University of Northern Colorado Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC Dissertations Student Research 8-2017 "Love is Gender Blind": The Lived Experiences of Transgender Couples Who Navigate One Partner's Gender Transition Barry Lynn Motter Follow this and additional works at: https://digscholarship.unco.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Motter, Barry Lynn, ""Love is Gender Blind": The Lived Experiences of Transgender Couples Who Navigate One Partner's Gender Transition" (2017). Dissertations. 428. https://digscholarship.unco.edu/dissertations/428 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © 2017 BARRY LYNN MOTTER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN COLORADO Greeley, Colorado The Graduate School “LOVE IS GENDER BLIND”: THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF TRANSGENDER COUPLES WHO NAVIGATE ONE PARTNER’S GENDER TRANSITION A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Barry Lynn Motter College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Department of Applied Psychology and Counselor Education Program of Counseling Psychology August 2017 This Dissertation by: Barry Lynn Motter Entitled: “Love is Gender Blind:” The Lived Experiences of Transgender Couples Who Navigate One Partner’s Gender Transition has been approved as meeting the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in College of Education and Behavioral Sciences in School of Applied Psychology and Counselor Education, Program of Counseling Psychology Accepted by the Doctoral Committee __________________________________________________________________ Basilia Softas-Nall, Ph.D., Research Advisor __________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey Rings, Ph.D., Committee Member __________________________________________________________________ Betty Cardona, Ph.D., Committee Member __________________________________________________________________ Mel Moore, Ph.D., Faculty Representative Date of Dissertation Defense ___________________________________________ Accepted by the Graduate School ________________________________________________ Linda L. Black, Ed.D. Associate Provost and Dean Graduate School and International Admissions ABSTRACT Motter, Barry Lynn. “Love is Gender Blind”: The Lived Experiences of Transgender Couples Who Navigate One Partner’s Gender Transition. Published Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, University of Northern Colorado, 2017. This study investigated the experiences of romantic couples who maintained their relationship when one partner transitioned gender. For this phenomenology, 13 couples were interviewed as a dyad and individually from within systemic, feminist, and queer research theories. Couples were interviewed together to best encapsulate their couple narrative and honor their experiences. Themes that emerged from the interviews appeared overall consistent with research regarding transgender couple experiences. Couples discussed how much they loved each other and cared about their relationship above and beyond a partner’s gender identity, sharing they felt committed to their partners as people. Several common relationship changes were associated with gender transition including 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. Couples also described challenges to navigating a gender transition within a relationship including 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. Many common relationship strengths and positive qualities were found in iii common across couples: love, acceptance, advocacy, commitment, respect, perseverance, friendship, flexibility, listening, humor, and sexual fluidity. Finally, couples shared that political issues in the current sociopolitical climate had a personal impact on their felt safety and daily lives. Suggestions were made for counseling psychologists to use in their work such as remaining unconditionally trans positive in work with transitioning couples and becoming competent in trans issues before taking on transgender couples. Future research could also be drawn from this work to continue celebrating the complexity of gender diversity and sharing positive, successful narratives of this often ignored population of families. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the thirteen couples who graciously shared their lives with me. Thank you for time, your stories, and for letting me share your love with the world. Dr. Softas, your guidance and support has been unflinching and more than I deserve. I have appreciated your kindness, your motivation, and your unwavering belief in my ability to make it through, even when I was uncertain. Thank you for encouraging me to pursue research and clinical work I feel passionately about and to trust my instincts in all I do. You have helped me learn to be a better teacher, supervisor, therapist, and mentor. Dr. Rings, thank you for your encouragement and listening ear; you have always made yourself available when I needed to talk--it made all the difference. To Dr. Cardona and Dr. Moore, who have also assisted in sculpting this project, thank you for helping me create the best version of this project I could. I consider myself lucky every day to have a wonderful, inspiring family (biological and in-law) to surround me with love and care. You have each taught me no dream is too big or worth giving up on. I am amazed at your strength, your courage, and your persistence, and I want to be just like each of you when I grow up. I am especially grateful to my mother, Susan. I am so proud of you, and will never be able to repay you for the gifts you’ve given me or the lessons you have taught me. You taught me how to care and how to love, and I love you for being you. v To the wonderful colleagues in my cohort who have shared many tears, cheers, and coffees with me, and especially to my “Wolfpack” trio--thank you for continually joining with me in this process. I do not think I would be where I am without our work dates and late night talks. Let’s continue to share successes and setbacks long after the trials of graduate school have ended. To my beautiful friends (you know who you are), thank you for being so patient with me--I get to be a real person now. Finally, thank you to my darling, patient, brilliant, and kind-hearted husband Pate. You’ve always thought I used too many words so I will end with four: I love you most. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 Background and Context.................................................................................... 3 Rationale ............................................................................................................ 6 Intended Audience ........................................................................................... 11 Statement of Purpose ....................................................................................... 12 Research Questions ........................................................................................... 13 Definitions........................................................................................................ 14 Limitations of the Study................................................................................... 18 Summary .......................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE...................................................... 22 Theoretical Orientation .................................................................................... 23 Gender .............................................................................................................. 32 Changing Attitudes Toward Transgender Issues ............................................. 56 Transgender Couple Relationships .................................................................. 61 Therapy with Transgender Couples ................................................................. 77 Literature Gaps................................................................................................. 87 Summary .......................................................................................................... 89 CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................. 91 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................... 92 Methodology .................................................................................................... 95 Researcher Stance ............................................................................................ 98 Research Methods .......................................................................................... 102 Ethical Considerations ..................................................................................