My whole journey with transition started because I felt really uncomfortable with myself and my body, especially during puberty. I hated developing breasts and just felt wrong in my own skin. I spent a lot of time online and was influenced by what I saw in trans communities, where the answer to every uncomfortable feeling seemed to be transition. I talked to many trans people and even medical professionals, and not one of them ever looked at my experiences and suggested I might not be trans. It was always just affirmation. Now that I've detransitioned, some of those same people act like it was all my own fault and that nobody else had any influence, which feels like straight-up gaslighting.

I started by identifying as non-binary, but that quickly shifted to identifying as a trans man. I took testosterone for a while. I wasn't getting much out of it, and the one thing I did get—breast tissue growth—I really didn't like. It just made me feel more uncomfortable. I never got any surgeries, but I was heading in that direction.

A big part of my confusion was around my sexuality. For a long time, I thought I was asexual because I couldn't acknowledge my attraction to men. It felt wrong or like something I couldn't accept. Then I thought I might be bi, but it was all wrapped up in my trans identity. I now realize I was misinterpreting my past. Things like being gender non-conforming as a kid, which I took as proof I was trans, were actually pretty typical experiences for a young gay person. I was just a gay guy who didn't fit the stereotype, and I internalized a lot of homophobia without even realizing it.

After I stopped taking hormones and detransitioned, it took a few months to really process everything. The biggest thing that helped me was realizing that I can do whatever I want with my presentation—how I dress, my hair—without it having to define my entire identity. I don't have to be a "man" or a "woman." I can just be me. These last few months, I've been working on accepting myself as I am, a gay man, and it feels a lot more real. I wish I had come to this realization sooner.

I do have some regrets about transitioning. I regret not questioning things more deeply and just going along with the first solution that was presented to me. I regret the time and energy I spent trying to become someone I wasn't, instead of working on loving who I am. My thoughts on gender now are that it's not as rigid as people make it out to be. You can be a man and be feminine, or a woman and be masculine, and that doesn't change who you are fundamentally. The pressure to medically transition felt so intense, and I think we need to be a lot more careful about that.