My journey with transition and detransition was long and complicated. I was on testosterone for eight years, from when I was 21 until I was 29. Looking back, I can see that my reasons for transitioning were based on a lot of confusion and pain I hadn't dealt with.

I grew up in a really difficult home. My dad was abusive to me and my mom, and he always said women were weak and stupid. My mom never stood up to him, even when he was hurting us. I saw her as a doormat, and I grew to hate the idea of being a woman because I associated it with being powerless and pathetic. I didn't want to be like her. I also experienced sexual harassment, which made me resent my female body even more.

On top of that, I was bullied my whole life for my interests. I liked things like WWF wrestling, Ninja Turtles, and video games. People at school called me a lesbian and a tomboy, and my parents wouldn't let me wear the clothes I wanted or watch the shows I liked because they were "for boys." I was constantly told that because I didn't like dolls, dresses, or makeup, there was something wrong with me. I internalized all of this and came to believe that if I had been born male, my personality and interests would be considered normal. I thought my body was a birth defect that needed to be fixed.

When I was 18, I was absolutely determined to transition. No one could have talked me out of it. I saw a gender therapist who, in hindsight, was not very thorough. She asked me superficial questions like why I kept my hair short or if I ever wore a bra. I told her I always felt I should have been born male, and after just a few appointments, she wrote me a recommendation for hormones. I started testosterone at 21. At first, I loved the changes. It felt like I was finally accomplishing my goal, but I realize now that the good feeling was just from achieving something everyone said I couldn't do, not from the hormones themselves.

For years, I was deeply involved in a transgender support group. It felt like a community, but looking back, it was cult-like. They encouraged us to cut off friends and family who didn't support our transitions. When I eventually decided to detransition, all my friends from that group shunned me. It was like I had committed blasphemy. They couldn't be happy for me, and it showed me that those friendships were conditional.

Life on testosterone was hard in ways I didn't expect. I was on T for over seven years and never passed well enough to be consistently seen as male. It was humiliating. I couldn't get a job because no one would take me seriously. I was also hyper-aware in every social situation, constantly worrying if I looked or sounded masculine enough. It was exhausting. A strange side effect was that I lost the ability to cry, even when I was emotionally devastated. It was incredibly frustrating because crying is therapeutic.

The decision to detransition didn't happen overnight. The thought had been in the back of my mind for a long time, but I was ashamed to even consider it. I finally stopped testosterone cold-turkey when I was 29. I just skipped my injection day and never went back. I started letting my hair grow and wearing more feminine clothes. A big reason I was able to see things clearly was that I moved away from the state where I had transitioned and left that entire environment behind.

After I detransitioned, I had a huge epiphany. I realized my desire to transition was built entirely on internalized misogyny and false gender stereotypes. I had hated women, and therefore hated myself. I wanted to be the opposite of who I was. I also finally understood that there is no such thing as "male" or "female" interests. Liking sports or video games doesn't make you a man; it just makes you a person who likes those things. Society is the problem for gendering harmless interests, not our bodies. Once I accepted that, my gender dysphoria completely went away. It was like a fog lifted. I never thought I could live without dysphoria, but now I do.

Detransitioning improved my life immensely. Social interaction is so much easier now that I'm not constantly monitoring myself. My voice got higher again, though it's not as high as before T. I used voice training tips from MTF videos to help, and I never get "sir"ed on the phone anymore. I struggled with my appearance because testosterone had aged my skin. I developed a strict skincare routine with a facial brush and retinol cream that helped me look my age again.

There are permanent changes I have to live with. I lost most of my hair. It was thinning on T, but when I stopped, it fell out in clumps due to the hormonal shock of quitting cold-turkey. It hasn't grown back. I also have some other irreversible physical changes, but I've come to see my body as a unique vessel that tells the story of my journey.

I was lucky that I never had surgery. I desperately wanted top surgery because my breasts were a huge source of dysphoria, but I couldn't afford it. Now, I am so grateful I didn't. It would have been a permanent reminder of a very painful and confused time in my life.

I don't regret my journey because it led me to where I am now, but I do regret the irreversible damage to my body. I believe transitioning can help some people, but for me, it was the wrong path. I was trying to solve a problem of self-hatred and social rejection by changing my body, and that doesn't work. The real healing came from addressing the root causes: the internalized misogyny and the false beliefs I had about gender.