I started speaking out about the dangers of medicalizing gender in 2019. I had spent the previous two years understanding the subculture that had grown around the notion of transgenderism. Apparently being “trans” was noble. Being “cis” meant you supported the white supremacist patriarchy. Apparently now gender dysphoria was a “cishet invention to pathologize transness”. Dysphoria was something you had to claim to have in order to access your “life saving” hormones and surgery. It was all foreign and confusing and full of contradictions. I felt like it made a mockery of my “real condition”. See I transitioned in 2010. Grateful for the relief it brought me and not interested in tribes or support groups, I got on with my life “as a man” and didn’t pay much mind to the culture of transition. That is until late 2017 when I re-immersed myself as a kind of religious studies student.
In addition to studying the culture that had arisen, I spent a lot of time reading stories from detransitioners. The detransitioners’ stories weren’t foreign or confusing. They sounded like my own. A lifelong sense of ‘supposed to be’ the opposite sex, and then learning this meant they were the opposite sex and transition was the only solution. Except it didn’t work. They felt more uncomfortable on the other side. Some felt like they were living a lie and presenting as the opposite sex was an act they no longer wanted to keep up; mentally, physically, or ethically. Unlike the aforementioned religious zealots, the detransitioners were easy to relate and empathize with.
So why did it work for me? And what does “work” even mean in this context? I have no idea. And certainly not for lack of trying to find the answer. I’ve now clocked over six yeas on a deep-dive into gender, dysphoria, detransition, sexology, psychology, etc. and I still don’t know. What I do know is there was no difference between us that could have been discerned by a “gender therapist” prior to transitioning, even back when things were “more careful”. The activists who came of age since 2010 are not just in the gender clinics, they are writing the guidelines for every therapist. They are told that to ask questions that might get to the root of someone’s gender related distress is “conversion therapy”. That “trans people” know what their gender is and to do anything but affirm them is akin to homophobia. We’re told detranisioners are just the rare few who were confused and got their gender wrong. While sad, sure, we shouldn’t weaponize them to punish “real” trans people.
So I am here as a “real trans person” to call bullshit. No one was “born in the wrong body” and sex trait modification is not “life saving care”. Some of us feel it was a net benefit, but recognize it was a serious medical intervention for what is a strictly psychological issue. There is no difference between a “trans person” and a “cis person” other than declared self-identity. If you are reading this, I’m fairly certain you agree. And yet, while attending the 2023 Trans Health Summit, I asked the trans and nonbinary 30 something doctors writing the American Psychological Association’s “Guidelines for Working with Trans and Gender Expansive Patients” how therapists can differentiate between a “trans child” and a “cis child”. I was told only a transphobe would even think to try.
In 2021, I began working with a friend and early gender clinic whistle-blower, Aaron Kimberly, who likewise does not regret transition. Together we launched the Gender Dysphoria Alliance and the Transparency Podcast. The aim of both is to shed light on the experience of gender dysphoria, without all the ideological noise that now surrounds it. Since then, we have gotten countless messages from parents, teachers, administrators, etc. thanking us for speaking out. Jamie Reed credited the podcast with helping her summon the courage to blow the whistle on her gender clinic. People have emailed us to say they decided not to transition or to detransition, crediting our content with them understanding their own motivations better. Mothers have told us their daughters dissisted after being shown the podcast. Personally I suspect that’s because most these girls have no interest in looking like middle-age men and being shown we aren’t cute K-Pop boys has them running from the testosterone. We’re happy to help either way!
However, we have also gotten criticism from Gender Critical activists who feel that by not detransitioning we are advertising transition. I would agree with them on this, if not for the fact of the culture we currently live in. The people with this criticism seem completely disconnected from the realities I described above. We live in a culture that celebrates all things trans while demonizing any investigation into it. There is no shortage of transition encouragement surrounding gender distressed individuals. What there is a shortage of is people telling them the truth from a position of compassion and empathy.
I am grateful to work alongside anyone productively working to interrupt this ideology. But just like how I didn’t need the trans tribes or support groups all those years ago, I don’t need gender critical ones now. If you don’t feel comfortable working with people who do not regret their transition, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I think it’s misguided strategically for the reasons I already mentioned, but I do understand it. I will keep writing and podcasting and trying to sound alarms, alone or with friends and colleagues, and I firmly believe the most productive way to do so is to continue to lean on my standing as a “trans person”.
For what it's worth, I very much appreciate hearing your perspectives and experiences Aaron. As a lifetime disaffected progressive, I truly need to understand how someone like you in mid-life feels and experiences your choices about medicalizing when younger. I have a friend who underwent medical transition 17 or 18 years ago. At the time, I didn't think anything of it beyond the fact that my friend seemed very happy about it. We are in different cities and rarely communicate. C was a very young butch lesbian fan of my music in the early 1990s when we first met--an important fan for me, and my music was deeply important for C. (I am avoiding pronouns, awkward as that is.) I have done some writing and songs with "gender critical" content in the past few years, a few on large platforms, though very little on Twitter. But before I went public with my views, I checked in with C. C has been on my mailing list for decades. I wanted C to know that I was going to be standing up and expressing my views, that I felt I must. C was not interested in my request to talk about the subject, but was very polite, expressing how my music was part of C's journey. I asked if I should take C off my mailing list, and was cheerfully told "no, I love your music." C seems to me to be very happy and on a good path in life. I have no idea how C sees this issue--and I actually have no need to. C has no obligation to tell me. C is just enjoying life and making life better for others in C's work. So whatever views and opinions I have been reading and trying on for myself regarding All Things Trans, I have had C sitting on my shoulder, smiling at me beatifically. Someone in my heart, though someone I am not in much contact with. C reminds me that I don't have to have a "place" or a "tribe," in this fraught conversation. More than anything, I just need to be real and create beauty. So hearing from you and Aaron and others is so helpful, for me. Thank you for sharing your truth.
You guys gave me the courage to speak out. I am a butch lesbian who was misgendered all the time as a kid. Transing kids is a human rights issue that is going to blow back on all of the LGBT so speaking up is key.