A few decades ago, when trans was about being stealth and passing, the lesbians who did it experienced deep seated internalized homophobia, and blatant homophobia from society. It allowed these women to think they were escaping homophobia by “passing” as male. Today, the lesbians who trans still experience that same internalized homophobia, but the external social pressure morphed into something even more dangerous, and has lead to the uptick in lesbians destroying their bodies: society now celebrates trans. Flaunting mastectomy scars and injecting testosterone in public is seen by progressives as an act of heroic defiance to the “oppressors.” Media and advertising champions trans. There is a certain allure that grabs insecure masculine females, as they’re openly rewarded for transing. Small social rewards are given to the butches who take on a “nonbinary” label to signal denial of their womanhood and align with trans ideology. Homophobia and hatred of the masculine female is still here today— now we’re “terfs” we’re “right wing gays” we’re taunted: “you’re really trans,” “you wish you were trans”. I’ve been dragged through the mud for voicing my opinion on this, and viciously attacked, lost people flat out. Vast majority of LGBs in my life want me to shut up, to stop revealing these inconvenient truths. They’re so angry at me, and even more so because I’m a butch lesbian and I refuse to give in. It’s a painful and lonely place to be, but I’ll take it— we’re literally fighting for lesbian existence.
Powerful comment, EvieU. I just want to thank you for being a butch lesbian fighting for lesbian existence and taking the very real body blows. Though I am not a lesbian, I also fight for lesbian existence. And I relate to your sorrow, that of losing LGB friends and in my case musical collaborators as a painful price of standing up publicly. I don't even have the lesbian card (let alone the butch lesbian card!) to brandish, so I am seen as just another transphobic terf. It's not really that I'm an "ally" exactly. In my early terfin' days around 2019, I wrote an essay called "Lesbian erasure hurts everybody." I have yet to publish it anywhere because still clarifying what I want to say. But here are a few points to share with you. Lesbians pioneer powerful and good changes in culture for all, especially women. (Gay men do as well.) Lesbians in my very early childhood (nurses) were role models for me (early 1960s US), even as they were closeted and I did not know they were lesbians until many years later. Lesbian health care providers have been the best. Lesbians aren't saints or special unicorns, they can certainly be assholes! But especially butch lesbians pave a way for any woman to be free of the constraints of gender conformity, to be who and how she wants to be. I just want you to know you are appreciated. ❤️
Jamie, thank you for doing the steep dive that I have not yet done, and summarizing the connection between gender, ideology, and homophobia. Devastating indeed, and so important for people to know.
I thank Jamie too. I watched it with my own eyes with my daughter. I suspect she had internalized homophobia (and other things) that influenced her decision to medicalize and present herself as a man. It broke my heart because I, and the family, loved and accepted her as a lesbian.
Please try to get a version of this published somewhere beyond your Substack, Jamie. You may need to edit it a bit to achieve this--but it would be great to keep the part about the wedding encounter, could be a powerful frame around the rest you begin with and return to. A young proto-lesbian kid facing her choices in life for fulfillment and happiness. I think it could be powerful to start with the conversation in line with the girl and a description of how she looks. At least the Free Press should do a circling-round interview with you, as your perspectives have certainly evolved since that first interview. I would like it to be more widely read.
I watched my lesbian daughter, who was loved and accepted as a lesbian, decide to trans herself. She now presents as a man but still wants to be with women. It breaks my heart. I want so much to reach her and bring her back, but she cannot hear me, went deep into medicalization, and won't talk to me.
And I see other kids, who are same sex attracted, trans themselves too. I want to yell, "Stop"! It is one of the reasons I write so much and include your work within mine.
Loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications. Does that sound like “life-saving care,” or the most barbaric treatment imaginable of same-sex-attracted young people? Do we honestly think cutting the pleasurable pink bits off of healthy young people is a merciful prevention of their suicides? How could it not ultimately drive them to despair, to be neutered and mauled this way by “trusted physicians” and a medical establishment that is too squeamish, masochistic, or disgusted to acknowledge that gay and lesbian sexual lives matter?
In a sex-crazed world, the fact that trans destroys sexual pleasure reveals to me what a twisted, warped agenda it truly is. It truly is powerful if people are willing to forego sexual pleasure (and even further, experience intense pain) in exchange for the social status of trans.
“Gender affirming care” is not affirming sexual function; in fact, it destroys it.
Destroying sexual function destroys bonding and partnering relationships. Destroys reproductive function (sexual arousal and orgasm are key in reproductive function).
And never mind healthy urinary function. It’s hard to feel sexual if you’re pissing yourself and experiencing chronic pain and infections.
Thank you so much for your courage and clarity. My sister lost her first marriage to this ideology, so I’m deeply grateful to see the harms—particularly the internalized homophobia and misogyny—finally being documented and expressed so thoughtfully here.
We always knew there were serious unresolved mental health issues at play, but psychology seemed to misappropriate a coping mechanism as if it were the root issue itself. Your work is helping to expose that misstep. I really appreciate your work and have restacked.
Devastatingly honest, Jamie. I love that you are speaking ever more directly about this. You‘re uniquely positioned in so many ways. You have skin in the game, (hip to hip!) so you can‘t just be dismissed as a preachy transphobic terf. Like me haha. I‘m a „cisheteronormie“ breeder so my vote doesn’t count. Even with my own kids- like so many of us here.
Anecdotal evidence, but still relevant to this piece--I remember a young couple I saw for marital therapy not long ago that started off their relationship as a lesbian couple but then one of them decided she wanted to start on T and to pursue top surgery, not because she wanted to be seen as male, but because she no longer wanted to be perceived as female (I asked, this is what she actually said). She was an incest survivor who had grown up in a homophobic family and also worked in an employment setting in which a hazard of the job was that she'd been physically assaulted by a male. Her spouse told me with resignation that every lesbian partner she'd ever had a relationship with had inevitably transitioned. I felt she was torn, sad for herself but wanted to respect her partners' choices, plus she understandably wanted to preserve the relationship in part because they had already pursued having a baby together and were new parents. I was not in a position to address this issue with the transitioning partner because that was not what they were coming to me for and her lesbian partner did not want me to go too far in that direction, but I wished she'd had an opportunity before getting her T Rx (in one visit) at a local PP clinic to have someone help her examine her motives to medically alter her body in order to escape femininity and lesbian identity. Alas, that's not the world we are living in now where anyone can easily access cross-sex hormones without any examination of such underlying motives or any psychotherapeutic care. I hope that this practice of "informed consent" model of care (which isn't truly informed) can change with your activism because if it doesn't, there will be little therapists like me who do understand these issues can do.
You said you hope the practice of “informed consent” model of care (which isn’t truly informed) can change with your activism”… just SAY IT lol 😆 this insanity needs to END. This is not medical practice, it is medical harm. It addresses nothing,
it helps NOTHING. No lesbians on the planet should be abusing their bodies in this way. There is no “true trans,” nobody in the world who needs this done to them, nobody who’s lives are made demonstrably better by it, and no evidence that it has ever prevented a suicide. It’s Nazi Mengele level experimentation.
Any thoughts on how internalised homophobia gets such a hold even within accepting families? I personally know a FtoM young woman with lesbian parents and no known history of trauma (havent ruled out autism but not obviously autistic)!
It’s not just whether families are accepting. It’s what you absorb from other members of society- school, community, social media/the media. Now throw trans in the mix a lot of these kids cannot accept being gay, they just bee line to thinking they’re trans.
I wonder if the trendiness of trans enters into this…. Not sure if trans is trendy among our youngest gen but it certainly has been so for Gen Z and I believe some Millenials….?
I am a baby millennial born 92 millennials stop in 94 zillennials are 95/96. No it was not trendy for us, being gay wasn’t even okay in most of the country. When I was 17 I vividly remember watching the candlelight vigil in the castro after Californians actively petitioned to get same-sex marriage on the ballot bc the state government legalized it and the citizens of California didn’t want it so they petitioned it on the ballot and then voted to take it away and I remember thinking as a closeted 17 year old “if California doesn’t even accept us it will never be okay to be gay” so no this didn’t hit us. I am sure there are some exceptions but for the most part this isn’t a trend millennials partake in.
Its also about accepting you are always going to be an “other”. This was the hard part for me I had a very tumultuous childhood all I’ve ever wanted is a “normal” life. Accepting that I was a lesbian meant accepting that I would never be “normal” and that was a hard thing for me when I was young, I didn’t come out until I was like 27 and the final leap I had to make was “once I tell people it’s real, I can never go back to pretending to be ‘normal’ again”. Even in my 30s I still have moments where I think “I wish I was straight life would be so much easier, dating would be so much easier” and now on top of all of that I feel like I am being driven back in the closet by Trans ideology.
As a lesbian in her early 20s, thank you so much for writing this. It is nearing impossible to date as a lesbian in my generation; every woman I've been out with this year has been convinced that she's not really a woman. Every single one. Almost all of the lesbians I've encountered who don't hold this belief about themselves are extremely feminine and extremely trans-affirming. I find more masculine women more attractive, and those women would hate me anyway if they knew my beliefs. It's horrific what they're doing to young lesbians, and it's heartbreaking to witness it in real time among other women my age. Another friend of a friend started testosterone recently. Every Gen Z lesbian artist I've loved in the last 5-10 years has transitioned. It's horrifically depressing and isolating to witness all this and have to pretend you're fine with it and pretend it's a good thing, even. Why are we never allowed to just be happy with ourselves?
A few decades ago, when trans was about being stealth and passing, the lesbians who did it experienced deep seated internalized homophobia, and blatant homophobia from society. It allowed these women to think they were escaping homophobia by “passing” as male. Today, the lesbians who trans still experience that same internalized homophobia, but the external social pressure morphed into something even more dangerous, and has lead to the uptick in lesbians destroying their bodies: society now celebrates trans. Flaunting mastectomy scars and injecting testosterone in public is seen by progressives as an act of heroic defiance to the “oppressors.” Media and advertising champions trans. There is a certain allure that grabs insecure masculine females, as they’re openly rewarded for transing. Small social rewards are given to the butches who take on a “nonbinary” label to signal denial of their womanhood and align with trans ideology. Homophobia and hatred of the masculine female is still here today— now we’re “terfs” we’re “right wing gays” we’re taunted: “you’re really trans,” “you wish you were trans”. I’ve been dragged through the mud for voicing my opinion on this, and viciously attacked, lost people flat out. Vast majority of LGBs in my life want me to shut up, to stop revealing these inconvenient truths. They’re so angry at me, and even more so because I’m a butch lesbian and I refuse to give in. It’s a painful and lonely place to be, but I’ll take it— we’re literally fighting for lesbian existence.
Powerful comment, EvieU. I just want to thank you for being a butch lesbian fighting for lesbian existence and taking the very real body blows. Though I am not a lesbian, I also fight for lesbian existence. And I relate to your sorrow, that of losing LGB friends and in my case musical collaborators as a painful price of standing up publicly. I don't even have the lesbian card (let alone the butch lesbian card!) to brandish, so I am seen as just another transphobic terf. It's not really that I'm an "ally" exactly. In my early terfin' days around 2019, I wrote an essay called "Lesbian erasure hurts everybody." I have yet to publish it anywhere because still clarifying what I want to say. But here are a few points to share with you. Lesbians pioneer powerful and good changes in culture for all, especially women. (Gay men do as well.) Lesbians in my very early childhood (nurses) were role models for me (early 1960s US), even as they were closeted and I did not know they were lesbians until many years later. Lesbian health care providers have been the best. Lesbians aren't saints or special unicorns, they can certainly be assholes! But especially butch lesbians pave a way for any woman to be free of the constraints of gender conformity, to be who and how she wants to be. I just want you to know you are appreciated. ❤️
Jamie, thank you for doing the steep dive that I have not yet done, and summarizing the connection between gender, ideology, and homophobia. Devastating indeed, and so important for people to know.
I thank Jamie too. I watched it with my own eyes with my daughter. I suspect she had internalized homophobia (and other things) that influenced her decision to medicalize and present herself as a man. It broke my heart because I, and the family, loved and accepted her as a lesbian.
Please try to get a version of this published somewhere beyond your Substack, Jamie. You may need to edit it a bit to achieve this--but it would be great to keep the part about the wedding encounter, could be a powerful frame around the rest you begin with and return to. A young proto-lesbian kid facing her choices in life for fulfillment and happiness. I think it could be powerful to start with the conversation in line with the girl and a description of how she looks. At least the Free Press should do a circling-round interview with you, as your perspectives have certainly evolved since that first interview. I would like it to be more widely read.
I agree! The wedding encounter was powerful!!!
I watched my lesbian daughter, who was loved and accepted as a lesbian, decide to trans herself. She now presents as a man but still wants to be with women. It breaks my heart. I want so much to reach her and bring her back, but she cannot hear me, went deep into medicalization, and won't talk to me.
And I see other kids, who are same sex attracted, trans themselves too. I want to yell, "Stop"! It is one of the reasons I write so much and include your work within mine.
Loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications. Does that sound like “life-saving care,” or the most barbaric treatment imaginable of same-sex-attracted young people? Do we honestly think cutting the pleasurable pink bits off of healthy young people is a merciful prevention of their suicides? How could it not ultimately drive them to despair, to be neutered and mauled this way by “trusted physicians” and a medical establishment that is too squeamish, masochistic, or disgusted to acknowledge that gay and lesbian sexual lives matter?
In a sex-crazed world, the fact that trans destroys sexual pleasure reveals to me what a twisted, warped agenda it truly is. It truly is powerful if people are willing to forego sexual pleasure (and even further, experience intense pain) in exchange for the social status of trans.
“Gender affirming care” is not affirming sexual function; in fact, it destroys it.
Destroying sexual function destroys bonding and partnering relationships. Destroys reproductive function (sexual arousal and orgasm are key in reproductive function).
And never mind healthy urinary function. It’s hard to feel sexual if you’re pissing yourself and experiencing chronic pain and infections.
Holy hell, it’s a nightmare.
It is very telling to me that Canada refused euthanasia to a trans 'woman' who has suffered years of horrific pain after her vaginoplasty. If her toast fell buttered side down onto the floor, they'd probably kill her. My guess is Canada and the trans community don't want the negative publicity. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/transgender-woman-denied-euthanasia-in-canada-over-post-surgical-pain-and-regret/
So clear. So devastating. Thank you, Jamie.
Thank you so much for your courage and clarity. My sister lost her first marriage to this ideology, so I’m deeply grateful to see the harms—particularly the internalized homophobia and misogyny—finally being documented and expressed so thoughtfully here.
We always knew there were serious unresolved mental health issues at play, but psychology seemed to misappropriate a coping mechanism as if it were the root issue itself. Your work is helping to expose that misstep. I really appreciate your work and have restacked.
Thank you. Your work and your brilliant mind will make a difference in this crazy upside down world.
Devastatingly honest, Jamie. I love that you are speaking ever more directly about this. You‘re uniquely positioned in so many ways. You have skin in the game, (hip to hip!) so you can‘t just be dismissed as a preachy transphobic terf. Like me haha. I‘m a „cisheteronormie“ breeder so my vote doesn’t count. Even with my own kids- like so many of us here.
You are not alone. All votes count! 👍🏼
Anecdotal evidence, but still relevant to this piece--I remember a young couple I saw for marital therapy not long ago that started off their relationship as a lesbian couple but then one of them decided she wanted to start on T and to pursue top surgery, not because she wanted to be seen as male, but because she no longer wanted to be perceived as female (I asked, this is what she actually said). She was an incest survivor who had grown up in a homophobic family and also worked in an employment setting in which a hazard of the job was that she'd been physically assaulted by a male. Her spouse told me with resignation that every lesbian partner she'd ever had a relationship with had inevitably transitioned. I felt she was torn, sad for herself but wanted to respect her partners' choices, plus she understandably wanted to preserve the relationship in part because they had already pursued having a baby together and were new parents. I was not in a position to address this issue with the transitioning partner because that was not what they were coming to me for and her lesbian partner did not want me to go too far in that direction, but I wished she'd had an opportunity before getting her T Rx (in one visit) at a local PP clinic to have someone help her examine her motives to medically alter her body in order to escape femininity and lesbian identity. Alas, that's not the world we are living in now where anyone can easily access cross-sex hormones without any examination of such underlying motives or any psychotherapeutic care. I hope that this practice of "informed consent" model of care (which isn't truly informed) can change with your activism because if it doesn't, there will be little therapists like me who do understand these issues can do.
You said you hope the practice of “informed consent” model of care (which isn’t truly informed) can change with your activism”… just SAY IT lol 😆 this insanity needs to END. This is not medical practice, it is medical harm. It addresses nothing,
it helps NOTHING. No lesbians on the planet should be abusing their bodies in this way. There is no “true trans,” nobody in the world who needs this done to them, nobody who’s lives are made demonstrably better by it, and no evidence that it has ever prevented a suicide. It’s Nazi Mengele level experimentation.
you’re right I should have said eliminated, (ie banned) not changed because that’s what I really meant
did not intend to understate the harm it’s maybe a habit I’m unintentionally cultivating from attempting to inform true believers
I should add fwiw that I am speaking out publicly about this, and with colleagues so that voices of lived experience like Jamie’s can be amplified
I’m sending you a DM 😎
Any thoughts on how internalised homophobia gets such a hold even within accepting families? I personally know a FtoM young woman with lesbian parents and no known history of trauma (havent ruled out autism but not obviously autistic)!
It’s not just whether families are accepting. It’s what you absorb from other members of society- school, community, social media/the media. Now throw trans in the mix a lot of these kids cannot accept being gay, they just bee line to thinking they’re trans.
I wonder if the trendiness of trans enters into this…. Not sure if trans is trendy among our youngest gen but it certainly has been so for Gen Z and I believe some Millenials….?
I am a baby millennial born 92 millennials stop in 94 zillennials are 95/96. No it was not trendy for us, being gay wasn’t even okay in most of the country. When I was 17 I vividly remember watching the candlelight vigil in the castro after Californians actively petitioned to get same-sex marriage on the ballot bc the state government legalized it and the citizens of California didn’t want it so they petitioned it on the ballot and then voted to take it away and I remember thinking as a closeted 17 year old “if California doesn’t even accept us it will never be okay to be gay” so no this didn’t hit us. I am sure there are some exceptions but for the most part this isn’t a trend millennials partake in.
Its also about accepting you are always going to be an “other”. This was the hard part for me I had a very tumultuous childhood all I’ve ever wanted is a “normal” life. Accepting that I was a lesbian meant accepting that I would never be “normal” and that was a hard thing for me when I was young, I didn’t come out until I was like 27 and the final leap I had to make was “once I tell people it’s real, I can never go back to pretending to be ‘normal’ again”. Even in my 30s I still have moments where I think “I wish I was straight life would be so much easier, dating would be so much easier” and now on top of all of that I feel like I am being driven back in the closet by Trans ideology.
Excellent!
Thank you Jamie.
Soldier on, with elbows up!
💪💪🇨🇦
Thank you Jamie. I have restacked.
Wow. I am speechless. And so very sad.
I've had my eyes opened
As a lesbian in her early 20s, thank you so much for writing this. It is nearing impossible to date as a lesbian in my generation; every woman I've been out with this year has been convinced that she's not really a woman. Every single one. Almost all of the lesbians I've encountered who don't hold this belief about themselves are extremely feminine and extremely trans-affirming. I find more masculine women more attractive, and those women would hate me anyway if they knew my beliefs. It's horrific what they're doing to young lesbians, and it's heartbreaking to witness it in real time among other women my age. Another friend of a friend started testosterone recently. Every Gen Z lesbian artist I've loved in the last 5-10 years has transitioned. It's horrifically depressing and isolating to witness all this and have to pretend you're fine with it and pretend it's a good thing, even. Why are we never allowed to just be happy with ourselves?