Benjamin Boyce and I chatted last week about what happens when pain and identity intertwine, how medical providers get captured by new belief systems that turn medical practice inside out, what we can learn about gender identity from studying eating disorders, transmaxxing, yaoi, and a lot more!
I wanted to respond to this comment on YouTube: "It's pretty easy to understand how Eliza felt, as a girl, that she had to mortify her body to be taken seriously as an intellectual." She's right, of course, that I felt that way. Whether I was right to feel that way or not. What I remember is feeling like my body was getting away from me, speaking over me or instead of me, and saying all kinds of things to the world that embarrassed me. I felt that I had no choice but to subjugate and silence my body. When you feel like 'you' are pitted against your body, it's easy to harm yourself by starving, cutting, binding, amputating, or drugging yourself with testosterone.
I didn't have trans ideation. Trans wasn't everywhere in 2002-2005 the way it is now. But I didn't want to be a girl. I didn't want to grow up to be a woman. And I was willing to take extreme and even life-threatening measures to not be seen that way. The parallels matter.
For me, this illusion—that I could only be myself at the expense of my body—shattered when I realized I wouldn't wish that 'fix' on anybody else. I wonder if that works with people who've started down the road to transition or if the cultural recruitment into trans is too strong.
I'm not sure there's any intervention that could have persuaded me that what I was doing wasn't good for me and that therefore I should stop. I knew it wasn't good for me. I could only see it differently when I realized I'd never want that for anyone else.
With trans, what possible wedge can be driven between an individual and the drive to self-harm through transition? With friends of mine, I often think—but haven’t said—what would you say to a child like the child you were? Would you say that they, too, must take this path, drug themselves, tear their flesh? Or would you find for such a child a more compassionate answer than the one you gave yourself?
Good conversation here, although you seem more optimistic about the possibility of this ending than I am. I am continually lowering my expectations about the tide turning, possibly because my spouse is a true believer so I see how impossible it is to change the mind of your standard-issue tribal lefty. One comment by Boyce struck a nerve, though, around the 50 minute mark, where he seemed to be alluding to some kind of parallel between the love-bombing trans identifying kids get from the allies and the love-bombing he sees from the "GC moms," painting this group as shallow and/or manipulative. As one of those GC moms who have been in contact with detransitioners for a range of reasons, it's frustrating to have the much needed support we provide, the resources for legal advice/action, therapy, and self-care, and the forums for telling their stories, plus just being accepting, non-judgemental listeners, characterized so trivially in such a negative way. Admittedly, we prefer that they tell their stories because they are uniquely positioned to have tremendous impact, but I don't know any parent who doesn't put the welfare of these young people ahead of any benefit that might be gained — benefit not necessarily for our own children already on this dark path, but to protect the young ones that are being lined up for duty by activist teachers, ideological clinicians, and deceived parents. When detransitioners say that they want to keep any more young ones from suffering their fate, we help amplify their voices. This isn't a self-serving action where they're discarded once their usefulness has waned. I would be more inclined to ignore the slight if the parents fighting this didn't get a consistent stream of criticism about what we should have done differently or what we're doing wrong now. Navigating daily life with a child in this is exhausting enough yet we still manage to contribute significantly behind the scenes and we deserve better than this easy dismissal.
I find myself thinking that this cult will start collapsing under its own weight. I've heard murmurs about the older cross-sex ideating generation resenting the 147 sets of pronouns and the non-binary varieties accompanying the new language. For those like my ex, Neddy, there were 2 sexes---he just wanted entree into the female sex. Getting that letter from the Stanford University Medical school surgeon was his holy grail. The Caitlin Jenner/Dylan Mulvaney contretemps demonstrate it. I've heard an encouraging trend reported in the NY Times, where a recent article highlighted a group of high school girls who shunned smart phones, calling themselves "The Luddites." That would be a healthy trend. In my work at Ute Heggen youtube channel, I find a new group of aggrieved women contacting me, in addition to the trans widows seeking my voice to speak for theirs: mothers of ROGD teens and young women. One of them told me her daughter (who still won't talk to her directly) has started identifying as non-binary after a few years of "transman." She regrets the double mastectomy from a few years ago. This mother and I spoke of hope growing, dim but patient.