Experiences of Transgender Couples Navigating One Partner’s Transition: Love Is Gender Blind

This study investigated the experiences of romantic couples who maintained their relationship when one partner transitioned gender. For this phenomenological study, 13 couples were interviewed as a dyad and individually. Relationship changes included improved communication skills and language changes, affirming sexual relationships, and redistribution of power within the couple dyad. Benefits of the gender transition included improved relationships overall, emergence of support from communities and loved ones, passing privilege, and improved awareness to social issues. Challenges included losing close relationships, difficulty with remaining patient in transition, and adjusting to new identities such as feeling queer invisibility or a loss of heterosexual privilege. Finally, couples shared that political issues in the current sociopolitical climate had a personal impact on their felt safety and daily lives. Clinical and empirical implications are discussed.

Para gustos, los colores. El matizado mundo delirante de los géneros: la ‘patergaynidad’ en otro tipo de familia en Azul y no tan rosa de Miguel Ferrari

Blue and Not So Pink (2012), created by Miguel Ferrari as director and screenwriter, received innumerable positive and negative critiques. In spite of the negative evaluations, the film managed to become a great box office success in Venezuela and in 2013 obtained the Goya Award for the best Spanish American film. This study will analyze the film’s most significant themes; that is, that the consideration of human diversity as an element should be accepted in our societies, the possibility of giving voice to persons who suffer discrimination and the issue of self-acceptance. The notion that the film proposes that there should be other types of families in our societies will be considered: families with gay parents, those with only one parent, and therefore, families that are formed with no blood relationship whatsoever. The trajectory of the main characters within parameters that are juxtaposed and, at the same time, complement each other will be observed—the private and public world, the social sphere and the familial one. Consequently, the transformation that occurs in the family unit to include more unbiased parental rights for homosexuals and transexuals in the formation of a new kind of family core will likewise be examined. By way of conclusion, it will be observed how the musical diversity of the film is developed intradiegetically to support gender diversity, as well as an examination of the concept of gender within heterocentric society and the way in which relationships of homosexual couples and transgender couples challenge patriarchal society and the dichotomous, binary system it adopted.

The Impact of A Marriage Checkup With Transgender Couples

This study aims to fill the gaps in relationship wellness intervention research by providing a relationship wellness program, the Marriage Check (MC), to transgender couples. Transgender couples (defined, for this study, as couples where one or both partners self-identify as transgender) may benefit from an MC as a brief prevention program to support relationship health. The research question for this study was: What is the impact of a Marriage Checkup on transgender couples’ relationship satisfaction? Researchers created a small pilot study using single-subject design methods – specifically a non-concurrent, multiple-baseline, and a multiple-probe design. Three couples participated in this investigation in which one or both partners identified themselves as transgender. The MC and relationship satisfaction were the independent and dependent variables, respectively. Findings from the visual analysis and non-overlapping of pairs (NAP .87) showed that the MC positively influenced relationship satisfaction for all three couples. The outcomes of the study suggest that the MC may increase relationship satisfaction for some transgender couples. Further research is worth pursuing in this field.

Illness Management in Older Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Couples: A Review

More openly sexually and gender diverse people are aging into later life across the world as generational transitions occur. People identifying many different ways beyond cisgender and heterosexual are diverse with respect to many other characteristics and sociopolitical locations across the globe and may thus experience a wide array of health journeys both individually and as partners in intimate relationships. In this review article, we summarize the major contributions of and ongoing gaps in existing studies about such couples’ experiences of chronic disease management in later life. We focus on three key groups of findings from prior research about the health of older sexually and/or gender diverse couples: care practices, unmet needs, and diverse resources. We outline priorities for future research within and across these topic areas and in varied locations, with unique recommendations for scholars in both academic and clinical settings. These recommendations support greater integration of such populations, topics, and needs in existing discourse on aging and late life. Likewise, recommendations from this review illuminate potential best practices for engaging and serving these elders in both academic and applied settings.