial. The stage of “simply cannot believe the loss (or news) is true”. The general line is, “you cannot possibly be like those transgendered folk. |
| Anger | Some of the denial has been gotten past, now it’s a function of anger. Angry at the fact the spouse or friend has GID, anger at the spouse or friend for being transgendered at all. Anger at this transgendered person, this stranger for upsetting everyone’s lives. In an odd sense, in my experience, the people who are angry at us in this stage are seeing us as two people and they are very upset with the “new” second person. In some cases, with male-to-female trans-folk, the wife may feel this other “person” is the other woman. That causes alot of strife in the home. In the end, someone or something is to blame and anger is levied. |
| Bargaining | Here there is simply an attempt to get back what was lost or further work to find who is to blame, who the culprit is. It’s not un-common to hear things like, “If only I had just ….” or “I wish we could have….” or “Maybe if I do this….” In some cases the two (or three or more) who are bargaining with the trans-person may be coming to some point where this won’t be an issue for anyone, or some balance can be reached. Even the trans-person wants this. Somtimes that happens even. But the grieving process seems to occur anyway, even at some level. Somtimes what seems to happen is that there is one sided bargaining, “if you do not change or adjust, you will lose “x” “. |
| Depression | You are simply, sad – and so are those who are grieving around you, with you, for you, because of you. It generally follows denial, anger, and bargaining when we feel helpless and hopeless to stop the loss. It may include crying, withdrawal, or any other way that expresses sadness. |
| Acceptance | It seems that before acceptance is reached, the grief cycle is in fact cycled through many times to lesser and lesser intensity. At this stage and to some extent, those involved have re-thought out what this loss is all about. This does not mean that sadness is gone, it may return from time to time, but the sadness is now a part sort of a part of those involved but does not keep people from functioning normally most of the time. Eventually, the intensity may fade but may never go away. |
While this is a list, a linear, logical list, ordered for readability, grief is not linear. The grievers don’t just grieve about something then go to the next step and be done with it. It’s a cyclical sloping effect. See this chart for what I mean:
What this means is that the stages are cycled through again and again, with lessening intensity, until some level of completion is reached. But what can you do to help those around you? As the trans-person, you probably ache to help the ones grieving depending on where they are in the process. You may in fact be a grieving trans-person yourself. You might not be sure what is going on, what is happening with your emotions, even if you are not on hormone replacement therapy yet (if ever you even do that). You may be grieving the loss of your own self even or the fear of loss of what is around you. You may even be celebrating and joyous over your new found peace and wholeness, yet, you find you grieve the pain that others are going through trying to come to grips with who you are. This is very real for many of us in the transgendered community.
What to do?
- Be patient with them and with yourself. This is going to take time. You cannot force this. I have and it’s not pretty.
- Amputation is as ugly as it sounds. You can amputate the relationship of course – as the other person or persons can you. Sometimes it’s so painful you wish you were dead. But in my opinion, there is some potential growth here for everyone in the grieving process. But I won’t kid you, it hurts about as bad as anything you’ve ever experienced.
- Never raise your voice, they may, you can’t, this is like pouring iodine on an open wound. A wound you did not cause – this is not your fault – but that is very real for some of those around you.
- Don’t close the doors between you and the other person(s). Understand that a closed door does one thing – kill communication. I’ve been in abusive relationships before and sometimes you just have to walk away, but be certain this is what you must do.
- You need a listening ear; and so do they. You need someone to vent to, cry with, complain with. You will sound like the proverbial broken record but you need people with whom you can confide and open up to about the grief you have and the grieving you are the target of. The other persons need people too. This took courage on my part as I was allowing others to actually out me publicly. I had to trust them. It was a gamble, but I hurt so bad for the others in my life and yearned for their own relief (even as I grappled to understand it) that I was willing to take a risk. I would encourage you to do so as well as you feel you can.
- Pray. I know, I know, maybe I’m being overly religious and in no way am I a saint. But you might want to consider doing this. And if you can do it with the hurt person, you might find some walls slowly crumbling.
Please, drop a comment to let others who read this article know what you’ve done to cope, it will help someone I’m sure.
I am so lucky to have been introduced to you Becca. What appreciate about you is your very deep understanding of your own situation and thus my situation. This article was right on for me and for my life. I had actually brought the stages up at the support group tonight. Smart girls think alike. It is not anything i had not seen before but not in the transgender context. Thank you for adding this link in the email you really make a difference for me. You are really helping to keep me level headed about this journey.
Kelly, thank you for your comment and for reading; I am very glad this article was helpful
Welcome to my world Becca. After 3 years I and my family are still going through the grieving stages. Each time it gets a little better but it is not over completely yet. Stage 4 in What to do? is my hardest as there is no way I want to close the door. Recently, I tried to reach stage 5 in the grieving stages with my most accepting daughter and she said her siblings are not there yet. It hurts, but love will prevail. Stage six in What to do? is the easiest for me because of our mutual love for each other and our higher power.
Becca, this has helped me tremendously and I thank you. You are a friend indeed. Huggles
Hi Tanya, thank you so much for stopping by to drop a note; I’m glad this article was helpful. Making sense of the grief stages is it’s own process even as your note implies. And thanks for all you are doing as well for the community