My whole journey started when I was a kid. I was a feminine boy who liked things that were considered "for girls," like wearing pink or princess pajamas. I remember one of my clearest memories from early childhood was telling my parents I wished I was a girl. But looking back, I only said that because they were telling me I couldn't do certain things or wear what I wanted because I wasn't a girl. That shame and repression for being gender non-conforming built up over years.

When I was about ten years old, I got internet access. I was a boy deeply ashamed of my femininity and my budding attraction to other men. Online, I found a group of people who told me my feelings meant I was really a girl. They had pseudoscience to back it up and said anyone who disagreed was a bigot. Suddenly, the qualities I was shamed for were celebrated. It felt like I finally found a place where I was valid. By the time I was eighteen, it felt like a given that I should go on hormones. I was indoctrinated.

I never got proper therapy. I knew they'd just tell me what I wanted to hear, and I was right. At my first doctor's appointment, I had hormones ready to pick up by the end of the day. The doctor didn't go over all the side effects properly and didn't even want to do a physical exam until I reminded her. I didn't get any help to understand where my feelings were coming from; they just handed me the drugs.

I took estrogen and blockers for years. A huge sign that something was wrong was the complete loss of my sexuality. I felt a deep sense of disgust whenever I tried to view myself in a sexual way. I thought I'd grow into it through transition, but I never did. I began to miss my male sexuality so much it felt like a piece of me was missing. My sex drive was killed by the hormones; any sexual activity was a nearly pleasureless disappointment, something I did out of desperation.

I tried to detransition once but wasn't ready to embrace being a man, so I identified as nonbinary instead. A former trans friend told me I was "taking on a transphobic identity" for physically detransitioning and said I should change my body to be more androgynous. That pressure from my friends, who couldn't accept me being non-conforming without it being medicalized, felt cult-like. I ended up back on hormones for another five months before stopping for good.

I quit cold turkey. I wasn't in the right headspace to have a gender doctor try to convince me to stay on them. The day I had my name legally changed and the day I started HRT were both supposed to be huge, life-changing moments. Instead, I had a deep gut feeling I was making a mistake, but I chalked it up to "internalized transphobia."

Now, I see that my desire to transition was rooted in internalized homophobia. I’m a gay man. The idea of living as a feminine gay man felt impossible because of societal backlash and homophobia. Transitioning felt like a way to be "normal." I envy the ability to express femininity without that backlash, but I know now that I don't have to be a woman to do that.

I have serious regrets. I’m a man now stuck with breasts for life because I got top surgery. They told me it was completely reversible, but it's not. I permanently fucked up my body. I lost my entire youth from my teen years until I was 22. This ideology shaped my entire worldview, made me paranoid, and scared to go out in public. It feels like I’m learning to be human for the first time now.

I think gender is just another word for sex. A man is an adult male; a woman is an adult female. What people call "gender identity" is just stereotypes—feeling feminine and wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman. The people who say "I like wearing pink and painting my nails but I’m still a man" are the ones truly breaking down norms.

The trans community’s rhetoric is incredibly harmful. They told me that if I spent five minutes thinking about gender, I wasn't cis and should go on HRT immediately. But after a decade of identifying as trans, they say I was never "truly trans" and my experience means nothing. They use the threat of suicide to pressure vulnerable people into medicalization, which is disgusting and selfish. They also have a homophobia problem, calling my attraction to men a "genital preference" and pressuring gay men and lesbians to date the opposite sex.

I benefited from finally stepping away from that ideology and the friends who supported it. I’m now finding a healthy medium, learning to be myself instead of performing stereotypes. It’s a long road, but I’m finally on the right path.