In order to claim their identities, these women will have to get divorced.

Gotta say, I admire the strength of character, compassion and dignity of the wives here, who do so well in supporting their transitioning/transitioned partners. All while they themselves are learning, adapting and adjusting to a whole range of issues and a new way of living. That is some beautiful love.

Up until very recently in history the majority of people used the terms sex and gender interchangeably to mean the same thing, just like for instance people thought of female being the same meaning as woman.

Now whether they are strictly the same word or not isn't the point, the point is that for a very long certainly in mine, my parents and my grandparents time, sex and gender have meant pretty much the same thing to most people, that is if a someone's sex is a man then their gender is a man, then the pronoun used is a he. And his sex (and therefore his gender) was determined by the fact he was born with a penis and not a vagina.

Now I'm talking about history here, and recent history here. I don't think anyone could dispute that in the majority of cases that sex and gender were largely used to mean essentially the same thing that if someone's sex is a man then their gender must be a man.

However suddenly within approx the last 5 years or so we have been told by a minority of people that gender not only no longer means sex but it never did. Which is quite a surprise to the vast majority of people who used these words pretty much to mean the same thing. It also makes our whole history a lie.

Then if we say, well actually we don't agree with the definition of these words being changed to fit a minority's needs we get told we are bigots or trans phobic.

I don't have a problem with a man wanting to wear a dress or makeup, and if he finds a partner who is happy with that and the two of them can be happy together like that then it's really none of my concern.

But as far as words and labels are concerned they do have meaning, and whilst people can choose to self identify themselves in any way they like the fact remains one individual or a minority of people can not and should not force a society to change a definition to fit their own needs, particularly if it's something that is a has huge significance for everyone. For instance the government decrees that all peaches should now be called apples and vice versa I would find this strange when everyone understood apples to be apples and peaches to be peaches but at the same time I wouldn't lose any sleep over it considering I only buy a peach about once a year, although I would find it pretty hard to remember that when I ask for an apple pie I have to ask for a peach pie, and then I wouldn't know if the person serving me would remember to give me the 2016 definition or the old definition. It would be even more confusing if someone righteous said to us peaches were always apples, even if everyone of us in the supermarket had a distinct memory that last year and throughout the history of the supermarket they weren't.

But because I'm not myself an apple or a peach it isn't a huge deal but when you suddenly wake up to find that what you and everyone you knew had a particular definition of what a woman or man means and that you are told quite aggressively that you are all wrong, not only is this rewriting history but it means a minority of people get to redefine your identity simply because it suits them to do so.

And the ramifications of all of this is that laws are written in language, so labels and words matter, once someone redefines a word that means that a law affects them and everyone else in a different way. And all of this raises the point as to whether a person gets to define themselves or society gets to define them. For instance I don't like being defined by my age, but the reality is regardless of whether I would like to be 21 again I am not, of course I can lie about it, as many people do, and I don't personally think so many businesses have a right to know my age, but it does have legal ramifications for instance I have to over a certain age to get an old pension for instance, so even though I would like perhaps to self identify as a different age, society has determined what age I am so that laws can be made appropriately.

Many of us are quite happy for transgender people to live peaceably, but all of this confusion and redefining words that have meant something else for much of history, and then the subsequent paperwork, legal work, red tape bureaucracy etc, and the offense to those who do not wish to have their gender to be changed to suit the needs of a minority, could have all been avoided if transgender people had simply asked for the right to dress as they choose and to live with the partner of their choice, and to live without fear of violence, and not demanded to co opt someone else's identity and have a whole lot of words that have significant meaning for a majority of people to be changed to mean the opposite of their understood and historic meaning.

Because if you take for example these married couples they are living together the way they want him wearing a dress or whatever it is he wants to do, with all the rights of a married couple, and yet despite that effectively he has everything he needs this man has to demand to be called a woman.