Thread by @reclaimingtrans

The first communities for detrans women weren't places for people who realized they "weren't really trans" but for AFAB people who believed their trans identity was rooted in trauma and misogyny and were looking for "alternative treatments for gender dysphoria".

They were "support groups" for people assigned female who experienced a trans identity they didn't want and were trying to overcome so they could "accept that they were women". "Reconciling with being female" was the "treatment" and the goal of being in such spaces.

It was assumed that members of such groups experienced dysphoria and the urge to transition and that they were using the spaces to deal with those feelings without transition or living as a trans person. We were "helping" each other live as women instead of as trans people.

We were "helping" each other reframe our experiences and feelings to go from a trans identity to a female identity. We were "helping" each other locate the "root causes" of our dysphoria in trauma and living in a patriarchal society that hated lesbians and women.

We encouraged each other to internalize transphobic radical feminist theories and apply them to our own lives. Many of us also believed our dysphoria and trans identities were dissociative symptoms that came from trauma. Dysphoria as dissociation was one of our main theories.

Many of us were trauma survivors and many of us had experienced homophobic and sexist abuse, violence or other mistreatment. We associated our pain with being trans and/or transitioning. We were trying to heal real pain with radical feminism and anti-trans conversion practices.

The detrans rad fem community allowed us to find others who'd had similar lived experiences, including surviving similar traumas. We were able to provide emotional support to each other but it was mixed up with political indoctrination and intense transphobia.

A lot of us did feel some kind of important connection to womanhood or being butch or a lesbian but we couldn't see a way of claiming that without disconnecting from being trans because we'd come to believe that being transmasc was inherently misogynistic and homophobic.

Whatever "reconciling with being female" meant to us, it was something real. About facing some past trauma or claiming an important part of ourselves but we thought that meant we had to reject another part of ourselves or our experiences, our supposedly "false" trans self.

But while we rejected being trans, when we talked about our past lives as trans people, we tended to emphasize how trans we used to be. I knew a few detrans women who boasted about how they used to be "classic transsexuals", had intense sex dysphoria from childhood, etc.

We saw ourselves as being the same as transmasc people only that we "knew" we were suffering from dissociation, trauma & internalized misogyny and they didn't. We thought any trans person could detransition if they "had their consciousness raised", "came out of dissociation" etc.

The transphobic lesbian feminist community loved us. They loved hearing our testimonials about how we used to be trans but then realized we were suffering from internalized misogyny and were now proud lesbian feminists. We received a lot of praise and were told how brave we were.

Many of us were looking for connection with elders and so being able to connect with older lesbian feminists, especially older butches, was also a draw for becoming a detrans woman. You became a part of not only the detrans women's community but also the larger les fem community.

Now it seems really obvious that I was an ex-trans person trying to use radical feminist ideology to heal my trauma and find community but it took me years to figure that out. For most of my detransition, I thought people who compared me to an ex-gay person were ridiculous.

Part of the problem was that I didn't know what conversion therapy or the ex-gay movement was like. And even if I did, when I was most enthusiastic about my detransition, I still would've denied any similarities. You get good at denial when you need to believe in something.

I'm lucky I came across stories of conversion therapy survivors while I was already starting to become disillusioned with my community and the larger transphobic feminist movement. It helped break through my denial but it still took me years to really accept what happened to me.

It's not just about finally admitting that shit's not working, it's also realizing the support you got and the community you found was actually toxic and harmful. In my case, I helped create that community & I had to face my role in creating something that hurt myself and others.

While I was figuring out that my detransition hadn't worked and was actually a kind of conversion practice, I was living with & dating a detrans woman who was still deeply invested in the ideology and community, who was also a founding leader of the detrans rad fem community.

I ended up keeping a lot of my thoughts & feelings to myself because if I tried to talk about stuff she'd freak out. There was plenty I didn't even try to bring up. I wasn't even ready to call myself trans but she'd ask me if I was trans again like it was a horrible thing to be.

That relationship & my position in the community made it a lot harder to leave. I received lots of encouragement to deny my doubts and disillusionment and stay detrans. I kept using "alternative treatments for gender dysphoria" while knowing on some level what I was really doing.

I just want to make it easier for people to see ideological detransition for what it is and make it easier to leave those groups. I don't want other people to end up being psychologically abused and trapped for years like I was. No one deserves that.

Trans people deserve resources and communities that actually help us accept who we are and heal from any trauma or pain we have. We deserve to get what we need to live well, not to have our needs be exploited to prop up transphobic ideologies.

Fighting anti-trans conversion practices is not just about resisting transphobic ideologies but also about providing trans people with more resources and support. Ex-trans groups thrive on unmet needs and unhealed pain, not just self-hatred.

The easier it is for trans people to get all our needs met by the society we live in, the less likely we'll be to hide or suppress who we are, the less likely we'll turn to conversion therapists or ideological detrans groups. Creating trans happiness is an act of resistance.