A couple from London got through one of the hardest moments in their marriage as one of them ‘lived a double life’ for 15 years.
In 2018 Lucy Clark told her wife Avril Clark that she was transgender, and for years she tried to get her partner to come out to the world but Lucy was afraid it would affect her career.
But it did just the opposite as Lucy went from refereeing soccer to managing Sutton United Women in south London.
Her wife, Avril, runs Distinction Support, an online network that helps supportive partners of trans and nonbinary people.
‘I needed somebody to talk to that knew how I was feeling,’ Avril told the Associated Press. ‘And I looked around, and there weren’t any groups that were for me.
In 2018 Lucy Clark (left) told her wife Avril Clark (right) that she was transgender and for years she tried to get her partner to come out to the world, but Lucy was afraid it would affect her career
Avril runs Distinction Support, an online network that helps supportive partners of trans and nonbinary people
‘They were full of people that were very angry and bitter and didn’t want anybody else’s relationship to work because their relationship hadn’t worked.’
Lucy was almost positive that she would have had to give up her love for the game, but instead she grew in her career after her transition.
When Avril took over her support network in 2017 it had just 50 members worldwide, but today there are ‘way over 500.’
The Reddit group r/mypartneristrans, which describes itself as ‘a supportive, educational, and safe space for the partners of trans and gender-diverse people,’ has 61,000 members.
In the online group members discuss topics related to the hurdles they face in their relationship with their transgender partner.
Some of those topics include discussions on unwelcoming relatives, pregnancy and sex, and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
The group also discusses how to categorize a cisgender partner’s sexual orientation, or when a woman asks herself if she is now lesbian because she is now married to a woman, like Avril.
Lucy (pictured) was almost positive that she would have had to give up her love for the game, but instead she grew in her career after her transition
Avril explained that some people refer to themselves as ‘heteroflexible,’ including herself.
‘It doesn’t mean “I am a lesbian” or “I’m a gay person”,’ she said. ‘It just means, “For this one person I am prepared to be flexible”.’
Avril explained that her group consists of 90 percent cisgender women and five percent transgender or nonbinary people who also have a partner in transition.
She added that the remaining five percent of the group are cisgender husbands.
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Kristie Overstreet, a sexologist and psychotherapist who says she has worked with trans people for 18 years, says about 2 in 5 relationships survive a transition.
Meanwhile, Kelly Wise, a sex therapist in Pennsylvania, estimates that about half of relationships in his practice that experience a gender transition end — for many reasons.
‘Gender identity milestones often arise around times that many things are evolving within people and their relationships,’ Wise said.
A recent U.S. Census Bureau report on same-sex households doesn’t reflect marriages in transition because the bureau doesn’t ask questions about gender identity.
Although data is scarce on this specific topic, both therapists and couples tend to flourish once new found honesty is revealed.
Avril’s online group discusses how to categorize a cisgender partner’s sexual orientation, or when a woman asks herself if she is now lesbian because she is now married to a woman, like herself
Kristie Overstreet, a sexologist and psychotherapist who says she has worked with trans people for 18 years, says about 2 in 5 relationships survive a transition
Another couple survived a transition as well, as Marissa Lasoff-Santos, a gay woman, was married to a bisexual woman.
Now Lasoff-Santons’ partner has become her husband and they both identify as queer.
‘We’ve always just had this deep connection, so that’s why, like, I never stopped loving him throughout any of this,’ Lasoff-Santos, a 33-year-old librarian in Michigan, said.
‘I’ve become more attracted to him. I guess part of it is just, like, that confidence in him and, like, he just seems so happy.
‘Even though he was the one transitioning, I felt like I was going through my own transition.
‘It was definitely hard to not, I guess, come across as kind of selfish, because I was going through all these emotions, and he was going through his own journey.’
Lasoff-Santos used to admit to herself that she could never be married to a man, but now she finds it ‘hilarious’ that she is.
She and her husband got married in 2018 when he was beginning his transition. By 2021 they had their son.
‘It doesn’t mean “I am a lesbian” or “I’m a gay person”,’ she said. ‘It just means, “For this one person I am prepared to be flexible”,’ Avril said
Lasoff-Santos said that when their son sees pictures of her husband pre-transition, he say its just ‘Papa with long hair.’
Another couple, Rhiannon Rippke-Koch, 45, and her recently transitioned wife Sophia Koch went through a similar experience.
The first time Sophia got to be her true self for a weekend trip to Des Moines, Rhiannon said ‘it was awesome.’
‘I took her to Victoria’s Secret and had them measure her for a bra,’ Rippke-Koch said.
‘And I took her to Sephora, and they did, you know, the whole makeup thing where, you know, with color palettes, and showed her how to do her eyeshadow and foundation and all that sort of stuff.’
Rhiannon said that since her wife’s transition, she and Sophia are ‘much more intimate,’ but not just in a sexual way.
‘But we talk about things more. We have more things in common now than we did before.’
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