Detransitioners - Tumblr Posts
The problem isn't detransitioners, the problem is how some detransitioners are using their stories and using entryism to join forces with the far right and deny trans healthcare.
I'm a detransitioner and tbh my experience only made me more supportive of trans people and understanding of their experiences.
Like, you wanna know why I detransitioned? Because presenting as male gave me real gender dysphoria and made me uncomfortable in my skin. I would tear my clothes away and desperately grasp my curves and my boobs and my pussy to make sure they were still there. I would go into public imagining that others were perceiving me as male and, despite pressuring myself to feel otherwise, feel extremely uncomfortable with the notion.
He/him made me feel a pang of dread and unease.
And now, unlike most cis people, I know what gender dysphoria feels like. And I'm going to use that knowledge to fight for my trans siblings.
Someone anonymously messaged me to tell me that writing about detrans folks makes me a traitor to trans people, because all detrans people want to push conversion therapy on us and forcibly detransition us.
That’s precisely the kind of narrative that ends up pushing detransitioners into the arms of TERFs and the religious far-right.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with detransitioning. Sometimes people realize that transitioning no longer suits them, or never really did. And that’s fine.
When we systematically push them away regardless of their politics, we make people feel like the only places they can get support are among transphobes. That’s not a good thing. Building de/trans solidarity is an critical tool for disarming anti-trans movements.
Detransitioners don’t deserve vitriol for that alone. You tried changing your gender but didn’t like it? Your goals changed! That’s completely fine! You still deserve love. You still deserve care. Not everything is for everyone, and not everyone has to go all the way.
- signed, a detrans