Article / Archive
I haven’t changed my views. I’ve known ever since my first shot of testosterone that sex change wasn’t possible. I haven’t changed my mind that minors shouldn’t be medicalized. I haven’t changed my mind that women and especially lesbians deserve their own spaces. I haven’t changed my mind that the reason that most women medicalize is because of homophobic and misogynistic abuse. My new podcast is making that clear and is leading “transmen” to sex realism.
But, I have changed my mind about trying to reintegrate into lesbian spaces and my involvement in this movement. The reason: the lesbians I care about the most, don’t want us back. They seem to think that piling on more abuse is a remedy for the abuse that led to our decision to medicalize in the first place. I’m done. I’ve been told by lesbians that I should feel shitty. I’ve been told that I should consider myself both a victim and a predator for medicalizing. I’ve been told that I should be deplatformed and have no say in gender medicine because I’m speaking to transmen on my podcast. I’ve had radfems egg on Shawn Shirazi’s online stalking and harassment while he’s being investigated by police for sexually assaulting transmen. I’ve been accused of sexual predation for misunderstanding cues and trying to mend friendships. I’ve been accused of misogyny for wanting to protect GC women and build political bridges between transmen and GC women. All while trying to detransition. As if 20 years as a transman can be undone instantly.
None of this hurt, until those I cared about became the centre of it.
This current round is coordinated primarily by two women:
Holly Lawford-Smith and Jamie Reed, who are using the Stone Butch Disco to carry it out, because they don’t have the ovaries to address it with me directly.
Have I done anything wrong? Yes. I have.
Am I the only one? No. I’m not. It’s the hypocrisy that’s most disgraceful.
Whistleblowing is painful. We become severely isolated. We suffer painful losses. We’re under a lot of pressure and it’s mostly thankless.
What I did, was misunderstand a warm, playfully flirtatious friendship with Holly as a romantic connection. I messaged her too much. I flirted with her. When she blew up at me, I became defensive and argumentative. When a bunch of women from Australia started following my social media accounts right after that argument, I became paranoid - concerned that it was sabotage. So I ran a list of their names by a contact in Australia to see who they were. Upon discovering that they were all connected to Holly, my concern about a sabotage intensified, so I talked to them about Holly to feel it out. I said we’d met. I liked her, but we had a falling out.
Some time later, I came up with an idea with an international group of transmen, to offer her a debate on her campus, thinking that a friendly debate, if choreographed carefully, might soften the transactivist attacks on her. I ran that idea by Kathleen Stock, because of what happened on her campus, and mentioned that we were going to propose the idea to Holly. I asked one of Holly’s friends to propose the idea to her.
Between May 2024, when we had the argument, until the end of 2024, I sent Holly several emails. One an apology. One to let her know about the Reappearing Lesbians podcast and that one of the cohosts ran a Twitter account that followed her - I let Holly know that it wasn’t me who ran that account. I think there might have been another one - I don’t remember the content. Then another, after reading her book, to state that I agreed with most of it, especially the parts about transmen belonging under the banners of feminism and lesbianism.
By that point, I felt angry. She had said things when she blew up that were hurtful, shaming and condescending - such as calling me manly and saying that I was gaslighting her. I told her that hurt and that it wasn’t a sisterly way to have treated me for a mistake.
I made a joke about that “manly” comment with Carol Hooven, after reading Holly’s review of Carole’s work, challenging the notion that testosterone is a driver of sex-based behaviour. I found it amusing that Holly would call me manly while denying that testosterone has any impact on sex-differentiated behaviour. I had an acquaintance with Hooven - she’d been on my Transparency podcast to discuss her work, and she interviewed us, a group of transmen, about the ways in which testosterone changed us. I sent one last email as a peace offering - an invitation to a lesbian radfem event I was connected with, which is running underground. All of the above had been unwelcomed contact. I was trying too hard to mend things, which wasn’t welcome and crossed boundaries.
Of course, I feel shitty about all of this. But I didn’t lie. I was confused about it all and tried to repair it. Holly seems to think she communicated clearly with me, but she had not. She did say that she didn’t like being flirted with, but that it wasn’t me. If she meant that to mean she had no interest, I didn’t understand that. I need clear communication. “I’m not interested in anything romantic. Let’s be friends.” “I’m feeling a bit smothered. Let’s talk in a few months.” That’s what I needed.
What I did wasn’t right. But here’s the bitter hypocrisy:
In the summer of 2024, while I was en route to a Courage Coalition direct action event in Chicago, Jamie Reed sent me a text saying that she and another woman in the Coalition, Lauren, had started dating. They shared a room at our B’n’B. There was noticeable tension between them, and a blowup one night in which Jamie left and started driving home. I later learned that Jamie had misread cues, like I had with Holly, and there was in fact, no romantic relationship. Jamie later sent me a text saying that she was accused of a sexual assault.
Everyone, including me, rallied around to support Jamie, understanding that these kinds of errors in judgement were related to the pressure she was under and the loneliness of whistleblowing. We supported her and Lauren to talk things through, mend what had happened and keep the Coalition together. Which was successful.
There was no such support for me. There were no efforts to help me to mend my mistakes. There was no understanding that my misread was related to my stress and loneliness after whistleblowing. There was no effort to help keep a sisterhood together with Holly.
Instead, Jamie contacted Holly behind my back, became hostile toward me, and used the Stone Butch Disco (Rachel), and anonymous accounts, to troll me and tell me that I was a sexual predator, that I was unattractive, insane, a “fruitcake”, impotent, and undesirable to anyone I’m attracted to and that “hundreds of people and organizations” have received copies of screenshots and notification that I’m a predator, to prevent anyone from working with me.
Jamie has spoken with my Canadian contacts, telling lies such as how I “took all of the transmen” with me when I left the Coalition. No. I did not. Those transmen were feeling as though the Coalition was anti trans and they left before I resigned. Jamie knows this.
https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1...HwxNzM3OTQ3MzQwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=1080
She contacted Buck Angel after my appearance on his show.
Trolls have commented on tweets and podcast appearances saying that a predator shouldn’t be platformed.
The Stone Butch Disco has explicitly stated that I should be deplatformed.
Holly and Jamie have retweeted the Stone Butch Disco podcasts, in which I’m accused of a crime, harassment and stalking, to all of their followers.
Numerous lies were told in this post by the Stone Butch Disco:
This whole situation is horrible enough. Lies make it worse.
I’ve clearly misread things but, I did not lie.
What this stark contrast in how the two, almost identical fuck-ups of our parts signals to me, is that Jamie, a feminine appearing lesbian, is seen as a valuable sister, and I, a butch who medicalized, am not. Feminine women are heard, believed and supported.
Though I was in the midst of detransitioning at the time, I am clearly not seen as a sister. I’m not heard. I’m not regarded with any understanding or compassion. I’m not seen as a valuable part of the team. The decision I made to medicalize 20 years ago makes me unvalued, and unworthy of care or concern in this movement, no matter what I contribute.
I blew the whistle on gender medicine years before Jamie did. Jamie told me, on the Transparency podcast, that it was our podcast that inspired her to blow the whistle. I had zero support from anyone when I blew the whistle. SEGM wouldn’t talk to me. The press wouldn’t talk to me. Our politicians wouldn’t talk to me. In comes a feminine woman, with all support and all ears. I haven’t had these kinds of problems in 20 years, until I tried to be a lesbian again.
They win.
I’m out.
I’ve since rebuilt my life. I’m going to go live it in peace.
Do what you want with my “platform”. I’m leaving it behind.
I’ll be closing this account too, in a few days. Except to keep my podcast episodes live. I won’t be recording any new episodes. A few are still scheduled to be released.
I haven’t changed my views. I’ve known ever since my first shot of testosterone that sex change wasn’t possible. I haven’t changed my mind that minors shouldn’t be medicalized. I haven’t changed my mind that women and especially lesbians deserve their own spaces. I haven’t changed my mind that the reason that most women medicalize is because of homophobic and misogynistic abuse. My new podcast is making that clear and is leading “transmen” to sex realism.
But, I have changed my mind about trying to reintegrate into lesbian spaces and my involvement in this movement. The reason: the lesbians I care about the most, don’t want us back. They seem to think that piling on more abuse is a remedy for the abuse that led to our decision to medicalize in the first place. I’m done. I’ve been told by lesbians that I should feel shitty. I’ve been told that I should consider myself both a victim and a predator for medicalizing. I’ve been told that I should be deplatformed and have no say in gender medicine because I’m speaking to transmen on my podcast. I’ve had radfems egg on Shawn Shirazi’s online stalking and harassment while he’s being investigated by police for sexually assaulting transmen. I’ve been accused of sexual predation for misunderstanding cues and trying to mend friendships. I’ve been accused of misogyny for wanting to protect GC women and build political bridges between transmen and GC women. All while trying to detransition. As if 20 years as a transman can be undone instantly.
None of this hurt, until those I cared about became the centre of it.
This current round is coordinated primarily by two women:
Holly Lawford-Smith and Jamie Reed, who are using the Stone Butch Disco to carry it out, because they don’t have the ovaries to address it with me directly.
Have I done anything wrong? Yes. I have.
Am I the only one? No. I’m not. It’s the hypocrisy that’s most disgraceful.
Whistleblowing is painful. We become severely isolated. We suffer painful losses. We’re under a lot of pressure and it’s mostly thankless.
What I did, was misunderstand a warm, playfully flirtatious friendship with Holly as a romantic connection. I messaged her too much. I flirted with her. When she blew up at me, I became defensive and argumentative. When a bunch of women from Australia started following my social media accounts right after that argument, I became paranoid - concerned that it was sabotage. So I ran a list of their names by a contact in Australia to see who they were. Upon discovering that they were all connected to Holly, my concern about a sabotage intensified, so I talked to them about Holly to feel it out. I said we’d met. I liked her, but we had a falling out.
Some time later, I came up with an idea with an international group of transmen, to offer her a debate on her campus, thinking that a friendly debate, if choreographed carefully, might soften the transactivist attacks on her. I ran that idea by Kathleen Stock, because of what happened on her campus, and mentioned that we were going to propose the idea to Holly. I asked one of Holly’s friends to propose the idea to her.
Between May 2024, when we had the argument, until the end of 2024, I sent Holly several emails. One an apology. One to let her know about the Reappearing Lesbians podcast and that one of the cohosts ran a Twitter account that followed her - I let Holly know that it wasn’t me who ran that account. I think there might have been another one - I don’t remember the content. Then another, after reading her book, to state that I agreed with most of it, especially the parts about transmen belonging under the banners of feminism and lesbianism.
By that point, I felt angry. She had said things when she blew up that were hurtful, shaming and condescending - such as calling me manly and saying that I was gaslighting her. I told her that hurt and that it wasn’t a sisterly way to have treated me for a mistake.
I made a joke about that “manly” comment with Carol Hooven, after reading Holly’s review of Carole’s work, challenging the notion that testosterone is a driver of sex-based behaviour. I found it amusing that Holly would call me manly while denying that testosterone has any impact on sex-differentiated behaviour. I had an acquaintance with Hooven - she’d been on my Transparency podcast to discuss her work, and she interviewed us, a group of transmen, about the ways in which testosterone changed us. I sent one last email as a peace offering - an invitation to a lesbian radfem event I was connected with, which is running underground. All of the above had been unwelcomed contact. I was trying too hard to mend things, which wasn’t welcome and crossed boundaries.
Of course, I feel shitty about all of this. But I didn’t lie. I was confused about it all and tried to repair it. Holly seems to think she communicated clearly with me, but she had not. She did say that she didn’t like being flirted with, but that it wasn’t me. If she meant that to mean she had no interest, I didn’t understand that. I need clear communication. “I’m not interested in anything romantic. Let’s be friends.” “I’m feeling a bit smothered. Let’s talk in a few months.” That’s what I needed.
What I did wasn’t right. But here’s the bitter hypocrisy:
In the summer of 2024, while I was en route to a Courage Coalition direct action event in Chicago, Jamie Reed sent me a text saying that she and another woman in the Coalition, Lauren, had started dating. They shared a room at our B’n’B. There was noticeable tension between them, and a blowup one night in which Jamie left and started driving home. I later learned that Jamie had misread cues, like I had with Holly, and there was in fact, no romantic relationship. Jamie later sent me a text saying that she was accused of a sexual assault.
Everyone, including me, rallied around to support Jamie, understanding that these kinds of errors in judgement were related to the pressure she was under and the loneliness of whistleblowing. We supported her and Lauren to talk things through, mend what had happened and keep the Coalition together. Which was successful.
There was no such support for me. There were no efforts to help me to mend my mistakes. There was no understanding that my misread was related to my stress and loneliness after whistleblowing. There was no effort to help keep a sisterhood together with Holly.
Instead, Jamie contacted Holly behind my back, became hostile toward me, and used the Stone Butch Disco (Rachel), and anonymous accounts, to troll me and tell me that I was a sexual predator, that I was unattractive, insane, a “fruitcake”, impotent, and undesirable to anyone I’m attracted to and that “hundreds of people and organizations” have received copies of screenshots and notification that I’m a predator, to prevent anyone from working with me.
Jamie has spoken with my Canadian contacts, telling lies such as how I “took all of the transmen” with me when I left the Coalition. No. I did not. Those transmen were feeling as though the Coalition was anti trans and they left before I resigned. Jamie knows this.
https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1...HwxNzM3OTQ3MzQwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=1080
She contacted Buck Angel after my appearance on his show.
Trolls have commented on tweets and podcast appearances saying that a predator shouldn’t be platformed.
The Stone Butch Disco has explicitly stated that I should be deplatformed.
Holly and Jamie have retweeted the Stone Butch Disco podcasts, in which I’m accused of a crime, harassment and stalking, to all of their followers.
Numerous lies were told in this post by the Stone Butch Disco:
- That I was fired from the Courage Coalition. No. I resigned, which I notified them of through our SLACK channel.
- That I have a “long history of harassing women”. They know nothing about my relationship history. My ex wife and I are on friendly terms. We still have some contact, and she has a relationship with my daughter. Jamie knows that I’ve had recent contact with my ex.
- That I pressured the Stone Butch Disco to do the podcast. No, I did not. They were just as excited about it as I was, as well as some other projects we were doing. I had designed a website for our Lesbian Archives. There had been no plot on my end to use our projects for “harassment”. I was privately venting with new friends. The “pseudo femme” episode was Rachel’s idea. I sent it on to the Coalition as a way of communicating with them what things had looked like from my perspective. Rachel led me through another episode, using her conflict resolution skills as a teacher to talk through what things had looked like on my end, intending this as an invitation to resolve the conflict. I sent a link on to the Coalition, without posting it publicly, hoping to engage in a conversation about what had happened. It was the truth as it looked to me.
This whole situation is horrible enough. Lies make it worse.
I’ve clearly misread things but, I did not lie.
What this stark contrast in how the two, almost identical fuck-ups of our parts signals to me, is that Jamie, a feminine appearing lesbian, is seen as a valuable sister, and I, a butch who medicalized, am not. Feminine women are heard, believed and supported.
Though I was in the midst of detransitioning at the time, I am clearly not seen as a sister. I’m not heard. I’m not regarded with any understanding or compassion. I’m not seen as a valuable part of the team. The decision I made to medicalize 20 years ago makes me unvalued, and unworthy of care or concern in this movement, no matter what I contribute.
I blew the whistle on gender medicine years before Jamie did. Jamie told me, on the Transparency podcast, that it was our podcast that inspired her to blow the whistle. I had zero support from anyone when I blew the whistle. SEGM wouldn’t talk to me. The press wouldn’t talk to me. Our politicians wouldn’t talk to me. In comes a feminine woman, with all support and all ears. I haven’t had these kinds of problems in 20 years, until I tried to be a lesbian again.
They win.
I’m out.
I’ve since rebuilt my life. I’m going to go live it in peace.
Do what you want with my “platform”. I’m leaving it behind.
I’ll be closing this account too, in a few days. Except to keep my podcast episodes live. I won’t be recording any new episodes. A few are still scheduled to be released.
