We Don’t Need Them Anymore

The largest gathering of detransitioners in the world took place in Washington DC.The mainstream media barely noticed. It doesn’t matter. The conversation has moved on, and so have we.

Just recently Genspect held the largest ever gathering of detransitioners in the world. In most circumstances, that would count as a significant international story. Instead, it passed largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.

For organisations so fond of grand mottos, they are remarkably selective about when they apply. The New York Times promises to report “without fear or favour” and to “follow the truth wherever it leads,” yet on this issue they are notably fearful of where the truth might lead. The Washington Post warns that “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” and the Guardian assures us that “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” In practice, the facts appear to be tightly managed.

The Guardian’s failure to grasp the trans issue stands out. In Britain, dissent has come largely from its own natural readership, lifelong left-wing feminists, yet the paper continues to insist that a person’s sense of personal identity is more important than any biological fact.

The list goes on. Serious news outlets such as the BBC, CNN and RTÉ cannot seem to come to terms with the realities of medical transition, regret and detransition. At the moments it has mattered most, these self-styled bastions of principle have fallen conspicuously silent.

Just like the pigs who became human at the end of Animal Farm, mainstream journalists have become the very establishment they once set out to question. Rather than comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, they are now among the comfortable. For all the grandeur of their slogans, they look less like Woodward and Bernstein and more like Napoleon and Squealer.

We did have mainstream journalists at our event in DC, including one from the New York Times. But we are not holding our breath. After years of being misquoted and misrepresented, expectations remain low.

Those of us who have been working in this field for a long time now know that mainstream journalists are unlikely to operate from principles of fact and truth-seeking, and are far more swayed by narratives that suit the sensibilities of staff and funders. So we’ve learnt to work around them. Like principled dissenters in Communist Russia, we don’t expect much from Pravda, and we have created our own voice. Now, through Substack, podcasts, social media and conferences, we have built something that ordinary people are turning to in their droves.

The good news is that it’s working. A pivotal moment for me recently was realising that our local handyman was listening to podcasts as he went about his day. I asked him about it and he said he no longer listens to RTÉ or reads the newspaper – he doesn’t trust them. These days this man isn’t an outlier, he’s an ordinary man who is tired of being fed a polished narrative.

Some years ago, when I first entered this world, there was very little work to refer to, and I could name everyone involved in the issue. Now there are many doing important work whom I’ve never even heard of, and I gave up long ago trying to keep up with the volume of content being produced every day. This is all to the good. While I’m incandescent that I had to step away from my role as a psychotherapist and become a voice for the silenced, at least the plan has worked. I would be even more livid if the message were not getting out. But it is. And there is a certain grim satisfaction in seeing the mainstream media punished for its lack of integrity, increasingly sidelined and losing subscriptions in their droves.

The truth is that Detrans Awareness Day in Washington DC this year was a great success. Over 70 detransitioners gathered, most of whom had never met another detransitioner in real life. Many had kept their detransition a secret until that moment. As the day unfolded, there was a palpable sense of friendliness and camaraderie. The detransitioners were largely cheerful and purposeful. There were poignant moments, of course, as they knew they had been harmed by unnecessary medical transition, injured by people in positions of responsibility whose work should have been guided by the principle to first do no harm.

The presence of senior figures from the US administration highlighted the importance of the issue. Chairman Ferguson of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) delivered a forceful opening address, committing to work with Genspect and detransitioners to ensure that reckless clinicians who engaged in medical fraud would be brought to justice. Jonni Skinner, a detransitioner, described how he had been prescribed oestrogen at just 13 years old. A gentle, obviously gay young man, Jonni explained why some of these doctors should face prison – they had caused serious harm to vulnerable children, and the world needed to recognise it.

Detransition is no longer a marginal issue and there is now serious institutional interest in understanding what has happened and addressing its consequences. Both the FTC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have signalled an ongoing willingness to engage with this work, and that changes the landscape entirely.

Admiral Brian Christine’s closing plenary struck exactly the right tone. He spoke with compassion and understanding to detransitioners and stayed on into the evening, taking time to speak with everyone connected to the issue. He demonstrated a clear grasp of its complexities, and both the FTC and HHS have committed to working with us going forward.

Next year’s Detrans Awareness Day will build on this momentum. It will be larger, longer, better supported, and far more difficult to ignore. The people who once believed they were alone are now finding each other, and those in positions of authority are listening closely. Whatever the mainstream media chooses to do, we will continue regardless.