Update 28 August 2019
At her request, we have removed our interview with Maxine. She told us:
“I’m still happily desisted from my former trans identification. In fact, I have moved on to the point that I am no longer interested in talking or even thinking about ‘gender.’ My life is full and rich, and I’m very glad I did not medically transition. But I am a private person, and at this time, am no longer willing to share my very personal story with the world via the Internet.
I wasted a lot of precious time believing I was trans. At the time of this interview nearly two years ago, I was very angry about that, and wanted to help other people, so I wasn’t thinking about my privacy.
I’m really glad that sharing my story helped other young people become more comfortable with their bodies. Best wishes to all.”
Moving on
Your are so eloquent Maxine. The way you describe your experience will enable other young people to evaluate their own beliefs and situations in a much more complex way. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Maxine. This is a tremendous gift of your wisdom and experience.
Maxine, you are wise beyond your years,and amazing that you came to this realization. I would love to read your interview to my daughter who is now 22 and been going through similar body dysphoria for the last 2 years.She wears a binder and told me a few weeks ago that she was going to look into a mastectomy. As soon as I commented on it and said it is irreversible,she stopped talking to me about it. I have had so many discussions in the past questioning that she is not transgender as she never had any affiliation to being transgender until 2 years ago after her last boyfriend break up and then her distaste for men started,which led to saying she was gay, I believe she may have body dysphoria but do not believe she is gender fluid. Because she is an adult I have no power over which therapist she sees. If you or your mom have any advice on how to approach her on the subject I would be grateful.
That sounds hard. I think this is an excellent essay about binders from the perspective of a young woman. I would calmly, lovingly, ask your daughter to read it. Maybe if you go on a long-enough car ride together, that would be a good time. Don’t push her then and there to talk, but ask her to at least hear one other voice who has come to look at binding from a different perspective: https://patheticfallacies.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/back-from-the-blogosphere-dead-to-say-something-about-binders/
My best wishes to you and your daughter
Brie, thank you for posting this blog link. In hindsight, it amazes me how little we talk about all the issues outlined. Brutally honest and not overstated. I recall as a girl having to traverse all those waters, as all girls must. I am so grateful trans wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. Trans capitalizes on the normal discomfort of puberty. :/
Oh, goodness, I wonder if there’s some internalized homophobia happening?
It can be surprising and invasive, and can happen even if you are a liberal and open person.
Being angry about bad relationship breakups is so normal. And it’s just as normal to experiment with other kinds of relationships.
Does she have a good lesbian community?
It sounds like a lot of anger and frustration that’s been internalized.
Jeez, smart kid
Maxine, you have taken your trauma and your trans period and gained great wisdom. You thought you wanted to be “masculine” to be stronger and safe – I hope you see you have come to be *very* strong – on the inside where it really counts. And your intelligence, introspection, and new ability to watch for red flags – learning to cast a critical eye and think about things – will help keep you safe. I predict that you will be a success at whatever you choose to do with your life.
We do have to deal with a system that often sees us as second class and as sexual objects, but I hope one day you come to the place where you know what a blessing it is to be a woman 🙂
PS Your artwork is beautiful. And I love that you’re 14 and use semi-colons! (it’s the smart kids who are the truly cool ones 🙂 )
lorac / @newfielover41
Wow…what a read, I thank you for sharing such words of wisdom! My daughter is 13 and is so convinced she is trans, its tearing her and all of the family apart. I am going to ask her to read your article tonight, when she is home from her counselling session. I know it will hit home, especially the parts where you are so frank and see reality. My daughter cannot see reality or that there are other options out there and other ways of looking at this issue. Please know that you have helped a family in distress already…Thank you. Now…wish me luck!
Caring Mom, I do wish you luck, and pray for it. Maxine’s beautiful essay, and your response, hit home for me too, as my 15-year-old daughter is struggling with this as well. We can only love them and try to help them love themselves. Honesty is the first step. Thank you, Maxine, for your eloquent honesty.
Maxine, thank you. I am thrilled that you were able to step back and look critically at what you describe as a group of youth obsessed with illnesses and symptoms. I LOVE that you realized what works for you is movement and getting away from the tube and outside as well as into your art. I was blown away by your young age–certain you must at least be 18+. You are very wise. I love your art. Keep just doing you! Xo
Maxine, you are a teen with so much wisdom already in the short time you’ve been here.
One thing that struck me in the gut before I even started to read your post and I was just looking at your artwork was that those pictures are the exact style of art that my daughter does on DeviantArt. DA is where she met her now “boyfriend”, a female who transitioned, when she was 13 or 14. Now she’s 19 and they’re still together. My daughter still considered herself a girl when she first started DA. When she met this person (P let’s call her), P was a lesbian, then came to the conclusion that she was trans. They had been “together” (P lives in another country, but close enough to visit) for a year before my daughter finally came out as trans, too. Not only was I surprised, but she told me that P was surprised, too. But of course, the friends all go along with it.
Of course, I was blindsided and didn’t know much about the this trans trend at the time and had I known that it was so prevalent in DA, I would have cut that access right away.
My question is, is the artwork that you displayed here what you call “transgender artwork” and what are the typical characteristics?
I truly hope my daughter will come to the same conclusions that you have because I’m so fearful that she will harm herself (both physically and mentally) beyond repair. But then again I have been much more reactive than your mother ever was. I guess you take after your mom because she really knew how to navigate this time in your life so that you could come out the other side much more conscious of yourself and wise beyond your age.
I congratulate both of you and hope that this post will touch other girls lives to help them out of this.
I’m responding with Maxine here….
Maxine: No! This is just my style of art. Trans art, at least what I was seeing, was about how horrible it was to have a female body. Go to DA and search “dysphoria art” or “ftm cartoon” and you will see what I’m talking about.
Brie: A wise friend said to me, after reading Maxine’s interview:
“The part about deviant art bothered me the most.
Imagery AND words, and friendship, and feedback. Too emotional.”
I agree.
And – I was there, in the same room as Maxine while she was browsing/reading/interacting but I didn’t “see” it
Maxine: Thank you for responding. Your style and my daughter’s style are similar in a lot of ways. I’m really glad that this is not representative of “dysphoria art”. I did look it up and I see what you mean.
Brie: Yes, I think this was her community, not so much anymore. I don’t think my daughter was so much obsessed about being trans as she is obsessed about her trans “boyfriend”, but who knows? I didn’t know anything until it was too late.
I just want to say thank you! My daughter is 15 and is adamant that she is a boy. It is tearing our family apart. It seems I just keep hearing the sad stories – the stories of kids who (or have therapists who) tragically persisted without considering or pursuing alternatives first . So this piece gives me tremendous hope. I am incredibly grateful for your willingness to put yourself out there. I pray that my daughter will change her views over time, and be able to think critically as you have.
Maxine, what amazing maturity and insight you have. You have covered so much in your essay on what dysphoria can mean.
Parents know about the internet influences, but they don’t know them intimately. Thank you for illuminating DeviantArt and Tumblr.
That was a great observation about feeling oppressed but not actually being oppressed.
How to be a girl? How to be a woman? It’s great that you could so openly consider what it was about becoming a woman that was frightening to you. I think this one often gets over-looked. We live in a highly-sexualized culture. What if you don’t fit in with the girls adopting that identity? Yes, you are still a girl! Our messages to girls are often negative and polarizing: rape culture or Cosmo girl?
I am glad that you had your mother to shepherd you through this storm. I think your essay will help many other girls.
Love your artwork and that you spend so much time in nature.
You are a smart and brave girl and so many of us appreciate you speaking out. I wish you the best.
I wish you the best Maxine. Your story is heartfelt and fills me will hope. My 15 year old came out as trans (FTM) a couple years ago, although she will say she felt this way much longer. She was a tomboy to sorts when younger but also loved all the things about being a girl. She believes the only way she will ever be happy is to start T as soon as possible and eventually transition. This scares me to death and has torn my little family apart. I would love to have her read your story, and I just might, but I’m also afraid it will spark a fire in her and yet another fight between us. Do you have any advice? Thank you.
Thanks, Maxine. I am glad you found your way back to embracing your female sex. I appreciate all you shared with us here.
Thank you Maxine!!! I love your emotional intelligence, frank and clear writing style, and stunningly fabulous art work. You are a force to be reckoned with! Bravo!!
As you already know, some people will discount your story and say it’s the rare exception. Essentially, they are marginalizing you – which is so hypocritical coming from a community claiming to be marginalized. And you and I know – along with the hundreds or probably thousand or more visiting this site over time, along with the several thousands more that haven’t found this site – this is NOT the rare exception. There are many youth that thought they were trans but then realized they are not trans and then there are the de-transitioners and many, many more who are transitioning now that do not need to.
Your statements: “I think if I had gone to a gender therapist, I would still think I was trans now. If my mom had thought that hormones and blockers were the best solution for my anxiety and dysphoria, I would be taking T right now.” are the essential, critical statements that need to be acknowledged and understood by today’s youth, their parents, and the “gender experts.”
You and my daughter have a lot in common and I’ll share your story with her. She’s funny, emotionally intelligent, uniquely kind, and would love your art work! She had some trouble finding friends after two major school changes and hated feeling weak and insecure. Like you, she wanted to be a strong, powerful male. She was convinced she was a boy and very convincing to her therapist. We stopped the “therapy” and spent a lot of time with her doing fun things, offered lots of questions for her to ponder, and then we proposed scenarios for her to consider. She is happy now just being an ‘almost 14-year-old girl’!
While reading your story, Maxine, I heard so many echos of my stepson’s experience: T1 diabetes, the dregs of DeviantArt and My Little Pony fandom, gender support groups, mental illness… and the way I got through to him, too. I’m so happy that you have found your way out of this maze, and that you are finding your voice to describe your journey through. I hope other young women will read and identify with what you’re saying, and come to the same conclusion.
My stepson is also now sure he’s not trans, and sure that most of the kids in his peer group who claim it are not trans either.
Our journey began when he first encountered DeviantArt and MLP fandom- about 6 months before he declared he was trans. His posts showed me that he used the community as a supply for his emotional vampirism that is a hallmark symptom of borderline personality disorder (which also has a component of not having a stable sense of identity.) I found that he was having explicitly sexual roleplay chats with older men in PM’s on DeviantArt, in which he would role-play being female. He was drawing the aforementioned trans-furry pictures, including some graphically sexual.
In his case, being trans wasn’t a way to become more powerful, it was a way to become acceptably dependent, as he thought girls/women lived with people doing everything for them – that we all get to experience an idealized version of chivalry. (Dependency is another hallmark of BPD).He also thought being trans was a way to escape the powerful testosterone urges that he couldn’t control – intrusive sexual thoughts (because girls don’t get horny), and aggression (because girls don’t freak out). He thought being trans would be enough to make people like him, or at least pay attention to him (IRL, many people find him needy, immature, and unpleasantly annoying.)
I tried to limit his times of navel-gazing – blocked websites that fed his emotional vampirism, didn’t take him to Triple-Point center support groups like I was encouraged, did take him out into nature, encouraged him to develop friendships IRL, and let him dress however he wanted while being clear that he wasn’t special for doing so – outlier kids have been dressing like freaks since time immemorial.
I worked to dispel his myths about femaleness, and helped him to understand that being “woman” or “man” is a bio-psycho-social experience. I let him in on the biological realities of womanhood – period shits, having to pee more often (one more reason we shouldn’t have to share bathrooms – there aren’t enough for us as is), having tender boobs, being expected to wear clothes that constrain our movements or make us vulnerable in other ways….
I coached him on the social expectations of being a girl. He HATED being a bridesmaid, that he had to wait to eat until after wedding pictures were taken. He hated being told to wear something under a sheer blouse, or that he couldn’t climb stuff in a skirt.
My stepson’s endo at Oregon Health Science University also treats trans adolescents and when she first heard he was thinking about it, he was offered blockers, and then cross-sex hormones – she did not ever consult the mental health professionals who had worked with him since age 8 for his mood disorder (which he inherited with a strong family history, and for which he takes psychotropic medications).
She didn’t even ask any questions why he felt that way, nor did she tell him anything about the effects of cross-sex hormones on his glucose levels (most studies have found high levels of cross-sex hormones, whether endogenous or artificial, make a body insulin-resistant, while same-sex hormones increase insulin efficacy.)
I changed endos and the next one did the same – but she at least asked some questions about why he felt this way and homed in on the phrase “I want to” (as contrasted with “I AM”). She ceased offering hormones after the 1st appointment, whereas the 1st endo offered every time even when we expressed misgivings about how it would impact his other medical conditions.
Sadly, these two endos are the only two pediatric providers in the entire Portland metro area. (It makes both of us mad that he has to wait increasing lengths of time to be seen for his life-threatening condition as the number of transkids seeking endo services increases.)
In the end, all these pieces came together to finally shine a light on how harmful this line of behavior is to the ones pursuing it, to women and children, and to social sanity. Now he is 17 and wants to shine this light so that others can understand but he doesn’t know how to articulate it. Thank you, Maxine; I can point to your words and let him know that he doesn’t have to worry so much, that someone’s done it.
You are so insightful, Maxine. The wisdom that you possess at such a young age is rare. Adults have a lot to learn from you. Thank you so much for sharing.
I am sure the past few years have been difficult for you. But I want you to know that you and your mom are helping other people SO much by sharing your experiences and observations. I applaud your bravery in speaking out.
My daughter is 16 and has identified as a trans boy for three years. She’s smart like you, but also has autism and always felt like she doesn’t fit in socially. While she has had friends, they have been superficial. Her friendships are mostly one-sided. I think her trans identity is more an expression of not being comfortable being herself – not just not being female. She is a very rigid thinker, and has a hard time understanding other people’s perspectives. Discussing controversial topics with her has always been stressful — she has such difficulty understanding different viewpoints and she knows she is right!
One thing you wrote about your mom: “She never pushed anything on me or tried to push any ideas away from me, unless it was something dangerous, like crossing the street without looking….My mom wanted me to explore the thoughts I was having. She just didn’t want me to medically transition but even then she was being supportive. She never flat out said “no,” she just said that I needed to think about it and research it.”
What I think many of us parents struggle with is how to talk to our kids about this without harming our relationship and pushing them away further into their trans identification. You mentioned that you and your mom explored this issue together. It sounds like her respect of you and your feelings was key. I am curious if you both mostly focused on the medical dangers and if that is what led you to the truth…or if you also explored trans ideology or any feminist writings? Do you have any specific recommendations as to any books, blogs, or videos that you think would be helpful to share with a teenager who is deeply entrenched in her trans identification — something that maybe I could view with my daughter that would lead to a healthy discussion…one that she would not find condescending or immediately dismiss? Thanks for any suggestions you might have.
And again, my words are inadequate to properly express my gratitude to you and your mom for sharing your story. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I would recommend the advice given at The Jung Soul: http://thejungsoul.com/guidance-for-parents-of-teens-with-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us! This is a gift. I would really like to share this with my daughter but not sure how she will take it if it comes from me. I’d love to hear from other parents who share this with their kids. I’d like to know how it was received.
Hello. I ended up sharing this story with my almost 15 year old daughter who claims to be a boy. And as expected, she insisted that this was nothing like her because well, she doesn’t just want to be a boy to be seen as strong, but that she is a boy. I had hoped she would read it with an open mind and ask herself valid questions about why she thought she felt this way, but unfortunately, she is still immature and only said “This isn’t me.” I hope you have better luck. I pray for all parents going through this.
I have gone through almost exactly the same thing with my son, and I would encourage that you try to have an open mind with your daughter. Ask her if she wants to go by another name or use “he” pronouns, just for a little while, or maybe just in the house. She might find that she doesn’t like it, or she might find that she feels much better. There’s nothing wrong with experimentation, and I know that there is nothing more soul-killing than having a parent that won’t support you. Try to be as open-minded as you want her to be. Good luck!
Open minded should not include drugs or surgeries or any sort of public declarations that would be hard to retreat from. Real parental concern about the affects on our very much loved children who are being influenced by transgender ideology and the social status and power it brings them should never be construed as “soul killing” lack of parental support. That is just vicious.
If a lot of women want to transition to be big, strong and safe, how many of them do the things that both men and women need to do to make that happen – weight training and the diet that goes with it to maximise strength, self defence, martial arts and firearms training? If not, could steering them towards such an undertaking lessen the appeal of transgender? Although women can’t get as strong as an equivilently trained man, they can still get pretty freakin’ strong:
https://forgottennewsmakers.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/katie_sandwina_withmen.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7wIsRaXwAEUfvy.jpg
http://physicalculturist.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/athelda1.jpg
All those physiques predate the invention of steroids so must have been developed naturally.
With your still painful ribs, first I’d suggest going to an osteopath or other manual therapist and see what they can do with it or what they recommend (good osteopaths are nigh unto gods). But something you might want to try yourself is to get a Doxy vibrator, crank it up to full power and work over the painful areas. I’ve had a lot of success with that for both weightlifting and industrial injuries (and now that I think about it, jaw pain after a root canal – it fixes many ills).
One thing that can cause breathing problems is breathing with your chest (even for people who never bound). It’s much better to be a belly breather. You can test which you’re doing by laying on your back with a shoe (or similar object) on your chest and another on your stomach and watching which goes up and down as you breathe. Ideally only the belly one should move significantly. If the chest one is moving a lot, that may be part of the problem.
Finally, I both love and fear Cyclops Cat. 🙂
This story gives me some hope for my 14 year old son. Your maturity is astonishing! He is still young emotionally and can’t really even answer the question “Why do you want to be a girl?” He told us he was trans early summer this year, so this is still kind of new to me. I believe his feelings have to do with trauma from my husband’s anger, our separation and many losses in the last year or two. I have debated whether to seek counseling for him/ us but I doubt I will be able to find one that will not immediately push him towards transitioning. Does your mom have any advice how to weed through counselors?
Also, my son showed me a video on YouTube this week called Dear Parents of trans kids which was pro-transitioning. Would love to see you two post a similar video with your story. OR are you aware of any videos already on youtube? I realize this would be really making yourself vulnerable to criticism but I have had such a hard time finding info online to help us think things through. I’m sure there are MANY parents feeling the same way I am, desperate for help. There needs to be more out there that presents this side of the issue.
Hi – I’ve found tons of videos on youtube if you search for detransition. This one I got my daughter to watch: https://youtu.be/pRkWkidE-2k. And there are a ton more like it.
Wonderful insight, Maxine. Fight the harmful stereo types!
Maxine, your story reads like a word for word account of my daughter’s. Deviant Art, online bios, YouTube videos, gender nonconformity, ( I don’t know your orientation but I know my daughter is a lesbian. An inexperienced one but she likes girls.) I’m an artist by trade and I was always supportive of her posting her artwork on deviant art, but we did monitor as best as we could. I never suspected that posting art would lead to this. I’m sure it was just part of the puzzle. She’s definitely a tomboy, likes to have a buzz cut and wear boys clothes. I never had a problem with that either. I just thought she was rebelling against stereotypes. I know I’m a stranger on the internet, but I would so love for her to talk to you. She’s almost 14 and she doesn’t have any peers who support her being female. In fact the transgender thing has made her more popular. Maybe I can get her to read this, and email anonymously if you’re willing and your mom says okay. I can hope! It’s a lot to ask so of course no pressure, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to ask!
Beautifully written, Maxine. Thank you, thank you so much. This is such a blessing.
I never knew how much of a dank little rabbit hole deviantArt actually was… the Internet provides so much good, and yet causes so many problems.
Maxine, I am glad that you have found peace, and I am glad that you have the wisdom to discern actual feelings from fancies. It is bizarre how prevalent these trans diagnoses have become.
Not much else to say, from there. I will be taking an extended leave from the Internet after today. You hit the nail on the head when you say that the best remedy for sour feelings is to get up and move. The Internet is a time-suck and people don’t even realize it. I have school and friends and a partner whom I love, and a career which I want to pursue. Becoming too involved here and other anti-trans and pro-trans sites has become unhelpful. It is a debate I swore I would never allow myself to become entrenched in, but here I am, entrenched anyway.
But before I leave, I wanted to give some parting words.
This group has such love in its heart and that love is palpable. All of you genuinely care for your children and want the best for them, as all good parents should. You are wise people asking good questions and are far more open-minded than my own parents.
Always be careful in the things you do and how you approach your children on these topics. Educate them, as you have, and encourage them to educate themselves. I find it unsettlingly to hear that I am virtually the only trans youth who had done any sort of research into the long term health complications and risks of surgery and into cases of regret. It seems like a no-brainer. Someone who wishes to pursue this should want to know that they will not regret it.
Medical transition is, at its core, medicine for a serious mental condition. Media has done well to paint it, instead, as a lifestyle rife with “special” feelings of “specialness”. But the “special” feeling wears off, especially once everything that can be done is done, and after that, there is nothing special about it, it’s become normal life. Anyone undergoing this should realize that at some point being trans will become mundane and no one will bat an eye or ask them questions (most especially FTM individuals, who often pass far far better than MTF). Then what? Normalcy should be the goal of transition, not “uniqueness” not “specialness” (and I mean normalcy in the sense of having a normal functional life).
Finally, empathy is so, so important. My mother was not empathetic. She was dogmatic and narcissistic. She saw only what she wanted to see in any given situation and discounted/redefined all things that contradicted her way of seeing the world. She was manipulative. The choice to desist should always be the choice of the child. Manipulation helps no one, it only damages. Manipulation makes decision making harder in the future. It breeds self-doubt and a loss of confidence in one’s own decisions. Do research not only in tales of regret and gender critical literature, but also in good salesmanship. Find out how your child can be drawn to the message of their own volition, not because they were told to. Few like doing what they’re told, especially children.
I wish there were hard answers for this problem, but there are not. Everyone’s shooting in the dark, and it’s frightening because someone, somewhere, is inevitably going to be struck down. Hopefully not too many.
Best of luck to you all. And to you Maxine, and your mother as well. Do what you can to help curb the insane ascent of the trans cause before it brings undue destruction not only to children, but to clinically-diagnosed transsexuals as well.
-Alex
This is amazing and is very, very close to what I am experiencing with my 14-year old daughter. Puberty set in last December, then she turned 14 and I think a large part of things was buying her a smart phone where she could access things I really never dreamed of. This gives me hope. I only hope I am being supportive in the now. It’s hard. Probably the hardest thing I’ve gone through. Bless you for sharing.
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I am FTM and type one diabetic and Id like to share my perspective. I have an insulin pump because my body doesn’t make any insulin when it should. I take T because my body doesn’t make any testosterone when it should. For people who don’t need T they will feel worse if they take it, just as a nondiabetic would get sick if they took insulin.
Lewis, I’m sorry for your situation. However, the idea that people who are “truly trans” “need” exogenous hormones and these make them feel better, and that people who aren’t “truly trans” don’t feel better on exogenous hormones is an urban legend. Unlike your diabetic condition, the only thing that is dictating the need to take hormones is your mind. The placebo effect is incredibly powerful, otherwise medical studies would not adjust for it (and they always do, by using a control group that takes the placebo). If you “feel better” on testosterone, it’s because you expect to, that’s pretty much the sum of it. It could be a sugar pill or a water shot, whereas if you took counterfeit insulin the results would obviously be hugely detrimental.
Your comparison of insulin and testosterone is not accurate. If it were, then athletes, including female athletes who take testosterone would actually “need” it if they felt good and performed better when taking it. If the test of “need” is that you feel better when you take it, then heroin and other drugs people become dependent on would qualify as necessary.
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The pressure of society and your peers to fit into who ( they say ? ) you are supposed to be must be terribly confusing to pre teen and young adults and so they become uncomfortable with who they are and are facing problems coping with life.
Females feel weak and males seem to be strong, therefore a young woman may believe she has a dysphoria and believe if she becomes a man she will no longer be weak, but strong and therefore have control over her life. Not necessarily so.
Having been born inter sexed I see some similarities. I had my body treated twice. At age 5 against my will and at age 35 it was my choice.
Hello, Maxine , thank you for sharing your thoughts. I am a trans guy and am interested in the mindset of those formerly among the ranks. I certainly agree that giving oneself a medical condition when unnecessary is foolish and that there are many trans people, especially trans guys like myself, who are afraid of the hypersexualization of the female sex, and so wish to become the “safer” sex of the two. However, it is only by accepting oneself that one can really understand the why behind the feelings and ideas. For me, I have dealt with the underlying problems, yet I can only be confident in myself by creating myself. I have never understood myself until now. I had to create something for myself or else destroy myself. I am very happy for you that you have found a better, safer, less expensive option than what I have been forced to choose. Thank you for lending a bit of common sense to the narrative of chaos which pervades so much of the transsexual community.
JayMaxx, I wish you the best but hope you’ll think long and hard (for years) about undergoing medical transition. It seems so many young women these days start to feel dysphoria at around age 15, but by 25 have come to realize they can find happiness or contentment– even pride — in their female bodies. They come to realize they are not trans, were never trans or no longer are trans. It would be a great tragedy if you underwent permanent procedures only to realize a few short years later that they were not only unnecessary, but ultimately unwanted by you.
Your bio says you are a “realist.” Reality dictates that one cannot escape one’s sex, one cannot change one’s sex. It is simply reality that you are female and always will be. I hope you’ll approach transition extremely cautiously and slowly, and give your female body a chance, give sisterhood a chance. Surgery or not, testosterone or not, short hair and men’s clothing or not, you will always be part of the sisterhood of females. It may sound corny, but it is true, and with each birthday is will become less and less corny.
“A human being is not a disembodied self sitting behind a control panel in the mind, possessing some indubitable intuition about its true sex […]. We are our bodies, and these bodies are […] male or female.” (Taken from this article: http://theweek.com/articles/759763/egregious-overreach-transgender-activism )
Thank you for the advice. I certainly understand your point on being cautious and slow about the transition process.
Of course I can’t change my chromosomes, so I suppose I see what you mean about my not being able to completely escape the female.
Thank you for linking the article. Very interesting, indeed.
And thank you for responding to my comment. Input from others is always appreciated.
I’m a 20 year old trans man, been on hormones since 17 and had some surgeries. They improved my life so much and I’m not constantly anxious about my chest feeling and looking wrong anymore, or looking so female in general. I’m not even stereotypically masculine, I just feel comfortable in a male body, not because of people sexualizing females or anything like that. I didn’t even know trans men existed before I felt like I wanted a male body. What you have isn’t and was never gender dysphoria. You were uncomfortable being female because you thought it made you weak and because of seeing other kids saying they’re trans, you said it yourself. This is not dysphoria, this is just gender non-conforming kids going through puberty and seeing other kids identifying as trans on the internet.
Hi SD, gender dysphoria is just feeling uncomfortable with the gender you are. It’s a feeling and there are no medical or scientific tests you can take to determine if anyone is “truly” gender dysphoric or not. Many women go through a period of time in their lives starting in adolescence on up to their mid twenties when they felt exactly the way you have felt, or Maxine has felt. The difference is that they didn’t have the opportunities that you girls have today to chemically and surgically change their female bodies in order to be more masculinized. Eventually, most of these women came to accept and love themselves and their bodies by the time they were in their mid-twenties. There are many lesbians and heterosexual women who will attest to this.
Unfortunately, you started taking testosterone at an age when you didn’t have time to come to that conclusion. You may feel better for the next couple of years or even more, but eventually the harm that you are doing to yourself by taking synthetic chemicals that are not appropriate for your female body will start to show. This is damaging your liver, bones, ovaries (if you still have them). It will contribute to heart disease and even change the mitochondria of your cells. As a young person, this doesn’t bother you because at the moment you may think that you are invincible. We all do at this age. But when your physical health starts to go down, your mental health will follow.
You will never have a man’s body no matter how long you take testosterone or how many surgeries you have. You are making a lot of money for your gender clinics, pharmaceutical companies, and any other companies that prey on vulnerable people like you. This is a big business and they don’t care about you on a personal level.
Fortunately, Maxine has gotten herself out of this and is feeling great with her body. She got out before going too far. You can be a woman and be masculine and feel good about it and you won’t be harming yourself that way.
Have you ever asked yourself why you feel uncomfortable in your own body? Has any therapist asked you this question before prescribing any treatment? I would really like to hear your answer. Yours might not be very different from Maxine’s.
I feel uncomfortable with my body because I am not a woman, so having female body parts is uncomfortable. I can’t be a woman and masculine, because to me being masculine means having no breasts, having a penis, facial hair, etc. Maxine didn’t have dysphoria like I do, she just wanted to feel safe, because she thought women are weak.
I would be very suicidal if I hadn’t changed my body, why do you want me to be miserable all my life just because this might give me medical issues in the future?
I couldn’t have accepted my body, since it’s not about being weak, ugly or anything like that.
You have already made decisions that are not fully reversible and I hope they are the best ones for you. However, if you had been given a chance to really explore your feelings and the circumstances around them when you were a child and adolescent, you may well have made different choices and come to feel at home in the body you were born with. An eight year old or 12 year old girl certainly is not good at foreseeing her future and she does not know if she may one day want to bear a child or have other experiences that drugs and surgery seriously compromise. Many women hate their developing bodies and are 100% sure that they will never want children, and some of them change their minds and are happy about it when they are in their 30s or even 40s. I wish you the best, but I am not convinced that you chose the only possible path to bring you happiness.
Also, I’m very feminine for a male. If I was a woman I would be very gender conforming.
This is rather belated, but Dorothy and GILAW are extremely condescending here. I usually support 4thwavenow, but why do so many folks here fail to see that their language betrays a lack of good faith?
“However, if you had been given a chance to really explore your feelings and the circumstances around them when you were a child and adolescent, you may well have made different choices”
This is foolish. This can be said about every single decision ever made in a person’s life. “No sh*t”.
But this also presupposes this individual never “really explored” their feelings. How can you say that? How the hell would you know? Just like: “Have you ever asked yourself why you feel uncomfortable in your own body?” Are you for real? Do you really, seriously think this person never once considered this question? These questions are realistic to ask a young person who is trans-questioning. But you’re speaking to an adult who has transitioned. Why are you speaking to them like a child?
While I agree that children and teens aren’t great generally decision-makers, you can’t just assume that every person who transitioned as a teen was wrong. That is illogical, and frankly goes against the whole point of ROGD.
Or the other questions posed here — you really think every transperson is so deluded and confused that they just follow along with the “popular crowd” and never once considered the impact of their actions? Yeah, there are some delusional trans-activists, and they can be loud, but it is patently false that they are the only trans people.
“I wish you the best, but I am not convinced that you chose the only possible path to bring you happiness.”
Similarly, I actually agree that transition is probably not the *only* way to treat the variety of “dysphorias” happening; even people with supposedly genuine “transsexualism” didn’t have medical interventions until they were recently invented. Even with transition a person needs to get used to being in their body, and I belief this takes a lot of therapeutic and self-insight work.
However… it is absolutely not your business whether other people choose a path you personally prefer! What is the purpose of saying this? This also goes against the concept of ROGD, which specifically points out that these rapid-onset types are not “actually trans”…without denying the fact that some people really ARE trans. If a person is an adult, and has transitioned, and shows an improvement on quality of life, then the only reason to say something like this is that you think *nobody* should transition, which is an entirely different argument from the ROGD concept. It shows duplicity your part.
I agree that many young people are seeking transition when they should not transition. But so much of this “concern” form people comes not from a place of genuine care, but from a sense of superiority.
Bob, this person was a teen when she started taking testosterone, so, no, she was not an adult when she started. Our frontal lobes don’t fully develop until we are in our mid-twenties, so physically SD in still not an adult (legally, yes).
Your adolescent anger shows and is quite similar to how my daughter expresses herself. Who knows, maybe you are my daughter.
Do you believe that we can be born in the wrong physical body? If so, could you please explain, objectively, how that is possible, after all, our brains are part of our bodies.
Also, you say that you usually support 4thwave. Why the interest?
It’s not a lack of good faith or superiority, it’s experience and facts.
I understand this may be difficult to hear, but parents here know exactly how little professional attention and critical thinking is applied to teenagers who decide they’re trans because we’ve had a front row seat. With affirmation-only care there is NO OVERSIGHT and no therapeutic care much past accepting the self-assessment of a minor. There is definitely no differential diagnosis or assessment of comorbidities and generally no determining if there could be a history of trauma. (Often not even a medical history, meaning teens and young adults can be given hormones which could be contraindicated for existing medical conditions.)
Then there’s the fact that even a person who is legally an adult, but under the age of 25, likely still has a developing brain. And the teenage/still-developing brain is known for impulsivity and rigidity and catastrophizing. Many of these types of disordered thinking change as the brain matures, often leading, as we see with the detransitioners, to adults who regret the medical changes they chose and can see more clearly that, while they were happy in the moment, time and reflection and knowledge made them aware that professionals were not really assessing them or considering other less-invasive treatments for dysphoria or addressing comorbidities.
SD, you are a woman, it’s scientifically impossible to change your sex. Your DNA is proof of that. If you were to take one of those ancestry DNA tests and you tell the company that you are a man, the test would bounce back because you don’t have a Y chromosome.
So, your answer that you can’t be a woman because you are a man is a cop out answer. Give me a real answer. Dig down deep and really ask yourself why you feel like a man. I’m looking forward to your response.
You wrote, “I would be very suicidal if I hadn’t changed my body, why do you want me to be miserable all my life just because this might give me medical issues in the future?” That comment right there shows your age and how you are unable to understand the consequences of what you are doing. I don’t even know you, so if you are miserable or not doesn’t really matter to me. I just felt I wanted to comment on what you said.
There have been many people in the past who have had the same feelings as you and haven’t committed suicide, otherwise that would have been noted in medical journals. I think you get the idea of suicide because you learned about that through the site that you follow.
Please, though, do think again about why you feel like a man and give me a real honest answer, not something that is fantasy.
You can’t “feel like a man”, I just want a male body. I don’t care if I can be male or not. I don’t care if you think I’m a man or not, I still am.
When I was around 8 I already knew I wasn’t a girl, and I was suicidal. I don’t “follow” any site, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Maxine was brainwashed by other kids on the internet, while I felt like this all my life. There’s no comparison.
Of course, you can’t “feel like a man”, but you also can’t have a male body if you are a woman.
Have you ever considered that you may be a lesbian?
How did you know you weren’t a girl at age 8. What made you think that?
My sexuality isn’t relevant to me wanting to have a male body… I’m not attracted to women.
That’s around the time I started puberty and I just felt like my body should be developing in a male way. When I first had my period I hoped that it wasn’t that, that it was something that was broken inside of me, because I didn’t see myself as female.
Wow, some of the comments on here are a bit concerning and downright rude. Since when did this site become a crusade to reverse transgender people over 18?
I think the tone and content of some of the comments are very condescending and unreasonable. I TOTALLY AGREE that transitioning before 25 is medically inadvisable (I have an ROGD daughter who I am very concerned might go down this route, so I TOTALLY agree with this point). BUT lecturing or cross examining someone over 18 who has already made the decision, and expecting them to justify why they did, is very alarming and most likely will only lead to others in a similar position from not sharing with us.
A more productive approach could be to link some useful information that they could review if they wanted to.
This community has always prided itself as being tolerant and inclusive, treating everyone on here with respect. As parents of ROGD teens we lose all credibility when we start trying to change the minds of legal adults (or dismiss the process they went through to decide to transition as “fantasy” or assume that they didn’t go through a rigorous process prior to transitioning), because then we come across as a transphobic group that is out of touch with reality and is easy to dismiss as fruitcakes. That undermines every parent who is trying to open up discussion on this issue.
SD your comments here are very welcome and some of us find them very helpful. Please understand that if people here show a heightened emotion it is likely because they are dealing with their own teen who may be going down the road of transition, when they really need therapy and not surgery. One point to note is that “gender dysphoria” is being uncomfortable with your gender. Not everyone who has gender dysphoria is transgender (I think you are using “gender dysphoria” to mean “transgender).
For example, this chart lists some other potential causes of gender dysphoria
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtMyBkHUcAMta4Z.jpg
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THANK YOU for sharing so bravely, Maxine. My daughter developed RODG at 12 (just 3 months ago) and the journey is very new for us. She has always been the most feminine girl I know, and then, like flipping a switch, she changed overnight. I am not anti-trans. I believe that each human is unique, and for some that includes a true trans identity. I simply want her to fully explore her true identity, and not adopt a trans identity because it is trendy or because she does not feel she fits in other categories or because she has general body image issues. Maybe she truly is trans. Maybe not.
Sharing your story has given me some useful ideas on the kinds of things to talk with her about. Thank you.
What do I do? My child is deeply enmeshed in DeviantArt how do I get her off???
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This story is why young girls being taught self defense is such a powerful tool to help them not just accept – but love – their bodies. To encourage the connection between mind and body definitely provides girls, young women and adult women with a sense of agency that most males are afforded from birth, but girls simply don’t get. In fact, this connection is actively discouraged and fear is taught instilled in its place. Fear of self (natural body changes), fear of boys and men (there’s statistically & experientially reasons for this fact), and fear of moving about in the world. This fear translates to the illusion that passing as male will protect us – but that can only go so far.
As someone now in my 60’s who grew up as a ‘tomboy’ and realized I was romantically attracted to other females by age 5, I definitely wanted to have the body of a man. It took me years before I was able to understand that ‘gender’ was a trap – for ALL people – and that feminism was the path to freedom of critical thinking and analysis about oppression that would lead to letting go of the dangerous and unnecessary idea of changing my body and work instead on changing society.
So happy that this young woman woke up and has the great relationships that she does with strong parenting to help guide her.
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How do I find help for my daughter who thinks she is transgender at the age of 17 how do I find the right psychiatrist for her that will help her accept she is a girl
Maxine, and 4th wave, thank you for all these wonderful resources. My daughter is asking for resources (You Tube, Podcasts) about how to love her body after going through this whirlwind of identifying with mental illness and the trans movement. She has decided she wants to be her born-self and be healthy. As these millions of children mature there is more of a need for resources for transitioning out, and loving the body they were given. Any references would be just wonderful. Thank you for sharing your story.
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