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DiscussionAppreciation for Ovarit from a "trans widow"
Hope this is the right circle. Feels like it could go in more than one place. Also, I'm not a fan of the "trans widow" phrase because I feel it centers my ex and doesn't describe ME as I've moved on from that experience (personally). I didn't become a terf solely because of my ex, but I have had a front-row seat to the performance. He has followed the exact same trajectory as so many others.
I have lost track of how long I've been reading ovarit -- I was on lurk mode for at least a year, maybe more, before getting an account -- but as a former partner of a TIM, I just want to say THANK YOU for this space. No other space has given me the good feeling in my heart (in spite of all the anger I feel when reading it).
The online spaces for others in my position are problematic, to say the least. I tried a few. In nearly all of them, the trans-partner experience is conflated with the my-partner-came-out-as-gay experience, and as you can well imagine, the two experiences are very, very different.
Recently, those online spaces have become even worse, as women are finally beginning to speak their minds about their AGP narcissistic partners (or exes) as they attempt to navigate their divorce, or co-parent their children, etc. Finally I am seeing women speak their anger -- only to be shot down by other group members accusing them of transphobia. "It isn't because they're trans," they scold the poster. "It's just that your ex is a narc."
"There are good TIMs" is not believable to me because SHOW ME ONE, JUST ONE!!! Every single one I've met or otherwise been around has acted out of the exact same playbook. I'm so sick of it. I do not give them any grace whatsoever.
Every now and then, when I reach out to a woman privately, I give her an opening to talk, and I can hear her relief flooding out as she finally gets to say everything she's been holding in.
I am not "out" as a terf except to my very nearest and dearest. I can't speak honestly to more then perhaps two or three people in my life. And that is why Ovarit is such a very, very good thing for me and my mental health, even though I still usually only read and don't post often.
So, thank you. I will never meet any of you IRL, but so many of you hold a "sister" place in my heart. You may have saved my reason!
*** ETA one clarifying word in my first paragraph.