Article by Kye Schevers, retransitioned trans man

[AliasGrace47]

https://aninjusticemag.com/detransition-as-conversion-therapy-a-survivor-speaks-out-7abd4a9782fa?gi=6d63c58e88b6

I'm not linking this bc I agree w it, I'm still very GC & I still think notions of innate gender identity are ridiculous & v sexist. However, I do think the fact that WoFL and others operate in a different country & political context mean that some of their questionable actions have slipped under our radar. It's tricky as it is v important to promote detransitioners' voices & an alternate narrative when trans ideology has such a stranglehold on the media.

But imo Schevers was taken advantage for promotional reasons of their detriment. They are clearly v mentally fragile, & felt pressured to give interviews etc & play down the dysphoria when the feminist methods of curing it weren't working. Apparently detransitioners who retransitioned were derided as returning to the cult. I personally do see it as a cult, but using the sort of language to vulnerable people was wrong. They were also in an abusive relationship w another detransitioner. People like Keira Bell clearly want to speak for the movement, but many of the people involved are v fragile & the default should be supporting them to get proper, not trans ideological, therapy, not pressuring them to be activists & figureheads. These US orgs are encouraging that if they loved their bodies, the dysphorua could be worked through day by day, although they doubt it will change. I wonder if maybe if the trans men try and detransition older, it may be too late to undo the dysphoria.
Someone in the comments blames WoFL for friends' suicides. The weaponisation of suicide threats by TRAs makes me wary of these claims, but trans men do generally seem vulnerable, so these may, very sadly, have just been an effect of having such severe body hatred, & poss other issues that are so common w trans men. But the pressuring to be poster figures is unwise w people in these kind of states.
I want to investigate this more when I have time, but from what I've read, Schevers was gnc as a kid, & felt alienated from other girls. Then they hated the new 'softness & vulnerability' of their body at puberty, & faced homophobia. Their mother committed suicide when they were 20, & they had, possibly have, ongoing substance issues & ponder things obsessively (maybe ND, but that's just a hunch). When they went to college, before social media & widespread trans issues, they were often mistaken for trans, & they first were annoyed by this but then embraced it.

The articles are vague on why exactly they believe they're trans, in their case it seems to centre around genuine body dysphoria, but although they've retransitioned they use female pronouns & say they still identify quite a lot w being a butch lesbian woman, as well as a man. I sometimes read butch lesbian subreddits & it's so heartening to read about butch women sometimes taking T or struggling w dysphoria, but generally embracing the bodies they have, still doing traditionally masculine stuff but accepting their breasts, sometimes getting pregnant etc. Sadly this seems impossible for people like Schevers, it's too set in perhaps.
It makes me think of the William Blake quote about 'mind-forged manacles'. Why do people have to be so pinched & restricted by society that they feel compelled to mutilate the bodies they were born to have? There must be a better way, but maybe for people like Schevers, the dysphoria was affirmed so early it that now will not go away. ☹️

Do you mean WoLF?

I'm not sure what point you're making (and there's some weird formatting going on which doesn't help).

AI ?

Here is a gem of a comment by a man under a Slate article by trans man Evan Urquart where Schevers was interviewed. It captures how sexist this whole ideology is, just repackaged in progressive coating.
Matt1234
SLATE PLUS MEMBER
Clearly this is sometimes at least a very early phenomenon.My question was more are people transitioning running from something or towards something or is it both or just a whole bunch of different reasons and everyone has their own. I think his answer was great.
At the risk of insulting half of the universe, Evan writes with a "cool manly logic" and very much his writing has always come across as stereotypically male. The commenting--in a world of namecalling, he moderates as a guy.
Obviously there is much more to it than just shoes. That is not what I was getting at either.

Yes, sorry, I meant WoLF. I tried to put more paragraphs, but for some reason then the smaller paragraphs are highlighted in black and put in a box. I wasn't sure how to fox that.
I'm quite tired, I can see I wasn't very clear. My point was that the article disturbed quite a lot of what I thought, as Schevers insists that feminist consciousness-raising etc couldn't cure his dysphoria. He also says the pressure to not retransition & to act as a spokesperson & example was a lot of pressure & harmed his mental health further. There were similar allegations in the comments.

I strongly disagree w the TRA position that dysphoria is innate & can only be cured by transition, but I think that if Schevers' account is true, the WoLF & similar orgs (at least the sections of them mentioned by Schevers) are not effectively helping trans men w the consciousness raising etc methods. If they are suggesting that the dysphoria will remain w the person & they need to control it, then this sounds v difficult for those with it-surely there must be sime way of managing it better without transitioning? There probs needs to be focus on finding non-TRA-supporting therapists instead to work through their dysphoria. Pressuring them to act as figureheads, & denigrating those who return to be trans as 'returning to a cult' is counterproductive. I also wonder if possibly people like Schevers have been dysphoric for so long that it can't be cured.

I feel strongly that being GC means that we can assess all perspectives, no matter how wrong we may find them, and can critique parts of the movement without disowning the movement itself. I'm criticising the methods allegedly used by a section of the US GC movement, reportedly including WoLF. I'm not criticising GC beliefs or the majority of the movement.

WoLF is a radical feminist non-profit, though, not a therapy organisation for "de-transitioners". I'm still not sure what point you're making.

What exactly are you claiming WoLF has done?

um it is a bit late for me to decipher this tonight.

I'm sorry for not being clear. I am doing some work as well. After reading Schevers' story I was worried by 3 things :

1. That WoLF & similar orgs were promoting consciousness-raising, gnc role models etc as the sole & infallible answer to dysphoria. I think they should place more weight on trying to connect detransitioners w therapists who don't support this trans ideology. I appreciate they aren't themselves a therapy org.
2. That WoLF & similar orgs pressured mentally unhealthy detransitioners to tell their stories and act as spokespeople when they appear too fragile for this role, & referred to those who retransition as 'returning to the cult'. Some in the comments were blaming these orgs for suicides : while I am suspicious of these claims, I do think it's ill-advised to pressure people to act as spokespeople & promote radical feminism as a dysphoria cure. I agree it can be, but some may be too far gone, & it may have to be managed differently. If the WoLF and similar orgs are describing dysphoria as something to be managed day by day that won't be cured, this seems v difficult for people like Schevers, who seem to genuinely really struggle w it. There needs to be more focus on therapeutic methods to cure dysphoria.

Please can people read the article I've linked before commenting, if possible?

I don’t really understand what consciousness raising means.
It doesn’t sound like actual qualified psychological support and exploration, but sounds like it might have its own agenda. Perhaps that’s why they felt pressure to be a poster-person for detransition when they were still not feeling right. No-one should be pressured into being a public figure in this way.

What has WoLF got to do with this person?

And frankly, if this person was trying so hard to be either a ‘woman’ or a radical feminist, it seems that they have significant mental health issues that they have never addressed. You either believe in radical feminism, or you don’t. If you are performing being a radical feminist, why are you? (General you.) Being a radical feminist is not the only way to be a female and live as a female person.

And if this person has had surgery at all and has taken testosterone, is that why it they ‘try so hard’ to be a female adult?

Personally, I am not quite sure what point this article is trying to make except that this person needs extensive mental health support. And maybe 4 years ago, there was little available. In fact, in the UK, in one of the consultations the previous government ran, detransition care was something many respondents suggested was needed.

It sounds more like this person cannot reconcile that a person can simply just be who they want to be without conforming to any stereotypes. They seem to think they have to perform stereotypes. And this is not true at all.

And I have rarely seen Evan Urquhart show anything other than entrenchment in gender ideology. They don’t seem to have any balance to their views at all. There insights are purely of adherence to the accepted ideological view, I have thought. Happy to be shown that they are not though. Maybe I missed something.

Have you got anything other than the comments that WoLF has been doing this? and doing this recently?

Hello, sorry, to clarify, the allegations about WoLF were in the comments. Kye Schevers claims to have been involved w different radfem gc orgs, not sure which ones, need to check.

The article doesn't mention WoLF, they just get a mention in one comment (with a spurious accusation).

Really, OP, you need to get your ideas together and present some evidence. I don't think you understand what WoLF actually does.

I feel it's very difficult to square this person's experience with the idea that we all have a clearly defined "true self" that exists independently of social pressures. Vulnerable people are easily influenced by radical political groups, be those groups radical trans activists or radical feminists, and this poor soul is a clear example of how hard it sometimes is to have a solid sense of one's own identity.

That's why society has a duty of care to make sure that vulnerable people are given the support they need through well-funded services that act professionally and follow methodologies that are based on good science and are independent of any political ideology.

Here are some more articles by Schevers. I'm still trying to work out my thoughts- if radical feminist analysis didn't help his case maybe he was innately dysphoric? But he mentioned concern w being soft & vulnerable at puberty. This seems to be when the dysphoria began. This is a feminist issue imo, but radfem analysis can't be the only treatment.

https://kyschevers.medium.com/seeing-myself-in-the-stories-of-other-conversion-therapy-survivors-b16d92717176

https://kyschevers.medium.com/confessions-of-a-former-crypto-terf-e4ed59d4ec82

https://kyschevers.medium.com/feeling-regret-about-my-detransition-and-past-activism-db958d541085

https://kyschevers.medium.com/ideologically-motivated-detransition-as-a-conversion-practice-a-personal-account-ee262035453a

That was a quick deletion!

Sorry OP but I generally don’t click on links to websites that use hundreds of cookies. Going by comments here, and without reading their articles, I’d hazard a guess that Schever is a very autistic female, who didn’t conform to feminine stereotypes. Who was naive and suggestible, as many autistic people are, and who didn’t have a solid sense of their own identity.

That left Schever susceptible to succumbing to the belief that they must be a trans man. That they weren’t, had them detransition, but a rigidity of belief and black and white thinking led them back to the trans / gender ideology. Plus, perhaps community.

We know that growing evidence links anorexia and ASD and like GI, the underlying mechanism is a rigidity of thought and difficulty seeing nuance and greyness. We know how very difficult it is for those with disordered thinking about food to stop having those disordered thoughts. Must be all that much harder when you add in community pressure.

That’d be my armchair view. Ultimately, unhappy people need independent and constructive therapy to support them. As per Schrever’s article claiming that detransitioning is a form of conversion therapy, well no. Neither do I believe that radical feminism is the answer to dysphoric and vulnerable women and girls.

I don’t understand why you think any type of feminism is a “
‘treatment’?

Feminism is a political movement to improve the lives of female people collectively. There is no ‘treatment’ involved.

OP, you seem to think that joining a feminist movement should be the ‘answer’ to people’s mental health issues. It most certainly is not.

It may advocate that a female person can be whoever they want to be and that female people look and act however they want to, but that is not just a ‘feminist’ point of view. Many female people have this without being described as feminists.

This person needs extensive mental health support I would suggest. That is the first and perhaps only place they should have started. It is even unfair for this person to rely on other detransitioners for trying to get their thoughts into something close to a healthy acceptance of themselves. Hear stories and perspective, sure, but this person really seems to be struggling with mental health.

You seem to be struggling with this person’s inability to understand that no person has to conform to stereotypes. Some people have this polarised and absolutist view that to be ‘male’ or ‘female’ they have to act a certain way. That is not ‘innate’. That is their personal need to categorise behaviour and thoughts a certain way and it could be to cope with trauma, neurodiversity or their socialisation.

Feminism is not a ‘treatment’ in any way though.

That's interesting. In some of my successful moments it was suggested (and meant as a straightforward complement) that I possess more of "logical detachment" than most women and that was why I did particularly well. And other people agreed. it surprised me a lot because I didn't feel at all that my ability to stay calm and think quite coolly was a male trait, or something I had observed more in men than women. But the person complementing me definitely seemed to think so and meant it genuinely. These things are so subjective - I am assuming the person seeing a "cool manly logic" was not being actually as logical or detached as he thought he was in making that comment. Possibly the person who complemented me was slightly motivated by the fact I had done better than him and he found it easier to be beaten by a woman with unusually manly levels of logic. But of course I don't know what was going on in his head while he was confident he could talk knowledgably on women's brains.

A-ha, the hidden post has been reinstated.

radfem analysis can't be the only treatment

Radical feminist analysis is not a "treatment" at all.

Detransitioners are very vulnerable. They will probably have all the issues that caused them to transition in the first place - this might well include very real gender dysphoria as well as possibly autism, depression etc. And on top of that be coping with medical issues from surgery/hormones in some cases. And have to deal with the effects of turning their backs on a belief they had wholeheartedly embraced, and often all of their friends and "found family" as well, many of whom may now be verbally attacking them. The worst thing really is to be then thrown into a campaigning position, where you are now just as passionately denouncing the movement you previously supported - its easy to just transfer the same behaviors/sense of doom to the other side. And it also involved mixing with other detransitioners who are likely just as damaged/confused, and with other people some of whom will be more concerned about the overall cause than their individual welfare. And everyone with a public profile is getting heat from TRAs etc - who might be former friends. And this vulnerable, messy situation invited grifters and people who are straight up predatory.

I do think, while some detransitioners have done amazing work, it would probably be better if they were encouraged to take time to themselves and heal, reconnect with family, (or find friends who have nothing to do with any of it) rather than throwing themselves into a campaign.

This quote:
"Together we worked to support each other in healing from “female disidentification” and reconnecting with being women. Many of us shared our stories online, through blogs, videos and other media."

Being able to talk about any traumatic experience or big life event (transition and detransition) with other people who went through the same thing can be really helpful and even healing. But it is a bit of a double edged sword at times. Especially if it ends up forming your main new social group rather than just a thing you go to once a week. So, I don't think its automatically a problem with WoLF. Its a more general issue and hard to solve.

OP, it might be helpful if you archive the articles at any of the usual archive sites as a workaround for the cookie issue etc.

I largely agree with PPs that you may be over-reading the significance of pieces from one person's perspective and a stray comment that caught your eye.

Hi, sorry for not replying before, I had to finish some work for a deadline & was quite stressed. I see now I overreacted to the article. My uni is v pro trans ideology,+ I'm bi & it's infiltrated all the lgb groups that would otherwise be fun to go to 🙁, so I'm quite on the defensive re being gc & trying to work out a middle road to not compromise my beliefs but also not be ostracised. I think I had a sort of are-we-the-baddies reaction when I saw Schevers saying detransitioning was a cult. I've always thought that was TRAs, and still do, so it hurt to see gc described that way.