The detransitioners: what happens when trans men want to be women again?
Laura Dodsworth meets the individuals whose stories are rarely told
Sunday July 12 2020, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
When I told people I was going to create a photographic series about trans men who wanted to “detransition” and become women again, I was told to expect a backlash. Actually, I was told I would be crucified — look at what happened to JK Rowling recently. At the very least I’d better take a holiday from Twitter. One person told me I should not be focusing on detransitioners when trans people are still struggling for acceptance. But this would be to silence key voices when we should be having an inclusive and nuanced discussion about gender identity, especially at a time when the government is deciding how, or whether, it will reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
I know trans people for whom social and medical transition has been the best outcome. For many people it can be a positive experience. I fully appreciate that. But it doesn’t work out for everyone, and it is not sustainable, or fair, to silence one community to serve another.
The women in my project, who are from the UK and other European countries, have all encountered anger, disbelief and trolling online. Detransition — when someone ceases to identify as transgender and may take steps to reverse their social or medical transition — is a controversial concept.
It adds to concerns that children and young people may begin the process of transitioning yet later regret it. In April, the government announced plans to ban under-18s from having gender reassignment surgery. Currently under-18s are allowed surgery only with parental consent.
There has been a surge of children, particularly girls, identifying as trans in recent years. In England, 74% of children and young people referred to the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic are girls. Why this increase among girls? The reason is not yet clear, but Penny Mordaunt, when she was minister for women and equalities, promised an inquiry.
This is one reason why I felt drawn to document female detransitioners. I wanted to understand and depict their circular and painful gender journey. For me, the idea of having my breasts, ovaries and womb removed, and then wanting them back, creates a feeling so unnerving that I can’t occupy it for long — that’s why my artistic lens focused on women.
I’m not shy of the taboo. I spent five years photographing and interviewing men and women about their breasts, penises and vulvas for my books Bare Reality, Manhood and Womanhood and the film 100 Vaginas. I’ve documented the realities of our bodies and interviewed my subjects extensively about the relationship between sex and gender.
In 2018 the Government Equalities Office estimated there were anything from 200,000 to 500,000 trans people in the UK. It is not known how many of those have surgically transitioned. In 2014 there were 172 sex reassignment operations performed on the NHS — double the 83 of a decade earlier. The figures do not take private surgeries into account. There are no accurate figures for the number of people detransitioning. Most of the detransitioners I spoke to never went back to the doctor who performed their original transition, and to all intents and purposes may be considered a success story by their therapist or medical team. Charlie Evans, who set up the Detransition Advocacy Network in the UK, says she has been contacted by hundreds of detransitioners. I spoke to various people with experience in the field — doctors, therapists, nurses, endocrinologists — and while no one wanted to be quoted, off the record they predict this is merely the beginning.
I fear that the detransitioned women I interviewed are canaries in the coalmine. Not only for detransitioners, but for womanhood. They all, in some combination, found being a woman too difficult, too dangerous or too disgusting. “I put the problem inside myself,” says one, “when actually it is with how the outside world sees women who don’t conform to feminine norms.”