You know all the pat answers, advice that folk reel out so I won't.
But I just want to say, 'you're doing OK.'
That's something.
You're alive and your life and story and honesty and courage gives value and encouragement to alot of folk, even if you can't see them. Folk whose lives are still so raw they need that slither of hope, or else there's nothing left to live for.
You are so honest and so wise. I one day hope to tell my son (currently in the midst of this all but thankfully not medicalised yet) all about you and your story. I did try but he doesn’t believe me right now. One day he may.
Keep up the good work Ritchie! We need more people to be heard on behalf of those parents who can’t speak out just yet. One day I hope to be on the other side of this with my son and I will be as vocal as possible on behalf of those who can’t speak.
Hopefully, Ritchie’s testimony will help other surgically and/or chemically transitioned people open up about the reality. The ideology is being pushed on pre-pubescent kids now, with irreversible puberty-blockers. Those pushing the narrative are powerful. They have brainwashed a whole generation.
‘We want to warn others and give them a chance we didn’t have. Whether they’re listening or not, they need to hear it. They must understand that the risks are far greater than what’s been told. The complications change your life in a way you cannot imagine. Limited to no pleasure, urinary issues, bleeding, even years after the fact. It’s intense, and it’s for life. And for what? A fake version of the real thing? It’s an idea in our head, that was cruelly allowed to be made into reality. None of us can hide from the truth. Having surgery is not going to make your life better, it’s going to make it worse.’
Ritchie, your writing coveys so much insight. You do a great service to humanity, sharing the details of your life and your thoughts. I imagine your collected writings would make a terrific book.
thanks, as always for your thoughts. And as always, I hope for further healing for you. Science and medicine continue to develop, and I hope as more voices like yours are raised that more emphasis will be placed on finding routes to alleviate the medical damage that has been done in the name of transgenderism. I know you can't regain what you've lost, but I hope the medical community will someday have developed solutions that may make it easier for you to exist in the skin you now inhabit.
I don't even know you, but I smiled when I read that you have a "better half." I'm so happy for you.
I've been following your brave and honest writing and it gives me much comfort as I watch my daughter, hypnotized by the idea of becoming a man, convinced that my concerns are transphobic, hellbent on harming her precious body. Almost every time she makes another move toward medicalization (now she's 18 so it's getting scary as hell), I can read another of your pieces of writing that says to me - hey, people get through these mistakes, learn to live with them, and are stronger, more sensitive and more articulate than most other people will ever be. You're truly an inspiration and I hope you know that.
Also, that comment on the "we just want to pee" slogan - funny - sad, but so very funny. :)
Ritchie l have just caught up with your writing. l remember your first post on Twitter l think it was.
l am so pleased for you that you now have an "other half". you have come a very long way. l know nothing can ever put right the wrongs and the mutilation done to you. However, you are making the best you can of a shite deal and l hope you know that there are a lot of people out here that love you and want you to be happy. you are inspiring. xx
Thank you for your raw honesty and continuing to share your journey. I’m so sorry for all the unpleasant consequences you are enduring and pray that everything continues to get better.
You don't have to be an ambassador for ppl who may go down this disastrous road. But you have done an awful lot of good. And been very very brave to speak up in the mad and hostile climate.
And you can bloody write! Please don't give the writing up.
Thank you, Richie. All the pain you wrote about feeling in your 20s, the insecurity and self-hatred, they never completely go away for those of us who felt them in our youth, but it does get easier. I'm a generation older than you and I still fall into the abyss from time to time. I think people were drawn to transition because they believed they could escape psychological pain and live as someone else. But we all know the saying "Wherever you go, there you are." I can't imagine going through life as a person with "baggage" and also having to deal with medical problems from transitioning. My son, who estranged himself several years ago, is on that road and I don't know when or if he'll get off it. Thank you for your honesty and bravery. I'm happy for you that you have someone. You are beautiful inside and out.
I shared one of your threads on my blog on Substack, for the gay guys that I meet and that have no clue...
Over the years I was more interested in psychiatrist complicity in medicalizing people in our generation, and was often thinking how similar detrans community is to those recovering from drug addiction or alcoholism.
It often is overlapping too.
This is why I am against "getting sober" from "trans drug" >> becoming an addict on social media recognition of being medically harmed by "trans inc".
This is not a good way to recovery. Although the grifters of all sorts would love to have more "detrans" being public, only to be used and abused by them. I hope you've noticed that too.
Today I was reading a book about how we got into this medical model in the western medical system. The book goes through various examples of doctors in the USA drugging, instead of healing people.
Here's one part that resonates to the socio medical culture in which those recovering from transgenderism find themselves:
"Joseph Davis articulates in the journal Social Problems, “Gaining public sympathy and help for those putatively injured requires establishing their moral goodness, as persons innocent of any responsibility or fault for the harm they suffered”. Fassin and Rechtman write in their book The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood, that “trauma is not simply the cause of suffering that is being treated, it is also a resource than can be used to support a right”.
Over the last thirty years, illness has become identity and a victim narrative commonplace. The medical and social sciences are partly responsible for this trend. They have legitimized the categories of illness which provide the foundation for new identities. The Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking, in his article “Making Up People,” argues that our culture creates people who didn’t exist before. According to Hacking, this process occurs first by counting people with a certain trait or characteristic through the application of biostatistics to social sciences, then quantifying those characteristics (as in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), then providing a putative scientific explanation for this new identity.
Hacking gives as an example the fact that autism was a rare developmental disorder in 1973, occurring at a rate of 4.5 per 10,000 children, whereas today the autism spectrum disorders—for example, “Asperger’s”—occur at a rate of 57 per 10,000, spurring the debate about whether the disorder has increased, detection has increased, or our expanded definition has increased diagnosis, or all of the above.
Whichever way, says Hacking, the social and medical sciences have created people with new biologized identities which provide a way “to be a person, to experience oneself, to live in society.”
The adoption of illness identities is also driven by the breakdown of traditional social roles. Illness provides a way to define the self in a rapidly changing and increasingly fragmented world. Furthermore, ill persons today are lionized as heroes because they fight a battle against overwhelming physical forces. In a world in which the struggle for basic survival (food, clothing, shelter) has become largely irrelevant for most Americans, the ill person is among the last of the great warriors.
Illness identities furthermore offer a chance for community. Patient advocacy groups declare national disease-related holidays, hold educational conferences, produce media, publish literature, and sponsor websites, all encouraging individuals to regard themselves as distinct and separate because of their illness. Patient advocacy groups, too, are often funded by the pharmaceutical industry. For example, CHADD, Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a not-for-profit patient advocacy organization that receives 14 percent of its total revenue ($345,000) from pharmaceutical grants, including the makers of methylphenidate and amphetamine salts (stimulants)."
"I’m forever trying to be someone I used to be. Never whole, always on the way there, but never reaching the destination."
You're all of those people..... already.
Thank you for being you!
And thank you so much for your voice...So glad you are making your way--what you have created and done is also you and is so consequential... Something not many of us can say.
Please keep growing and learning to thrive, we're all here rooting for you!
I appreciate your honesty and openness. It has really helped me understand and yeah, it validates my opinions and conclusions about gender identity and the harms that are being done. For every thousand fake "trans euphoria" stories, just one real story like yours puts the lie to what they claim. My heartfelt wish is that people will come to realize that no one is born in the wrong body and the aggressive pursuit of "transness" doesn't fix anything. I know I'm not alone in this and there are many whose lives have been impacted by everything you share. I keep wishing you all the best in your recovery.
You've come so far Ritchie.
You know all the pat answers, advice that folk reel out so I won't.
But I just want to say, 'you're doing OK.'
That's something.
You're alive and your life and story and honesty and courage gives value and encouragement to alot of folk, even if you can't see them. Folk whose lives are still so raw they need that slither of hope, or else there's nothing left to live for.
You're doing alright, son.
God bless you.
You are so honest and so wise. I one day hope to tell my son (currently in the midst of this all but thankfully not medicalised yet) all about you and your story. I did try but he doesn’t believe me right now. One day he may.
Keep up the good work Ritchie! We need more people to be heard on behalf of those parents who can’t speak out just yet. One day I hope to be on the other side of this with my son and I will be as vocal as possible on behalf of those who can’t speak.
Hopefully, Ritchie’s testimony will help other surgically and/or chemically transitioned people open up about the reality. The ideology is being pushed on pre-pubescent kids now, with irreversible puberty-blockers. Those pushing the narrative are powerful. They have brainwashed a whole generation.
‘We want to warn others and give them a chance we didn’t have. Whether they’re listening or not, they need to hear it. They must understand that the risks are far greater than what’s been told. The complications change your life in a way you cannot imagine. Limited to no pleasure, urinary issues, bleeding, even years after the fact. It’s intense, and it’s for life. And for what? A fake version of the real thing? It’s an idea in our head, that was cruelly allowed to be made into reality. None of us can hide from the truth. Having surgery is not going to make your life better, it’s going to make it worse.’
Ritchie, your writing coveys so much insight. You do a great service to humanity, sharing the details of your life and your thoughts. I imagine your collected writings would make a terrific book.
thanks, as always for your thoughts. And as always, I hope for further healing for you. Science and medicine continue to develop, and I hope as more voices like yours are raised that more emphasis will be placed on finding routes to alleviate the medical damage that has been done in the name of transgenderism. I know you can't regain what you've lost, but I hope the medical community will someday have developed solutions that may make it easier for you to exist in the skin you now inhabit.
I don't even know you, but I smiled when I read that you have a "better half." I'm so happy for you.
I've been following your brave and honest writing and it gives me much comfort as I watch my daughter, hypnotized by the idea of becoming a man, convinced that my concerns are transphobic, hellbent on harming her precious body. Almost every time she makes another move toward medicalization (now she's 18 so it's getting scary as hell), I can read another of your pieces of writing that says to me - hey, people get through these mistakes, learn to live with them, and are stronger, more sensitive and more articulate than most other people will ever be. You're truly an inspiration and I hope you know that.
Also, that comment on the "we just want to pee" slogan - funny - sad, but so very funny. :)
Ritchie l have just caught up with your writing. l remember your first post on Twitter l think it was.
l am so pleased for you that you now have an "other half". you have come a very long way. l know nothing can ever put right the wrongs and the mutilation done to you. However, you are making the best you can of a shite deal and l hope you know that there are a lot of people out here that love you and want you to be happy. you are inspiring. xx
Thank you for your raw honesty and continuing to share your journey. I’m so sorry for all the unpleasant consequences you are enduring and pray that everything continues to get better.
Oh Ritchie.
A heartbreaking read.
You don't have to be an ambassador for ppl who may go down this disastrous road. But you have done an awful lot of good. And been very very brave to speak up in the mad and hostile climate.
And you can bloody write! Please don't give the writing up.
With love.
Thank you, Richie. All the pain you wrote about feeling in your 20s, the insecurity and self-hatred, they never completely go away for those of us who felt them in our youth, but it does get easier. I'm a generation older than you and I still fall into the abyss from time to time. I think people were drawn to transition because they believed they could escape psychological pain and live as someone else. But we all know the saying "Wherever you go, there you are." I can't imagine going through life as a person with "baggage" and also having to deal with medical problems from transitioning. My son, who estranged himself several years ago, is on that road and I don't know when or if he'll get off it. Thank you for your honesty and bravery. I'm happy for you that you have someone. You are beautiful inside and out.
Glad to see you becoming more you!
I shared one of your threads on my blog on Substack, for the gay guys that I meet and that have no clue...
Over the years I was more interested in psychiatrist complicity in medicalizing people in our generation, and was often thinking how similar detrans community is to those recovering from drug addiction or alcoholism.
It often is overlapping too.
This is why I am against "getting sober" from "trans drug" >> becoming an addict on social media recognition of being medically harmed by "trans inc".
This is not a good way to recovery. Although the grifters of all sorts would love to have more "detrans" being public, only to be used and abused by them. I hope you've noticed that too.
Today I was reading a book about how we got into this medical model in the western medical system. The book goes through various examples of doctors in the USA drugging, instead of healing people.
Here's one part that resonates to the socio medical culture in which those recovering from transgenderism find themselves:
"Joseph Davis articulates in the journal Social Problems, “Gaining public sympathy and help for those putatively injured requires establishing their moral goodness, as persons innocent of any responsibility or fault for the harm they suffered”. Fassin and Rechtman write in their book The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood, that “trauma is not simply the cause of suffering that is being treated, it is also a resource than can be used to support a right”.
Over the last thirty years, illness has become identity and a victim narrative commonplace. The medical and social sciences are partly responsible for this trend. They have legitimized the categories of illness which provide the foundation for new identities. The Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking, in his article “Making Up People,” argues that our culture creates people who didn’t exist before. According to Hacking, this process occurs first by counting people with a certain trait or characteristic through the application of biostatistics to social sciences, then quantifying those characteristics (as in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), then providing a putative scientific explanation for this new identity.
Hacking gives as an example the fact that autism was a rare developmental disorder in 1973, occurring at a rate of 4.5 per 10,000 children, whereas today the autism spectrum disorders—for example, “Asperger’s”—occur at a rate of 57 per 10,000, spurring the debate about whether the disorder has increased, detection has increased, or our expanded definition has increased diagnosis, or all of the above.
Whichever way, says Hacking, the social and medical sciences have created people with new biologized identities which provide a way “to be a person, to experience oneself, to live in society.”
The adoption of illness identities is also driven by the breakdown of traditional social roles. Illness provides a way to define the self in a rapidly changing and increasingly fragmented world. Furthermore, ill persons today are lionized as heroes because they fight a battle against overwhelming physical forces. In a world in which the struggle for basic survival (food, clothing, shelter) has become largely irrelevant for most Americans, the ill person is among the last of the great warriors.
Illness identities furthermore offer a chance for community. Patient advocacy groups declare national disease-related holidays, hold educational conferences, produce media, publish literature, and sponsor websites, all encouraging individuals to regard themselves as distinct and separate because of their illness. Patient advocacy groups, too, are often funded by the pharmaceutical industry. For example, CHADD, Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a not-for-profit patient advocacy organization that receives 14 percent of its total revenue ($345,000) from pharmaceutical grants, including the makers of methylphenidate and amphetamine salts (stimulants)."
(Incidentally, gay was once a medical model too)
Fabulous piece. Hopeful, heartwarming, and cautionary.
You are a good man Ritchie.
"I’m forever trying to be someone I used to be. Never whole, always on the way there, but never reaching the destination."
You're all of those people..... already.
Thank you for being you!
And thank you so much for your voice...So glad you are making your way--what you have created and done is also you and is so consequential... Something not many of us can say.
Please keep growing and learning to thrive, we're all here rooting for you!
❤️
I appreciate your honesty and openness. It has really helped me understand and yeah, it validates my opinions and conclusions about gender identity and the harms that are being done. For every thousand fake "trans euphoria" stories, just one real story like yours puts the lie to what they claim. My heartfelt wish is that people will come to realize that no one is born in the wrong body and the aggressive pursuit of "transness" doesn't fix anything. I know I'm not alone in this and there are many whose lives have been impacted by everything you share. I keep wishing you all the best in your recovery.
Love you.