My whole journey with gender was confusing and, looking back, I think it was rooted in a lot of pain and not liking myself. I was born female, but I never felt like I fit in with other girls, especially when puberty started. I hated the changes in my body, particularly developing breasts. It felt like my body was betraying me and turning into something I didn't recognize or want to be. I think a lot of this was tied to a deep discomfort with being sexualized and a low self-esteem that made it hard to see my body in a positive way.

I spent a lot of time online during a very vulnerable period in my life. I was depressed and anxious, and I found communities where people talked about these feelings and called it gender dysphoria. It felt like an answer. I started identifying as non-binary because it felt like a way to escape being a woman. I thought if I wasn't a woman, then all the things I hated about myself and the expectations that came with being female would just disappear. It was a form of escapism for me.

I was also influenced by the friends I had at the time. Everyone was exploring their identity, and it felt like the thing to do. I started binding my chest and thought seriously about taking testosterone and getting top surgery. I was convinced that changing my body was the only way to fix the deep unhappiness I felt.

But something didn't feel right. I started to see things in the online communities that disturbed me, especially concerning autogynephilia (AGP). I saw how it was often tied to a fetish and how some men with this and other personality disorders seemed to be driving a lot of the conversation, often in a way that felt invasive and misogynistic. I remember reading a comment from a man who said that to him, a "woman" was simply someone who "likes to get fucked/dominated." That kind of blatant misogyny was a huge wake-up call for me. It made me step back and question the entire ideology I had bought into. Was this what I was aligning myself with?

I realized that my desire to transition wasn't coming from a true, internal sense of being male, but from a place of hating being female. I had internalized a lot of negative ideas about what it means to be a woman. I also came to appreciate gender non-conformity in a new way. I love seeing androgynous men and masculine women; I think they're beautiful and brave for being themselves. But I realized that doesn't mean they need to change their sex. A man can be feminine and still be a man. A woman can be masculine and still be a woman.

I never went through with medical transition. I'm incredibly grateful that I didn't take hormones or get surgery. My detransition was a social and mental process of untangling these thoughts. The most important thing for me was learning self-acceptance. It's been a long road, but I'm finally learning to love myself as a woman, even the parts I used to loathe. There's no getting rid of those parts; I can only accept them and love them because they are me. That has been the most powerful change of all.

I do have regrets about the time I spent lost in that ideology and the mental energy I wasted trying to be something I'm not. But I don't regret ultimately finding my way out of it. It taught me a lot about myself and the importance of critical thinking.

Here is a timeline of my journey: