First of all, terminology: we usually use “detransitioned” to refer to individuals who identified as transgender and also underwent some level of medical transition. Conversely, “reidentified” refers to individuals who identified as transgender but did not pursue medical transition, though they may or may not have been socially transitioning. 

You cannot assume anything about a detransitioned or reidentified person’s life other than these exact statements. There is no singular narrative you can apply to the lives of all detransitioned and reidentified people. For example, by virtue of someone being detransitioned or reidentified you cannot determine,

whether they experienced dysphoria and how bad it was

whether they experienced specifically sex dysphoria and how bad it was

what gender they identified as previously (ie. whether binary or nonbinary)

what they look like currently

how they feel about their own transition or trans identification

how they feel about gender or transgenderism as concepts

Everyone’s circumstances are different. Everyone has different feelings, thoughts, and opinions. The same way that the only thing all trans people have in common as that they identify as trans, the only thing all detransitioned and reidentified people have in common as that they used to identify as trans and don’t anymore.

I disagree. I don’t think my situation is unusual at all.

If you had seen me when I started transitioning, a blue-haired kid in her late teens on Tumblr, you would have seen no difference between me and the “confused kids” you’re talking about now. My being a little older and further along in this experience doesn’t make me different.

As I said in my last post, you aren’t seeing these “confused kids” as independent agents capable of critical thinking and decision making. Instead, you treat them as pawns in an ideological war; the implicit suggestion is that the only reason they have for their choices is because they were “brainwashed” by someone else. The suggestion is that no “rational” person would take the actions they have.

You aren’t seeing their thought process, their perceptions, their feelings, their lived history. You aren’t seeing their resistance to the oppressive structures they’re navigating (typically with little to no support), because you disagree with their methods and think you know better. You refuse to empathize with or relate to them, keeping yourself distant, seeing yourself as separate. You, me, and the “confused kids” all have more in common than any of you like to believe.

Calling us “confused” or “brainwashed” is not support. We hear it from everyone -- trans activists, internet “radfems”, religious conservatives. Each does it in order to push their own take on our experience. They proclaim, “These women are just confused! The REAL reason they did X is because <insert ideological opinion here>.” Few of these people care what we actually have to say, unless they can take context-free snippets to bolster their own narrative.

Meanwhile, reality carries on. Regardless of whether it’s a “good thing”: the decision of whether or not to transition, and what that process entails, is now a part of the reality that is “growing up female” that we all have to navigate. It’s a decision that every young woman is now presented with. Transitioning doesn’t solve the fact that we are oppressed, but for some of us who are suffering, there are things about it that are/were appealing. But it also has its consequences that we have to live with, and might not help as much as we’d originally hoped. We need to be able to talk candidly with each other about transition, without condescension for one another.

My personal suggestion -- if you consider yourself a feminist, and you’re upset by how many young women are transitioning, you need to not distance yourself from us. We have made different decisions than you, but we are not fundamentally different from you. We are all dealing with oppression in the best ways we know how at any given time. We are all fighting to survive, and we need to see each other in that. We need to be there for each other, not look down on one another.

We need you to see our inherent value and ability. Ability to thrive, make mistakes, learn, grow, heal, contribute, change the world, make things better.

So when women would argue against it on tumblr, I would be the girl yelling “consent tho” and “what if I want to be hurt??” And guess what… being laughed at or mocked or called gross definitely isolated me further into the hands of those who “understood” me, a.k.a older men.

And I’m not saying you have to personally save those girls. I’m saying that if you can stomach it, the best thing you can do for them is reply thoughtfully or even go into their inbox and tell them that sex doesn’t have to be a painful test of how much you can take.

First, I saw the comic/art I’ll post below that hit me like a ton of bricks, it deals with self objectification. Which made me start searching for what about my partner of four years (who was also my ‘dom’) I found attractive. Turns out what I found attractive about him is that he found me attractive. I realized my entire relationship to sex was this; did I enjoy pain or did I enjoy my partners reactions to hurting me? And how did this all play into my childhood insecurities, traumas, and need for male validation?

I wanted, like I presume many women do, to be the best partner and lover I could be. And an easy way to be that was to be the one that was okay with the most. Who was a “freak” in bed. Who didn’t say no. These are dangerous notions for a teenager, for any woman.

So I wondered, could I enjoy sex without objectifying myself? Could I separate the two? I started reading heavily into self objectification, anti ddlg, anti bdsm, anti kink. I quietly read anti porn and pro women blogs who didn’t shame the women involved, didn’t call them handmaidens, but simply offered another way of existing that was painless and pleasurable.

I ended my relationship and pursued partners who I was attracted to, regardless if I believed they would be attracted to me. I had sex with the ones who were interested and focused on my pleasure and boundaries. I stopped ‘performing’ in bed, and instead just followed what felt right for my body. It turns out there are plenty of men and women who are passionate, tender, gentle, and excellent lovers who didn’t need to hurt me to get off. That I could have slow and intimate or energetic and rough sex with, all without once pushing any boundaries.

For the first time, I had an orgasm with a partner. I wasnt faking. I didn’t have to, because I wasn’t self harming.

Reading materials that didn’t blame me for my self- harm, didn’t accuse me of being a weak woman who catered to men, and instead just gave me perspective and asked me honest questions… that allowed me the space and mindset to ask myself why without needing to be on the defensive.

That, and again, this specific comic. It’s a long answer, but I hope it helped.

That comic was a big eye opener for me too

its only logical that the generation that heard all about the god awful treatment of gay ppl and women are gonna be up in arms about the "protected group of the season" (bc that's we are to them), because they dont wanna be on the wrong side of history - they dont want to be as WRONG as their aunts uncles or parents were in the past

and its this panic inducing shit, where you listen to conservatives and theyre like HUR DUR TRANS PPL ARE SHIT BECAUSE A WOMAN IS A WOMAN AND A MAN IS A MAN and theyre not talking about sex, theyre talking about gender roles specifically and ofcourse you dont fucking agree with that shit because its *insane*

so, ofcourse youre gonna support ppl self identifying with whatever they please, and ofcourse youre going to be open to and listen to the oppressed group - because like,, what's there that's mainstream that young ppl have to listen to as mainstream opposition?? Fucking brain dead conservatives?

They're fucking maniacs!!!

and he’s right. this is what I talk about when ppl say men can’t be raped.. like yes they can. it’s lack of consent. he described it perfectly himself when he said for women it’s worse because it’s domination. forced submission. it’s ultimate vulnerability. to say it’s worse for men is just.. braindead.

This has been said before, and a lot. But in retrospect it is INSANE to me how easy it was for me to passionately defend the trans women in my life and how much more difficult it was for me to empathize that passionately with other women.

babes....they've planned a national MONTH of mourning for when she dies. all programming shifted to mourning the Queen, and god knows it'll be tory brainwashing.

a funeral costs around 12 million for a prince!! how much is it going to be for a Queen!! a new coronation's price???

the things this black hearted government will cut, or shove through parliament, under the guise of mourning?? the martyring???

energy bills are predicted to rise to £7700 ($8800) a year, do you understand how this can be twisted? inflation to 24%? they're already using the war in Ukraine as an excuse, but this??? gold mine for them.

The idea that misogyny comes from socialization is circular logic. Misogyny comes from misogynistic laws and religions? Who made the laws? Who made the religions? How is it possible that women were  socialized to be subservient to men in so many cultures, even ones that had no previous contact with each other?

However, the idea that misogyny comes from men’s nature is also flawed. Yes, men’s hatred of women is extremely common, as previously established, yet it is not completely universal. There have been matriarchal societies. And in our day-to-day interactions with men, we do notice differences between men based on how they were raised and their respective day-to-day environments.

So what is the root of misogyny, if it’s not men’s socialization or men’s nature? 

I think a more useful way of understanding misogyny (and honestly all forms of oppression) is not to focus on socialization or nature but on ability.

Men have a unique ability to harm women in a way that women cannot harm men. Men can impregnate women. Women cannot impregnate men. On top of having this unique ability, men also have major incentives for doing it: by impregnating a woman, they receive pleasure and a lineage. Unlike women, they also run such a small biological risk for producing a child. After having their orgasm, nothing else is biologically required from them. At worst, they might get an STD.

You might argue that some men are gay or do not want children. That’s all very much true. However, I am not arguing that men have a natural impulse to use their ability. I am simply stating that they have the ability. It is also important to understand that men exist as a class, as well as individuals. While individual men might not even have the ability to impregnate (due to infertility), we can hopefully understand that men as a class have this ability.

If it helps, we can think of this unique ability like a gun. Half of the population is born with a gun (ability to impregnate)  and a bullet-proof vest (inability to be impregnated); the other half is born with neither. The ones born with the gun and the bullet-proof vest  are not necessarily born with a natural impulse to fire the gun–but they are nonetheless born with one.

Even if a man never hurts someone with the gun, I want you to imagine how his psyche is formed just by virtue of having it. Imagine walking into a room with a gun and a bullet-proof vest, and no one else in the room has either. Even if you would never use the gun…just having one gives you a sense of protection, and perhaps a sense of superiority and power. Even if you would never use your tacit threat, you nonetheless have a tacit threat. And now imagine the psyche of those without the gun or the vest. They are vulnerable, and know that they are vulnerable, to the ones who do have one. And so their options are to either appease those with guns and vests, always tip-toeing around them–or to band together.

hi there!

I'd like to do an interview with female detransitioners about the medical complications they faced while on testosterone/afterward. I specifically would like to talk about interactions with medical care providers on these issues, tackling questions like:

how informed did your healthcare provider seem to be about the negative effects of testosterone when addressing your concerns?

Have you ever been to the hospital due to a testosterone-related emergency? (i.e. Bladder infection, kidney infection, sepsis?)

what medical interventions were you suggested other than the cessation of testosterone, and to what extent did these interventions work?

Do you have lingering complications to this day? are those complications covered by your medical insurance in the way that your trans "healthcare" was?

remaining anonymous is totally fine. We can do either an audio recording, or I can do a private interview and release only the transcript to ensure total anonymity.