#i'll rb a pertinent drawing for you

[pillarsalt]

if this seems like a weird question feel free to ignore it! but.. if youve felt it, how do you deal with the guilt of "waking up" from transition and the narratives around it right now? i know logically in my mind that the current state of gender as a concept is a rehash/rebranding of old regressive standards, i know its not logical to do surgeries on young mentally ill and neurodivergent people who are in distress, i know that something cant be a social construct and biologically innate at the same time, and i know that the idea of "passing" or "transitioning to a woman" is misogynistic as hell, but i still feel bad for voicing or even thinking of any of it as wrong.

the majority of my friends are socially drowning in these concepts, and i cant even find any real lesbian friends, let alone someone who i might wanna date someday. i love them, but almost all of the same sex attracted women in my life hate themselves to some degree for being born women and try to seperate themselves from what they think womanhood is. it makes me feel hopeless as a detransitioned lesbian. any advice is appreciated :/

this got long so here's a cut:

I'm not a detransitioner myself, but I know there are many women on here and detrans lesbians specifically who would understand what you're going through. Anyone who'd like to reach out to anon in the notes is welcome to do so.

I do totally get what you mean about feeling guilty, even though your views are logically reasonable and feminist. Unfortunately that's by design: emotional manipulation and groupthink is how trans activism keeps people entrenched. No debate, anything that isn't immediately and entirely validating is simply evil, it's all black or white to them. There's no room for grey when just a little bit of poking and prodding can make your entire movement collapse in on itself.

I think it's quite common, I've heard it from many women, and myself included, that even after realizing the harms of gender ideology, we tend to examine ourselves and our beliefs over and over again because what if we really are evil fascists like they say we are? But every time, it turns out that no, we just care about women's rights to legal recognition and protection and equal opportunity, and patients' (especially children's) rights to responsible and ethical healthcare. Remember that when you feel you must be wrong because your opinion is currently in the minority. What's right is right, no matter how many or how few people believe it.

The other thing is, I've been watching this issue evolve for years now. I genuinely believe the tide is turning and people are seeing the misogyny inherent to this ideology. Most

In my personal life, most of my friends buy into gender ideology. A couple of them identify as nonbinary, although I'm not as close with them. It is a hard tightrope to walk. Honestly I don't get too emotionally attached, as much as I can help it, because I'm ready to lose them as friends if it comes to that. If they directly asked me my opinions I would share them, and I've always been prepared to. They never ask. I have a feeling most of them know I disagree with their views on gender but don't want to "have to" cancel/ostracize me, so the subject never comes up. Funnily enough, the friends with whom I do talk about my views openly are men. I think women, generally being socialized to care deeply about others' feelings and wellbeing, are more likely to have these feelings of guilt when going against the societally ~nice, kind, polite~ thing to do, so are more likely to stay close to the groupthink mentality of "we're good, they're bad, continue doing what we say is good and you can keep being good too". And when you see what happens socially to women who speak out against genderism, yeah it's terrifying to face that yourself.

All that to say, I get what you're feeling. It's lonely and isolating to think differently from the people around you but not feel safe to express it. Especially so for lesbians and bi women who want to date women but find that dating women now comes with the extra exhausting step of avoiding believers of gender nonsense everywhere you turn. But you are far, FAR from the only one. There are a ton of other women in your situation, they're looking for women like you. Don't give up. It's hard but it's worth it. I don't have experience with it myself, but I know of quite a few women who met on tumblr and ended up in long term irl relationships. There are also quite a few rad-related discord groups, some specifically for lesbians as well. Seriously, tumblr has become a great resource for connecting with other feminists. And even offline, there are far more women around you who think like you but are also too afraid of the backlash to speak out. Keep looking, don't give up.