My opinion on detransitioners is that if someone dyed their hair purple and then realized it wasn't the right color for them I'd help them buy the hair dye to change it back.
The only time it would be a problem is if they started blaming me for "making them want to dye it in the first place" just because I dye my hair.
It would be even more of a problem if they then started advocating for restricting people's access to hairdye just because they decided dyeing their hair wasn't the right thing for them.
I'm going to elaborate on this a little more directly because the other day I saw an article by the daily mail that made me feel a bit queasy.
It was an article about a woman who had thought she was a trans man, had gotten top surgery and gone on testosterone, and then realized that it wasn't actually making her happy and that she wasn't actually a trans man. Reading this I felt nothing but sympathy, as someone who has struggled with mental illness his whole life I know how hard it is when you think something is going to "fix you" and then it doesn't. She talks about how she saw trans people expressing joy after transitioning and she thought that it would do the same for her. I was a little uncomfortable with that line of thinking but the alarm bells weren't going off quite yet.
But then she goes on to say that she thinks she was given access to transition care far too easily and quickly. That her informed consent wasn't really informed. That's when I started getting really uncomfortable. She started talking about how she thinks it's too easy to transition and that a lot of people "don't really know what they're doing" when they transition. She then advocated for making it harder for people to transition. That's when I stopped reading the article.
There is a reason a lot of trans people are uncomfortable around detransitioned cis people, and it's because of people like the woman from this article. You can tell from the way she talks about the trans community to the way she talks about transition that she did not do her due diligence and is now refusing to take responsibility for that. She saw people talking about how transitioning made them happy and took it at face value. She thought it would be a magic fix that would cure her depression and when it didn't she felt betrayed, like she had been lied to. But she never understood why transitioning was making these people happy.
Based on her comments about informed consent it's obvious she also didn't bother researching the actual transition care that she was getting. That is the whole point of informed consent, you have to do the research yourself. I mean hell I feel like I know more about how testosterone affects the body than my general practitioner does because I've spent so much time researching it to make sure that's what I wanted. It's not the trans community's fault that she didn't educate herself, it isn't like the resources aren't available.
To me all of this is indicative of a larger issue. It isn't just about transition, it's about the way society as a whole treats mental health. Mental illnesses have been commodofied and healthy coping mechanisms have been abandoned. People think that watching tiktoks about depression are a stand in for therapy. Trauma is worn like a badge of honour and the mere idea of unpacking it is seen as ableist. People build communities around suffering and then act surprised when people get hurt. Nobody is expected to take responsibility for their own mental wellbeing anymore so nobody knows how to.
That woman transitioned because she thought it would magically get rid of her mental illnesses. She saw trans people finding relief after finally being able to live in a body they were comfortable in and misunderstood what was going on. She was viewing them through a lens of her own suffering because she didn't see the difference, she assumed her experiences were universal. When it didn't work out she decided that trans people must have been the issue and not her own ignorance.
It's the constant refusal to take responsibility for your own actions that really bothers me as both a trans person and a disabled person. Getting better takes work and you have to be ready to fuck up and feel bad sometimes. Getting to the root of your mental illnesses and doing something about them is hard and uncomfortable and exhausting but it's worth it. Quick fixes aren't real and there are no magical cures. Transitioning is a journey of self discovery, not just a medical treatment. We will keep seeing detransitioned people acting and thinking like the woman above unless we change the way people talk about and treat mental health.
And that's that on that.
Actually I'm not done. I want to be as explicit as I possibly can right now:
Trans people existing and being happy in their trans bodies isn't "making" anyone do anything. Us being ourselves isn't "pressuring" anyone. Trans people being nice to you on the internet have no control over what YOU do with YOUR body.
If you are mentally ill and find some comfort and solace in the trans community then I'm happy for you! I'm glad you found kindness! But if you have such a surface level understanding of us and our experiences that you think transitioning is a magical cure that suddenly gets rid of all of our mental illnesses over night, then sorry but that's on you. Transitioning makes many trans people feel better specifically because it treats their dysphoria. If your mental illnesses aren't related to gender dysphoria then yeah, transition isn't gonna fuckin help! You cannot blame trans people for your own ignorance. There are more than enough resources available for you to educate yourself, not just about trans people but about mental illness too. Trans people aren't responsible for educating you, even though many of us will if you ask!
I'm so tired of hearing story after story after story of someone who saw trans people being happy after transitioning, decided that surely transition would cure their depression, and then got pissed off at trans people when it didn't work. I mean every single story I have heard about detransitioners who were mad at the trans community and felt "pressured" to transition is like that. As a trans guy who has spent a decade of my life in pyshciatric care it frustrates me.
Trans joy is not dangerous.











