Corinna. I really appreciate your sharing this - I find your analysis of these issues on Heterodorx (and the sharing of your own story) always candid and carefully considered. We are grateful for your advocacy and your humor and levity.
I appreciate this story, and note also the pressures on detransitioners to fulfill a certain role for 'the cause', which depending on the individual may not fit.
I suppose it's hard to understand from the outside why more detransitioners aren't outspoken and angry about the failure to safeguard. I really think it's another inter-generational inequity on top of the others, that society failed in such a fundamental fashion.
We probably don't need more anonymous armchair psychologists pontificating... but I do wonder if the nature of dysphoria is better understood as a more generalised identity issue, closer say to borderline and if this impedes the natural state of anger in detransition. I look at what people describe in trans forums about side effects and am amazed at what people seem able to put up with. I suffered several months from a minor procedure that was unnecessary in hindsight but didn't really cause me much physical bother. Isn't it another symptom of the disease that people are seemingly impervious to their own suffering. Speaking generically and speculatively here ..
As an aside, I have a handle that matches your excellent show. I got it before I was aware of the show but please let me know if it's caused any burdens by confusion and I'll vacate it.
Love this. So many good insights. I think this wisdom is applicable to anyone in mid to later life, and I know it resonates for me and choices that I made in the past. There must be room to grieve paths we have followed, whether “chosen” or absorbed. Regret can feel like I am doomed, but there is hope in surviving—hope for joy and thriving despite or even because of the paths we have taken. Thanks.
Dear Corinna, thank you for your wisdom and strenght you are sharing with us. I wish you a life full of new experiences, travels, friends, happy and warm moments and love! That would be happiness for everyone, I guess, and it is brave that one survives different obstacles and moves on with life! Nobody isn’t and should not be unconditionally happy all the time!
The idea of survivorship has been a very helpful positive identity reframing for many who are dealing other medical trauma i.e., cancer survivors in my own frame of reference as I have led support groups for many years in this context, and I also think that the term is useful to bring people together in community and solidarity to help with stigma and making space for processing negative emotions but not without also cultivating resilience
Mourning one’s losses and trying to visualize thriving, not just surviving are not mutually exclusive, I think it’s important to say, but resilience does need to be actively cultivated, it doesn’t just happen with time alone which I think may be in line with your point in writing this piece
I’m interested in your embrace of this term for those in recovery from medical transition trauma and who may have rumination about regret yet I know it’s been challenged by some cancer survivors as a negative term they dislike
Are you finding the same thing in de-trans community?
Thank you for this - I am a deep ruminator, and my face gets flushed as I remember moments throughout my past that I wish were gone. My son has this trait as well: I observe his stages of post-desistance from his trans identity, and I wonder which memories pain him most from his adolescence. His exploration of the world seems to be a brilliant antidote, as he studies, writes, creates art, goes out with friends, works, and travels, but I see him fall into the despairing regretful moments, which he believes to be a more "true" representation of himself, rather than just reflective moments which like dreams we learn from and spur us to act.
I also try to support a detransitioner I know by inviting him out of his ruminating excercises to experience nature, events, food, and people. I feel such fellowship in being afraid of the night, when the roads not taken most deeply intrude. Yes, to acceptance of the human experience of imperfection, terrible mistakes, and self-blaming, but a more profound yes to our ability to forgive ourselves and continue into an enlightened future.
Wonderful as always. I fear that in an effort to encourage introspection (in ourselves, in youth) we are instead encouraging rumination, and that is not a path forward. Many times the only way out is through.
Thank you for an extremely thoughful reflection on your choices which, in so many ways, applies to all of our choices as human beings struggling to survive -- and to learn from our mistakes. If they were mistakes: if we really perceived any other choice at the time.
"Survivor" is also so much better and more hopeful a self-description than "victim": the aggression-laden identity chosen so many transactivists. (Though sadly, as underlined by the Cass Review, so many kids these days are victims of indoctrination and medical abuse.)
Corinna. I really appreciate your sharing this - I find your analysis of these issues on Heterodorx (and the sharing of your own story) always candid and carefully considered. We are grateful for your advocacy and your humor and levity.
I appreciate this story, and note also the pressures on detransitioners to fulfill a certain role for 'the cause', which depending on the individual may not fit.
I suppose it's hard to understand from the outside why more detransitioners aren't outspoken and angry about the failure to safeguard. I really think it's another inter-generational inequity on top of the others, that society failed in such a fundamental fashion.
We probably don't need more anonymous armchair psychologists pontificating... but I do wonder if the nature of dysphoria is better understood as a more generalised identity issue, closer say to borderline and if this impedes the natural state of anger in detransition. I look at what people describe in trans forums about side effects and am amazed at what people seem able to put up with. I suffered several months from a minor procedure that was unnecessary in hindsight but didn't really cause me much physical bother. Isn't it another symptom of the disease that people are seemingly impervious to their own suffering. Speaking generically and speculatively here ..
As an aside, I have a handle that matches your excellent show. I got it before I was aware of the show but please let me know if it's caused any burdens by confusion and I'll vacate it.
Love this. So many good insights. I think this wisdom is applicable to anyone in mid to later life, and I know it resonates for me and choices that I made in the past. There must be room to grieve paths we have followed, whether “chosen” or absorbed. Regret can feel like I am doomed, but there is hope in surviving—hope for joy and thriving despite or even because of the paths we have taken. Thanks.
You are a bright light of inspiration.
Dear Corinna, thank you for your wisdom and strenght you are sharing with us. I wish you a life full of new experiences, travels, friends, happy and warm moments and love! That would be happiness for everyone, I guess, and it is brave that one survives different obstacles and moves on with life! Nobody isn’t and should not be unconditionally happy all the time!
Thanks for this essay Corinna
The idea of survivorship has been a very helpful positive identity reframing for many who are dealing other medical trauma i.e., cancer survivors in my own frame of reference as I have led support groups for many years in this context, and I also think that the term is useful to bring people together in community and solidarity to help with stigma and making space for processing negative emotions but not without also cultivating resilience
Mourning one’s losses and trying to visualize thriving, not just surviving are not mutually exclusive, I think it’s important to say, but resilience does need to be actively cultivated, it doesn’t just happen with time alone which I think may be in line with your point in writing this piece
I’m interested in your embrace of this term for those in recovery from medical transition trauma and who may have rumination about regret yet I know it’s been challenged by some cancer survivors as a negative term they dislike
Are you finding the same thing in de-trans community?
Thank you for this - I am a deep ruminator, and my face gets flushed as I remember moments throughout my past that I wish were gone. My son has this trait as well: I observe his stages of post-desistance from his trans identity, and I wonder which memories pain him most from his adolescence. His exploration of the world seems to be a brilliant antidote, as he studies, writes, creates art, goes out with friends, works, and travels, but I see him fall into the despairing regretful moments, which he believes to be a more "true" representation of himself, rather than just reflective moments which like dreams we learn from and spur us to act.
I also try to support a detransitioner I know by inviting him out of his ruminating excercises to experience nature, events, food, and people. I feel such fellowship in being afraid of the night, when the roads not taken most deeply intrude. Yes, to acceptance of the human experience of imperfection, terrible mistakes, and self-blaming, but a more profound yes to our ability to forgive ourselves and continue into an enlightened future.
Beautifully put. I hope you always keep looking forward and moving ahead - hard to do sometimes, I'm sure. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful as always. I fear that in an effort to encourage introspection (in ourselves, in youth) we are instead encouraging rumination, and that is not a path forward. Many times the only way out is through.
Thank you for an extremely thoughful reflection on your choices which, in so many ways, applies to all of our choices as human beings struggling to survive -- and to learn from our mistakes. If they were mistakes: if we really perceived any other choice at the time.
"Survivor" is also so much better and more hopeful a self-description than "victim": the aggression-laden identity chosen so many transactivists. (Though sadly, as underlined by the Cass Review, so many kids these days are victims of indoctrination and medical abuse.)
Thank god you're not one of them.
Bravo, bravo, bravo. This - this - is introspection.