Thread by @reclaimingtrans

#DetransAwarenessDay I no longer identify as detransitioned because I associate that term/identity with a very painful time in my life, when I was stuck in an anti-trans political cult and doing conversion practices on myself. I hurt myself and other people and have many regrets.

Still, I could technically count as a “detransitioner” because I took t and then stopped. I didn’t start calling myself detransitioned until after I converted to transphobic feminism. Before that, I saw taking t temporarily as part of a genderqueer transition.

Detransitioning for me was all about trying to “de-trans” myself, trying to dismantle and dissect my transness and retrain my mind to see myself only as a woman/lesbian. So I associate being detransitioned with being an “ex-trans” person.

Before I converted to transphobic feminism, I was happy with how taking t had changed my body. I just didn’t like how I passed exclusively as a man because I see myself as multiple genders and want to seen as such by other people.

After I converted to transphobic feminism and started seeing myself as a detrans woman instead of a genderqueer dyke, I started feeling like my transition had ruined my life. I thought I had changed my body due to self-hatred and that my body was marked by that hatred forever.

I needed help figuring out how to live as a genderqueer fagdyke in a transphobic society that sorts people into rigid sex/gender categories and punishes everyone who deviates. I didn’t need anti-trans feminism to teach me that I’d damaged myself by transitioning.

I didn’t need to spend years trying to live up to transphobic feminism’s idea of what a woman should be. I really regret my time living as a detrans woman. I regret promoting conversion practices and TERF bullshit. I’m sorry for the harm I caused during that time in my life.

I’ve been genderfluid all my life but I spent around six years telling myself that parts of my gender wasn’t real and trying to suppress those parts so I could “reconcile with being female”, heal past trauma and be a “radical lesbian”. It was all just "ex-trans" nonsense.

I never stopped being a genderweirdo, I never stopped feeling like a man and a genderfreak in addition to feeling like a dyke. Trying to only be a butch woman didn’t heal or liberate me, it just lead to hurting myself and role-playing “feminist womynhood”.

I’m back to being happy with my transitioned body. I enjoy being a genderqueer dyke with a beard who’s also a man sometimes. I’ve found people who can see and appreciate me in all my complexity and I work to make space for others to be who/what they are, whatever that is.

I relate a lot to detrans people who are trans-friendly and/or still consider themselves trans but I don’t call myself detrans anymore because of how my detransition was a kind of conversion practice. The term carries way too many bad associations for me.

Retrans is a better term to help describe how I came to be where I am now but I still feel like discussions, resources and activism concerning detransition are relevant to me. I don’t have to call myself detrans to have a stake in how detransition is talked about.

Nowadays, I speak out against ideologically motivated detransition and anti-trans conversion practices while also working towards creating better resources for those who detransition, retransition or otherwise have non-linear transitions.

I just want people to get what they need to live free and happy, whatever that looks like. After having spent years hurting myself to conform to some bullshit idea of “womynhood”, self-determination and autonomy are more important to me than ever before.