Transgender Relationship Articles

Ottawa Sun: Escaping from the 'fear'
Transgender couple find strength to deal with their sexuality


By ANN MARIE McQUEEN, Sun Media
Jay-Dee Catherine Purdie knew one thing when she moved out of her matrimonial home in April 2006.
“I lived my whole life in fear,” she said. “I isolated myself from people. I made a vow to myself that no matter how frightened I was of doing something, I would do it.
On May 5, the 62-year-old separated father of a teenage daughter, born John David Purdie, will travel to Montreal for sex reassignment surgery. It’s the last step to reversing a life-long obstacle, what Purdie calls “a horrible trick of nature that I have had to live with.”
The notion occurred, as a little boy, way back in 1951. And so started a gender identity battle that raged inside Purdie for decades. There was clinical depression and two suicide attempts. One left him in a psychiatric ward for several weeks.
Purdie’s story is almost typical, says Dr. Diane Watson, an Ottawa psychiatrist who treats transgender patients.
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The New York Times: Through Sickness, Health and Sex Change

NEW MILFORD, N.J.
THERE are ways in which the Brunners are like many other middle-aged married couples. Former high school and college sweethearts, they finish each other’s sentences and order the same food at restaurants. They shuttle their three children to sports practices, and laugh when their 90-pound Labrador retriever jumps onto the sofa to lick guests.
“We’re one of the few of our friends who are still in our original marriage,” Denise Brunner said.
But it is not exactly the same union, as evidenced by their marriage certificate, which they have enlarged to poster size to make the point. The original, from 1980, listed Donald Brunner as the bridegroom and Frances Gottschalk as the bride. But a sex-change operation in 2005 turned Donald into Denise. Fran stood by her spouse, and the couple secured an amended certificate, putting “Denise” next to “bridegroom” for lack of other options.
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The Guardian: A real test of friendship

Richard Beard and his mate Drew loved their annual camping holiday, walking by day, downing pints at night. Normal bloke stuff. Then Drew revealed he wanted to become Dru and, eventually, had a sex change Saturday April 26, 2008The Guardian
The first time I saw Dru in pearl earrings, I coughed and pretended nothing had changed. Then I made a big effort not to say what I was thinking - you are a 43-year-old man whose wife has just left you for another bloke, taking your daughter with her. You drink lunchtime pints of Smile's Old Tosser and you work in the engine room of a 7,000-tonne passenger ship. You are not a woman.
We sat opposite each other and drank mugs of tea. Dru smiled happily. "From now on, I want you to think of me as she." She'd shaved her forearms. It was September 16 2001.
I wasn't expecting any surprises, because once a year, for five or six years, the two of us had gone camping together. For me, these trips were a back-to-nature quest for what it meant to be alive; and more than likely, as the cold and the blisters cut in, what it meant to be a man. We knew each other pretty well. How well? Well enough to share the one-and-a-half-man space in your average two-man tent. And want to do it again
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