It’s not really a secret that I’ve grown resentful of being a public figure as a detransitioner.
When my lawsuit had its viral moment in February 2023, I had quite a few interview offers that I ended up turning down. I don’t necessarily regret doing so, but I’m keenly aware that I could have drawn a lot more eyes to my story than I ended up doing.
A few months after that, I had solidified exactly what I was frustrated about, and it was the fact that my motivation was to fight for a truthful and healthy society, but I had to do so within the framing of being a victim.
A story is compelling. It’s what draws people in.
A detransitioner’s story is one of medical trauma; of being told you were being made well while you suffered iatrogenic harm; of being betrayed by institutions you were meant to trust; of being coerced into believing things that weren’t true; of participating in the very thing many of us now speak out against.
We have to use this background in order to be heard by the greater public. In fact, we are expected to use it.
Detransitioners have a prescribed role in the movement: be the victim. The movement needs victims to point to.
In the public sphere, we are rewarded in some ways for fulfilling this role. We garner attention. We receive support. Our social media presence gets engagement.
But we are also “punished” in some ways for trying to move outside of the role. Posts about how awful our surgeries were, how much pain we’re in now, and how difficult our lives have become all have infinitely more chances of going “viral” than posts about how far we’ve come, how we’re picking up the pieces, and encouraging others to be resilient and move forward.
It’s not this straightforward, though. A lot of people either don’t realize that this is the role that we’ve been slotted or they are bitter about detransitioners occupying that slot.
And these people punish us for fulfilling that prescribed role. Some of them (quietly or loudly) don’t actually believe we’ve been victimized at all. On some level, they believe we deserved what happened to us. When we step out of line, they are almost gleeful about the chance to put us in our place.
When they talk about “protecting women and children,” they aren’t actually including people who are currently in the cult or anyone who has ever left it. They mean “innocent” people who have not been marred by medicine and who have never fallen for the lie. To them, those are the real victims.
Leaning into victimhood as a means of “clout” (if you can even call it that) means you have inherently positioned yourself as inferior to everyone else (ironically). Detransition is a humiliating experience, and being public about it is essentially standing in front of a crowd of people saying “I was wrong about something massive.”
There are people who admire this – because it is, indeed, admirable to admit you were wrong.
And there are also people who become laser focused on the fact that you were once wrong – and will permanently hold this against you. If you were wrong once, you could be wrong again. When we disagree with them (about anything), they are quick to berate us for being stupid former cult members. This mistake will always be held against us, no matter how much growth we undergo.
I think most people are well-meaning, and most people want to believe that detransitioners are respected. But I don’t think we are. We are formerly trans-identified people. If detransitioners were respected, then people would have to be more thoughtful about how they treat current trans-identified people – specifically how they talk about our medicalized bodies.
This is something that I think most people in the movement don’t really care about. The discourse has been many years long. A lot of people are tired and frustrated. It’s easy to lash out by making fun of a man’s botched surgery; easy to call women on steroids repulsive and disgusting; easy to mock our voices; easy to call people “ruined” and predict that they’ll kill themselves in ten years.
There doesn’t seem to be a thought about what will happen if those people detransition. Or about how their “allies” who have detransitioned feel about this kind of public shaming of people who look and sound like we do.
Our well-being is ultimately unimportant. I have thought many times that I would be more useful to the movement if I killed myself.
It’s taken a long time to truly and fully accept that formerly trans-identified people will not be treated as equals in any space that is focused around being gender critical. I used to think there were exceptions, but currently, I believe the only exception is spaces that were designed by detransitioners, for detransitioners.
In these spaces, my deepened voice and my altered body represent the very thing being rallied against. I become a symbol of the ideology that we all hate. It doesn’t even matter that I hate it, too. I feel like the scapegoat, even when nothing has happened.
I see people claiming that detransitioners have to be understanding of the distrust they receive. I see people hissing about how detransitioned lesbians need to take responsibility for destroying the lesbian community. I see people treating detransitioned men like rehabilitated predators.
How much of ourselves do we have to sacrifice before we become people again?
How much deference is required before we are forgiven?
No wonder so many detransitioners turn to religion.
In spaces where we are critiquing ideology, I only feel equal to other detransitioners.
I attended the LGB Alliance Conference last week. My motivation to go to events like these is the desire to be around people who understand how destructive gender identity ideology can be. But the experience of actually being there usually isn’t what I expect.
People talk about how horrible it is to be medicalizing gender nonconformity, and I sit there, in my permanently medicalized body, knowing they are talking about my experience without ever having lived it.
They aren't wrong. It is horrible. But the longer I sit there and listen to it, the more shame I feel about everything I've been through; the more separate I feel from everyone else in the audience. It’s not discourse to me. It's my life, forever. I will die in this medically altered body.
This time, I am able to do about 90 minutes before needing my first break. I shuffle my way out of the room and sit out in the main area to wait for my friend Ritchie, who hasn't arrived quite yet. When he gets there, the energy shifts for me. It feels safer. I feel more like a person. I’m less in my head and more present.
When I inevitably have to leave, I don’t know how to bring that feeling home with me. What I do bring home is the sense that something has been ripped out of my chest and left a hole even the Atlantic couldn’t fill.
In the meantime, I am slowly finding a place for myself outside of gender-focused spaces.
I don’t really talk about my detransition in my daily life. I know I am markedly different – the voice is hard to ignore and the people in my dance class have surely realized I don’t have breasts – but people tend not to ask questions. (This means they make assumptions instead, but it’s good practise letting go of what other people think.)
I am resentful of the position I’ve put myself in with advocacy, but I’m still here because I don’t think I’m finished yet.
Onwards.