‘I took the real “Red Pill” at 45 – then the manosphere corrupted it’

Writing for PinkNews, Chloe Kelly, who came out as trans when she was 45, explores the origin of the term the “red pill” and how it has been co-opted by the toxic manosphere…

For most of my life I tried to be a successful man. To be desired by women and respected by men. I was never secure in my masculinity and, because of that, I can recognise something familiar in the current crop of young men chasing “alpha” status and talking about the red pill. 

The thing is, at 45, I took the real red pill and I’ve never been happier. 

Like the writers and directors of The Matrix, where the red pill terminology originates, I am a trans woman. 

One of the things about being transgender is that you don’t know it. You have to work it out for yourself. No one tells you and for many of us it isn’t obvious. I was born with male parts, everyone told me I was a boy, I was shown how to behave like one, rewarded for it, corrected when I stepped outside it. That framework was reinforced my whole life.

And yet, underneath it, something didn’t fit. 

I was deeply unhappy for years without understanding why. Like in The Matrix, I was going through the motions, unaware of what was actually wrong. It wasn’t until I was 45 that everything clicked. In trans terms, we call it your egg cracking. That moment when you realise who you are. 

Or, as Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski intended, your red pill moment. 

Once that happens, you can’t unknow it. For many of us, that’s terrifying. There is a part of you that would quite happily untake the pill and go back to ignorance, even if that ignorance came with a quiet, constant sadness. But that option is gone. 

So you move forward. Like Neo, you begin the process of becoming your true self. Aligning mind, body and spirit. Finding your own Trinity, leather jumpsuit optional. 

Unfortunately, you also end up in a series of fights with Agent Smith in the form of society. And he is relentlessly strong. 

As a trans person, I assumed that those of us who had lived something similar recognised the identity metaphor in the film, while others took it at face value. So I was genuinely shocked when I learnt the “red pill” had been adopted by the manosphere when I watched Louis Theroux’s recent documentary. 

In the manosphere, the red pill is framed as men “seeing the truth”. Waking up. Understanding how the world really works and how it is conspiring against them. 

The irony is so complete it almost feels like a bad joke. A concept created by trans women, about recognising your true identity, has been embraced, corrupted and repurposed into something entirely different. Something that insists on fixed roles, clear hierarchies and a very narrow definition of what it means to be a man. 

I do have some sympathy. I remember how important respect felt when I was trying to live as a man. I also know from my life now, and this is uncomfortable to admit, that confidence and dominance can be attractive. It’s not surprising that some men chase that. 

I never managed to give off “alpha” energy, try as I might. Not because I didn’t want to, but because it wasn’t who I was. I still strove for it, because that’s what I had been taught success looked like. 

Those young men are chasing success because being at the top feels better than being at the bottom. I understand that. 

But the problem isn’t “The Matrix”. It’s “The Metrics”. 

“The Metrics System” is fiercely guarded by an even more powerful Agent Smith. The real virus is the idea that success is dominance. That worth is measured in power, money and control. That being “top of the pile” is the goal. And the more young men who buy into this, the more powerful “The Metrics System” becomes. 

Until those metrics change, the system will keep producing the same behaviours. 

And there isn’t a pill we can take to fix that. 

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