I’ve been working on something deeply personal and incredibly needed.
For years, I’ve walked alongside other women like me. Women who were blindsided when their husbands came out as trans. Some of us were married for decades. Some had children. Some discovered the truth slowly through secrets, porn, or emotional withdrawal. Others were told abruptly, like a wrecking ball through the center of their lives.
We’ve been told to “just love the person, not the genitals.” We’ve been called bigots for having boundaries. We’ve sat across from therapists who corrected our pronouns instead of comforting our grief. We’ve been asked, in all seriousness, “Couldn’t you just stay married and be supportive?”
That’s why I’m building this course.
It’s called Supporting Trans Widows in Therapy and it’s meant to help therapists understand what it really feels like when a woman loses her marriage not to death, but to a partner’s transition. It’s a kind of grief no one prepares you for. And most clinicians aren’t trained for it either.
This course is for the therapist who genuinely wants to help but doesn’t know how to hold space for both gender identity and marital betrayal. It’s for the clinician who wants to do no harm but isn’t sure where affirming ends and the wife’s pain begins.
I want therapists to hear us.
The course covers common experiences, like when a husband secretly uses his wife’s clothing or demands to be called “Mom.” It outlines red flags that are often missed. It includes real examples, rights-based worksheets, and downloadable resources for both the therapist and the client.
It is unapologetically honest. It is for those who stay and those who go. It honors every woman’s right to her own feelings, her own sexuality, her own reality.
This has been a labor of love and necessity. Not just for me, but for all of us who have been isolated, silenced, or shamed. I hope this course helps change the clinical culture and brings more validation and care to women who have too often been erased.
If you want to stay updated as the course develops or be first to hear when it launches, subscribe to this Substack. I’ll be sharing details, previews, and early access for subscribers.
Thank you, always, for walking this road with me.
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I have the sole data in the world on the experience of trans widows. I went through this 30 years ago and little has changed. Please contact me, as I can give you a great deal of information about the abuse of not only the husbands, but their therapists, who advocate fetishistic sexual practices as "normal.' Ute Heggen, youtube channel, Trans Widow Ute Heggen and substack blog, uteheggen.substack.com. The method to email me is in the channel notes under the videos. I have data on what 70 of us have experienced. Good for you, Helena! Ute