I feel stupid for supporting trans activists and now I have no one to talk to

[Redead]

I might get flamed for saying this. I just had no one to be honest with. All of my friends are on the liberal trans rights bandwagon. If I was ever honest about my feelings they would eat me alive.

I've been doubting the movement for awhile but today I broke. I saw a post online in trans group where a detransitioner who was seemingly a happy transperson before was really raw and honest about how they wanted to go back to their original sex because they where having a lot of problems with their surgery and hormones and they had doubts before the transition. It's really terrible they now pee and poop in a bag. They and very young. They are 20. They've never had sex and feel they never will now. They walk with a cane now and the cross sex hormones are making them sick. I thought it was the most awful tragic story. I thought that the trans group would be supportive of them especially since they've been a loving member for so long. And who are we to tell them how to identify right?

Well... I was naive and stupid. Their replies were horrible. A lot of them started out with "That's a really sad sorry but..." Some of them told them they aren't trans and never were trans and they don't belong. Many of them accused them off internalized transphobia.

This person when through something horrible and they absolutely devoured them without a second thought. The mods deleted the post and they were banned from the group. I cried. The hypocrisy! So many of them going on about suicide and mental health problems and supporting one another when they are vulnerable. Well I can't possibly imagine a frame of mind and body when one is more vulnerable. But they treated this person like a leper.

I'm just horrified. I feel lost alone and I hate myself for fighting so hard for something that has turned into... This... I don't know what to call it. But it is awful.

Sorry for the rant. I don't know what I'm looking for from this post. If you got this far thanks for reading I guess.

That's really hard. Everyone wants to be kind, but people can be very confused about what kindness looks like.

I'm sorry about your friend, and sorry you are having trouble processing the situation. I felt similarly. It was clear to me this was scandalous, and that children needed to be protected rather than encouraged further down the path. Everyone else seemed to think I was very rude and intrusive for thinking about it- it was none of my business apparently, and should be left to those very few families it affected.

It felt like being Cassandra- I could see this bus bearing down in us, but no one else seemed to care.
Surprise surprise it's now affecting my family.

A detransitioners support group would be deemed transphobic.

Yes you are probably right.

It's very scary to know that it can go so wrong and young people are going along with it. I imagine if a teenager even thought this was a remote possibility they would choose to try to cope with the dysphoria rather than trying to fix it with surgery. I'm sorry that your family is affected also. That must be very stressful.

It's shocking, isn't it? The detrans Reddit sub has thousands of stories about the physical toll transition takes on a young body. This is not a benign movement, and it is horrendous how politicians, school leaders, therapists etc have closed their eyes to this side of the ideology.

The reaction to the stories of detransitioners by TRAs can be very quite nasty. I saw a talk by an 'old school' middle-aged mtf transitioner not long ago who described Keira Bell as 'someone who transitioned and then regretted it. Funnily enough, I thought we were supposed to have freedom of choice in this country'. No compassion for the fact that Keira had been a confused 16-year-old when put on an irreversible medical pathway.

OP, there are other groups of people who are extremely harsh towards 'backsliders' and turn nasty towards them. I can't say much more without risking deletion, but I would encourage you to think about the other sorts of organisations that are this vitriolic towards former practising members and draw your own comparisons.

You might find this thread useful, op.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4669597-do-you-ever-wonder-what-else-have-i-been-horribly-wrong-on-all-this-time

Haha, I was trying to avoid the c-word! (No, not that one.)

Can we say that here now?

This is tragic. I often wonder if society will look back on this period in history as being completely barmy.

I’m so sorry to hear this, both for the detranistioner and for yourself. I believe that people support transitioning out of kindness and because they genuinely believe that it is right for the individual, and when that narrative is ended through being presented with the harsh reality of the physical and emotional issues that are created through these physical interventions, unwanted side effects, etc, it is horrifying.

Although your friend has been flamed, I imagine there must be some silent supporters on that group, or at least some people whose views will be shifting as a consequence of seeing their story and the reaction to it. I do believe that attitudes will slowly change as more of these stories become heard but it is so, so heartbreaking for the individuals involved.

There needs to be a detransitioners support group for these vulnerable people - is there not one already? Does anyone have a link?

Yikes. I hope not. 😅 I'm kind of new to mumsnet so I didn't know. Hopefully they'll just delete the one comment and not the entire thread?

You are right. The vitriolic response definitely affected me a lot. I imagine... Well I hope there is a ripple affect. I think it would be scary to think anyone would just ignore such hatred. I hope their suffering is not for nothing.

Also I don't know. Maybe once I've calmed down I can help them look so they don't feel so alone. I think we were both shaken up from the verbal harassment. But I didn't want to make it about myself so I made a post here because they don't need to be worrying about me right now. I want to support them and make sure they are in an okay place.

If you are still able to contact the person who was expressing regret at their transition, please get in touch with them privately and let them know about the detrans sub-reddit.

There's also Detrans Voices.
www.detransvoices.org/

They can find support from other detransitioners. It is very hard to be ostracised and rejected by your social group. (That's why it is used as a mechanism to control members in all kinds of political, religious and ideological groups.)
They need to know they are not alone and there are (sadly) thousands like them.

Some other resources

www.detransawareness.org/

post-trans.com/

Thank you for sharing this.
You are a good person, doing the best you can with the information you had available.
You were lied to. That doesn't make you stupid. Forgive yourself.
If you can still contact the detransitioning person then let them know they still have your support.

There's a difference between the TRA movement and a cult because there's no single central god-like leader, but there are a lot of similarities.

There are a lot of really complicated issues and there are no simple answers.

Sexism exists and young people still get shoehorned into cultural roles according to their sex which often doesn't sit well with an individual's personality. The solution is not surgery or transitioning but abolishing sexism. That can't be done quickly - we've been trying for decades.

Body dysphoria exists although is a lot rarer than you might think, and is not usually best treated with surgery or hormones. It's similar to anorexia in some ways.

Autogynephilia exists and if practiced without intruding on another person's privacy, dignity or consent is harmless, if somewhat distasteful as it can only exist in the context of accepting sexist stereotypes as truth, but you can't easily fix the fact that people were brought up in a sexist world.

There are people who get their kicks from transgressing other people's boundaries. It is in their interests to promote a worldview where people get made to feel guilty and wrong if they complain about their boundaries not being respected

Mixing all these issues into one "movement" benefits a small number of powerful people at the expense of a large number of vulnerable people.

OP, I am sorry for your friend. you have received some good advice here.

with regards to this board. So many TRAs and MRAs hate us, call us mean, try to DOX us and we are heavily censored and always under the threat of being banned for saying the wrong thing.

Do you know what they hate? It is that women say NO.

We don’t want inappropriate sex talks (anal sex and toys) or gender talks given to primary school aged children.

We don’t want puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and irreversible operations performed on under 18s.

we don’t want drag queens with erections you can see in photographs (in very tight clothing) reading stories to young children and toddlers.

we don’t want people with penises (in jail for sex offences) to be put in the same jail as vulnerable women.

we don’t want a female rape survivor having to talk about her rape in a room with a person with a penis.

< I could go on and on >

on this board we say NO. That is why they hate us. That is why they call us horrible and awful. Women have the audacity to say no to people with penises. Women have the audacity not to validate people with penises.

Avoiding the 'c' word.

OK so a lot of the way TRAs act is like religions that are, "high control", ie describe the way you have to dress, what you do, even in your own home.

But this goes further, with the hormones and the surgery.

What is odd (well one odd thing of many), is that the older trans people don't often have any surgery or hormones. Some like Caitlyn Jenner do but then you have Eddie Izzard with his 'girl mode' and 'boy mode'.

But at the same time the teenagers are being pushed towards a medical route.

I find it sinister.

Said it before, dress it up enough and it is possible to getaway with anything. I view it like jimmy Saville got away with child abuse as he mixed with the famous, including royalty, & did charity work.

Anyone who criticised him got shot down. One day we will look back at this era with a lot of regret & wonder how they got away with butchering a healthy young bodies & making death threats to anyone who challenged them.

Yeah, well, everyone’s a transphobe these days, by dint of living and breathing. I’m a transphobe because I’m alive.

The word has lost all power, and I’m happy to be labeled one, because it’s utterly meaningless. It carries no weight. I don’t care if you call me it. Bring it on.

Beautifully put, @FaazoHuyzeoSix 👏

I've had deletions and warnings for using it, but really we should be able to, because it's entirely appropriate. Genderists know it, and use the c-word against anyone who disagrees with them - the clearest case of projection I ever saw!

Op remember some, or many, of your friends who would eat you alive could be having doubts too, but they’re too scared to say anything as well. Because this has set itself up as a topic you’re not allowed to question in any way on pain of being bullied and ostracised, people will go along with it and keep quiet. That’s how this kind of belief system works. But it can’t last forever - humans naturally puzzle over things that don’t make sense and want to ask questions. The reason for the “whole “no debate” and “eating people alive” who disagree is because there aren’t actually any good snswers to the questions, when you actually do debate and think it through, as we do on here.

That isn’t to say trans people don’t deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else - they do. And many trans people themselves say that the extreme ideology and religion-like, no=questions aspect of it, and transitioning children, is wrong. If you’re banned from asking questions about something and pointing out things that don’t make sense, it’s usually because it doesn’t stand up to that.