This page contains stories, articles and blogs by people who transitioned and later detransitioned, or are in the process of detransitioning. The stories are varied; some from men, some from women, some who experience regret, some who don’t. They are the part of the story which is hidden and denied by transgender activists and support groups and they all deserve to be heard. The top link is very important as the first survey of its kind, of over 200 young women who have detransitioned or reidentified after having formerly taken steps to transition.
Female Detransition and Reidentification: Survey Results and Interpretation
“This survey was created for anyone female/AFAB who formerly self-described as transgender. This includes women who transitioned, whether socially and/or medically, and subsequently detransitioned, as well as individuals who still identify as nonbinary or genderfluid, but have desisted from medical or social transition.”
Read the full survey results here
Voices
This Soft Space
“But a wave of voices is rising, and helping tremendously.” A documentation of videos and writing by the young women whose words are amongst the most powerful on the subject of transition and the journey back to womanhood: Maria Catt, Kat, Max, and the blogs CrashChaosCats and GuideOnRagingStars.
Detransition – An FtM Journeys Home – In Her Own Words
“I’m 30 years of age. I don’t blame anyone else for my idiocy. I just wish I would have learned to love myself before completely turning my life upside down with all of this.”
Advice for Parents of Teen Girls and Girl-Children Who Think They’re Trans
“In closing, this trend is going to have a devastating impact on today’s youth about 10 years down the road. These things are not very well studied, and we are/were their guinea pigs. Be a role model, be a mentor, but most of all, don’t be afraid to be a parent. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into this. This is your child’s health that is being played with, and your child’s health is not a game – it is life or death.”
Maria Catt: The Adult Baby Story
“A lot of my anger at the people who were cheerleaders for my transition is their enthusiasm for all these limits I was placing on my life- the black hole of time and money and energy transitioning is- revealed that they didn’t think I had much value. They didn’t say anything like, “What you could do with that time and money and energy if you directed it towards a goal beyond changing your body is so profound that this pursuit seems like a massive waste of what you are capable of.”
Third Way Trans
“I then worked through a lot of trauma in therapy and discovered that I could be comfortable with presenting male after all, and that it was good to let go of the need of be seen as female. Much to my surprise it was possible to become okay with being seen as male, because it does not limit me from being who I am. I wish I could have saved myself all of this trouble and worked through these issues psychologically and I am concerned that the psychological community does not present this possibility.”
CRASHCHAOSCATS
“I’m always going to wonder what might have been. What would my body be like now if I’d never done t? I devalued my own body, I became dissatisfied with it, I convinced myself that it wasn’t enough, didn’t speak clearly enough about what I was”
This Soft Space
“Took me until I was 30 to realize I was a lesbian. Took me another 8 years and a trip through postmodern gender/queer theory, including a time identifying as transgender, to finally make peace with my body, my sex, and my orientation – not to mention my place in the world.”
Guide On Raging Stars
“The memories keep coming. Remembering who I was before I was a “boy” and then a “man”. Things I felt I couldn’t think about before because it would remind me that I was born female. In trying to solve my identity problems I think now that I only compounded them, became a man with no past. So much of my childhood makes no sense without the context of girlhood, so those memories were forgotten–not blocked out, just ignored. It’s no wonder that I’ve felt so lost and unlike myself for so long.”
Hot Flanks: No Trick, No Secret
“I latched onto the idea that I had never been able to connect with my peers or make friends because I couldn’t relate to other people as a woman, because I was a man! There were answers to what I was dealing with and with Modern Medical Technology could correct this very simple birth-defect that I had recently diagnosed myself with. My discomfort with my body would be eased and the world would suddenly know how to relate to me!”
The Re-Transing Of Male Miriam
“Feminine = female, because the alternative of being a man who displays femininity as a man is too horrible to contemplate. Like the friend who told me that going into the men’s restroom would be demeaning to me. I can already see from reactions of my customers that I’m more socially acceptable as a man who’s tryin reel hard to be a women rather than as some weirdo dude with a feminine self-expression.”
Sex Change Regret
A website for people who regret gender reassignment surgery
Blood and Visions: Reconciling With Being Female
Booklet available from Autotomous Womyn’s Press
Redress Alert
http://redressalert.tumblr.com/
Sex Change Info
“Regarding the outcome of reassignment surgery Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld said, “80% should not do it” and for the remaining 20%, he says it will not be a lifelong solution but rather a temporary “reprieve.” In other words, do not expect long term success.”
4thWaveNow: In Praise of Gatekeepers: An Interview With A Former Teen Client Of Transactive Gender Centre
“I think the idea of someone being able to get transitional surgery underage is concerning—in the state of Oregon, you can’t get a tattoo underage even with parental consent, but you can be permanently sterilized at 15 without any parental input. This is built off the law that minors 15 and older can consent to their own medical and dental diagnosis and treatment, up to and including surgery, but it seems to me that these kinds of surgeries are things that can wait until someone is at least 18.”
Sex Change Surgery: What Bruce Jenner, Diane Sawyer and You Should Know
Walt Heyer, the Witherspoon Istitute Public Discourse
“It is intellectually dishonest to ignore the facts that surgery never has been a medically necessary procedure for treating gender dysphoria and that taking cross-gender hormones can be harmful.”
Mistaken Identity
David Batty, the Guardian
“It’s taken eight years finally to get to grips with myself and the reality of my situation. I know I will never be anything other than a transsexual. As long as I live, I will never be a real woman – no matter how well I pass. Unless you really come to terms with this, the transsexual lifestyle can be unbearably hard. If we throw away our support by burying ourselves in ‘normal society’, it can also become unbearably lonely. So my message is, proceed with caution.”
Transgender Regret is Real Even if the Media Tell You Otherwise
Walt Heyer, the Federalist
“The media cover-up of regret and suicides isn’t a new phenomenon; it was in play 36 years ago. In 1979 Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld, who worked alongside the famous Dr. Harry Benjamin for six years administering hormone therapy to some 500 transgenders, spoke to an audience in New York about his experience: “There is too much unhappiness among people who have had the surgery. Too many of them end as suicides.”