It isn’t even just pitting trans women against other trans women; it’s pitting them against actual biological females by promoting a suspiciously male supremacist point of view. With shades of old Freudian bullshit. I swear, it’s as if an awful lot of trans women and their “allies” are MRAs.

…there are now two, possibly three trans subreddits currently seeming to brigade and mass report posts on here…

Of course. lmao It’s almost as if they know their ideology cannot withstand scrutiny or criticism, or even other people’s personal choices, and they must instead resort to bullying and silencing. Funny how similar they are to right-wingers, tbh.

I wonder if some of these people are terrified of doing anything that isn’t “affirming” transness, for fear of being “cancelled.” Or maybe they genuinely cannot fathom that anyone could turn out to be wrong about transitioning. Or maybe they don’t want to be seen as contributing to the statistics on something that supposedly “literally never happens.” lol

In any case, not your fault. I’m just sorry you have to deal with detransphobia and gaslighting in therapy of all places. I wish I could say it was surprising to hear.

It probably has something to do with people on social media saying, “You don’t have to have gender dysphoria to be trans, and you don’t have to transition if you’re trans!” in order to encourage people to adopt trans identities, which I personally regard as a manipulative recruitment tactic. They do things like this while still claiming it’s “transphobic” to suggest this movement might have a social contagion aspect. lol

But I have to admit I’m more comfortable with this than with encouraging vulnerable people, especially kids and teens, to socially or medically transition. I’m a little more okay with people experimenting without feeling the need to transition at all. At least they reserve space to come to their senses without being fucked up by transition.

This is really interesting. I assume, however, that this is one of those studies that gender ideologists would dismiss with, “They probably desisted because they had no social support!” Would you say this is one of the valid criticisms you alluded to? Since it is talking about children specifically.

I spent years identifying as FtM, and this was my experience as well. Both personally and from most others in that community. Took me ages to realize what was happening. After I finally realized I’d seen so many memes about experiencing “euphoria” or “being triggered” by what were just gendered stereotypes.

Is a trans identity really someone’s “entire existence”? I can’t decide if that’s insultingly reductive or grossly assigning far too much importance to gender (as society keeps insisting on doing, and which probably results in a lot of people thinking they’re trans when they aren’t).

Exactly this. I would like it if everyone questioned their gender, and the whole concept of gender in total. I’m not clear on why or how this is supposed to mean “I want to change my sex characteristics.”

One of the great tragedies of this movement is that its followers make claims like “gender is a social construct” and “sex is a spectrum,” as if they may know on some level that gender and sex are different, but in practice they use those terms interchangeably and believe boys who like pink need to be taking estrogen immediately and girls who like short hair and baggy tees need to come out to their families and get binders. lol They lampoon themselves and wonder why they aren’t taken seriously except by each other and by their enablers who also think gender=sex.

Being involved in that community is the greatest cringe of my life. I’ll never live it down to myself.

I think many of us end up thinking we’re trans because we have “masculine” traits, and/or simply don’t like “feminine” traits, and society has repeatedly told us that “masculine” = boy/man, so that’s what we think we must become. So it isn’t surprising that we’d retain those same traits after desisting/detransing.

But those of us who ultimately desist/detrans have, at some point, realized that these traditional gender roles don’t dictate our whole identities. We realize we can be women who happen to prefer short hair, no makeup, and slouchy clothes. And like in my case, we may also come to terms with the shittiness of being women (misogyny, periods, sex-based health and safety risks, etc.) and realize that denying reality isn’t healthy. Being ourselves is healthy.

Unfortunately, it kinda sounds like maybe you haven’t figured out who you really are yet. I see a lot of myself in you, swinging from one extreme to the other based on what society insists “man” and “woman” should look like, should want, should be. Really, I suspect most people are somewhere in between these extremes and just want to be ourselves without everything — every aspect of our lives and appearances — necessarily being so gendered.

I’ve been where you are, and I can’t answer your questions because I think they’re extremely personal and would best be addressed with a therapist (ideally a specialist in this area, and ideally one who won’t simply “affirm” you regardless of your reservations). But I just want to say I hear you, I feel what you’re going through, and you have already been given some great advice in other comments.

I concluded that I am absolutely not trans and never was; I was just trying to escape. You may not reach the same conclusion. Whatever you decide, whatever journey you want to embark on, prioritize your long-term happiness and comfort. Invest in that, even if it might mean short-term sacrifices (delaying surgeries, for example). This is advice I give to everyone.