Episode 7

Warning: this episode contains some sexual content and discussion of suicide. Listener discretion is advised.

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Meet Jet. She’s speaking on a panel at the Genspect Bigger Picture Conference held in Ireland in April 2023.

Jet

So I’m a 22 year old detransitioner, and I’m a lesbian. Um and I, like when I was 14 I found trans on the internet and I ended up at the Amsterdam clinic, like, I’m Dutch, I ended up at the Amsterdam clinic when I was 15. Um, and I didn’t know my sexuality at that time. I thought I was bisexual. And I was diagnosed and I was put on blockers, which stopped my sexual development. And then I was put on testosterone, which made me attracted to men. And then for five years, I was just confused about my sexuality because it wasn’t a proper sexuality, it was only sexual and I wasn’t like getting crushes on men, it wasn’t a nice thing, it was very uncomfortable. And then when I detransitioned last year and I stopped testosterone, I went through my own sexual development that I should have gone through at 16 and I was just lesbian. So if they had just let me develop as a teenager and not stop my puberty, then I think things would have just resolved. Well I’m from the Netherlands but I grew up in a small city on the outskirts of the Dutch Bible Belt. So it wasn’t terrible, but like I had people like neighbours in my street that said they would disown their children if they were gay, you know? So I grew up with that. I grew up with, I was bullied my entire childhood because I was so masculine like up until age 12 or 13. I was ostracised by other girls for not being like them. Well I had always felt different from other girls. I didn’t know why. And then when I was 14, so this was early 2015, I found transgender men on YouTube and it was all transgender men who used to be lesbians. I know that now, but I didn’t realise it then. And it really resonated with me because they had the same experience of always having been masculine and being different and not feeling like a girl and not liking girly things. Well I really got locked into it because at the Amsterdam clinic they have a diagnostic trajectory and it’s six months and they diagnose you so you have a formal diagnosis. And as a child you really trust the clinicians so like for years I was like, you know, this is the right path because I have a diagnosis. But after about three years on testosterone and I had a mastectomy by then, like after three years I was kind of like, you know I’m not any happier. I lost hope that transition would make me happier. I was like, you know this is it, it’s not going to get any better. But then I kind of wanted to quit testosterone and I had doubts, and I was like, what if I had, you know, grown up as a girl? Or what would it be like to be a woman now? I started having those thoughts after three years when I was about 20 years old but then for two years I just got stuck because I couldn’t imagine detransitioning because I still did not want to have long hair, I did not want to wear women’s clothes and I kind of felt if I detransitioned, I would have to live up to these expectations that I felt- like I felt I could not live up to those expectations when I was 14, 15, which is why I got sucked into trans. And then when I wanted to detransition I felt like I couldn’t because I was still clinging on to having to live up to those expectations. And it was only after like two years of thinking, thinking, thinking, um, and just getting older that I realised that I don’t have to live up to any expectations in order to be a woman and I should’ve [applause] and someone should have told me that when I was 14.

Jet’s story sums up so much that’s wrong with the gender affirmation model. This was the Amsterdam clinic – the birthplace of gender affirming healthcare for minors. If they’re misdiagnosing patients, if they can’t work out the difference between a lesbian and a transman, then why are Australian clinics following their model? And how many detransitioners like Jet can we expect to see in the coming years and decades?

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Welcome back to Desexing Society. I’m your host, Stassja Frei. Episode 7: Detransition

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There’s only a handful of Australian detransitioners who’ve gone public with their stories. They have complicated histories and family backgrounds, with numerous factors influencing to their decision to transition. Courtney Coulson is one of those with a complicated story. In November 2020, she uploaded her first YouTube video talking about her detransition. I wasn’t aware of her until 2023 when she appeared on the ABC’s Four Corners episode, Blocked.

Courtney Coulson

So they were over at my house for hours, I mean 3, 4 hours filming me talking about how bad transitioning, how lethal it is, how dangerous it is, how it’s off label use, especially, I went on and on about puberty blockers. I said this is not safe and most kids who transition, we have the statistics, we’ve had them for decades and decades, they outgrow it. They’re usually just gay. They included none of that. The way they framed me in that Four Corners interview was basically, “there are detransitioners. For some people, like Courtney Coulson it just doesn’t work for them.” And all they used was a teeny clip of me saying, well you know I, during lockdown I just had time to just think and outgrow this and realise whatever it was that was affecting me I just got over it. 

Despite assurances from Patricia Karvelas and the producers that the episode would be fair and balanced, it wasn’t. Courtney felt misrepresented. Her story wasn’t told. I ask if she can tell me her story in a nutshell.

Courtney Coulson

I guess the most succinct way to sum all of my problems up, I’ve discovered this recently: metabolic issues, metabolic disruption, there’s a book called Brain Energy [fade]

It’s not the answer I’m expecting. Courtney is convinced that a bout of gastro when she was 11 years old caused her to develop autism. She became more anxious and introverted, making her teenage years difficult. She was formally diagnosed with autism when she was 19 years old.

She spent much of her teenage years online. Around 2010, when she was 18, gender ideology started appearing in the online spaces where she hung out. A few years later, she was studying costume design at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts – also known as WAAPA – and it was here that her peers started talking about gender ideology.

Courtney Coulson

The first time I even heard of what a trans woman or what transgender was, was at WAAPA. It was a drag queen actually who explained the difference between a trans woman and a drag queen. So I would’ve been 20 yeah, 19 or 20 so 2011, 2012 so around that time, that’s the time where these ideas are slowly creeping in and it’s not mainstream, so that’s why I went along with it, I thought oh this is really rebellious, we’re counter cultural, we’re revolutionary and then it became the default, the status quo. But I felt at the time oh that’s really liberating because I was raised conservative Catholic.

The performing arts have always attracted left leaning progressives – those that consider themselves the cultural avant-garde. They seek to subvert or challenge the status quo through their art. So it makes perfect sense that this community was an early adopter of gender identity ideology. Being part of that scene at that moment in time inspired Courtney to experiment with her appearance.

Courtney Coulson

Yeah so I cut my hair, and then I bought a binder, and that was basically it, changing my clothes, but wasn’t thinking about hormones or surgery at that point.

After finishing the costume design course, Courtney became ill. 

Courtney Coulson

I got chronic fatigue syndrome when I was 21 and then for 18 months I was just housebound, bed bound some of the time. I went from a very active lifestyle and doing a lot of things to not being able to do much at all and that took a toll on me and I was just bored I guess and questioned my whole purpose in life.

It was debilitating. It left her with too much time to contemplate her existence. And she felt like a burden on her family who she didn’t find to be very supportive. She considered suicide. But she also wondered what she might try to accomplish if she ever got her health back. Social media became one of the ways to pass the time.

Courtney Coulson

I was spending a lot of time on Tumblr, I was very into the Superwholock fandom, so Supernatural, Dr Who, Sherlock which is very male dominated fiction. I think this happens with a lot of young girls that they look around at women in fiction and go, well I don’t relate to them, I relate more to the male characters, not realising well, it has nothing to do with being a reflection of reality and what real men and women are like, it’s what a patriarchal Hollywood system is like. Interesting thing and a lot of detransitoners who were on Tumblr say the same thing of. we started out in our own little fandoms whether that be anime or Steven Universe or Superwholock and then little by little, that trans rhetoric creeps in there. So it is very cult like.

Tumblr is a social media platform that was hugely popular with teens and young adults in the early 2010s, especially girls. It’s a microblogging site that allows users to post videos, images and up to 4096 characters per post. For comparison, Twitter allows up to 280 characters. It was the home of fandoms. That’s people who obsessively love particular tv shows, movies or books. Think of Trekkies, those who love Star Trek. That’s fandom. On Tumblr girls and young women would pour over minute details of their beloved fiction. They would share fan art and write their own fanfiction about their favourite characters. 

Courtney Coulson

Oh you’re here for Benedict Cumberbatch, but also we’re going to slip in some stuff about gender ideology while we’re talking about Sherlock, and oh you shouldn’t use these terms, you use these terms and , oh what’s the word they like to use? The discourse, the discourse. On Tumblr they love the word discourse so you have to say cisgender for this and I go well what’s a cis, I don’t know what a cis, oh ok so I’ll look that up and next thing I’m looking into all the other things and it’s just labels and genders and oh ok the gender bread man oh I understand now, it makes so much sense, like I remember showing my mother the gender bread man and she’s looking at me like I’m crazy and I’m thinking no it makes total sense that we should just divorce biological reality from gender and yeah, no, it’s, I see the problem now but when you’re a teenager you don’t have the life experience.

I should probably explain the genderbread person – not man, person. The creator of the infographic calls it “an adorable, digestible model for understanding the complexity of gender.” You’ll find posters of it in schools, and it’s even used in workplace training. Using a cute cartoon of a smiling gingerbread man, it explains that gender consists of gender identity, gender expression, biological sex and sexual orientation. 

Gender identity is presented as a force inside a person’s mind which is independent of the body. It’s how you think of yourself on a spectrum of man, woman and genderqueer.

Gender expression is explained as how you demonstrate your gender to the world by how you act, dress, behave and interact. The spectrum here consists of feminine, masculine and androgynous. I think what they really mean by gender expression is sex-based stereotypes.

Biological sex is described as your organs, hormones and chromosomes and is located in your groin. It’s a spectrum of male, female, and intersex. It makes no mention of gametes, as in sperm and egg, which is how biologists define sex.

And lastly, sexual orientation. This is found in your heart and describes who you’re physically, spiritually and emotionally attracted to. Gender criticals consider the genderbread person to be queer theory nonsense that should never have been taken seriously, let alone taught to children.

But back to Tumblr. It’s fairly well known that the site 4chan was a breeding ground for the alt right. But I think the impact of Tumblr on politics and culture is vastly underappreciated. This was where leftist identity politics or wokeism really took off. For generations, the left had, in theory, concerned itself with economic class and championing better conditions for the working class. But now, the focus has shifted to identity groups and which of those identity groups are oppressing other, more vulnerable identity groups. 

As Angela Nagle describes in her book Kill All Normies, the preoccupation of the new subculture that grew on Tumblr was, “gender fluidity and providing a safe space to explore other concerns like mental ill-health, physical disability, race, cultural identity and intersectionality.” End quote. To give you an idea of what this sounds like in practice, the following clip sums it up pretty well. And no, this is not satire. 

Cody

I’m Cody, pronouns e/em/eir/eirs or xe/xem/xyr/xyrs or really any neopronouns that aren’t ze/hir/hirs. I am a white, transmasculine, fem, non binary, temporarily mostly able bodied, neurodivergent, obsessive compulsive, chronically ill, culturally Jewish, unitarian universalist, nonmonogamous, demilowromantic, greydemibisexual, survivor of acute and complex trauma, millennial and cat parent in mental health recovery.

Seven of the identity labels she listed relate to gender and sexuality. Six relate to physical and mental illness. Aside from leading users to ruminate on mental illness, vulnerability and oppression, Tumblr put queer theory into practice. The new language of pronouns and neopronouns was created on Tumblr, along with hundreds of micro labels and flags to describe one’s sexuality or gender identity. Somehow, for some reason, a whole queer theory fandom was born. And those ideas once mostly confined to academia, spilled out of the universities, onto Tumblr and into the mainstream. Here’s how that playing out in the minds of young women:

TikToker

I want to try to define my gender but it’s really hard in 60 seconds so I’m going to talk really fast. I’m genderfluid and here’s how that works for me. Most of the time I’m one of two like, modes or mindsets. Most of the time I am this weird amalgamation of like, genders and vibes and essence and just being that I literally cannot define. I don’t know, you’re just going to have to take my word for it. It’s like the universe it’s like ever flowing, there’s like sparkles and it’s just like it changes over time and it moves through each other and it’s never, it’s never one thing. And then other, like majority of the time I’m just a void, like there’s nothing there, it, there’s just an absence and I don’t know how else to describe it. So either everything or nothing. Those are the two that I’m usually in. But then every once in a while, and I don’t know where it comes from, but I’ll just be thrust back into a binary. I’ll just be sitting there chilling, enjoying my life and then all of a sudden I’m a man? Like who asked? Or a woman? Since when?

Note the disdain in her voice when she talks about being thrust back into the boring binary of being a man or a woman. These are the kind of beliefs that Courtney was exposed to online.

Courtney Coulson

Tumblr and TikTok now I guess this is the thing, I feel old, the kids are on TikToksnow, ok. And so there’s this huge explosion of non binary and we would just call that androgyny back in the day, which is more rebellious, where androgyny says yeah I know I’m a woman but I’m not going to shave my armpits, I’m not going to wear make up, you know, real progressive stuff whereas now this non binary movement says well if you don’t fit into these cliché, Leave It To Bever era of gender stereotypes then you’re non binary, you’re not actually a man or a woman anymore. And I was drawn into that.

If you’re a cis het, that is a heterosexual non trans person, then you’re viewed by the woke left as part of an oppressive, heteronormative structure that’s actively harming trans and queer people. So there was huge social pressure for girls on Tumblr to adopt a queer or non binary identity.

Courtney Coulson

A lot of girls, a lot of teenage girls on Tumblr were groomed by these adult men who are you know, trans women are women, you know that whole thing and so yeah, they are bullied these girls, into pushing these ideas and if they are lesbians, trying to ignore that or they’re made to feel ashamed – oh yeah no I shouldn’t judge someone based on their genitals. But you’re only attracted to females, you’re a lesbian child, it’s fine, and that’s that, your instincts there are normal and natural. But we were all being conditioned that we shouldn’t think that way. 

The only men who call themselves lesbians are autogynephilic men. What Courtney is suggesting, is that lesbians on Tumblr were being groomed by autogynephiles into believing they were part of an oppressive class unless they accepted transwomen – that is, males – as potential sexual partners.

But it wasn’t just lesbians adopting a warped, male version of their sexuality, it was heterosexual girls too. Fandoms devoted to Japanese manga and anime also formed on Tumblr. And a genre of manga popular amongst teenage girls, is yaoi. It depicts youthful, androgynous male characters in gay relationships. Oddly, yaoi is created by women for women as opposed to a distinct other genre, bara, which is marketed to actual gay men.

Tied in with all this is a practice in fandom known as shipping. The term is said to have originated in the 90s with fans of The X Files who thought Scully and Mulder should be in a relationship. The fans called themselves relationshippers which was later abbreviated to shippers. 

Teenage girls are really into it. And shipping two male characters together, then drawing art and writing erotic fanfiction about their gay relationship, is wildly popular. 

What’s going on here? Why are some teenage girls obsessed with yaoi and shipping male characters? Many point to online pornography. Thanks to lax internet safeguarding, children are now exposed to hardcore porn from a very young age. For girls, seeing women abused, degraded, whipped and choked is frightening and they don’t want it happening to them. 

Boys are also watching this kind of porn and it’s influencing how they treat girls. Collective Shout is Australian organisation that campaigns against the sexualisation of children and the objectification of women. They also run school workshops. They report that girls in these workshops complain about things like boys making sexual moaning noises during class, or describing what porn they watched last night. They even report that boys are threatening to rape them unless the girls send nude pics of themselves. 

The depictions in porn and the daily sexual harassment leaves girls unable to imagine a respectful, loving, heterosexual relationship where they’re an equal. So they retreat into the fantasy of being in a gay male relationship where there’s some semblance of equality. Yaoi and shipping male characters who they have a crush on, becomes a safe way for teenage girls to explore their developing sexuality. 

The problem arises when this leads some girls to become convinced that they’re meant to transition and become gay men. They talk about it in online trans spaces, sometimes expressing embarrassment that they went through a yaoi phase and wondering whether it influenced their transition. Or, on the other hand, some believe their interest in yaoi is proof that they were always trans.

The female desire to become a gay man and have gay male sex is what US sexologist Dr Ray Blanchard termed autohomoerotic gender dysphoria. It’s not sexual arousal at having a male body, which would be autoandrophilia – the female version of autogynephilia. Instead, it’s arousal at the thought of being a gay man. Blanchard thought it to be a very rare condition. Now, with the advent of social media and online fandoms, it seems to be another possible factor in rapid onset gender dysphoria.

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Aside from Tumblr, there were some other factors that Courtney believes contributed towards her transition. One was a difficult relationship with gendered expectations.

Courtney Coulson

I am butch. I realise now that my mother was very controlling, and pushed those ideas of this is a woman, you have to have your nails and the make up and the hair and everything done to the nines every single day and oh god, such gawdy chunky jewellery, she gave me so much of that cos that was the stuff she wears but it didn’t sit right with me and I wasn’t comfortable with it but I wasn’t shown another way of being a woman, it was her way or no way at all. I would actually say, more than anything my mother was the biggest negative influence because there was no room for experimentation, there was no room for me to figure out who I was cos the moment I hit puberty, oh we’ll get you into the heels and the make up and…yeah ok. I liked playing soccer and video games and riding my bike one minute and now I can’t do those things. Oh alright.

It’s really surprising to me that this still goes on, because it’s not how I was raised. I genuinely thought for a long time that this kind of parenting of girl children was something of the past. But I guess I’ve been naïve. If girls are raised to think there are only two choices – to either conform to hyperfeminine beauty standards or take testosterone, then of course some are going to choose testosterone.

Courtney’s mother was devastated when she first cut her hair short. Upon seeing the pixie cut, she turned pale, said nothing, and went to her bedroom to loudly cry. She then gave Courtney the silent treatment for a few days. Her father, on the other hand, she thinks by that point he’d kind of checked out of the family. Because not long after, he vanished. Courtney, her mother, and her two brothers all thought he was dead, until one morning when her youngest brother found something shocking online.

Courtney Coulson

We’re all getting ready for school and work and he calls us in and he’s on his phone and on Facebook and it’s people you may know and my father, ever the creative genius called himself John Smith, that’s the name of his Facebook account. And there he is smiling away with this blonde woman kissing him on the cheek and we all look at each other just who, no, that’s got to, and this is before deep fakes and your AI and stuff so, that’s a photo of our father and a woman. It was just a bombshell and we all had to go to school and work so we had to just sit with that all day until we came home but yeah it was devastating for all of us and we all lashed out and managed and coped in whatever way we could and so for me that was transitioning and if you’d asked me at the time if there was any correlation between those two things I’d say no cos I’d already bought a binder and cut my hair and I was doing all those things but I think when your family falls apart and then they turn hostile towards you because you’re transitioning it just pushes you further to double down and go oh ok, well if you hate this so much I’ve got to keep doing it.

In a gender dysphoria study at Sydney’s Westmead Children’s Hospital, 60% of participants had lost an important person, like a parent, through separation. We can only generalise about the psychology that’s at play here. The grief of losing a parent is immense and it can lead to a search for meaning and connection outside of the family. Some find that in gender ideology and trans communities. Creating a new identity seems to be an attempt to escape the grief.

On top of Courtney’s discomfort with feminine stereotypes was a complete disinterest in sexual or romantic relationships. For many years she described herself as asexual. 

Courtney Coulson

I didn’t have a sex drive and that’s kind of important, that’s a really important developmental stage because, well socially it’s a very important thing, not just physically. Having a sex drive is a normal social thing and so when everyone else around me is dating and all this teen romance drama going on around me I’m still very childlike, I’m reading comic books and collecting actions figures, I don’t really know how to interact with other people and as I got older and the men showing me interest and I just, I’m afraid, I don’t feel safe I don’t understand, I don’t, this is alarming, I don’t like this. So, and there are a lot of autistic, especially autistic women who transition, I think they all, or most of them are probably having the same motivation of, if I’m a man people will just let me do my thing. Gender non conformity is very common with autism.

Gender critical women suspect that this factor is at play in many cases of rapid onset gender dysphoria, regardless of autism. Becoming a transboy is possibly an attempt to escape unwanted sexual attention from males. Some female detransitioners also site sexual assault as one of the triggers of their gender dysphoria. 

Let’s quickly look at the link between trans and autism. It’s undeniable that those on the autism spectrum are more likely to adopt a trans identity. Around 1% of the general population has autism. But at London’s Tavistock gender clinic, 35% of patients had autism. In Sydney’s Westmead Children’s Hospital study, the figure was 14%. And as Bernard Lane reported in 2020 for The Australian, at some Australian gender clinics, close to 50% of patients are on the autism spectrum. The questions is, why? I asked child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr Jillian Spencer who we met in episode 3. Here she’s speaking specifically about children and teens.

Jillian Spencer

Central to a diagnosis of autism is impairment in social skills and difficulties understanding relationships, so they tend to miss social cues and sort of walk to the beat of their own drum and this can make children feel very different from their peers, they can be bullied, and so they do tend to search for an explanation as to why they’re different and they come to the idea of being trans. Trans can be a way to access strongly positive social connections for the first time in their lives and can be a way to overcome their social problems in that way. And kids with ASD can have obsessive interests so they can become really steeped in trans ideology and they can hold onto ideas quite rigidly and be quite literal. So they can be vulnerable to believing things that other kids won’t fall for. And they can absorb lots of information and feel quite special and authoritative because of this. And kids with autism can be quite anxious about puberty and change, they don’t like change. And they can have sensory sensitivities. So this can make them really dislike the idea of puberty because it’s a change – all the experience of the physical and emotional changes which affect their sensory sensitivity can make them feel physically uncomfortable.

So there are a lot of factors that make autistic kids more susceptible to the trans belief system. But let’s hone in on rigid thinking. If you have rigid or black and white thinking around what men and women are like, and you don’t conform to those standards, then the next logical step for someone with autism is that they must be trans. Consider what we heard in episode 4 about how sex-based stereotypes are being taught in schools. It’s understandable that kids with autism are gravitating towards trans identities. Along with proto gay and lesbian kids, it’s also those on the autism spectrum who are most at risk of being steered toward the medical pathway.

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So there’s Courtney, 22 years old, battling chronic fatigue syndrome, and immersed in Tumblr and male dominated fiction. She’s struggled with autism symptoms, asexuality, unwanted sexual attention from men and having femininity forced on her at puberty. And, her father has just abandoned her and her family in a devastating manner. What was the moment where she decided she was trans?

Courtney Coulson

So I was sleeping over at my friend’s house and we watched X-Men First Class and I was looking at Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy and just thinking I wish I could be like them and just go through life looking that way, being treated that way and then I went to bed that night, looked up at the ceiling and went, oh, yeah I must be trans, what do I do about that? And that was my epiphany, my stupid epiphany. And what was probably happening was just that yeah, I envied men in the way they were treated and the way they could present themselves in the world.

If this was her reasoning, as a 22 year old woman, then surely the same is happening to 13 year old girls.

Courtney went to her family GP but he thought it was just a phase. So she went to a friend, a trans activist.

Courtney Coulson

My mate she brought me to her doctor who was a lesbian as well, you’d think she’d be a little more savvy with this, but no, she just, step right on up, become a little lad today.

A few weeks later, the GP wrote her three referrals for a psychiatrist, a psychologist and an endocrinologist. Also known as an endo.

Courtney Coulson

Back then you had to see a psychologist and a psychiatrist and they had to evaluate you and they had to write a letter to the endo and then the endo could finally prescribe you the medication. I saw the psychol-the one who writes the prescriptions, that’s the psychiatrist, yeah the psychiatrist, so he didn’t’ care, he was very disinterested, maybe because he’s already dealt with so many trans people who are pressuring him, and if he said no, oh he’s a transphobe and he’ll lose his license. He wrote the letter, then I went to see the psychologist and she was good actually, she said, you know what, I don’t feel comfortable referring you just yet, I think there’s other issues we need to explore first. Good, great. 

No one mentioned to Courtney that through Medicare, she could’ve had 10 free sessions with a psychologist. She was young and low on cash and psychologists are expensive.

Courtney Coulson

So I thought well alright, before I waste more money on this psychologist I’ll go to Dr Opie. And I will name and shame, it was Dr Opie of the Keogh Institute. I know she can’t prescribe anything but she can tell me if I really want to transition, if this testosterone stuff is a good idea or not, being absolutely naïve and trusting doctors absolutely, so I saw her and she pushed hard for testosterone. It’s this wonder drug. It’ll do everything you ever wanted, any of the side effects, oh they aren’t so bad, not a huge deal – ugh. I just trusted her, I didn’t do any research.

Dr Opie prescribed her testosterone on the spot. Courtney never went back to the psychologist. Incredibly, in his letter to the endocrinologist, the psychiatrist expressed doubt about the permanence of Courtney’s gender dysphoria. 

Courtney Coulson

And it says there that, well she’s autistic, high likelihood that she’ll detransition but you can give her the hormones anyway. How? How is that legal or ethical? That is just a man trying to save his own arse cos he thinks I’m going to sue him.

This is of course speculation on Courtney’s part. But she may well be right. We’ve already heard in this series from three different therapists who’ve faced professional complaints just for questioning the gender affirming model. So it’s not implausible that the psychiatrist feared retribution if he’d said no. As Courtney rightly asks, how is that legal or ethical?

Another legal and ethical question is that of informed consent. Doctors are required by law to fully inform patients about the risks and benefits of any treatment. Many detransitioners say they weren’t properly informed about the side effects of cross sex hormones. 

Courtney Coulson

Dr Opie did mention sort of, she went, now these are things we need to be concerned about, so we just need to get regular tests of your heart and your cholesterol and all – ok. Again, really downplaying because she wasn’t saying, this will definitely happen, you are more likely to have a heart attack than a biological man, no no no, it was, hm you might be at more risk so we’re just going to keep an eye on that. That’s not going to tell a 20 something crazed, trans crazed kid this is dangerous, it didn’t sound dangerous. She’s basically framing it as, well you’re a woman so there’s going to be a lot of side effects, but because you want to be a man all those side effects are good things so, facial hair, body hair growth as well, increased muscle mass, deeper voice, Adam’s apple which you can’t really see so much anymore, that stuck around for a while.

Initially, Courtney was pleased with the effects of testosterone. And she believes it cured her chronic fatigue syndrome.

Courtney Coulson

The first year or so of testosterone was definitely this honeymoon period and I felt amazing and I was body building [fade]

Testosterone has an incredible effect on mood. It increases the release of dopamine in the brain, so girls and young women who had depression or anxiety alongside gender dysphoria often report those symptoms alleviate once they start on the drug. So it’s no wonder Courtney felt amazing in the beginning. And she really liked the muscle growth, taking up body building as part of her new identity as Connor. 

But there were side effects she wasn’t warned of, and they don’t even appear in the drug information sheet because it’s intended for men, not women.

Courtney Coulson

You will experience priapism which is basically a permanent boner of the female parts. When I stopped taking testosterone thankfully that went away but that’s extremely painful. I still get it now and then. You have to sit on ice, that’s the only thing that calms it down. 

The priapism began about a year after starting on Testogel, a topical cream that’s applied to skin. After two years, her physical health took a turn for the worst.

Courtney Coulson

The second time I got chronic fatigue, the second time I got sick, that’s when all the food intolerances happened, so I think it was, the testosterone was already impacting my immune system then I got sick with just a cold, then that just sent the immune system into overdrive and couldn’t eat plants, couldn’t handle anything, medication, nothing.

Having to contend with both chronic fatigue and severe food allergies was incredibly difficult. She began experimenting with different diets, trying to find something that worked. After more than a year of trial and error she found the only solution was eliminating all plant foods from her diet. She credits this carnivore diet with also relieving some of her autism symptoms. But the chronic fatigue syndrome persisted.

After three years of testosterone, Courtney began experiencing an even more disturbing side effect.

Courtney Coulson

Mostly it was these sort of sadosexual fantasies, particularly aimed towards women and I had the priapism, didn’t have a normal sex drive I just had this strange aggressive urge, it was this, yeah, rapey kind of urge and I couldn’t get in contact with my endocrinologist for about a week, couldn’t get in contact with anyone in her office who could give me any advice.

Eventually someone called back and she booked an appointment.

Courtney Coulson

So on the train ride over there I’m just looking at every woman around me going, I kind of want to do things. I had these really strong urges to do something and just, it scared the shit of me. And I get to my endocrinologist and I’m thinking great she’ll be able to help me, finally we can solve this, “oh well I guess Testogel’s not for you, we’ve got Androforte, you want to give Androforte a go?” Whoa, no. Hippocratic oath would dictate you should probably stop doing this, you’re causing harm, you’re not benefiting your patient, at all, in any way.

While testosterone can give users a dopamine high, it’s also a steroid. And we know from the world of body building, there’s a phenomenon called roid rage characterised by uncontrolled anger and aggression. It sounds like this is what Courtney was experiencing. I can’t help but wonder whether Australian youth gender clinics are warning teenage girls of these potential side effects.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only decline in Courtney’s mental health.

Courtney Coulson

When you transition you start to think of your old self as oh you’re killing that person you don’t like that person and that person is weak and bad you don’t like who that person was so Courtney, nah, that’s not me, don’t like her, don’t like her, we have nothing in common and so little by little I divorced myself from myself.

Over time, this developed into something more alarming. She became obsessed with the character David, an android, from the film Prometheus. 

Courtney Coulson

I wanted to be a male android, I just didn’t want to be human and I just felt more like an android than a human being and you know I didn’t have emotions I was more logical, I didn’t have, yeah, a lot of these same experiences as human beings, I didn’t feel human at all. That’s how severely disconnected I was from my own being. And it got to a point where I would have these claustrophobic kind of panic attacks about being trapped in my own body. I would compulsively scratch at my own skin until I bled because I just, I hated all the senses, the feeling of being human and I struggled to eat, the sensation of swallowing made me want to gag. That’s how insane you can get. 

Obviously, this was all rather distressing, so Courtney sought the help of a trans friendly psychologist.

Courtney Coulson

All she did was affirmation. And I should’ve walked out right then and there when she said all I do is affirmation, I don’t want to force you to identify as human, we’re going to explore your android identity and I got way worse. Well she was encouraging me, “Oh yeah maybe you are really an android.” Yeah.

After a few sessions, Courtney stopped going. Over time, her android problems resolved without outside help. This part of her story is such an indictment of the gender affirmation machine. There seems to be very little in the way of follow up care.

******

The year 2020 was pivotal for so many of us, including Courtney. By this point, she’d been living as Connor for 6 years. 

Courtney Coulson

And then covid happened and I was in lock down, I was in a house all by my, well an apartment, a studio apartment all by myself and I just slowly realised, why am I doing this? You know I’m living alone, no one sees me, I don’t really care how I’m perceived, I’m so sick, at that point, food allergies and just my immune system, I had really bad chronic fatigue. I actually tried on make up. So you know, I had a shaved head but I was trying on make up just to see, not that I wanted to detransition at that point, but I needed to see for myself that you don’t actually look like a man. You’ve spent all these years, you’ve tried so hard to turn yourself into the opposite sex and what do you actually have to show for it? I was looking quite rectangular but not a man. I just looked like this weird sort of Peter Pan looking thing and I just realised, this doesn’t work, why did I think this would work, everyone told me and I went to doctors and they said this is going to work, it didn’t and that’s the most crucial thing I need to get out there.

At the age of 28, she decided to detransition. Upon stopping testosterone, her chronic fatigue symptoms magically went away. Her mother was delighted and picked an outfit for her to wear at the first family gathering since her detransition.

Courtney Coulson

The outfit my mother put me in when I detransitionted actually, just this full on hoochie mumma, prostitute thing with the mini skirt and the crop top and the high high heels and just, yeah, I, would never dress that way myself. If I had been left to my own devices, there’s never a point in my life where I think I would’ve dressed in that way. Now, 2 or 3 years later I’m realising, oh, no there’s other ways to be a woman. It took me this frickin’ long to undo the conditioning from my family that I don’t have to be a feminine woman to be a woman.

Her words echo Jet whose story we heard at the start of this episode. Jet contemplated detransition for 2 years, but had such rigid ideas of stereotypes, she thought detransitioning meant she would have to grow her hair long and wear feminine clothes.

Jet

And it was only after like two years of thinking, thinking, thinking, um, and just getting older that I realised that I don’t have to live up to any expectations in order to be a woman and I should’ve [applause] and someone should have told me that when I was 14.

******

Courtney has fared better than other female detransitioners who’ve spoken out. She didn’t have a double mastectomy or go bald. She didn’t develop uterine or vaginal atrophy, which can be incredibly painful. She still has her reproductive system and it’s still functioning, although, her menstrual cycle behaved very strangely for the first few years.

Courtney Coulson

So about twice a year on average I will get a very late period or no period at all, my hormones will think that I, because I haven’t menstruated oh I must be pregnant, let’s make the preparations for pregnancy so lactation, mood swings, night sweats and then looking pregnant, just hugely bloated, fluid retention in the face as well so you just look horrible and puffy and just it’s a nightmare and it takes you about a month to get back to normal, sometimes more.

During one of these phantom pregnancies she took a pregnancy test which came back positive, even though there was no chance she was actually pregnant. She hasn’t found any other detransitioned women who experienced this.

Courtney Coulson

Detransitioning? There is no road map. Doctors are not given any information and you the patient have no information. So now that I’m having all these menstrual issues, I was the one taking the initiative. I was going to my doctor saying I want to get a pelvic ultrasound, I want to get a blood test, I want to get this that and the other I want to make sure we just, make sure everything is ok. No one was asking that from me – and this was 2, 3 years ago – found nothing. Had those same tests again, still found nothing but I’ve got issues so what is that? And it could be testosterone related but there’s no literature on that so how does anyone know how to deal with this?

The physical health problems are her biggest regret. Courtney is a rarity in that she’s mostly ok with the masculinising effects on her body. 

Courtney Coulson

I still get the facial hair, I regret that. The fact that I’ve taken testosterone, I’ve got the deeper voice that sounds – I used to sound so childish, I sounded like a little girl, and so now I have a more commanding voice, I’m about 10, 12kgs heavier than I was back then, so quite muscular and those things are all great. Oh yeah and then the clitoral growth, I didn’t notice it, my mother saw it once and pointed it out, ah yeah, it feels pretty good, it rubs on your underwear and that can be quite nice so yeah.

Other detransitioned women are not so lucky. They’re left deeply distressed and sometimes suicidal, about the changes to their bodies. Some report deep pelvic pain and cramping during sex, likely due to vaginal and uterine atrophy, although there’s been almost no research into this. They battle a new version of gender dysphoria – looking and sounding male. And for those who’ve had their ovaries removed, they’re lifelong medical patients, dependent on synthetic hormones forever.

******

We don’t yet know of any Australian detransitioners who went through the full Dutch Protocol of puberty blockers, then cross sex hormones and then surgeries. I think they’re out there, struggling to come to terms with what’s happened to them. Courtney is one of only four Australians who’ve spoken up, all of whom began their transition as young adults. Which again, goes to show, that if adults are making this mistake, then so are 12 year olds. But around the world, more and more people are coming forward who’ve been profoundly harmed by youth gender medicine. 

Courtney Coulson

It’s a really sick cult. It’s very obvious now and I’m thinking a lot of people are waking up to that. It was quite innocuous, it was quite harmless or mostly harmless back in 2010. Not the case now.

A community has gathered on reddit where detransitioners share their regret and their ongoing mental and physical health struggles. In 2019, Canadian website Gender Report, said the detrans subreddit had grown to over 5,700 members in just two years. Now, in 2024, there are over 51,000 members. It’s impossible to know how many are actual detranstioners. But it shows this group is growing and there’s a good deal of interest in their stories.

Courtney is doing pretty well all things considered. She works full time as an upholsterer, busies herself with hobbies like cosplay and she puts a lot of effort into maintaining her health. She’s also discovered that she’s not asexual but she’s reluctant to label her sexual orientation. Perhaps most importantly, she’s learnt to embrace the fact she’s a gender non conforming woman, not a man. Well, to an extent.

Courtney Coulson

Right now, if I could choose, would I, if they just wave a magic wand or you know the teleporter thing like in The Fly, you walk in that, you come out a man, yes, I would like to be a man, yes absolutely, it’d be amazing, I’d have everything I ever, I wouldn’t have to worry about periods, it’d be great, I live in the real world and in the real world, you can’t change your sex, I tried 

******

Coming up in the final episode of Desexing Society Season 1: is there hope for Australia?

Judith Hunter

We really want to get a parliamentary inquiry into these practices that have been rolled out around the world and practices that are now being rolled back in other countries. I don’t know why Australia’s so slow off the mark.

We’ll look at how other countries have intervened to restrict child medical transition.

Bernard Lane

Finland was the first in 2020 and it was the gender clinicians themselves who realised that the Dutch protocol was not producing the positive outcomes that it was supposed to.

We’ll explore why it’s so difficult for detransitioners to take legal action.

Anna Kerr

People keep saying oh why don’t we have a class action, for a start to get a class action you need like 7 plaintiffs against the same defendant so, the way it’s done in Australia, we haven’t got the one Tavistock clinic, we’ve got lots of different places that are doing this stuff

And we’ll look at what can be done to prevent more kids from falling into the transgender trap.

Dianna Kenny

So the education department is probably one of the key factors that needs to change in order to stop this psychic epidemic from being perpetuated and continuing into the next decades.

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Thanks for listening to Desexing Society. Written and produced by me, Stassja Frei. Thank you to my script editor, Ms Edie Wyatt, my sound technician Matthew Friend, and to everyone who made this podcast possible. For more information, or to donate towards this project – which I paid for myself – please visit desexingsociety.com