Confusing Truth

Am I trans? The question is like a key that unlocks the door to transition. My search for an answer, my search for the truth, became almost desperate. If I was trans, then transition would be my only viable option for a happy life.

I vividly remember asking myself this question and the comfort I took in finding an affirmative answer. “I don’t know what I am, but I know that I am not a girl,” I told my girlfriend at the time. By definition that made me some flavour or trans, and I was one step closer to my final conclusion – I didn’t have to be that confused anymore. It may have been a harsh truth, but at least now I had found it.

Further into my transition and detransition I find myself asking other questions: Was I wrong then? Am I wrong now? If I am wrong, what is then right or true? What does it mean for something to be true? And if I have been wrong, who else is also wrong? The nature of detransition means that the person detransitioning in some shape or form has to wrestle with ideas they previously held to be true, and with the thought of having been wrong. Dealing with these epistemological problems has been one of the most difficult, but also one of the most liberating aspects of my detransition.

Admitting a mistake is always a challenging exercise, and in my case it could also involve admitting that I have not only been wrong, but that I have also wronged people around me. I made the strong claim about myself that I was a man, and all but forced people around me to accept it. I no longer stand by this claim, but I find myself reluctant to admit having been wrong. So much so that years into my detransition I still have not opened up about it to most people around me. I consider myself to be thoughtful and mature, so why is this something I am so hesitant to do? Talking openly about my detransition could be an opportunity for growth, and a chance to prove my integrity to myself and others. Why is this not something I want to do?

When I think about my own transition and detransition, I find myself being protective about my past. I don’t want to betray the person I used to be, or even others who are in a similar situation. I don’t readily trust the people around me, and interpersonal relationships complicate the road to honesty even further, but I think there is something more and deeper to my reluctance.

There was a real advantage to transitioning as a masculine woman. My masculinity was no longer subtly opposed and constantly put into question, but encouraged and accepted as the true me. Truth, rationality and masculinity go hand in hand in my western European culture, and they created a self reinforcing cycle that increased my credibility the further into transition I got. By opening up about my detransition, and thereby admitting that I was wrong, could that put my newfound acceptance for my masculine expression and personality in danger? I fear that it could.

Admitting to be wrong invites a power dynamic between two parties, where the repentant maligner takes a humble position towards their audience. If I were to tell someone who previously challenged me that I was wrong about my trans identity, it would imply that my wrong makes them right. But although two opposing statements cannot be true at the same time, both can certainly be false. There is so much we do not yet understand about trans and transition as cultural phenomena, and as a detransitioner I do not want to give away discursive power to those who may simply have disdained my transition in the first place, without ever having understood my motives.

When I think back and investigate my previous self perceptions, I don’t find each element to be wrong, only the conclusions. I did dislike the way my body looked like a woman’s, my direct and dominant personality did cause conflict because it was embodied by a young woman, and ultimately it did become easier to express myself freely as a man. How can I then say that I was wrong?

I never really reached an unambiguous truth about myself. I only came to what I considered close enough. No wonder, because the truth I was supposed to find was my internal experience of my own gender. And can you ever assign a value of truth to an internal experience, to a feeling? A feeling might be justified or not, but it is neither true nor false. Looking back, my negative feelings surrounding womanhood were both justified and understandable, but they were not a truth.

For a long time, the search for truth paradoxically obfuscated my self discovery. Even though there were several positive sides to living as a trans man, there was a part of me that was never satisfied. The feelings of doubt were difficult to reconcile with the happy and fulfilled life I was living as trans. It was only when I moved away from the search of a final answer altogether that I allowed myself to think freely and found out that I wanted to detransition. I don’t know where the idea came from, but I started thinking about my transness as an experience, one out of many, rather than an innate characteristic of my person. In addition to relieving me from the chase for a final answer, this new way of thinking took away a great deal of anxiety about potentially detransitioning. I was rich in experience, not poor in judgement, and whatever was to come would only be more experiences.

This piece was written by a detransitioner who wishes to remain anonymous and was submitted via Genspect’s Beyond Transition program.