There are two accusations levelled at those of us who identify and live as trans but later return to living in accordance with our natal sex: either we suffer from “internalised transphobia” and are trying to escape our “queer destiny” or we were “never really trans in the first place.”
The first accusation supposes that one is born trans, and no amount of talking oneself out of it will change that fundamental reality. The second accusation supposes that one can be (falsely) convinced into believing that one is trans when one is not. To suppose that one is born trans and that said trans-ness is immutable throws a bucket of water on the idea that gender is fluid—and to say that gender is fluid in some and not in others is to push a bit too hard at the boundaries of plausibility.
Likewise, to suggest that one can mistake oneself as being trans presupposes a level of fluidity—a spectrum, as has been postulated. Yet those who deem it possible to make a mistake will also refute the allegation that there is a social contagion underpinning the rise of trans-identification in teenage girls; it merely reflects the fact, they will say, that society is now more accepting than it used to be of these other identities. As such, these autistic and lesbian girls (in particular) are now free to announce to the world who they really are—that is, not gay or autistic but trans.
Who, then, is to adjudicate upon who is ‘really trans’ and who is merely ‘queer’ or ‘fluid’ or confused? The trans activists say that trans people themselves are the ultimate arbiters of what is and is not trans—which shares a similar circular logic with “a woman is whoever identifies as a woman.” “Listen to trans folk,” they say, rather than question their self-description, for to do so would be conversion therapy. What, then, of the people who—like me—knew themselves to be trans, were told they were trans by other trans people and medical professionals, and had all the purported signs of being trans from a young age but went on to embrace their biological sex and found peace where there once was agony?
If detransitioners are “trapped in the wrong body” but are living in denial of that fact, then being trans is a hardware issue. Their protestation, therefore, that puberty blockers are barbaric, hormone therapy depraved, and “affirmation” surgeries grotesque—not providing long-term or even short-term relief to their feelings of discomfort and depression—should be regarded with the most urgent and grave seriousness. After all, society is morally bound to listen to trans people.
If, however, detransitioners were mistaken into believing they are trans—in part, because gender is being regarded as a spectrum, founded upon stereotypes—then this would suggest transition is more of a software issue, requiring less extreme physical interventions, such as therapy, to relieve distress. The issue of trans diagnosis also re-emerges, with who is sufficiently ‘trans’ to qualify for more extreme interventions like cross-sex hormones being the foremost issue—particularly when, gender being a spectrum, one is liable to feeling more masculine on Mondays and more feminine on Fridays. Questions would also need to be asked about how and why it is that people can come to be mistaken, and in a way that is as all-consuming and convincing as this.
Should an internet activist not be available to divine the authenticity of a person’s queerness, the role of needs must fall to their elected representatives—a therapist or mental health clinician (who, if one is particularly lucky or particularly unlucky, might also be an internet activist or lobbyist). This clinician will adjudicate who is ‘trans’ and who is merely ‘gender non-conforming’ and distressed at the prescriptions of their sex—if one is not a description of the other. They will have to ask some difficult questions of their patient in order to ascertain whether he or she has been ‘born into the wrong body’ or merely misled into believing so. Of course, to question a person who has concluded that they are trans and has come to you for help to “realign” their body to their brain body is, once again, “conversion therapy.” Zero points for you.
There is no question of trying to realign the brain with the body. After all, like being gay, being trans is regarded as a hardware issue—one is born that way, as one is born with brown or blonde hair. Since it has been concluded that it is wrong—and, indeed, impossible—to talk someone out of being gay, it has been inferred that it would also be wrong to try the same in the instance of being trans—which, unlike being gay, is both a matter of choice (‘self-identification’) and happenstance (‘born this way’). According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, those who are gender non-conforming may choose to “self identify as transgender,” construing once more the literature of transgenderism in software terms.
What, then, is a doctor to do? As the recent Cass Review has demonstrated, bury one’s head in the sand and keep mutilating the children.
Dr Hilary Cass’s report finds that “Some practitioners abandoned normal clinical approaches to holistic assessment, which has meant this group of young people have been exceptionalised compared to other young people with similarly complex presentations.”
If there is a unifying factor between detransitioners, it is that they felt they were not interrogated enough about their motivations, and their conception of the world before they were placed on ‘gender-affirmative’ treatment pathways involving social, hormonal, and surgical ‘transition.’ Each of these people report how their comorbidities were not taken into account or sufficiently addressed before they were diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” or “gender incongruity”—all of which rely upon self-report and woolly conceptions of the masculine and feminine. Their self-harming, depression, suicidal ideation, social isolation, anxiety, and anorexia were seen as symptoms of their repressed trans-identity rather than existing prior to their trans self-identification—a perceived method of escape and self-reinvention. This was true in my own case, afflicted as I was with many of these issues from a young age with little-to-no help to overcome them except that I could find within myself and in the suffocating swamp that is Tumblr.
The fact of the matter is that those who desist from gender transition face more scrutiny when readopting their sex-based characteristics than when they were asking to have their genitals severed from their body. Cass attributes this, in part, to the “pressure to take the purely affirmative approach.” But this only gives us a slimy glint at the Leviathan beneath the waves. Why is it “difficult for staff to raise concerns about the clinical approach”? It is not that there is not a lot of money to be made for the gender-conversion industry in the UK—not in the same order as the U.S. at least.
We Europeans have always been more precious about our ideas than a fast-pay out. The problem of detransitioners is that they have unmoored an idea—a conception of the human. Detransitioners threaten to give credence to idea that being trans is a software issue: one is not born trans but, instead, for as yet unclear reasons to do with abuse, personality, sexuality, and arousal, becomes distressed at their state of being and find comfort and relief in the idea of being the opposite sex. If being trans is a software issue, there are fewer grounds for society adapting its language, changing its rules of sport and social interaction, and demolishing all its public toilets in order to build “gender neutral” ones. Some may experience being trans in the mind, but this does not have any bearing upon the body besides it feeling icky to the wearer—for, in the throes of gender distress, the body feels like a meat suit, and the spirit an electric wire severed and scratching the surface of an angry tide. If being trans is a software issue, it would not carry much more social significance than dying your hair blue or having a tricky liver. But, of course, that is not equity. That is mere filthy equality. And, as we all know, some people know themselves to be more equal than others.
If society is only invested in people being their ‘true selves,’ they should be indifferent to detransitioners, who conclude that they are happier living as their sex dictates. But society is not indifferent. Clinicians would be able to question their regulatory bodies. Schools would not be re-gendering their pupils behind the backs of parents. GPs would not feel “pressurised to prescribe puberty blockers or feminising/masculinising hormones.” And the parliaments of the United Kingdom would not be moving to pass legislation—the paradoxically named Conversion Therapy Ban Bill—that prevented vulnerable children and young adults from having the conscientious but rigorous therapy they need to unearth that their trans-identification may only be a symptom of their distress and not the cause.
I do not know how this situation will pan out in the short term. I suspect the horror will continue. Whilst the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is being decommissioned due to safety fears, regional children’s Gender Identity Development services are still scheduled to open in the UK, and the sketchy evidence for interventions ranging from social to surgical transition is still to be pursued via clinical trials, and I anticipate a great rise in the number of clinical trials being pursued.
My question is how many more harrowing testimonies from failed transition victims, detransitioners, and petrified doctors are needed for the mutilations to stop? Cass describes practitioners at the Tavistock as well-intentioned but misguided. If I am a believer in anything, I am a believer in hapless fools. But what well-intentioned clinician does not wait for clinical trial results? What responsible practitioner does not take into account their patient’s full range of conditions—and joke that there will be “no more gay kids left” at their rate of conversion?
Why did clinics like the Tavistock believe themselves to be above the need of good medical practice—above the need to follow-up with their patients? And, foremost, why do activists—who claim to care only for the welfare of “trans lives”—continue to push for the condemned therapies? Is it that they believe children and people with trans identities are less deserving of a high standard of care? Or simply, that they do not mind how many little girls’ forearms are flayed and how many teenage boys have their guts hollowed out to prove themselves independent of their creator, the ultimate play-doh creature.
As with the mismanagement of COVID, I believe straight answers will never be forthcoming. What I do know, though, is that the people who have been pushing for the sterilisation and mutilation of gay, autistic, and abused children will pretend they were ‘following the science’ all along.
