Detransitioner Perspective: Fake Healers

By the time I came out as trans, I’d already made the decision to transition. I had planned my own death in excruciating detail to ensure success. I wasn’t depressed because of dysphoria, I had untreated depression that my therapists thought was because of my dysphoria.

My entire transition was driven by this moment that I came out as trans. My therapists called it my do or die moment. Many trans people hit it, where they don’t have the strength to fight it any longer and must choose transition or death. They actually let you make life-altering decisions while suicidal.

I got scared or had doubts a few times during the barely over a year process from giving up to recovering from vaginoplasty. Each time, I thought back to what caused me to choose transition. I was ready to die. No matter what, I can’t stop. I’ll die.

My mind was also protected by an impenetrable shell shielding this need from reality. The only people inside that shell were me, other trans people, and my therapists. Everybody else was an outsider. They were the ones living in a fantasy. They were the ones trying to stop me from being my true self.

I didn’t make this up. I wasn’t following a fad. I had four different therapists. I was diagnosed. And yet, after years in therapy trying to fix myself, I flew through the process in the middle of the ROGD wave. It was 2015, right after Caitlyn Jenner came out. I actually came out right before she did, but I was trying to carefully plan my transition. I had only come out to immediate family.

Soon, all the trans spaces were losing their minds. If Trump is elected, he’s going to make it illegal to transition. We’re all going to die. I immediately came out to everybody I knew at the same time using social media. Within a couple months, I was on hormones. A few months later, my name was legally changed. My surgery took place before he was sworn in. He was in office for about a year when the regret set in.

I’ve spent years trying to detransition, but I feel trapped. I literally feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body. Whether I detransition or not, I’m still a man with a vagina. What’s the point?

I followed the process. I got my letter for hormones. I got my two letters for surgery. I had extensive therapy. How did I slip through? I was affirmed, that’s how. I’m not a child. I was in my mid-20s when I found the community. I was in my 30s when I transitioned. I saw a documentary somewhere that featured a female transitioner, that also transitioned around the same age as me, saying if they got them, your kids don’t stand a chance. They’re right.

There were no clubs at school when I did it. I became convinced online, through local support group meetings, and by therapists. My peers, teachers, and friend’s parents weren’t talking me into it. If they were, I probably would have come out as trans in less than a year. They really don’t stand a chance.

I’ve been going through the stages of grief and I’ve finally reached anger. I spent so long blaming myself for this. I always do that. If someone hurts me, I assume it was because of something I did wrong. Why did I consent to this? Why are people blaming their therapists? It’s not right. It is right though. I went to them for help and they ignored all my issues in favor of treating the dysphoria as the primary issue. They told me if I kept trying to fight it, I’d have to choose between transition and death. They told me transition was the only thing that could help me. They said I didn’t have a mental illness. Fuck these people. They shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine. They’re fake healers.

Finding these people was probably inevitable. I was fascinated by math and engineering. I was hooked on programming before I was even a teenager, in the 1980s. I was going to find the Internet long before the rest of the general population. As a computer geek raised by an absent single mother, I was also an outcast. I didn’t fit in with the boys. I already had gender confusion.

If I could go back in time and try to stop myself, I think I would choose the moment I started to get obsessed with transition timelines. That’s when I took a turn for the worst. It’s when the body dysmorphia started. It’s when I really started to feel like I was out of time and getting worn down by the façade I was presenting to the world to fit in.

My entire presentation was always based on these lists I created as a child, categorizing the boys and girls. It was before I knew about biological differences. It was lists of stereotypes. This was what dysphoria looked like to me. It’s certain behaviors that make me immediately think I feel like a woman, or I feel like a man. The trans community and therapists did not teach me that this was wrong. They reinforced how true they were. I can’t find a way to get rid of these thoughts though. Now dysphoria looks like knowing I’m a man while feeling like I’m trapped in a woman’s body and there’s nothing I can do about it.

To Myself

What’s your favorite transition timeline video? What do you like about it? How does it relate to the way you envision your transition? I bet it’s the men that remind you of your father, the epitome of masculinity. They turn into supermodels before your eyes. If they can look that good, you’ll have no problem passing. You have a small frame. You have feminine features. You could probably pass as a woman right now.

What does a successful transition look like to you? Is it her? What if you can’t look like that? Could it still be successful? What if you ended up looking like your sister or your mother when she was your age? Would that be successful? What if you ended up looking deformed and unable to pass as a woman but were still female. Would that be successful?

Is it really that you feel like you are a woman? If it is, you’d be fine with any of those scenarios since the point is to feel like you, right? It has nothing to do with being afraid to be gay, feeling like a failure, or wanting to feel loved, does it?

Was it even you that came to the conclusion you were a transsexual? When did you cross-dress? I don’t remember you doing that, but you’re going to start doing that soon if you continue down this path. Your gender therapist will suggest it to you. You’ll feel awkward about it, but over time, it will feel normal. You weren’t a particularly feminine kid. You were just scrawny, just like your dad was when he was in high school. Sure, you didn’t like sports or fighting, but you did like playing war games in the woods and getting dirty. You liked risking a broken neck to be able to do the most dangerous jumps on your bike. You feared nobody, even if you should have. You liked purple, but not pink. Wizards wear purple though and you loved anything with wizards in it, like Excalibur and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. You always dreamed of being a powerful wizard or maybe a Jedi Knight. You weren’t as feminine as you think you were. You were just feminine compared to the boys you wanted to like you, the ones that were more like your father.

Remember when your mom repeatedly told the story about how when you were 2 years old, you would meticulously organize your toys on shelves, and nobody was allowed to touch them? What does that sound like to you? You didn’t learn that at that age. You weren’t even speaking yet. Remember repeating phrases to stop a runaway thought? Remember being afraid to stop focusing on your breathing, because if you did, you’d stop breathing and die? Remember when you had to shut doors 3 times, or you’d end up having to keep getting up to check to see if they were closed?

You still have these types of obsessions. You just stopped doing the compulsions for some reason. Remember when you plucked out every hair on your body with a pair of tweezers? That was last year, wasn’t it? It’s an obsession and you don’t know how to control your obsessions. You can’t do anything in moderation, whether it’s healthy or not. You do this with thoughts too, like gender and things that scare you.

Even if you haven’t left home all day, how many times have you checked to make sure the doors and windows are all locked? How many times did you check to make sure the stove was off? After leaving home, how many times have you walked or driven back to make sure you remembered to lock the door? How many times have you worried that a stray thought may cause you to turn the wheel into oncoming traffic?

Look at your apartment. Is anything on the floor, counter tops, windowsills, or on top of the entertainment center? Can you see any dust anywhere? You play the piano all the time. Is the lid open or closed? Is the loose sheet music disorganized or are all the edges lined up perfectly? What’s the bathroom look like? Are the sink and shower bone dry? Is there any discoloration in the sink or shower from the high iron content in your water? How many showers have you had today? How many times have you washed your hands today? Go to your spice rack. How many do you have? It looks like all the spices the supermarket sells. Find the cayenne pepper. I bet you found it instantly because they’re all in alphabetical order.

Go to your DVD rack. Find Top Gun. That was fast, wasn’t it? Not only are they all in alphabetical order, but they’re sorted by genre and the genres are also in alphabetical order. Go to your dresser. Find your t-shirts. That’s right, they’re not there. They’re all hanging up in the closet next to your jeans. Your entire wardrobe is jeans and t-shirts. One shirt for each pair of jeans, so you can just grab one of each every day. There are 8 in there. Every t-shirt is a different color. They’re always in the same order, the way they fall in the colors of the rainbow. Every 7 days, you’ll do laundry at the same time, while wearing the 8th outfit.

You have trouble with obsessions. You should get checked out for OCD.

How many nightmares have you had where you woke up convinced they had actually happened and spent months trying to figure out what was real? I don’t know what this is, but it’s a clear indication that you have trouble separating fantasy from reality. A decent therapist should be able to help.

Do you remember when you were a teenager and would suddenly feel like you were having a heart attack? You had to sit down, rock back and forth, and start panting so you could breathe. How did you describe it? Oh, right. It felt like someone pulled your lungs through your rib cage, tied them into a slip knot, and was slowly pulling them back through to the other side. Your mom kept taking you to the doctor’s office, but they could never find anything wrong with you. They’d tell you it was just growing pains. These are anxiety attacks. Why did you have such intense anxiety attacks as a teenager?

How many times have you felt like you were in a chase plane view of your own life, like you were hovering near the ceiling watching yourself in class or work? How many times have you felt that way today? This is dissociation. Why is this happening? What happened to you when you were 10 years old that might have been so traumatic to you that you can’t cope anymore?

I’m not trying to hurt you or make you feel broken or abnormal, but you have to realize your gender dysphoria is not what you think it is. You don’t feel like you’re a woman. You just believe you’ve failed at being a man and there’s only one other option. You also believe you’re going to Hell for being gay, while still trying to convince yourself that you’re straight, and thinking you’ll only be able to date a man if you’re a woman. How’s that going? How many exes have told you they think you’re gay and don’t know it yet now? It’s not because you don’t love them enough. You’re just not attracted to women. You’re setting yourself up for failure. If you do this, you’re going to feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body. You’re going to make it extremely difficult to ever meet the man of your dreams, because he’s going to be into men and you’re going to look like a woman.

Please, go outside. Find a therapist that can do OCD assessments. If possible, find one with experience in borderline personality disorder, childhood trauma, and complex PTSD too. You experienced PTSD in boot camp, but you didn’t make the connection. They told you it was anxiety. You’ll experience it again in about 10 years. I’m sorry to say, I still don’t know what’s causing it. You also need help with depression and anxiety. You don’t realize you have depression because you’ve had it your whole life. Avoid the therapists your new trans friends tell you to go to. Remember how out of place you felt at your first support meeting, when you walked into a room full of men in dresses? Is that really who you think you are?

I know you’re shy. You don’t know how to talk to people. You’re afraid of someone seeing you walk into a gay bar and even more scared that they’ll beat you up for it. You don’t have to go alone though. You found these transsexuals. You can find other gay men online too. You’ll find many people are afraid of going to public places alone and when you go as part of a group of other introverts, you’ll all be more outgoing with each other. You can do this.

You are a man and always will be. No amount of surgeries will ever change that. Anybody that tells you they’re required for you to be yourself is lying to you and trying to manipulate you. Don’t let fear and depression cause you to give into them. You’re so much stronger than you think you are.