Thread by @RoisinMichaux

Detransitioners at @genspect conference w/ Jet London @funkgodartist Michelle Alleva @TullipR, Camille Kiefel, @helenakerschner, moderated by @BenjaminABoyce. The panellists start by taking us through the timeline of diagnoses, hormones, and surgeries 1/
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@TullipR talks about getting lovebombed as a detransitioner. He worries about trans-identifying people who want to detransition - he talks about going public being a really bad way to deal with the trauma he's been through. 2/
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Detrans is more psychological, emotional and even spiritual than it is physical, says @funkgodartist. "Transition is a maladaptive coping mechanism. She agrees "detransition" is not an ideal word - thinks of herself more of a medical trauma survivor. 3/
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She says that she doesn't like the martyr/saviour label that they often get from the public, but "detransitioner" is neutral. "I feel like I've been used politically," says Camille Kiefer, who suffers complications from a "non-binary double mastectomy". 4/
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What does detransition mean to you? "Getting out of that obsession about your presentation and how other people perceive you," says Jet London. @helenakerschner says being a public detransitioner is not for the faint-hearted. She worries for other detransitioners 5/

She adds, "I felt a massive moral compulsion to talk about it - but there has to be a way to talk about it without going public." She says there's a real danger of getting straight into another belief system. 5/
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@TullipR and Camille talk about the commodification of detrainsitioners. She recounts being billed second at a speaking event because her story was less powerful. Ritchie kept being asked to "testify". Some journalists act really entitled, he says 7/
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Michelle Alleva says "None of us have been trained in public speaking" or talking to the media. And they put pressure on themselves to get better at it. "The media presents us as 'ruined'", says Camille Kiefer. "Lots of trauma porn" says @TullipR 8/
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Unfortunately therapy will only take you so far, says @TullipR. He says he was once introduced on a show by the presenter who said, "So Ritchie, you ruined your life!". (He's a little bit right, he concedes, but not totally)
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What helps you? asks @BenjaminABoyce. Other detransitioners, says @TullipR without missing a beat, "..trauma bonding." We are very much guinea pigs, he says, because nobody knows what to do about detransitioners. 10/
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@funkgodartist says interviewers focus on the most traumatic parts of detrainsitioners' stories - and then they will ask: "Are you happy now?" Every interview, she says, ends with the story in the present, but the future is not discussed.

"Journalists escalate the chaos" 11/

Jet was diagnosed and treated in the Dutch system - and totally trusted the clinicians. But the treatment never worked. She didn't function for 7 years and couldn't figure out why. Detransition brought clarity: "I was a woman pretending to be a man, on heavy drugs." 12/

She was eager to speak to journalists - especially since she was treated by @amsterdamumc, where puberty blockers were first tested on kids. But after she burned out, she had to stop. 13/ #GenspectBiggerPicture

Helena Kerschner: "I was a true believer. I was one of those people with an anime avatar." After the scales fell from her eyes, she couldn't trust herself anymore. The "answer-seeking" mission detransitioners go on is a risk for falling down another rabbit hole, she says. 14/

An abundance mindset, says @funkgodartist, helps to cope. Michelle Alleva mentions an article called (I think) "The opposite of gender dysphoria", in which a woman talks about how a hike helped her love her body. 15/ #GenspectBiggerPicture

Jet London thinks the hormones, particularly puberty blockers, were the thing that caused her disassociation. She stopped taking testosterone only 10 months ago. She feels like she is finally going through her *own* natural sexual development. 16/ #GenspectBiggerPicture

I was always denying my femininity, says Camille Kiefel, and now I have embraced it. Fashion helps, she says. 17/ #GenspectBiggerPicture

The conference room is completely hushed. Detransitioners talking about the major and minor griefs and losses they've experienced - it's just so powerful while @EuropeanPATH, meeting in the same town today, talk about perpetuating the same harm. Unbelievable. 18/