My whole journey with transition started when I was a teenager. I was really uncomfortable with myself and my body, and I think a lot of that was just general teenage insecurity and not knowing how to fit in. I didn't feel like a "normal" girl, and I started to believe that meant I wasn't a girl at all. I found a lot of community and identity online that encouraged me to interpret all my discomfort as being trans.

I decided to medically transition. I was 17 when I started taking testosterone. I thought it would solve all my problems and finally make me feel at home in my body. For a little while, I did feel a kind of excitement and relief, but that feeling was very short-lived. It only took about six months for me to realize it was a massive mistake. The testosterone made me feel mentally unstable and caused physical changes that I quickly began to hate. I started to feel even more disconnected from myself than I did before.

I stopped the hormones and began to detransition. That was the best decision I could have made. My life has gotten drastically better since detransitioning. I am no longer so ashamed of myself that I cannot leave my room. These days, I go out and interact with people and sometimes even have fun. I can actually focus on things other than how I look and sound and what gender people are perceiving me as. I can just be a PERSON instead of a gender. Of course, I still deal with many of the same issues I did while I was trans, like insecurity, but they don’t consume my life anymore. Detransitioning was genuinely like being reborn.

Looking back, I think my desire to transition was heavily influenced by being online and by a deep-seated belief that there was a "right" way to be a woman. Since I didn't fit that mold, I thought I had to change my entire self. I now know there is nothing wrong with being a little different. There’s no one right way to be a woman. You are a woman regardless of anything else. I also think that at 17, I was far too young to truly understand the gravity of such a permanent decision. I would tell anyone who is unsure to think a lot less about gender and focus on the things that really matter in life.

I do have regrets about my medical transition. While I don't regret the social exploration because it led me to where I am now, I deeply regret taking testosterone. Those six months caused me mental and physical damage I’ll be struggling with for a long time, like my voice and body hair. Reversing these things is a very slow process and it's hard to be patient when my insecurities about how I look and sound sometimes prevent me from really living life. I'm afraid of messing with my hormones any more, so I won't take estrogen, which means I just have to learn to live with and accept the permanent changes.

My thoughts on gender now are that it doesn't have to be everything. You can call yourself a “girl” or a “masc woman” and it doesn’t have to mean anything profound. You don’t have to change your presentation to fit a label. I think it's okay to play around with your gender and pronouns to your heart’s content, just don’t let it consume your life like it did mine.