My journey with transition and detransition is deeply personal and complicated. Looking back, I see now that my decision to transition was a response to a lot of pain I didn't fully understand at the time. I was struggling with severe depression and anxiety, and I had very low self-esteem. I felt completely disconnected from my body, especially during puberty when I started developing breasts. I hated them; they felt foreign and wrong on me, and I became fixated on that feeling.

I spent a huge amount of time online, and that's where I first learned about transitioning. I saw people talking about their body discomfort and how transition solved everything for them. It felt like an escape, a way to become a completely different person and leave all my pain behind. I started identifying as non-binary first, because it felt less intimidating, but I quickly moved towards identifying as a transgender man. I believe now that a lot of this was a form of escapism from my underlying mental health issues.

I was officially diagnosed with autism and OCD much later, but looking back, the signs were always there. My obsessive thinking latched onto gender as the source of my problems. I convinced myself that if I just changed my body, I would finally be happy. I got a therapist who immediately affirmed my identity without ever exploring the deep-rooted reasons for my feelings. I started testosterone when I was 19.

The hormones did change my body, and for a short while, I felt a rush of relief. But the underlying depression and anxiety never went away. They just morphed. I became even more isolated. I eventually got top surgery. I don't regret the surgery itself because I still have a strong dislike for having breasts, but I deeply regret the reasons why I did it and the fact that I was allowed to do it so quickly without deeper psychological evaluation.

My detransition began when I finally found a therapist who was willing to dig deeper. This was a non-affirming therapy in the sense that she didn't just affirm my transgender identity; she asked why I felt that way. We worked through my trauma, my autism, my OCD, and my internalized issues. I realized that my desire to transition was tangled up with so many other things. I had internalized homophobia and struggled to accept myself as a female who was attracted to women. I also used transition as a way to try and escape from my own body dysmorphia and an eating disorder I had as a teenager.

I stopped testosterone after being on it for about three years. I am now infertile, which is a permanent consequence I have to live with. I don't identify as a man anymore. I'm just me, a woman who has been through a lot. I have serious regrets about medically transitioning because I believe I was not in a sound state of mind when I made those decisions, and the system failed to protect me by not asking harder questions. However, I don't regret the self-knowledge I've gained through this incredibly difficult process. I understand my own mind and my trauma so much better now.