Thread by @reclaimingtrans

Many cis people have an easier time seeing medical transition as harmful than seeing how detransitioning for the wrong reasons could fuck a trans person's life up. Transition as "mutilation" makes more sense to them than detransition as a kind of "conversion therapy".

Cis people aren't rushing to protect young trans people from anti-trans groups trying to recruit them into transphobic ideologies and teach them how to suppress who they are. They can't see how much denying one's transness can hurt a person because they don't value trans life.

Many cis people are freaked out by how many trans people are finally coming out but they're not willing to see their discomfort for what it is, so they rationalize it. Anti-trans detransition stories help them justify their disgust/discomfort with trans people and transition.

It was so easy to get many cis people to take my detransition story at face value. Plenty of people have no trouble believing trauma could cause a person to experience gender dysphoria and transition. Doesn't matter that there's basically no evidence to back that up.

But hey, who needs research or other such evidence when you have a person using their own lived experience to "prove" what you already thought was true? Let's just ignore that they started telling that story after converting to transphobic feminist ideology.

Trans people and some trans allies were some of the only people to call bullshit. They could tell something was up, even if they didn't get the whole picture. But a lot of cis people, including liberals, would dismiss their concerns about transphobic detrans stories like mine.

When trans people got justifiably angry at some of the articles I appeared in as a detrans woman, many would dismiss them as trying to "censor" voices like mine. But they weren't censoring a random detrans person, they were responding to how detransition stories can be misused.

They were absolutely correct to respond with anger and resistance. I don't think they even had enough information to fully get what a threat I was but they sensed enough to know that there was something wrong. They were right and I'm glad they could see the harm I was doing.

I was in fact an anti-trans activist promoting conversion practices dressed up as feminism. I definitely didn't see myself as anti-trans, I was pretty brainwashed which meant I came off as very sincere which made me more likable. My earnestness actually made me more dangerous.

And again, so many cis people were willing to accept what I was saying because it aligned with their own transphobia. It's like they were waiting for someone like me to appear. They didn't look beyond the surface of my story because they wanted it to be true so badly.

Transphobic cis people (including liberals and leftists) liked my detransition story, while many trans people could see through it and tell it was a form of anti-trans propaganda. Trans people have to learn to recognize threats and they figured out what my deal was.

I wasn't happy with how many trans people responded to me when I was a detrans rad fem but now I'm very glad they could recognize what I was and resist. They were right, what I was doing was wrong and harmful. Pushing back also put more pressure on me to change my ways.

Which I eventually did. Because I asked myself why trans people's reactions made me so mad and I realized the response I actually wanted from trans people was empathy and eventually I realized that if I wanted that reaction I would have to change myself and change a lot.

Trans people's resistance to my past anti-trans activism was one of many things that eventually pushed me to reconsider what I was doing. It helped fuel my questions amd doubts. They weren't "censoring" me, they were criticizing my behavior and that ended up helping me.

I needed people to challenge my story and I needed to see the impact of my actions, how they were hurting others. Those challenges helped push me to see how I was hurting too, how my choices weren't working for myself or other people. I needed people to tell me I was wrong.

All those cis people who loved my story when I was detrans, they weren't helping me with their attention and praise. They were rewarding me for helping them justify their bigotry, helping them feel better about themselves. Trans people's criticism helped wake me the fuck up.

Unlearning transphobia can be a challenge even for trans people, as I know from my own life. There's so much transphobia that seems "reasonable" but is actually destructive & cruel. It needs to be challenged until people start questioning their own biases instead of trans people.