How To Talk to People Considering Detransition

The amount of people who undergo gender ‘transition’ has exploded in the recent years. The level of ‘gatekeeping’ of who can access medical transition has lessened over the years, so a lot more people (especially in places like the USA) are starting transition without any medical professional making sure that it’s truly what is right for the individual. Doctors tend to operate an affirmation-only model, as encouraging someone to question whether they’re truly trans is argued to be conversion therapy, and may have disastrous results for their careers. As a result of this lack of gatekeeping, we are starting to see a lot of people detransitioning. I have no doubt that we will see an explosion in the amount of detransitioners in the coming years.

However, the road to deciding to detransition isn’t an easy one - especially if the person has been ‘living as’ the opposite sex for a long period of time, or if they’ve already undergone medical transition (they may experience a sunk cost fallacy mentality, where they feel like they’ve already transitioned so much that it wouldn’t be sensible to try to detransition).

When making such a huge decision, it’s very helpful for people to have support. But who is going to be there to support them? And how do you even support someone in this position?

I’ve spoken to detransitioners, and people considering detransitioning, a fair few times throughout my time in the movement. I’ve supported several people who eventually came to the decision to detransition. I’ll always support anyone who manages to find their way to me. However, I can’t talk to every would-be detransitioner, nor do I suppose all of them would want to talk to me specifically anyway. So I decided to write this guide, in the hopes that I can help people to help people.

The question of ‘who is going to be there to support them?’ is an important one. If you’re one of my subscribers, you likely already know that the mentality found in the transgender circles is fairly cult-like. When a trans-identified person leaves the cult and starts identifying as a detransitioner, the pushback from their social group can be extreme. Detransitioners get a lot of abuse from the transgender community, and ‘defectors’ may find themselves ostracised from their social circles. So, obviously, the would-be detransitioner will not find support for their feelings amongst their existing friend group.

However, seeking support from the opposite group - the TERFs or the gender criticals - may be just as unattractive an option. Obviously, people who are against gender ideology and transition will come to the conversation with the intention of trying to talk to the person into detransitioning. That isn’t the ideal response, either.

What a would-be detransitioner needs from a support person is someone who is willing to be NEUTRAL. Someone who isn’t going to try to push them one way or the other. This is the type of conversation that would ideally happen in a therapeutic environment. However, since therapists are mostly captured by gender ideology now, it will now fall to the laypeople in the person’s life to provide this neutral space to explore their feelings about gender.

Bear in mind this ‘cult’ mentality when talking to the person. Remember that, by detransitioning, they aren’t just making a huge decision to change how they think and present - they are also potentially losing their friends (friends who they may have come to consider ‘family’, as is common in cults). It’s a big and scary decision.

When talking to a minor online who is questioning what they want to do, the VERY FIRST THING that I tell them is that I actively encourage them to share ANY part of our conversation. With friends, with family, publicly. This conversation isn’t some secret, like the conversations between trans ideologists and minors often are. We are not behaving in a shady manner here, and they should know they are free to share anything you’ve said to them.

The thing that I think is the single most important point to make when talking to a trans-identified person considering detransition is ‘I am not here to tell you what to do. I am not here to push you in one direction or the other. I’m just here to help you figure out what YOU want to do'.

I know that if you’re in the position of wanting someone to detransition, it might be tough to try to stay neutral in this way. You obviously care about this person, and don’t want them to do further damage to themselves. But this is a decision they have to come to for themselves. You can’t force it. It may push them the opposite way.

The overall message you want to get across is ‘I hear you, I know you’re struggling. I will be there for you no matter you decide to do.’

One thing that is worth exploring with them is whether homosexuality is a contributing factor (obviously this will be in a very age-appropriate way if talking to a minor). A lot of people who transition (but definitely not all of them) do so because, for whatever reason (family, society etc.) they don’t want to be gay. Gently explore whether this could be one of the reasons why they decided to transition in the first place. One thing I’d recommend to those who transitioned due to internalised homophobia is watching detransitioner @TullipR / Ritchie’s interview with Lotus Eaters where he talks about transition regret and how his internalised homophobia contributed to his decision to transition.

I didn’t want to be gay because in my eyes - and it wasn’t that I had an extremely homophobic upbringing I had quite a normal upbringing, and there was a lot of homophobia in the culture and off the cuff remarks in the family but there was no bible bashing or anything like that - but it was enough for my sensitive little soul to be like, ‘oh God, to be gay would be horrible, I’m not gay, I’m not gay’, and I’d have lots of anxiety about that.

If the person does struggle with this, I try to remind them that it is perfectly okay to just be a gay man, or a lesbian woman. For these people, coming to accept themselves as gay is key to feeling able to detransition. They need to take a journey to loving - or at least accepting - themselves for who they really are. This process isn’t instant, so prepare to revisit this topic with them as often as they want.

The following quote is something that I said to a young man who was struggling with accepting his homosexuality.

‘Just in case you don’t hear it enough, it is okay to be gay. It is so, so, so okay to be a gay man. I’ll tell you that every day if it’ll help you even a tiny bit.’

Another thing I try to explore is whether there is a social pressure aspect to their transition. Do they feel the need to transition to be able to do the things they want, and dress the way they please, without being seen as ‘weird’ by their peers and by society? I touch on this issue in my Open Letter to my 17-Year-Old Transgender Self. I’ve heard from several parents who have told me that this video was particularly helpful for their teenage trans-identified daughters, so I humbly recommend sharing this with anyone you think it may help.

What I want you to know with all of my heart, is that there is no right way to be a girl. It is absolutely okay to be a girl who doesn’t act like other girls. It is okay to be different. And the older you get, the more comfortable you will be with that. ‘Being a girl’ isn’t liking make-up. Being a girl isn’t having female friends. Being a girl isn’t the ability to act like and fit in with other girls in your peer group. Being a girl isn’t any of those superficial things. Being a girl is simply being born female. What you choose to do with it from there is entirely up to you. But you don’t need to change. You don’t need hormones, and you don’t need surgery.

Personally, I was so fed up of being seen as ‘weird’ by everyone for the way I was. I liked to wear ‘male’ clothes. I liked to have short hair. But I was so often judged by my peers. I was so frequently asked things like ‘why do you dress like a boy?’ or ‘why do you have a boy’s haircut?’ that I wished I was just a boy so that I could do what I wanted without being questioned (of course, I didn’t consider/downplayed all of the ‘girly’ things that I did that I’d be seen as weird for doing if I was a boy!) I also grew up with my mother telling me I ‘should have been born a boy’ because of all of my more masculine traits and interests.

If the person is particularly young, they may face a lot of pressure to fit in from their peers. Remind them that it’s perfectly okay to be a ‘feminine’ boy or a ‘masculine’ girl, and that they don’t have to change themselves in order to fit in. Chances are, most of the people they’re trying to appease won’t even be in their lives anymore a few year down the line - nor are they people they’d want to keep in their lives if they don’t accept them for who they are. There’s also the fact that transitioning will make them more likely to stand out, rather than helping them to fit in. There’s no magic button to become the opposite sex - no matter how much they might want it. So it may have the opposite of the intended effect - causing them to stand out more, rather than helping them to fit in.

Is the person autistic? It’s well known now that a disproportionate amount of trans-identified people are autistic. There are several reasons for this, some of which may be worth delving into with an autistic would-be detransitioner.

Black and White/Rigid Thinking

Firstly, autistics are more likely to experience black and white thinking. For me, when I discovered transgenderism, things seemed to suddenly ‘make sense’. I had lots of boyish traits - surely that must mean I ‘should have been born a boy’? As autistics, we like to categorise things, and I found that I fit into the category of ‘boy’ better than I did ‘girl’. Is it possible that they are thinking along the same lines? That because they have a lot of opposite-sex traits, they are trying to fit themselves into a box? Reminders that males or females can do, wear, or behave how they like, regardless of their sex, is extra important for autistics in this situation.

Special Interests

Autistic people are also likely to develop very intense special interests. For me, transgenderism definitely became a special interest. I researched and obsessed about it all of the time. It took over my life. It wasn’t until I was kicked out of my mother’s house and went to live with my dad (who didn’t have an internet connection) that I was no longer able to research obsessively or participate in transgender ‘support groups’, which act as echo chambers. Some time away from all of that, and finding new interests to fill my time, helped the special interest to ‘fade’. If the autistic person you’re supporting appears to be obsessing over transgenderism in a similar way, suggesting that they take some time away from the internet (or at least their echo chambers) and focusing on other hobbies may help them to think about themselves more clearly, and help them decide what they want.

Pathological Demand Avoidance

Finally, one of the traits of autism is ‘Pathological Demand Avoidance’. PDA is a ‘persistent and marked resistance to demands’. The way it works, is that our brains will literally rebel against things that are perceived as a demand. This is something that I have experienced, and did experience in this context. If an autistic girl or woman feels like society is ‘demanding’ that she behaves or dresses in a feminine way, she may push back on that, and refuse to engage. She may even go as far as convincing herself that she doesn’t want to engage in feminine things, and even develop a resistance against them. I experienced this too - when I was younger, I didn't just ‘not like' skirts and dresses, I hated them. I completely rejected anything pink, and being the opposite of feminine became something of a personality trait. I remember my best friend saying to me in my early teens, something to the effect of ‘You know, there’s nothing wrong with being a girl’. She was wise beyond her years!

It may help to explore whether this is something they’re feeling. Is the demand from society/family to act feminine or masculine actually pushing them in the opposite direction?

One major factor in why many people (especially females) choose to transition is experience of sexual assault. They may unconsciously reject the ‘weakness’ and ‘vulnerability’ that comes along with being a woman, and may want to become a man, to be stronger, less vulnerable, and less at risk of assault. Similarly to how some women unconsciously gain weight or wear baggy clothes after an assault in the hopes of making themselves less ‘attractive’ to would be rapists, some women want to become male for the same reason.

There’s also an element of wanting to ‘get rid of’ the body that was assaulted. If your breasts were assaulted, you may not want them anymore. If your vagina was assaulted, you may wish it was gone so that it can never happen again.

Obviously, talking about sexual assault can be an extremely difficult and sensitive subject, so make sure it’s approach with the utmost sensitivity. Don’t push them to share anything more than they want to. But discussing the possibility that their sexual assault may be leading them to reject their femininity may be the answer that they’re looking for.

A lot of people who start identifying as transgender later in life do so after learning about it online. This is what happened to me. Through YouTube videos and echo chambers on the old blogging site LiveJournal, I discovered what it was to be ‘transgender’. Talking to trans-identified people online, and obsessively researching about transgenderism and sex-reassignment surgeries on Google took over my life. It convinced me more and more that I was transgender. It was when I was no longer able to access the internet that I started to feel more comfortable with myself. If the person you’re speaking to tends to frequent websites and support groups for trans-identified people, you may suggest that they take a break from those places, to give themselves space to think about what they want, without influence from other people. Given my own experience, I would suggest a bare minimum of a one month break from any type of transgender support group.

Porn can also be a contributing factor. This is particularly true of male transitioners, but it is becoming more true of females too, particularly through access to homosexual manga/hentai called Yaoi. It would be wise to suggest that they take a break from any kind of pornography (or cease watching it altogether if they are a minor) to see if that helps them to have a clearer picture of the path they wish to take.

One thing that is common in trans-identified people is a sense of urgency - the need to make a decision right now. Teenagers especially face a pressure from the trans community to start transitioning as soon as possible - the earlier you start, the better your chances of ‘passing’. This urgency may present when they consider detransitioning, too. They may feel they have to make a decision now, as to limit further changes from HRT. Remind them that it’s okay to not sure for a bit. It’s okay to feel confused about who you are and what you want. After all, isn’t that basically what your teenage years and your 20s are all about? Figuring yourself out is a process. It won’t hurt you to take a little while just to stop, think, and take the time to truly decide what you want before making any more decisions.

‘It’s okay to have doubts and it’s okay to sit and think about things, write it out, talk it out (I’m always here).’

Remind yourself of this, too. They don’t have to decide right now. And, actually, they probably won’t. Expect this decision to take weeks, maybe months. Check in every now and again if you feel it’s wise - a simple ‘how are you doing?’ will likely be enough. I was almost certain that one young person that I talked to was never going to detransition. I was sad for him as I knew it wasn’t really what he wanted, but ultimately I knew it was his decision. However, he surprised me just a few weeks later by telling me he was stopping his hormonal treatment. Don't push, don’t pressure. Just give them all of the space and time that they need to figure out how to move forward.

One of the common fears of trans-identified people who have started the journey of medical transition is that they’re ‘too far gone’ to detransition. Maybe hormones have changed their looks or voice significantly, or maybe they’ve already had surgery. You can reassure them that no one is ‘too far gone’. It’s their life, and there will be ways to make themselves appear more like their birth sex again. Ritchie, who I mentioned above, fully transitioned including surgery, but he has detransitioned and is ‘living as’ a man again. Prisha Mosely had a double mastectomy and was on testosterone - yet she went on to give birth to a baby and become a mother.

Maybe their appearance and body won’t go exactly back to how it was before, but detransition is always an option, if that is what they want.

In my article Advice for Parents of Trans-Identified Teens, I said that it would likely not be helpful to share experience of detransitioners. This is because it’s hard to convince a teen they may regret something when they feel so sure of themselves. However, a person considering detransition isn’t quite as sure of their decisions, so sharing experience of detransitioners may be helpful - especially if those detransitioners decided to transition for the same reasons they did.

Here’s a list of detransitioners on X who openly share their stories:
Ritchie Herron (a gay man who had internalised homophobia)
Prisha Mosely (borderline personality disorder & suicidal feelings)
Maria Witlof (struggles related to adoption)
Chloe Cole
Sinead Watson
(If you’re a detransitioner and want to be included on this list, please contact me. Likewise, if you’re on this list and no longer want to be, please contact me!)

You’re in a very precarious position when talking to someone who is unsure which direction to take. The things you do and say could help them onto the journey towards self-acceptance, or push them further away. Saying anything like ’I told you so’ or anything to make them feel stupid or guilty is a huge no. Telling them what to do is a huge no. Saying anything to make them feel pushed one way or the other is a huge no.

Whatever you do, don’t make a big deal of it. They’re probably dreading a huge reaction, and a lot of the detransitioners that I spoke to whilst writing this article said the same thing - they didn’t want people to make a fuss.

My experience with detransitioning was quite unremarkable. My dad is the type who doesn’t like to talk about emotional things, so when I started presenting slightly feminine again, he didn’t say anything at all. My friends didn’t really say anything either. I wasn’t fully ‘out’ at college, but most of my friends knew, and a lot of people knew thanks to gossip spreading, but no one really said anything. My form tutor would make very gentle comments when she noticed me presenting more feminine. I wore eyeliner to college one day, and she made sure to tell me that I looked nice, and that it would go well with some lipgloss. No one ever made a big deal of it, and as a result, I was able to slip out of my trans identity without much fuss.

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Thanks,
Hazel x