TWIBS: Genspect & Co. Sponsor Detrans Awareness Day
Anti-trans hate group Genspect (and others!) arranged a celebration for the new holiday they invented, Detrans Awareness Day. Isn’t that exciting?
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Quick question: What’s your favorite made up holiday?
Is it, perhaps, February 5th, Chocolate Fondue Day? Maybe it’s March 8th, Proofreading Day? Or is it June 11th, Corn on the Cob Day? There are so many silly, made up “holidays” to celebrate throughout the year, you can find cause for jubilee more or less whenever you want. Hey, who’s going to complain? Every day is so doom and gloom lately, the horizon always seems so dark and uncertain, we never know when we’ll have a good excuse to get together and party. Why not gorge yourself on National Cheesecake Day?
Well, while you’re pondering your favorite made up holiday, let me tell you mine: Detrans Awareness Day.
Oh, yes.
On Wednesday, March 12th, a group of self-identified detransitioners held a get together on Capitol Hill to celebrate… well, detransition. They were sponsored and funded by anti-trans activist groups like Moms for Liberty, Independent Women’s Forum, the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Department of Education, believe it or not!
Scheduled speakers included Laura Becker, a well known anti-trans grifter, and Chloe Cole, one of maybe half a dozen detrans people right-wing activists like to fly around the country whenever they need somebody who underwent medical transition to get up on stage and denounce it. Notably, Cole still experiences gender dysphoria, saying in 2023, “I don’t necessarily think that it was a misdiagnosis, I mean, I still struggle with distress relating to my birth sex to this day.”
That’s awkward.
Unfortunately these shameless grifters gave the game away from the start. You see, the event was also sponsored by anti-trans hate group Genspect, a large and ominous coalition of many powerful anti-trans activists who regularly sponsor such sordid projects. In particular, it was promoted on social media by Stella O’Malley, the Executive Director of Genspect who has openly admitted that she engages in conversion therapy with trans minors with the stated goal of “[making] sure that children are, if at all possible, stopped from medical transition.”
Here’s the funny thing: I totally agree with them! Every one of these loathsome little goblins is saying that there are more detransitioners than ever, and that we need to hear their voices and respect their experiences. They’re absolutely right about that! What they’re wrong about, of course, is who those detransitioners are, why they detransition, and what we should learn from their experiences.
The truth is that the vast majority of trans people do not regret transitioning. For those who do, the regret is often temporary, and even when it is not, most of those who have regrets do not actually detransition. People who do detransition do not always experience regret, and many of them do not detransition because they are no longer trans. Sadly, the brunt of detransitioners are bullied into halting their transition by “friends” and family who refuse to accept them, or because they can’t afford the medicines they need to continue transitioning. Many of these detransitioners will go on to retransition at a later date, but even if they don’t, almost none of them become loud, proud mouthpieces for the right-wing anti-trans hate machine.
People like Chloe Cole make a killing, financially, for their anti-trans theatrics. I’m happy to make March 12th “Detrans Awareness Day,” but it isn’t Chloe I’ll be celebrating.
Instead, I’ll be standing in solidarity with every single transgender person who wasn’t accepted by the people who were supposed to love them, and were forced back into the closet. I’ll be appreciating every person who pursued transition, realized it wasn’t for them, and hasn’t become a martyr in a crusade against my community. I’ll be sharing mutual aid requests on social media for trans people who can’t afford their hormones.
I hope you’ll join me in celebrating this new and wonderful holiday every year!
Alyssa Steinsiek is a trans woman journalist who reports on news relevant to the queer community and occasionally posts on BlueSky.
