Detransitioners Become 'Ex-Trans'

And other observations from Genspect

I held a focus group in Laura Becker’s car on the way to Day Two of the Genspect conference in Albuquerque. Between our overnight accommodation and the hotel conference center, a consensus formed that ‘detransition’ is an action, a verb, a transitory state like transition. The argument over ‘desistance’ is a distinction without a difference. From now on, ‘ex-trans’ describes any person who has left the cult of genderwoo regardless of their medicalization level, which is to say the level of the harm they have allowed the medical professions to inflict upon them.

Many detransitioners have argued for years that ‘ex-trans’ would prevent the stupid hierarchies that have been created by arguments over who was ‘true trans’ before they left the cult. Instead of debating who took the ‘right’ hormones or had the ‘right’ procedures, ‘ex-trans’ includes everyone, at every level of harm. All people who believed they were transgender, and who stop practicing their belief in transgenderism, are ex-trans. The new term also infers finality, a sense of returning to embodiment forever. It is a noun, a state rather than a verb implying transitoryness.

Language adapts to change this way all the time. Consider the object in your nearest parking spot. First, there were horse-drawn carriages; then, there were horseless carriages. Later, someone came up with the word ‘automobile’ to describe these newfangled machines. It took decades for Americans to drive cars made by the auto industry. Only one decade after the ‘gender industry’ opened for serious business in the USA, we have already settled on the umbrella term, the noun that will name a trend.

Stella O’Malley had mentioned the emergence of the term during Day One, and then other speakers had deferred to detransitioners as “whatever they call themselves”. Now it was the next morning, and the change had already become official for my little focus group. The people most directly affected by the transgender cult have a name for themselves, just like ex-Scientologists. It seemed as if long-delayed progress was finally happening. While the presentations were great, the conversations that continued outside the main hall were the real story of the 2025 Genspect Bigger Picture Conference.