Like you said - transitioning was SO EASY for me. I was 15 when I came out (2003) and was seeing a trans specialist by the end of the year, prescribed hormones at that same appointment, and scheduling top surgery by early 2004 (at age 16). I’d also been recommended to video conference with Dr. Pierre Brassard in Montreal regarding bottom surgery when I turned 18 and had that video conference assessment with him in late 2004. In under a year I had ticked all the boxes, was changing my name, and “living as” a male all before my 17th birthday. No one ever asked me if I was sure, no one ever suggested therapy or other exploration, it was just “yep yep sounds good mhm you’re trans let’s go”. It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. It was easier to begin transition than to stop it, honestly.
After eight years (at age 23) I decided to stop because around then I was beginning to learn more about feminism and seeing more about how trans people were treating feminists and also I really wanted to know WHO i was. I was 15 when I came out. There’s no way any fifteen year old knows who they are or what’s best for them. I had no idea who I was or who I could be or who I wanted to be, so I stopped transitioning. I looked long and hard for a therapist who was willing to explore alternatives to transitioning and willing to work with me on body image, self worth, and self acceptance.
I did a lot of fucking therapy, honestly. Like weekly 1-2 hour sessions for two solid years and then every-other-week for another year after that. I did a fucking ton of therapy around trauma, a ton of therapy in regards to healing, and a ton of therapy surrounding accepting myself as i am, as i was put on this earth, and it was honestly the best thing i ever did for myself. transitioning was 100% THE WORST thing i ever did to or for myself.
i’m not someone who’s going to sit here and tell you i ~wouldn’t change it because it made me who i am today~. i wish with my entire heart and soul that someone had stopped me, that an adult had stepped the fuck in and said i was too young, that i had to look at other options, that i wasn’t mature enough for such a decision. i lost eight years, eight of the best years (15-23) of my youth to complete toxicity and the utter destruction of who i could have grown up to become. i’ll never know who i could have been or what i could have done with my life all those years.
honestly when it comes to adults, like, do what you’re gonna do, but don’t do it without some serious fucking introspective digging with a trained professional first.
Like she says: the adults (that would be me, for one) are the ones who should be responsible for protecting teen girls. Instead, gender nonconforming teenagers get thrown to the trans-specialist wolves. The doctors and gender specialists are adults, too, aren’t they? What the hell are they doing? And why are there no adults ready to pick up the pieces when these young women look for help with detransitioning?
When I decided to begin detransitioning I met with a handful of therapists explaining my situation and what I was looking to get out of therapy. They all insisted I had internalized transphobia (after eight years of living as trans lol) and that I shouldn’t be denying myself who I was (theeeeeeee irony lmao).
After a lot of searching and meeting I finally found a brilliant therapist who was happy to work with me and I am forever grateful to her, but it was far far harder to get therapy for detransition than it was to do the entire transition process.
It’s absolutely shameful how these “professionals” are failing our young women. Thank you SO very much for your blog, radicalblossoming. You and your sister detransitioners are doing an incredible service.
