Here is my thought and I hope it doesnt seem ignorant. But do people ever truley detransition? like how rare it is for some one to be ex-gay. My thing is, I too tried a mini detransition and I bombed. I was miserable and tbh, i corss dressed in my femme clothing a lot still when I did so. I guess, looking back you cant really say i de-transitioned in my own terms. It wasnt very long, i still kinda cheated by not being off hrt for long at all and I still cross-dressed or tried to be as androgyous as possible. So in many ways, I guess I never de-transitioned but rather had amoment of giving up on the whole female life in a fit of doubt and despair. And now, like recently I have been getting closer to my female side and am loving it. Closer then I ever been.
I just wonder though, do those who detransition actually go back to the ''old life'' or are they still trans at heart even if they reject it. The most famous case I can think of is super transpohbic Walt Heyer. He obsesses over transgender people and he did infact live as one for 8 years. He apparently suffers from DID but from even his own account, his talk ''therapist'' basically said he wasnt trans and they even had a prayer session. Right there is a big red flag that even if he did suffer from DID he may have been manipulated back to manhood and, since he seems to resent other trans people and litterly obsesses over them probably isnt very content with his ''manhood''.
I know there are people who do begin the journey of full transition and then back out to go into a more non-binary mode, but even then that is still trans to a degree. I just wonder what percentage of people go from wanting the whole life of the other side to the 180 and live fully in the binary of there birth gender and actually lie it..
Thanks <3 (And by no means am I trying to dump of any detransitioners we have here, I understand that whoever they are and where they end up they have a deep journey and need love and support!)
Good question, I guess it's always in the back of their mind I suppose.... while personally I have never started to transition I have kind of thought to myself "enough is enough, stop having trans thoughts" and tried to go about my day but then a few days to weeks later they're just back stronger and it's frustrating, I can't imagine what's it's like to start medically transitioning, HRT etc and then de-transitioning to an extent.
It makes questioning very difficult for me...
I also lack knowledge of the whole non-binary/genderfluid (?) thing (not sure if I got the terms fully correct so apologise).
This is an unknowable answer because people may die before the answer is known. To answer your question, we have a few member who are post surgical and returned to living in their birth gender. They would have preferred not to but they have their dysphoria under control and they need to do it for financial reasons. If it weren't for that I suspect they would have not have de-transitioned. Others have done it because it was wrong for some other reason. The numbers I have heard is about 2-3% return to their birth gender. This is the reason why RLE for at least a year is so important. A year or more is very likely to expose any issues you may have with your new gender so you will be more informed when making the decision to have surgery. Is it needed for everybody? Not really as only about 1 in 30 is likely to face this difficulty however the question is are you the 1 or are you the other 29. Only RLE might determine that.
I've seen a number of blogs from the POV of FtMs who have de-transitioned and were happier after returning to their birth gender. Most did so after they found their transition was not right, and identified instead as butch lesbians. One case was different. She didn't have money for her testosterone for about two months, and found she felt better without the T than she ever did with the T, went back on T, felt worse, and decided to quit T forever. According to the blog, she is no longer sure why she felt male in the first place and is now happy living as a woman again.
So yeah, it happens.
I haven't seen any similar blogs for MtFs, but I'm sure there are some out there.
Quote from: SailorMars1994 on March 24, 2017, 03:51:30 PM
I know there are people who do begin the journey of full transition and then back out to go into a more non-binary mode, but even then that is still trans to a degree.
Non-binary isn't "trans to a degree." It is trans. Trans is MtF, FtM, and non-binary. Just different products of the same brand.
Quote from: Cailan Jade on March 24, 2017, 07:04:00 PM
Quote from: SailorMars1994 on March 24, 2017, 03:51:30 PM
I know there are people who do begin the journey of full transition and then back out to go into a more non-binary mode, but even then that is still trans to a degree.
Non-binary isn't "trans to a degree." It is trans. Trans is MtF, FtM, and non-binary. Just different products of the same brand.
+1 for that. :)
Hugs, Devlyn
Did I "De-Transition" twice in my early twenties? Or, did I simply give up on a dream? Or, faced the reality of my personal situation?
Does it matter to what I know I have to do today for me? Is there someone "Keeping Score"
Quote from: Cailan Jade on March 24, 2017, 07:04:00 PM
Non-binary isn't "trans to a degree." It is trans. Trans is MtF, FtM, and non-binary. Just different products of the same brand.
Quote from: Devlyn Marie on March 24, 2017, 07:07:21 PM
+1 for that. :)
If we think that "trans" is "not cis" and we go from there to "trans" is "not 100% cis" then we might as well live in a world when 90+% of the population are trans.
To a degree :)
Uh oh. I don't like where this is heading.
Transgender (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Transgender) is an identity, that is, something that one identifies within oneself that diverges from the normative gender role.
Most of the population DOES NOT identify as being transgender, but see themselves as simply living in their gender role (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Gender_role) as assigned at birth, without any distress from a gender identity (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Gender_identity) that does not match their role.
Please keep in mind that the idea of gender binary (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Gender_binary) has a large socially constructed component, and that in the real world, there are varying degrees of masculinity and femininity within individuals who still identify with the gender that they were assigned at birth. That is to say, gender identity is a continuum, a range, not a simple hard binary. People can be in many places within this range, and still feel comfortable with their assigned gender. These people are unlikely to identify as being transgender.
I know this can be a difficult concept, but it does appear to match reality better than the social binary construct.
I'm just gonna share my personal story as a response to OP's question, and declare how I identify myself now and how I've identified in the past. I make no judgements of others. I'm on topic. Just wanted to clarify that first, seeing as this thread went in directions, and me reviving it might... I dunno, stir a pot, or something.
I began my detransition very recently, just almost a month ago, so this might be too soon for me to make a clear statement about how genuine or right this is for me, but, as far as I know for now... I'm doing a total 180 turn from having lived as a mostly masculine male (how I saw myself) back to a very feminine female (my birth sex, and how I currently see my gender). I don't consider myself to be transgender/transsexual and/or non-binary, but I used to think I was a binary trans man. I now consider myself to be a binary cis woman who made a (huge) mistake.
As far as I've heard around, it is rare for transitioning people to realise they're not actually trans at all and want to undo everything and live entirely as their birth sex again. Turns out I'm one of those few people. I got the short straw, I guess.
How happy I am about it though... well that's a tough question to answer but I'll try my best. There are two sides to it, the one in which I'm terribly upset over the more or less permanent physical changes I've done to my body which I now regret horribly - and the one in which I feel a genuine connection to my remaining birth sex traits and to being a woman like I never have before. I feel happy to be a woman though, and I look forward to getting my body restored again and to live the rest of my life in a female gender role. I don't like absolutely everything that's societally connected to the female gender role, but then I don't think any girl does.
I lived as a man for almost a decade, 9 years, and I passed very well for the last 4 of those. I looked good, I was attractive to others and never had trouble finding company. I liked it, in some ways, but it wasn't the real me. In fleeting moments I had doubts and missed being a woman. I dressed up in drag a few times to test myself and it frightened me. I tried hard to push those doubts away and just carry on as a man. I told myself it was what I truly wanted and I believed in my own lies.
It wasn't until last year when I planned on getting SRS that my subconscious started fighting back against me. I got as far as to schedule with a surgeon and ended up on his waiting list, when I got a gut feeling so strong that I felt it almost knocking me over from within. When I listened to it I got aware of that I really love my vagina and don't want for it to be a dick there at all. I had thought it was the reverse, but then I suddenly aligned with my primary sex characteristic trait. That was my first real sign that maybe I'm not actually trans, despite everything I had believed up until that point. The lies I had been telling myself had begun to unravel. Eventually I dared to dig into my mind, and I found out it was all because of my past traumas that I thought I was a trans guy. When that dawned upon me, I didn't want to escape the truth anymore. I embraced it, although it was very painful and facing probably my biggest fear. Now I don't want to be a man anymore, and I miss my true womanly self that I tossed away.
My case is similar to that of the transphobic Walt Heyer that you mentioned, as I also have DID or some variant of it and went through a lot of trauma in my past that messed with my mind and relationship to my body. The difference is I did not become transphobic upon my detransition. The sexual abuse I went through as a child and teen made me target my gendered physical traits as something to hate and be grossed out by. That seemed very similar to gender dysphoria, but it wasn't that. I was never trans to begin with, I just convinced myself that I was. Nowadays I've come very far in my healing, accepting and loving myself. I still carry that pain from the traumas, but I don't hate myself for being female anymore. My gender was never the real issue but it was what I targetted and attacked. I used to consider myself totally male before, but now I know I'm totally female and I love being a woman. I love being feminine, wearing makeup and dresses, etc. For me it was a mistake to transition in the first place. I should not have done it. So yeah, I'd say I am truly detransitioning.
As for physical changes I want to try my best to reverse everything or what can reasonably be reversed. But that will be a long journey that I haven't even started yet. Most of all I'm looking forward to getting new breasts, and I want to go big. But will also do voice training and beard/body hair removal, and get my hormone levels back to healthy female range again.
I present very similarly to how I did pre-transition now, but a little less like a teen girl and a little more like the almost 30 years old woman I am now. Because it's been so long since then, it does feel rather strange. Like I've suddenly woken up from a mist and aged 10 years over night and I'm not fully grasping it. But it does also feel very right within myself and just the way I like it. Detransitioning is a relief for me. So yeah, some people do truly detransition, but I don't think it's common. Percentage I've no idea, but probably less than 1% of those who've done a gender transition go from one binary to the other and then back again, if I can pull an unfounded guesstimation out of my rear-end.
Firstly - there is NOTHING wrong with detransitioning.
In answer to the OP i think the reasons for it are a big factor in if the person involved moves past it as a phase or simply 'lives with it'.
Understanding ourselves is a lifelong journey. I transitioned from a role and behaviour that I was unhappy with (male), to one that I like very much (female). There is however nothing to say that in future I won't find a way of living that fits or works even better for me.
If i had to detransition due to external factors, I don't imagine I'd ever truly move past it; but if it was a change on my part to a better place, then I guess I'd move on and could evolve without regret.
Just my views [emoji4]. X
Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk
:police:
I have removed a post.
If someone does not wish to transition or after transition wishes to detransition that is perfectly fine.
I am not going to have uneducated comments about transgender being a psychiatric condition thrown about. There is a massive body of work over many years on transgender being a biological condition and not a psychiatric illness. I am not going to have trans deniers spreading rubbish on the Forum.
Everyone should have counselling to ensure that there is no underlying psychiatric issues but to extend that to suggest that being transgender is just a psychiatric condition is utterly false.
Cindy
Our couple's psychologist has worked with transgender people since the 1970's. She shared with my wife and me that she has worked with many people who have detranstioned. Her research showed a solid one third of transgender people detransition. Our doctor explained that gender variance is fairly common. But for most people peace comes from finding a way to do that in their birth gender.
Living as their "Authenitic Self" is a wonderful goal. Sadly there are often obstacles that make this impossible When I started therapy back in 2009 my GT explained there are three different human needs drive Gender Dysphoria; social acceptance, acceptance of how we look and acceptance of who we are. Therapy is vital for a person to explorer these needs so they cab determine whether transition will fill them or make them worse.
One point that is missing in this discussion is when the detransition occurs. Discussing why someone detransitions without discussing when in the process of transition they decide not to go forward makes all the difference in the world.
Is it really detransition when a person decides to not go forward after dressing and living in the chosen gender for a short period of time? How about detransition after a lengthy period of Hormone therapy, but before any surgery? These steps are designed to cause the individual involved to take a hard look at what changes are about to happen. Detransition at this point is more or less uneventful and is not as involved as someone who has had surgery of any kind.
Is detransition after any surgery, top or bottom, what we are really talking about? :-\
Walt causes alot of harm in my view. That He (I will use the gender he identifies as now) chooses to spend so much energy criticising transgender, when over-all many people are far happier to be able to be themselves. I find him strange, and that he merely found a new way to suppress himself, ie Religion. No disrespect to people who believe, however Religion is a non logical construct, and as such has huge power to influence people.
With Walt, as bad as it sounds to say, unless the vast majority of cases where people had abusive childhoods end up transitioning ,it is hard to argue that childhood abuse is the primary cause of gender dsyphoria.
Further, with Walt, perhaps his own conservatism created issues. Ie coming out as Trans, and decided to go on hormones, and have GRS. Maybe not having GRS would have been better in this case? Going all out to be as Woman as possible won't be great for everyone. Pyschologists can't be held responsible for peoples non disclosure in therapy.
Many people would do well to take their time in Transition.
Further 8 years post op ,is a LONG time to go with something and then feel it dosent work. It makes me feel Walt found religion so to not express Trans ID.
I feel Walt is a Right wing fanatic who uses religion to beat Trans with a stick. He's a example of whats not so good with America and Religion. I make no apologies for seeing religion as not so great. Prehaps being European, my Atheism is unusual to Americans ?
About De transition overall, its up to the individual and does not invalidate their life experience. I just hope those who made choices they now regret come to some peace with themselves and do not torment themselves over choices they made before. Those choices may have been needed to keep them alive at the time.
With Walt I find it hard to feel much empathy as he is unable to show that for the plethora of Trans people out there. Rainbow not Religion please!
Lexa xx
If someone doesn't spend time in therapy, I could see how they can convince themselves they must be trans. They would then go down the path, and at some point, start to question themselves.
Quote from: amandam on August 13, 2018, 10:49:43 AM
If someone doesn't spend time in therapy, I could see how they can convince themselves they must be trans. They would then go down the path, and at some point, start to question themselves.
That's pretty much how it became for me, except I did spend time in therapy... although I didn't make any effort in therapy. I was stubborn and had already made up my mind even before the start of gender therapy. I was in that therapy for around 4 years before I got any medical treatments, which is much longer than the standard. I had very little trust in therapists already back then, because I kept being treated as though I just wanted attention, so I trusted my own judgement more than any doctor's.
I think I was let down both by myself and the medical health care in my area at that time, but ofc it was much more complicated than that. The gender therapist didn't ruin my trust in docs, but other kinds of therapists before them had. But they confirmed my mistrust by treating me badly too, until I changed to another clinic. Now I live elsewhere and have connections with better therapists. I've regained some trust for psychiatry, at least enough to give it an honest chance and sort out my trauma, etc.
Therapy is good, in general, but it's not gonna be of much help when you already feel like you cannot trust the health care system and you feel like you're on your own, cause of bad previous experiences. But I also don't tend to assume others to have those same kind of trust issues as I have. Or I really hope they don't.
To me, detransitioning doesn't necessarily mean you're not trans. I think for many people the price of transitioning is too high - loss of job, loss of family, the uncertainty of physical safety in public. For some the price is too high for a transition. But failure to transition, or a detransition after HRT or surgery, isn't necessarily a sign of not being trans. It is the realization that transitioning came with a higher price than continuing to live with dysphoria.
I'm fortunate, I'm AFAB non-binary - bi-gender, both male and female, usually in turns, but sometimes both are present at the same time. My own transition is pretty much invisible to outsiders, unless I make a point of it. I am transitioning my body, I already had top surgery, and I have a bottom surgery consult (for meta, not phallo) in January. I need my body to be fully male. But I almost always present fully femme, and love it. I am happy in both male and female presentations, both reflect the inner me, or a part of the inner me - but I rarely present male because I simply don't want to deal with the social fallout. Also I believe the femme styling is more attractive on my body type (even after more than a year on T), and I put great value on appearances.
So, how you define "detransition" is a big fat hairy deal. If it simply means "no longer presenting as a gender other than birth sex" then you get a *lot* of people who detransition. If it means to realize you were never transgender in the first place - then I believe (and the studies back it up) it's very rare; fewer than 3% according to the latest numbers I saw.
Quote from: Cailan Jerika on October 15, 2018, 04:56:25 PM
To me, detransitioning doesn't necessarily mean you're not trans. I think for many people the price of transitioning is too high - loss of job, loss of family, the uncertainty of physical safety in public. For some the price is too high for a transition. But failure to transition, or a detransition after HRT or surgery, isn't necessarily a sign of not being trans. It is the realization that transitioning came with a higher price than continuing to live with dysphoria.
I'm fortunate, I'm AFAB non-binary - bi-gender, both male and female, usually in turns, but sometimes both are present at the same time. My own transition is pretty much invisible to outsiders, unless I make a point of it. I am transitioning my body, I already had top surgery, and I have a bottom surgery consult (for meta, not phallo) in January. I need my body to be fully male. But I almost always present fully femme, and love it. I am happy in both male and female presentations, both reflect the inner me, or a part of the inner me - but I rarely present male because I simply don't want to deal with the social fallout. Also I believe the femme styling is more attractive on my body type (even after more than a year on T), and I put great value on appearances.
So, how you define "detransition" is a big fat hairy deal. If it simply means "no longer presenting as a gender other than birth sex" then you get a *lot* of people who detransition. If it means to realize you were never transgender in the first place - then I believe (and the studies back it up) it's very rare; fewer than 3% according to the latest numbers I saw.
That's what I think is true as well. That most who detransition weren't actually always cis. Its very few who go back to like identifying as their bio sex. Most detrans (it seems) just stop and/or reverse their transitions but are still at heart the gender they transitioned to. Financial reasons and transphobia are common factors for making that decision. I think the definition of "detransition" is someone who stops and/or reverses their transition. And it can be a change in identity, which is usually referred to as "reidentification".
It's interesting taking a little time here and there to read some of the posts that have passed by, whilst life is busy.
Our view is fairly black and white - we believe that the binary never question their gender seriously, which, yes makes the trans population quite large.
For some of us, it's a switch from one to another, to remain. For others it's a fluid journey, where we have to respond to our true selves as required. That fluidity may be slow - from one to another, and back; or it may be fast swings between them, but anyone who feels this is a welcome part of our community - even if it is protracted self exploration, they will end up with a very different perspective on the world than those who are a part of the cis community, no parts or fractions, no 'you were, but you're not now' once steps on the rainbow have been taken, you'll always be a part of it all.
Would a slow tempo fluidity be less stigmatised than the word detransition.? We don't know.
(Hugs)
Rowan
Quote from: Sno on November 27, 2018, 08:37:21 PM
It's interesting taking a little time here and there to read some of the posts that have passed by, whilst life is busy.
Our view is fairly black and white - we believe that the binary never question their gender seriously, which, yes makes the trans population quite large.
For some of us, it's a switch from one to another, to remain. For others it's a fluid journey, where we have to respond to our true selves as required. That fluidity may be slow - from one to another, and back; or it may be fast swings between them, but anyone who feels this is a welcome part of our community - even if it is protracted self exploration, they will end up with a very different perspective on the world than those who are a part of the cis community, no parts or fractions, no 'you were, but you're not now' once steps on the rainbow have been taken, you'll always be a part of it all.
Would a slow tempo fluidity be less stigmatised than the word detransition.? We don't know.
(Hugs)
Rowan
I'm not sure if I agree, unless I'm misinterpreting somehow. I don't tend to like it very much when others just promptly decide I must be trans. I've been fighting a lot reclaim my cis identity. I don't wish to argue or be feisty, I just wish to explain why I see things differently, from my detransitioning perspective.
Yes I made changes to my body and I used to identify my gender differently, but I don't think my gender has actually changed. Only my perception of it, and my feelings towards it, have changed. The cake is still a cake, no matter how much I believed it was a pie.
There are several reasons as to why I consider myself to be cis, despite my transitional gender journey... "There and back again" like Bilbo Baggins says. And I think of that line quite often, cause in many ways, transitioning to male was for me much an adventure like Bilbo's journey also was. I think a lot in metaphors, and the way I see my femaleness vs my maleness is that the former is a home for me, while the latter was a really great vacation. And after 9 years as a man... I got homesickness. I may still love my vacation spot. It's like a beautiful, peaceful lake house surrounded by a protective forest. But it's not where I live or truly feel at home. And I miss my home.
In my detransition I did figure out that me thinking of myself as male was never the true me, it was only a mask, or a shield. I was desperately trying to escape growing up to become a woman, but my subconscious fought me furiously and now that I finally listen to it and all of my conflicting and confusing feelings, no matter what they tell me: in my heart I am female and always have been. Despite my masculinity and also despite my love for maleness. It's a comfort blanket, but it's not my actual skin. This essentially means I'm dysphoric about my male traits I got from transitioning, but I still feel a certain fondness and attachment towards them. And it also means sometimes I get the vague, abstract feeling that "I feel like a man" even in my detransition, but I don't actually think I am a man. It's nostalgia.
I don't think I'm nonbinary or that my gender is fluid (although I used to think that might be a possibility, so yes I have looked into it) because I don't feel any genuine connection to any other kind of gender than female. And I feel very strongly female. My androgyny sometimes confuses my gender-feelings but at heart I know it's separate from my actual gender.
I have hated my own gender, my biological sex and being a woman so much that I suppressed it, rejected it, abused it, hid it and made every attempt I possibly could to rid myself of it. I was even at the cusp of getting irreversible ftm genital surgery. In my native language "transition" directly translates to "sex correction" and I cannot even breathe that term when talking about my own journey, cause of how much it was not a "correction" in my case but much more a destruction. Although I truly believed it was a healing move at the time. But no matter how much I hated my gender in my past, it was still my gender, all along. And it always will be. The cake was always a cake, even though I furiously hated it, beat it and screamed at it and tried desperately to make it into a pie. Now I love being a woman, but that doesn't mean I wasn't a woman when I hated being one and escaped into the disguise and self-deception of thinking of myself as a man.
I don't mean to sound bitter or accusing you of offending me, cause I'm sure that wasn't your intention and I like keeping a friendly tone. But considering my journey, I do take offense to being referred to as transgender. It does not mean I think it's somehow a bad thing to be trans, cause I don't think that. It's because it took such a long and hard time for me to finally be able to proudly say "Yes, I'm a cisgender woman and there's nothing wrong with that. I love myself for who I am and always was." I am binary, but how I relate to my transitioned body is very complicated and awfully distressing.
Essentially I'm torn between if I should reverse the changes or try to make amends with them. Cause what feeling often comes along with regret? The fear of making more regrets, no matter which way you go. I am scared to make any more permanent changes to my body due to what I personally think is dysphoria, cause I've been wrong before and it had devastating consequences. So like, me trying to reconcile and make amends with my facial hair, deep voice, etc and having decided to keep those things doesn't mean I have no issues with them. I can't connect them to my female gender, but I also don't have the heart to reverse of them, cause my heart is torn between my vacation and my home.
I don't think my past mistakes, my past self-deceit, the way my body unfortunately ended up, or my struggles with reconciling with any and all of that, should really be the deciding factor to whether I'm cis or trans. I'm a binary woman living in an afab body, which sounds "cis enough" to me. Perhaps that can be enough?
Perhaps the reason this gets to me is because most other cis people do not consider me to be "cis enough" and some trans people too. I phrase it like that cause it's the exact same thing as some trans people being told/treated as they're not "trans enough". So yeah, I am being frequently alienated and othered by essentially "my own kind" and it hurts. I think I do still have a place in the trans community, but not as a transgender person myself: I have a place in it as a transitioned cis person with lots to give, and as someone with nowhere else to go.
But also, if you'd (dare to?) take the approach that my gender was male but then changed to female, you should also probably be aware of that the reason my perspecive on my gender changed was because I healed my dysphoria (towards my female traits) with self-therapy. The way I see it is that it wasn't really gender dysphoria I had, but a form of dysmorphia that disguised itself as dysphoria, and it tricked me into thinking I should have been born male. Upon healing it, I connected to my body being female and it also made me connect to thinking of my myself as a woman, cause it healed my psychological wounds that made me want to flee from myself; as well as made me actually dysphoric (although it's fluctuating dysphoria) about the male traits I got from transitioning. But if I'd look at it from your perspective, it would look a lot like I cured my transsexualism, wouldn't it?
I'm just grinding your gears a little with that last paragraph, and I mean nothing else by it. I'm not opening that can of worms, I'm simply pointing at it, with a gentle warning to perhaps not go there, unless of course you'd actually want to. I don't think I cured my transsexualism, I think I was misdiagnosed and never had it in the first place.
You wrote:
"we believe that the binary never question their gender seriously" and I can't help but wonder why you believe that? In all honesty, why would a binary cis person have to be 100% certain of their gender to not get their cis-card revoked? Aren't we all, cis or trans, as people, just as fallible? I'm just curious.
I hope I didn't come off as very defensive, this is meant more as an explanation of my perspective than a self-defensive rant. However.
(Hugs).
For some, to find that place, it takes a considerable journey. For others it takes that journey to realise that where the journey started was the best place to be. For others again, it can be many journeys over the lifetime.
We, are happy that you've finally arrived at a place where you are comfortable with yourself, and we want you to feel included, regardless of how you identify - there is no requirement for qualification, no grades, no competing.
No questions of are you "enough".
You are, and you are happier with yourself. That is what matters
Personally, we dislike the term detransition, as it implies regret, carries a desire to return to the original state of being before transition, and we know that simply, that is not possible. Yes the physical can be recreated, but our experiences along the way will have had consequences on the formation of our character, in the present and future.
Rowan
Ps. Yes we refer to ourself in the plural. Long story.
@Sno
I think I will always be on some kind of journey, always on my way somewhere greater and more me, both physically and spiritually. I'm comfortable with my gender and that I found self-love through my hardship, but where I'm at with my body I'm terribly unhappy. I understand what you mean though, and thank you.
I think me just being honest, kind and supportive of others within the trans community might just be enough to serve me a spot. Even though I also like to ruffle some feathers sometimes ;) But that I also happen to have a lot of info and wisdom to offer as well, is a plus. I think I'm more than just a cis ally, cause I've been through the same journey even though I ended up connecting with my bio sex in a way that they typically can't.
I personally like the term detransition, although I don't think it's a perfect one. First of all it's linguistically incorrect, which irks me ever since someone kindly pointed it out to me. And yes I think the term itself implies a journey of going back in time, which of course is not possible although that would have been convenient, but I see the term more figuratively. The poet in me likes the term. My only real issue with it is that it's complicated to spell (especially in the tense "detransitioning") and quite a clunky word. Hence why I like the shortened form "detrans/detransing" better.
For some people a detransition is very loaded with regret and a desire to return to one's original state. That is of course not physically possible but the feeling itself may still be there, and although that's painful and terrifying to experience, it should not be denied or brushed aside when experienced. I know that feeling all too well, but for me that's the reality I'm faced with. I can heal and get better, but I have to first acknowledge and accept that I am regretting my transition and wish it undone.
For me, it's comparable to having lost a beloved pet and wishing it would return back to life again because the grief and sorrow of missing that pet is so incredibly painful. Having that wish can't bring that pet back to life, but it's understandable I feel that way in my grieving process. And I need to grieve before I can move on. I need to release that feeling so that it doesn't fester.
I don't see my own detransition as me trying to time-travel back to my pre-transition state, but rather as me becoming a woman I have not yet ever been. I'm not going backwards, I'm going forward but in another direction. If anything I went "backwards" when I transitioned because it was an escape mechanism and me trying to erase and undo my gender, instead of being true to myself as it should have been. I wouldn't call it an mtf transition as I'm not bio male and already technically am female, both biologically and in my mind.
Perhaps I'd call it a restoration, or a journey of reconstruction. Because I feel like transitioning ruined my body and what I can do with that is to mitigate the harm done and try my best to reconstruct what became missing, damaged or skew. Others don't like to agree with me that I ruined or broke my body, but it's my subjective perspective of what my transition did to me. Because I altered and removed healthy parts of my body that I could and should have kept as they were, and cause I made those decisions while not mentally sound. At the very least transitioning warped my body into something I'm not comfortable with.
Although I know the physical body can't be 100% reversed after a transition, it is no less a "reversal" than a transition is a journey to look like the opposite sex. Neither has a "perfect" outcome. If I'm allowed to be so harsh, for ex: getting a breast reconstruction after a mastectomy is just as much a false replica of the original breasts as breasts grown on estrogen hrt and/or an augmentation is a false replica of natural female breasts that were not there to begin with. If you're gonna be harsh to me about the limits of what I can do with my unfortunate physical state, I'm going to pay back with the same coin.
I don't say that with any intent to be hurtful or mean, but to highlight that the limits of reality goes both ways and we're all just trying to find peace within ourselves and with our bodies no matter if we're transitioning or detransitioning, or not transitioning to begin with. My detransition back to female is not more false or fallacious than an amab person's transition to female is. My body is also not a false replica of femaleness compared to what another cis woman's unaltered body is. I have things in common with both but ultimately I am not like either. I would actually argue that detransitioned people are neither cis nor trans, but a category of its own. A third category, that breaks the dichotomy.
My journey doesn't erase my starting point. Just like transitioned people have always been the gender they sense that they've always been since long before they transitioned, I will always be and have always been the cis girl I was born as. I believe that wherever we go in life it doesn't change who we are at heart, and no matter what we do with our bodies we will still always be whoever we truly are within them.
It's okay with me that you refer to yourself/ves in plural. I sometimes do that with myself as well, depending on the context.
/Laura
Love your stuff Laura,
Putting it out there with no sugar coating.
Valuable food for thought for everyone FTM & MTF.
Love the positive angle on the detransition being a way forward - not a return to the state that once was.
Sending you my kindest regards, Kirsten.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Hi Laura,
We're not harsh, just kind, and supportive - this is your journey - in your case restoration (which we do like btw).
The term transition, intrinsically implies two points, a start and destination, that always gets conflated with binary genders and carries the weight of the destination is final, so allowing the concept of 'mistake' and 'regret' to enter the vocabulary of this topic.
When these journeys are started, often we have little detailed idea of where our journey will finish, other than some broad ideas - for us (me), yes, we have clinically diagnosed dysphoria, but no 'gender' destination (oh the joys of neutrois) - which is why we are non-transitioning. To start that journey with a classical destination in mind, would for us we feel, be in error and we are better served by finding ways to cope. In doing so, however, it is easy for us to be written off as cis, or as an ally; whereas the reality is that we are stuck, and just having to improve the ways we cope.
That raises the challenges of 'queer' enough? 'Trans' enough? For how can you portray the feeling of alien in an honest and genuine way, that isn't blue or rainbow hair, or long hair, or short hair, or deliberately mixing the stereotypical clothing? All of which, for us are equally inappropriate.
So, do not please be under any doubt - you are a part of our community here, and will always be welcome - your perspective is very valuable, and valued.
Let's also remember, that without challenge, no discoveries are made, or new things learned.
(Hugs)
Rowan
Quote from: SeptagonScars on July 25, 2018, 12:24:07 PM
My case is similar to that of the transphobic Walt Heyer that you mentioned, as I also have DID or some variant of it and went through a lot of trauma in my past that messed with my mind and relationship to my body. The difference is I did not become transphobic upon my detransition. The sexual abuse I went through as a child and teen made me target my gendered physical traits as something to hate and be grossed out by. That seemed very similar to gender dysphoria, but it wasn't that. I was never trans to begin with, I just convinced myself that I was. Nowadays I've come very far in my healing, accepting and loving myself. I still carry that pain from the traumas, but I don't hate myself for being female anymore. My gender was never the real issue but it was what I targeted and attacked. I used to consider myself totally male before, but now I know I'm totally female and I love being a woman. I love being feminine, wearing makeup and dresses, etc. For me it was a mistake to transition in the first place. I should not have done it. So yeah, I'd say I am truly detransitioning.
I too had sexual traumas during childhood and my wife believes I could have DID, as did another user on here when I told my story. I think she is wise to hold me back a bit, but I have trouble knowing if she is right or not--a lot of what really is preventing me from moving forward is my role in the family, the AMAB breadwinner married to a cisgender woman. Honestly, I probably would prefer to be with a transwoman or a man rather than a cisgender woman, but this was not something I could readily admit for many, many years (mostly due to a fear of familial judgement from relatives who have now passed).
I also have some BPD hallmarks as well, so I am trying to accept that I am not exactly an unbroken individual as far as mental health, but also be aware that even just presenting as myself in the home when my child was at preschool was so comforting that I shed some severe bad habits with very little effort and kept them off without stress really until I was forced back in the closet by my wife's reactiveness.
Its honestly just so hard to know what is real--I never thought my life would be an exercise in epistemology, but it seems that's what it is for most of us I guess.