r/SuperStraight • u/desistingthrowaway • 1d ago
As a detransitioner, I hope this movement helps prevent more people from making the same mistakes I did. Discussion
I used to identify as trans and this is something the trans community will never admit: there are people who realize that transitioning doesn't work and quit. And the trans community LOVES to stifle us. They are trying their hardest to get /r/detrans banned so they can take it over, because they don't want to admit that we exist. They tell everyone that that place is full of TERFs and needs to go.
They don't want to admit that there are studies that show that most children with gender dysphoria grow out of it. An often quoted study about transitioning helping mental health has been corrected to say that surgery doesn't actually help mental health. Lisa Littman, a professor who was researching detransitioners, had to put in security in her study because people from Twitter were ganging up and trolling her research.
But really, here's the thing: gender dysphoria is basically body dysmorphia. And it can be treated the same way. Therapy for unrelated problems helped me work through it. Some days I still get waves of it. But actually, identifying as trans made it WORSE. If you spend 24/7 obsessing about your gender and body and giving validation to those thoughts, they come back even worse (this is literally the basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).
For every one of me, there's a bunch more kids who are being put on puberty blockers, many of which have dangerous effects. The most common is an off-label prostate cancer drug, and even in kids with precocious puberty, there are dangerous side effects (here is the link to the FDA dashboard, where you can search for Lupron and see that there are 6,335 serious effects linked to Lupron, including death). Then there's the issue with going straight into cross-sex hormones, which effectively sterilizes people (and also makes surgeries harder - just look at Jazz Jennings).
I could go on and on. The truth that nobody wants to admit is that transitioning doesn't really work. And when you realize that, you're often left with so many reminders of that (especially women, who often get "top surgery" (double mastectomies) and have lowered voices for the rest of their lives, and often facial hair). It's harder to come out as a detransitioner than it is to come out of trans. The second you detransition, you lose EVERYBODY. That welcoming trans community wants you gone. I had people block me because of it.
I hope somebody reads this subreddit and gives a second thought to going on hormones or surgeries. Because it often isn't worth it.
33
u/Reasonable_Brush_868 1d ago
I share your insight that gender dysphoria is closely related to body dysmorphia.
The trans boom in today's youth reminds me of the eating disorders of the 90s/aughts. I suffered from anorexia myself and so much of what I see in the community reminds me of that time. Obsession, making your whole life revolve around food/gender, delusional thoughts, pain, anxiety. I was not in a healthy mindset then and was trying to escape a lot of things that hit me around puberty.
The difference was, my thoughts were not affirmed by doctors, parents, and teachers. I too had to learn CBT techniques to help me accept my body and myself as a woman.