I'd never heard the term "detrans" until this morning

[kanzeon_2040]

I've thought of myself as an ally of the transgender community since the 1980s, but I haven't studied transgender issues in depth much until more recently, now that we have this powerful conservative backlash happening all over the US.

This morning the NYT clued me in to the phenomenon of detransitioning, which includes people who transition back

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[kanzeon_2040]

A branching topic, but the article on therapists firing their patients reminds me of my last therapist who simply didn't want to discuss my fear of death with me, he belittled it when I brought it up, and when it seemed that was the next topic I wanted/needed to explore he moved to end our appointments.

But therapists are people too, and they have their own blind spots. Sometimes the ideal of the therapeutic relationship gives us the feeling that the therapist is a god leading us toward our salvation. They're just people like we are, but people who are trained in various types of talk therapy.

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It is difficult to understand what really motivates transgender people when I'm not one. I find myself in this weird attitudinal territory in which I feel I support transgender people in their decisions to present themselves as a particular gender, including (age-appropriate?) medical and surgical interventions, but I experience the online culture surrounding transgender people as highly authoritarian and intolerant of debate. There's a commonplace vocabulary in which transgender people experience debate as an existential attack, and opposition to their statutory goals as "killing children". The reality of higher suicide rates for LGBT youth is turned into a reason for giving LGBT activists anything and everything they want without question.

Which reminds me of my own experience with those who threaten suicide - they use it as a means for controlling other people. The official vocabulary surrounding suicide views it as a mental illness that requires treatment, and sure I would offer any person in distress treatment, but attempted suicide isn't a "cry for help" in my experience, it is anger at the world and often at specific individuals for not acting in accordance with the person's wishes. Suicide is the ultimate protest pee.

Definitely, if you're LGBT, the world and specific people are making it difficult for you to live your life the way you'd like to. Perhaps the body you've been born into is making it difficult for you to live your life the way your brain thinks it should.

But, there will always be limits on what you can and cannot do with your life.

I remember after I came out as gay to my family, my friends, my employer - most people took it well - but then I still had difficult conflicts with my parents regarding other issues. Ditto with employers over the subsequent decades. But when we view a problem we're having as a misfit between our "identity" and the rest of the world, it feels existential.

Yet, arbitrary gender roles are still strongly policed in our culture. They create a lot of barriers for people. It can be supremely frustrating. Why should anybody care which gender I present myself as? Let me do me.