This blog is a response to the trans trend. It’s a trend that has seen a rapid rise in cisgender people misappropriating transsexualism as a social identity without having any understanding of what gender actually is (spoiler alert: it’s not a social construct). The beliefs that accompany the misappropriation are often very well meaning but, ultimately, are – and always have been – cis-created, social media-led narratives that are almost entirely at odds with the transsexual experience.

As a trans man myself, I have directly experienced and witnessed trans people’s loss of access to life-saving healthcare, legal rights, supportive community, and basic sense of dignity and safety – all largely a result of the misinformation perpetuated by trans-identified cis people who proclaim that gender is a social construct, gender is fluid, being trans is about identity, and gender dysphoria is not necessary for said trans “identities”.

The misinformation about gender and transsexualism has created a colony of people who are clinically cisgender (and I’ll get in to what exactly that means in a minute) occupying space in trans communities, healthcare, and advocacy. For actual trans people, this results in alienation, fear of speaking out about our experiences, loss of life-saving healthcare, an increase in dysphoria-related mental health problems, dysphoria-related addiction/substance abuse issues and dysphoria-related suicide ideation, not to mention a lack of valuable support, as even our “advocates” are promoting a view of transsexualism that runs solely in line with misinformed, cis-created narratives about gender.

What’s the difference between a trans person and a trans-identified cis person?

A trans (transsexual/transgender) person is someone who was born with gender dysphoria. Dysphoria is an intense distress caused by the disconnection between the brain and its sex characteristics. Put simply, the brain has a map of the body it’s attached to, part of that map includes sex characteristics, and trans people are born with a map that is either partially or wholly inline with the opposite sex. People with binary dysphoria experience distress at both primary- (genitals) and secondary- (pubertal changes) sex characteristics, whereas people with non-binary dysphoria experience distress solely at their secondary sex characteristics. Gender is, essentially, your brain’s “sex”.

A trans-identified cis person is someone who doesn’t experience genuine gender dysphoria but identifies as trans anyway. Some may have certain gender-related discomforts or body issues (often a result of strict, patriarchal gender roles and stereotypes) which they label/self-diagnose as “dysphoria”, but unless that “dysphoria” has been present since early childhood (the mean age is 5.35), is interfering with their life to the extent that survival (let alone healthy survival) is extremely difficult, and can only be treated with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and/or sex-change surgery/surgeries, it does not fit the definition of dysphoria.

Dysphoria – and thus being trans – is not mere discomfort. The word itself comes from the opposite of euphoria; where euphoria is the best a person can possible feel, dysphoria is the worst. It’s a near-constant barrage, from early childhood, of psychological pain. It’s not just wanting to live as the opposite sex; it’s knowing that you should have been born as the opposite sex. It’s not a disregard for social gender roles; it’s a deeply felt pain that was present before you were even aware of gender and its associated social expectations/stereotypes. Gender dysphoria is the knowledge that even if you never interacted with another human being again – lived a completely isolated life until you died – you would still be trans and you would still need to medically transition.

These are not my or any other trans person’s “rules” for what makes a trans person – these are basic criteria that, prior to the influx of cis people in trans spaces, would have to be thoroughly checked in gender clinic appointments before a person could access hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and/or surgery. Since the start of the trans trend (and it’ll shock no one to learn that it really took off when children starting using social media, mainly Tumblr and YouTube, to carve out new identities for themselves), these criteria have been dismantled by the people who want HRT/surgery but do not need HRT/surgery and, perhaps crucially, want said treatment to be immediately available at little-to-no financial cost. They have become the loudest and largest group, privileged by a lack of genuine dysphoria, who campaign against, shout down, and shut out anyone who advocates for thorough medical regulation in healthcare – and so far, it’s working.

Why is it a problem?

The result is that trans people cannot access the care they need due to long waiting lists that are clogged up with people who do not need trans healthcare but merely want it in order to affirm their “identity”. Given that, according to the Trans Mental Health Survey in 2012¹, 48% of trans people (that is, people with dysphoria) attempt suicide prior to medical transition, and our risk of developing long-term mental health problems and addiction/substance abuse issues rises the longer we go without access to medical transition, the result is a loss of trans lives.

On top of that, if someone without genuine dysphoria takes cross-sex hormones or has sex-change surgery, they will be inducing dysphoria in themselves (by creating a body that is at odds with their brain’s “map” of their body). It is that self-induced dysphoria that causes so many people to detransition (often suing the doctors who signed off on HRT/surgery, or blaming trans people for “encouraging” them to transition, without acknowledging that they lied to said doctors and that those “trans” people who encouraged them were also trans-identified cis people, not genuine trans people). Their self-induced dysphoria will inevitably carry some of the risks associated with genuine transsexual dysphoria. The lives lost to the trans trend are not all trans lives, but trans people are the ones at the highest risk of death by suicide/substance abuse.

There are many other harmful aspects of this change in narrative from the expert-led and research-based medical criteria to the social identity movement and cancel culture that will be covered in this blog. The lack of access to safe spaces, the lack of social understanding, the loss of rights – it all compounds in way that makes it so much harder to be trans than is necessary. It also creates far more confusion than is necessary which is leading, increasingly, to cis people accessing medical transition and, in the process, making their future one of avoidable psychological pain and regret.

An important point.

Here, I feel I should state that no cis person “identifies” as trans (including non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer, etc.) or medically transitions in order to deliberately harm the trans community. They do it because they are cis people who have been misinformed by other cis people. Their cis-ness is in some ways inherent to the problem; with no lived experience of true gender dysphoria – of the innate knowledge that gender is neither “fluid” nor a “social construct” but a static neurobiological fact – it’s easy for them to believe that their gender non-conformity, or their aversion to social gender roles and the patriarchy, or self-belief that they’re neither male nor female (something rarely reported even in legitimate non-binary cases of dysphoria), is the same thing that trans people experience.

However, their ease of belief in the social media-led misinformation (rather than the harder understanding of hundreds, if not thousands, of complex medical studies) has caused immense harm to trans people and is currently oppressing us and endangering our lives. I’ll be doing a deeper dive in to exactly why a cis person may identify as trans in other posts; it’s a vast social and political issue, and there’s rarely only one reason alone – just know that I am sympathetic to those reasons.

The reality is that being trans is complicated. Identifying as trans in spite of a lack of dysphoria is complicated. And one thing media – social, news, and entertainment – doesn’t tend to cope well with is complication. As a result, those short, snappy “gender is a social construct”, “you don’t need dysphoria to be trans”, “identify however you want” kinds of phrase become the favoured narrative. They are, to the majority (i.e. cis people) easier to understand and digest than “transsexual people know that they are the gender they are, often from the moment they’re self-aware, as a result of the disconnection between brain and body caused by a developmental blip that happened before they were born. That disconnection is so distressing that at least 48% of them will attempt suicide, while the other 52% will experience suicide ideation/substance abuse/complex mental health problems, prior to medically transitioning.” It’s not catchy and it’s pretty damn longwinded. Also it’s depressing. Our society doesn’t want longwinded and depressing; it’s set up for a minute-long Instagram post or a TikTok video that confirms its well-established biases.

Why can you trust what I say?

I’ve been a part of the trans community for nearly 20 years and thus experienced the trans community when it was safe for people with dysphoria, before witnessing the start of the latest trans trend and the aggression towards – and silencing of – trans people who called it out (in some cases resulting in trans suicides). I also saw, and am still seeing, an increase in people detransitioning and, as an autistic pattern-spotter, have noticed the common traits shared by people who transition happily and people who end up detransitioning (more on those traits and patterns in another post). I’m approaching from a place of empathy, curiosity, and desire to help trans and cis people alike.

What I know about being trans has come from a hyperawareness of my dysphoria from age 3 up until I finished my transition in my 30s, from conversations with gender clinic psychiatrists, one of whom conducted several of the many pieces of research that prove dysphoria is a result of neurobiology rather than society, from conversations with other trans people who are also negatively affected by the trans trend, and from people who detransitioned.

Everything I know about being trans is backed up by enough medical research to indicate that being trans is not merely a matter of identity. As an academic, logical person who also values the power and presence of emotion, I feel well equipped with medical knowledge and experience, as well as social awareness (particularly awareness of current LGBTQ culture) to know that what I say is coming from a place of kindness. I know what dysphoria really feels like and it’s hell on earth, so if I can help one trans person survive the sense of loneliness that comes from having dysphoria in “trans” (majority cis) spaces, or prevent a trans-identified cis person from inducing dysphoria in themselves via an unnecessary medical transition, I’ll be satisfied.

Of course, in an ideal world, I would like every trans-identified cis person who reads this to put aside any fear and anger they may feel when having their identity challenged, and accept that they are simply misinformed cis people (and understand that that’s okay!). Unfortunately, from my experience of trying to talk to trans-identified cis people about the flaws in their transphobic, often misogynistic, identity-focused belief systems, I’ve learnt that I can’t expect everyone to see logic when they are emotionally invested in illogic. While I understand that it’s scary to have to effectively “undo” an identity you’ve spent years building, I don’t believe that fear is a good enough reason to continue to harm vulnerable people. 

Who is this for?

This blog is for anyone who wants to be a genuine trans ally – not simply a person who performs the routines and expectations of allyship, but someone who puts in the effort to challenge their own identity and beliefs, accepts that they may have biases towards certain narratives that have perhaps led to them holding harmful beliefs about gender, and takes action to educate themselves and others. It’s not an easy road, but it is the moral road.

I also write for the many cis people who “identify” as trans. It is not an attack on them as people, but it is a criticism of the movement to which they’ve attached themselves. I understand that many trans-identified cis people don’t even know that they’re doing any harm and sometimes don’t even know that they’re cis. They don’t know that their sources of information were compromised, or that their own cis privilege may be blinding them to the harm they are inadvertently causing trans people. And that’s okay – life is one big learning curve and everyone makes mistakes. But in order to progress as a community of trans people and our allies, the conversation of what exactly being trans means – and who meets its criteria – needs to happen.

It’s worth saying that the complexity of transsexualism, dysphoria, and the trend of trans/dysphoria-based identities is pretty vast, confusing, and still has some unanswered questions. As you might have gathered from this post, I can’t exactly sum up everything in one easy-to-understand essay. Learning about this will take time and patience.

Hope

While I’ve come to learn that identity can be a powerful dictator in how we navigate the world (and that, certainly in the current “trans”  (cis dominant) community, it is often reinforced by challenges to it), I live in perpetual hope that there are enough good people out there to challenge their own beliefs and identity for the benefit of not just trans people but themselves. Hope has been a survival tactic for my transition and now that I’m post-transition, I would like to continue that hope so that pre- or mid-transition trans people out there may also survive.

I hope that at least some people are willing to sit with the discomfort of putting their ego aside in order to save trans lives. Even if the majority get angry, deem me scum and continue on with their transphobic, harmful actions until the tide turns (and it will, because lost lives in conjunction with objective research can only be ignored for so long), I write for the people who will put their anger aside in favour of kindness and curiosity. I also hope that other trans people out there will see that they are not alone. That, while you may currently have to pretend that the misappropriation is fine for fear of being excluded from your safe spaces – from the community that belongs to you -, there are many people who truly support you and understand what you’re going through.

I was that very person. I played along and stayed quiet because I was scared and because my dysphoria was already too much to cope with – I didn’t need the additional stress and drama of calling out the they/them demi-bois -, but now that I’m post-transition I’m closer to a level playing field with the cis people who are doing damage and I have the bonus experience of having witnessed hundreds, if not thousands, of transitions and a rapidly-increasing number of detransitions. Now that my dysphoria is gone (something I never thought could truly happen), I finally feel able to share what I’ve learnt from my transition, my gender clinic psychiatrists, other trans people, and perhaps most importantly, those “trans” people who turned out to be cis after all.

To anyone who is scared either way – scared that they won’t survive their dysphoria, or scared of surrendering their misinformed identity, or scared of the discomfort that comes from realising you might have caused damage in some way, there is hope for you. I hope by continuing to read this blog, you will come to see that too.²

1. A somewhat imperfect survey given that it was done at a time when cis people were just starting to misappropriate the word “trans” for identity reasons without any medical understanding of its origin, but early enough in the trans trend that it is at least partially reliable. ↩︎
2. P.S. I promise to try and keep future posts much shorter than this one! ↩︎