Award-winning poet Victoria Kennefick has spoken about the relief she felt when her husband revealed that he was a trans woman. Ms Kennefick, a writer and teacher, said she and her co-parent now shared a loving friendship as they raise their six-year-old daughter. She has revealed how their relationship changed as she publishes a second, deeply personal collection of poems entitled Egg/Shell.
She said the poems explored the transformation involved when a life partner’s identity changes. While writing it, she said she learned that one of the words for someone who doesn’t yet realise they are transgender is ‘egg’. ‘When the person has an epiphany that they’re trans, it’s called “cracking your egg”, she explained.
Ms Kennefick , from Shanagarry, Co. Cork but now based in Tralee, Co. Kerry, told Jerry O’Sullivan on Radio Kerry that her partner’s revelation came during the Covid lockdown.
‘Ultimately, over lockdown, this person I was married to, who we always had a wonderful relationship, very close and very loving, became very distant and removed, and was depressed,’ she said. She said she initially thought her partner was suffering from the same lockdown disruption as everyone else was. She admitted that she had mourned the loss of her husband, in terms of how she had understood their relationship before, and her picture of their shared future.
‘But then one evening I sat down and looked at her, really looked at her...
and asked her, “Are you okay?�.
