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Before I write anything else, I first want to state that I am in full support of trans people. My detransition does not mean I suddenly hate trans people and want to end HRT and surgeries. The reason I'm writing this mostly so that, on the off chance someone with my experience reads this, we can both know we're not alone.

With that out of the way, I wanted to talk about something more serious. I don't particularly label myself like this on the regular, but I do use the word "detransitioner" to describe my experience because...well, it's accurate, despite all of its heavy political connotations. And when I use this word, I am specifically using it to mean someone who medically transitioned, but later realized they are cisgender and stopped medically transitioning, and maybe started reversing the effects of their initial transition. I am not talking about cis people who never medically transitioned, and I am not talking about non-binary people who initially thought they were binary trans.

It is a strange feeling, to realize that the last almost decade of my life has been spent being almost entirely inauthentic to myself. I jumped from label to label, identity to identity, and I swapped these labels and identities very frequently. I had no idea who I was. I didn't know what my experiences meant. One week I was a binary trans man, the next I was non-binary. One week I was a gay man, the next I was asexual and aromantic. Everything was confusing. Nothing made sense.

Rather unfortunately, I spent almost my entire childhood online. I had far more online experiences than in-person ones, and almost everything I learned about LGBT topics was from random strangers on Tumblr, YouTube, and occasionally Reddit. And I did not learn in an...I suppose equal way. I took one side's information while ignoring the rest. For example, for a very long time, up to only a couple of years ago, I thought I was asexual and/or aromantic, or somewhere on those "spectrums". I fully believed that the way I experienced attraction was abnormal, unusual, and definitely not "allo". But what I had failed to consider was that I had gotten all of my information about what attraction is, and I am not exaggerating when I say this, from random Buzzfeed (or adjacent) articles and ace/aro people. That is to say, I thought attraction was all or nothing. If you're not obsessing over someone from first sight or first talk, it is not attraction. If your attraction feels mild and ignorable, it's not really attraction, that's just the "amatonormativity" talking! (Side note: I absolutely despise that word! The only romance that society pushes onto people is heterosexual attraction!) If you aren't constantly attracted to someone, you must be demi or gray or something. But that's not how things work! Attraction is all the shades of gray. It is not always intense. Oftentimes it is fleeting. Just because you don't fall in love at first sight doesn't mean you're not attracted to someone.

In a similar vein, everywhere in the online spaces I frequented was just...men. Men were everywhere. Even if the vast majority of us weren't men, all the fandom talk, all the LGBT talk, was about mostly men. How "hot" they are, how "sexy" they are, how "ermagerrrrd mah ovaries are EXPLODINGGGGGG" and uh. Yeah. If you weren't a man, you were at least attracted to them. How could you not be? But the mensy-wensies are so hot?

I started questioning every odd feeling I had towards someone, especially men. That nervousness I felt around a friend of mine in high school who was a boy? Well, here's how it went in my head: the first day I would slyly tell myself that it seems like a crush...but I can't be sure...the second day, I was convinced I was in love. I mean, how could I not be? I just adore his...uh... humor, I guess. Don't question why I can't think of more than that. Don't question why I can't even look at his face because I find him so unattractive that being hit with the reality that I'm being insane over this real person who I don't at all find attractive feels deeply uncomfortable. Don't question it! I'm just feeling internalized homophobia. I'm just feeling dysphoric because I'm afraid he sees me as a girl.

One day I tell this friend that I am attracted to him. He tells me he feels the same. And I stop smiling. I feel nothing but a pit of anxiety in my stomach. Wasn't this what I wanted? For him to like me back? Even before I told him, signs that he felt the ""same"" scared me. It felt creepy. I know logically he wasn't being creepy; on the contrary, he was rather respectful towards girls, including myself. But the thought that a boy was attracted to me felt...disgusting. Gross. Creepy, scary. And this was nothing unusual for me- in my earlier childhood, I had had a few different boys have crushes on me. Each and every time I felt grossed out and cut them out of my friend circle. Of course I wouldn't do that now, I understand that crushes just happen, and it's not their fault. But when boys liked me, nothing could make me comfortable with that knowledge.

Contrast this with when I thought girls were attracted to me. I felt excited, happy, hopeful that I was right. I would fantasize, and I would envision the person, not some vague form of a human being like I did with boys. I didn't feel scared, I didn't feel grossed out, and I most certainly didn't feel threatened. I felt good. I wanted them to like me, genuinely, and I wanted to explore what could happen if we became romantically involved. (There has only been one instance of me feeling grossed out by the thought of being with another woman, and it was with an acquaintance I made in college. She was...definitely not my type. Lol.)

Sure, it could be that we live in a partiarchy and I know that men are often violent towards their women partners. It could be that, or something related to it. But even when I'm not brooding about how much I hate men and I wish we lived in an egalitarian society, I just don't see men. I see them, in that I notice they are existing in a specific space and walking or talking or doing whatever else, but I don't remember them. Men are very unattractive to me (wow, really???), and it is very rare that I find a man that I even just think looks pretty (not in a sexual/romantic way). I've never actually felt attracted to a man. But I see women! Almost every time I go out I see a woman I find not only aesthetically appealing, but attractive to me. Of course, I don't act on any attraction because 1. I am in a monogamous relationship and don't want anyone else and 2. my attraction is fleeting since we never interact or see each other again. But I know my attraction to women is real and comfortable and makes me happy.

Sometimes I feel like such an idiot. My gay ass would watch She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and cry over Catradora and feel deeply connected to them, and my gay ass would always be certain that I'm into women (when I wasn't going through my ace/aro phases) but uncertain if I was into men, and I would still be like "I'm probably bi tho." Like. God.

With that...long-winded talk about sexuality out of the way, I can finally get to gender. I am a cisgender woman, but from late 2015 to March 2025 I almost always identified as trans. My specific label and feelings would shift and vary; sometimes I would call myself a binary trans man, other times non-binary, or a demi-boy, genderfluid, agender, et cetera. On rare occasion I would even feel happy and comfortable calling myself a girl (put a pin in this) but would quickly go back to identifying as trans. To be honest, I'm still trying to fully figure out why this happened. I don't remember when I first started identifying as trans or what lead to it. And during this phase of my life, it did often feel genuine. I felt like I had dysphoria, like I couldn't be happy as a girl. But I believe I understand the reasons behind that now, and these days I'm confused how I ever felt comfortable as a man or non-binary person.

Not to be an NLOG, but I do genuinely just...not feel like most women. I live in the US, so the culture here plays a role in my experience (just as an FYI). From an early age, I learned that the role of the female is to produce babies and serve men and be hyper-feminine pieces of eye-candy. I was 6-7 when I was first introduced to things like sex, though I didn't understand it. Shows like South Park and Family Guy were openly showed to me. I laughed at jokes I didn't understand, I saw material I shouldn't have, and more than anything, I saw that women are not like me. Girls are not like me. And I wasn't a "girly-girl", I hated them. I was a tomboy. My mother frequently commented on "girly-girls'" outfits. "Girly-girls" were afraid of mud and snakes. I thought mud was fun and snakes were cool. "Girly-girls" love makeup and dresses and skirts and don't care about learning and achievement. I hated (and still do dislike) makeup, dresses, skirts, and all of that stereotypical feminine stuff. I like learning and achieving great things. "Girly-girls" are weak, bitchy, boy-crazy bimbos and I am not like them. I'm one of the boys. I like video games and wearing pants, I hate makeup and dresses, I love adventure and learning, I'm slightly violent and I'm smart. (I know, the internalized misogyny goes crazy. Bear with me.) The most feminine things about me are that I like having long hair and I love cats.

But the thing about being a tomboy is that you are expected to grow out of it. You will go through your ugly duckling phase before blossoming into a beautiful, stick-thin, soft, feminine swan. I never grew out of it. The only thing I grew out of was the intense misogynistic feelings I held towards feminine women and girls.

And you keep growing up. Even the other tomboys around you learn to embrace their...inner moon goddess feminine beauty. Or whatever. And suddenly you are a freak. Girls in the locker rooms snicker about you behind your back and to your face. You are called ugly. You are not like them. You are something else, something that shouldn't exist. You're...a masculine girl. You don't shave your legs, you don't think body hair is disgusting. It's just hair. You wear your T-shirts and shorts/pants and nothing else. You may or may not have short hair (in my case, I've always preferred long hair, though. Funnily enough, my hair has been the only thing I have ever received compliments for.) You dream of being muscular and strong. You dream of adventure and mud.

And then you get into media. Books, movies, shows, music. There are so many different types of people, so many worlds to explore. From elves to warrior-cats to dragons, you are always nose deep in a book or have your eyes glued to the screen. But in all of these worlds, from elves to warrior-cats to dragons, there is something missing. Things are a little better nowadays, but not nearly enough. When even stories with dragons cannot have masculine women, you begin to wonder if maybe you weren't meant to be one. I mean, can they even exist? Do they exist? Where are they? Am I seriously all alone in being a masculine girl? Even the "tomboys" in media are depicted as just feminine women/girls who wear pants. There was nobody like me, in real life or in the media.

So then when you stumble upon the concept of being transgender, suddenly everything clicks. Of course. This is what you were missing. The reason why you feel so out of place among the girls isn't because you're an outcast for simply presenting differently, it's because you're a boy! Or non-binary, or genderfluid.

And maybe for some people, that is true. But for me it wasn't. But I wouldn't realize that for years. It was just easier, identifying as a different gender. It was easier than confronting the real-life titan that is misogyny. It was easier than accepting that I am unusual, at least in our current society, but that that's okay. It was easier than accepting gender roles. And it is privileged of me to say that being trans was easier than accepting I'm a woman. For most people it is the exact opposite, and I'm not trying to erase that. For me personally, I grew up online in spaces extremely accepting of LGBT people. It was almost weird if you weren't LGBT (or, if I'm being honest, GBTransmasc. Lesbians and transfems were not very popular in my spaces.).

So I identified as trans. My label and my pronouns were in a constant shift, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that sometimes I would change my labels every week or even few days. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like at a certain point, I should have realized that even for a young person discovering themself, that much change so quickly so often wasn't normal. But I didn't realize it. I kept shifting and shifting and molding into new labels and out of old ones, before morphing back into them and repeating the cycle over and over. It was kind of a blur.

In 2022, I started HRT. I was actually able to get testosterone quite easily, thanks to my parents' insurance. After one session of therapy, I got my prescription, patted myself on the back for successfully lying to the therapist about the severity of my issues, and injected myself. (Side note: anyone who does HRT injections is actually the bravest person on the planet. It was so scary to me lmfao) I recorded myself doing the whole "this is my voice (x) (time) on T" thing. And I felt more masculine. I liked that. I like having more body hair, more muscle mass. I liked that my voice got deeper. But I had many doubts along the way.

There were several times throughout my gender journey where I felt not only comfortable, but good and happy identifying as a girl and using she/her pronouns. The most memorable one to me was, funnily enough, after finishing watching She-Ra season 5. I always felt strange after watching She-Ra. Most of the characters are feminine, but there are a few who aren't. Most notable to me was Catra, who I would describe as androgynous-leaning. I don't know why it only hit me after watching season 5, perhaps I just didn't have the same investment in the show beforehand (now that I think about it, I was obsessed with Critical Role at the time...). But Catra was the first (and as of now, one of only two characters) character in media who I felt represents me. She wasn't hyper-feminine or hyper-masculine. She was just a catgirl with long hair who wore pants and suits and who also happened to be extremely relatable to me from a mental health standpoint. She didn't wear makeup. She was covered in fur. She had a similar body type to the one I want (I'd want to be a bit more muscular though, haha).

After watching season 5, I just felt so weird. In a good way. Even if most of the characters were feminine, one of the most important characters was someone who looked like me, or what I wanted to look like. Not only that, she was a lesbian who gets with the main character at the end! And she has an amazing story! Plus, the whole show just felt good for female representation. It showed that women can save the day too, but that we don't have to be stoic, emotionless rocks in order to be cool and badass and strong and heroic.

I felt good. I felt happy identifying as a girl. But then the doubt would creep back, tell me that it's weird to be happy (???). It's not right to identify with these female characters. I wasn't a girl. I shouldn't feel happy identifying as one, that's just way too uncomfortable for me to think about. So I went back to identifying as a not-girl.

But as testosterone did its thing, slowly, I felt more and more off. My voice was getting a little too deep. I hope it doesn't get deeper. I wish I didn't have facial hair, I'm starting to look like my brother and dad. I'm glad I stopped having periods, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have them again.

It was nothing crazy. Just these little signs that kept popping up, signs I kept ignoring because reality was too uncomfortable. Because reality was just...not correct. It couldn't be. I have to be trans, I already told everyone I am. I'm on HRT. I'd be wasting my father's money. Besides, I'm the most Queer to ever Queer and being cis just isn't Queer Enough! (Yes, real feelings I had. I know.)

And then it was time for top surgery.

I actually keep journals. I write in them when I'm not feeling good, or just when I want to write something down. They're useful to me not just for being able to vent to something, but because I can look back on my thoughts at a certain time (assuming I actually wrote them down), and get clarity or answers to something I'm dealing with now. And sometimes it's just fun to see how I've grown. So when I looked back in my journals and saw that sometimes, when I wasn't being so fucking stupid and insane, I actually liked my breasts, I felt quiet.

I got top surgery in December 2024. I shouldn't have. To get more serious for a minute, this is the number one thing I regret in my life. I paid ten thousand dollars to remove an important part of my body all because I thought it would make me feel better. That it would help me pass as a man. I don't know if words could describe the grief I feel about losing this part of my body. Sometimes I will look at the words of other detrans women who got top surgery, and they either don't regret top surgery, or they do because they wanted to breastfeed or whatever. I have no interest in children. I don't want my breasts back because of children, or because it's what women are supposed to have. I want them back because they were a part of me. This may seem extreme, but sometimes it makes me question whether life is worth it. I lost this part of me, and it was all my fault. I was stupid, I was impulsive, I was reckless. I refused to consider other possible reasons I didn't like my breasts-it had to be because of dysphoria. And thanks to my stupidity, I will never have that part of my body back. Even if in the future I am able to afford the specific type of reconstruction I am interested in- if it's even available in the near future-it will never be the same as my original breasts.

This grief I feel isn't something that usually affects my day-to-day life. It is something that's constantly there, but that waxes and wanes in intensity. I miss them, but I can't focus on it. There is nothing I can do right now. I can't reverse that surgery. And it's just something I kind of have to deal with. But when it's intense, I feel a sense of loss, like something is missing. Looking in the mirror at my chest doesn't quite feel right, like I'm looking at some strange picture. It feels like a hollow where my chest used to be. It's just...empty. And it shouldn't be.

I didn't initially realize I regretted my surgery after getting it. At first I was ecstatic. I did it. I got the Big Surgery, my first surgery, and I survived. From here on out I will be wearing whatever I want as a man and I will feel confident. And my nipples definitely won't constantly show through my shirt far more than they ever did before surgery (LOWKEY...THIS IS SOMETIMES ALMOST THE WORST PART).

It was March last year that I realized I'm not trans. Three months after getting top surgery. At first I thought, hey, even if I'm cis, I don't regret getting top surgery. I mean, I don't have to wear bras anymore at least. But as the months went by, there was a growing feeling of longing for the chest I once had. My body feels off without them, even if I absolutely fucking hate wearing bras and having to deal with underboob sweat.

It was very hard, at first, to realize I'm not trans. It meant tackling some very hard-to-swallow topics, such as realizing that yes, I too have been deeply affected by misogyny, even if I have never been catcalled. It meant unpacking what it means to be a woman, and what a woman should look and act like. It meant unlearning the misogyny I grew up with. It also meant seeing the world and its people with blinding clarity: most people are misogynists. They might not realize it, they may deny it, but it is true. Misogyny is everywhere in society, in every continent, every country, every culture. Not everyone is an absolute demon, most people aren't, but most people have fucked up views of women and girls. And I'll be honest, sometimes it felt like all of that would swallow me whole and I would die in a pit of despair about the world. But I learned to persevere, to have hope that even though misogyny won't be eliminated in my lifetime, I can do my part to help fight back against it and patriarchy. It's frustrating, it's depressing, frankly it's some of the worst mental work I've ever had to do. But I've come through that initial year-or-so of despair and am now ready to face the world as my true self.

I'm a masculine lesbian woman. A lot of people won't like that, even if they don't admit it to themselves. I'm proud of being a masculine lesbian woman! And though my childhood and early adulthood was filled with confusion and denial and all these back-and-forths on my identity, even though I fucked up big time and permanently lost a piece of my body thanks to my mistakes, I'll keep moving forward. One day the grief won't be so bad. Maybe one day I'll get the perfect breast reconstruction I want and I'll feel more at peace and whole. Maybe one day I won't even want breasts again. But I'll keep going, because I have to. I have a girlfriend, I have friends, I have my art, my stories and my annoyingly long, overly-personal essays.

On the off chance that anyone reading this has a similar experience to me, just know you're not alone. Maybe even reach out, whether to me or someone you know. Fuck, maybe even start a support group. But remember to keep moving forward, and to hold onto hope and optimism (or realism, if that's all you can do for now).

Feeling: Melancholy
Listening To: Eurydice - Killian Scott

I think I've been discovering a lot lately. Mostly about myself, sometimes about the world. I recently finished reading a book called "Ratha's Creature" and it was one of the best books I've read in a long time! It's a young adult xenofiction book, the first in a series, and it is one of the few xenofiction books I've found with a female protagonist. And recently, I also read the newest book in the Wings of Fire series, "The Hybrid Prince", which was also very good and reignited my love for the series.

Reading these books has been a discovery that, I don't really like Warrior Cats. I sort of just...gave up on reading some time ago, because my interest in Warriors was so strong, yet I didn't really like the books. My focus on the series wouldn't be broken, and now I can see what a mistake that was! I have discovered a whole new world, silly as it sounds, and I couldn't be more excited! When I'm not just reading some heavily flawed childrens' books, but well-written, interesting (young) adult books (Wings of Fire is a childrens' series too, but it is still interesting to me somehow!), suddenly I'm reading again, and I feel stupid. For quite a few years now I just, never put down Warriors because I was so obsessed with it? Was I so obsessed that I wouldn't give other books a chance?

And on top of this, after finishing Ratha's Creature, I found myself almost immediately drawing fanart! I have never done that with anything except for Warriors, and I can feel my inspiration slowly coming back to me. Turns out, perhaps Warriors just isn't the most inspiring series for me. I have fond, nostalgic memories, but right now, what I need is the new, and the material that is, well, not aimed at pre-teens.

Feeling: Hopeful, stubborn, excited
Listening To: Renegades - X Ambassadors