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Articles by Ky Schevers
“A spiritual war in a way”: How Detrans Radical Feminists Influenced WPATH
Editor note: This report is paired with a catalog of email communications between julie graham, a gender therapist with the San Francisco Health Department, and a small network of anti-trans detransitioned radical feminists that developed around 2013. Using the liberal, more moderate presentation of another detransitioned woman, the network built a strategy on how to covertly influence discussion on trans health care and informed consent while hiding their true motivations.
Healing from Conversion Practices and Ideological Detransition
by Ky Schevers The first version of this article was originally published in TransLash Zine Vol. 6: Anti-Trans Hate Machine (April 2023). I spent around 6 years living as a detransitioned radical feminist and engaging in conversion practices based on anti-trans feminist theory. Healing from that can be difficult because there are not a lot of resources or information about anti-trans conversion practices in general, much less those based on anti-trans feminism.
Ky Schever's experience with ideologically driven detransition
Trans Safety Network undertake a lot of investigative work looking into conversion therapy advocacy and networks connected with it so as to expose them. We paid for Ky to write up this piece after seeing her Twitter thread on the same subject matter, using donations generously provided by our readers.
Report: Wi Spa Protests Highlight Growing Collaboration Between Gender Critical Activists and the Far-Right
Content note: post includes depictions of police brutality, fascist activity, transmisogyny, racism, and references to pedophilia, domestic violence, sexual assault, and QAnon. Several gender critical activists showed up to right-wing anti-trans protests at Wi Spa in Los Angeles, CA that took place on July 3rd.[1] At least one also attended a second round of protests organized by the same right-wing groups that took place on July 17th.
Notes from A Meeting of Transphobic Detrans Activists from 10/3/2016
The following are notes from a meeting between four female detrans activists, Devorah Zahav, Carey Callahan, Cari Stella and myself (then working under the name Crash), that took place on October 3rd 2016. I found these notes while going through old emails looking for something else and decided that they were worth sharing to give an idea of what kind of organizing and projects transphobic detrans women have pursued.
Risks/harms of ideological detransition/“alternative treatments for gender dysphoria”
Several months ago, I decided to write out the negative effects of my detransition and came up with the following list. I divided the list up between what I experienced while detransitioning and when I came out as trans again, after deciding that detransition hadn’t worked for me.
Tell Amazon to Stop Selling PEC’s Anti-Trans Conversion Therapy Book
On April 7, an anti-trans organization called Partners for Ethical Care released a book called Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult by Maria Keffler, one of the organization’s co-founders. This book is currently being sold by Amazon, among other online retailers. The book accuses the trans community of being a cult indoctrinating vulnerable young people and promotes conspiracy theories about a “billion-dollar gender industry” preying on children.
Early Correspondence Between A Detrans Radical Feminist and the Founder of FourthWaveNow
Originally published on Reclaiming Trans Denise C, the founder of FourthWaveNow, corresponded with detransitioned radical feminists before she started her Tumblr and WordPress blogs. This correspondence took place between December 26th-27th 2014. Denise started her blogs in March of 2015. Below are emails between Denise and Devorah Zahav, the detrans woman who blogs as Redress Alert. Zahav is a very important figure in the radical feminist detrans women’s community.
Telling the Whole Story: A Closer Look at the Detrans Women in When Children Say They’re Transgender
Orginally posted on Health Liberation Now! Many articles about detransitioning present an incomplete and misleading view of the detrans community by failing to address the beliefs and politics of its members. An example of this is Jesse Singal’s Atlantic article When Children Say They’re Transgender which features three detrans women, Max Robinson, Carey Callahan, and Cari Stella. Robinson’s and Callahan’s stories are told in much greater depth than Stella’s, who is briefly mentioned and quoted.
Telling the Whole Story: A Closer Look at the Detrans Women in When Children Say They’re Transgender
Orginally posted on Health Liberation Now! Many articles about detransitioning present an incomplete and misleading view of the detrans community by failing to address the beliefs and politics of its members. An example of this is Jesse Singal’s Atlantic article When Children Say They’re Transgender which features three detrans women, Max Robinson, Carey Callahan, and Cari Stella. Robinson’s and Callahan’s stories are told in much greater depth than Stella’s, who is briefly mentioned and quoted.
Telling the Whole Story: A Closer Look at the Detrans Women in When Children Say They’re Transgender
Many articles about detransitioning present an incomplete and misleading view of the detrans community by failing to address the beliefs and politics of its members. An example of this is Jesse Singal’s Atlantic article When Children Say They’re Transgender which features three detrans women, Max Robinson, Carey Callahan, and Cari Stella. Robinson’s and Callahan’s stories are told in much greater depth than Stella’s, who is briefly mentioned and quoted.
The Reality Behind the Story I Told: What My Life was Like When I was Interviewed for the Stranger
Back when I was still a detrans woman, I was interviewed a few times by journalists for articles on detransitioning. The article that drew the most attention and the strongest reactions from people was a piece written by Katie Herzog that appeared in The Stranger. Many trans people and their allies found the article offensive and transphobic and reacted to it in outrage. Many wrote critical responses.
Detransition Awareness Day: Inconvenient Truths and Community Building
Originally posted on 3/12/21 on Health Liberation Now! Apparently today, March 12th is Detransition Awareness Day. Today is supposed to be a day for informing people about detransitioning in the name of creating more and better resources. Well then, here are some things I want people to be aware of concerning resources for people who detransition and why they’re in the state that they are today.
Detransition Awareness Day: Inconvenient Truths and Community Building
Apparently today, March 12th is Detransition Awareness Day. Today is supposed to be a day for informing people about detransitioning in the name of creating more and better resources. Well then, here are some things I want people to be aware of concerning resources for people who detransition and why they’re in the state that they are today.
Rules and Guidelines from Support Groups for Detrans Women
Below are the rules and guidelines for two support groups for detrans and re-identified women. Some of the same women were involved in starting and formulating the structure and guidelines of both groups. I played no role in creating either of these groups but I participated in both of them, more so in the second group than in the first. Neither of the group’s guidelines were intended to be seen by outsiders and I’m breaking the rules by disclosing them and posting screenshots from the forum.
Transphobia in the Detrans Women’s Community
[CW: Transphobia, transmisogyny, ableism, references to sexual and domestic violence, homophobia] During my time as a detrans woman, I said and did many things that I now see as harmful and transphobic. At the time, I thought I was acting in accordance with feminism and working in the best interest of transmasculine people. In my mind I was trying to help people, I would never have acted as I did if I thought I was doing harm.
Popular TikToker Cancelled over Alleged Support for Conversion Therapy
Solen Feyissa // CC BY-SA 2.0 Dylan Lemay, a cake decorator at Coldstone Creamery whose TikTok account has garnered over 7 million followers and 321 million likes, has been cancelled by many for allegedly supporting LGBTQ conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is the controversial practice of attempting to change one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, and is outlawed for minors in 20 U.S. states.
Detransition as Conversion Therapy: A Survivor Speaks Out
Photo of the Author taken on the way home from Blood and Visions, a gathering for detransitioned women. For seven years I lived as a detransitioned woman. I believed that I had transitioned as a way to cope with trauma and internalized sexism, that I had been trying to escape the stigma of being a butch lesbian in a homophobic society. I thought I had to reclaim womanhood in order to heal and find wholeness.
Detransition as Conversion Therapy: A Survivor Speaks Out
Photo by Markus Stephen Griffiths on Unsplash For seven years I lived as a detransitioned woman. I believed that I had transitioned as a way to cope with trauma and internalized sexism, that I had been trying to escape the stigma of being a butch lesbian in a homophobic society. I thought I had to reclaim womanhood in order to heal and find wholeness.
Moving Between Worlds, Deciding What To Do Next
I feel like I’m between worlds, between different groups of people, between detrans and trans. I don’t feel like I fit into either group. It’s surreal thinking of myself as trans after seeing myself as detransitioned for years. That was a huge part of who I was. And now my time as a detransitioned woman feels like it was a distortion of who I am. A failed experiment with damaging consequences for both myself and others. I was more or less disconnected from the trans community for around seven years.
What is Ideologically Motivated Detransition?
What do I mean by ideologically motivated detransition? I made up the term while trying to make sense of my experience. I’m not wholly satisfied with it but it’s the best I’ve got at the moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if I find other ways to describe what I’ve gone through as I continue to process my detransition. Still, one has to start somewhere and I think it’s important to define this particular form of detransitioning and explain why it’s harmful for both trans and detrans people.
Detransition as Conversion Therapy: A Survivor Speaks Out
For seven years I lived as a detransitioned woman. I believed that I had transitioned as a way to cope with trauma and internalized sexism, that I had been trying to escape the stigma of being a butch lesbian in a homophobic society. I thought I had to reclaim womanhood in order to heal and find wholeness. I was part of a larger community of detransitioned women and re-identified women, a community heavily influenced by radical feminist and lesbian separatist theory and culture.
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