Gender Detransition a Path Towards Self- Acceptance Table of Contents
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Gender Detransition a path towards self- acceptance Table of Contents 04 Foreword 32 Detransitioning medically 06 What does detransition as a female mean? detransitioner as a male 08 Detransition stories detransitioner Talia’s story Brit’s story 40 Alternative ways to Carol’s story deal with dysphoria KJ’s story 48 Advice from detrans 18 Common biases against to detrans detransition 50 Resources 24 A better future for detransitioners and desisters Creation: Post Trans Layout and illustrations: Nele Peer Jongeling Research and writing: Elie Vandenbussche The printing and the distribution of this booklet in the UK was made possible by The Detransition Advocacy Network and Transgender Trend Foreword Hello, we are Elie and Nele – to raise awareness around two female detransitioners the issue of detransition and from Belgium and Germany. We provide valuable information are the founders of Post Trans, to any person questioning their a project giving visibility and gender transition. resources to detransitioners. If you don’t know what detran- Both of us identified as trans sition means, we invite you to men for a few years, during read the following pages. If which we took testosterone you are looking for information and underwent a mastectomy. about how to detransition As we realised that this was medically and alternatives to not a path that we wanted to deal with gender dysphoria, continue on, we struggled to you can directly go to the find resources on the topic of second part of the booklet, detransition. starting from page 32. This booklet, as well as our website post-trans.com, aim Elie is a 22-year-old social Nele is a 24-year-old freelance science student from Belgium. illustrator and comic book She has done research on the author from Germany. She is topic of detransition and is currently doing her masters devoted to working further to in graphic storytelling while improve the lives of dysphoric working on a comic project on people and gender non- the topic of detransition. conforming women and girls. Our approach is based on the personal testimonies of detransitioners themselves. The intention behind this initiative is not to invalidate any personal experience or identity, You can find a digital version of this but rather to show the complexity and the booklet on our website post-trans.com/ diversity of journeys that are often overlooked. detransition-booklet 4 5 It will quickly appear when have, the advice that they can This booklet was made possible going through the pages that give, the coping strategies the booklet is full of quotes that they found, with regard thanks to the support of and information coming from to their social and/or medical a number of detransitioners detransition. and desisters themselves. We The questionnaire was gathered their experiences conducted in November 2020. with the help of an online You can find a small overview questionnaire, asking them of the participants below. about the challenges that they faced, the wishes that they all the detransitioners and desisters who contributed by sharing their personal experiences and perspectives, the Detransition Advocacy Network and Charlie Evans in particular, Stephanie Davies-Arai and the organisation TransgenderTrend, Dr J. William Malone the volunteers who helped us with the translations, and the many other people who have been devoting time and efforts to improving detransitioners’ lives. We have been amazed by all the ways in which solidarity can take form and we want to express our full gratitude to all the women, lesbians, and other people who believed in our project. 6 7 What does detransition mean? There is no widely accepted definition of detran- sition. In this booklet, we choose to refer to detransition as the choice that one makes about ceasing their social and medical transition to another sex/gender. Those who went through a social transition (came out, changed their name, etc.) but stopped their process before under- going any trans-related treatment or surgery will be referred to as ‘desisters’. What detransitioners and desisters have in common is a profound questioning of their relationship to gender and the origins of their body discomfort, which led them to wish for transition in the first place. In the following pages, you will find a few testi- monies of female detransitioners who shared their stories with Post Trans. Many more extracts coming from both female and male detransitioners and desisters will be displayed throughout the booklet to show a variety of experiences and viewpoints. 8 9 Talia’s Story I went to a single-sex school I lived as a man for almost where I was surrounded by three years and was referred only girls for 3 years. It was to an adult gender clinic for at the point in our lives where HRT** until I experienced an everyone around me was so awful depressive episode and conscious of their appear- realised that transitioning had ances, their clothes and how not fixed any of my problems. they looked to boys. I went to therapy for the first These things never concerned time in my life and realised me, and I quickly felt ‘sepa- that I was an autistic butch rated’ from others. I never ‘felt lesbian. I realised that I was like’ other girls. Lesbians were never meant, or needed to ‘feel feared and so the thought that like’ other girls and that I could I could be one didn’t dare cross be my own authentic self – and my mind. still be female. I despised the way boys looked After years of self-hatred and at me after puberty and I denial, I’m finally getting to covered my body as much as know my autistic, masculine, possible and developed an female self, and I love her. eating disorder. Because I didn’t see myself in * FtM stands for other girls, I felt like my body ‘female-to-male’ was wrong. I began struggling ** HRT stands for ‘hormone ‘Transitioning didn’t fix with depression and anxiety replacement therapy’ any of my problems.’ and it was soon after this that I discovered the online trans community, who enabled my feelings of self-hatred and led me to believe that transitioning was the cure to all my problems. So I came out as FtM*. 11 legal name and gender ten Brit’s months after I started testos- terone, and had top surgery Story two months after that. I will be 30 years old next Then for the next ten years, month. I have been looking I struggled with depression, forward to this birthday for a anxiety, and actual gender long time. And even more so dysphoria*. Something I never now that I am living my most truly understood, until I tried to authentic, true life. be the man I wasn’t. I spent the last decade trying So 9 months ago, I stopped to convince myself that I was a taking my hormones for good, man. I was 19 years old when and have since started the I decided that I was going to process of detransitioning. And transition. let me tell you, it’s truly the best decision I’ve ever made for I had two therapy sessions myself. before I started hormones, which at the time, was I missed the woman I never got completely okay with me. I was to be, but then I realised that ready to rush right through she was staring in the mirror at the process of transitioning me all along. My name is Brit, because all I cared about was and I am she. finally passing as male. And that was the biggest disservice * Gender dysphoria is a I’ve ever done to myself. medical term referring to the I don’t believe I ever truly had strong, persistent feeling ‘Gender Identity Disorder’. I was that a person’s biological sex never comfortable in my skin as does not match the person’s a woman before transitioning. inner sense of self. It is usually ‘Loving the woman inside of Society said I needed to be associated with strong body me is the best form of self- XYZ in order to be a woman, discomfort with regard to one’s and I was none of those things. sex characteristics. love I’ve ever given myself.’ So transitioning felt right and nobody could have told me a thing about it. I changed my 13 life changing events happen Carol’s after the age of 30 that drove me into a deep dark depres- sion. It seemed like I was Story drowning, and my dysphoria Transgender identity offered became unbearable. The me an explanation for why I only way out I could see was was wrong. I’ve felt different transition. my whole life. I never felt like I was really a girl because I I’m not going to sit here and never seemed to be able to act say transitioning didn’t help my like the other girls acted. dysphoria, because it did. But the reasons it helped became When I was 6 years old, I cried obvious after taking T for four and screamed because I didn’t years and having a double want to wear a dress. When mastectomy. It helped because I was 9, I begged my mother I didn’t have to live in a world for a football. She said, ‘No, that thought I was wrong. football is for boys’. At school kids made fun of me for acting I started taking antidepres- like a boy. I was told the way sants for my depression and I was wrong, that I needed to they enabled me to begin to behave like a girl.