Housewife: Home Re-making in a Transgender Marriage
It is the story of a woman faced with an unimaginable obstacle, and how she found the strength to climb over it.
Kristin M. Collier Abbondanza Publishing Softcover $16 (277pp) 978-0-9977901-0-8
When Kristin Collier’s husband came out to her as transgender, Kristin did what most people do when faced with the unknown: she went to the Internet. While information regarding gender dysphoria and transition is more widely available than in the past, she had a hard time finding anything that was written from the spouse’s perspective. Through this memoir, Collier offers a candid and heartfelt view of her life after her husband became her wife.
Kristin Collier had been married to Fred, now Seda, for ten years before Seda transitioned from living as a male to living as a female. While hindsight offered glimpses of this side of Seda, the news largely took Kristin by surprise. The couple and their two sons began a roller-coaster ride that shot them through largely uncharted territory.
There is an openness and vulnerability to Collier’s writing that feels like sitting down to coffee with a best friend. She writes with vivid and engaging imagery: “Fred scraped at the memory, the trauma, in his mind like it was a fresh leather hide to be tanned and stretched taut to dry in the bright sunlight.”
Seda’s story, and that of other family and friends, is an integral part of this memoir, but the focus is squarely on Kristin. This is her story, as a wife, a mother, friend, confidant, and lover and, most of all, as an individual. It’s an unfettered look at how Seda’s transition affected Kristin’s life and future plans, and how the idea of family transformed in her mind to mean so much more than she ever thought it could.
This book was written not only to give a spouse’s view of transition, but also as a resource for anyone who wants to learn more about transgender issues or gain better understanding, in order to become supportive of transfamilies. It is also the story of a woman faced with an unimaginable obstacle, and how she found the strength to climb over it to find a place of contentment, acceptance, and peace on the other side.