The Detransitioners

 Dear Friends,

I hope you had a good Stressmas. I think I did. I don’t know why I get stressed out by the holidays but I do. I feel like I have to spend time “doing stuff” that I normally would never do in the name of being festive and having fun. But it always ends up working out just fine.

Thank you all for reading & enjoying my “Holiday Series” about the state of the LGB & TQ peoples. I know you have found it as fascinating as I do. And today I’ll be talking a little more about The Detransitioners.

The first thing I want to say about The Detransitioners is — if people who have medically transitioned feel the need, for whatever reason, to detransition, I AM OK with that. I don’t worry that it will make the trans community, or me personally, look bad. I don’t care. If  transitioning to the opposite gender is not working for someone, then what they do about it is their own decision to make.

Super femme in 2004

I think I’ve been subconsciously preparing for the day when detransition stories on youtube (&Tumblr) outnumbered the “yay look at me 5 days on T!!” stories. I never wanted to come out and say that I didn’t believe that everyone who was transitioning in the mid-10s was actually trans. That would’ve made me an unholy gatekeeper who was transier-than-thou. And honestly I knew that if trans trendering was really a thing, it would reveal itself soon enough and get sorted out in the social medias for everyone to see.

I could see that it was primarily a youth-driven phenomenon. Sure we like to blame it on Caitlyn Jenner’s stunning Vanity Fair cover, but I think she mainly made it safe for people my age & older to come out. I totally blame Tumblr for the foothold medical transition took in youth culture from 2010 on…

…when I began my transition I was told I could find not just info but a whole trans commune(ity) on TUMBLR!! So I went there, and lo! it was a topography of the most beautiful, sculpted, cosmetized, PASSING trans folk you ever saw! It was all very shallow and I could tell it would not be the place for me to get any advice or companionship. However…I could see that if I had been my 13-14-15 yr old self in the age of Tumblr, I definitely would’ve been seduced.

June vs. Sep 2008

The thing is though, I knew way before the age of 13-14-15 that I was “in the wrong body.” [And I know that phrase has no favor in the community, but that is exactly how a child would describe it. The latest criticism from the right is “You wouldn’t say a disabled child was born in the wrong body!!” But I’ll bet many disabled children lament being born in the wrong body while they are coming to terms with their situations. Plus, I viewed femaleness as a deformity (probably because I was told it was)]. Anyway, the “trend” when I started my transition was Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria that usually presented at puberty. A child who had never voiced or displayed gender non conformity in early childhood was suddenly beset at 13-14-15 with feelings that gender issues were the cause of their depression.

And I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s experience here. There may have been some very valid gender issues going on with these kids at that pubescent age. But hormones and surgeries aren’t the only solutions to gender issues. There is a middle ground and there should be other options. I think therapists are still just learning how to handle ROGD because in the last decade they’ve been bombarded by it. And of course there are unethical therapists out there who have an agenda or an alliance with capitalist medicine. But I don’t think gender therapists on the whole are horrible people who want to experiment on your children for a buck.

Going for androgynous chic in 2009

In the weeks that I’ve been doing this Holiday Series, the number of Detransitioners has grown. At first I was seeing mainly FtMtF detransitioners, but more and more MtFtMs are going public. I still maintain that a small percentage of these detransitioners could be right-wing activists trying to stir the pot, but I believe most of them are sincere. One thing that does sadden me is that many of these detransitioners do adopt a right-wing political stance upon realizing their mistakes. This highlights how politicized gender identity really is (ie, is “detrans” the new season of gender?)

I have yet to hear a story where a young person was actively coerced by a mental health or medical professional to “just try the hormones, they’re good for you.” These kids were willing participants in their transitions and most of them admit it. Even Keira Bell specifically sought treatment for her own feelings of gender dysphoria.

But as they begin the process of detransitioning I hear a lot of these people say they did feel pressure from somewhere —whether it was their politics, their peers, or the social medias — to alleviate their depressive symptoms through gender transition. Some of them feel taken advantage of by mental health professionals when they were in a vulnerable state. Some of them say they were seduced by the success-only, beautifully curated community on Tumblr. A large percentage of female-born transitioners cite pornography — or the overall misogyny of internet culture— as their motivation for no longer wanting to identify as female. The male-born transitioners are often so insecure in their masculinity they feel that life would be “easier” if they were just female.

And a lot of these kids get pretty far into their transitions before realizing “Hey, this isn’t for me.” Testosterone can change a girl’s voice in a matter of weeks. A good many FtMtFs on youtube confess they are heartbroken because they’ve lost their singing voices. A lot of these kids go through with surgeries they come to regret, including hysterectomies and vaginoplasties. Plus synthetic estrogen and testosterone are not without risk. Estrogen causes blood clots and can exacerbate auto-immune conditions. Testosterone increases the production of red blood cells, which can cause stroke (and which is why I go to the blood bank every few months to get rid of all those RBCs!)

Fluid in 2012 (ballet vs. Gerard drag)

What can we do to help people who have realized their choice to transition to the opposite gender was a mistake? Or better yet, how can we keep people from making that mistake in the first place? The responsibility really does lie on the shoulders of mental health and medical professionals, but as a happily transitioned adult, I feel like there should be something I can do or say to keep people from going down the wrong path with their bodies, their identities, their fertility. I don’t want to be a “gatekeeper” but I do think that there is a difference between someone who’s known since early childhood that they were “in the wrong body” and someone who gets ROGD from something they saw on the internet.

And this is not to say that 4-yr olds should be given puberty blockers. [Our favorite TERF Exulansic (Sexual Antics) speculates this will be happening in the near future. I say nonsense. You’re going crazy on me, Mr Sexual Antics. And I thought you were the smart TERF.] Gender identity issues that present at 3-4-5 yrs of age should be handled with as much care as those that present at 13-14-15. But what is that care? Who will care enough to do the right thing? Parents? Doctors? Teachers? Gender therapists?

In the 1970s when I was insisting that I was a boy, I was taken to psychiatrists who wanted to convert me by forcing the issue of femininity. Play with the dolls! Wear the pink tutus! And by the time I was 8 yrs old I was broken in, realizing that my outward gender presentation ought to match my biological sex, or life would be a problem for me. It was not a happy realization, and it didn’t CURE my gender dysphoria, it just made me a mean, sarcastic little girl and young lady.

First binder! 2015

I don’t know any parents or doctors who would recommend that method in the 2020s. I know more parents are accepting of gender non conformity in their children these days. Boys don’t HAVE to play football to be the apple of their fathers’ eyes, and girls don’t have to be obedient little princesses to please their whole families. But I remember being told I was a tomboy, which still meant I was a girl, and I was like, Nope I’m just a boy-boy. I think there are ways to tell whether your child is just happily flouting gender boundaries or whether there is a deep problem with gender identity.

There is a looming movement from the right to convince us all that young children who express the wish to be the opposite gender will grow out of it. That by puberty, most of these children will embrace their at-birth sex and begin living their biological destinies. That these children are NOT at risk for suicide/attempts any more than the average teen/young adult.

And it may be true that a gender dysphoric child will begin to conform to gender norms at puberty, mainly because the peer pressure to do so is so great. Maybe because the pubescent flood of hormones dictates it. I know that’s what happened to me. Between the ages of 8 — 16 I did NOT want to be seen as some pervy outcast (which is exactly how I would’ve been seen in the 1980s). I didn’t want to be different from my peers. So I made it a project to be the perfect definition of girl/daughter/sister.

At 17, I became more of a rebel. It was like I remembered who I really was. I fought against gender boundaries as well as other societal boundaries. It was exciting and liberating for awhile, but the year I turned 20 I had a major relapse into the sort of gender dysphoria I had as a child. Actually it was way worse because I was a young adult trying to navigate a world that saw me as less-than. A sex object. A gender object. I was overtaken by depression so huge that I tried to kill myself by drinking a cup of Drano. I stabilized in my 20s by becoming more a part of the LGB community. But at 30 I had yet another wave of severe gender dysphoria and contemplated suicide again.

2016 — 1 year on T and going for the man bun while watching Rudolph

Obviously I lived to tell about my dysadventures. But plenty of gender dysphoric kids do not live to tell. Let’s not forget the story of Leela Alcorn. Her depression was so big she threw herself under the wheels of a truck. 

It will definitely take a village to get this all sorted out — loving parents, caring medical professionals, more trans adults who understand the risks and implications of transitioning. For me, it was always weird to seek help from professionals who did not have first hand experience with gender dysphoria.

2017, 2018, 2019 not a trace of face hair

well…maybe a trace here

So now we have a mini generation of Detransitioners on our hands. They will be able to teach us as much as those of us who are happy with transition. And if some of them even decide to Re-transition, that’s umm….fine with me. It could happen. It wouldn’t be ideal, but I’m ready for that too.

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Just wanted to close with some personal updates. I told you I had my first colonoscopy and there was some drama. I guess while I was under the anesthesia I inhaled some vomit. I don’t know how there was vomit in my stomach because I hadn’t eaten for 24 hours. All I can think is that I didn’t expel all the liquids I drank the day before the procedure. Everyone was telling me how empty and pure I would feel after pooping out the entire contents of my colon. But the morning of the procedure I still felt like a bloated fishbowl full of Gatorade and magnesium citrate.

So I woke from the anesthesia with my lungs full of fluid. I could barely breathe. They gave me an oxygen puffer til I had 100% oxygen flowing again. Then they sent me home, where I felt sick and coughed up big globs of green mucus for days. It took about a week before I felt normal again. So much for a “routine procedure.”

Also wanted to let you know that I’ve had so much fun doing this series that my New Year’s resolution is to do more blogging and art in 2022. I needed to take some time off from it but I’m ready to get at it again!

And finally, the happy old man in 2021

Coming next time, Part 5 of this series in which I’ll talk some more about The Autogynephiles!