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TgR Membership for partners
Every so often I get a request from the partner of a transgender member asking if they can join TgR.
There are two reasons I have,in the past, always politely explained that it isn’t possible.
Reason 1: The old web site had no membership categories so it would have been impossible to immediately tell if “Mary” was a closet crossdresser or a female partner. This would make the context of posts ambiguous – and could cause confusion in the forums and chat rooms. It is difficult enough at the moment with many members assuming that all members of TgR were born male. Adding partners to the active membership would perhaps make members less likely to post.
Reason 2: On occasions a partner has “shared” a member’s login and sought help in the chat room. The response received from members was overwhelmingly enthusiastic but frequently misguided. It led me to the opinion that transgender members are not a great source of advice and help to partners.
With the new site, things have changed somewhat.
The scope to add new membership categories is now virtually unlimited. So we could have a separate category and application process for a partner. And the membership type (currently only Premier or Community) could easily be attached to forum posts.
Furthermore it is now easy to set up forums to have different access permissions for different membership categories. For instance we could now make forums that were only accessable by partners, and select forums to be read-only or invisible to partners.
So i would like to hear the members views on a proposal.
PROPOSAL: We could add a new membership class “Partner”.
– The partner class would have no joining fee, but would be linked to an active existing member.
– A single forum would added that is visible only to partners (and moderators).
– Some other existing forums would be hidden from partners and/or made read only – depending on members views
– Partners would not have access to the chat roomDo you think we should add a partner class of membership?
Are there any existing forums that you would be concerned about a partner reading?
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14 Replies
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Having no partner membership is a very bad idea. It should be encouraged not blocked.
Input from partners can be very helpful. My wife goes to most of the WA Chameleons meetings and she is a great help.
It is very helpul to have input from the other side.
Vicki
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Sounds great. I’m sure this would facilitate some interesting discussions if nothing else. With a supportive wife I can’t think of anywhere that I’d be uncomfortable seeing, but then other members situations are probably vastly different to mine.
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I do believe that it is a good idea to have a partner membership option. It is difficult to know what forums they should be given access to I guess the nature of the topic would have to determine that.
I think it is a little bit odd there are many trans, X dresser support groups but there is very little support for partners. Many partners struggle terribly with gender issues and have very few opportunities to share experiences and ways of coping.i definitely support the idea. -
If we do make a section that is tg people only then maybe we should consider a partners only section?
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Many of us have loving and supportive partners. Openly including them rather than excluding them can serve to positively illustrate to others how life and family relationships can be, by removing any secrecy and or deception .
I do respect that many girls may not be as fortunate as I am but I feel partner inclusion is a step towards open acceptance. -
jordan wrote:If we do make a section that is tg people only then maybe we should consider a partners only section?I’m confused… isn’t this the same thing?
Adrian wrote:PROPOSAL: We could add a new membership class “Partner”.
– The partner class would have no joining fee, but would be linked to an active existing member.
– A single forum would added that is visible only to partners (and moderators).
– Some other existing forums would be hidden from partners and/or made read only – depending on members views
– Partners would not have access to the chat room -
Ooops. My bad.
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What a great idea,
Partners could add another dimension to our discussions, my wife gives the idea a big tick of approval
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Ok – I’ll go ahead and implement a partners membership type.
At this stage I propose to block partner access to the forums discussing HRT / Surgery etc but leave all the other forums wide open to Partners. I’ll monitor what actually happens if/when we have active partners onboard – and adjust forum access as necessary.
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I stayed quiet on this debate because my partner has made it clear she is not interested in participating.
From my experience on other sites it seems very difficult to keep an active group of partners involved but good luck. -
Carol wrote:From my experience on other sites it seems very difficult to keep an active group of partners involved but good luck.
I also think it would take work to add value to the experience partners get on the site. But from my perspective I would rather be able to say “you are welcome to join”. In some ways this is the same challenge as building a community of TransMen on the site. But the first step clearly has to be embracing them as members.
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Hi, you might be interested to know why I was keen to become a member here. When I first heard about my partner’s cross dressing, as s/he first described it, I found that transgender.com (an American site) was a really good place to read and learn about what this meant. The place I did that, on that site, was the Partner’s forum. I think that an Australian based site that caters for partners is essential! So thank you for starting this,
Kristi -
I think it is a great idea, possibly a necessity. If it enables partners to learn more about their husbands desires, if they learn more they see it isn’t as fearful as they might have imagined. As a by the way I used to take my partners or even just girl friends from work or my social along to Seahorse meetings.
I would ask permission to bring them along of course, their appearance seemed to go down well with the membership and other partners. The members usually ended up monopolising my friends for advice. The partners often suggested it made them feel better meeting a ‘non-connected’ visitor. -
i had to think about this
but as this site contains information about the transgender world and the transgender person
I think it’s a good idea as the partner may get an insite into our lives our ups and downs and how we struggle with our female sideIt may give support to both sides and under standing as we all know no matter what anyone says if you dont live it you really dont under stand
I think getting your partner to join may be the hardest thing to dosalleyj
