UnnHappy, sad, mad, Unnspeakable blue red Unnsunshining and hot and cool and red hot and ice cold

— Nicole Maines, age seven

Detransitioning – undergoing a social or medical gender transition, and later choosing to reverse this – is a subject of perennial media attention and widespread public fascination. Although systematic studies have found that regret over transitioning occurs at a rate of 2% or less (Dhejne et al., 2014; Johansson et al., 2010), individual stories hold greater emotional resonance than abstract statistics, particularly at a time when many still do not accept the basic validity of cross-gender identity and are itching to find anything that can be leveraged as ammunition against recognizing and affirming trans people.

Some individuals choose to misrepresent the phenomenon of detransitioning as an argument against anyone transitioning, and in doing so they erase the complex nuances of those who’ve detransitioned: the ones who came to realize they didn’t need to transition but do not regret their cross-gender experience; the ones who detransitioned due to pressures from their family or community but maintain a cross-gender identity; the ones forced to detransition for their safety in institutional settings or to access services such as homeless shelters; the ones who transition once again. All of these personal and systemic factors are wiped away in service of the myth that detransitioners are universally misdiagnosed cis people, that they all regret their transition, and that trans people are almost certainly mistaken about who we are and we might as well skip a step and just never transition.

But suppose, as a trans woman, I were to entertain this idea – that transitioning is always and forever a terrible mistake, I’ve obviously been dead wrong for the past five years about the clear improvement I’ve seen in my life, and I’d be much happier “accepting reality” (I simply cannot put enough quotes around that). What if, contrary to all available evidence and professional diagnoses, I really would be better off ceasing transition and doing something else? Continue reading →