Oh this is such a good read, thank you for writing it. You asked at the top what readers think when they hear “detrans” and personally, I mostly just think “sad"! Its sad how they live through multiple complicated transitions that neither medicine nor the social world, cis nor trans, seem to know how to deal with without infantilizing them or treating them like a political cudgel.

I'm one of the trans folks who benefited greatly from the informed consent model— I didn't really know what I wanted before I got it, and saw firsthand that life afterwards was better for me. But I obviously can't promise to anyone that that's how itll go for them, or claim retroactively that my instincts knew what my conscious mind did not. I also can't pretend that I haven't done some amount of conscious retroactive peace-making with being on the path that I have chosen, for good and ill. I just decided ahead of time that I wanted to know, and that not-knowing was probably just postponing the inevitable, and that even if I changed my mind later I would figure out how to cross that bridge when I came to it. That worked for me because it seemed to make “regret” impossible, but I sure would like to offer more concrete advice to people who wander up desperately wondering if starting hormones is worth the plunge. Everyone really wants permission, or to be taken seriously, or a promise that things will turn out okay, and there's only so much I can offer without giving insincere platitudes or acting like an authority on things I have no real standing on.

Youre completely right that the whole medical model as it stands— and the #discourse around it even in the US where informed consent is the tenuous norm— just seems to raise the stakes so high that it makes everything a terrifying fight for survival. I think both transition and detransition should be, ideally, just not that big of a deal. There's some level of necessary acceptance that having agency is worth it even if we do not always like the results of our own choices, but surely we can offer better counsel than “do it or don't & good luck with your feelings!” right?

Anyway I'm glad to see detrans folks talking frankly about the thing in a way that leaves room for ambivalence, it really lowers the temperature for everyone. We could all stand to unclench and understand that its fine to feel weird about it, to change your mind about what you want, to grow and change as new experiences deepen your self-understanding or shift your priorities.