Thread by @reclaimingtrans

This is something I intend to write more about, how detrans rad fem narratives were very selectively quoted by other transphobes to promote their own anti-trans narratives while hiding the parts that were too fringe or didn't fit with their agenda.

https://twitter.com/reclaimingtrans/status/1491867100574633986

The leaders of the rad fem detrans community were largely focused on promoting lesbian separatist culture and spaces. Most transphobes aren't lesbian separatists and don't give a fuck about keeping lesbian separatist culture alive. They're weirded out by that shit too.

Most "ROGD" parents don't want their kids to grow up to be lesbian separatists anymore than they want them to be trans. Pretty much the only people who want more lesbian separatists are lesbian separatists. There's a reason they're worried about dying out.

And the version of lesbian separatism/radical feminism favored by the detrans rad fem community is fucking out there. It's not standard GC feminism. It draws from radical lesbian feminist culture that's pretty underground and intentionally inaccessible to most outsiders.

Some of what I used to believe seems very bizarre now. Patriarchy was supposed to be this false reality most people were trapped in without realizing. Most of us believed femininity was a creation of patriarchy and that being butch was closer to women's natural state.

Our concept of what a woman is was very different from most people's understanding. We believed part of why we couldn't see ourselves as women before was because the entire concept of womanhood we'd been sold was a lie meant to control us. The truth had been hidden from us.

We had to see through the patriarchal lies about what women are and see this secret reality in order to embrace womanhood. I basically went through a very trippy conversion experience and came to believe what now seems like lesbian separatist mysticism and conspiracy theories.

And the main way to see the secret truth of "liberated womynhood" was by going to lesbian separatist spaces and gatherings. Those were supposed be as close to patriarchy-free zones as you could get, where the "gynergy" flowed freely, and "female reality" could burst forth.

Creating & attending such lesbian separatist spaces was a huge part of detrans rad fem culture & one of its main ways of "helping" detrans women "reconcile with being female". They were certainly mind-altering experiences, though now I see it more as indoctrination, not healing.

Anyways, if people knew what detrans rad fems believed and did, most people would've seen us as weird ex-trans cult, as trans people being brainwashed and preyed on by transphobic lesbians. Not a sign that there's not enough gatekeeping or that transitioning is trendy.

So other transphobes just took the parts of our stories that they could use, buried the rest, & spoke over our protests & anger, while telling people to "listen to detransitioners". In reality, they were afraid of what people would hear if they heard our stories directly from us!

I know a certain journalist interviewed Max Robinson and heard all about her lesbian separatist beliefs and how she doesn't believe she's different from trans men, just has a different interpretation and way of managing dysphoria. None of that made it into the finished article.

Now more anti-trans detrans people talk about ROGD & push for more therapy but the early detrans rad fem community believed therapy was part of the patriarchy, that "ROGD" was bullshit and that many "ROGD" parents abused their kids and "made them trans".

We didn't trust transphobic parents, we didn't trust the conversion therapists that started reading our blogs to learn our tricks for managing dysphoria & we definitely wanted nothing to do with right-wing Christians! We didn't really trust anyone who wasn't a lesbian feminist.

We got along best with older lesbian feminists and separatists, went to their events and held gatherings on some of their "womyn's lands". Lesbian separatists are encouraged to give as much time and energy to other lesbians and the most of the rest of the world can fuck off.

It can produce a very dedicated group committed to their worldview and lifestyle and hostile to most outsiders but it's not so great at exerting influence in the society they're trying to detach from and leave behind. So it goes with culty world-rejecting subcultures.

One of the most bizarre parts of my experience is that detransition is now all over the media, but most of what I experienced has never gotten out into mainstream awareness. Most trans people don't even know how weird some anti-trans detrans groups are.

Part of it is because we kept a lot of our community's ideas and culture hidden from outsiders because we didn't trust them. But also transphobic people who did know about us and wanted to use our stories didn't want the whole truth to get out because it didn't benefit them.

Now it's interesting for me to think about what stories and information from my old community was picked up by others and spread & what wasn't and why. What did others find useful & what did they ignore or suppress? It's something I want to write about as I make sense of my past.