They pushed me into this ideology and tried to keep me there forever

I somehow ended up here, typing this thing, contemplating life choices, and struggling with my mental health.

Let’s rewind to the beginning.

My name’s Vic… Victoria…? I live in Ontario and I attend a Catholic school. I have struggled with my gender identity for a while. I recently realized that I actually am a female, who identifies, well, as a female. I’m extremely glad that I came to this understanding before it was too late.  When I say too late, I mean before I began medically transitioning with cross-sex hormones and sexual reassignment surgeries.

When I was younger, I was a bit of a tomboy. I loved sports and had friends who were boys, but I have never experienced gender dysphoria. I loved dresses and I felt comfortable being a girl. It all changed when COVID hit. I was in fourth grade at the time. That’s when my life started to go downhill. I started my period at 10 years old, which is pretty young. I was isolated and I couldn’t see my friends during COVID.

It was during COVID shutdown that I downloaded TikTok for the first time. At the beginning, it was a site where I could post videos of my pets, but that changed quickly. There I discovered the LGBTQ+ community and started questioning my identity. At first it was only my sexuality: pansexual, lesbian, maybe bi? During those first few months on TikTok I was constantly exposed to the transgender, or should I say, trans-trender propaganda. “Are you anxious and uncomfortable with your body? You must be trans”. I was seeing these videos everywhere. Transgender activists were actively posting videos about “safe” breast binding and how euphoric testosterone makes you feel and how it makes all your problems suddenly disappear. The more I saw these videos, the more they resonated with me. By the time I started fifth grade, I was professing a nonbinary identity. When we came back to school after the new year, I came out to my best friend with they/them pronouns. Within a few months, I came out to the whole class, including my teacher. I cut my hair and tried to dress androgynously. Everyone was supportive and accepting of my new identity, no one even bothered to question it. I told my parents about it; they clearly thought it was a phase, didn’t say much about it and continued to use my legal name and refer to me a girl. I didn’t have any gender dysphoria at that time.

During summer break before sixth grade, I was spending more time than ever on my phone. I started to think that my body wasn’t good enough and I became a “boy”. On the first day of school, I came out as a “he/him”. Once again, everyone at school blindly supported me. I was very depressed and hated my body for not being more masculine. I began self-harming and having suicidal thoughts. I intended to end my life so I ran away and ended up in the hospital. The police officers, nurses, doctors, and psychiatrists all accepted that I was a boy and never tried to explore any underlying problems that might be causing these suicidal ideations.  The psychiatrist said that my parents had to accept my self-proclaimed identity or my mental health would worsen and I would try to kill myself. I was discharged from the hospital without any mental health screenings that same week.

Soon after that, my mom became concerned about my breast binding and took me to my family doctor. The doctor was clearly supportive of the trans ideology because she immediately asked for my preferred name and pronouns when I walked into her office. She told me and my mom that binding is perfectly healthy (which it isn’t) and asked me if I’m interested in learning about puberty blockers. Please don’t forget, at this time I was 11 years old. At that age I wasn’t capable of making an informed decision about medical interventions with their risky side effects including possible infertility. I was a child myself. 

I learned that binding is dangerous because I was having trouble breathing. I also saw on the internet that binding can lead to bruising, broken ribs, collapsed lungs and a lot more. I saw some stories on the internet where trans and detrans people were complaining about how painful it is/was to wear a binder. I acknowledged those risks but I continued to wear a binder because of my dysphoria. 

My mental health continued to decline. And the professionals continued with their expert advice: “Your child is a boy; you have to accept it or else things won’t get better”. My parents kept fighting for me, they kept telling me that I’m a girl and that I always will be one, but I was too indoctrinated to listen. My parents blocked TikTok from my phone. I didn’t get better. I only got worse. I secretly started watching trans “gurus” on Youtube without my parents' knowledge.

I started seventh grade. The school principal allowed me to use the boy’s washroom, but I didn't feel comfortable so I stuck with the gender neutral one. The principal also allowed me to use the boys' change room for gym. I felt pretty comfortable considering that I changed in the stall. Before I started using that change room, I asked all the boys in my class if they felt comfortable with me changing with them and all of them said yes. My parents were not informed about that and neither were the parents of the boys who used that change room with me. 

My discomfort with my body continued and now I developed an eating disorder. I had extreme social anxiety at school. I attempted suicide again and when I was sent to the hospital, no one brought up anything about eating disorders. They only focused on the transgender part, just like they did every time. That was the last straw for me, even though I was only 12 years old, I could see that something was clearly wrong. Everything was centered around my gender, not the actual issues I was dealing with.  

I read the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier.  My dad bought the book for himself. He kept telling me that if I read the book I won’t understand it and I will be triggered by it. Those comments pushed me to read it. What’s the worst that can happen? I was very skeptical at first, and yes, I did think it was transphobic at the beginning, but as I kept reading all of those detransition stories and how they became trans in the first place, I realized that I’m on the wrong path and I need to go back before I lose my family, or even my life. 

I started to go back to identifying as female. I stopped binding my chest. I told my parents and they were overjoyed. When I told my teacher she asked me if this is something that I really wanted or if my parents were pressuring. No one had asked if I was sure I was a boy when I came out as trans, but now that I wanted to go back to my true sex, everyone was concerned about that being right for me. Weird, right? Well, my friends, that is activism at its height. I had a crisis a month later. I attempted suicide by overdosing and cutting. Thankfully, it failed and I ended up at the hospital, again. I’m not trans anymore, so why am I doing this? Because my mental health issues were never resolved. Now that the transgender shield was gone, I was properly assessed for mental health issues. Turns out I have bulimia/binge eating disorder, anxiety, and borderline personality traits.

In most stories that I’ve heard, mental health issues are a huge reason why teens become trans. Those kids and teens think that, since they are struggling with their mental health, they need to find a community that will love and accept them no matter what. Another common cause is the early onset of puberty. If a young girl starts developing breasts and gets her period before her peers, that makes uncomfortable in her body. It makes her different from her classmates and can bring unwanted attention from older men. She might want to get rid of her female body parts all together. This feeling can be exacerbated by social media.

There are countless reasons why a young woman might want to transition, but most of them involve avoiding normal human struggles. Even if they don’t know it yet, subconsciously those are the main reasons why teenage girls decide to identify as boys. I acknowledge that a very small percentage of the population have actual gender dysphoria, but in the past five years the numbers of trans-identifying individuals has exploded. These young girls need therapy and guidance, not puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. 

Now we’re back to the first sentence of this essay. I still struggle but am making progress. I’m completely happy being a female. I’m trying to share my story to spread the word that this generation is struggling with mental health issues and the healthcare system just wants to make money from them. These are vulnerable kids who definitely don’t think about the negative consequences of medically transitioning. I know. I was one of them.