Ftm detransitioner - ask me anything

[Dyl101]

Hello. The recent clash of feminists v the radical trans lobby has been shocking and troubling. As someone who once identified as a trans man, spent years in therapy, changed my whole identity and appearance, I once would have been 100% behind self ID and the changes to the GDPR. However, I have since renounced much of my previous opinions and have gone so far the other way I am often described as a "terf" online. This is for simply holding rational views that being a woman is not a feeling but a biological reality for most and must be protected as a sex class.

Also as a detransitioner, I found some of the rhetoric I found myself believing very sexist and contrary to anything I had previously thought, that gender was a social construct. In addition, the stuff online (youtube/forums) makes transition seem like a wonderful, freeing way to truly be yourself, and I worry about what impact this narrative will have on impressionable young people.

Anyway, feel free to ask me anything.

Thanks for providing a thoughtful answer.

Do you have a support system around you that you can rely on?

nauticant Sadly not so much. Complex PTSD can make you very distrustful of others, but I have a very supportive workplace, and a wonderful brother.

Nothing to ask. Wish you happiness OP.

Are there any online communities of detransitioned women? I'd imagine if they exist they'd have to keep a very low profile and be very on guard against infiltration.

nauticant Not that I know of, but I haven't really been looking, I try to stay away from those sorts of things now, and just live my life as best I can. I have felt more compelled to speak up recently due to what has been going on recently with the whole terf v radical lobby, but I still do it anonymously and admire the woman who do speak out and face a backlash.

Hi Dyl thankyou for your contributions on here, it's been very informative.

Just one point I'd like to pick up on is you say you believe some people are born trans so I wondered if you can describe what being born trans looks like?

From reading the accounts of trans people there always seem to be some nurturing and/or environmental reason that could explain the gender dysphoria. Some I've noted are abusive or dysfunctional childhoods, overbearing (Munchhausen?) mothers, homophobic bullying from care givers and/or peers, rejection or exclusion due to being gender non conforming, schools or parents promoting rigid gender roles and feeling different due to being neurodiverse.

Thingybob Well, I guess the best way to explain it is because I know gender dysphoria is real, and how powerful it feels. And while many people like me have other factors like you say which could influence their decisions, I know some people describe feeling dysphoria from a really young age, like literally some of the first things that they remember. Others try for years, literally 30-40 years, sometimes much longer, to live in their own sex, before they have no choice. They have tried everything, explored all avenues, had therapy, dealt with issues, are happy with their lives in all other aspects, but just cannot shift the dysphoria. So in these cases, I don't know if being born trans is the right terminology, but I believe transition is correct and necessary.

Thanks for your reply. I'm glad you found the therapy supportive even though it must have been uncomfortable and challenging at the time. This is something that worries me a lot around child and teenager transitions especially: that therapy that needs to challenge and open up the bigger picture of why the person wishes to transition is hard and uncomfortable and difficult for them - which can make it feel like something that should be avoided out of kindness instead of seeing that discomfort as a sign there are things that need unpacking for the person to feel better in the long term.

I am sorry to hear about the PTSD, it's a hellish condition.

Thank you for your answer - it makes great sense to focus on all the other aspects of a young person's life - not just the being trans part. I presume that's why the transgender trend suggests that schools shouldn't have special assemblies and focus on a child's decision - it must be so difficult for a child / teenager to change their mind if a whole school has been told of your new identity etc.

You sound so insightful about what has happened to you. Wishing you the very best future

Thanks for your reply Dyl. Yes I accept some people do feel dysphoric from a very young age and I believe I was, although it wasn't called dysphoria in my day. In my case I think it was due to not being accepted as GNC, living in a family with traditional views regarding gender roles and being expected to adhere to those gender norms (I do believe some people are born with an innate predisposition to be GNC) I would imagine it is similar for others who have early memories of dysphoria

Anyway regardless of any causal factors I accept how distressing dysphoria must be and agree it is correct and necessary to treat some adults but also think it's also correct to explore other avenues initially.

Wishing you self acceptance and happiness.

I wish you all the best OP. Thank you for the thread.
I wondered if you or any other detranisitioned people you know might feel that it should be part of the remit of the big charities who offer support or advocacy to trans people, to also provide support to detranisitioned people too? Or maybe you feel there should be some kind of standalone organisation specifically set up for detranisitioned people?
I am conscious that there doesn’t seem to be much at all out there in terms of visible professional support available. Or you may feel one to one psychotherapy and peer support are more valuable forms of support, I don’t know, hope you don’t mind me asking.

Hi, I am the parent of a 13 year old who has recently old me she is trans. She is not in a rush to socially transition but wants to bind. She gets very distressed by her periods, I am thinking of asking the gp for the pill so she can have less periods.

My questions: how do I tell if this (transgender) is what she really wants/ who she really is? How do I support her? Do I ask for a clinic referral (there is an 18 month wait).

Thank you for your bravery in discussing this issue.

ChattyLion No I don't mind at all. I feel as a group (which is growing and will only continue to grow) we are completely erased from the narrative, as we don't fit the happy rainbow imagine that some of the lobby like to portray, and I do come across hostility, from activists, not from trans people. How could it work, I really don't know, I can't see some of the charities wanting to work with detransitioners. But I think it would help, especially for young people who may be wanting to stop, but feel so wrapped up in it all among their social group and identity etc that it may be really hard to.

I think also maybe the charities and lobby groups have more of a duty to also acknowledge that we exist, because people questioning their identity need the full story, not just success stories.

BrizzleMint No I haven't, I'm very private and keep to myself, but it's good that more detransitioners are speaking out. We are often completely ignored in the narrative.

I think it's important that we all listen to people who are detransitioning as well as those who are transitioning. The programme The Making of Me was fascinating as it put across the views and experiences of real people who were going through the processes rather than the domineering TWAW brigade who cause no end of trouble for the majority of TW/TM.

BanginChoons You sound really understanding and that you want the best for her. I don't really have many answers because I don’t know her and it's such a difficult topic and I don't really feel qualified to say but she is really young and doesn't need to rush in to anything. It already sounds like you are supporting her and trying to make it easier so right now you may not know if this is something temporary or not so just continue being supportive, while encouraging her with other aspects/interests in her life, as gender identity can became all consuming.

Thank you for writing so honestly and articulately

Thank you so much for sharing all of this. There must be so many women like you who have been caught up by the trans train. We need people like you to speak up because it shows young women and girls that there is a way forward that doesn't involve changing their bodies.

OP thank you for making this thread. I admire your bravery in speaking out. I’m a prideful little shit and I personally know I would find it difficult. I have a couple of questions if you would be so kind.

I’ve been on and off a lot of medication, and I wondered, when you went on Testosterone, were there side affects?

Also, unrelated, When I read about issues surrounding transitioning and identifying as trans, 99% of the narrative seems to be centred around the experiences and needs of MtF. Did you find this, and did you find as a female transitioning to a male identity, that you were overshadowed and felt marginalized in comparison to MtF transitioners?

My apologies if you respond this evening and I don’t get to see it until tomorrow.

Thanks for taking the time. I’m American and frankly horrified of what’s going on over here. I have 2 major questions:

1. Do you think it will ever be possible to tell the difference between someone who should and should not transition physically, before it is too late? And to follow up what’s your view on the ethics of allowing transition either for teens or for adults vs gatekeeping?

1. Given your view has changed so much, but you used to be indistinguishable from the pro-trans social media crowd, I’ve always wanted to see some sort of documentation of this, cataloging the social contagion/unwarranted belief aspect. I feel it could be so useful to show that someone who is set on transition can change.

1. Sorry one more. It seems like detransition rates are likely way underestimated, because resisters / detrans will just stop going to the clinic, whereas those who persist will continue to need medical care. Have you thought about contacting your docs to let them know what happened to you? I just think it could make a big difference to their practice to realize this actually can occur.

Someone on mn made the point that groups like mermaids don't offer support to the detransitioners.

Is there any official support on this.

Thank you for posting here and answering all these questions I also admire and encourage you in your healing and life path.

I'm curious what your interactions with LGBTQ groups. Did you join a student org. or support/social scene in real life? I've heard of some instances where adult MtF people really influencing young women and even pressuring them to be accepting as lesbians. Did you ever believe that penis can be female?

Dyl, almost all the detransition stories that I've come across have been young women, often around their mid-twenties. Do you have any feeling for whether it's more common amongst women or whether male regret/detransition rates are similar?

Whatisthisfuckery - I don’t want to go in to too much detail about T as I don’t feel I have the expertise, and was on it for such a short time. Also, it is hard to find accurate information about the long term effects, but one thing I do think is that given I have a number of pre-existing gynecological issues, I believe it would have caused me some serious side effects had I stayed on it long term.

With regards to your second question, that is exactly how I experienced it. I myself didn’t really know trans men existed until my teenage years, and the narrative is almost entirely around M2F. Figures I guess given the sexism is society… I found even among LGBT circles, there was a huge ignorance around f2ms, to the extent that I was once at a LGBT social with another transman in his 40s, and he mentioned he had a girlfriend. A few people asked him why he was there, and he said he was trans, and the reactions was shock because he looked so male etc. So most people don’t really know anything about trans man at all, and it’s quite sad.

FWRLurker – That is a very hard question, and it is something I have thought about, especially for trans women as once they have gone though puberty the changes are much harder to reserve/to pass. I don’t know if we will ever really know, but I think honest dialog will help, which is what is lacking now. We need to identity children and adults to who have histories of child abuse and trauma etc, or even homophobic bullying and other issues which may be influencing their decision, and work through those before any medical changes are made. I don’t know too much about how it works with children, but I imagine for parents it must be really difficult,

My view has changed, but I can’t deny I was lucky that my dysphoria has eased to a certain extent. But don’t get me wrong, I do think there are extreme elements on both sides, and I don’t agree with people who call trans women men for example. However, I think that women as a sex class should be a protected characteristic, and that the protections and rights women have fought for need to be upheld, so my opinion has shifted in that sense. In the past I would have seen that as bigoted. Listening to talks from feminists and reading blogs and posts about these issues and taking part in the discussions also played a part in shifting my opinion. I found a lot of the trans lobby lacking in logic, it was just, you disagree, so you are a transphobe.

No. Due to personal reasons I have a distrust of the medical profession in general, and only contact them on a need to know basis.

Thanks for sharing your experiences on here Dyl101. One of the things that first alerted me to the inherent misogyny in the TRA world was how all the campaigns focused so much on the MtF experience, rather than the FtM. It seems like some kind of warped misogyny to me where, again, even in the trans world where we are supposed to believe that there is a leftist enlightened perspective, the male point of view predominates and the needs of biological females are overlooked.

I’m glad you found your way to happiness in some way without putting your body through surgery and other medical extremes. You sound like you are in a very healthy place now.

It’s so sad that so many young girls are being led down the trans path rather than being reassured that a lot of us females struggle with the biological reality of being female and feel body dysphoria of some kind in adolescence.

Coming to terms with having an adult female body is hard, due to the reproductive role that biology forces us into, and when you add in the social pressure of gender expectations, the harassment young women experience, abuse, sexism and discrimination, it’s no wonder a lot of young girls think transitioning to male might be the answer they need. It would be great to hear more from detransitioners like you who have seen the other side of the trans agenda.