A trans/queer triad meets a tabloid diet mag

Closer magazine (not)

Closer is a trashy women's magazine in the U.K. specializing in diets and celebrity gossip. One of its editors approached a triad family of three females, two of them M to F trans, about putting their story in the magazine. They agreed, for pay. You really think this is gonna have a happy ending, right?

Well it does. "Her article turned out very nicely and there are only a couple of inaccuracies," writes one of the three. "Unfortunately the text was edited before publication and the final product had a much more sensationalist slant." But the writer gave them the original, unedited version, and they've put it up on one of their blogs. It is a sweet tale:

By Mel Fallowfield

Picture the scene, a man turns to his wife to confess his huge secret. That he is a woman trapped in a man’s body and now wants to live as a woman. You’d never imagine her reaction would be to howl with relieved laughter.

And yet that was exactly what Kyeli did when her husband, now called Sera, broke the news to her. And the laughter was tinged with more than a little irony — for she’d been trying to pluck up the courage to confess her big secret to him, that SHE was a lesbian.

They’d been married for four years and had a son, Dru, now nine, when they ‘came out’ to each other. And incredibly since then their relationship has become stronger — despite them now living with another woman too, transsexual Pace, 29. All three of them share a bed, with Dru in a smaller one beside them.

“We know we sound like freaks,” says Kyeli, 30, who owns a recruitment agency. “But we couldn’t be happier. We all love each other intensely. We talk constantly and are very open with each other so there are rarely any jealousy issues. It might sound strange to everyone else but it works perfectly for us.”

Kyeli and Sera, now 32, met 13 years ago, in high school. Then Sera was a man, though she doesn’t like to reveal her name.

“From the beginning I had an amazing connection with Sera. Before that I’d dated a few men, but never felt much for them — I’d done it so I was the same as my friends. Sera was amazing though, we fell in love immediately. She was very gentle and soft and she really listened when I talked. I lost my virginity to her and it was wonderful.”

The couple soon moved in together and got engaged. After four years Kyeli fell pregnant with Dru, now nine. A few months after Dru was born they got married.

...But four years ago Sera dropped another bombshell and this time Kyeli wasn’t laughing.

“Sera met another woman on the internet — called Pace,” says Kyeli. “At first they were just friends. Then one weekend I went to visit my father and Pace and Sera met face to face for the first time.

“When I came home I looked at Sera and just guessed that she’d met someone special. She confessed she thought she’d fallen in love. But that she didn’t want to leave me.”

Astonishingly the couple decided the only way to make it work was if Kyeli met Pace, who works in computers, and saw how they got on, with a view to the three of them having a relationship.

“Talking about it now is easy,” says Kyeli. “But at the time of course I was extremely jealous and scared that Sera would leave me.

“And when I met Pace and she was lovely to me I suspected that it was only to get closer to Sera,” she adds. “But after my initial reservations I fell in love with her too. She was beautiful, funny and very quirky — it ended up being very easy.”

...“The secret to it working is to talk everything through,” says Kyeli. “I’m the jealous one but Sera and Pace never just dismiss my fears, they always reassure me.

“Now it’s just normal for us. Pace and I go out to work, while Sera stays and looks after Dru and the house.

“We take it in turns to go out on dates with each other and we all sleep together in one big bed. With sex sometimes we all get involved and other times two of us might get together. But we all get enough!”

Fortunately friends and family are very accepting of their unusual circumstances. Any reservations are for Dru’s well being growing up with three mothers.

“My dad does question whether it’s a healthy situation for Dru,” says Kyeli. “But anyone just has to meet him to see how well adjusted he is. He’s very proud of his life and tells everyone he has three mummies. We’ve asked him every step of the way if he’s happy and if he isn’t we’d change our life. No matter how much we love each other our child comes first.

“Sometimes I worry about the future and whether he might get teased. But the world’s changing so fast — who knows maybe one day we’ll be the norm.”

Read the whole article. (The version in Closer, which came out approximately Sept. 13, 2007, has vanished; the magazine doesn't put its articles online.)

Update: A local film student produced an 8-minute documentary about this family, centering on the kid. You can watch it on YouTube.