I probably fit the criteria for “gender dysphoria” on and off as a kid, and certainly as a teenager (because of internalized homophobia). After the bullying I’d received in high school and my total lack of lesbian role models, being a lesbian didn’t even seem like a possibility.

“Lesbians are being medicalized as a form of conversion therapy... The ‘trans’ movement is a lesbian eugenics movement.”

— An Anonymous Lesbian

One of the closest friendships I ever had was a girl I met at summer camp before senior year of high school. I came out as a lesbian while we were at camp. My friend, Ashley [pseudonym], had been raised in a fundamentalist Christian household. She was freaked out about my sexual orientation for a week, then she got curious, then she got comfortable with me. We embarked on one of those intense two-girl friendships that are more than friendships. We wrote each other poetry, burned each other CDs, had a million inside jokes... Six months later, she came out to me. She was a lesbian, too. She was the first other lesbian I knew.

The summer before college, I encouraged Ashley to come out to her parents. When she did, they rejected her. They told her she was a pervert, her mother cried, and they came close to kicking her out of the house. She immediately started talking about becoming a “trans man.”

When we went away to college, I went back in the closet. In college, the more I tried to force myself into femininity and heterosexual relationships, the worse it got. When I finally started to admit, after years of trying to force myself to like men, that I’d been right in high school and I really was exclusively attracted to women. I leapt straight from “I have to become a straight woman” to “I have to become a straight man.”

When I allowed myself to imagine that I could actually “become a man,” my feelings about my body exploded. I was 22, and for a few months I was seriously researching testosterone and double mastectomy, and trying to plan how I could “transition” without calling too much attention to myself.

Buying into the idea that “transition” was a real possibility had made my negative feelings about my body spiral out of control. Thankfully, I hit “peak trans” before I got around to destroying my body like my friends had…

Ashley went through with her “trans man” idea, and I nearly did the same thing... She didn’t just change her name and her haircut; she changed her whole personality to seem more “manly,” to make herself “pass” better. I couldn’t relate to her anymore. I felt like she’d died. And this kept happening. At my small college, I only met three other lesbians, and within a year all of them were calling themselves men too.

I tried to talk to two therapists about this, once I hit “peak trans,” hoping they’d help me figure out how to feel comfortable in my body and my sexual orientation. The first therapist was confused by the idea that I had actually come to therapy to cure my psychological issues, not just to get testosterone. That conversation ended with her asking me if I knew of any dating apps where homophobic straight men pretending to be lesbians (trans women) could meet lesbians (to prey on).

The second time was a therapy group. The other women in the group were fantastic, and we talked about body issues a lot in that group. However, every time I brought up being a lesbian, the therapist who facilitated got uncomfortable. When I explicitly referred to my body image issues as “dysphoria,” she jumped on me and started asking me whether I was sure I should be in a women’s group, and whether I would leave the group if a “trans woman” joined. Soon after, she changed the group’s meeting time without telling me. I can only assume it was related.

I’m mentally okay now, but that’s all down to my own hard work and the few other sane lesbians and bi women with whom I’ve managed to cobble together a private community. We have to help ourselves and each other, with no resources and no outside assistance.

The “trans” movement is trying to make it impossible for the few of us lesbians who are left to find each other: by taking over our spaces, infesting our dating apps, outlawing women-only spaces and LGB-only spaces, appropriating our funding, our community centers, re-educating the public against us, doxxing and threatening us if we try to use social media or flyers to connect with each other...

Lesbians are being medicalized as a form of conversion therapy. The psychological establishment is actively committing genocide against us by subjecting us to medical experiments that decrease our lifespans and increase our suicide risk. The “trans” movement is a lesbian eugenics movement. We have every right to hate the people pushing this ideology.

- An Anonymous Lesbian

Letters From the Front is a series from WoLF curating stories from women about how “gender identity” ideology has impacted them.

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