From Compassion to Complicity: Reckoning with My Past in Gender Activism

Reconciling My Role in Promoting an Ideology That Targeted Vulnerable Girls

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I can’t help but agree. Sometimes, what we think is a compassionate choice ends up contributing to harm we didn’t foresee.

This past weekend, I attended WDI USA’s national convention, themed “Amplifying the Women’s Liberation Movement.” As Chief of Staff, a state contact, member of the Black Women’s Caucus, and part of the convention coordinating committee, I had the privilege of working alongside and meeting so many incredible women—some I’ve known and collaborated with online for years, others I’ve admired from afar, and even more who were new faces but shared my passion for preserving women’s sex-based rights and fighting against patriarchy in all its forms. The energy was inspiring, and I was honored to lead a panel on behalf of the Black Women’s Caucus called “Building Bridges to Amplify Women’s Liberation,” which brought together women from diverse backgrounds to discuss how we can pull more women into the fight against patriarchy.

The entire weekend was filled with solidarity, connection, and an unshakable sense of purpose—and then I got to the final plenary session, “WDI USA Desisted and Detransitioned Women’s Caucus Panel.” And that’s when the full weight of my past hit me.

If you’ve followed this Substack or have known me for any length of time, you’ll know that I used to be an organizer for a “gender-diverse” group back in my home state, a local off-shoot of a larger group in the state that also had branches in other (southern) states. The group was mainly female, and the women shared a disturbing common thread: nearly all were tomboyish southern girls who’d endured some form of abuse as children that they directly attributed to their female sex. As I distanced myself from the group and was able to reflect on the deeper issues at play, I began to see how many of them had dissociated from their womanhood in response to trauma. But before that, I thought I was helping—I really did.

Back to this weekend’s convention: During that final plenary session at the convention, I watched a video testimony from Céline, a detransitioned woman whose story felt painfully familiar. She spoke about her upbringing in Alabama, her tomboyish nature, and childhood sexual abuse—the same patterns I’d seen in the girls who came to my group. Guilt crept up on me slowly, and then all at once. I suddenly remembered all those sweet girls who came to the group I helped organize, and I wondered where they were now. Were they struggling with health issues? Had they moved on to further medicalization? I was so overwhelmed that I had to leave the room to gather myself.

While I can take some solace in the fact that I set rules—such as no underage kids without a parent present, etc—I can’t shake the guilt. I knew my presence brought comfort to many of the young people who came and that if I wasn’t there and my co-leader (a transvestic male) was only present, that many of the young women wouldn’t come. I thought I was doing something good, something kind. But now I wonder, had I left that group earlier, could I have prevented even one girl from falling deeper into the delusion of identifying as male? Probably not. But what if?

It’s hard to forgive myself because, while I didn’t intentionally cause harm, I can’t fully trust that I won’t ever fall into the same trap again. Back then, I wasn’t pulling anyone into the group or outright encouraging these girls to reject their sex, but I also wasn’t pushing back against it. I upheld a system that preyed on vulnerable young women, girls searching for relief from their pain, and that leaves me with a heavy sense of guilt. I know I’m wiser now—decisions I made in my 20s reflect a different version of me than who I am today in my 30s—but it’s still hard to let go when I think about the role I played.

The most heartbreaking part? These stories are all the same. From South Carolina, to Georgia, and apparently to Alabama…abused girls, seeking refuge in the fantasy that becoming male would solve their problems. And while I know, logically, that it’s not my fault, emotionally, I feel like I played a part in each of their stories. I was there, standing on that road paved with good intentions, and didn’t divert them out of harm’s way.

If there’s one takeaway from this, it’s that we must be more critical of what we think is “helping.” It’s not enough to be well-meaning. We have to be vigilant in questioning the systems we support, especially when those systems target the most vulnerable among us. For every southern girl who’s fallen under the spell of gender ideology, I feel a deep, personal responsibility. It’s a burden I carry, fueling my commitment to protect future generations of girls from the same fate.