Thread by @reclaimingtrans

I recently found some emails from a therapist who reached out to me when I first started my old blog. They worked in trans health, thought there were too many AFAB people transitioning & wanted more psych screening. They wanted to use detrans people to argue for more gatekeeping.

I'd been detransitioning for under a year, not long enough to know if it was going work out for me in the long run, which it clearly didn't. I'd only been blogging for 2-3 months when this therapist contacted me. They never seemed to consider that I could change my mind again.

I detransitioned because I internalized a lot of transphobic ideas that ended up causing me a lot of suffering. A lot of what I said at the time I later ended up rejecting. Really I was a trans person about to make a lot of bad choices that I'm still recovering from.

People like that therapist didn't trust young trans people to know themselves and thought they needed more thorough assessments to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. But because what I said at the time aligned with their biases they never questioned or dug deeper.

It's so striking to me now how so many people who have "concerns" about people "transitioning for the wrong reasons" will question trans people's identities or desire to transition to death but accept detrans people's stories at face value if it fits with their beliefs/biases.

Having people so ready to act like I had everything figured out at the beginning of my detransition was all about confirming their fears and anxieties. They treated me like I was the evidence they'd been looking instead of a person who needed space to figure out what I needed.

The way they treated me was the opposite of what I needed. I needed people to let me be, give me space to grow and change, I needed people to gently challenge my belief that transition had messed my life up because that belief turned out to be irrational and harmful.

I needed people to help me alleviate my suffering, not try to use it restrict trans people's access to healthcare. If I had gotten real help though, I wouldn't have gotten involved in anti-transition activitism, I wouldn't have been useful to people who want more gatekeeping.

I didn't get what I needed. Instead I said and did a lot of things that hurt myself and other people. I deeply regret much of what I did during my detransition. People freak out so much about "transition regret" but can't seem to imagine that detransition could be disastrous.

I just wish people actually gave a shit about helping people get what they needed instead of being driven by their transphobic anxiety. So much "concern" about transition is really about indulging cis fears at the expense of trans and detrans people. It doesn't help anyone.