The Curious Case of KC Miller, or How We’re Losing Detransitioners
Let’s start with the disclaimer — I’m not here to gatekeep identities or transition. KC Miller is a dudely man guy who is male. We’re not here to say he’s not a real trans because of how he’s acting. We’re also not going the other way — as someone who has detransitioned, detransition is valid if that decision is taken with full knowledge of the consequences. Bodily autonomy is sacrosanct as far as I’m concerned. However I will be making the distinction between people who detransition, and what gender critical feminists (GCs) call “detrans”, a dogwhistle that indicates they’re working to undermine trans affirmative efforts.
What we’re here to talk about is the rise of a “detrans” account, what it says about GC belief, and more importantly what it says about us.
Who?
KC Miller is a self-described 21 year old trans man who started transition at 17. He is most notable for appearing in “detrans” Twitter with the picture above and the post captioned about his trans journey . This is normally enough for most trans people online to see enormous red flags.
So KC Miller appears (and I mean this literally, his account was created less than a week before this all happened), tweets textbook “detrans” bait, rockets straight into the top 1% of Twitter account by follower, and GC Twitter spreads this far and wide.
When someone who has transitioned appears from nearly nowhere, and is immediately spread around by the biggest names on GC Twitter, it sets off a lot of alarm bells. It’s sadly not uncommon for someone who has transitioned and regrets it to either monetise that via Rowling et al, to try and get affirmative care removed from young people, or to convince young trans people that transition is not for them. There’s nothing quite like sharing the misery.
“Wait a second, Rith!” I hear you type, “isn’t your whole deal, like, affirming people’s identities and listening and believing people? If this guy really has valid concerns over transition because he had a bad journey, shouldn’t we listen to him and adjust accordingly?”
Why yes, random stranger who managed to get access to my keyboard somehow, you’re absolutely right! That is my ‘whole deal’. However I’m also not a naive idiot who is unaware that some people do things for dishonest reasons. So why am I so sure this guy isn’t on the up and up?
Three reasons.
1) KC Miller’s tweet was spread as a “detrans” story but he has no intent to detransition
Despite the obvious framing of his initial tweet (I’m a girl and the bad hormones did me wrong), KC is not detransitioning at all. He subsequently admits this in a thread “clarifying his stance” as above.
It is highly suspect that GC twitter users who push myths about detransition would have known to spread this person’s tweets when the person involved is not a detransitioner. As we’ll see shortly too, KC follows various “detrans” orgs run by transphobes and GCs that exist to cast doubt on the well-established trans pathways. He might not be detransitioning but he’s very happy to offer support to organisations who force detransition on people socially or medically.
2) KC Miller spreads lies about childhood and adult transition
Lets start by KC admitting fully in this tweet that he has a problem with adults making their own medical decisions. He notes that people are being informed of what will happen on certain medications, then consenting to taking those medications, and that’s a real problem.
The next part is difficult because KC is not clear where he lives and therefore access to medication is different with different challenges.
In the US it’s difficult to get these medications because primary care physicians often do not believe trans people or just don’t know how to treat them. Trans people often have to either self-medicate or go to places like Planned Parenthood, who will absolutely talk through medications with someone before administering them. This is before we even start to talk about the travesty that is the US insurance system, which nobody has time for.
Here in the UK, with wait times of up to 5 years, and some gender clinics showing 12 months after that to get access to hormones, there is no “fast access to powerful drugs” at all, which has not prevented these tweets from being shared by UK GCs as if they’re relevant to them.
Let us also add that there are also no known irreversible effects of puberty blockers, and that 99.5% of UK transitioners do not regret their journey. Some will, and they should be supported. They shouldn’t go on Twitter and lie about what happened to them to get trans care taken away from others.
Bonus points for getting “informed consent” in there to dog-whistle to people who have a massive problem with things like Gillick competence or the idea kids may need to hide their medical history due to abusive parenting.
3) KC Miller lies about his own beliefs and is either becoming, or is, a fascist
KC is clearly trying to distance himself from the right here because he knows it’s toxic for a trans person to acknowledge that he’s horny for Trumpian politics. But let’s check who he’s following on his week old twitter account:
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh, fucking hell.
FUCKING HELL.
THIS JUST KEEPS GOING.
IT’S NOT FINISHED.
IT’S FINISHED.
KC Miller is not just right-wing, in my opinion he’s either radicalised or in the process of being radicalised into the far-right. His Twitter follows are a who’s who of transphobes, bigots, Trump-a-likes, and fascists — all of whom have the common goal of removing rights and protections from trans people. He has retweeted people like Christopher Rufo, the man who started the anti-“critical race theory” movement. In just the last hour as I’m writing this he’s liked tweets calling for pro-trans posters to be forcibly removed from classrooms and the absolute lie that kids are being “transed” into suicide.
This is so many red flags that the FIA have actually managed to stop the race for once.
So what actually happened?
If I’m going to be as charitable as possible, is that an edgy man with a passing knowledge of how social media works managed to make himself the main character of Twitter, and is using that opportunity to spread as much misinformation about transition as possible. He is in bed with the right wing, he knows it, and knows most people won’t look past his attempts at conciliatory tweets to find that out, so he’s free to spread lies in the service of a right-wing push to deny rights and protections to LGBTQ+ folk.
I’ve seen the argument that, you know, he’s just a regular guy, it’s not worth paying attention to him, making him popular, or otherwise giving him free advertising. In my opinion, that ship has already sailed. He’s picked up 10 times as many followers in a week than I’ve managed in years, and he’s on the lips of every major anti-trans account on Twitter. We either provide the evidence that he’s lying to make the trans community look bad, or we let him run rampant. I’m picking the former, but there’s a worse problem at hand.
We might not be losing, but some people might already be lost
My main reason for writing this is to highlight that trans-affirmative people have absolutely lost control over the narrative of detransition, and I am not convinced I know how we can fix it. Each person that comes in is either already radicalised or prime terrority for radicalisation from a Twitter that is lousy with people ready to love-bomb the latest poor soul who regrets a life decision they’ve made, or a Reddit full of hostility where the only currency of worth is blame. While the number of people this happens to is small, it’s still a non-zero number of people that our community is worse off without.
We need to start picking up the slack. If we see someone detransitioning and struggling, lend an ear. Reach out. Don’t push them into the arms of these ghoulish people who only care about them as far as they can push their stories to ruin other people’s lives.
Finally, if you’re detransitioning and you’re reading this, my Twitter DMs are open. I know what you’re feeling. You are who you feel you are, and you’re not lesser because you changed your mind. You deserve love, and you deserve better than this.
