Topic: What triggered your detransition?

[PurpleWolf]

I guess this forum isn't that active at all... But still:

What triggered you wanting to detransition? Did something happen? What made you think you want to live as your birth sex again? Was it a gradual change or overnight?

Did you mentally struggle with it initially? Has it been a process for you to come to terms with this new realization?

Do you grieve your past trans self?

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My reply:
What triggered you wanting to detransition? Did something happen? What made you think you want to live as your birth sex again? Was it a gradual change or overnight?
A close friend (septagonscars) I had been sexting with on and off hinted at she would like my chest either way. Now I had this extreeeeeme dysphoria especially about my chest and I wanted them GONE 10 years ago. Talking about my chest with her made my dysphoria about it suddenly disappear. Almost overnight. For the first time ever I felt something positive towards it, instead of utmost hatred. That was fall 2018.

Already in the summer of 2018 she suddenly decided to detransition herself - which hit hard on me and caused all kinds of emotions in me. That made me think long and hard about my own situation also... And after my dysphoria disappeared during the fall I got scared and decided to cancel my trans process.

Did you mentally struggle with it initially? Has it been a process for you to come to terms with this new realization?
Yes, absolutely!!! My dysphoria disappeared in the fall of 2018 before I was about to start the process at a gender clinic. I mentally struggled with it a LOT. Eventually I canceled the whole process at the first call appt. It was a VERY hard decision to make. After all I had waited for this all my life... It was hard to mentally grasp. Everyone kept telling me I could still go through with it and get diagnosed and then decide if I want T or not etc... But I just knew at that point that I didn't want to be/look male anymore.

But I struggled with it mentally a LOT. Even though I never medically transitioned, I thought of myself as a guy for 17 years. It didn't show on the outside bcos I don't have a beard or anything, but inside I was in turmoil. I gradually stopped binding and became more and more comfortable presenting as female.... but struggled with words and pronouns a lot. Sometimes I felt awkward when I looked clearly fem and my friends called me he... Or having changed my name legally to a guy name finally... But at the same time I didn't feel like changing my pronouns back to she/her either. Sometimes I thought if I'm non-binary or genderfluid or something. I wondered if I want to present as a guy/male at times after all.

Do you grieve your past trans self?
Yes, at times I have. Bcos I never medically transitioned, I always had this image of myself as a guy in my mind: how I wanted to look, how I'd be on T etc. It was hard to let go of that. I also always hated how female I looked and my chest and fem face... It was hard to accept that was never going to change now. But at the same time I felt relief for not having dysphoria anymore... and being able to use locker rooms etc...

For the first time in my life I've started loving the person I really am. On the inside and all my vulnerabilities and also on the outside. Through all my life experiences, my long toxic relationship, all the abuse and traumas, all that self-hatred... I've gotten to know this new me, a proud masc girl and a lesbian I never got to be before. Mostly I'm the same person I always was.... but something has changed profoundly. My relationship with myself and getting to know myself better. I almost feel like a new person... and sometimes it's even hard to connect to how I used to feel before as a guy. At the same time I know this is the 'pure me', healing from traumas, how I really am on the inside, and always were, and always wanted to be... just never got the opportunity to being.

Sometimes I've felt I'm transitioning mtf...... so strong was my perception of myself as a guy. It's now been about a year since I started questioning myself last summer.... Around Christmas 2018 I still struggled a lot..... and during spring also.... But now I've gotten to a point I feel comfortable talking about this and pretty solid in my new identity.

[Kirsteneklund7]

Now that is a brilliant post. Full of warts and all raw truth. It can be so hard to look fully at ones self and deal with the mistakes and embarassing stuff.

 But you own it! PurpleWolf!

 I need to read and re-read this. I think it could be valuable to young FTMs as well.

Laura had a string of gutsy, full of insight posts as well. Posts describing that difficult scenario called detransition.

 
Love your stuff, both of you.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[SarahEL]

Wow, Purplewolf - That is quite a beautiful, introspective, intelligent post - Thank you so much for sharing this part of your journey. 

[SarahJaneSmith]

What triggered you wanting to detransition? Did something happen? What made you think you want to live as your birth sex again? Was it a gradual change or overnight?

I had wondered about transitioning since age 6. Sometime in my early 20s I started transitioning after a trans woman I met told me what hormones she used. She didn't know about T blockers so she didn't tell me. The hormones used were an injectable progesterone/estradiol combo and a pill containing EV/OHPC. I severely abused these as they were easily obtained legally. This was pre-internet. Information was scarce. In a matter of weeks the changes started coming and I was using much higher dosages than needed. The changes felt wonderful and didn't make me sick.

However...

About three months in I noticed my testicles had shrunk to half their original size. I had my libido still and yet I discovered that in masturbating the volume of sperm was close to zero. I panicked and stopped hormones.

In the place I was living I couldn't find a single doctor sympathetic to transsexuals and they would openly mock and insult me when calling them on the phone to try and set up an appointment.

What I did was I got an appointment with my family doctor who I knew had intense prejudices and told him I was paranoid about my fertility due to a scrotal injury earlier in life. He had a sperm analysis ordered and we found little volume and small sperm count.

I stopped altogether. I knew I wanted kids. I also knew that even though I was attracted to women, they would not be attracted to what I was becoming. I also knew that society at that day and age was incredibly hostile to what I felt inside and so I gave up.

Did you mentally struggle with it initially? Has it been a process for you to come to terms with this new realization?

No. My fear of being childless was too great and so was my desire to be with a woman. It was more of a disappointment. I knew it was the only logical decision.

Do you grieve your past trans self?

Yes because the changes felt so wonderful, I'd never felt so well in my life. I also know that the feminization at that time would have been a lot more intense then it will be now in my late 40s.

But I have kids now and am married and I am willing to go at it again.

[angelats]

What triggered you wanting to detransition? Did something happen? What made you think you want to live as your birth sex again? Was it a gradual change or overnight?


My answers might trigger.

My gender therapist diagnosed me as a typical mtf transsexual. She asked me whether i was sexually abused. I denied this because i thougt so. I asked then my brother whether he had any knowledge of sexual abuse in my childhood. He then told me, that he and me were sexually abused for many years by our aunt.

This was quite a shock to me. I had no memory of it at all. It then came back. I had dreams, emotional flashbacks etc.

I realized nobody ever loved this little boy that was me. I even myself wanted to have nothing to do with me as a abused and not loved boy.

I decided to to love this little boy that was me. I identified myself with this little boy. His pain and suffering. This took years of healing. I gradually detransitioned.


Did you mentally struggle with it initially? Has it been a process for you to come to terms with this new realization?


Yes. It was a long and painful but also healing process over many years.

Do you grieve your past trans self?

My past trans self is part of me and belongs to me. As a biological male man i can live parts of my feminity in my everyday life. I miss to have a female body. But i can live with it.

I still have to learn to love myself, to decide wisely what is good for me and what does not hurt myself. To love my body, to identify myself, to recognize myself in my body, my history, myself.

[Devlyn]

Laura is SeptagonScars

[SarahEL]

My answers might trigger.


I decided to to love this little boy that was me. I identified myself with this little boy. His pain and suffering. This took years of healing. I gradually detransitioned.

This is very close to something I am dealing with - It is very triggering, thank you for the warning, but It was so very important for me to read - especially today when my GD is so very bad.
I just wanted you to know how important your post was to me. xx

[Alice]

What a great topic for someone such as myself.

Note that this relates to my first transition which was a complete disaster.  I have since successfully transition.

What triggered you wanting to detransition? Did something happen? What made you think you want to live as your birth sex again? Was it a gradual change or overnight?

Ultimately it came down to the increasing number of panic attacks. It was a gradual change but things were deteriorating. I had already been in hospital once and looked very likely I would have to return soon to manage my increasing anxiety and panic attacks. I was told HRT would make my life better but things were getting out of control with threat of myself acting on my self harm thoughts of real concern.


Did you mentally struggle with it initially? Has it been a process for you to come to terms with this new realization?
Living life each day was a struggle. I was having all kinds interventions to try and control my moods including looking at personality disorders. I was worried that I was being force to go back to a life which was growing increasingly isolated with large amount of depression. In the end we were lucky to find my sleeping was contributing to my moods.   

Do you grieve your past trans self?
Not now but initially I had no way viable way out of depression


Alice