How our marriage survived my gender transition

A London couple have faced one of the most difficult times in their marriage after one of them led a ‘double life’ for 15 years.

In 2018, Lucy Clark told her wife Avril Clark that she was transgender. She had tried for years to convince her partner to come out, but Lucy was afraid it would damage her career.

But the exact opposite happened when Lucy moved from being a football referee to managing Sutton United Women in South London.

Her wife, Avril, runs Distinction Support, an online network that helps support partners of trans and non-binary people.

“I needed someone to talk to who knew how I felt,” Avril told the newspaper Associated Press. “And I looked around, and there were no groups that were meant for me.

“They were full of people who were very angry and bitter and didn’t want the relationship with someone else to work because their own relationship wasn’t working.”

Lucy was almost certain she should have given 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 it has grown to “far more than 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 obstacles they face in their relationship with their transgender partner.

Some of these topics include discussions about unwanted 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 questions whether she is now a lesbian because she is now married to a woman, like Avril.

Avril explained that some people call themselves “heteroflexible,” including herself.

“It doesn’t mean ‘I’m a lesbian’ or ‘I’m gay,'” she said. “It just means, ‘For this one person, I’m willing to be flexible.'”

Avril explained that her group consists of 90 percent cisgender women and five percent transgender or non-binary people who also have a transitioning partner.

She added that the remaining five percent of the group are cisgender spouses.

Kristie Overstreet, a sexologist and psychotherapist who has worked with transgender people for 18 years, says that about 2 in 5 relationships survive a transition.

Kelly Wise, a sex therapist in Pennsylvania, estimates that about half of the relationships in his practice that involve gender reassignment end—for many reasons.

“Gender identity milestones often occur over time when a lot of things are evolving within people and their relationships,” says Wise.

A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau same-sex household report does not reflect marriages in transition because the Office asks no questions about gender identity.

While data on this specific topic is scarce, both therapists and couples tend to flourish once newfound honesty comes to light.

Another couple also survived a transition, 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 had a deep connection, and that’s why I’ve always loved him,” said Lasoff-Santos, a 33-year-old librarian from Michigan.

‘I’m more and more attracted to him. I think part of it is just the confidence in him and 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 not to come across as, I think, 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 married in 2018, as he began his transition. They had their son in 2021.

Lasoff-Santos said that when their son sees photos of her husband before transition, he says it’s just “Daddy with long hair.”

Another couple, Rhiannon Rippke-Koch, 45, and her recently transitioning wife Sophia Koch, had a similar experience.

The first time Sophia was able to be her true self during a weekend trip to Des Moines, Rhiannon said, “it was amazing.”

“I took her to Victoria’s Secret and had her measured for a bra,” Rippke-Koch said.

“And I took her to Sephora, and they did that whole makeup thing with color palettes, and showed her how to apply eye shadow and foundation and all that stuff.”

Rhiannon said she and Sophia have been “much more intimate” since her wife’s transition, but not just sexually.

‘But we talk about things more. We now have more things in common than before.’