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Detransition is Gender Liberation, Too - Here's to never being satisfied and forever changing.
(drdevonprice.substack.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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Yeah, it's difficult to process. I certainly wouldn't be the first woman to reject traditional femininity, or even to take T for various goals if I did that; it's hard to understand how much of the distance and alienation I feel is internalised transphobia, a result of a different socialisation (would a cis woman, raised as a cis man, feel the same way?), a defensive reaction to treatment from society at large, or some "genuine" need to understand myself in contrast to traditional structures. Is such a question even meaningful? the author's stance is no, and I think I agree?
I remember saying at some point to a therapist early in the process, when she asked what I thought transition would look like, that I didn't want to go through all the pain and rejection of tearing off one mask only to put on another but of course now I understand that such a thing isn't really possible.
I think a lot of people would say "Ok, you're describing the experience of being non binary" but I don't think it's quite that, particularly internally I tend to feel quite strongly gendered, something odd happened where prior to transition I was mostly a woman in my imagination/internal monologue and after transition I often find myself thinking of myself as a man. Yet when I'm gendered as a man by strangers it feels awful!
Even discussing this stuff is difficult, because it'll all be used as ammunition by people to attack trans people.
Amusingly I think the most seen I've ever felt by a stranger was when a guy a bit divorced from reality (drugs or psychosis I don't know, never saw him again) looked up and went "ah, another androgynous soul" and then went back to his ravings.
Yes, this is similar to my own experience! It feels like what I'm experiencing should be a non binary experience, yet, I don't resonate with that, because my internal identity is gendered in a binary way. Yet every time I'm seen as transgressing gendered norms, it makes me happy. That was true before I transitioned, and it remains true now that the norms attached to me are different. I'm not happy being misgendered, but I'm quite happy to not be gendered, and I'm uncomfortable when people assume I'm cishet. I'd be happiest if my gender was an internal experience and of no importance to anyone else. My gender identity is there, and it's pretty binary I guess, yet that very same binary comes with a boatload of bullshit that no one should have to deal with.
Wow, I feel really seen by the essay and also by the comments by both of you ♥
Because of the author's book "unmasking autism" I first discovered the labels autigender/neuroqueer. Those helped me a lot to see my gender doubts and internal conflicts as being the products of me as an autistic person trying to assimilate into a gendered society.
Before seriously questioning whether I was cis or not, I specifically looked up autism gender because I've long thought I'm too autistic for gender. But since I don't have an official diagnosis, I never considered using the autigender label and just didn't think about that for a while longer. I always found it a bit strange that other autistic people could be binary trans because of my own disconnect from gender. Allistic cis people caring about gender was always weird too, but like. They're allistic. They're gonna be weird. Why would autistic people go out of their way to embrace the charade of gender? At least teenage me still didn't use my confusion as a reason to be transphobic.
Hahaha so true! Although I get that autistic people could go either way, either be completely confused by gender and then abandon it as much as possible. Or on the other extreme autistic people might also try to learn all the rules of gender and get it just right?
I identify as non-binary and agender. In ways I resonate a lot with what Devon and you all have written in this thread, but figured I'd share a few words about my own experience. The closest thing I've found to gender euphoria (I don't experience gender-specific feelings but this describes a positive experience that involves gender expression and the perception of gender by others) comes through the lens of transgressing gendered norms. In particular, I get a lot of delight out of causing confusion in others and making people reconsider what they think they know about gender. For example, one time at a party a person used she/her to refer to me and I simply replied "I'm not a girl". Their response was to apologize and use he/him on me, to which I replied "I'm not a boy". This poor confused soul then asked "well what are you then?" to which I replied in as upbeat and cute as I could muster "I'm a bunny!" I truly wish I had my phone at the ready to record the very visible thought process on this poor lad's face as my words both disarmed and confused him. It is one of my most cherished memories.
I enjoy the experience of being difficult to put into boxes and there is no strong compelling force for me to align with all the gender expectations of the gender I'm presenting as. In fact, I often find myself adapting how I act as a direct response to how I am perceived. For example I tend to move my vocal inflection in the opposite direction of perception - upwards if people are reading me as a man and downwards if they're reading me as a woman not because I want to fit into a third box but because I want people to question where the box starts and ends. Liberation from the boxes that we are placed in brings me joy, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for anyone to lay claim to an identity as a gender non-conforming binary gendered person, or even have an internal identity that's a reflection of the external perception and pressures that brings.
Tagging @[email protected] and @[email protected] because they might also like to see this