Ky Schevers

Before I become one, I used to think transphobic rad fems were totally out of touch with reality. Couldn't understand why they thought trans people were in league with the patriarchy. I used to hate read rad fems for years because I found them so ridiculous.

Transphobic feminism only became compelling after I went through several disruptive events in my life and it started to seem like it could fulfill my needs. A huge factor was that conflict had ripped through my personal community and I no longer felt like I could trust people.

My old community no longer felt safe, so I was on the look out for a new one that could meet my needs. I was questioning my gender and unsure of how to live as a woman after living for years as a trans dude. I also was quitting drugs and trying to work through old trauma.

Basically I was going through a lot, in an emotionally vulnerable place, my old community/support system had been disrupted and I was pissed about it, I wanted to detransition but didn't know what that would look like.

When I looked for detrans women, most of the ones I found were rad fems who'd also had bad experiences with the queer community. Their criticism of radical queers spoke to the anger I felt at the time. Rad fems in general were eager to support me as a detrans woman.

I ended up turning to transphobic radical feminism to try to fulfill my needs. It gave me a place to belong and express my anger, it gave me structure and purpose. It seemed to solve my problems. Finding a place to belong was one of the biggest draws and the hardest to give up.

When it became apparent that the rad fem community had a lot of problems, when it didn't live up to my expectations, I lost faith in the ideology pretty quickly. I still tried to believe because I felt a stronger connection to the detrans community that was harder to let go of.

There's so much that I used to believe that makes little sense to me now. But when I look at what I used to get by voicing those beliefs, the belonging and status I got as a detrans rad fem, it makes way more sense. The ideology was a means to an end, a way of meeting my needs.