Detransition is Gender Liberation, Too - Here's to never being satisfied and forever changing. (drdevonprice.substack.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Gaywallet@beehaw.org to c/lgbtq_plus@beehaw.org

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[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 months ago

Can't get this article out of my head.

I don't feel exactly the same, and I don't exactly want to detranstion but my own understanding of who I am and what I'm comfortable performing or not always changes.

I am more comfortable with a mostly feminine body than not, and I definitely don't regret SRS, but I also have no intention of voice training, I don't really do makeup or overly feminine clothing. I like maintaining some muscles, sometimes I wish I could go on T for a bit to body build and experience the mental changes now they wouldn't be an inescapable prison but also I strongly don't want some physical changes like hair growth.

Life is weird, gender is strange, people want to put people in boxes so much even non binary labels have aesthetics in the public eye, and expected roles to perform.

[-] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Right? My physical dysphoria was addressed by a very traditionally binary medical transition...

But that feeling of transitioning to escape the confines of gender, only to find out that there's just more gender? I feel that in my bones... Masculinity, femininity, they both feel alien to me, and in transitioning, I feel like I've escaped one gender box only to land in another (admittedly more comfortable) gender box. I don't want a better box. I want no box! And this article vocalised and crystallised a lot of my own half formed thoughts

And the idea of finding comfort in always struggling with the boxes?

"but for me, being trans is all about feeling uncomfortable with any category, and with the action of breaking away again and again and again. It’s the disavowal, not the desire."

This spoke to me in ways that I'd never considered before, but yeah, that's me...

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 6 months ago

Yeah, it's difficult to process. I certainly wouldn't be the first woman to reject traditional femininity, or even to take T for various goals if I did that; it's hard to understand how much of the distance and alienation I feel is internalised transphobia, a result of a different socialisation (would a cis woman, raised as a cis man, feel the same way?), a defensive reaction to treatment from society at large, or some "genuine" need to understand myself in contrast to traditional structures. Is such a question even meaningful? the author's stance is no, and I think I agree?

I remember saying at some point to a therapist early in the process, when she asked what I thought transition would look like, that I didn't want to go through all the pain and rejection of tearing off one mask only to put on another but of course now I understand that such a thing isn't really possible.

I think a lot of people would say "Ok, you're describing the experience of being non binary" but I don't think it's quite that, particularly internally I tend to feel quite strongly gendered, something odd happened where prior to transition I was mostly a woman in my imagination/internal monologue and after transition I often find myself thinking of myself as a man. Yet when I'm gendered as a man by strangers it feels awful!

Even discussing this stuff is difficult, because it'll all be used as ammunition by people to attack trans people.

Amusingly I think the most seen I've ever felt by a stranger was when a guy a bit divorced from reality (drugs or psychosis I don't know, never saw him again) looked up and went "ah, another androgynous soul" and then went back to his ravings.

[-] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 months ago

I think a lot of people would say “Ok, you’re describing the experience of being non binary” but I don’t think it’s quite that, particularly internally I tend to feel quite strongly gendered, something odd happened where prior to transition I was mostly a woman in my imagination/internal monologue and after transition I often find myself thinking of myself as a man. Yet when I’m gendered as a man by strangers it feels awful!

Yes, this is similar to my own experience! It feels like what I'm experiencing should be a non binary experience, yet, I don't resonate with that, because my internal identity is gendered in a binary way. Yet every time I'm seen as transgressing gendered norms, it makes me happy. That was true before I transitioned, and it remains true now that the norms attached to me are different. I'm not happy being misgendered, but I'm quite happy to not be gendered, and I'm uncomfortable when people assume I'm cishet. I'd be happiest if my gender was an internal experience and of no importance to anyone else. My gender identity is there, and it's pretty binary I guess, yet that very same binary comes with a boatload of bullshit that no one should have to deal with.

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 10 points 6 months ago

Wow, I feel really seen by the essay and also by the comments by both of you ♥

Because of the author's book "unmasking autism" I first discovered the labels autigender/neuroqueer. Those helped me a lot to see my gender doubts and internal conflicts as being the products of me as an autistic person trying to assimilate into a gendered society.

[-] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 3 points 6 months ago

Before seriously questioning whether I was cis or not, I specifically looked up autism gender because I've long thought I'm too autistic for gender. But since I don't have an official diagnosis, I never considered using the autigender label and just didn't think about that for a while longer. I always found it a bit strange that other autistic people could be binary trans because of my own disconnect from gender. Allistic cis people caring about gender was always weird too, but like. They're allistic. They're gonna be weird. Why would autistic people go out of their way to embrace the charade of gender? At least teenage me still didn't use my confusion as a reason to be transphobic.

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago

Hahaha so true! Although I get that autistic people could go either way, either be completely confused by gender and then abandon it as much as possible. Or on the other extreme autistic people might also try to learn all the rules of gender and get it just right?

[-] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I identify as non-binary and agender. In ways I resonate a lot with what Devon and you all have written in this thread, but figured I'd share a few words about my own experience. The closest thing I've found to gender euphoria (I don't experience gender-specific feelings but this describes a positive experience that involves gender expression and the perception of gender by others) comes through the lens of transgressing gendered norms. In particular, I get a lot of delight out of causing confusion in others and making people reconsider what they think they know about gender. For example, one time at a party a person used she/her to refer to me and I simply replied "I'm not a girl". Their response was to apologize and use he/him on me, to which I replied "I'm not a boy". This poor confused soul then asked "well what are you then?" to which I replied in as upbeat and cute as I could muster "I'm a bunny!" I truly wish I had my phone at the ready to record the very visible thought process on this poor lad's face as my words both disarmed and confused him. It is one of my most cherished memories.

I enjoy the experience of being difficult to put into boxes and there is no strong compelling force for me to align with all the gender expectations of the gender I'm presenting as. In fact, I often find myself adapting how I act as a direct response to how I am perceived. For example I tend to move my vocal inflection in the opposite direction of perception - upwards if people are reading me as a man and downwards if they're reading me as a woman not because I want to fit into a third box but because I want people to question where the box starts and ends. Liberation from the boxes that we are placed in brings me joy, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for anyone to lay claim to an identity as a gender non-conforming binary gendered person, or even have an internal identity that's a reflection of the external perception and pressures that brings.

Tagging @naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com and @flora_explora@beehaw.org because they might also like to see this

[-] exocrinous@startrek.website 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Even in nonbinary gender, there's expectations and they're horrible. I'm openly dronegender on this account. And people call me a transphobic troll for it, because they say being trans is only two genders, only the respectable genders. It's why I'm really afraid of being doxxed. I don't want to face this kind of stigma and discrimination all the time. I want the option of staying in the closet some of the time. Unfortunately, some people on Lemmy have tried to "expose" me by accusing me of being various other people. Thankfully, they've been wrong every time so far. But I worry one day they're going to get it right, and I'm going to suffer. And I've seen the people who are accused of being me having to erase their entire digital presence to get away from the violence. That sort of thing was really common on Blahaj Zone, and I resent those who allowed it to happen.