The Year I Turned 24

On March 5, 2014, I got top surgery. I had been out as trans for nine months, and on the surgeon’s waiting list for seven. In those early months, I took naked selfies in the shower to memorialize my transition. My hair is dyed black and I have a gleam in my eyes like I’m getting away with something. I look so young, barely masculinized from one month of T, chubby from living on takeout, excited about my future.

In January 2013, six months before I started T, I moved across the country for a new job. I was 23 and didn’t yet identify as trans, although I had read The Null HypotheCis and wondered if being a female programmer with an interest in gender meant I couldn’t be cis. I had spent the past two years in the straight BDSM community and couldn’t stand being sexualized by men anymore. I was going to San Francisco to explore my bisexuality and get rich in tech, in that order.

In February, I met “Sam” on OkCupid. Sam was a few years older than me and had also moved to the area for a tech job. Neither of us knew anyone else in the area, and we became inseparable. I hadn’t liked pot before, but Sam and I started smoking daily. We talked about gender and worked ourselves into stoned panic attacks. Sam came out as genderqueer, then as a trans woman, and became increasingly emotionally volatile. Soon, I was commuting from San Francisco to the South Bay most nights to take care of her. I fell behind at work and started worrying I was ruining my life, or I would do something terrible. In May, I went to a psychologist, who diagnosed OCD and referred me to a psychiatrist, who put me on a high dose of Zoloft.

Shortly after I started Zoloft, I decided I would transition too. It was partially for myself, I was telling the world I was a subject, not an object, and I wasn’t straight even though all my relationships had been with men. But it was also a strategy within my relationship. Early-transition Sam was obsessed with being trans, whether her outfits were feminine enough, whether she would ever pass, and whether strangers were transphobic. Claiming a trans identity for myself let me frame my needs in a way she couldn’t deny.

In July, I asked my psychologist for letters for T and top surgery, and she gave them to me right away. We didn’t talk much about what I wanted out of medical transition. I think we both believed no one really regrets transition and therapists shouldn’t be gatekeepers. I got the letter at the end of July, and only went to one more appointment–my therapist told me if I thought transition would help me, I didn’t need to keep coming. I scheduled my top surgery a few weeks later. I wanted to do it sooner, but the surgeon had a long waiting list. 

The next month, Sam quit her job, moved into my studio apartment, and started going out to the bars every night and hooking up with men. I was invited, but it was harder for her to hook up when I was there, and I had to work in the mornings. We broke up for the last time in May, a few months after my surgery. I didn’t know how to function in the dating world as a man, and I threw myself into work and other hobbies. Sexual liberation through transition was a bust.

I detransitioned in 2018, after a couple of years of questioning. Being trans felt like a lie I was telling the world. If people perceived me as male, I had to edit what I told them about my past or draw unwanted attention to my identity. I also felt alienated by the trans community’s politics, especially around speech restrictions and harassment of those who disagreed. I stopped taking T four years after my surgery and started grad school in the fall as a masculine-looking woman. Over time, my face softened and my hair grew out, and now most people I meet don’t know about my trans history.

In the end, I think transition was my mistake to make. But I wish my therapist had talked to me about how unstable my life was and how medical transition would still be there when things calmed down. Looking back now, I feel like I wasn’t in my right mind. I felt responsible for Sam’s emotions, and also resentful because she was taking advantage of me. I wonder how much my dissociation from my body was a result of constantly being high, and whether disinhibition from the Zoloft contributed to me coming out as trans and medically transitioning so quickly. While my life is happy overall, I feel like a lot of life was closed to me when I rushed into a mastectomy.

Over the past few years, the conversation around the causes of trans identity has broadened. People questioning their gender can find more thoughtful takes on transition than, “If you think you might be trans, you are”, and some therapists are aware of the many reasons that a person may identify as trans. But it depends where you look–as we’ve heard from folks like Jamie Reed and Tamara Pietzke, plenty of clinicians still take an affirmation-only approach. I hope we can continue to bring nuance to the conversation, so people considering medical transition can have a real discussion about the pros and cons.

Genspect will be holding a free webinar for Detrans Awareness Day on Tuesday, March 12th at 7 pm EST. Please register here if you would like to join Laura Becker, Abel Garcia and Forest Smith to hear about the complexities involved with detransition: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IXINvva0QKeC0O4M9rCo0A