Learning From Lies

My desistance story

I was 12 years old when I tried to drown myself in the bathtub. I’ll never forget how grey the world, or the heavy numbness in my core as I sank onto my back and tried to take my life. Only by the grace of God was I saved, when my mother and father knocked on the door to tell me to hurry up because lunch was ready.

I tried to kill myself because I was lesbian. Even though I was closeted I felt like a failure to my parents. When I realized I was going to have to live for their sake, I decided to become a boy.

That was the start of my nightmare.

As a young girl I grew up in a loving home. I was free-spirited, easy-going, open-minded, and in love with life itself. I was the girl who picked up injured birds with her bare hands, wrote songs about the moon, and dreamt about falling in love. But I was also rowdy and enjoyed sparring, fighting with plastic swords, and playing war games with the neighborhood boys. I was neither masculine nor feminine. I was just myself. When I asked my parents if I was a tomboy or girly-girl at eight, they said, “Neither. But that’s okay. You’re perfect just the way you are.” And that satisfied me for a time.

My insecurities began in fifth grade when the buddings of puberty created a strange, ethereal, yet palpable rift between the boys and girls. I was a year ahead and so was younger than the other children. Academically I was astute, even “gifted” by my school’s standards. Socially, however, I could never fit in. I was too aggressive for the girls and too soft for the boys. I laughed at the wrong times. I was too mature in some areas but far too naive in others. The girls quickly tired of me and tolerated me with side-eye glances and disdainful scoffs. Realizing I had outlived my stay, I searched for new friends. I found a place among the boys but soon felt equally displaced when I discovered—to my dismay—that several had crushes on me. Eventually, I hovered only around teachers. Then, alone.

Throughout middle school, I busied myself with my studies and reading military history tomes. I also dove into the world of online fandom: My Little Pony, Warriors, roleplay, and later, anime. Other youth in these forums talked openly about same-sex attraction, sometimes to an obsessive degree. I, however, ignored them. In my eyes, homosexuality was some fantasy thing. A myth. My father then informed me that such a thing does exist, even if rare. I shrugged it off with skepticism. I was more willing to believe in the existence of Bigfoot than “the gays.” That is, until I discovered I was one of them.

Up until that point, I believed myself to be heterosexual. I had never felt anything for boys other than comradery, distaste, or anxiety—the latter reserved for the boys who were interested in me. And despite having crushes on various female cartoon characters, I had always assumed I would one day discover the joy of liking boys and become a proper young woman.

Mother Nature had other plans for me. One winter night, when I was 12, I was scrolling through Pinterest, looking for references for an art project, when I came across a photo of a woman. Elegant and beautiful, she was in an indoor pool, wearing pitch-black sunglasses, her bare back facing the camera. It was a modest picture, but it set off something inside of me. Desire, mixed with delighted curiosity soon melted into a deep sense of dread, as though I had come across something forbidden and cursed.

Soon, I was bombarded by feelings of desire for nearly every pretty woman I saw. My upbringing told me this was wrong and so I went to extreme lengths to “fix” myself, including consuming soft porn footage of men, leading to side effects I still struggle with today. I felt trapped in my own body, which puberty had turned into a strange, awkwardly built mess with feelings I couldn’t control. I cursed God for “making me this way” and was smacked over the head with depression—which was exacerbated by the stress of being closeted and my need to overcompensate by trying to be perfect in every other aspect of my life. My parents couldn’t understand where their darling girl had gone, but they were too busy with their own personal hells and caring for a disabled relative to truly understand my problems. Left alone, I fell into a dark spiral.

Online, I heard my female “friends” chattering about transgenderism. Initially, I thought it was a foolish thing, especially since our resident advocate was a clearly unstable girl who called herself “agender,” then female, “nonbinary,” “male,” then female again, and then “demigirl.” Yet, despite her sufferings, she would be the harbinger of social contagion. All the other girls in my online sphere began to adopt LGBT letters until I was one of the last holdouts. But after trying to drown myself during a terrible depression spell, I decided that being a boy wouldn’t be so bad after all. In fact, other forums let me know I was the best prospect of all: a homosexual. Transing the gay away was the perfect solution!

I immediately began to change how I dressed. Baggy, oversized trousers and blazers filled my wardrobe as I took on the pseudo-identity of a vintage gentleman. I stuffed my pants with socks and adopted a mannish saunter that I still sometimes default to. I lowered my voice into a congested growl and even snuck a few (poor-quality) testosterone pills from my father’s medicine cabinet. I kept quiet about my “new self”, for two years, mainly out of fear. At 14, during the pandemic, I mustered enough gumption to tell my father, “I don’t think I want to be a girl anymore. I want to be a boy.”

He laughed, much to my surprise. He laughed and immediately asked if it was because I liked girls. Embarrassed by his accuracy, I denied that was the reason, and told him “I just don’t feel like a girl.” (If only I had just told the truth!) My mother didn’t want to believe me, leaving my father to try to figure out why his daughter had fallen into such a strange world.

For almost three years he poked and prodded around in my mind, in vain. My condition grew worse. I became increasingly delusional and angry. Soon, I didn’t want to be hugged by anyone, stiffening under the slightest touch, and uncharacteristically threw shouting tantrums like a toddler. Any progress my father made with me was quickly upended by tears and mental shutdowns. Eventually, he began to become discouraged himself. Seeing that struck me to my core. Slowly, I began to realize that I wasn’t just hurting myself, I was hurting my family.

By age 17, I decided to quiet all the fuss about becoming a boy. I started to re-evaluate my worldview, how I got here, and whether transgenderism had any real science behind it. It didn’t. After reading paper upon paper, article upon article, I realized that I had been sold a bag of lies. When I told this shocking revelation to my long-time online friends, they snapped at me, hurled slurs and insults, and turned their backs on me. Once again, I was alone.

One day I sat outside and cried. I realized how much I had damaged my mind—and for nothing! Even though I hadn’t prayed in a long time (to a God I had decidedly hated), I whispered, “I’m so sorry, God. Please, help me…”

And He did. From that day on, I desisted. It was a major undertaking, but the world now had resources to guide me—PITT, Reality’s Last Stand, Abigail Shrier, and detrans testimonies. At 17 I began deprogramming my mind. At 18 I focused on truly seeking God, and cast out all the old labels that once defined me. Now, at 19, I’m rebuilding a new identity with God as my foundation.

It’s been a difficult journey since I desisted. Relapses, guilt, embarrassment, and stress have followed me like ghosts, but through them I’ve learned so much. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a human born with the wrong sex. We only develop the wrong mindset. Masculine, feminine, male, female—who cares! Sure, there is a difference between men and women, and those differences are beautiful. But sex doesn’t matter when it comes to excellence. Humans were born to be curious, resilient, virtuous, and honorable creatures. Each one of us is simply another perfect variation in the grand cosmic design. Whether we choose to accept that is up to us.