Carol F. is a 39-year old woman (adult human female) from a conservative area in California. She was raised in a religious environment. From ages 35 to 38, she identified as a transgender male and lived her life being perceived as such. The disconnect between her lived experience as female and how she was treated while being seen as male caused her to begin to question the trans narrative. A few months ago, Carol began to detransition, after being on testosterone for almost 4 years and undergoing a bilateral mastectomy.
Carol has spent her time since starting detransition being vocal about how the push for transition harms women and girls, particularly those who do not perform femininity in the “traditional” way. In this essay, she talks about her own transition-detransition process, as well as the often negative impact of the transgender movement on the lesbian community, spouses, and family members.
Carol can be found on Twitter @SourPatches2077
by Carol F.
My decision to detransition began when I started taking antidepressants for depression and anxiety. A month into treatment I felt like my whole world had come alive. I could feel true joy for the first time in years and I could take pleasure in everyday things. I had struggled with being very angry and agitated and often had enraged outbursts over nothing, but it had begun to be less overwhelming and I found I could manage and control my emotions.
I suddenly–and with some horror–realized that I had never needed to transition. My life didn’t feel overwhelming anymore. I could feel my emotions more clearly and sort through what had seemed before to be a complete disaster of thoughts and feelings. I started to question my motives, my perceptions, and my feelings, not only around transition but around all the life decisions I had made. I began asking myself what it would be like to live as a woman again, but I had gone so far with transitioning. How could I admit just a month into taking anti-depressants that I was wrong, how could I turn back? No, I told myself, it couldn’t have been that simple.
We are told that being transgender is this deep-rooted thing, that it is part of our being, our core. It’s who we are, it’s our truth or truest self. I believed this when I started transition, how could this have been so flawed? How could my feelings have been so wrong? I kept these thoughts and feelings to myself and decided I would just continue living as a man, that it was too late to change this. I made my bed now I will lie in it.
I continued living my life as I had. I graduated college that spring and began working in the mental health field. I got a job working at a youth psychiatric hospital. This is when the second realization happened that made me question further being trans and trans ideology. At this hospital I saw so many young gender nonconforming girls come in claiming they were trans men. They wanted to go by male pronouns and male names. They were 13 years old, they were 15, they were 17. They all looked like little butch lesbians to me, and I felt a pang of shame and sadness. I saw myself in them. I saw their pain and fear and the abuse some had experienced. I saw the mental health issues they struggled with and how these issues left them longing for escape. They harmed themselves, they tried to end their lives, and they hurt. I wanted to reach out to them; I wanted to tell them it’s ok to be a lesbian woman. I wanted to show them a strong functioning butch woman. But how could I, when all they could see when they looked at me was a bearded man? How could I tell them what I couldn’t tell myself?
It was at this facility that I also began to work closely with men, something I had never really done before in my life. I had steered clear of being close to men in any way, although I had not realized I had done this; it was all unconscious at the time. Being considered “one of the guys” and having to play that role as much as I could left me with a deep sadness and longing for connection with women again. I knew I didn’t fit in. I hadn’t had a boyhood or been socialized as a male. I had had abuse and discrimination thrown at me just for being born a female, something they could never understand. Socialization makes up much of who we are, dictating the kind of path we are set on at birth. It has expectations and demands; it molds us and forms us in ways we are rarely aware of until you cross over to the other side in a kind of covert way. I often felt like an interloper in the male world–an alien observing private behavior and culture rarely seen by the outside world. This experience of being an intruder or imposter in the male world more than anything informed me that, yes, I was in fact a woman. There was no changing that. In a strange way this experience let me see how much of a woman I am. I had always labored under the impression that I was more male than female because of my mannerisms, likes, and way of dress. However, being on the other side with men solidified the truth that I was female and a woman through and through. My mannerisms, the way I dressed, and all the rest were just window dressing. It didn’t make me woman or a man, it was just me.
Then there were the London lesbians. There was the protest at London Pride where a handful of radical feminist lesbians stepped in front of thousands and made their voices heard. I had been following a well-known transman on social media and he had posted a story from Pink News. The headline went something like “transphobic lesbians storm the parade” or some kind of nonsense like that. I read the story but was a little annoyed because it didn’t say what they were protesting. Just that they were transphobic. I posted on social media asking others why the women had been protesting and what their message was. The response I got was basically “who knows, they are just transphobic and being hateful.” Well, I thought, maybe so but it’s always better to know the full story before making a decision to write people off. I began my internet search, and wouldn’t you know it, that led me to radical feminism. And that was the hammer that broke my illusion right open. The next several months was me and radical feminism and I heard the phrase I wish I had heard years ago, “The only thing that makes you a woman is that you are female.” A simple, to the point, and really quite obvious observation. How could I have thought otherwise? I agreed with it, but had still not taken the final step to detransition. But the push to do so began to be ever-present and its whispers grew louder every day.
My stubbornness is both a hindrance to me and my great strength. Sometimes it takes getting to the tender and protected parts of me to push me into a kind of submission, letting go of the thing I have been gripping so tightly for so long. It was the lesbian stand-up comic Hannah Gadsby who broke that grip. I saw her Netflix special, Nannette, and it hit parts of me I didn’t know were there. Her raw anger slapped me right in the face and told me something I hadn’t wanted to ever admit: Being a butch lesbian woman was fucking hard, it could be sad, it could be vicious, and it could break a woman.
When you walk through the world as a living example of everything that the world tells you is ugly and disgusting it can break you. And it had broken me. I knew, as I sat there in my room sobbing, that I had some real truths to face about myself. About my motivations for transition and the deep pain I carried with me. My internalized homophobia was something I always denied but it was damn strong and I had used it as another tool to hurt myself with. But the time had come to stop hurting myself, I knew this.
I contacted my doctor the next day and told her I wanting to quit my testosterone shots. It’s now been 4 ½ months since I last injected testosterone. I feel good and healthy. I’m on the mend and it’s wonderful.
The factors
ADHD is a very misunderstood disorder by most people. It affects almost every aspect of your life. I was not diagnosed with ADHD until I was 36, but after receiving the diagnosis it made a lot of the way my brain works finally make sense to me. I now see that ADHD played a large role in my fixation and desire to transition. People with ADHD often get hyper-focused on a particular thing. That thing becomes an obsession and we think about it nonstop for days, months, or even years. I got it in my head at 22 that I was trans and there it stayed for 15 years until medical transition had become almost completely unregulated. When I was 34, I found myself in a very mentally vulnerable place. Often when people with ADHD become mentally overwhelmed, we go back to a fixation we might have had or one we have kept with us but maybe have ignored for a while. We go to these fixations for comfort and organization, to feel better and safe again. I went back to my ideas about being a trans man and transitioning.
Looking back now, I think this was probably one of the most devastating times in my life. I had recently become a parent, which although a happy life change, is also a very stressful one. Around the same time, I lost my grandmother (who was more of a mother to me). I cut ties with my mother because I could not in good conscience allow her around my child and for this my brother and sister refused to have anything to do with me. I lost my good friend and brother-in-law to suicide. My wife literally lost her mind with grief and I felt like I was drowning. I became very depressed and wanted out of my life. I isolated myself, watching transition videos nonstop for months. I wanted to kill myself but knew what a shit move that would be to my family, so I latched onto transition as a way to feel at peace again. ADHD also affects one’s ability to reason though things thoroughly. Even though we may think about a subject nonstop we are not actually doing any kind of real analysis. It’s more like a movie that just keeps playing our favorite scene. The scene I played was one in which I was a strong man who lived a happy life.
When you are told from the age of 8 that the way you walk, talk, and act is like a boy by your mother, your schoolmates and other adults, it’s so easy to buy into the idea that you really are a man and that makes you completely normal after all.
I was raised in a very religious household where we were taught that women were put on this earth to serve men. I was not allowed to cut my hair or wear anything but long dresses, as my body was deemed immodest by default. My father had died when I was 2 in an accident and my mother had remarried into this religious atmosphere. My stepfather and mother abused me extensively from the age of 4 to 9. I learned to cope with the abuse by detaching myself from my body. I took back my power by never allowing my abusers to make me cry, I withstood the pain upon my body by disassociating. I believe this early abuse and dissociation from my body gave rise to the feelings that my body was wrong, not my own, and some kind of foreign entity—the same things people describe when talking about gender dysphoria. The sense of “wrongness” that one feels with their body.
When I was 9 my stepfather and mother divorced. I had a little more freedom to be myself and I began to express my likes and dislikes, as is normal for children to do. I wanted to play football, I liked boys’ clothing and style and I loved the idea of having short hair. My mother, although not as religiously fervent as she had been with my stepfather, was still a staunch fire-and-brimstone Christian, and very homophobic. She would become angry at me for wanting these “boy” things and punish me if I behaved “like a boy.” She ridiculed the way I walked and my mannerisms, telling me that I needed to walk and act like a girl. I had one bright spot in my childhood, and that was my paternal grandparents. They allowed me to wear boys’ clothes when I stayed with them and do my hair any way I wanted. Of course, I had to be very careful that my mother never found out, and we all knew it.
My mother’s behavior introduced an internal hate inside myself as a gender non-conforming girl. This would later be compounded by the homophobia I faced when I came out as a lesbian. I had never given the trauma I had to go though as a young lesbian the kind of gravity it deserves. When I was 17 my mother was growing very worried because I was showing no interest in boys or men. She decided to set me up on a blind date with one of her friends’ 22-year-old son. I was sheltered and ignorant and scared of my mother, so I went out with him. She had never met the guy and had not actually seen her friend in years; they only occasionally talked on the phone. I knew within the first 5 minutes of being in the car with him that he was very dangerous and unpredictable. I could feel with everything that I was that he was fully capable of killing me. I knew I couldn’t set him off, he would use any excuse to become angry. I spent the next 30 minutes of the car ride being as polite and submissive as possible, all the while strategizing on how I could get out of this. When we got to a town I lied and told him my mother wanted me to call her and let her know we arrived and I faked exasperation with my mother’s request. I went to a payphone and called my mother. I told her I wasn’t feeling well and was coming home. I then told him that she had told me I needed to return home because her employer had called her into work due to an emergency and I had to watch my sister and brother. He was displeased, and I made every effort to ensure him of how upset I was that our night had been ruined and assured him that we would go out next week. The drive home was the longest drive I’ve ever taken. I made it home safe and for the first time ever I yelled at my mother for her stupidity in putting me in a dangerous situation. This showed me how expendable I was as a woman if I could not adhere to the roles expected of me. I was better off dead than a dyke.
When I finally did come out as a lesbian at 19 years old, I was put through hell by most of the people most important to me in my life at the time. I lost friends, I was told I was never allowed at family gatherings because I was sick and would cause harm to the little kids. I was ridiculed and called every nasty name in the book. I was propositioned by men who were sure they could make me straight if I allowed them to have sex with me. I was told I was too pretty to be a lesbian, I was trying to be a man, I had been turned by a child molesting dyke, and the list goes on. I faced harassment in public life, mostly by men who would yell out “dyke” to me as I walked down the street or became confrontational with me if I looked at their girlfriend or god forbid smiled and said hi. I was not even safe at my job. There were men who would make jokes about raping a woman who got out of line, men who called me “spike” and “sir” to my face and refused to work with me. Men who talked openly about beating up fags or killing their sons if they were gay. It was enough to make anyone want to escape. I just wanted to live my life, I wanted to be unnoticed, but I couldn’t be. I hated this, I hated myself, and I felt like I must be the most disgusting creature in the world—that I must be wrong.
Trans explains why I’m wrong
The first time I heard the word transgender applied to women was in 2002 when I was 22 years old. It seemed as if overnight the young lesbian community had started to embrace this trans idea. Most of the butch lesbians I knew refused the label “butch” and instead said they were trans men. My wife and I were friends with several lesbian couples at the time and every butch woman in that couple now claimed to be trans. The first time I was corrected by a young butch named Lacy, she said “Oh I’m not butch, I’m really a trans man.” I had no idea what she was talking about so I asked. As I remember, she gave the simple answer, she was a man trapped in a female body. I was disgusted by this and repulsed even, but it never left my mind. I then began to ponder what it meant to be a trans man. A man who had a female body seemed to tick a lot of boxes for me. After all, I was always told I behaved like a boy. I walked like one, I acted like one, I was attracted to women. I liked men’s clothes and short hair. It started to make sense. It explained everything that was wrong with me. All the ridicule, all the abuse I had suffered through wasn’t my fault, or even the fault of the people who did it. What I suspected must be true, these people saw something in me that was wrong and broken. I latched onto the trans label very quickly and began telling friends and family that I was trans and that I wanted to transition.
However, this was 2002 and standards of care were still relatively strict compared to today. I had to see a gender specialist, live as my desired sex for at least six months, and undergo at least 6 months of therapy before being allowed to receive cross-sex hormones. I managed to find a gender specialist in my hometown and began working with her. She demanded that if I wanted hormones I needed to start living as a man, going by a male name and pronouns and being in male-only spaces. This was impossible for me. I had large breasts that could not be hidden and a curvy, obviously female body. I was also stricken with fear at the idea of going into male-only spaces. This seemed incredibly dangerous to me. I refused and decided to let go of transitioning. However, I always kept it in my mind as the explanation for why I was the way I was. I didn’t demand people recognize me as a trans man but I saw myself as such, and it brought me comfort that I was normal.
Transition wasn’t what I thought it would be
I made the decision to start medical transition in spring 2015 at the age of 35. Older than most transitioning woman to be sure, but not unheard of. Although many teens and younger women are transitioning, there is also a large population of adult women, mostly butch lesbians, who have also transitioned in the last 5 years or so. These mostly go unnoted because we are adults and already living on the outskirts of society. A simple look at a butch-lesbian dedicated subreddit or Facebook group will show many conversations about butches transitioning. The loss is very real and is leaving devastation in its wake in the lesbian community. I’m just one of the many. Only four months after I started testosterone injections, I had top surgery, or more precisely a double mastectomy. I hit the ground running with regards to transitioning. I couldn’t seem to do it quick enough.
Detransitioners know about the honeymoon period of transition. It lasts anywhere from 6 month to 3 years, depending on the person. Two years seems to be about average. Transitioning, although it ends up not helping in the long run, does help for a while. This is what makes it so hard to explain to those who are either still trans or those who have never been in this situation, because transition did help, for a while. I felt better when I started taking testosterone. I had more energy, I was less depressed, and my mood seemed more stable. I thought this meant I had made the right choice, and even my therapist and doctors saw this as proof that hormones were good for me.
I have done a little research into testosterone use in females, and although there isn’t much out there, what I have found seems to indicate that elevated mood and energy are some of the positive effects of testosterone use. Even males who use testosterone experience this. But what made me feel good was not some spiritual lining up of my brain with the right hormones (yes, a therapist did say this to me) but a simple side effect of a drug. No different than drinking alcohol or using any other substance to ease emotional pain. Another reason transition helped was that being seen as male enabled me to walk through the world like just another person. I didn’t draw attention and I got treated better than I ever had, by my co-workers and strangers alike. I have since heard of some trans-identified females who make the decision to continue living as men, not because they actually believe they are men but because they know it’s safer and easier for them than if they were to detransition and live as woman again. I honestly can’t blame them. It was wonderful to experience the freedom and safety of moving through the world being thought of as a man, if only for 3 years.
After about 2 years on testosterone I noticed that my anxiety had started to become much worse. I discussed this with doctors and psychiatrists, but they didn’t think the testosterone could cause this effect. As time went on my anxiety became worse, to the point where I was taking an anti-anxiety medication daily. It reached a breaking point when I could no longer leave my bedroom without having a panic attack. I couldn’t drive because that triggered a panic attack as well. I really couldn’t do anything but keep myself sedated on benzos and stay in bed. This is when I hit bottom. I went to a psychiatrist and got an antidepressant called Viibryd that is also used for panic disorders. Starting antidepressants is both mentally and physically hard. Those first 2 weeks on the medication were like hell. My brain felt like it was ripping apart and I had panic attacks that were so bad that I really did want to die so I would not have to feel them anymore. But by week 4 the side effects dissipated, and I began to feel joy, a sense of peace, calm and clearer headed.
On top of the anxiety and depression, transitioning had ended up making my dysphoria worse. Why? Because now I was worried that men would discover I didn’t have a penis when I used the male bathroom. Because I was smaller than most males. Because my voice wasn’t as deep. Because my hands & feet were smaller. Because my body shape was more feminine then male. Because the way I talked and gestured was seen as feminine. Because my chest had scars across it. Because I was soft spoken and not aggressive. Because I was raised as a girl and was never part of the boy’s club, so I didn’t know how to interact in male culture. Because every day, I stepped outside my house and was consumed with not being found out for what and who I really was: a woman. It seemed like I had switched one set of problems for another.
There were also the health side effects I was experiencing. My skin seemed to always have something wrong with it. The first year I had terrible acne, which is expected, but after that subsided, I always seemed to have some kind of rash or irritation that I hadn’t had before. My vagina was showing signs of atrophy and was painful all the time. To alleviate this, I would have needed to start taking a topical estrogen cream that you insert into your vagina. For someone with dysphoria around their genitalia, this is really the last thing you want to have to deal with. I was always aware of my female genitals because they hurt and were unhealthy. Again, not helpful if you have dysphoria around this area. I was also seeing my cholesterol climb every time I had a blood panel done, which was every six months. I knew it was a matter of time before I would need to be on medication for this. I was also starting to creep into the range of concern for diabetes. Additionally, I was quickly losing my hair and, in another year or two would likely be bald. All this happened in a span of 4 years on testosterone. I was completely healthy with thick beautiful hair before starting testosterone.
As of this writing, I have been a little over four months off testosterone. My cholesterol levels have dropped, risk for diabetes has gone down, and my hair is starting to fill in a little. The atrophy to my genitals and uterus has reversed and I am in good health. I feel happy and content. There are some things I will never get back, though. I had a double mastectomy only 4 months into transition, so my breasts are gone. I mourn this, I mourn that I will never get the chance to make peace with them like I have started doing with my sex and body. We all carry scars from life, and these are mine.
The family suffers too
I believe it’s very important to recognize the pain transition and trans ideology can cause to the family members of the trans-identified person. The families are the forgotten victims in all this, and this is unacceptable. The trans community takes little care in the impact transition has on not only the trans person themselves, but also their family. These are some common things I heard when I began my transition.
“You are the same person you have always been”
“You will be a better person/spouse/parent because now you will be living your true self”
“Your journey is important”
If the family is upset, sad, angry or generally just confused about the transition of their family member, here are the things said to the spouse/parents/child/family member.
“This isn’t about you, it’s their journey”
“You aren’t being supportive”
“You are being transphobic”
“They have always been this person, you just didn’t know”
This is so problematic because trans ideology is, at its core, extremely self-centered sometimes even in the narcissistic range. The trans person is encouraged to view the family’s emotional state as hateful or transphobic towards them if they experience normal human emotions of sadness, loss, confusion, or anger. Trans people are not encouraged by the community to see transition as the major life-changing event that it is. Instead, it’s downplayed and given the emotional weight of a new haircut or a change of clothes. The family members are expected to say nothing but positive things and show no “negative” emotions. They are shamed into silence. Mandated to keep their feelings to themselves lest they be labeled the most horrible thing one could be called in our society right now: transphobic.
When I began transition my wife who I had been with for 15 years was devastated, and rightfully so. In the beginning she believed as I did in most of what trans ideology had to say. She really did think I was trans and she was supportive. However, her life was also being turned upside down emotionally. She had lost her brother to suicide only a year earlier, she was a new mother, and now her wife was trying to become a man. She was scared, sad and feeling loss. She naively turned to the trans community for support during this time, trying to find other spouses of transitioning people to talk to. She thought these “support groups” would be a place for support. A place one could talk openly about the emotions they had as they went through transition with their family member. What she got instead was everyone saying how happy they were for their spouse and how exciting this all was. No negative emotions. When she started expressing her confusion, fear and anger over my transition it wasn’t long before she got the “TERF” word thrown at her. She had never heard the word before and after multiple people labeled her a TERF and eventually ran her out of the support group, she went online searching for “TERF” (as we all would if we didn’t know what something meant). She found gender critical and radical feminist information, chats and web sites. It was there she found support. I find it quite funny that it was the trans community itself that drove someone to turn into a “TERF”.
What I’m trying to show here is the very unhealthy & damaging effect trans ideology has not only on the trans-identified person but also their families. I really do believe this is cult-like, even religious behavior. It is divorced from reality, basing everything on a belief supported by feelings and very little science. It is faith-based and you must believe. It is all or nothing, good versus evil with no room for nuance or critical analysis. I’ve seen this before, as I wrote about in the beginning of this article, because I was raised in religious extremism. Trans ideology mimics this very closely. It can capture people on the fringes of society, people with mental health issues and people in pain from trauma. It promises relief from symptoms, an answer for which people are searching.
The community positions itself as the most oppressed demographic in society, while holding the people on the outside hostage with threats of suicide and blame for murders committed against the trans community. It showers acceptance and validation on its members as long as they adhere to trans dogma. The trans people who do not adhere to the ideology are called truscum, traitors or TERFs. People such as myself who detransition are told we no longer have a right to say anything about the trans experience because we are no longer trans or never were trans to begin with. Many of us are shunned from the community — like a dirty secret. This shunning of former members is a great deterrent to detransitioning for some. For those who do detransition, we usually slink away and are never heard from again. For those who do speak out we are labeled TERFs (a label that has come to mean nothing but a person who doesn’t completely agree with trans ideology), or ridiculed for not knowing we weren’t trans. We are told that we took valuable resources away from “real” trans people and that we should be quiet and go away.
I began as a true believer, I thought I had found my answers, I thought it all made sense. I had euphoric feelings of relief and happiness when I began transition. Four and a half years later, and I am rebuilding my life from the ashes. I burned myself and my family up into a million pieces and now we have to make sense out of the disaster. I am very lucky and grateful that I have a wonderful wife who has stuck with me more than she ever should have and a son who is immensely forgiving of his mother’s flaws. I find that every day is better than the last, if only by a half step. The resilience of the human spirit is amazing to me. Never give up.
I would like to know how this impacted the writer’s work? Her perspective would surely provide invaluable support to “gender confused” young women.,
Hi, this experience defiantly impacted the way I see the mental health field especially as it relates to youth. I was actually put on leave from the job I mentioned in the article do to me bringing up client abuse to my supervisor. I am sad that I can not work with these kids anymore because I truly loved the work but the employer was horrible.
Going forward I wish to continue work in the mental health or social work field. I am considering going for my masters in counseling. I would love to work with youth or woman. I would love to be able to help young people struggling with gender issues however doing so would almost certainly see me unemployed. Everyone in the mental health field is expected not to challenge gender ideology.
Carol, thank you so very much for telling your story.
And thank you especially for explaining how ADHD played a part in your focus on transitioning. Recently, Dr. Ken Zucker made a comment on Twitter:
“These are important first-person testimonials. But to have influence on clinical discourse, these testimonials need to be published as case reports or a Letter to the Editor. Can these families collaborate with the treating clinician (if there was one) and write something up?” https://twitter.com/ZUCKERKJ/status/1150216122077196288
You mention both a therapist and a doctor. Would you be willing to discuss with your clinician the importance of getting your experience with ADHD and fixation on transitioning into the ADHD literature? Publishing a case report would be ideal but it can take a while, a letter to the editor of a journal that focuses on ADHD would be so important. There are so many parents of trans-identifying youth who mention ADHD, either diagnosed or suspected.
Thank you again.
NWM @notworthmessing
Thank you for sharing your story, Carol. That is a lot of difficulties for one person to face—I sure hope things will get better for you! ♥
Carol, the many ways that society, the medical profession, and the ideology let you down are awful. But your perseverance is a powerful testimony that I hope gets widely read. Thank you for sharing your story, and I wish you nothing but good for the future.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. You have been through so much, I hope you know how strong you are. I’m glad to hear that you are feeling positive about the future.
Carol, thank you so much for sharing your story. My son has been declaring trans for about 5 years now. He is almost 18 and very angry that I would not give him hormones when he was 12. I do not believe he is trans. I think he experienced physical and emotional pain during a ferociously vicious divorce (his dad is a trial attorney; we lost our home, friends, community, etc; plus physical altercations that led to the ER). So much of what you say resonates with me as to the research I have done. I have been labeled transphobic for not accepting his narrative with zero discussion. Doctors and therapists are so gung ho to affirm, it is frightening. I am a liberal feminist who fought for women’s rights. I am heterosexual, but I suppose back in the 70’s when I was a teenager, I could easily have been sucked into this ideology. I was not a feminine girly girl. My research led me to Dr. Zucker. I believe he is right when he says that this trans ideology is dangerous to young people. Your voice in this discussion is so important. Thank you for being brave enough to speak up. I wish you lived next door to me. My son needs to meet someone like you who can speak truth.
I like most detrans people don’t want to see anymore people hurt by this. We talk about this often with each other, about how we try every chance we get to reach out to others and provide another perspective. Unfortunately, talking people out of this is not very productive. Most people dig into trans ideology even more. It really does have a cult like behavior. Its also important to recognize that when we made the decision to transition most of us were very hurt, ill people. Trans ideology was our drug, and like any addict you can not force them to get better, they have to take that step themselves.
I wish the best for you and your son and I hope you find your way, and as always, lead with love.
I have a question to the author.
I gather from the article that your transition coincided with your study for a mental health degree. Did you enter the program before or after transitioning? Why did you decide to get this degree and what was your occupation before it?
I’m curious because I can’t help noticing that trans men (not necessarily lesbians) often work as therapists. Do you think those things are related or is there any pattern at all? Could it be that programs specifically recruit trans men? Or could it be that mental health programs are so affirming of transitioning that it includes being affirming to their own? Or is there some common root that leads to both the degree and transitioning?
Thank you.
I actually got my degree in philosophy, with the plan on getting a masters in social work. I had just begun transition when I started at the university. Before going back to school I worked in building management part time as I went to community college. I’ve always been interested in psychology but gravitated towards the more social work side of things. I’m not really sure where I’m headed now, and that is kind of nice.
What a heartfelt article and story. I feel for your pain. I am on the other side, seeing more and more of my Butch Dyke Sisters transition and feeling sad they too drank the Kookaide. I sure would like to get to some women BEFORE they do.
Your story is immensely important because you go into all the dynamics, oppression as a tomboy, your mother hating the fact you aren’t feminine and could come out as a Butch Lesbian, the Lesbophonia you faced, and how you just wanted to turn off the switch and be left alone, then realizing none of it is real and you could be discovered anytime.
Hopefully one more Butch will NOT have to transition after reading your story!!
– In Butch Lesbian Sisterhood,
– FeistyAmazon
I too hope some other butches see this. I hurt for all the woman who have gone down this path.
Your story gives me hope. my daughter 15 say’s she is transgender we argue a lot. I ask her when she started feeling this way and I do not get an answer, she wants to change her name in school the school encourages it, give them pamphlets to go to a clinic to start the transformation. My heart is so Heavy with pain. I want her to make the right decision. Carol, thank you so very much for sharing your story. I only wish someone like you can speak to her or me. no where to turn.
Everyone – please don’t ever give up! Our daughter came out as trans when she was in the 11th grade – yet seemingly ceased being trans at the beginning of her 2nd year in college. It was such a horrific time.
She spent all her waking moments on Tumblr and other internet resources becoming an ‘expert’ of an ideology that she just ‘knew’ was for her and only had her best interests at heart.
She was attempting to enter colleges which actually offer assistance in helping kids transition by aiding them in their procurement of testosterone and other things, even granting financial aid!
After reading these articles here, it all sounds so familiar. Those caught up in this insidious ploy regurgitate all the same dogma they are forced-fed inside of these exclusive echo chambers. It’s a dark, dark place where kids’ perspectives on everything become warped and twisted – where they see loving and concerned parents as the villains and joyously plant seeds of contempt and betrayal into the hearts of the very children they would die for.
It was such a tight-wire of deciding what to compromise with, i.e., deciding whether or not to give into the demands for us to call her ‘new’ name, or to buying her boy clothes, etc. Some things we compromised on, others things we did not. We bore the brunt of her anger and abuse towards us during those times when we put our foot down, yet always with our arms wide open.
To use an analogy, it was as if we forced to watch her slowly insert a knife into her chest, and if we were to intervene she’d force it faster, so we’d have to back off only to watch her do it slowly.
It brought us to a place of deepening of our faith and prayer than we ever thought possible, and even though she now calls herself our daughter, I still come here to read, learn, and to give support if ever possible.
Thank you so much for writing this. In some ways butch lesbians were the “patient zero” for trans ideology, which has since spread far beyond. I feel like a big reason this wasn’t resisted more was so many lesbians both then and now have such low self-esteem and are quite battered by the world, and believe (as many women do) that our worth rests on nurturing and supporting other people, not ourselves. Standing up for ourselves and saying “no” to another person is the big taboo.
I think you are absolutely right.
I meant to add: your wife sounds like a strong woman. The way that the (usually female) spouses get treated in some “trans support groups” sounds like gaslighting and rampant sexism. Anything short of obedient, smiling acquiescence seems to be punished. It’s like they want to breed 50s Stepford wives instead of human beings with complex emotions and lives of their own. Good on her for continuing to ask questions!
I am so thankful that my wife stayed strong and committed
to the truth through all this. She is definitely my rock.
I want to thanks everyone for reading my story. It was hard to write but also therapeutic. I hope that what I went through might help at least one other person. If it does then it was all worth it.
Thankyou for sharing your story. It was so powerfully and honestly written, and such an important read. The more often that de-transitioned people can share their story, the more the world can see another view point, and that it isn’t as simple as trans ideology likes to say that it is. xo
I wish I wasn’t afraid to share this.
Carol,
So brave, well done for writing this. I have heard a statistic that in the UK (where I am) there are 4x more girls (I stress girls, not grown-up women) wanting to transition to male than in the other direction. The fact that this statistic is so asymetrical should be ringing alarm bells. I suspect but do not know that amongst older people there are more male-to-female trans people, this all needs in-depth study. As a straight male I have never had to navigate this but believe that (esp in the 21st century more than ever before) a person should be free to be any kind of male or female they want, there is a huge spectrum of man-ness and woman-ness, and we aren’t or needn’t be bound by the gender stereotypes of earlier ages (it OK for girls to not like pink). Also I think it is difficult for someone of one gender to understand what it’s fully like to be the other gender, so all transitions are a risk.
Anyway, I wish you and your wife all the best for the future, you sound very level headed and hopefully can build on all of this.
Fantastically helpful piece to those of us who can’t imagine what it’s like. The detransitioning page of my website is by the far the most popular. I’m amazed to see people from all over the world accessing and spending hours on it. I have linked to this story from there as I am sure it will help many women and maybe prevent some bad decisions being made. Thank you. https://www.peaktrans.org/detransitioning/#ftoc-heading-5
Very interesting comments especially on the ROGD, which does not seem to be a real biological condition at all. I note that the founders of this site are leftwing women, feminist-identified, and mostly interested in trans identified females and the ROGD phenomenon. This follows from the founder’s situation, and we can see that many people on here are parents of girls caught up in the ROGD mess.
Please understand me when I say that this is all fine. We all have a focus. However, I am also interested in a similar critical perspective towards trans-identified men, ROGD or otherwise, with a similar POV towards viewing most of this as not a true biological condition. Would be nice to hear from parents, male or female (mothers would be great, mirroring this site) of trans-identified boys and their trials and tribulations. I would also very much like to hear from women who are or were married to men who later came out as TIM’s. I assume their lot is not a happy one. Resources on autogynephilia would be great too.
Great site, just would enjoy hearing from the male side of this trans mess is all.
Hello, I have a daughter aged 21 who gave us “the letter” a few weeks ago (I could tell you to the minute how long since). She’s ADHD and other spectrum disordered, and end of 2nd of 3 year degree town where I now realise that she has immersed herself in this vile trans ideology. She half heartedly came out with a statement last year that she was lesbian, I had no problem, happy that she was considering the possibility of a relationship where she had no intimate ones before. It seems we have no way of stopping her, and for a £30K loan it seems you can get it all done anyway without reference to a GP. I’d be grateful for knowledge of a support group in London South East area. At the moment I am making calm plans for ending my life before she goes ahead with it, so horrified I am of the whole thing where our society is supportive of my learning disabled daughter ending her female identity by a money oriented knife and chemist.
I am frightened by your comment about “calm plans for ending my life”. Although I have felt that way several times over the last couple of years you need to get support and help dealing with these feelings. I know it is hard to think your life matters right now.This is a terrible thing to go through. I get the sense of despair. I have been in those dark desperate places myself. But you need to realize your life matters and you have a right to live out your destiny. Please get some help and support…even if just good friends and supportive family. If you need help to get through this look for support on the Gender Critical Forum and you can send me a personal message here. God Bless you.
Carol is so right, this really does do so much damage to families. We are now exactly 3 years into this, my daughter is now 16. It’s literally been the last thing on my mind when I go to bed and the first thing I think about when I wake up and it’s taking its toll. I am broken hearted, but my hands are tied. I have absolutely no support because friends and family don’t know what to do so it’s brushed under the carpet. I am in West London and there are no support groups here unless it’s of the ‘affirming’ nature. We are now with the Tavistock (my daughter contacted them), and I just know I have a big fight on my hands to protect her. I am so grateful for this website and the wonderful people who look after it and those, like Carol who write their stories. I would be happy to talk over the phone as you are fairly close but I’m not sure how to go about it. I wouldnt have any advice but I might be of some support. In the meantime I will be thinking and praying for you.
My daughter told us she was gender fluid at 13 and trans at 14, she is now 16 1/2 and still immersed in the trans ideology. She won’t even listen to my concerns or read anything that deals with detransitioners or desisters. She was turning into a strong and confident young women, but now can’t even leave her bedroom. Do you have any suggestions? We’ve gone to therapists and counselors but all they want to do is affirm her beliefs.
I am a 57 year old bi gendered woman on 25 mg testosterone for one year. I feel great. I did not have a doctor who helped me analyze this direction and/or hormonal transition. Yes, It was largely intuitive, based on mixed feelings I had since childhood and many a story which would tell you that I am a trans man. But I am NOT a trans-man. I am a bi-gendered woman. The effects of the hormones thus far: balance and unity internally and a feeling of comfort in my female born body which I have NEVER felt before! I am better able to think and write clearly, handle my anger – fears have virtually disappeared… or at least dissipated significantly.
I look the same to most! Hair is the same- I I still have less facial fuzz or hair than 99% of cis females my age! (I am basically a hairless person with a massive full head of head hair!) Sorry to be graphic- but there has been clitoral growth which I never wanted or didn’t want ( never had a thought about it!) but now that I have it- I love it!(FYI my sexual fluid issue which I have read can be a problem on testosterone is NOT a problem- ion fact-= with 25mg testosterone a day in cream- this aspect has gotten me back to my 18 year old self in that area!) Muscles larger and fat distribution off hips- and to ..well…NOWHERE! That has been AWESOME!At 57 I have great muscle tone and I am as lean as a teen…mostly though I feeel sooooo gooood in my body! Yes, I am who I am and I believe I am like most- non binary. I think that a lot of people de transitioning were never trans in the first place- but they were SOMETHING outside the binary box!!!! They were not feeling something that wasn’t true! It was! It just wasn’t exactly what they thought it was! Some were bi-gendered but where oh where can one explore unless one is safe to do so and has resources like money etc and is psychologically able to explore. I was a 57 year old mature wealthy ex theater artist/holistic health practitioner Jewish Lesbian realtor investor free thinker…someone who through suffering with symptoms of sleep and temperature regulation in menopause tried bio identical hormone and found happiness/balance through these hormones and thought wow is there more?…about hormones and my brain and identity that I need to explore?….explore I did- with my own courage resources and yes- security in my solid marriage and life. In these circumstances exploring was a good idea and paid off. I feel as if we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater- there is much exploration to do here…but the exploration should be well thought out, NEVER rushed, and I do believe one should wait until 30 to do anything and then very slow (except for in some cases where things must change NOW and even when young- and those cases REALLY exist!) Peace/Love/hope/Courage to all.
Thank you for sharing your story, Carol! I identified and lived as a ‘trans man’ from the ages of 16-19, but desisted prior to taking and physical transition steps. I’m 31 now and have been married to my amazing wife for the last 10 years. I am a proud butch lesbian, and although I still experience some gender/body dysphoria, I have made peace with myself and give myself permission to love and accept the body I have and the person I am. The community of detransitioned/desisted/re-identified women is strong and powerful, and I so appreciate you sharing your story so the rest of us can be reminded that we are not alone.
Would you be interested in writing about your own experiences in an article for 4thWaveNow? If so, please let us know.
I respect your experience, and I wish you understood that girlhood and boyhood is not about socialization, or your sex. Gender is not so black and white, a person is not either absolutely feminine, or absolutely masculine. Look at female bodybuilders. The harmful idea that a woman must only be feminine, damages everyone. There are plenty of people whose lives were infinitely improved after hormonal therapy. High levels of Testosterone is not/should not be exclusive to males. High levels of Estrogen is not/should not be exclusive to females. As you have learned from experience, men absolutely benefit greatly with more equal levels of estrogen and testosterone- same goes for women. If it wasn’t so controversial to use the “opposite gender’s” dominant sex hormones, the trans community would not need to define themselves so rigidly as trans. The word ‘trans’ would lose its necessity. As it is now, “non-trans” folks don’t understand that they’re not actually different from the LGBT community. It is not us vs. them.
When everyone understands that the LGBT community benefits everyone, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, sex, and so on, then we’ll be much more closer to true equality.
To recap, please refrain from making an entire community into outcasts. They deserve to keep their rights, just as you do.
I know it’s an old article, but thank you, Carol. If I could give you my contact info, I would. I am dealing with a now-ex-partner who I want to save from the path that you embarked. They’re really just a younger you.
Carol, if you are open to it I would like to pay you to consult with me privately. My 15 year old daughter wants to transition and I am really struggling to know what support looks like. I can be reached by email at cshepcook@gmail.com
Interesting article. I am a 50 year old transman from the Netherlands. Almost two years on testosterone and although I feel myself a man I have doubts about continue my transition. My doubts are mostly health concerns. I don’t known if I want to be dependend on synthetic hormones for the rest of my life. I would love to write with you about my concerns…
Greetings Carol,
And anyone else interested…
I didn’t transition because I wanted to be a man. I did so to survive life as I knew it in the 1970’s.
I began my transition in 1986 and detransitioned in 2015. I can say that I do understand your story quite well… I came from the Separatist community and was an outcast.
In looking for stories of detransitioning, I found none regarding older lesbians coming to terms with their situation… your story has been the closest. Perhaps you and I could correspond. I’m actually writing my memoir in the hope that it will fill in the gap between the younger crowd and an older one.
And should anyone come across my comments and would like to converse, by all means, drop me a line.
Sincerely,
Jessi H
no1nozz@gmail.com
Pingback: A Week of Lesbian Voices – 20-26 June 2022 | Lesbian voices
What an absolutely incredibly brave and strong woman you are. My god you’ve been through hell and back and then some.
Thank you so very much for writing your story and for sharing this. I’m hoping you are now back working within the mental health field as you clearly have so much to give, in a way which could be truly transformative to young peoples lives.
In reading your words you have educated me about issues I realised I knew very little about.
The multiple traumas through your life had me shaking my head and holding back the tears.
You have been through so much. You are a remarkable woman.
Please continue to write, speak and share these accounts to educate, to heal, to validate those who question who and what they are and equally validate the feelings of those made to suffer in silence from the losses felt by loved ones through the complex processes involved in transitioning.
I truly can’t thank you enough for sharing your story. It’s helped me understand a lot more about myself and the many issues you’ve raised.
Keep writing. Keep talking. Keep using your gift of insight gained through horrendous circumstances to heal others within the mental health field.
Much love and thanks xx
Pingback: Detransitioner resources - Genspect
Hey Carol,
I am non-binary and trans. Assigned female at birth. I want to keep an open mind to what you write. I am finding it difficult. Your experience is valid and YOUR experience. But I think you are doing the same thing you are accusing the “trans ideology” of doing. You are painting all trans people as dogmatic. It feels really unfair. I think there are absolutely people who fit the description you write, but I have met people like that in the trans community and in the lesbian community. Anyone who rejects nuance and doesn’t speak to others in good faith is doing what you are speaking about. I think you should have the right and agency to speak your truth, and share your story, but what bothers me is that you project your experience onto other people’s. Those genderqueer people you met at the hospital those “girls” might actually just want to transition. Your experience of shame is valid, and I think both possibilities need to be talked about. I just hope that when you ask “trans ideology” folks to have nuance, you hold yourself to the same standard, because it certainly does not feel like you are, this feels like an extremely bias take, towards your unique experience. You are projecting your own experience and extrapolating it, saying that because YOU feel this way, all trans people must? It feels really upsetting to read. I wish we could all work together to make a world where everyone just felt okay about being themselves, and exploring their gender. Trans people are not the enemy. I am sorry that your experiences have led you to feel we are.
Greetings Lou,
I transitioned over 30years ago, in a different era, and for a completely different reason than others in that time, and one that trans activists were truly threatened by.
I detransitioned in 2015, after it became safe to live again, as my original butch lesbian self.
I am by no means transphobic as they would certainly claim today, and if they are so adamant that I must agree with their ideology, I am as equally adamant with my right to disagree – and quite possibly offend.
If they threaten violence as a consequence, it is a reflection on them, not me or any other person who chooses to disagree.
There are those, myself included, who would venture to guess that there may be other questions on your mind Lou, simply because you are commenting on this topic.
On that note, I would like to misquote Shakespeare:
“Methinks thou protest too much.”
Hey Jessi,
That’s awesome, what an amazing story you must have.
I grew up watching Shakespeare, my family is actually 5 generations of actors and my grandfather helped start a festival of his plays. Love the energy.
However, similarly to the rest of what I feel about the arguments I am reading, you are actually wrong about me. You don’t know me or anything about my life or feelings. You are projecting that I must “protest too much” because of your own experience.
I wrote on here not because I have questions about that. I’m good! I feel very happy and secure. I love my body and I love who I am. I’m proud of who I am. But I am genuinely concerned and saddened that because there are people on both sides of this with an intense refusal to respect the fact that people have their own views, their own lives and ultimately they get to decide who they are and no matter what our view points are, nothing can change that.
The reason I commented and am here in the first place, is that I hear repeated refrains about “trans ideology” being people who refused to listen and learn from others with opposing viewpoints.
However, it’s the original poster who said she does not want to engage with me because she fundamentally disagrees with my existence. That is her choice. I respect her choice as a human being, though it saddens and scares me because ultimately I feel what so many of us queer people are fighting for is just the ability to be ourselves.
So I’ll end on a different Shakespeare quote, on of my faves: “this above all: to thine own self be true”
Yes, this is a very common comment from people who believe in trans ideology to dismiss criticism or concerns with “it’s YOUR experience” as if humans don’t have the ability to see patterns and draw conclusions that are often more accurate than not.
The first issue is that you start from the premise that people are trans or nonbinary. I don’t believe that. What people are is distressed about their sex, body or social position in life and want to alleviate that discomfort. The healthy and responsible thing to do as a society is to ask why these folks feel this way, and try to help people find peace with themselves.
I do not believe for one minute that denying reality, taking wrong sex hormones or cutting parts of yourself away is a healthy or a sane way to handle emotional distress. I don’t believe people are innately “trans” no one is born hating their sex/body. I believe in reality, truth and radical acceptance.
And lastly, I don’t believe I ever stated I have any desire to work with people who believe in trans ideology. I do not, there is no common ground here. The belief that people are trans or nonbinary is a harmful belief system.
Alright, thanks for your response. I absolutely think you can see things and draw patterns, that has value. I just take issue with them taking that and applying it to EVERYONE. I disagree with that, and think it’s harmful. I wish there was more room for these two opposing sides to speak to one another with respect and a desire to understand. Collective liberation will help us all, and that’s all I’m after. You have said that’s not what you desire, so I understand and will leave it there.
You and Carol disagree on what liberation actually means.
Perhaps we do. That’s a good point, thanks for the reminder. To me liberation is just people getting to have agency over their own body and decisions. Including Carol, or anyone. Her experiences are valid and I think sharing both viewpoints to people and then ultimately respecting it is their life, and they have the agency over it. I definitely hear what you say about my community having the tendency to be very dogmatic, i have seen that too. in my experience I have also seen it within your community. I wish there were a way to hold space for all of us to exist and find a way to get a world where we are ALL empowered to be who we want to be. That’s all.
What do you mean by “respect” I think when we have these conversations we need to define what we mean. Do you believe, for example, that if I don’t believe that Jesus is real that I am disrespecting Christians? Or that I don’t want them to exist?
You keep saying that I refuse to listen and learn. What does that mean? What I think it means is you want me to agree with you, but I don’t, and I never will. I believe transition is a harmful act and that the belief in an innate gender that differs from a person’s sex is a religious belief with no basis in reality.
“trans people” have every right to do what ever they want but they do not have the right to tell others they have to go along with it, with pronouns, using the opposite sex bathrooms and locker rooms, having men in women’s sports or transitioning kids because the kid hates their body or sex. You don’t get to mandate society to believe in your belief system, especially in laws that govern everyone.
I’m coming to this some years after you wrote it, but I just wanted to say how brilliant and moving your essay is. I am fortunate maybe to have been born a bit earlier (1961) and so came out when we identified as gay or lesbians or womensy- and there seemed to be strength in numbers. We also fought for women’s rights whatever the issue – something I have yet to see the trans movement do at all. Namely, support causes that you are not at the centre of or where you are not the centre of attention. Anyway, I hope things are going well for you and your family and thank you for sharing this beautiful, articulate and heartfelt testimony.
Thank you, I am doing well and so is my family.
This article popped up on my news feed. I thank you for telling us your story: what led you to transition, how ADHD played a part, your feeling awkward in your own body. I found I could relate to much of it. I am not lesbian nor have I ever considered transitioning, but I have felt like I was different and didn’t fit in. I have been told my whole life that I needed to act more like a lady and that I think like a man. I am an engineer, having gone to college in the 70s when I was frequently the only female in the class. While I didn’t feel mistreated or discriminated against, it was primarily because I thought I was the different person and expected to be treated like the outsider.
Your article really shows all the pain you went through because there is so much in our society that is expected based on gender. If we could only accept people as they are individually!