Thread by @graceelavery

Re. the Cass report: the framing of trans civil rights claims in the UK comes down to a matter of whether you think transition is a tragic outcome, or a good one. I think it’s a good one. I am moved, galvanized, aroused, and intrigued when people take control of their own bodies.

The focus on detransitioners—to whom, bon courage!!—seems designed to nourish a fantasy that transition produces sad, deluded, thwarted, unfuckable, sick, barren weirdos. That fantasy, of course, serves those who might at some point have wanted to transition, and didn’t.

When J. K. Rowling says that she opposes patient-led healthcare for trans-identifying minors bc they might have “transed” her as a kid, one can sense, under the frantic contempt, a kind of envy. I can see why.

I’ve tended to argue that there are no trans people, only transitions; that the inclination to transition probably exists to some degree in everyone—at least, it is the norm rather than the exception. That’s an unpopular idea, obviously—we’re skeptical of Freudian universalism.

But whatever: coming out of the Cass report, we need to be able to defend transition as such. Not as a condescending entitlement for a pitiable few, but as a practice of freedom central to the dignity and potential of the human species.

If you like people who have transitioned, perhaps you like aspects of them that have been actualized through practices of bodily autonomy, techniques of transitions acquired and practiced freely. We need to get used to celebrating transition. It is a good thing.

And maybe that means holding the door open slightly longer for Rowling to speculate about what her life might have been like had she chosen a different path. We’re all entitled to regret, resentment, and ambivalence. But there’s a reason why rates of regret are so low.

Tell trans people you admire them today. We are not delusional, we are not subjects of social contagion, we are not entryists or creeps or rapists. We know what we’re doing and we are very grateful that we can do it. Shut up or get out of our way.