A message for those who are questioning

Detrans mans message to those unsure about transition

My writings aren’t for trans people who live in peace and are at ease within themselves. Enjoy your life, live it to the fullest and I wish you the very best. This message is for those who have questions about their transition and recognise hints of themselves in my own writings and them alone.

I know what it's like to live in perpetual fear, where stepping out into the world is like venturing into enemy territory. Constantly alert, on the look out for being clocked by appearance, voice, the way you walk and hold yourself, on the look out for the wrong pronouns or name.

I know how it feels to think that death or remain as trans are the only options instead of “going back”. I know how scary that prospect may seem to you once you’ve changed your body like I have. I know what it's like to be perpetually angry at your own unhappiness and fear, and how easy it is to sit inside and live online. I know how good it feels when people say nothing but pleasant understanding and encouraging words about your appearance or voice.

I know how it feels to have that reassurance smashed in a split second with a stare or the wrong pronoun.

I know why you take so many selfies from angles that obscure the shape of your face. I know why you delete the photos that don’t show you what you want to see. I never questioned it too, I never even looked at the photos that told the truth, I wanted to only see what I wanted too and I loved the praise I received online.

I want you to know that it doesn't have to be this way, no matter what your body looks like now.

I felt I had failed myself so strongly after surgery that I could either live as a trans woman, unhappy or I could end my life. There were no other options presented, until I heard about detransition.

We thought we were picking the easiest difficulty setting when we transitioned, that we could fix our problems with pills and surgical scalpels - but our issues were waiting for us when we woke up from surgery and were starring us back at the mirror when we took our HRT.

“It’s society, e.g transphobia” I hear murmuring in the background, telling me that my detransition was a result of rejection, despite the overwhelming acceptance in friends and family. There are a few outliers who weren’t happy and still aren’t happy even with my detransition, I didn’t do it for them or society, i did it for me.

I did it because I hated how exhausting it was to go outside, how difficult everything was and how negative the community felt. You can’t say how you feel without being told why you’re feeling it. You don’t have the freedom to make a mistake and the rules always seem to change, so I always ended up fucking up and upsetting someone. I didn’t want to, so I realised it was better to just withdraw.

It was in that isolation that I was able to step back and really think about my experiences within the trans community and why I couldn’t even fit in with them, what was it about me that was different? I really started to think about how life would have been if I wasn’t so afraid to come out as gay earlier. How much time I’ve wasted and how much I’ve destroyed my body in the name of homophobia.

It was telling that when I started talking about this in private, I got told I could just be Non-binary or gender fluid, demi-boy, demi-girl, agender and they gave me all these labels but they would not say “maybe you’re just a gay man” ANYTHING but a gay man , why???

Then there’s the health issues. After you’ve been on HRT as long as I have things start to change in a way they never told you. Losing sensation in your arms, legs, cognitive decline, fatigue, crippling depression, anxiety. All the things I had set out to cure seemed to just come back, with vengeance.

After I drastically reduced my oestrogen all these symptoms seemed to clear. I’m not going to lie, damage is almost certainly done but my circulation has returned, I can remember things clearly, I’m alert and I’m not bogged down by the haze and depression. I’m free from fear - I didn’t go back to being male, I never left to begin with, I just stopped being afraid. Detransition was a release from fear, being unafraid of speaking my truth and just living how I want to.

To look at me now you would think I was a young man whose trying to reclaim the emo look, an unmasculine gay male and damn proud of it. I can go anywhere, I can do anything, I’m keeping my home clean, I’m cooking healthy, I’m walking and getting exercise and most of all I feel formidable.

And theres so much more for us to do; better health care for dysphoric people, trans people, lesbian, gay, bisexual, straight, doesn’t matter - we need to do better, and doing better doesn’t mean do things in haste. It means taking a step back and looking at how this is working. What does the data say? What are the long term implications?

For those at the start of their detransiton, know support is out there on /r/detrans, twitter and on discord.

Wishing you all the best no matter what path you take

-TR