*Updated for 2025 Pride Month
Pride Month is often difficult and complex for straight spouses. I’ve created a Pride Survival Guide to help you through, but first, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the realities of pride month and the straight spouse. Many of you are or have been LGBT allies. Perhaps you have other family members who aren’t straight and you want to support and advocate for them. You long for the day everyone is comfortable to live authentically. Perhaps you were an LGBT ally well before finding out you were actually married to a closeted LGBT person. Now you’re thrust into the collision of two realities: your allyship and your experience of betrayal. It can be really tricky to navigate and balance these two colliding forces. Are you still an ally? You may want to support Pride so that fewer people feel the need to hide their true sexuality or gender identity inside a “straight-passing marriage”, but you find the month triggering. It feels conflictual.
Perhaps you’ve always struggled to accept homosexuality or transgender, whether for personal, religious or cultural reasons. Now you have even more cause to hold on to that belief, having been hurt so badly by your partner. You may not even believe they’re truly gay or transgender. You may see it as a “lifestyle choice” and think they should have stayed on the straight and narrow path with you (pun not intended). The thought of them abandoning you and your marriage is hurtful and infuriating. Your heart is broken. You may have known they were gay before you agreed to marry them, and they convinced you it was God’s will and that together you could “pray the gay away”. Surely after marriage it would go away? But it didn’t. And they “forgot” to tell you it wasn’t working, betraying your trust in them.
Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle: not a staunch ally, and not opposed to someone being gay or trans. But you’ve been deeply hurt by your partner and because that hurt is so related to their sexuality or gender identity, you struggle with Pride Month.
Whichever situation you find yourself in, Pride Month and similar LGBT festivals can be quite triggering for straight spouses and partners of trans people. To make matters worse, it’s so hard to know who you can talk to, or who will understand the complexities of your situation. The month hits very close to home! It’s not just any deception and betrayal. It’s an intimate deception of the LGBT kind, and so it’s 100% understandable that Pride Month may be challenging! The endless rainbow flags, advertisements, TV shows and movies exacerbate your pain, triggering your nervous system into fight or flight, and it’s hard to find your calm. If you’re like many straight spouses, you probably wish you could hide under a rock for the entire month! So I’ve created something to help you.
Welcome to the (updated) Pride Survival Guide for straight spouses and partners of trans people
The first year that I offered the Guide, in 2023, I sent (almost!) daily emails throughout Pride Month. Then, in 2024, I upgraded the content and included some recorded videos. But to be honest, I wasn’t overly happy with it. I took some time to really consider the wants and needs of straight spouses who find Pride Month challenging and it became clear: emails just don’t cut it by themselves. You can still be left feeling isolated and disconnected from genuine support.
Soooo, welcome to the third edition of the Pride Survival Guide. This time, the emails will be pared way back to a brief daily affirmation or encouragement, with a journal prompt, and I am adding a weekly live group call! (For those who can’t make the call, you’ll be able to access the recording.) I’m so excited to be offering this, as I know it really helps to feel connected to people who get it!
As this is the first year I’m offering live group calls, I’m treating this as a pilot round—and offering it at a special low price of $49 USD. Next year, I the guide will include more content, including a workbook and possibly a mini course on taming triggers, and the price will understandably reflect that. So if you’re looking for some daily support and some weekly connection, I hope you will join us for this updated pilot version of the live Pride Survival Guide (2025 edition)! The guide is a private space for you to step back from the rainbow parades and revel in feeling seen and validated.
I’m excited to be offering this to you! I know firsthand just how difficult Pride Month and other LGBT celebrations can be when you’ve been so badly hurt by a closeted LGBTQIA+ intimate partner.
No matter when you sign up, you will start with email number one, so you will still get the full month of daily emails, even if it’s partway through June. I will also send you the recording of any calls you’ve missed, and you can jump in with any yet to come.
Disclaimer: I realise Pride Month is about lifting up and advocating for LGBT rights, and I am 100% for that. Far too many LGBTQIA+ people have suffered and even died at the hands of straight people, which is beyond appalling. Hopefully, the day will soon come when no one feels the need to hide, and they can be their true self throughout life’s journey. I have nothing but compassion for people who feel ashamed of their sexuality or gender. BUT it must be acknowledged that there is a significant fallout when LGBTQIA+ people marry a straight partner without telling the truth. No one should use someone to cover up their unwanted sexuality or gender without asking permission to do so. The absence of informed consent strips away the straight partner’s rights in service of the closeted partner’s attempt at heteronormativity. And it is not OK. And so I advocate for those straight spouses and partners of trans people, while also holding empathy for people who feel the need to hide. Please, though – don’t hide inside a “straight-passing marriage”. You deserve better than that, and your partner certainly does, too.
0 Comments