She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580051936 ISBN 13: 9781580051934

Publisher: Seal Press, 2007

Helen Boyd's husband, who had long been open about being a cross-dresser, was considering living as a woman full time. Suddenly, Boyd was confronted with the reality of what it would mean if her husband were actually to become a woman — socially, legally, and medically. Would Boyd love and desire her partner the same way?
Boyd's first book, My Husband Betty, explored the relationships of cross-dressing men and their partners. Now, She's Not the Man I Married is both a sequel and a more expansive examination of gender in relationships. It's for couples who are homosexual or heterosexual, and for readers who fall anywhere along the gender continuum.
As Boyd struggles to understand the nature of marriage, passion, and love, she shares her confusion and anger, providing a fascinating observation of the ways in which relationships are gendered, and how we cope, or don't, with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to our marriages and relationships.

Review:

"A straight woman who has been married several years to a crossdressing man gives a thoughtful account of their relationship (as well as the relationships of other crossdressers she knows) in this forthright and revelatory book.... Honest and well researched, this book is likely to become an indispensable guide."

"I'd consider My Husband Betty essential reading, but even for the educated and seasoned, it is an amazing resource that delves deep into the issues-cultural, political, sexual, historical, psychological-facing crossdressers, their partners, and the various communities they intersect... the work simultaneously transcends crossdressing altogether. It becomes a blueprint for nontraditional relationships: how to communicate honestly about needs and desires, let go of white-picket-fence dreams, and move beyond them to something real." -- Tristan Taormino

"Boyd discusses with humor and candor ways to come to terms with crossdressing, focusing on issues of identity, trust, and sexuality... this will undoubtedly have a wider appeal to those curious about this subculture. Recommended for public and academic libraries."

"Boyd never expected to write about transvestites and their partners, yet here is her fascinating account of marriage to a crossdresser.... Boyd's skill as a writer enables readers to enter a relatively hidden existence easily, and perhaps even to appreciate its complexities. Her account, though initially disquieting to some, may well become a standard text in gender studies."

From Publishers Weekly:

I've been preparing myself to lose my husband for the past few years," observes Boyd in this humorous, self-deprecating follow-up to her first memoir, My Husband Betty. "There is another woman, in a sense. My husband is that other woman, or might become her." Delving deeply into the question of gender identity, she explores the role of gender and its impact on how and who we love. Boyd, an androgynous-looking heterosexual woman (often mistaken for a lesbian), is married to a heterosexual man, who for the past few years has been "presenting as female" most of the time." Betty hasn't yet decided to have "the surgery," while Boyd isn't sure she'd be able to stay in the relationship if Betty does fully "transition" into being a woman. When referring to Betty, Boyd switches back and forth from "he" to "she"—even within the same sentence—portraying the confusion that a "trans person" presents daily in defining gender. Though she covers her complex topic well, and even includes a chapter of sex advice, Boyd's attempts to conceptualize her experience are unnecessarily repetitive. Part love story, part psychological treatise and part cautionary tale, this book will speak most directly to those who are confronting gender's perplexing contradictions. (Mar.)
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