My journey with transition was complicated and rooted in a lot of pain I didn't understand at the time. Looking back, I can see how my past trauma shaped my decisions. I had a lot of discomfort with myself and my life, and I think I saw transition as a way to escape from all of that and become a completely new person.

I was born male, but from a young age, I never felt like I fit in with other boys. I had a girly way about me, and that caused problems. I remember one guy in college being openly homophobic to me just because my online screen name seemed feminine; he was shocked and negative when he met me and saw I was male. That kind of rejection hurt and made me feel like there was something fundamentally wrong with who I was.

I ended up pursuing medical transition. I took hormones and eventually had bottom surgery (SRS). In some ways, surgery did open up my sex life. Before, I never used my genitals during sex; I found the whole idea distressing. After surgery, I experienced more sexual variety and was even able to achieve an orgasm with a partner for the first time, which was a big deal for me. So in that narrow sense, it felt like a benefit.

But my reasons for transitioning were not healthy. I’ve come to realize that a huge part of my desire to transition was a deep-seated hatred for my male body and a belief that becoming a woman would solve all my problems. It was a form of escapism. I also see now that some of my motivations were tied to autogynephilia (AGP); I was turned on by the idea of myself as a woman. This was mixed up with a lot of internalized shame about my femininity as a male.

I spent years in online MTF communities, but I was eventually driven out of them. I was booted off a forum I'd been on for eight years just for trying to talk about misogyny happening within the group itself. It showed me how those spaces can often silence anyone who questions anything, just to protect egos. It made me skeptical of the whole culture.

Now, I have a lot of regrets about transitioning. I don't think I ever had a true, innate female gender identity. I think I was a traumatized, effeminate man who was trying to fix his deep unhappiness by changing his body. I was influenced by online spaces that encouraged this as the only solution. If I could go back, I would tell my younger self to deal with the trauma and self-hatred first, instead of trying to run from it through transition. I benefited greatly from therapy that was not affirming—therapy that finally helped me untangle my trauma from my feelings about my body and gender.

My thoughts on gender now are that it's a social concept that can sometimes cause more harm than good when it's used to medicalize deep personal pain. For me, it wasn't the answer. I don't believe I was born in the wrong body; I was born into a life with a lot of pain, and I made a permanent choice trying to solve it.