Death Before Detransition

The reality of being queer and transgender in America, the harassment I'm getting, and how I'm terrified and struggling to cope

Found in Oklahoma City

The US Department of Homeland Security has issued a domestic terrorist warning for the LGBTQ+ community and Jewish people because of the violence and vitriol against us.

• The devastating Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs (where I grew up) took 5 lives and injured 20 others.

• We're seeing a huge uptick in hate crimes targeting queer—particularly trans—people. We're also seeing an increase in trans suicides: a direct correlation with how hostile this country is becoming for us.

• New York has a serial killer on the loose who's killed 18+ gay men.

• Moore County, North Carolina hosted a drag show that got protestors so mad that they shot up 2 substations in the county. 45,000 people were without power for days!!

• 300+ bills attacking trans people were introduced in 2022 alone.

• Now 400+ anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed THIS year...and it's only just March!!!!

I fear for my safety every time I leave the house.

I can’t read outside

Or go to the grocery store

Or go to the gas station

Or go into the “wrong” restaurant

Or wear the “wrong” clothes

Or work in public

Without being harassed

Boys hurled slurs at me

While I read on the lake at my apartments

Sunning myself like a lizard on the dock

From behind I looked like a woman

But upon closer inspection

They realized I’m a guy in a dress

The older boys recruited

The youngest who discovered me

Into their cruel catcalling

“Fucking gay!

Bald ass gay!

Fucking nigga!”

They yelled

Over and over again

Their tone and volume mounting

With each breath

Fear rose in me in return

My back still turned

I was reading a murder mystery

Where the victims were cast to

The bottom of the lake

My mind started racing with

The possibility of them throwing me out

A castaway, an outcast

My skin and pages waterlogged and weighed down

By their blatant hatred

Dragging me deeper

Down and down until I drown

Instead I slammed my book shut

Stood and turned

And they fled immediately

The youngest calling out, “Sorry!”

Afraid I would redirect their vitriol into violence

I was shaken with anger

But I could never

And who would the police believe anyway?

I get sexually harassed for what I wear

While on a dash to a gas station

A guy I’ve never seen in my life

Asked me in passing,

“Are you the boy or the girl in the relationship?”

With an eager glint in his eye

Attempting to fit me into the frame

Of his limited view of the world with one look

“What???” I asked in bewilderment

I thought he was asking my gender

I was going to say I’m not a man or woman

Because I’m neither

“Are you gay?” he followed up immediately

Without missing a beat

Like we were marching along to

His twisted tune playing out

Like a horror movie I’ve seen before

I laughed and sputtered in surprise

At a loss for words for once

“I can tell you suck dick since you’re wearing those pants!”

He said this with nervous excitement

Clearly closeted

His only exposure to queer men through porn

Salivating in anticipation of my answer

In that dirty, dim parking lot

I mean, he’s not wrong

I swallow men w(hole)

But that hit like a ballistic

Critical damage

Penetrating my already fragile defenses

I was wearing skintight leggings

The same exact I wore before

I traded misogyny for

Gay prejudice and transphobia

When I turned in my womanhood

In exchange for authentic expression

I forgot that leggings

Make me look like a faggot now

Which I definitely am

I mean, people shoot daggers my way

When they notice my painted nails

I just kept laughing and shook my head

In shock as I got in my car

My skin crawling with outrage and disgust

I wish I said, “None of your fucking business!”

And slammed the door in his face

But I’ve been hurt by men too badly

Learned my lesson too many times

So I stayed seated

He managed to muster up the decency to say weakly,

“I mean no disrespect!”

I mean no disrespect…

The absolute audacity of men

To ambush a stranger with invasive questions

Creep into their headspace

And cast them in a nonconsensual role

In fantasies about fucking them

Lights, camera, action!

Plot twist:

He would probably throw a punch

If someone followed that line of interrogation for him

Fuck your wet dreams

Wipe that drool off your chin

I’m not taking the bait again

I walked into the "wrong" restaurant

A dingy bar crammed to the brim like a can of sardines

With rednecks laced up in boots

Shined clean from licking them

Practically waving red flags

Reeking of patriotism and entitlement

The second I came in

A spotlight seemed to shine on me

My name announced like a threat

The audience stopped and glowered at me

Raking their eyes up and down my body

Reading me for filth

Collectively baring their teeth

Boos already forming on their lips

I was wearing one of my favorite dresses:

Off-the-shoulder

A blue backdrop

Bursting with vibrant flowers

With a long slit up the side

Revealing my lacy socks and slender legs

As hairy as the rest of me

I was teeming with life

But it was as if I was covered in muck

From the disgust that dripped down their faces

I think a guy at the bar close to my left

Forehead wrinkled in a deep frown

Insulted me

But his words got lost in the clamor

Bless my ears for being spared the pain

"Can I help you?" the bartender asked

Indicating that the likes of me wasn’t welcome

They pointed me in the right direction

I got the fuck out of there as fast as I could

The man who jeered at me cheered, "Yeah!"

Celebrating my evacuation

All because they didn’t like how I look

The assumptions and judgments they made in seconds

I ran into a Black woman right after

I told her I wasn’t accepted

She said, “Sometimes I’m not accepted either.”

I hate conservative Christians

So fucking much

They wonder why they’re hemorrhaging followers

Rivers running red

As their movement dies out

They’re next

Thank God

Maybe then I can finally live in peace

I can't even work with the public

During my brief stint in sales

I worked at Costco

One day

As bodies and carts rushed around me

A lady pushing her young kid around

Caught my name tag

Her eyes flashed from my face back down

Setting her jaw and squaring her shoulders

She cried,

“Oh Jesus help us!”

I still go by my birth name

Zoë

Two dots over the Ë

Ëtërnal life

Zoë is who I’ve always been

And will always be

Name by birth and choice

Since I’ve transformed

I’m no longer Zoë

Pretty, awkward, book smart

Straight, cisgender, Christian girl

I’m Zoë

Matured, loving, hurting

Losing, learning

Gay, transgender heathen

Masculine

This lady fled in a frightened flurry

When she took one look at me

Glaring back at me with

Such hatred and ferocity

As my jaw and heart dropped

Because I dared to exist

Just trying desperately to survive

But unfairly assessed as a threat

“Oh, Jesus help us!”

The same Jesus who sat with

The most marginalized groups?

Broke bread with sinners and sex workers?

Who upended tables and destroyed the temple

In a righteous rage?

The same Jesus who fed the poor

And gave the finger to the rich?

Who told his followers to give up their belongings

Shunned tradition

And refused to respect the state?

Who condemned the religious bigots

Calling for the death of anyone

Who disagreed and defied them?

My Jesus is

Brown

Jewish

Immigrant

Middle Eastern

Human

I don’t approve of your interpretation of Jesus

Hypocrites should be crucified right alongside him

“Oh, Jesus help us!”

Nothing can erase trans people

Not ignorance

Not hatred

Not suicide

Not even genocide

We’ve always been here

And always will be

We are eternal

Our spirits can't be extinguished

So don’t waste your breath

Save your fucking prayers

He’s not going to

Give you the answer you want

Or send you to the good place

Jesus help you

I'm not wasting my breath

And let's talk about all this fucking legislation!

Dozens of states are introducing and passing laws, particularly targeting trans kids. Bills banning gender-affirming healthcare for minors, barring them from competing in sports, banning more inclusive curriculum, forcibly outing kids to their parents, and criminalizing adults who believe, accept, and help our trans youth.

All trans adults were kids once too. We knew who we were then but we weren't able to get the life-saving care we needed. Going through the wrong puberty for me was fucking HELL. I cried every day about my hips widening, curves I developed, and budding breasts. I should've gone on puberty blockers and hormones much younger, but even if I would've come out then, I wouldn't have been listened to or affirmed.

Whether or not trans kids should get gender-affirming healthcare should be a decision made between doctors, parents, and those children. Every major medical association in the US supports trans healthcare for people of all ages as the best treatment for gender dysphoria. Uneducated lawmakers who hide behind religion to justify their bigotry and don't even know what intersex means have no right to make these laws. Trans kids deserve access to puberty blockers or hormones. Surgeries under 18 are already extremely rare or simply not happening. Puberty blockers have decades of research backing them and are safe and reversible (in case they do happen to have regrets, which is very rare). Look it up.

And gender-affirming surgeries are NOT “mutilating our bodies” or self-harm. For trans people, they are sought after for years because of gender dysphoria, and a great joy and relief for us to finally get them. The government has no business getting invasively involved in private medical care when they don’t understand the first thing about what it even means to be trans. “Detransitioning” is very rare, and when trans people do decide to “go back”, they almost always do because of social rejection and fear of violence. And it’s no one’s business what we do with our own bodies anyway.

• Gender-affirming surgery linked to better mental health, study finds https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gender-affirming-surgery-linked-better-mental-health-study-finds-n1266033?fbclid=IwAR3UFWANf1Zgz6IuGa5N_GNJwJZneVfGucFKgBAP6uXTt6TdSt1gDg4R-B4
  

• Few Transgender Children Change Their Minds After 5 Years, Study Finds: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/health/transgender-children-identity.html
  

• Satisfaction with Gender Reassignment Surgery: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/int/archive/article/163599

• Stigma and Family Pressure Drive Detransition Among Trans People: https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-shows-discrimination-stigma-and-family-pressure-drive-detransition-among-transgender-people/

• Gender Dysphoria Study (1972-2015): Trends in Prevalence, Treatment, and Regrets: https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(18)30057-2/fulltext#sec3.3

• Suicide Thoughts and Attempts Among Transgender Adults: Findings from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/suicidality-transgender-adults/

Highlights:

• Respondents who experienced discrimination or were a victim of violence were more likely to report suicidal thoughts and attempts.

• Respondents who experienced family rejection were also more likely to report attempting suicide.

• Access to gender-affirming medical care is associated with a lower prevalence of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

I wish conservatives would focus on REAL problems, like the housing crisis, inflation, poverty, and wealth inequality rather than fixate on the queer community. Trans people are a very small fraction of the population, and we already have far fewer rights and protections in society as is. We’re just trying to live our lives, contrary to public opinion. Shocker! But we are being scapegoated and used cleverly to sow division to distract from real issues.

Far-right media and politicians are completely fabricating lies about us and fueling hatred and panic. Creating issues out of nothing. NO schools are not providing litter boxes for kids who identify as cats to use, NO drag performers aren't out sexually abusing and grooming children because they're men in dresses, NO trans people aren't dangerous, deluded predators, and NO we aren't Nazis. Nazis hate us. They burn(ed) queer literature and history and threw us in death camps. All the trans people I know are leftists. These lies being cooked up make no fucking sense.

Actually, if you pay attention to what's happening, some states like Texas and Florida are already creating registries of trans people. Like compiling a list of those who have legally changed their sex. I shudder to think of what nefarious schemes they're plotting next. What are they going to do with that information?? Put us in concentration camps?!? I'm not kidding or hysterical or overreacting. We are following in Nazi Germany's footsteps, and quickly. See the Seven Stages of Genocide.

Proving that this has never been about just children, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee are trying to pass total bans on trans healthcare. For adults too. I've been saying all along that kids are only the beginning. Those who are in power (put there by people like my family) are openly calling for "transgenderism" to be eradicated. That is completely unconstitutional, infringing upon bodily autonomy and freedom of expression. You'd think all these die-hard 1st and 2nd Amendment supporters would care about that, but no, they cherry-pick rights and apparently believe only they deserve them. But anyone who they deem too different and too queer should be criminalized.

My home state, Missouri, is trying to bar trans kids from sports and healthcare, drag from public life by labeling it "exotic" and sexual, and censor education in schools so that kids aren't taught that queer and trans people exist. Which we do, obviously. I was inundated with heterosexual propaganda from birth, and I still turned out this way. Queerness isn't contagious, contrary to Christian belief, and no matter what you do, you cannot change someone's sexuality or gender. Didn't work on me. Legislation targeting me is inevitable at this point as anti-trans rhetoric spreads like wildfire.

Tennessee just became the first state to make it illegal for trans people to use the restroom if a minor is present. We can't even legally pee?! There is no winning with binary gendered bathrooms in the first place. I use the men's because I pass as a man now (I have people tell me they thought I was assigned male at birth). I can't use the women's because women would be outraged and feel unsafe if they saw a masculine person in there. But according to this new law, which could easily be introduced in Missouri, I would be forced to use the "right" bathroom according to the gender I was assigned at birth. Sometimes I will still use the women's if I've shaved my face and dressed super femme so I'm not harassed in the men's.

What are they going to do, require genital examinations before people can even go in? Yet we're the perverts?! The trans bathroom predator myth was propaganda cooked up in the 80s. Additionally, it has roots in racial segregation. Really, I think we need to degender and desegregate everything, starting with public toilets, but that's a whole other debate I don't have the energy for anymore.

Tennessee also just passed the first bill banning drag in public spaces, or "male and female impersonators", loosely worded to define impersonators as dressing in an "exaggerated" way that is different than the gender assigned at birth! This extends beyond drag to include trans people!!

Even if you disagree with trans people, vote against our rights, try to pray the gay and trans away, and even deny our existence, this should deeply concern you!! If only because this will affect gender nonconforming cisgender people as well. Think that these religious extremists won't go so far as to eventually target cis men who are even slightly perceived as "too feminine"? Cis women who wear "too much" makeup? Or look "too masculine"? Who even dare to wear pants? Think again.

These are dark times for queer people as all the rights we've fought so hard for so long are being stripped from us as we speak! Devastating. I've never been so angry and terrified in my life. Mortal fear that cuts to the bone, that keeps me up late at night. Vivid mental images of what bigots would do to me given the opportunity haunt my nightmares and daydreams too. Nightmares do pass eventually. But not everyone survives the night. I don't know if I'm going to survive.

I'm expecting and preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. I don't see my five year plan working out. I don't think I'll realistically even be able to access the gender-affirming surgeries I desperately need for my mental health at this rate. I don't know how much longer I have to be a "free" citizen (like we're even free now).

I'm absolutely defiant. I will not conform or change how I dress. I'm learning martial arts and arming for self-defense in the very likely event that I will be assaulted for being visibly gender nonconforming. I'm organizing with local anti-fascist leftists because far-right groups like neo-Nazis and the Proud Boys are already moving against us and targeting drag shows. The biggest danger at drag storytime isn't the queens reading to children. Christians showing up with guns and terrorizing adults and kids alike, on the other hand...what do you think is actually going to traumatize them?

I am defiant and proud of who I am, but I'm also very suicidal again. I can't seem to catch a fucking break. Life and cruel, ignorant people who don't know me but hate me for existing keep beating me down, and I'm already hunched over with a twisted spine. I already struggle with mental and physical illnesses that won't go away.

I am e x h a u s t e d. I don't know how much longer I can continue fighting. At least I know the movement will continue with or without me. Hopefully with, because I don't actually want to die. But I'll be damned if I'm forced to detransition if laws continue to criminalize my body and care. I refuse to go back in the closet. I've fought so hard to get out. That's a fate worse than death, to go back to pretending like I'm someone I'm not. I will hate my body and see a stranger in the mirror again. Dysphoria is fucking painful and torturous.

Not to mention, in the very likely event that I will be arrested for dressing how I want (because cishet people can't tell the difference between gender nonconformity and drag), I cannot go to jail. Police and other inmates do heinous things to trans prisoners. Strip us, examine us like specimens, make a mockery of our bodies, rape us, beat us.

Living hell that I simply cannot accept. I would kill myself from the trauma alone afterward anyway. So if my last act of resistance has to be suicide, so be it. I would much rather die humanely and peacefully by my own hand (euthanasia) than meet a violent end. I won't give bigots that pleasure.

Death before detransition!