Detransition or Death?

Contemplating what would really make them leave me alone. Would they ever, even if I were somehow capable of taking it all back?

Sometimes, especially lately, I find myself wandering the corridors of "what-if."
What if I detransitioned? What if I left myself behind—reverted my documentation to an old, incorrect version to appease the bigoted and the ignorant? What if I undid decades of me to become someone I never recognized—someone I don’t even remember? Who would that person be? That existence feels like a nebulous blob of personhood, always creeping around the edges.

As the so-called "debate" over the personhood of trans and intersex people escalates by the day, the blight seeps in, and with it, the ghost of that blob. Are they even real? Or just a boogeyman conjured by cynical bigots to make me lose myself in their disingenuous assertions?

In the end, nothing would make them happy—not even if I clasped hands with that stranger, that phantom. They want something more. We know this because it’s no longer about “fairness in sports”—though that was once their rallying cry, alongside “just asking questions.” My, my, my… how far we’ve come.

I would be lying to you if I said that the politicization of me and my right to live have not made me think of future possibilities for survival. I have wondered, sometimes, if the Matt Walshes and the Ben Shapiros of the world would leave me alone if I lived their lie. If somehow I simply… went back. Began dressing as a male, despite my female anatomy. Had a mastectomy. Cut my hair off.

I have sat, sometimes, in the driver’s seat of my car, looking out over an empty parking lot, if I could somehow be the man they wish existed at some point.

I used to think that those moments were a sign of weakness. I thought maybe that those thoughts were signs that perhaps their evil and their wickedness had finally won over my internal thoughts. I’d faced down the idea that maybe—

angry that they took those decisions into their hands when I was too young and scared to ask what they were doing. I was forced to live by their rules, accept their “assigned gender.”

Thinking about my past made me confront the future.

What they call “Biological Sex at Birth” is a lie. It boils down to a physician glancing at a quick moment to see whether there’s something “functional looking” in category A or B. They don’t karyotype the baby. They don’t do chromosome tests unless something looks seriously wrong. And so, a doctor, a tired and burnt out physician eyeballing a child for 2 seconds can’t possibly determine the—

reality 100% of the time. There are some who will even develop one way then change at puberty. They are called guevedoces. Born with a condition that makes them appear female at birth because of a deficiency in the enzyme 5-alpha reductase. At puberty, they develop along the masculinization path. These people would be “biologically female” at birth despite their XY chromosomes and masculine appearance after puberty.

But these examples mean nothing to people who simply want to erase trans people entirely. These things mean that their assertions are based on gendered rhetoric. They know “biological sex” is a bullshit term but it sounds like a ten dollar phrase in a lab coat, easy to get past people who are addicted to tribalist politics and the pursuit of power.

So what would I really be doing this for? Would it be because my doctors believe it’s best? No. Would it be because I want to? No. Would it be because I am tired of being treated like a subhuman and simply want to be me? Yes. That one.

But is that really fair to me? Is it really something that ends with a better life, that suffering with extreme dysphoria and complications because Androgen Insensitivity means my body won’t even work directly on testosterone?

No. It’s appeasing a bully because they will not stop. The problem is that appeasing a bully means that they will always ask for more. Even if I did do all of this, they would still pursue me because this is not about being intersex as much as it is them having and exerting

exerting control over my body. They would still deny me health care and employment. They would still deny me bathroom access.
They would continue doing the things they are doing because the end goal is control and ideological capture. It isn’t enough to win. That’s why they do things like try to revert court orders and refuse name changes, as has happened in Missouri recently.
(Oh, a name change. How Permanent!)
And we remember when all of this was about “fairness in sports?” We sure escalated from there. That’s because they have no intention of stopping.

Luke 11:46–52

46 Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you,
because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry,
and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

52 Woe to you experts in the law,
because you have taken away the key to knowledge.
You yourselves have not entered,
and you have hindered those who were entering.”