A “gay boy in a girl’s body” desists: Guest post

Posted on January 7, 2016 by 4thwavenow

This is a guest post by long-time 4thWaveNow community member overwhelmed. She is available to respond to your comments and questions in the comments section for this post.

Most trans activists and gender specialists will concede that at least some prepubescent children will grow out of gender dysphoria. (How many? No one knows, but it’s a current hot topic which I’ll be tackling in a post in the near future). But it’s touted as if it were gospel that once puberty hits, if a teen says they’re trans, then they are–case closed. Gender dysphoria at puberty = gender dysphoria for life.

As my own personal story attests, this is simply not always the case. I’ve been hearing from more and more young people who have bucked this supposed hard-and-fast truism. And now we hear from another mom whose daughter has changed her mind.

It has long been known that upwards of 90% of gender dysphoric girls are same-sex attracted, but overwhelmed‘s daughter is one of a growing number of young women who are opposite-sex attracted but who also believe themselves to be transgender.

As I experienced with my own teen, overwhelmed tells us that most of the medical and psychological professionals she encountered–far from being cautious and methodical about handing out a trans diagnosis–rushed to the assumption that her daughter was transgender simply because she claimed to be.

Seeing a pattern, readers?

Another mom listens to her gut

by overwhelmed

Earlier this year my daughter revealed that she really was a gay boy trapped in a girl’s body. She had never shown any previous signs of discomfort with her body so I was confused by this belief, especially the urgent desire to medically transition NOW!

I called my pediatrician’s office for a referral to a psychologist for my daughter. The nurse who answered the phone had just attended a transgender educational seminar and felt like she knew all about my daughter, even though she had never met her. This nurse completely dismissed my over 16 years of knowledge of my daughter. Just like that. She told me that my daughter’s pre-existing depression and anxiety were symptoms of her being transgender, not the other way around. I told her that my daughter had been online in Tumblr communities and had watched a lot of YouTube transition videos that had likely influenced her. The newly educated nurse, however, basically told me that I needed to accept that she was transgender, and to start supporting my daughter in being her authentic self.

My daughter’s first psychologist also completely dismissed any knowledge I had about my daughter. At the time I was just relieved to have found someone to talk to my daughter who I was concerned might be suicidal. I was happy that this psychologist had experience working with others who were transgender. I mistakenly believed that she would be able to tell that my daughter wasn’t an authentic trans boy. While traveling to and from her therapy sessions, I shared transgender scientific research with my daughter— that many people identifying as transgender have mental health problems, that the vast majority (80%) of kids outgrow their gender dysphoria, and so forth. I didn’t realize it initially, but my daughter was also sharing this information with the psychologist. And, the psychologist was telling my daughter that the information I was telling her was bogus, made-up information. She mentioned that she had a PhD and knew much more than I. She told her that I shouldn’t believe everything I read online. She told my daughter that she wanted to include parents during the next session so that she could “set me straight” on the facts.

I fired her.

In the meantime, I felt the need to get information out there, so that other parents could benefit from the information I had found. There is such an overwhelming amount of information online touting that gender is unchanging, that transition is the only cure. I know this is wrong. All you have to do is look at the scientific research, or even to the growing number of detransitioners who are speaking out. I started submitting comments to transgender media articles and even on some parenting forums. I am a person who tends to be pretty careful in what I write, never intending to be offensive, but one site I went to banned me immediately because I recommended googling “transgender regret” as a way to get information from a different perspective! I have also had quite a few comments on media articles disappear due to similar recommendations.

Overall, as a parent who did not buy into my daughter needing cross-sex hormones and lopped off breasts, I am ignored when I voice my concerns. I’m silenced. I’m vilified. I’ve been called transphobic and gleefully told that it isinevitable that my daughter will commit suicide due to the lack of support.

Unfortunately, parents concerned about their trans-identifying children face a perfect storm of opposition. They are battered from many directions, told that they are wrong, warned that if they don’t start supporting their child that suicide is a likely outcome. These messages come from their own children, the overwhelming pro-trans voices online, the news and media, medical professionals, government officials, and even school districts.

I admit that there were times when I doubted my gut instincts. But, fortunately I was able to find a group of parents in the same situation (thanks 4thwavenow!) and have greatly benefited from their support. And, fortunately I found another therapist for my daughter who was able to uncover the reasons she felt disconnected to her sex. She had once felt powerless as a female (due to some traumatic experiences) and thought a male identity would be a better fit. Now she no longer identifies as transgender. While still eschewing most things considered conventionally feminine, she has embraced the fact that her presentation and passions don’t make her any less female.

Although I am able to relax about my own daughter’s status, I am still very concerned about the vast majority of parents in this situation. I fear that many won’t find the support system that was so beneficial to me. I fear that they won’t be able to find a mental health professional that will try to uncover their child’s underlying reasons for identifying as trans. I fear that many parents will succumb to the pressure.

It shouldn’t be like this. There shouldn’t be so much pressure against parents who are genuinely concerned about their children’s health.

To crush every doubt: Just pronouns and a name

Posted on January 5, 2016 by 4thwavenow

This is a guest post by commenter thissoftspace, a woman who experienced gender dysphoria, began transition to FTM, but pulled back to embrace herself as female.

This account is a bit different from the previous two in my ongoing series of guest posts from women who’ve experienced dysphoria or dis-identification from female. Woven into the narrative are vignettes from thissofstspace‘s mother, who shares her own thoughts and feelings about her daughter’s journey.

Parents and their offspring who decide to “transition” are sometimes ripped away from each other in the process–whether the transitioner is a child or an adult with the right to make her own medical decisions. Some online trans activists even encourage young, questioning people to forsake their “transphobic” families and seek community only with strangers on Internet forums. This account from thissoftspace and her mother is a testament to the bond that endures between us parents and our kids—no matter what decisions are made, or how well we understand each other at a given time.

I’ll be publishing her piece in two parts. Here, in Part I, thissoftspace takes us through her “gender nonconforming” childhood and on to identifying as an “asexual agender aromantic.” Part II will chronicle her decision to transition and begin testosterone–until an epiphany one night leads her to return to her original female self.

thissoftspace will be available to respond personally to questions and discussion in the comments section below.

Please also visit her on WordPress and Tumblr, both blogs entitled “Nurturing a Healthier Habitat for Female Human Beings.” And if you know any young women who struggle to identify as female, send them here for a boost of self love.

Part I: There and Back Again

by thissoftspace

I can only tell the story as I experienced it. I can only tell how I grew up, how I came to view myself through the lens of others, how that led me to identify as transgender, and how I found my way back to myself. I’ve been living with these issues for nearly four decades, though the height of my gender identity crisis happened within the past two years. My mother, with whom I share a home and a close friendship, has been along for the journey, and I’ll be including some of her thoughts.

There is no definitive path for any person who identifies as transgender for any length of time – there are too many variables involved – but I hope this account gives some perspective on the internal and external forces involved, what I was going through while I was identifying as trans, and the hope there is to find another way.

My mother’s words:

I did not wish to see my daughter change into a man. She was my child, a young lady whom I admired. Why did she have to be a man? Yet I did not wish to lose her. I was afraid of her emotions, worried about her stability as a person. I wanted her happy and to be able to be a person who could function in the world.

It began with my name.

My first and middle names are both old, traditional feminine names. Looked at objectively, they really are quite lovely together. My first name happens to be similar to that of an international personality, and when I was very young, I was often (and still am) called by her nickname. The problem was, when I looked at her on television, I saw the pinnacle of what a woman should be. She was blonde and blue-eyed, gentle, poised, elegant, gracious, always dressed to a T. Flawless. Beautiful. Every time I was called by her name I felt an uncomfortable dissonance. I was nothing like her. Why did people call me by her name?

I was a kid in jeans and a sweatshirt with an oft-uncombed pageboy haircut, knee-deep in the pond after polliwogs. I was hollering as I set off fireworks with my older brother and I was galloping around the fields like a horse. I was climbing trees, pulling night crawlers out of the soil on damp summer nights, playing with Erector Sets, Legos, Transformers, model airplanes. Growing up, I never imagined any difference between my brother and myself. I have no memory of being held back from any activity because I was a girl, though I’m sure there were occasions. If there was a reason he played football and I didn’t, I never thought about it. When he removed himself as my playmate in his teens I felt an immense loss, and never could fathom why he had left me.

I didn’t think much about being a boy or a girl. I was what I was. My concept of what it meant to be female was fuzzy and confused from a young age, my default always leaning towards male. The only stuffed animal in my massive pile of furry friends that I called “she” was a dog that had puppies zipped into her tummy. Back then I couldn’t yet argue with biology. All of my other stuffed animals were male, to the point of cutting the “feminine” eyelashes off a toucan with scissors.

Away from home, I crashed into femininity in church and at school. I hated the tights and the dresses and the shoes I had to wear for church, always so itchy and restrictive and uncomfortable – and I was so terrified of spilling my Sunday School juice on them. On my first day of kindergarten, my grandmother had to drag me out from under her kitchen table and carry me onto the bus.

I was lost at school from the beginning. I had no idea how to relate to the other girls, watching them skeptically in their dresses and skirts with little colorful clips in their long hair, playing clapping rhyming games I’d never heard. I felt like a visitor from another planet and just kept trying to do my usual things. I got in trouble for taking a group of kids back to the stream that ran behind the playground and for keeping a grasshopper in my desk. Though I tried, I never seemed to have more than one real friend at a time. I remember going to a girl’s birthday party and being so overwhelmed and feeling so out of place I had My Very First Panic Attack and threw up. Social anxiety starts young.

The sense of otherness slipped into more than just social roles. When we would line up to be weighed for our yearly physicals, I always seemed bigger and heavier than the girls around me, though I was fit. I remember turning to the nurse, feeling self-conscious, and saying “I have big bones.” My body wasn’t even like their bodies. They were so small and delicate. I was… something else, broad-shouldered with big hands and big feet. I came in for picture day in 4th grade after being out sick, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. The teacher asked me, “Are you sure you don’t want to have it done on the rain date?” I said no, I was fine as I was. In the picture, I look like one of the boys. It’s one of my favorite pictures from elementary school. I was comfortable, a big smile on my face. I was me.

My mother’s words:

My daughter was a bright-eyed, inquisitive, joyous little girl. I was confused as to why she didn’t like dolls, as I had loved them when I was a child. However, she did have many other interests and toys, including many beloved stuffed animals. When she began coming home from school early due to stomach pains, and when she was sick at a little girl’s birthday party, I did have my concerns. Her first grade teacher debated whether she should be placed in the gifted program due to her intelligence and creativity, or tested for learning disabilities due to her distraction and lack of involvement at school. I worried about her dislike of school, as I had always loved school myself, but she always succeeded in her classes. She remained happy on her own and when playing with her brother or a few special friends.

Then one night while lying in bed I felt something funny in my chest – a little bump right under my nipple. Nancy Reagan had been on TV talking about breast cancer, and I was filled with fear. Absolute terror. Something was very wrong with me. My mom took me to see the school nurse, who examined me and said it was perfectly normal. I was just developing, going through puberty. I was becoming a woman. I thought of Nancy Reagan and breast cancer and did not want to become that. I was terrified.

I never have lost the sense of something being physically wrong with me. Hypochondria has been with me for as long as I can remember. Worries about breast cancer still float through my mind almost every day.

With puberty came the further separation between girls and boys, and consequently between the girls and me. Girls spoke of liking boys and I didn’t understand what they were talking about. In the girl’s lavatory one day while a group of us were gossiping, my best friend at the time said to me, “What, are you gay?” No no, I quickly retorted. No, I just didn’t like that guy you were talking about.

But… I liked Mozart. I liked Edward Scissorhands. I liked the Phantom of the Opera. As my friends found their feminine identities and began wearing skirts and makeup and dating boys, I came to identify with a collection of eccentric male characters, so often misfits and underdogs who loved the girl but were denied her affections. I could relate to them. When I began writing stories, the first-person voice was of a 14-year-old boy. His presence as I grew older served a dual purpose: through him I could have some sense of freely expressing myself, and due to my preoccupation with this male character, no one would assume I was gay.

Of course I didn’t realize any of this at the time, all of these subtle coping mechanisms. Being a lesbian wasn’t an option for me. I had no reference for it; I didn’t know of any lesbians in my community. Sometimes kids would snicker and point at a gym teacher, but no one mentioned homosexuality openly. The homogeneity of the surrounding population was overwhelmingly white, straight, middle-class, and religious – nothing else was spoken of in anything but hushed whispers. I knew nothing other.

I watched Ellen Degeneres come out on her sitcom and lose her show. For some reason it made me incredibly angry, but I didn’t know why. I listened to Melissa Etheridge and thought she was awesome, but wouldn’t think about how she was singing the songs I loved to women. I got my hands on a copy of Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle when my brother’s girlfriend was reading it for a college class. I read it in a few days, enthralled. But I never could make the leap to applying any of it to me.

My mother’s words:

Having been a 6th grade teacher, I had often picked up on little girls beginning to like little boys and vice versa. My daughter did not seem interested at all. When boys would express an interest, I would wonder, “He’s such a nice boy, why doesn’t she like him?” I wondered if she did not know what getting kissed, dating, etc. was all about. I worried about her appearance, looking square and boxy in large men’s shirts, and tried to encourage her to choose dressier clothes she liked and felt comfortable in. She had to wear dresses or skirts for band and orchestra concerts, and I thought she looked beautiful, but she clearly preferred the pantsuit we bought for her senior picture. In high school she had a number of friends from the marching band and gifted program, and I thought these were the intelligent, creative people she needed for her friends, which provided a supportive group for her. When others wondered why she was not dating, I spoke honestly that she was more involved with her interests and hobbies – writing, drawing, and art – than boys, and that was fine with me as long as she was happy. I was concerned, however, if she would be able to handle life away from home, as she spent so much time alone with her creative pursuits.

At college, I avoided male attention like the plague, which wasn’t difficult since my “masculine” dress and lack of interest served as a kind of ward against their gaze, as it probably had been – possibly intentionally – for a long time. I couldn’t help but be envious of all the other girls, though, and how effortlessly groups of students, male and female, came together so naturally. There were girls I desperately wanted to get to know but didn’t dare approach; after all, I didn’t want to be misconstrued as gay. My best friend at the time seemed to assimilate without much difficulty, and gradually abandoned our regular hangouts to go on dates with men and out for drinks with women with whom she related better. We eventually fell out; she would be the last close friend I would have for a long time.

I dropped out of college after two years, never fitting in, never getting a foothold on figuring out what I wanted to pursue. I had become painfully self-conscious about how I looked and presented myself. I dressed “too masculine” in flannels and jeans, yet I loathed my wide hips and big thighs. I began a continuous cycle of exercising and dieting trying to get rid of the natural fat on my legs, even though I was never overweight according to the scale. I felt caught in a place between what looked like “male” and what was supposed to be “female.” I plucked my naturally full, dark eyebrows almost out of existence, because looking “male” was so wrong though I disliked looking “female” as well. Even my voice seemed too low for a woman’s, but I hated the thought I might sound like a man.

Anxiety followed hypochondria followed panic attacks followed depression. I got a diagnosis of panic disorder and some pills but no one ever offered therapy. I wonder now if that wasn’t a blessing, if it wouldn’t have put me on the path to identifying as trans at a much sooner and more vulnerable time. Instead of therapy, I ended up on the Internet.

Thank goodness for the Internet in so many ways, because it finally gave me a community outside of the conservative pocket in which I lived. I found others who loved writing, drawing, building things, creativity, video games. I found stories that introduced me to women who loved women in a way I could finally grasp, and at last – at 30! – I was able to accept and explore the idea for myself. Coming out as gay was like a new life blossoming. Though I still had to deal with the conservatism of my family and surrounding environment, I could at least drop the pretense of being straight and explore parts of myself I’d repressed for a very long time. My mother was supportive. I was open with my new friends. I wrote stories about lesbian characters and drew their portraits and it was wonderful.

My mother’s words:

When my daughter told me she was gay, I was relieved and happy, as before that time she had often seemed angry and withdrawn. Once she opened up about it I knew I could support her in whatever she was working through, and I let her know I would welcome any female partner she brought into our lives and our home. Of course, I had some fears and preferred to keep quiet about the subject. I did not want anyone to attack our way of life, including her brother due to his religious beliefs. I have always liked and admired the gay people I have met in my life, but I have also been aware of how people have attacked them due to their difference. I did not want to see her hurt in any way. These were my worries as her parent, and I understand now how my concerns might have been frightening or stifling to her at the time.

Yet I could not find a foothold in the gay community, a role model or identity to connect with. I looked online, joined this forum and that, talked to people, read articles. I was turned off first by the overt sexuality I saw everywhere, the importance placed on physical attractiveness, just like the mainstream media. But worse, I could not find myself among the plethora of gay faces. The butch/femme divide looked too much like straight gender roles to me. I was not a lesbian in makeup and a dress, after all; neither was I the picture of butchness with a buzzcut and men’s button-down shirts. Frightened by those apparent “gender roles” looming in front of me, I shrank away from a lesbian identity. There was too much I couldn’t come to terms with, not only in the homophobia in the world around me, but also in the sense that I wasn’t butch enough or femme enough – not man enough or woman enough (and definitely not “sexy” enough) in my mind. It was the same struggle I’d always had, and in retrospect a terrible misunderstanding of what it means to be a lesbian.

Then, a few years ago, I got the flu. While I was lying on the couch recovering, I was watching one of my favorite TV shows, featuring one of those slightly eccentric men I had always idolized. Maybe it was the haze of the flu, being tired, being stressed, being unhappy, but I looked at him and I thought, “Maybe I should try to be him. Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I should grow my hair out and wear paisley shirts and just be him, and maybe then everything would get better.” It was that simple, that sincere. I had run out of solutions to try to fix my conundrum of not fitting in until this one last possibility occurred to me: Maybe I was transgender. Maybe I never should have been a woman at all. Maybe I was supposed to be a man.

I dipped my toes in a little at a time, reading, watching, learning from the Internet. I was both filled with hope and terrified. I made no big moves. I got together with some of my online friends but told them nothing of what was lurking in the back of my mind. But in the back of my mind, I felt so very different from them, more than ever before. Because now it was a big deal. Now they were “cis,” and I was “trans.” Now I was on a journey none of them could understand. It was especially alienating being with my female friends, some of the best friends I have ever had. It was heartbreaking to sit beside them and think, “You don’t know it yet, but I’m really nothing like you.” I felt sure all of my friendships were soon to come to an end.

So I withdrew to explore the idea of being transgender and figure out how to rebuild myself from scratch. It was a good time for it; my previous online community had dissolved and my work was in flux, leaving me socially isolated much of the time. Exploring all these little things that made me different filled the gaps. I ended up on the AVEN forum – the Asexual Visibility and Education Network community – because I had never had an intimate relationship. That’s where I was introduced to the plethora of labels. Within a week I had discovered I was an agender aromantic asexual. There were so many like me! It was wonderful. A vast community of people coming together to celebrate labels without ever really wondering why they needed them.

All I can say about this crucial turn is this: When I felt like I could no longer be identified by others – whether due to social isolation, mental illness, trauma, sexual orientation, lack of gender role conformation or a combination of all these things – I became desperate for some way to identify, to validate my unique existence. I felt unidentifiable, and the current “queer theory” offered identification and validation. There are so many labels to choose from. From the moment I picked up “agender” I severed myself from identifying as female, and all of the confusion and embarrassment that came with being female began to evaporate. It was easy then to try on new pronouns and names; with the backing of so many others who also identified as agender, I no longer felt afraid to try it myself. Remarkably, when I announced to my mother and my friends I needed to be called by another name and gender-neutral pronouns, they were more supportive than I ever imagined.

My mother’s words:

When she came to me with the different name and pronouns, I was skeptical, but I also wondered if this was the final answer. Had she had finally worked out what had been holding her back for so long? The names she experimented with were never fully male names, and with the gender-neutral terms and her physical body, I was relieved she was keeping a little part of her femaleness and not going 100% male. I could support the name, the clothes, the haircut, as she never did seem to be trying to be just like a man, though I felt I had to handle all of this with kid gloves. All the information she gave me was so positive, but her enthusiasm did not seem entirely natural to me, and I wondered what exactly she was doing. As her mother, it did not seem quite right, but what did I know?

It seems like such a small thing, just a handful of words, just pronouns and a name. But those words, when spoken by others, validate every belief and crush every doubt. Those words were a statement of who I wanted to be. And when you have never been able to be yourself, finally having an identity recognized by others is the most precious thing.

But everything after that becomes an effort to support and maintain that identity.

(continued in Part II)

Geeks & nerds, boys at risk: Guest post

Posted on December 22, 2015 by 4thwavenow

While the primary focus of my blog is to examine the transgender trend as it relates to girls and young women, the online community of readers and commenters here also includes some parents of boys, as well as men who have detransitioned or who are also questioning the pediatric transition paradigm.

I have been wanting to hear directly from more fathers whose children are affected by transgenderism. Here, the commenter “heteronerd,” a father of young children and someone who sees himself as something of a geek, shares his insights from the world of STEM, as well as concerns about his own kids’ future.

It’s no secret that there are a large number of men from the world of IT and high tech who, as adults, have decided they are “actually women.” How many boys and young men will follow suit?

Guest post

by “heteronerd”

I just discovered this blog — thank you so much for your courage in pushing back against what seems like an unstoppable juggernaut. As a new parent, I’m desperately hoping that things will have returned to some balance of sanity by the time my children reach school age.

I’m Gen X and an introverted, artistic hetero male from a long line of introverted, artistic hetero males, all of whom turned out all right in the end after the usual adolescent turmoil. In my case, these tendencies were exacerbated by an acute but correctable birth defect that required long hospital stays and left me clumsy and physically fragile compared to other boys my age.

So I’m deeply concerned by the way in which the trans industry encourages girls and boys on the ordinary spectrum of human gender variation — “tomboys and soft boys,” as someone said earlier in the thread — to identify as transgender and seek drastic, irreversible medical intervention. Looking back on my own childhood, it’s terrifyingly easy to imagine a scenario in which a clueless but well-meaning teacher, or an adult predator, might have used leading questions (“Do you feel different from the other boys? Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a girl?”) to elicit the conclusion that I was “really a girl inside.”

I work in STEM academia, a world largely populated by geeky men who don’t fit the macho footballer mold, and in the past few years I’ve watched several younger male acquaintances “discover,” suddenly and unexpectedly (and always by way of a heavy dose of social media), that they “have always been a woman.” Similar to how you and many of the regular commenters here draw on your own memories of being a tomboy in your struggles with “FTM” daughters, my own memories of a “different” male adolescence are what fuel my gut sense that peak trans is leading these vulnerable young people down a terribly dangerous path. Ftmskeptic’s account here describes the exact thought process I’ve heard verbalized by late-adolescent males who get caught up in the trans subculture — just swap out “bad-boy athlete” for “pink sparkly princess” and “lesbian” for “gay boy” while leaving “science, pokemon and video games” the same:

[A] quirky, socially awkward girl who had always identified as a girl (although never a pink sparkly princess) suddenly decides that because she loves science, pokemon and video games rather than makeup, hairstyles and clothes she MUST actually be a boy. She says she is a gay boy, as she is attracted to boys.

It seems crystal clear to me that online and campus trans communities recruit insecure (often mentally ill) young people, both male and female, by offering them an easy “solution” to their difficulties living up to mass culture’s stereotypical gender roles — and that academia, big medicine and the media are irresponsibly enabling them. I’m particularly worried by the fact that “alternative” pop culture interests like fantasy gaming and punk music, which have traditionally been a refuge for gender-nonconforming kids both male and female, are the ones whose online communities are the most saturated by the militant trans narrative. I’m afraid that my kids will be at risk from this in a few years.

You have suggested that a lot of the “trans” phenomenon comes from the collision of autism-spectrum literal thinking with a gender-obsessed culture, and that rings true to my own experience. As an adult with some life experience writing a common-sense armchair prescription, I think that what would really help a lot of self-professed MTFs is cultural validation that their “geekiness” is a different but equally valid way of being biologically male, and from what you and others have written here, it seems like the same is true for FTMs.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s also a disturbing overlap between trans ideology and utopian sci-fi fantasies about re-engineering and discarding the human body — especially clear when you look at who’s funding the trans activist movement. And I suspect this appeals to a lot of kids (both male and female) who are uncomfortable with their physical bodies for one reason or another.

Nothing wrong with your body that the truth can’t cure: Guest post

Posted on December 9, 2015 by 4thwavenow

This guest post by “fightingunreality,” a regular commenter on this blog, is the second in an ongoing series of accounts by women who at one time experienced gender dysphoria or the desire to become the opposite sex—but who turned away from “transition” without undergoing hormones or surgery. (The first in the series is “Abandoning the Ship of Woman,” by guest poster “Dot.”)

I am looking for more guest posts from formerly dysphoric women and girls, of all ages, who did not take steps to “transition” medically. There are some fine writings/blogs authored by detransitioned/detransitioning women who did embark upon medical transition but returned to embracing their femaleness; I will leave it to those women to continue elucidating their experiences for us. One excellent blog by a detransitioned woman is that of Maria Catt, who wrote powerfully yesterday about the hazards of transition and specifically testosterone—both from the perspective of someone who has used “T” herself, and as a worker in a medical clinic which served transgender people. Another fine blog by a detransitioned woman is “Hot Flanks,” who writes sensitively about her journey home to female after years of trans-identification.

Nothing wrong with your body that the truth can’t cure

by fightingunreality

As one of many women who have faced some of the issues confronting teenagers who call themselves “transgender,” I feel reasonably certain that, had these girls been born in an era before the all-out indoctrination that has taken place in the past decade, they would not only not be seriously considering altering their bodies; they would be developing a framework for understanding why they ever felt the female sex was not their own.

Such dysphoric females would most likely eventually connect, as I have, with other women who had the same difficulties–even if those difficulties remained unspoken. Instead of demanding hormones and surgery, these girls would be learning to cope with the ongoing changes that take place as they gradually mature, physically and socially. And it wouldn’t be easy, but nothing of importance ever is. Especially during the teenage years.

I imagine a self-identified trans teen reading this and thinking, “Eh, what could she possibly know? She was never ‘really trans’.” In response, I ask: What IS “really trans”?

Dysphoric teens often talk about depression and anxiety spiking during their middle school years, when their bodies begin changing in ways they don’t want and can’t stop; changes that feel wrong.

Do you have any idea how common these feelings are? For the longest time, I wouldn’t talk about them because I thought they were weird and embarrassing. But it turns out that a lot of my friends felt the same way and weren’t talking about it either. Nothing seems right when your body starts to change, and it doesn’t help that the hormones that are causing the changes fuel emotional highs and lows that are really intense and hard to handle. I know it doesn’t really seem like it, but things get a lot easier to deal with. It just takes time.

I remember this time period very well. I panicked. I was depressed. I didn’t know what to do because I could not imagine myself becoming what I believed it was to be a woman. I was neither like the women I knew nor those I saw on television. The idea of having to buy or wear a bra was repugnant. As a result, I did the only thing that seemed logical at the time: I hid my breasts and tried to carry on as if nothing had changed. I wore layers and vests and spent a lot of time worrying about other people noticing.

I remember feeling ashamed, especially when my older sisters made fun of me for trying to deny this development, or alternately, for acting or feeling like I was a boy (something that I never verbalized for fear of perpetual teasing). I had been obsessed with becoming a boy prior to hitting puberty, and what I considered to be my body’s betrayal seemed like the ultimate cruelty. Like some sort of unfair punishment.

Remembering those times, I wonder what it would have been like if I’d had someone I trusted who I could talk with about it–someone who understood the depth of my despair, who’d been through something similar. I did not have any such confidante. Yet in retrospect, I consider myself extremely lucky, because what I also did not have–which virtually every other child and adolescent has now–is someone who would have reinforced my belief that I really was meant to be a boy; that I was “trans.” I have to tell you, I would have bought into that belief with everything I had because I did not want to be female. I did not want to wear dresses or makeup, bleed every month, date boys or get married—ever. Being “trans” would have been the perfect out for all of those things, and once your body starts to develop, the pressure is on. Everything changes.

Thinking back, it was around age 5–the time when I started kindergarten –when I began to realize I wasn’t quite like the other girls. To be honest, I can’t even remember what activities the girls engaged in because I didn’t pay much attention. I guess it must have been dolls, since the note inscribed on my very first report card said that I didn’t like to play with them, but instead played with “trains and boys’ toys.” It made it seem like it was a bad thing–like I was bad–and I can recall from that point on a growing alienation from whatever it was that “girl” was supposed to mean. I actually remember at one point feeling sorry for *them,* for the girls, as if I weren’t one myself.

By the time puberty hit, my friends were all boys, so I guess you can imagine the additional issues that started to develop right along with my budding breasts. Suddenly the pressure was really on from the adults to act more ladylike, and there came rules about spending time alone with the boys and separating us for activities. We couldn’t play together as easily. There was increasing snark from the girls at school who marked me out as “other” for my failure to socially conform. I didn’t really need to hear their comments, though, because my changing body was a constant reminder of how I was supposed to behave and look which had nothing to do with how I felt about or saw myself. I felt trapped.

Worse, it wasn’t just the girls who had become suddenly self-conscious about their increasing need to conform: the boys who had been my peers and best friends began to see me as “other,” too. It didn’t matter that I was just as good as any of them when it came to sports, or that in a fight I would most likely win. I was a girl, and that alone altered the dynamic in our little group. It was even worse outside of our circle of friends. Individually, my friends seemed the same, but around the other boys, it was like they had to prove something to each other. Influenced by their own surging hormones, some of them began to make sexualized comments to impress each other with the pretense of worldliness, and the situation became increasingly intolerable. Former friends would dis me in the presence of others in order to get a laugh or to prove their masculinity. Hanging out with a girl wasn’t cool at this age unless it had some sort of sexual connotation. My sense of betrayal was devastating and complete.

It was at this point that I found myself alone. No longer accepted as a peer, I was closed out of the boys’ club and realized that I had little in common with the girls. I hadn’t really learned the rules very well, and from what I saw, I didn’t want to. Girls seemed helpless sometimes–interested in things that were incomprehensible to me. They began to cover the backs of their notebooks with popular boys’ names, plus theirs, surrounded by hearts. I just didn’t get it. It was pretty clear that I did not really fit in: I was not like them, and I certainly wasn’t going to grow up to be like their moms who I understood even less. I had no role models–I knew no one like me. As an adult, I can acknowledge a multitude of contributing factors, but at the time I could see only one real source of my pain: my body had betrayed me. I was alone, I was depressed, and I couldn’t see any way out of my situation. I felt like a mistake and I too often just wanted to be dead. As it was, I did what I could to simply hide. I sought invisibility and spent a lot of time by myself.

What if, along with my rejection of my maturing body, my growing depression, the loss of my peer group and my increasing alienation, I’d been told that there was a cure? I, along with a number of my friends, have asked that question. What if I’d been told that I must have a “male brain” or that there was science that showed that I had a “medical condition” that caused all of the problems? What would I have done? It didn’t happen, fortunately, but I think I understand my former self well enough to know: I would have attributed all of my social difficulties to that “condition.” I would have believed that if I could just fix that “condition,” all of the other issues would be resolved or at least lessened. They were, after all, entirely related to being the wrong sex. Weren’t they?

Having been raised in a very religious household, I actually believed as a young child that god would give me a boy’s body if I prayed often enough and hard enough. As a result, every time I was made aware that I was, in fact, a girl, I would repeat my litany with the sincere belief that my prayers would be answered. I would imagine myself as having changed, as having all the qualities I believed that entailed. When I showered, I’d plaster my soapy hair to my head so it would feel and look short. I’d shape lather on my face in the form of a beard, imagining how I would look when things were “fixed.” Each time, as my fantasy washed away, I would experience an even greater disappointment in the reality I faced. The more I engaged in the fantasy in its varying forms, the more distressed I was at what was: my body seemed to grow worse and I prayed even harder. I bargained with god, formulated deals, but each morning I awoke to the same disappointment. Despite my lack of progress, I continued praying for a few years because I convinced myself that my long-term dedication would somehow prove my faith, and that would make a difference. It was only the loss of that faith which eventually caused me to give up: I became convinced that god couldn’t hear me. I hadn’t lost my body shame, only the idea that there was anything I could do about it.

Testosterone and mastectomies don’t require a god or magic–just money and a psychologist’s approval. It’s a real thing that you can find out about now without even trying. You can watch hours of videos online as some girls/women sprout beards and their voices are lowered. You can see them pose with fading scars, pectoral muscles now hormonally enlarged and visible in the absence of those hated breasts. You can read all of the accompanying comments supporting her choice and your desire, and you can find a ready-made community to replace the one you lost, to accept and agree with the idea that something is terribly wrong with the way you are now that can be fixed with hormones and surgery. They’ll even tell you how to go about getting them. This is a real thing. But the magical thinking involved is the belief that you can actually change your sex; that you will be indistinguishable from actual males. The unreality of this is easy enough to overlook if you want something bad enough, even if you have no way of knowing what it actually means to be what you want. With “gender reassignment” and T, there’s no need to ever give up hoping for a miracle, because unlike god, the purveyors of gender change are listening very closely. They even advertise, making sure you can hear them. They are waiting for you. They’ve published books to help you, a teen, lay out all of the talking points that will help you convince your parents that you need this “cure.” They’ve made it easy.

As it was, as a teen, I had nothing of the sort. Oh, I’d heard of “sex change” operations, and for awhile clung to the idea of one as I tried to maintain that possibility, but the reality was that they were still really rare and impossible for someone so young and with no money, and there was no question that my family would not approve. As a result, I was forced to face reality. I was female, and I had to accept that and do what it took to learn to navigate the world as such.

One of the interesting things that happens when someone wants something badly is that they begin to fantasize about having it. They imagine themselves in possession of their want and it gives them pleasure, the fantasy itself becoming the reward. Unfortunately, reality is not changed and it often seems even worse or even less real when compared to what has been imagined. For myself, I know that the more I visualized myself as a boy, the worse I felt about who I actually was. The more I saw myself as being what I wanted, the more that want took on the characteristics of a need, something that I had to have; that I could not live without. I was wrong, of course, but had “gender reassignment” existed back then, it would have served as the material manifestation of that need –the promise of a wish fulfilled, that which god would not grant me. There would have been no reason for me to resolve the conflict that I had with my body. The time and experience I had which allowed me to come to terms with my sex would have been spent instead on fueling the same fantasy which had intensified my previous despair: my fantasy visualization would have prolonged my rejection of my body, and the degree of my dysphoria and dysmorphia would have increased.

As it was, I went through an intensely lonely and depressing time, but at some point, after about a year I guess, one of the girls in my class decided to befriend me. To be honest, I think it was because she felt sorry for me, but really, I didn’t care why. What mattered is that through her I gained entry into her circle of friends and my isolation ended. It would, of course, be convenient to slap some happy ending on the story and tell you that all was happily ever after from that point, but I think that kind of thing only happens in made-for-TV movies. I was still a teenager, with adolescent mood swings and depression, and I still was not one with my body. I had my issues, and so did my new friends. We were all pretty messed up, but at least we were messed up together.

In retrospect, I think it’s highly likely that I would have been dragged irretrievably into the world of crime and drugs that many of them fell into had my love of sport not provided a diversion from complete immersion into that subculture. Title IX had just been passed the year before, and even my small rural school was forced to provide some girls’ sport teams in order to comply. It wasn’t the football or baseball that I had formerly enjoyed playing with the boys, but basketball provided me with the opportunity to develop and prove my strength and my skill in a way that as a girl I had been denied. Not only did the physical activity help me gain a new relationship with my body –which believe me, was a very, very big deal. But for the first time, I was in constant contact with other girls whose strength and ability I admired, and with whom I could develop a sense of camaraderie and teamwork. I think maybe it was the first time I really realized that female was something to be.

The bravest and smartest and strongest people I have known have always been women. I just had to open my eyes to see it.

I am not “trans.” I never was “trans.” I was a girl, a female who’s grown up in a culture that makes us feel like less because of our sex. It is a world that teaches us that our opinions are not valued, that our knowledge is incomplete, that we are weak and that we are never safe if we go out alone. It is a place where we’re made to feel that merely being female is an invitation to men to do what they will despite our objections. To be female in this age and this place is to be convinced that the more we mature, the more limited our options become, and it is this belief we must resist, not our sexed bodies.

For myself, I was lucky. I managed to arrive at maturity at a time when women were actively fighting to shatter these myths and I was able to hear their voices over the constant murmurings of those who had and would define me by my use to them. These women were not popular then—they were mocked and reviled just as women are now, but they would not be silenced. Their words let me know that I had truly never wanted to be a boy, but rather that I didn’t want the limitations that were being forced on me as a girl. I was–we all are–more than our culture tells us we can be, and ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with your body that the truth cannot cure.

If you can manage to listen to the voices of the strong women who came before you, voices that are currently being drowned out by the popular trans-narrative, you may just hear them, too.

Guest post: Tips for parents on finding a therapist for their trans-identified teen

Posted on September 29, 2015 by 4thwavenow

So many readers of this blog have agonized over how to find a therapist who won’t immediately jump to the conclusion that their distressed teen is “trans” and in need of “transition” services. I asked Lane, the clinician who wrote the excellent guest post “Exiles in their own flesh”, if she had any advice to offer. She responded in the comments thread of this recent post. I am reproducing her remarks here for greater visibility. Thank you, Lane!

As a therapist who worked with many teens who came into my office identifying as trans, I want you parents to know I did not automatically support their transitions. Like you, I was struck by the suddenness of this phenomenon of teens thinking they were born into the wrong body. My first concern was for the teen’s mental health, I looked at other causes. It’s interesting: around the time I started noticing an uptick in the number of kids identifying this way, I mentioned my concerns to a psychiatrist and a pediatrician who were both heads of the clinic where I worked. They were both on the brink of retiring, and they did not buy this new “trend” at all. They looked at what was happening as yet another medical fad. But, like I said, they were retiring. They were the old guard. The folks who replaced these dinosaurs (just kidding) had a complete absence of critical thought for the trans-narrative. It was almost as if they wanted to distinguish themselves from those they were replacing by being more open-minded, more patient-oriented.

The two folks who have come in to replace the old guard have a notable lack of developmental psych background. They are somewhat open to learning about it, but in general their work with teens (particularly any group billed as in any way marginalized – trans is pretty much the top of the heap in this regard) tends to be informed by a social-justice paradigm over something more clinical.

So, as far as finding a therapist more critical of the trans-narrative, it might be helpful to find a practitioner who is more classically trained and who is over 50. Also, find someone who is clearly a thinking, intellectual type, rather than someone more prone to falling in with medical fads. I hate to say it, but both of the old dinosaurs were uber smart, male doctors. Perhaps it was their sense of privilege, but these guys were not afraid of stating their opinions and had enough power in the organization to easily hold onto their own sense of reality. The people who embraced the trans-narrative on my team, apparently without a critical thought, were, I hate to say this, all women. So, using this small sample, which admittedly, may be utterly useless, I’d say that finding someone who isn’t as prone to the shifting sands of group-think, who hasn’t been dependent upon being seen by other professionals as “correct,” would help. Have your kid be seen by an arrogant, old man. LOL. Who would have thought I would ever write that!

Then again, I am not an old man, but I am definitely someone who has always valued and prized truth over belonging. I’m weird that way. That could be another way to screen for a trans-critical therapist, someone more old-style intellectual rather than social-justice oriented (not that I’m not down with SJ, but I qualify it when working clinically). Therapists who are critical of trans won’t be able to come out and say they are, so you’ll need to know to look for clues. You could also read their work, if they have any. Some have blogs and websites. If they say something like, well, it seems like your kid has some other mental health concerns, I’d like to focus on those for awhile before exploring their trans issues, that would be a good sign. If they do a thorough history of your family’s mental health, trauma history, that’s a good sign. These histories are an absolute must.

If a therapist is hopping on the trans explanation right out of the gate, that’s a sign they are inexperienced and lacking clinical authority. This is why you probably want your kid to see someone who has been practicing awhile–20 years at least–because, honestly, clinicians were trained so differently in the past. The training was less politicized, more intellectual and critical and I guess a bit more honest as far as research. It wasn’t perfect in the past, obviously there were abuses, but there were general, shared standards of care and it was a bad thing to breach them. There was more personal responsibility, more commitment and investment on the part of the clinicians. Now the vast majority of the clinicians and psychiatrists in the organization where I worked constantly complain about being overworked and exhausted and feel the org is screwing them over. They are too afraid to go into private practice where they could perhaps see fewer people in a day and therefore have more mental space to see each client as an individual. When people are overworked in healthcare, it means the treatment suffers; they don’t have time to look into the background of new therapies. Honestly, none of the folks I worked with had any training in working with transgender kids. They were starting to talk about getting some, but this is just now happening. And I practice in a large, metropolitan city. There are no standards of care or official certification processes yet in place for vetting therapists who work with transgender issues.

These days, training standards for therapists are pretty weak in general. Most good clinicians study for years and years, join institutes and hopefully become critical of a lot of what they learn. The point is, there are no short-cuts; it takes clinicians a really long time to become effective. Younger clinicians tend to be swayed more by current trends because they just don’t have enough experience with seeing loads of different people. Also their training is different, and they have much less clinical confidence.

If I were a parent and my kid were experiencing this issue, I would also just be as honest and loving as you can with them about your concerns, as many of the parents here on this blog have been. It’s hard because you don’t necessarily want to use this situation as the time to explain to your kid that doctors and the medical profession have been co-opted by activists and other folks looking to profit from their distress in some way. There’s so much that needs to fall away in order for you to help your kid. And if your kid is already unstable, it could be frightening to hear mom or dad sounding like they’ve been pulled into a conspiracy theory.

I think the best way to combat becoming reactive (as we do when we feel nobody believes us and yet we feel we must continue to speak since so much is at stake) is to deal with our own grief at being so alone and not being believed. Honestly, this level of self-doubt and invalidation is traumatic for people, particularly people who have in general spent their lives being respected for their measured take on the world (your basic educated liberal parent). I honestly can’t think of anything more hellish than to suddenly find your usual experience of being taken at your word ripped out from beneath you. But this is exactly what is happening to parents who question the trans-narrative. Caring, truly loving parents (not enabling parents necessarily, but good, solid parents) are being made to question their motives. It’s heartbreaking for me as a therapist to see this happening to families. I wish I had more answers for you. It might be best to keep your child away from people who bill themselves as gender specialists.

In order to reach your child, you will absolutely need to find a way to regain your own internal grounding. This blog is obviously helping with this task. You may need to “let go a little,” which it sounds like many of you have done. By this I mean, do not fight your kid on this issue. When we deal with kids with other compulsions, such as eating disorders, we encourage parents to stop talking about food.

Exiles in their own flesh: A psychotherapist speaks

Posted on August 22, 2015 by 4thwavenow

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This is a guest post submitted by Lane Anderson (a pseudonym), a practicing psychotherapist who has worked extensively with “trans teens” and their families. She shares with us her clinical insights into her clients, adolescent psychology, and the impact of the transgender phenomenon on our society as a whole.

If there are other mental health providers reading this post, please consider guest posting or responding in the comments section below the article. See this earlier post featuring Dr. David Schwartz for another critical perspective from a psychotherapist.

I am extremely grateful to Lane and Dr. Schwartz for speaking up. Time is of the essence, since the American Psychological Association recently released new guidelines which will make it even more difficult for clinicians to step forward.

I am a licensed psychotherapist. I’m writing this post on my last day at a teen health clinic, where I’ve seen patients and their families for nearly a decade.

In the past year especially, it’s become increasingly clear to me that I cannot uphold the primary value of my profession, to do no harm, without also seriously jeopardizing my standing in the professional community. It’s a terrible and unfortunate conflict of interest. I’ve lost much sleep over the fact that, for a significant portion of my clients and their parents, I am unable to provide what they profess to come to me seeking: sound clinical judgment. Increasingly, providing such judgment puts me at risk of violating the emergent trans narrative which–seemingly overnight and without any explanation or push-back of which I am aware–has usurped the traditional mental health narrative.

When I am suddenly and without warning discouraged from exploring the underlying causes and conditions of certain of my patients’ distress (as I was trained to do), and instead forced to put my professional stamp of approval upon a prefab, one-size-fits-all narrative intended to explain the complexity of my patient’s troubles, I feel confused. It’s as if I am being held hostage. No longer encouraged or permitted to question, consider or discuss the full spectrum of my patient’s mental health concerns, it has occurred to me that I am being used, my meager professional authority commandeered to legitimize a new narrative I may or may not wish to corroborate.

It’s been perilous to simply admit to not fully understanding it all–let alone disagree with the trans narrative. There was no training or teaching. I was just suddenly told that some of my patients thought they were trapped in the wrong body and that was that.

After much soul searching, I felt I had no choice but to remove myself from this crippling work setting. Being told to exercise my clinical judgment with some clients, while ignoring it with others, made me feel like a fraud.

Throughout my career, I have come to my work with these thoughts in mind: that life is complex, that people are complex. But in one way or another, most people tend to balk at that kind of ambiguity. I try to assist people in flexing a little, try to help them find ways to manage life’s gray areas, and the occasional distress that comes from simply being conscious. But at the end of the day, I couldn’t deny it was a little weird for me to go on believing I could effectively teach others to be less rigid, more free people facing their lives head on, when I myself, their humble guide, was being exploited, tongue-tied by a new party line.

There are so many complex forces, from many different realms, coming into play with this trans wave. Most people are completely unaware of these intersecting interests.

Unfortunately the culture war has done a number on the concept of critical thinking. I have considered myself liberal my entire adult life, and I still am. But for a long time I couldn’t find anyone questioning this trans explosion who wasn’t on the far right. It made me feel like only conservatives were allowed to think, to consider this issue, but ultimately their thoughts were rendered meaningless due to their branding by the culture war. It’s essential that left-leaning people model critical thinking for the masses in this regard.

It’s important to link people like us together, who have been silenced, so we can resume contact with our critical thinking skills and reduce our growing sense of self doubt. Divide and conquer is best accomplished through silencing, through calling into question those who speak out. There is so much of this attached to the trans movement. Even just wondering about a profound concept such as transgender is labeled transphobic. What I think has happened is that people are now phobic about their own gut responses to life. We are being systematically separated from our own intuition. This is fatal for a civilization, I think. Not that our intuition always tells the truth with a capital T, but it is a critical piece of who we are. Without it, we remain profoundly directionless, and more susceptible to coercion of all types.

What frightens me most about the trans movement is that the establishment has gotten involved and is leading it. I think that’s really weird. Clearly they are benefiting from it financially. So sad. It disturbs me to see how giddy my former medical director is to be part of this growing craze. We used to treat kids with mental health problems, but now it’s all about validating their emergent and shifting identities. As professionals, if we don’t loudly prioritize their identities as being the most important thing about them (and identities do shift constantly in kids and teens), we risk coming across as unsupportive and even immoral. Identity development has always been a teen task, but in the past it wasn’t necessarily supposed to become a lifestyle, or colonize the entirety of your existence.

Our world is in a profound state of flux. We can’t begin to comprehend what the Internet has done to how we see ourselves. People are looking for ways to belong, ways to understand who they are in place and in time. They are looking to reduce the anxiety that comes when too much change happens all at once. I try and look at trans folks as people who are seeking to answer the new questions that have emerged in this early 21st century. I have been trying to find a way to understand their urges to detach from their bodies, to undo that feeling of exile they experience in their own flesh. We all want to get back to ourselves; it is our duty to reconnect with those weighty parts that inevitably sink to the depths of us, the parts too heavy to remain on the surface of our lives.

From what I can see, the age-old human task to reclaim that which has gone missing appears to be manifesting with great prominence in the trans community. The problem is this: we all look for shortcuts to finding the lost treasure. It’s human nature to resist the long and serpentine journey to our own sense of personal truth. In our fear, in our self doubt, we calculate the risk and often decide it is preferable to be shown what another person–a “helping professional” or an activist–bills as a sure thing, a direct path to what we sense we lack. We all, on some level, hold a childlike fantasy that someone else has figured it out and can provide us a direct map to ourselves. And that’s what the trans narrative does. It promises to guide the follower to their essential, authentic self. But this, unfortunately, doesn’t happen, because the essential self, whatever that is, is not created from another’s road map, but can only be comprised of the trails we forge ourselves.

What saddens me the most is the way children are being trained to think their parents do not love them if mom and dad don’t jump aboard the trans train. To me, this is a brutal aspect of a near-dictatorship being foisted on everyone. The kids are too young to see that there are no other people who will have their backs, throughout life with lasting devotion, in the unique way their families will. They think these new friends they’ve made online understand them perfectly. And in believing this unquestioningly, they find themselves lulled by the frictionless experience delivered most powerfully by group think.

Of course, I’m describing the pull of all cults; that deep human desire to be known through and through and through.The cult experience seeks to end the frustration that naturally comes when we mature and begin to see ourselves as separate beings. In our separateness, we must do the hard work of truly learning to know another. Group think reduces the fear that comes when we are unsure if we will be located by another, when we remain unable to locate ourselves.

Cults and closed narratives neutralize and tame what we see as the unknown. I think somebody needs to put a refresher out there on the cult mindset and group think. People seem to have forgotten that we are all very easily influenced by each other. Carl Elliot wrote about this in relation to body dysmorphic disorder (people wanting to amputate their own limbs because they disidentify with them) in the Atlantic, “A new way to be mad.”

One common trait I’ve noticed in nearly all the trans kids I’ve met has been their profound sense of being different, and too alone. They often have had little success with making friends, or what I would call contact with “the other.” Because of their psychic isolation, they are prime targets for group think narratives. But in addition to looking for a way to belong, they are also craving protection and the stamp of legitimacy, perhaps because they feel a profound lack of it.

Now that the government and medical communities are involved in the creation of who trans folks are, this class of individuals have finally found their safe havens. Now, rather than being merely invisible and awkward, they have been transformed into veritable leaders of a revolution. Now, rather than cower in the shadows, they have commandeered the narratives of others into a similar dark and brooding place where they once were. The tables, as they lived and viewed them, have now turned.

It’s got to be dizzying for these formerly “ugly ducklings” to find themselves at the center of a flock of swans. To become a part of the movement, to finally be seen and found as whole, alive, and most importantly, wanted, all they have to do is renounce the very bodies in which they feel they have been imprisoned. In doing so, the promised payoff is very big, for they have finally found a way to render mute all those who once discounted and disbelieved them. Through silencing others who threaten them, they have unearthed a means of silencing their own self hate. Rather than being afraid of themselves, they make others fear what they have become.

Psychologically these interpersonal tactics would once upon a time have been categorized as immature, “primitive” defenses erected by an undifferentiated self that cannot see the self or others as whole creatures. But as I witness it in my own practice, this is the basic thinking underlying the psychology of the trans narrative. In her recent blog post, “My Disservice to My Transgender Patients,” Dr. Kathy Mandigo talks about feeling threatened by some of her MTF patients. Many of the trans kids I’ve worked with will joke about how they and their friends are dictators, “masters of the universe!” I find that clinically significant. This is something toddlers do when they are first discovering they are separate from their rulers (parents). Rather than fear the parent, they seek to control the parent, exert their will on the parent and co-opt the parent’s power as their own. In doing this they hide from view their terror at facing their own powerlessness. Ideally, the child will gradually outgrow this urge to control, will gradually relinquish the dictatorial need to create safety through controlling the external realm. When that happens, we say it is a sign of maturity. As our own sense of agency grows, we are better able to forfeit the habit of controlling others. We also begin to feel guilt at the idea of controlling others, as we begin to see them as separate from us, 3D human beings instead of mere props on our psychic stage.

Unfortunately some people have a hard time making this shift. They get stuck or addicted to manipulating their external environment, and will continue to create inner safety through the constant and relentless work of controlling others.

Last week in a team meeting, our medical director said he was meeting with a girl who identifies as FTM to discuss top surgery and testosterone treatment. Apparently, according to the director, the girl’s mom is slowing down the process of transition. Bad mom, right? The director added that the girl’s mom told her that 9 out of 9 of her daughter’s friends also identify as FTM.

At this point I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. I said, “Can we not be honest and see that we are dealing with a trend?” Of course, everyone else at the table was mute. Considering I’m leaving my post, I felt bold enough to say that I found it infuriating we couldn’t discuss this topic clinically. More silent colleagues (except their eyes were wide as if they wanted me to keep talking and taking the risk for them). I said that what we were doing as a medical community was potentially very harmful, and made mention of some of the videos I’d watched featuring transmen who decided to go off testosterone. The medical director prides himself in providing special services for those patients he deems unjustly marginalized by society. But he can’t see how the medical community has become complicit in the oppression he earnestly seeks to remedy.

A large part of the problem comes with the revolution in health care. More and more, we are giving people the power to define their own treatments. This is good in many ways, but the trans movement is using this moment, and is actively recruiting young, psychologically undefined and frightened people to push their agenda through the medical community. It’s clearly not that difficult to do. These kids are just pawns. That’s how it looks to me anyway. The trans community needs more converts so that the narrative becomes more cohesive. I’m guessing the push for this comes from a need to further cohere so they will have more members to fully cement a fragile, constructed reality.

We–people who don’t identify as trans–are the external realm that must be controlled to bring the trans community the inner peace they now lack. But they don’t get that they will never find calm or strength this way. You cannot find yourself through coercing others. You cannot extinguish your fears by turning from them. The trans community must face their own fears, face themselves and their own demons. They can’t wipe out their fear that they are not really transitioning by censoring the thoughts and expressions of others. If they believe they are trans, they shouldn’t need to spend so much effort foisting that belief on others.

The fact that they do dictate to others is to me diagnostic of their very condition. They are uncertain about who and what they are. No sin in that. That’s human. The transgression comes in refusing to accept this uncertainty, and in sacrificing the lives and consciences of others to nullify your own self doubt.

Abandoning the Ship of Woman: Guest post

Posted on August 14, 2015 by 4thwavenow

On my Tumblr blog recently, I put out a call for stories from women who had lived for a time in the Abode of Childhood and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria–and who have returned to us, body and mind intact, to tell the tale. While I myself have always been “gender nonconforming,” I never seriously considered myself male, nor did I want to banish my female body. Which means I’m not the person to write an intelligent post on the subject.

I’ve now read dozens of accounts from formerly dysphoric women, but only on Tumblr and WordPress blogs. The trans-entranced mainstream journalists seem to have zero interest in reporting about the “ones who got away” and survived, reconciling with their female-ness to claim their place in the sisterhood of women.

I realize every day how incredibly fortunate I and my fellow baby boomers were to come of age when the Second Wave of feminism was cresting. One fundamental and deeply powerful message of that movement was that “woman” is a big, welcoming tent that all females can shelter under, no matter their physical or mental attributes. If you’re a double x, you’re in. The concept of “gender nonconformity” would have been seen as pure nonsense by me and my companions when I was 20. And of course, it is still an absurdity, an invention of post-modernist Gender & Queer Studies academics (who, sadly, replaced the in-touch-with-reality Women’s Studies professors who raised the consciousness of and liberated so many women in the mid-20th century).

Women who once rejected themselves as female but returned to our fold are the guides our young “gender nonconforming” girls need today. I am very grateful to my online sisters who have shared their stories. I consider them my teachers. If you are one of them, please consider submitting your own story to guest post here. I’d like this to be the start of a series. [To let me know you’d like to guest post, submit a comment to this article, and I will respond to you privately, without publishing your comment.]

Every woman who has experienced dissociation-from-female has a unique story to tell. While you may not relate to every aspect of Dot’s experiences in the guest post below, her repeated–and finally resolved–attempts to be other-than-woman is the universal crux of what too many of our young women are going through today.

Dot writes to us–young women and their parents alike–about her journey, from toddlerhood to adult woman, with this comment:

I tried to write these vignettes with the child and teenager I was in mind, but also as a means to speak to parents of these teens, to provide some insight into these compulsions.

She entitled her piece “Stories from the 80%,” to acknowledge the well-researched fact that the vast majority of young females who have gender dysphoria eventually outgrow it–or at least learn to cope.

Stories from the 80%

by dot

Part 1: Tomboy

I’m 3. I’m screaming in a changing room because the dress I’m being made to wear is uncomfortable. Being girly means physical discomfort.

I’m 4. I’m popping the heads off all of my Barbies. Being girly means having pretty long hair, and I can’t relate to a toy that looks nothing like myself or any woman I know.

I’m 5. My mother disdains my love of bug-hunting and rough-and-tumble play with my mostly-male playmates. My carefree play-style requires her to painfully tame my long hair’s knots. I don’t understand why looking a certain way is supposed to be worth this pain. I cannot be decorative and adventurous at the same time. Being girly is antithetical to the exploration, curiosity, and physical play I love so much.

I’m 6. I’m refusing to use anything pink. Being girly means liking “feminine” colors. I don’t actually hate pink; I can barely see the color for what it is. I just know it is girly, and I am distinctly not girly.

I’m 7. I only enjoy the boy cartoon characters. They have fun and are funny. They get to move around more than the stiff princesses who I barely understand to be characters. They are elegantly moving statues used to dress up the set while the fun male characters have adventures and tell jokes. I am not girly. I’m like the male characters. I am physical, I am funny, and I have no interest in being beautiful. Maybe I am not a girl at all.

I’m 8. I am throwing a tantrum on the playground because my playmate wants to be Simba (the Lion King) this time. I always get to be Simba, so I relent and agree to play as Nala (the lioness)–this once. I feel profoundly awkward in the role. I tell her I refuse to play if I ever have to be Nala again. When I play as Simba, I scold my playmate for daring to sing “I just can’t wait to be queen” when I sing my number. That is not how the words go. Nala only becomes royalty by marriage. Ugh, girls are so stupid.

I’m 9, and my cousins are making me watch some obnoxious dance routine. I hate to watch them perform and don’t understand why they would do such a thing. I want to play video games, which they make fun of me for. My male playmates have largely abandoned me, pressured by each other into rejecting me. I’d never make my male playmates sit through stuff like this… so why am I lumped in with these cheerleading nitwits? Girliness appears to be a fundamental and natural part of girls. So I hate girls.

I’m 10. It’s already sunk in that my body is not for me to move around in without being harshly evaluated. I stop moving around and seek to shrink. My weight problems worsen, which only makes my shame greater. I further retreat into consuming and creating fantasy worlds that don’t require me to think about my body. I fail to see what this has to do with being a girl, mostly because I am not a girl.

Part 2: Dissociation

I’m 11. My female classmates begin to show an interest in boys. They ask me which celebrities I find attractive, which I can’t answer. I do not care about celebrities. To me, they look like aliens. I like some classmates, but I mostly just want to play video games with them. I miss my male companions. I cannot articulate any of these feelings, and so I’m bullied as a presumed lesbian. Joke’s on them, though! I don’t even like girls as friends.

I’m 12. The family member who has been beating and molesting me for some years now tells me that I have a nice pussy. It was this pussy that allowed me to be his target. I don’t draw a connection between this and my nightly practice of lying in bed and dreaming of transformation. I want to be something with a penis and physical strength. I am fascinated with the Animorphs, which can turn into any animal they want. Surely I will grow up to become a shapeshifter, a cartoon character, an animal.

I’m 13. The fantasies are intensifying. They now include becoming a normal boy; attractive and assertive, gloriously my default self. Real boys are more interesting to me now. I want their attention, but not as object. I want to be engaged with as an equal. I reason that might not happen unless I am more like them. My fat, pubescent body is less compliant with that wish than it’s ever been, though, so I know I will look ridiculous even trying. I fantasize about slicing away chunks of my thighs and removing my breasts. Since I cannot be physically like the boys, I study them and pick up things I might have in common with them. I shift my tastes in video games, music, TV, and movies to be more violent. I mark myself proudly with shirts that advertise my male-friendly interests. I am one of the boys.

I’m 14, and at the peak of a period that I will later describe as dissociative. I am removed from my abuser, and basically without friends. The abuse has ended, but the coping mechanisms remain for years after. I am routinely suicidally depressed for years to come. I fail to see what any of this has to do with being a girl. Besides, I’m not really a girl.

I’m 15, and running into the arms of my first boyfriend. This is the first significant male attention in my life that is healthy. I try to be just like him. I am lucky, because this relationship is very nurturing. His home is the most stable I’ve ever witnessed up until this point. I might be a girl after all, but I’m a very unique and different type of girl.

Part 3: Not like the other girls

I’m 16. I finally begin to make friends again. Mostly male ones, since they seem to have come around to the idea again finally. They are just easier to get along with, you know? We have more in common, and I love the lack of drama. The drama that does happen is totally incidental. It has nothing to do with their maleness. They say I’m cool, because I’m not like the other girls.

I’m 17. Much to my surprise, I’ve begun to figure out that I can, in fact, be attractive to people after all. It’s a rare combination to be both a girl cute enough to be objectified, yet to be fluent enough in male culture to be one of the guys as well. I’m different, so I get to be both. You can tell how different and cool I am since I actively and joyfully participate in the constant cruel commentary, jokes, and sexual ranking of women. I impress them by being the cruelest and most foul-mouthed among them. We’re talking about women, not me, so who cares? I’m drunk on the perception of being powerful for the first time in my life. I’m the one girl among the boys.

I’m 18. I’m beginning to understand that my position as a girl among boys is very conditional. If I object when they joke about making them sandwiches, their teasing only intensifies. It occurs to me that if I can be made the butt of these particular sexist jokes, maybe I am subject to all of those words that “weren’t about me” after all. I look at myself in a mirror. I am not the cartoon character or a genderless blob that I see myself as. Regardless of how I see myself, others look at me and see a girl.

I’m 19. I now suspect that sexism does, indeed, include me as an intended target. I stop complying with sexist jokes. In asserting this basic boundary, I immediately lose the majority of my male friends. I find myself very lonely and suicidally depressed. Even as I meet a lot of perfectly nice acquaintances at college, I fail to make female friends. I understand, now, though, that if my interior reality can be so easy to miss to an onlooker, I too must be failing to see people trapped in the bodies of girls and women. I consciously begin a years-long mission to begin seeing women as people.

I’m 20. I’m beginning to binge on liberal feminism. It allows me to unpack my fear of feminine clothes and accessories. I learn the origins of high heels and pink and blue as gender markers, and their scariness melts away. I’m so grateful for this first foray into feminism. I am a girl, and people hate me specifically for it.

I’m 21. I’m learning how to dress and carry my body in ways that allow me to achieve the desired effect I want to have on strangers. I marvel at the way wearing a dress changes interactions. I finally understand femininity as a costume, and one that doesn’t necessarily have to be physically uncomfortable. This discovery allows me to humanize women in a way I couldn’t before. I now have some female friends, but my relationships with them are somewhat awkward. It is hard when I look into them and see the ways that they are damaged, because they reflect the ways I am damaged. I am a girl, and embracing it doesn’t automatically improve this condition.

Part 4: Liberal feminism and its natural conclusions

I’m 22. I’m entering the workforce. Before, feminism was somewhat abstract. I am now beginning to acutely feel power dynamics and understand what they mean. My dress becomes more consistently feminine (why even bother with a day where I’m treated less well?) A boyfriend I love deeply pulls the rug out from under me by being very distant during a pregnancy scare. I begin to realize that even boyfriends who are very good to me can do this at any time I need them, at little risk to them. I stop having penetrative sex, never having enjoyed it in the first place. The guilt and shame over this failure as a woman follows me for years to come. Even though I’ve been a feminist for a while, I am just now beginning to understand how deeply patriarchy infiltrates my condition. It is a heavy weight. I am a woman, a person who is expected to take on bodily and emotional risk that others are not.

I’m 23. I’m diving further into liberal feminism. Through its language, I bond with other women for the first time. I begin to see that all of my adult female friends have stories similar to mine; nearly all of them were abused as children, have suffered dissociative tendencies, have been mistreated at work and in relationships. We have a lot to talk about. It is through these conversations that it occurs to me to call the abuse and molestation I endured abuse and molestation. Before now, I have not even integrated it. When I did think about it before, I utterly minimized it and made it out to myself like it was no big deal. Talk about dissociation! After years of effort, it is now much more natural to see the people living inside of women (even ones that do not seem relatable at first). I am a woman, so I have something in common with all bodies prone to our type of sexed trauma.

I’m 24. Through liberal feminism, I have been reading the works of anti-racist activists and writers for some years now. I have a firm grip on the social justice vocabulary, and have been actively trying to undo my racism as actively as I have been my internalized misogyny. And I’m now seeing a major upswell in a new topic that I am told must be central to my feminism: transgender issues. I instantly accept it, since it uses the same vocabulary and ideas presented to me by black feminists and womanists. My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit, lest minority women be oppressed all over again. I am a woman, and I commit serious time and energy fighting for justice for my fellow women.

I am 25, and I wake up anxious sometimes. Nonbinary and transgender people that I love and respect tell stories about their childhoods that sound suspiciously like mine. I hear the word “cisgender” defined as “identifying with the sex assigned to you at birth.” Having never felt at home in my female body, having never felt an internal experience of femininity in my life, I begin to worry. I utterly fail the “if you woke up one day the opposite sex, how would you feel?” test. Even with my hard-won love of women, I would still happily transform into a man if it were painless, riskless, and complete. The idea of being a man with a deep voice, no expectation of being penetrated, and power narratives on my side is obviously appealing. But I do not desire to imperfectly and riskily change my body. I do not want to wear clothes that fit me poorly. I tell myself I am agender inside. I have always felt genderless and default, after all. I have never felt comfortable in my body for a variety of reasons, but the shift in feminist culture causes me to chafe and I fall back into familiar old feelings that could be called “gender dysphoria.” Should I be claiming this discomfort? Should I be addressing it with my clothing choices? I’m just pretending to be a woman, for the best outcomes I can hope for with this body.

I’m 26, and I am the breadwinner of my family. This success is exactly what I have wanted my whole life, but I’m feeling like a failed woman. I did not inspire my partner to take care of me financially (although it is his gentleness and kindness that I admire most in him). I know this is bullshit, but every day I still feel hideous and ashamed of this arrangement. I fail to see that my success is a form of gender nonconformity. I fail to see that my directness, my agency, my assertion in the humanity and dignity of women are all forms of gender nonconformity. I fail to see it because mainstream feminist discourse on gender is very alienating to people who do not care as much about fashion or presentation. Women are oppressed because they are feminine, and I am not truly feminine “inside”. I don’t even know what a woman is.

Part 5: Relief

I’m 27, I’m 28, I’m 29, I’m 30. I am an adult. After years of occasionally and fruitlessly googling “what is a woman?” and permutations thereof, I accidentally stumble upon gender-critical discourse. I find the radical feminism that has been so ubiquitously deemed irrelevant and hateful by mainstream liberal feminism.

It’s hard to overestimate how much radical feminism is considered taboo. All I knew about Dworkin and Steinem was that I hate them. Because they are bad. I don’t want to poison myself with hatred! It’s to the point where I had never even read a single thing by any person aligned with radical feminism before. After years of calling myself a feminist. I was trying to have a feminism without history, without context, and most bizarrely without an understanding of the root of women’s oppression.

Now I am beginning to see things differently, and recognize my body as the site of my oppression. Mainstream feminism has totally abandoned this concept, and it’s left countless young women like me without any tools to integrate their experiences as theirs. This leaves them totally vulnerable to the tidy explanation that “you aren’t actually a girl.”

But there is a moral imperative to resist this.

When females who do not fit the mold abandon the ship of woman, we also abandon young people who need to see themselves in others. Peers and adults who are able to integrate their non-conforming experiences as appropriate to their own body, and as a vital part of the experience of women, are crucial role models for girls and adolescents.

If woman is a category only occupied and defined by those who appear to embrace the gender stereotypes of women, we are doomed. It is non-compliance within the category of woman that reminds us that women are fully human, not just natural targets for subjugation.

Femininity as we inherited it (prettiness, submission, sacrifice, vulnerability, and a million arbitrary culture-specific colors/fashions/toys) was made up by people with penises specifically to subjugate people with vaginas. Specifically to render us compliant, decorative, and groomed for exploitation.

Of course you didn’t comply with it. Even if it has some fun stuff, it is completely natural to associate even the fun, harmless girl-stuff with the painful. It’s no wonder many of us reject it categorically.

However, if we flip the script and decide that femininity is defined by things by, for, and related to people with vaginas, femininity simply means human. There is nothing a person with a vagina can do that is outside of a true definition of femininity/womanhood.

The only reason it wouldn’t be that way is if we assume women are truly and naturally restricted and incapable of the full range of human traits, behaviors, feelings.

No amount of liberal feminism came close to providing the relief I felt by coming to understand this. By knowing that I do not have to occupy the male-created narrative of femininity even a little to be 100% justified in my body, no matter what shit I wear. By realizing that discomfort in the female body is the design of patriarchy, not my individual unique nature. By learning that not every language even has gendered pronouns, and to imagine that reality. By appreciating how truly neutral all fashions and colors are. To come to grips with the fact that gender is just a story to explain the shitty position of women, not some essence to be found deep within myself to justify some part of me that demands an explanation.

This sounds obvious, even trite. But if you do not see the profundity in it nonetheless, you have probably not appreciated the depths of the oppression of women as a sex class.

Part 6: Epilogue

The parts of me that do not comply with the gender stereotypes assigned to me (which were defined by dead men specifically to subjugate me, regardless of the fact that other women are often strict enforcers of them) are not “masculine”.

I am not a “tired husband” because I come home from work late and just want to relax on the couch.

I am not in “boymode” when I opt to wear pants and practical shoes.

I do not need to express every aspect of my gender non-conformity in the forms of fashion, pronouns, or hairstyles in order to be meaningfully dismantling sex roles.

I do not need to justify the gender-compliant fashion choices I do make by deciding that dresses and makeup are the very height of agency and rebellion. Trying to make my own daily life easier does not need to be justified or explained away by the idea of doing it “for myself.”

I do not need to pick apart every aspect of who I am, what I like, or what I do and decide where it lies on a spectrum from masculine to feminine.

I am all of these things, and so all of them are appropriate for women. All of these things are within the realm of suitable behavior, thoughts, and feelings for a person with a vagina to have. They are all a part of a complicated and complete single self, not a fragmented collage of things that do not belong together. No aspect of myself needs to be explained away. It all makes perfect sense, and none of it contradicts my nature as a person with my body.

Let’s stop trying to patch a broken system we all intuitively rebelled against with a million convoluted chutes and ladders. Let’s consider scrapping it altogether. Let’s start by rejecting the notion of a feminine/masculine spectrum altogether, rather than attempting to do away with the biological reality that made us targets to begin with.

Let’s start by integrating ALL of our experiences, behaviors, and personalities into our own self-images, rather than seeking to embody an image that “fits” better. We’ve all been tricked into believing “woman” is a far more narrow category than it is. We can all fit into it. We can dictate its shape. It’s ours.

Dissociative tendencies: Young women and “otherkin”

One of the roots of so much of “I’m not a girl” issues, I think, is dissociation. At least for me.

Not long ago I was curious about the therian/otherkin phenomenon. I sought out some reading material and videos with an open heart. My heart, once open, proceeded to break. I saw video after video of kids that looked almost exactly like I did at 15.

I recognized within them a loneliness, a perceived otherness, that they sought an explanation for. I saw the very same lack of understanding of their physical body that I exhibited at that age. I heard them speak of their animal counterparts within coming out to protect them. I saw teenagers who were probably abused.

As a child, I also pretended to be a dog or cat, even when alone. I often bit other children, well past normal biting age. When playing “house,” I would always disappoint my younger playmates by abdicating my presumed role as mommy and refusing to play unless I could be a pet of some kind. I identified exclusively with male characters, yes, but all of them were also animals. Since male animal characters were allowed to look more animal-like, I believe that my concepts of gender neutrality/maleness/animalness were all very intertwined.

My tendencies evolved as I aged and were very much exacerbated by the abuse I would face as an adolescent. When alone, I would bark, meow, growl, and exhibit other inappropriate behaviors well into my teenage years. I knew not to behave like this around people but I longed to meet others like me. In the videos of otherkin and therians, I saw kids who were just like me who did happen to have had their quirks externally validated (by each other). This is not a cruel or purposeful thing, but in validating our behavior in others, we validate ourselves. Once a small community is formed, feedback loops are formed. These behaviors go beyond validation and into identity cultivation.

I think that there is a certain type of young person with more difficulty, than average, seeing themselves in a meaningful sense. And this is a form of dissociation. Of course, they see people in the real world, and do not see them as cartoons. They know that cartoons and movies are not real. But when it comes to understanding themselves, they have greater difficulty imagining the self that others see. This is very common among “nerdy” types. There are even memes about this phenomenon:

I think this is the result of minds which tend to think very symbolically. I remember very specifically imagining how cool I was wearing a backwards hat as a kid, or later imagining myself as looking like a sexy catgirl when I wore a head-band with cat-ears. The reality of the matter was that I looked like a dumpy teenager with dirty cat-ears, not a lithe anime character I wanted to embody in those moments.

I have no explanation as to why some people think this symbolically when it comes to themselves. I have suspicions (trauma mixed with some sort of personality subset is my best guess). What I do know is that this type of person, in most circumstances, does not benefit from having their self-projections cultivated. Nor from having at their fingertips an infinite supply of validation for anything they could desire validation for. It leaves this type of person very vulnerable.

Their vulnerability is made even worse by the fact that they are generally quite intelligent and therefore able to rationalize anything to themselves. They, like most people, imagine themselves fairly immune from influence. I can promise you that at least one teenager with this sort of personality will show these words to their friends and laugh at the “condescending” suggestion that they are vulnerable to influence. Maybe it is condescending, but there is no non-condescending way to express such a reality. I can’t say that I, as a young person, would have read this essay or taken it seriously, either, though.

Invalidation will only bolster their fixation, giving it the aura of credibility manifesting in defiance. Above all, they need time to work these things out without too much outside interference, and perhaps gentle but firm guidance to the reality that their self-perception and will is not something that others can or should be beholden to.

They do not lack empathy (and in fact can be quite concerned with justice and the feelings of others), but they lack some perspective-taking.

I still have my sex-dysphoric and otherkin-type tendencies and feelings, but they have abated considerably. They no longer bother me at all now that I understand them as coping mechanisms largely developed in response to serious abuse in my young life. They were tools I built for myself out of self-preservation, which is its own sort of beautiful. Just like the therian kid has a wolf-self to protect him, I made these constructs to protect me. Free from toxic validation, I was able to have the time and space to integrate them as part of my complex and whole self, rather than as my truest inner identity.

As an adult, I’m very grateful I was able to develop healthy, constructive creative outlets for them (not to mention a self-awareness that prevents me from ruining my life with inappropriate behavior). My adulthood would certainly not be as good as it is had my fantasy been indulged to the point where I could insist others (outside of the internet) see me as I would have preferred to be seen.

No other animal desires to be another animal. That experience is uniquely human. Coming to this was similar to my understanding that the ability to wish to be male when one is not male is an experience unique to those of us who are female.

I know that a lot of trans folk will find this comparison offensive, but it’s hard for me to overstate how much I related to animals and cartoons over people for huge chunks of my life. As an adolescent, these feelings about being not-human were very similar to my deep and serious feelings of being not-female. When otherkin-type kids say that they feel body-map dissonances similar to those described by trans folks, I believe them. I continue to feel both as well (fortunately, at greatly reduced rates and with no accompanying distress).

Internalized misogyny and the trap of the white feminist demon

A lot of very smart young female people get into liberal feminism, and think within a very brief amount of time that they have unpacked their internalized misogyny, but they still feel bad so obviously their pain requires more of an explanation than mere sexism.

In leftist circles nowadays, sexism is seen as one of the more frivolous oppressions, paling in comparison to race, class, and sexual minority struggles. I suspect this image of white feminists as privileged, perhaps even above white men, is popular because it is specifically the white man’s stereotypical view of white women. I urge you to question it, to fight it. White women of course have white privilege, which should always be scrutinized and unlearned. But none of this makes sexed trauma less real and serious.

“White feminism” is a useful description for a bundle of behaviors, values, and assumptions that have historically harmed women of color… when feminists of color use it. It has more recently been co-opted as a scapegoat by white liberal feminists, trans activists, and men. The White Feminist in popular discourse has basically become a silencing tactic, and a means to diminish the perspectives of anyone who doesn’t agree with a specific brand of liberal feminism. It’s important to be able to, as a white woman, accept the criticisms from women of color without caving to the temptation to dissociate.

Many young white women know they cannot un-white themselves, so they often proceed to un-woman themselves to avoid being the most privileged person at the feminist table. This is unfortunate, because they usually came to the table because they needed to in the face of their oppression. Since they are young and often traumatized, they are even more ill-equipped to integrate privilege into their self-concept than the average white person. Their legitimate problems along with their typical white fragility combine to make them want to dissociate. I theorize this is behind some of the uptick in non-binary and trans identities among young females (along with people claiming mental illnesses as part of their identities).

I honestly do not think young white women would be reaching so hard to claim other oppression-based identities if they understood and appreciated the gravity of the sex oppression they face. I suspect they suffer from the white man’s narrative that white women, particularly white feminists, are frivolous and just making too big a deal out of this whole patriarchy thing. This is just another facet of internalized misogyny, and it serves not only to de-center feminism from understanding itself as a movement concerned with sex-based oppression, but also to allow the would-be young white feminist to defer taking responsibility for understanding themselves as a person capable of racial oppression.

Many of their self-descriptions basically provide a laundry list of identifiers to make up for their bad one. It’s as if they say “I may be white and forming an understanding of feminism, but I’m not one of those nasty ever-so-privileged White Feminists. I’m just a poor little mentally ill, pansexual, non-binary, demiboy. Please accept the unthreatening posture these identifiers represent as a means to soften any racial privilege I might exude.”

It wasn’t until after years of exploring feminism that I was able to identify my sexual abuse as sexual abuse. And it was only after years of exploring feminism that I was able to make female friends. I believe you cannot understand a great deal of misogyny’s depths until you spend a good deal of time working outside of the home, or see yourself in the context of romantic relationships. These things take serious time and a lot of experiences to even begin unpacking. If you are thinking about transitioning or are calling yourself some other opt-out identity, do not rule out internalized misogyny. Do not rule out your own limited perspective on what a woman can or should be. Do not rule out your own oppression as less valid.

Ruling out internalized misogyny is a mistake for any person. To rule out internalized misogyny is to underestimate patriarchy. And trying to modify your own identity into a position of less privilege is just about the lamest and least responsible thing you can do.

And for crying out loud, do not “identify” as something other than yourself as a way to dodge your own racial, class, or other privilege. It’s a serious bummer to have to say that, and I know it will be met with indignation and fervent denial, but I’ve personally witnessed this happening among peers. It’s only human to be motivated by a desire for approval and belonging (especially among female-socialized people), so don’t be hard on yourself if you find this inside of you. Make peace with it. Own it. And heal.

4thWaveNow

A community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth

Tag Archives: guest post

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Abandoning the Ship of Woman: Guest post

Stories from the 80%

Part 1: Tomboy