Thread by @reclaimingtrans

I became aware of transmasculine people and the possibility of medical transition when I was 15, back in 2000 or so. Not long after I came across the idea that afab people were transitioning because it was "trendy" and heard about "butch flight".

People have been scaremongering about transition being a trend, especially among afab people, for decades now. It's just transphobia, it's just a way to discourage transmasculine people and other trans people assigned female from transitioning and/or coming out as trans.

As someone who's both butch and trans and experienced significant body dysphoria, the whole panic about "butch flight" & "transition as a trend" really fucked with my head. Especially since my sense of gender can change day to day. How was I supposed to make sense of my feelings?

Lots of people seem to have an easy time imagining a cis butch dyke transitioning to live as a trans man because it's supposedly easier (it's not). But they can't imagine a genderfluid butch with dysphoria wishing that they could just accept their body like most cis butch women.

When I look back on my detransition, I see it as an attempt to become a cis butch lesbian. I wanted to be a cis dyke instead of someone who felt like a butch woman somedays and a man the next or sometimes both at the same time. I was trying to just be one gender instead of many.

Coming across older butch cis women talking about how they might have transitioned when they were younger but were glad it wasn't an option because now they were proud butch women made me think I might be able to work through my dysphoria without transitioning.

And when I did take t to alleviate my body dysphoria but passing as a man all the time felt wrong, when I started to miss being seen as a dyke, the "butch flight" narrative made me feel like I'd fucked up. I thought I'd made the wrong choice about how to manage my dysphoria.

I thought that there was something wrong with me because these other butches had found a way to accept their bodies without transitioning. But later when I detransitioned and spent years hanging out with a lot of older cis butches, I realized I was actually different from them.

The discomfort some older cis butches had with being woman and/or female before they were able to find self-acceptance is not the same as the dysphoria I felt about my body prior to transitioning. My experience of being butch and being female is not the same as theirs.

I needed to transition to feel at peace with my body and be the kind of butch I am. I also needed to accept that I was genderfluid/multigendered, that I could be a man and a genderqueer person and that didn't conflict with being butch or female. I needed to accept all that I am.

Figuring my deal out has been complicated because while taking t alleviated my body dysphoria, it made my social dysphoria worse because passing as a man all the time makes me feel invisible. Prior to medical transition, I was more gender ambiguous and that felt better.

One of the things that helped me retransition was the growing acceptance of nonbinary people. It's a lot easier to explain what I am to people now. Before I felt like I had to choose between feeling comfortable in my body and being read as the gender(s) I am. Now I don't.

When I was younger I got the message that I had to choose between transitioning and living as a trans man or living as a cis butch dyke and struggling with body dysphoria that might go away someday if I tried hard enough. Now I feel like I have way more options.

The "butch flight" and "transition as a trend" narratives hurt so many people. They completely erase butch trans women, accuse trans men of transitioning for male privilege and/or to escape misogyny, imply you can use "alternative treatments" to overcome dysphoria, and so on.

The idea that transition is "trendy" is just transphobic propaganda to discourage people from transitioning and make trans people's identities seem suspect. It's disinformation that makes it harder for dysphoric people to figure out what they need to be happy.

Countering the idea that transition is some of kind attack on butchness creates more space for butches to thrive, both for genderqueer butches like me & also for butch trans women. It's long past time to recognize how the "butch flight" narratives harms butch trans women too.

For those interested in hearing a butch trans women's thoughts on "butch flight" and about her experience of butchness in general, check out Amy Fox's essay "Changed Sex. Grew Boobs. Started Wearing a Tie" in Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme.

Reading Fox's essay and hearing her perspective on the "butch flight" panic after I retransitioned was helpful. It resonated with my own experience as a genderqueer butch trying to navigate conflicting messages and demands in lesbian, trans, queer and butch/femme communities.

Writing by butch trans women can still be hard to find, so please feel free to recommend more! I'm trying to learn more about butch trans women and do what I can to include them in conversations about butchness and how it can intersect with being trans.

I sense I probably have more in common with butch trans women overall than I do with many transmasculine people. That's another problem with "butch flight" narratives, they can keep butches apart while implying connections to transmasculinity that might not actually be there.

We don't need moral panics about transition or butches going extinct. We need recognition of how diverse butch and trans experience can be. And we need culture and resources that center the well-being of trans people & others exploring their genders. We all need space to be free.

When I was still detrans and struggling to be something I'm not, I contributed to harmful narratives about "butch flight". Now I want to resist those narratives and undo the harm they cause. They hurt too many people rather than leading to self-acceptance.

I'm so tired about hearing about how transition is a "trend" and butches are "going extinct". No, we're not. We're just not what transphobes want us to be. Having the option to transition or explore our genders makes us freer. And there's more butch diversity then ever before.