Ky Schevers

I found some old writing of mine from back when I was detrans where I was explaining how my conplicated relationship with my mother was one thing that "made me trans" and now it strikes me as something a reparative therapist would've loved to hear me say.

Reparative therapy is based on the theory that if our relationships with our parents go wrong, especially with out "same sex" parent, then a person develops a gender identity disorder that usually manifests as being gay but in more extreme cases can lead to being trans.

At the time, I had no idea that I was thinking along the same lines as reparative therapists. When I told people about this supposed connection between my relationship with my mom and "becoming trans", a lot of people accepted it and acted like it was a reasonable explanation.

It seems commonsense to a lot of people that people are trans because something went wrong with us. If you tell people you became trans because of trauma, bad relationships with your parents, social influences, etc a lot of people will support that explanation without question.

And some people will accept explanations for being trans that they wouldn't accept for being gay. If I said my relationship with my mom had given me same-sex attractions, a lot of people would object and say that sounded like internalized homophobia.

The same people might think that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I was trans. A good chunk of the people I hung out with were lesbians. They accepted explanations for why people are trans that they would reject if the same theories were directed at lesbians.