They Pushed Me into this Ideology and Tried to Keep Me There Forever
By Victoria
I somehow ended up here, typing this thing, contemplating life choices, and struggling with my mental health.
Let’s rewind to the beginning.
My name’s Vic… Victoria…? I live in Ontario and I attend the Catholic school system. I have struggled with my gender identity for a while and I only recently realized that I’m actually a biological female, who identifies, well, as a female. I’m extremely glad that I came to this realization before it was too late. When I say too late, I mean medically transitioning which includes hormone therapy and any sexual reassignment surgeries.
When I was younger, I was a bit of a tomboy, I loved sports and I had friends who were boys, but I have never experienced gender dysphoria, I loved dresses and I felt comfortable being a girl. It all changed when Covid hit. I was in 4th grade at the time. That’s when my life started to go downhill, I started my period at 10 years old which is pretty young, I was isolated and I couldn’t see my friends, and I installed TikTok for the first time. In the beginning, TikTok was a place where I posted videos of my pets, but that changed fast. I discovered the LGBTQ+ community and I started questioning my identity. At first, it was only my sexuality: pansexual, lesbian, maybe bi? After a few months on TikTok I was constantly exposed to the transgender, or should I say trans-trender, propaganda. “Are you anxious and uncomfortable with your body? You must be trans”. I was seeing these videos everywhere. Transgender activists were actively posting videos about “safe” breast binding; how euphoric testosterone makes you feel and how it makes all your problems suddenly disappear. The more I was brainwashed by these videos, the more I started to resonate with them. I developed a nonbinary identity by the time I started grade 5. We were online on and off then and when we came to school after the new year, I came out to my best friend as a they/them. When a couple of months passed, I came out to the whole class, including my teacher. I cut my hair and tried to dress androgynous. Everyone was supportive and accepting of my new identity, no one even bothered to question it. I told my parents about it; they clearly thought it was a phase and didn’t say much about it and continued using my legal name and calling me a girl. I didn’t have any gender dysphoria at that time either. During summer break before grade 6, I was spending more time than ever on my phone. I started to think that my body wasn’t good enough and I became a “boy.” On the first day of grade 6, I came out as a “he/him,” once again everyone at school blindly supported me. This is not normal, considering that I went to a Catholic school where the education was supposed to be focused on religious teachings. I was very depressed and hated my body for not being more masculine. I began self-harming and having suicidal thoughts. I ended up at the hospital for running away with the intention of ending my life. The police officers, nurses, doctors, and psychiatrists all accepted that I was a boy and never tried to dig up any underlying problems that might be causing these suicidal ideations. The psychiatrist said that my parents had to accept my self-proclaimed identity or else my mental health would get worse and I would kill myself. I was discharged without any mental health screenings that week.
Soon after that, my mom became concerned about my breast binding and took me to my family doctor. The doctor was clearly supportive of the trans ideology because she immediately asked for my preferred name and pronouns when I walked into her office. She told me and my mom that binding is perfectly healthy (which it isn’t) and asked me if I was interested in learning about puberty blockers. Please don’t forget I was 11 years old. At that age, I couldn’t make a conscious decision about medical interventions with an extremely high risk of life-threatening side effects that could make me unable ever to conceive a child.
Similar mental health crises to the one that I previously talked about happened a few times that year. The same conclusion every time, “Your child is a boy, you have to accept it or else things won’t get better.” My parents kept fighting for me, they kept telling me that I’m a girl and that I always will be one, but I was too indoctrinated to listen. My parents blocked TikTok from my phone. I didn’t get better, I only got worse. I secretly started watching trans “gurus” on YouTube without my parents’ knowledge.
I started grade 7. My school principal allowed me to use the boys’ changing room for gym. My parents were not informed about that and neither were the parents of the boys who used that changing room with me. Now that I look back on it I can see that the way our society works right now is unacceptable, think about it, if I was raped while using that changing room there would probably be no consequences since I identified as a guy and I chose to use the boys’ changing room.
The principal also allowed me to use the men’s washroom. I decided to use the gender neutral one but the fact that they gave me that option is wrong. My parents weren’t informed about that either.
I was extremely uncomfortable with my body since the beginning of grade 7 and I started to have eating disorder symptoms. I had extreme social anxiety at school. I had a suicide attempt around that time because I “overate” and I was “fat” and “ugly.” When I was sent to the hospital, no one brought up anything about eating disorders. They only focused on the transgender part, just like they did every time. That was the last straw for me, even though I was only 12 I could see that something was clearly wrong, everything was centered around my gender, not the actual issues I was dealing with. I read the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier. I could relate to everything in it. I started to go back to being a girl. I told my parents and they were overjoyed about the news. When I told my teacher she asked me if this was something that I really wanted and if my parents were pushing me to go back. No one asked me if I was sure that I was a boy when I came out as trans, but when I wanted to go back to my biological gender everyone was making sure that it’s what’s best for me. Weird, right? Well, my friend, that is propaganda at its fullest. I had a crisis a month later. I attempted suicide by overdosing and cutting. Thankfully, it failed and I ended up at the hospital, again. I’m not trans anymore, so why am I doing this? Because my mental health issues were never resolved. Now that the transgender shield was gone, I was properly assessed for mental health issues. Turns out I have bulimia/binge eating disorder, anxiety, and borderline personality traits. Now we’re back to the beginning of writing this piece, I’m still struggling but making progress, I’m completely happy with being a female, and I’m trying to share my story with the world to spread the word that this generation is crazy and the healthcare system wants to make money from vulnerable kids who definitely don’t think about the negative consequences that can happen if they medically transition.
Photo by Florian Schmetz on Unsplash