My de-transition journey
I’m writing this since multiple people have reached out to ask about what motivated me to de-transition.
Just to give some background, I realized I'm trans around 15, started living "stealth" as a man when I was 18 (I moved abroad for my studies). I've been androgynous/masculine my whole life and apparently straight guys in engineering are really bad at clocking women, so I just never revealed that I'm female to anyone. Went to a gender clinic when I was 20 and after about 2 years of being on waiting lists and going through psychiatric evaluation I started hormones, which I took for 3 months and then stopped. I have to note that either my dose was very high or I'm very sensitive to testosterone, because my body and voice changed VERY fast. I continued to live "stealth" as a man until I turned 23. At 23 I moved again for graduate studies and started a "new life", now I tell everyone I'm female. I still look very masculine (I have stubble on my face, short hair on my head, hairy everywhere else, deep voice etc).
It was a very long process. I'd say I started considering detransition when I was 21/22. I never had any doubts about whether I'm actually trans' because I ticked all the boxes. My dysphoria felt crippling and just the idea of being called a woman made me cringe. So in my head, it was never about "am I really trans?", it was more that I developed a skepticism towards the whole idea and movement. So here's a dump of a lot of stuff that contributed to my decision, in no particular order.
The idea of being medicalized for life and fully dependent on the medical system really bothered me. I had to convince a bunch of strangers that I'm fit for medical transition, and then they were the ones deciding everything, at every step of the way. They told me that after a year or two of hormones, I need to get a hysterectomy "just to be safe". And once I get a hysterectomy, I need to stay on synthetic hormones for the rest of my life because my body no longer produces any by itself. They didn't elaborate on the long-term risks of taking hormones. In fact there's very little research available on this.
My medical team kind of treated hormones as this trivial thing. I just had to read and sign a 2-page document about the changes that I'll go through and that was that. When I got my first shot, the whole thing was over in about 10min, the nurse just treated it like a normal everyday procedure even though I knew that that shot could change my life forever. After one or two shots my voice had already dropped to a fully male range. And honestly it felt amazing because I finally felt comfortable talking but also terrifying. I remember calling my mom (who had no idea I'm transitioning) and she didn't even recognize me, said "wrong number" and hung up - that felt terrifying. I like my voice now, but it also makes it harder as a de-transitioned woman to be seen as female.
The trans community and people around me (I lived "stealth" as male, so no one knew I'm trans, they just thought I'm a regular guy) just reinforced this idea that I look like a pre-teen boy even though I'm in my 20s, and that I need to "catch up" and look my age by medically transitioning. My friends would keep commenting on how young I look. It felt horrible because it just made me obsessed with getting hormones as soon as possible. A lot of the transition process is all about scrutinizing your body, tracking changes etc and basically distancing/alienating yourself from you body when really, the best thing that has helped my dysphoria is just ignoring my body and treating it as a tool that helps me navigate the world.
I kept comparing myself to a "cis" man physically, and that is so SO unhealthy. That feeling of incompleteness/inadequacy is a never-ending vicious cycle. Because no matter how many procedures I go through, I will never reach a point where I look and feel "cis". Everytime I caught a glimpse of myself I would see the femaleness in me and cringe.
Binding is just horrible and deprived me of a lot of cool things (swimming, camping, just comfortably staying over at someone's etc). I used to break down pretty often when thinking about the fact that either I keep binding my chest for life, or I get chest surgery - which felt unattainable. I didn't even consider the possibility of just not binding.
I noticed a pattern both in real life (in my gender clinic & support groups) and online, where FTM trans people were predominantly young, and MTF people were usually middle-aged. And their reasons for transitioning are very different. I remember going to a trans' support group and thinking that the idea that I'm less of a woman than these MTF trans women who have lived most of their life as married men is a little ridiculous. Won't really elaborate on this because it's pretty controversial.
I've noticed a significant change in trans discourse online. When I first read up on transition (almost 10 years ago) and realized I'm trans, trans people on tumblr would say things along the lines of "I feel like a man in the body of a woman, I want my body to match my mind" (which resonated with me and made some level of sense). People would call themselves FTM and MTF, acknowledging that their sex doesn't match their "gender" (inner idea of themselves). But now the discourse has changed to "I identify as a man therefore I am a man" which honestly doesn't make sense to me. No matter how much I tell myself that I'm just like any regular guy, everyone (including myself) who sees me naked knows that that is not the case. My body is not and will never be male. And that's precisely what made me want to transition in the first place! if it was already male then I wouldn't be dysphoric... So I now feel distanced from the trans community because they just keep repeating circular mantras like "I'm a man because I feel like one" which just don't make sense in my opinion.
Calling myself a straight man instead of a lesbian woman meant erasing a huge part of my childhood and teen experiences. I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I have much more in common with "cis" women than men (realising this was a slow process honestly, but reading about women's experiences helped a lot).
I found videos online of de-transitioners. And I was in awe and admiration that even though they look very masculine due to HRT, they still have the confidence and bravery to call themselves women. I listened to them a lot, and I wish people would listen to them more. I sought out more examples of women who are unashamedly themselves and don't comform to gender stereotypes, because it's much more healthy for me to compare myself and relate to GNC women than males. I created this blog full of amazing GNC women: https://gnc-inspo.tumblr.com/
So much of trans discourse is actually about conforming to gender roles. The more I think about it, the more I realize how regressive the trans movement actually is. When I would talk to my medical team and tell them "I was a tomboy growing up, I always wore boy clothes" they would nod their head and scribble notes. As if that makes me less of a woman... As if playing football and cutting my hair means I have a male brain...
My medical team never tried to examine the root causes of my dysphoria, they just wanted to hear how crippling it is. I had to do that soul-searching on my own. Growing up female, especially a lesbian, is in and of itself quite traumatizing for many, many women. It’s easy to explain away the dysphoria by saying it’s because deep inside, I’m a man. It’s much harder (but healthier) to examine it up close: why am I uncomfortable with my female voice? why do I want a flat chest? why do I think I’m incomplete without a penis?
I realized I've been brainwashed to think that living socially as a man and medically transitioning are the only possible "cure" for dysphoria. But now I've reached a point where my dysphoria has drastically reduced. And I've achieved that by: surrounding myself with women (both online and offline), looking and dressing however the hell I want and still telling people I'm female, going back to my roots and re-identifying as a lesbian, focusing on treating and using my body in healthy ways, and realizing that I have a place in the world as a GNC woman and as a lesbian.
I don't regret medically transitioning. I like my body as it is. But I regret living in an unhealthy, self-destructive delusion for years. Identifying out of womanhood prevented me from forming deep meaningful connections with women, which are so crucial for healing.
