Trying to understand detransitioners through analyzing similarities

[Just Somebody]

Lately I stumbled across an cisgender woman who lived and identified as a transgender man for a while of her life and then detransitioned as she lives as a cisgender woman again now.

 

I appreciated how she shared her life experiences as she didn't blame her life choices on the transgender and gender non-comforming communities nor into the "queer and (trans)gender political ideologies" (whatever these even are), in a very educated manner.

 

And I became interested in understanding why these people end up going through all of this even as far as doing permanent irreversible changes to themselves.

 

 

I also found really interesting what the girl said about she strongly believed she was and identified as a transgender man and no matter how many times she was told and how many people told her she was not a transgender man and shouldn't have transitioned (as in doing medical changes), she wouldn't believe and denied them. So for what she tells, it looks like that there was no way to stop her from experiencing what she went through.

 

Before anybody feel the need to warn me, I'm already aware that everybody is different, and so are all detransitioners and so their experiences are different among them.

 

From other experiences of people that I heard of, there seems to be patterns of similarities between the lives of detransitioners, even when it comes to reasons of transitioning. So I tried to group them in categories based upon those casualty similarities in order to better comprehend and so empathize with them:

 

1-There's the detransitioners who suddenly and drastically changed from "one end to another" of the gender expression and identity spectrums (I know it's not a line, I was using a metaphor), instead of spending more time experiencing and questioning what feels better before transitioning.

 

I mean people who didn't have a relatively long enough time of experiencing, questioning and figuring yourself and your life out before making big decisions. Like (this is not an uncommon example): "okay, maybe I'm an androgynous cisgender girl, eh no, I guess I'm an tomboyish cisgender girl then, eh, not right yet, I'm better as a transgender guy, eh being a feminine transgender guy suits me better, okay actually I think I relate more to X non-binary gender identity, i feel like I identify more as Y non-binary gender identity from now on, okay, I'm done, it looks easier if i just go by as a transmasculine person". Lol sorry, I've lived through something like that too

 

Instead of going from the socioculturally considered and idealized hyperfeminine women "box" to the socioculturally considered and idealized hypermasculine men "box" all of sudden.

 

 

 

2-There's also those who weren't aware or didn't understood the difference between gender identity and gender expression, like, for example: "my gender expression is or I am considered too feminine in the place I live, I must be a woman then", and vice-versa.

 

 

3-There's the detransitioners who changed their gender identities because they were mistreated or had traumatic memories of abuses they suffered and they wanted to somehow "scape the gender they suffered abuse as" as they associated the abuse they experienced with their gender,  like those who were mistreated because they had an already gender non-conforming expression and thought expressing how they feel like would be easier as living with another gender identity.

 

"Oh man, I'm a cisgender guy with appearance, behaviors and interests perceived as too much feminine in the place where I live, I wonder if life would be easier if I lived as a woman."

 

And some others believed they were abused because of their gender (What happens because we cannot forget we live in a sexist world that treats people of different gender identities and expressions differently as well that mistreats people socioculturally perceived and considered feminine in gender expression or/and in gender identity).

 

It's interesting to note that these kinds of situations affects people of different assigned sexes differently when it comes to femininity: 

 

On one hand we have cisgender women who were abused and because of it started identifying/living as tansmasculine people and transitioned. But on another hand we have transfeminine people who were abused and because of it started to identify/live as cisgender men and detransitioned. I once verbalized my thoughts about it with more depth there before: 

 

 

 

 

4-There's also the detransitioners who also struggle with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), whose condition was unaddressed or any other unaddressed neurodivergent condition like those types of autism and other psychosocial disabilities where one cannot understand or conceptualize or perceive or even have any notion of gender at all.

 

 

5- While internalized sexism can be found within people inside groups 2 and 3, internalized homophobia is also another factor for detransitioners: "I can't be loved or live a happy life if I'm not straight, there's no way out".

 

I'm not a detransitioner and I'm also aware that not all of them can relate to these experiences, so I'd like to know if anyone there is a detransitioner (who lived or identified as transgender for a part of their lives) and would like to share your stories and life experiences so you can help the gender non-comforming and transgender communities understand you better and improve the studies and treatments of  gender non-comforming people in general.

 

[Lichley]

Not really directly on topic, I just wanted to mention that the whole

17 minutes ago, Just Somebody said:

The girl said about she strongly believed she was and identified as a transgender man and no matter how many times she was told and how many people told her she was not a transgender man and shouldn't have transitioned (as in doing medical changes), she wouldn't believe and denied them.

Links in rather interestingly with something I’m reading on Terror Management Theory and why smokers keep going, despite all the health warnings and people telling them to stop. Although it should be noted that the theory itself is not without its own flaws. Quote is from Wikipedia : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

Spoiler

Quote

Research has confirmed that individuals with higher self-esteem, particularly in regard to their behavior, have a more positive attitude towards their life. Specifically, death cognition in the form of anti-smoking warnings weren't effective for smokers and in fact, increased their already positive attitudes towards the behavior.^[20] The reasons behind individuals' optimistic attitudes towards smoking after mortality was made salient, indicate that people use positivity as a buffer against anxiety. Continuing to hold certain beliefs even after they are shown to be flawed creates cognitive dissonance regarding current information and past behavior, and the way to alleviate this is to simply reject new information. Therefore, anxiety buffers such as self-esteem allow individuals to cope with their fears more easily. Death cognition may in fact cause negative reinforcement that leads people to further engage in dangerous behaviors (smoking in this instance) because accepting the new information would lead to a loss of self-esteem, increasing vulnerability and awareness of mortality.^[20]

 

 

[Just Somebody]

18 hours ago, Lichley said:

Not really directly on topic, I just wanted to mention that the whole

Links in rather interestingly with something I’m reading on Terror Management Theory. Although it should be noted that the theory itself is not without its own flaws. Quote is from Wikipedia : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

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Indeed it does, also its VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTICE that nobody can tell anybody what's their gender identity or whether they're transgender or not, only yourself can answer this, that's another reason they couldn't change her mind and that's also a reason to not believe that detransitioners were faking it or were never transgender, if they recognized or identified themselves as transgender people, they simply were transgender.

[Winter-Cattle]

Not sure if you have seen this thread, but a few detransitioners are talked about here:

 

 

I am not detransitioned, but I am disisted, which is usually grouped into the "detrans" label. I was born female, but spent several years identifying, very genuinely and very strongly, as male in young adulthood. I did not take any steps to physically transition, although I definitely wanted to. I no longer identify as transgender, but I don't consider myself to be "cis(gender)", either. I do not consider myself as being to any of your 4 "groups" (you could argue #4 because of my ASD diagnosis, but I would disagree), and I doubt many other detransitioned or desisted people would, either. I'm actually not sure where you got some of those ideas from, unless they are misconceptions from the perspective of transgender people?

 

For non-detrans/desisted people trying to categorise us for their understanding, the most accurate groupings I have come across were by a trans woman on reddit. I don't agree with everything she wrote, but it is apparent that she has actually listened to and understood the perspectives of detrans people:

 

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CW: Light terf-ism about the effectiveness of transition

So, I've actually spent a lot of time in online detrans spaces because I had similar worries. And here's what I've learned:

Broadly, there are three types of detrans people. Type A see themselves as trans, and detransition because of circumstances. Type B see themselves as cis, and detransition because of that. And Type C do not see themselves as cis or trans. They are still dysphoric, but detransition because transition doesn't work for them for whatever reason.

Type A people detransition due to unsupportive family, poverty, etc. They don't hang out in detrans spaces, because if they are anywhere they're in trans spaces. They will probably transition again later in their life.

Type B people transition, quickly discover it isn't for them, think "oh I guess I'm cis", detransition, then kinda return to a normal life. I think Type B people are pretty rare, but as many as there are, probably do hang out in detrans spaces. Trans people tend to assume that all detransitioners this type.

Type C do not see themselves as "actually cis". Mostly, they are people who had and still have dysphoria, but transition didn't work for them for whatever reason. They are overwhelmingly FtMtF, but you'll see a few MtFtMs too. The FtMtF's are mostly gender-non-conforming lesbians now, and the MtFtMs are mostly straight and see themselves as autogynephiles. 95% of the people in detrans spaces, are type C. This is a really good example of how type C people tend to think.

So, if you're trying to make a decision, you can think about it in those terms. Will you be a type A? Only you can say, because only you know your situation. Will you be a type B? I can answer this for you: probably not. There aren't many of them, from what I can tell. If you're spending lots of time thinking about your gender... it doesn't automatically mean transition will be good for you, but it does mean you've got something going on, and "just a cis person who is very confused for no underlying reason" is almost certainly not it.

And type C is where it gets tricky. This type of detransitioner doesn't get talked about very often, because they don't fit neatly into the trans model of the world. They are people who've decided that, for them, transition is not the best way to deal with dysphoria. They tend to say things like "transition is only superficial; you can't actually change your sex". There isn't a way to know whether you'll be one of them someday. People become type C detransitioners after years of hrt, even after surgeries. The best you can do is read what they've written (the blog I linked above is really good for that), and think realistically about what transition means. Your choices are obviously not between cis man and cis woman; you can be a cis man/woman or a trans woman/man (or NB, of course). Think realistically about what that really means, understanding that places like transtimelines are not representative, and places like egg_irl... don't have a firm grasp on reality (I say this with love, as a person who realized I'm trans partially because of that place).

I don't want to sound overly pessimistic. For most dysphoric people (or non-dysphoric trans people), transition is great and exactly what they need. But you asked, and I've thought a lot about this, so I thought I'd comment.

(And also, like, statistically speaking, if you're mtf you probably don't have to worry about it as much haha.)

 

[Just Somebody]

9 hours ago, Winter-Cattle said:

Not sure if you have seen this thread, but a few detransitioners are talked about here:

 

 

I am not detransitioned, but I am disisted, which is usually grouped into the "detrans" label. I was born female, but spent several years identifying, very genuinely and very strongly, as male in young adulthood. I did not take any steps to physically transition, although I definitely wanted to. I no longer identify as transgender, but I don't consider myself to be "cis(gender)", either. I do not consider myself as being to any of your 4 "groups" (you could argue #4 because of my ASD diagnosis, but I would disagree), and I doubt many other detransitioned or desisted people would, either. I'm actually not sure where you got some of those ideas from, unless they are misconceptions from the perspective of transgender people?

 

For non-detrans/desisted people trying to categorise us for their understanding, the most accurate groupings I have come across were by a trans woman on reddit. I don't agree with everything she wrote, but it is apparent that she has actually listened to and understood the perspectives of detrans people:

 

 

This is a really good insight, her "type A" description fall into my description of the "group 3" of detransitioners though.

 

 

I built these categories based on similarities I found while I reading and listening to the life experiences of some detransitioners I stumbled across here and there throughout  the years.

 

 

 

I only disagree with what she about detransitioners being "secretly cisgender people" because nobody can tell what's somebody true gender identity, nor whether or not somebody is transgender, only yourself can answer to yourself what's your gender identity, that means that if you recognize, considering or identify yourself as transgender, you simply are and others cannot deny it.

[Winter-Cattle]

10 hours ago, Just Somebody said:

This is a really good insight, her "type A" description fall into my description of the "group 3" of detransitioners though.

No, they are completely opposite?

 

Her type A are people who transition, then because of the abuse they face (for example), temporarily detransition until they are in a more supportive situation, while identifying as trans the whole time.

 

Your group 3 are people who face abuse because of being gender nonconfirming, and then change their identity to trans because they believe they will somehow escape the abuse?

 

I've heard countless examples of type A, but never come across someone who believes anything like group 3.

 

10 hours ago, Just Somebody said:

I built these categories based on similarities I found while I reading and listening to the life experiences of some detransitioners I stumbled across here and there throughout  the years.

Do you mind linking to someone who is an example of each category? I really just do not see any of these descriptions fitting myself or anyone else, so I'm curious on who they are based on.

 

10 hours ago, Just Somebody said:

I only disagree with what she about detransitioners being "secretly cisgender people"

Where does she say that?