Why do people attempt to transition from one gender to another? Why do they decide to transition back? Let them explain in their own words! This clip contains excerpts from a longer video, which you can view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwVyozpWWAU
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TRANSCRIPT
I started having body image issues at a very young age and in retrospect looking back I really believe that I was struggling so much with that and then I got these messages from the internet saying oh that’s all because you were born in the wrong body.
Like you don’t have these body image issues because of your environment or anything else you have them because you’re born in the wrong body.
And if you change your body through testosterone and surgeries and all this kind of stuff, then you will no longer feel so uncomfortable in your body.
And that was a very seductive message to me because I was just so deeply struggling with that.
So you decided that you wanted to get testosterone treatment.
How did you go about obtaining the testosterone?
Yeah.
So it’s actually pretty ironic because at the time I had these beliefs where it’s like, “Oh, we live in such a transphobic society, it’s going to be so hard to get testosterone.
But once I actually went through it, it was incredibly easy.
I just made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood and I went there and it was one about hour -long appointment.
I talked to a social worker for maybe 20 minutes and then I talked to a nurse practitioner for another maybe 20 minutes and then they like cleared me for everything and helped me do my first injection.
So there was no actual medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
There was no actual psychological screening or anything like that.
You basically walked in, you said you wanted testosterone, and they gave it to you.
And again, ironically, they diagnosed me with an endocrine disorder.
They didn’t even diagnose me with gender dysphoria.
On my medical records, it says I have a diagnosis of an endocrine disorder, and that’s why I needed the testosterone.
So yeah, very, very strange, but no, no psychological evaluation or diagnosis of gender dysphoria or anything just kind of like walked in.
And what were the effects on you physiologically of taking that much testosterone?
I didn’t end up having very many physical changes, but I had a lot of very intense psychological effects that happened to me.
So obviously, you know, you have like the sex drive aspect, that’s a really big aspect of it.
And for me, that was incredibly overwhelming.
I had a very difficult time with that.
I, you know, I’m a kind of more physically reserved person, and I had never dated anyone before.
So it was just, that was extremely, you know, overwhelming for me.
I was not prepared for that at all.
And then in addition to that, I had emotional changes that, you know, I kind of describe it as at first it was just a lot of irritability.
And I just felt on edge all the time.
I felt like I was just jumping out of my skin all the time, restlessness, irritability.
And then as the months progressed about a year into it, it turned into this kind of feeling where I didn’t have emotions anymore.
It was just like anytime I felt anything, whether it might have been sadness or frustration, that would just kind of immediately turn into rage.
And so I just felt completely out of control of myself. I was spiraling down into just like dysfunction and just really living an unhealthy life.
And these rage attacks would get so bad that I just, I felt like I really had to externalize it.
It’s not that I wanted to hurt anybody but when I would be overcome with this like I wanted to like break something I wanted to like hit something and so being you know this person who was completely unprepared for these feelings I kind of ended up taking it out on myself and I ended up hurting myself pretty badly a couple of times and one of those times actually led to me having to go to the hospital and when I got to the hospital they you know checked me into a psychiatric unit um So that it was just an incredibly dark, difficult time of my life that I do not wish on anyone.
About a year and a half in, that’s when I kind of had my realization.
After a couple of months of doubts, that’s when I had my realization that it was all a mistake.
Like everything from those first pronoun changes on social media, that was all a mistake.
And so what was that like?
When you went back to your parents, he said, “Listen, I’ve been living in a way that I think is not right for me. I made some bad decisions along the way.”
When you went back to your social group, how was that?
Because as you’ve been discussing, particularly on the internet, there are these social groups that form where every change that you make away from traditional gender is seen as something worthy of cheering.
So there must have been an enormous amount of blowback when you said, “Well, you know what? I think this is wrong.
I’m actually a biological woman and I’m gendered as a woman.
So I think part of it actually, part of my ability to desist from this ideology was the fact that I had stopped using the internet so much.
So I had gradually been, because my life was so dysfunctional, I just didn’t feel like posting on social media anymore.
And I was just kind of in my own world.
And I think being separated from all of these like social reinforcements and messages that you see online allowed me to kind of think and eventually come to the conclusion that, you know, I wasn’t trans.
So in that sense, when I detransitioned, I didn’t have that immediate social circle to blow back at me.
But I did go back to a social media account that I had and announced that, you know, I was no longer transitioning.
And I said that my beliefs about gender issues had evolved.
And when I made that post, that’s when I got some blowback.
I had some old friends that at one point were very close to me, but we hadn’t talked in maybe a couple of months.
Actually messaged me like you’re a disgusting person.
I’m so disappointed in how you turned out.
You’ve gone insane.
Because there’s kind of like this attitude in the trans community that if you question your transition, that makes you insane.
So I was kind of getting like those kinds of accusations as well.
Were there any long -term effects or mid -term effects of the bouts of testosterone that you were taking?
And how is life now now that you’ve decided to move in the other direction?
So life is definitely so much better. I didn’t really have any long -term medical effects, thankfully, but that’s not the norm.
There are a lot of women, you know, especially who are on testosterone for a little bit longer than I would be, who begin to have major reproductive issues, they might require a hysterectomy.
That means that you’re infertile for life and are a medical patient for life.
So that’s not uncommon.
And, you know, there are a lot of young women and young boys obviously who are really rushed into surgeries and pushed into surgeries.
I know so many young people who are at, you know, the age of 15, 16, 17, 18.
So what advice would you have for 15, 14, 13 -year -old girls who are really having body images who use depression, anxiety.
We now know from a wide variety of research actually that rapid onset gender dysphoria is a thing that very often groups of girls reinforcing one another tend to transition in groups.
And there is pretty significant social pressure for people to start seeking transitional treatment without even a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
So what sort of advice would you have to young girls who are struggling and suffering?
I’m not sure if there would be any advice that I could have to a young person in that situation that would really, you know, be listened to or heard because when I was that age, it was very much the trans ideology is a very authoritarian and manipulative ideology.
Some describe it as a cult, I would be inclined in that way as well.
So I just don’t know if there’s anything I could say to like a 13 year old, they’re just gonna call me a fascist.
It’s really up to the parents to step in and protect their child from these outside influences that are pushing them towards radical permanent body modifications.
