My whole journey with this started from a place of really hating being female. I felt like I was being punished every single day for my sex. I looked at men and saw all the things they had that I didn't, and all the things they were free from. They’ll never have to deal with a period, or PMS, or the pain of childbirth. They’re stronger, they can just pee standing up, and it seemed like the world was just easier for them. I felt like my own body was a trap.

A lot of this was tied up with the discomfort of puberty. When I was younger, before I was a teenager, I got along fine with boys. We were on the same level. But once puberty hit, everything changed. I started developing breasts, which I hated, and I felt like I didn't fit in anywhere. The boys started excluding me because I was female, and I found it impossible to connect with other girls because of my autism. I just didn't understand all the unspoken social rules. I felt completely alone and out of place.

I think this led to a lot of depression and low self-esteem. I started believing that if I could just become male, all these problems would go away. The female endocrine system felt like a curse, always in flux and making me feel unstable. I saw testosterone as a potential solution, an antidepressant that could make me feel more steady. I was also influenced by what I saw online, where transition was presented as the answer to these deep feelings of discomfort.

I did medically transition. I took testosterone and I got top surgery. For a while, it felt like it was helping. But the effects of testosterone weren't what I expected for me. I know for some guys it really mellows them out, but for me, it made my moods more extreme. I started to realize that a female body on testosterone is a very different thing, and in many ways, it's harder on us than the reverse. The changes are so permanent. It’s a lot harder to go back and "re-assimilate" after you've had surgeries and your voice has dropped.

Looking back, I think a lot of my desire to transition came from a place of internalized misogyny and a deep-seated belief that being a woman was inferior. I was trying to escape the realities of my female body. I regret not understanding this at the time. I regret the permanent changes I made, especially because I now worry about things like infertility. I see other people talking about having children and I feel a sense of loss, knowing that my choices have made that path much more complicated, if not impossible, for me.

My thoughts on gender now are complicated. I don't think transitioning solved my problems; it just gave me new ones. The issues I had with social connection, my autism, and low self-esteem were still there, just dressed up differently. I've come to believe that I needed to find a way to make peace with being female, not run away from it. I don't regret transitioning in the sense that it brought me to where I am now, but I deeply regret the permanent physical changes and the time I lost believing that changing my body was the only solution.