#detransition

Gender Nonconformity is Universal (an excerpt) | read the full piece

If likes, dislikes, interests, and personality traits vary among individuals, it’s necessarily true that a few people will be extreme outliers with regard to any behavioral traits. For example, suppose you’re born into a culture where women are expected to stay home with the babies and men are expected to be warriors. We know, just due to normal human variation, that some women will very much want to be warriors and some men will very much want to raise babies, and those outliers are going to be somewhat at odds with what society expects of them.

Depending on whether people find their nonconformity supported or punished by their culture, the outcomes could be adaptive or not, happy or not.

When you see gender nonconformity expressed in two-spirit cultures, Samoan fa’afafine people, or 21st century American trans people, the common thread is not the idiosyncratic ways in which each group expresses itself and holds beliefs about itself, but rather their universal underlying gender nonconformity.

So when we’re told “Trans identities are universal; they’ve always existed,” we need to understand that’s not quite true. Trans identities as they exist in the 21st century West, with their specific baggage and cultural beliefs, are not human universals. Gender nonconformity is what you find in every time and place. That’s the human universal.

more than a woman by mellylalune

Also OCD and that's something I didn't knew. Realizing that helped me and maby it can help you too. You may don't have OCD but realizing the feelings and the dysphoria came from unresolved trauma and body dysmorphia helped me personally a lot ^^

Part of the reason I detransitioned was because of a change in main fronter in my median system. The main fronter during those years was a cisgender girl.

But that was only half of it. The other half is that cis society made it absolutely miserable to exist as a trans person. I've talked about how the biggest problem was cis women, who acted as if me being queer meant I was a predator who wanted to sleep with them.

Being an openly queer person in USAmerica means that cis strangers were constantly making fun of me and nobody was treating me with basic respect. Every interaction I had with anyone was stressful. Even my friends used the wrong pronouns for me most of the time.

from permutational (deactivated)

“I never knew a woman like you could exist, so how could I even dream of you before I knew you?”

My wonderful girlfriend wrote this to me in her most recent love letter. She was writing about the concept of a “dream woman”, and how she wasn’t sure what hers would look like or be like until she met me. But, I can’t stop thinking about it, because this one little phrase captures something big about the butch lesbian experience, something I’ve had a hard time putting words to. It also captures realizations I’ve gone through after detransitioning.

It’s almost a “ring of keys” kind of thought. But I love how it highlights the relationship between knowing and dreaming. What you’re aware of influences what you can dream about, what you can aspire to. What you know informs the possibilities of who you can be and love at your core.

Back a few years ago, when my crisis was was coming to a head and I decided to detransition, I felt lost. I craved an “undo” button that didn’t exist. All I knew was where I’d already been, only there was no going back. I couldn’t envision what my future might look like, especially with how far I’d gone in transitioning. I couldn’t imagine that I’d ever “live as a woman” again; I felt “too far gone”. It didn’t seem like the concept of “womanhood” could encircle me as I was. When was the last time I saw a woman that looked like me? Oh yeah, never – that was the original goal, after all.

In that moment, when I didn’t know what to do, I went with my gut: the very first thing I did was make a beeline straight to YouTube. Probably sounds a little strange, but looking back, it makes sense to me. I was searching for possibilities, for people, for stories. I wanted direct evidence that someone like me can exist, because I felt very unreal.

I looked up ‘detransition’, and there they were. Not many at the time, but enough. There were people with deepened voices, facial hair, mastectomies, bodies and histories like mine, unmistakable. And yet, they called themselves women, some even called themselves lesbians.

I watched and listened, and it didn’t matter what they were talking about; I didn’t even agree with everything they said. What mattered was that they existed. They were real.  Some of these women passed as male, but didn’t seem pressed to change themselves any further or in any way, and still emphatically called themselves women. It was mind blowing to me, and comforting. Knowing that I wouldn’t be the first or only one like this was a relief. It gave me courage, made me feel a little less crazy. It felt like I could move forward knowing that I’m not utterly alone in this experience.

And later on, I actually met these women, and others like them. Women with different ideas and opinions, not all of whom agreed with one another, or used the same words, or understood themselves in the same way. Regardless of differences, they had experiences in common with each other, and with me.

Each strange woman I’ve met has broadened the possibilities of what a woman can be, and what kind of woman I can be. Spending time with other uncommon women has fundamentally changed me at my core. There is something they gifted me that I don’t have words for. Something that came from seeing, hearing, and sharing space. Knowing by witnessing.

My beard carries memories of the bearded women I’ve met and loved; when I look in the mirror, I see part of them in me. My head is bald because I met other women who were bald first, and through them got the courage to take the plunge and buzz it all off and never look back. My voice is stronger from singing with others who embraced their changed voices. I don’t have the shame and embarrassment about my voice that I did before.

Every single part of my body carries the memories of other women like me. Detransitioned women, butch dykes young and old, friends, lovers… My opinion of myself and what I can be has fundamentally changed because of the possibilities I’ve seen in other women.

I never knew women like us could exist. But I know now, and I dream of us often.

Gender Detransition: a path towards self-acceptance (free pdf) available in english, german, french, dutch, spanish & swedish

Gender Detransition: a path towards self-acceptance (free pdf) available in english, german, french, dutch, spanish & swedish