Responding to Criticism
In which I ponder some feedback
When you publicly post on the internet, especially about your personal failings, especially on an incendiary political topic, you run the risk of generating a little pushback. Some of it is well-reasoned and polite, some is cruel and trolling. There are opportunistic journalists and faceless anonymous trolls and gigantic KiwiFarms threads and random people dropping by to give their opinions in a slightly harsh tone. This is how it is. I expect it. I just keep posting and writing anyway.
But I have to admit - I do spend some time thinking about these internet strangers and their criticism. The conservatives who think I’m a gender-studies-brain-melted-wokescold who got her comeuppance, the trans people who say I’m purposefully giving ammunition to people who want to destroy them.
I was rewatching my old transition video diaries the other day and I found one towards the end, when I was really starting to grapple with the fact that I had made a bad mistake, but was still a firm believer in most of the ideas that spurred me to transition. I was fretting about what I was going to do, and how I could talk about my pain without giving ammunition to “transmedicalists or transphobes.”
I had to chuckle ruefully. My former self would be shocked at how openly I criticize the ideas I once believed in. And she wouldn’t be alone - a lot of trans people are very suspicious of detransitioners, especially those who speak negatively of transition.
“Just because it didn’t work out for you doesn’t mean it won’t work out for other people.” “You’re drawing attention to something that’s really rare and it’s putting the rest of us in danger.” “Detransitioners like you tell your stories in manipulative ways that you know are going to gin up transphobia, you’re crypto-TERFs.”
These are loosely adapted versions of things I’ve heard, either directed at me or at detransitioners at large. I understand where these people are coming from, because I used to be 100% on board. I thought detransitioners were insignificant, isolated incidents, and while they deserved pity, their stories should be carefully managed to avoid besmirching the good reputation of transition.
“You don’t speak for trans people and the things you say hurt trans people.”
I understand that what I write is painful for some trans people to read. I’ve been personally told that on several occasions. It’s not my aim. But I have the right to talk through my experiences, my beliefs and how they have changed, and why. Maybe it will help some people to avoid my pain. And if not, I still hope I can provide comfort to others who went down this path and found it wasn’t what they thought.
Lately I’ve been exposed to a different critical perspective: from conservative people who are scornfully derisive of my entire journey. They can’t believe I ever bought into this trans stuff and have little sympathy for someone who would be so foolish. What did I expect, cutting my tits off? That would make me a man? “You must be crazy, I have no sympathy for you. What did you expect?”
Should I have known better? I wish I had. But hey! I never claimed to be a wise person! I was a depressed 22 year old making decisions with the information I had from my friends, 7 years of nonstop Tumblr use, and a course of university study with a heavy emphasis on queer theory. I know, I know, the jokes write themselves, it’s such a stereotype.
And then there’s the people who say to me - “you were an adult when you transitioned, what are you complaining about? You got what you wanted.”
And I have to say, yeah, I got what I thought I wanted. And I have to take responsibility for my choices. If it makes you feel better, I’ve suffered deeply because of them, haha!
But I also think there’s a larger problem, with the doctors, with trans ideology, with the marketing, with the double-talk and confusion around the whole issue. And I’ve seen other people get sucked into it and get hurt. And while I did make mistakes -- I’m not the only one. I want to add my voice to the discourse so we can get to a saner understanding.
One last criticism. Last week on twitter someone was accusing detransitioners: “You’re just doing this for attention!”
Aah, doing it for attention. In this social media colosseum, who isn’t doing things for attention? I’ll admit it. I like writing. I like showing people my writing. It is nourishing to know that some portion of people find my work comforting, illuminating, or interesting. I can’t pretend I’m not putting my writing out there in hopes of it finding an audience - of course I am.
Let me end with this: my intentions are good. I am writing to process what I went through. It helps me, and I hope it will help other people. I am sorting through things as honestly and frankly as I can. I will try to criticize my own faults as well as the medical professionals that I feel let down by. If you think I come across as annoying, self-serving, self-pitying, narcissistic, stupid, or otherwise morally impaired - you could be right. I’m a deeply flawed person. Thanks for reading anyway.
What shines through in this piece is that you have both the capacity for self-reflection and distress tolerance, which seem to me to be key. Your more vicious detractors seem to lack these things.
Thank you for sharing your story. As someone who is finally dealing with lifelong gender dysphoria, I've found that while it's hard for me to find direct relation to the stories of most detransitioners, I've also found that those (and your) viewpoints are often the most helpful and compassionate in helping me process my decisions.