Transitioning Saves Lives

February 27, 2025:

Today, I have been on testosterone for three years.

It's wild that time has passed so quickly. It doesn't feel like that ago that I was on the phone with a gender specialist, asking about being prescribed hormones. I look back on pre-transition photos of myself - I'm so young, so oblivious to what life had in store for me. The image of myself in old photographs is like some distant relative: a younger sister or a cousin I used to know. I still know her, of course, on a superficial level. I wish she had gotten the chance to know me, too.

Growing up, I was disinterested in the things girls my age were 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 to be interested in: makeup, dressing up, shopping. I was never 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘦 growing up, and it caused tension between my parents and I. My mother expressed her disappointment that I was not fond of femininity; she wished to teach me makeup and take me shopping and get dressed up with me. At home, there was no space for questioning or experimentation: just girls being feminine and boys being masculine. I never used to question it. As a kid, you believe what you're taught.

Growing up, I went to Catholic schools, and I attended church with my parents every weekend. They came from Christian families, and I suppose appearances are important. I read the bible religiously, thinking it would make my parents happy, desperately wanting to be a 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳. There was always this sense of confusion between what I was taught and what I believed, but I never asked questions - because questioning isn't obedience, and 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 do what they're told. I was a 𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘰𝘺 who liked sports and bugs and baggy clothes, and that's the way it was.

Children know who they are.

Even from a very young age, children understand if they are a 𝘣𝘰𝘺 or a 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭. Personal sense of identity begins to form at the age of three, even if it isn't understood until years later. Kids deserve a safe space and opportunities to explore their identities. I didn't have that, and I wish I would have.

My egg cracked in 2017.

In the trans and gender non-conforming community, an egg is a person who hasn't yet discovered their trans identity. When an egg "cracks", you come to accept yourself. You break out of your shell and begin the journey of self-discovery. People say you'll regret transitioning - and some people do, but regret can come with anything, and most of the time, the reward outweighs the risk. Studies have proven that in regards to transition surgeries and hormones, there's less than a one percent regret rate. This is far lower than the regret rate for, say, tattoos or plastic surgery. Personally, my only regret in regards to transitioning is that I didn't begin sooner.

There's a lot of talk among anti-trans politicians about detransitioners: a loaded term that most people don't seem to fully understand. Detransitioning refers to stopping or pausing a transition, permanently or temporarily. There's an assumption made by many that the only reason for detransitioning is regret, and that's not true. In a world fuelled by fascism and hate, the most common reason for a trans person to detransition is societal pressure or discrimination. Approximately one percent of the global population is transgender. That's around eighty million people. Considering only about 0.5% of trans people actually detransition, it's incredibly uncommon.

In my late teens and early twenties, I spent a lot of time on anonymous social websites. I'd choose a masculine name for myself and masquerade as a boy, insisting it was just 𝘧𝘶𝘯 to be someone different once in a while. I've always been a daydreamer, after all. Though, I could never quite explain the feeling that it gave me when strangers on the Internet treated me like a boy. I didn't understand the feeling, like I didn't understand most feelings.

In 2017, I was twenty two.

I lived at home, attending community college and taking care of a toddler. Understanding and accepting my identity was a long and confusing process, but that's the way it always goes, isn't it? I was exposed to all kinds of people in college: much more than I had ever known in my twelve years of Catholic schooling. To me, it was an entirely different world. It was the place that made me feel 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵, though I wasn't sure why. I cut my hair short, something I'd never done before, which displeased my parents. I shopped in the 𝘮𝘦𝘯'𝘴 section in stores, secretly dressing up in my room when no one else was home. I remember shopping with my mother, once, who questioned me for browsing in the "men's" section at a clothing store. I remember telling her I was "just looking".

Transitioning saves lives.

Imagine being forced to look a certain way, and have a certain name, and wear certain clothes: things assigned to you by people in power, who punish you for going against their commands. Imagine living under an identity assigned to you by someone else - hiding in the shadows, suffocating underneath a costume that never quite fit. But no one ever hears you, and no one ever sees you. And after enough years of squeezing yourself into the uniform you've been assigned, it begins to feel like you'll never be free of it.

You deserve to be free of it.

You deserve to be true to 𝘺𝘰𝘶, without having to fight for the right to survive.

Sometimes, it feels as though the only options are 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘺 or 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩.

Community is important, but so is supporting those who have no community at all. It's why I speak so openly on social media: why I rally for acceptance and change, why I try so hard to be a safe person for those who have no one else. My egg cracked when I was twenty two, but it wasn't until years later that I really understood who I was. There will always be people who are against me - and that's sad, but it's sad for them, not me. It's sad to live your life with self-loathing and fear - I know it is, because I lived my life like that, once.

I really think it's something a lot of people can't understand unless they've been there. That's the thing about humans, right? They don't care about something until they're affected by it. If your only choices were 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩, or 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵, what would you choose?

Sources & Further Reading

https://ourduty.group/education/transition-regret-numbers-and-reasons/

https://segm.org/first_large_study_of_detransitioners

https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/

https://www.them.us/story/cracking-the-history-of-the-trans-egg

https://lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Detrans

https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/