(Un)becoming Woman: My De/Transition Story
I think I was in middle school when I first learned about Joan of Arc.
It’s no surprise that I was enamored with her: a girl of low social status, devoutly religious, who assumed a dangerously masculine role. I saw myself in her, in some respects. In other ways, I aspired to be her. There was something deeply fascinating about her which I couldn’t quite name, and would be unable to fully understand or articulate until a decade later.
I determined I was transgender around age 12. The realization was near-instantaneous — I’d found a blog which posted pictures of transmasculine people, and immediately connected with them. Being raised in an evangelical cult in a rural community, I was exposed to very little gender nonconformity. I was never presented the possibility that I could break away from the expectations of traditional womanhood imposed on me by virtue of being “female.” To finally be given that option was both freeing and terrifying.
These feelings persisted into my teen years. I eventually came out to my mother, who promptly took me to a therapist. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Nothing came of this diagnosis, because of my parents’ religiosity. For the most part, they pretended as if my dysphoria/gender incongruence didn’t exist, and eventually, I took the same approach.
It would not be until I left home to attend university that I began revisiting the feelings I had suppressed for years. I was in one of the largest cities in the USA, and my university was well-known for being very progressive, which facilitated exploring my gender again. I learned more about transgender/nonbinary people, and the various ways that transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) people expressed their identities.
I was 19 when I decided to buy a binder practically on a whim. I had bound my breasts throughout middle school and early high school using tape and ace bandages, and wanted to see how a real binder felt. After trying it on, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I realized how much I’d pushed down my discontent with my sexed body, and how much better I could potentially feel. Once I knew this, there was no way to un-know it. I came out as a trans man at the very start of 2018. A few months later, I began testosterone therapy (T). A year after coming out, I had top surgery.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and top surgery radically changed my body, in ways both expected and unexpected. The outcomes were generally considered “good,” insofar as the aesthetics of my top surgery and the relative absence of negative physical health effects was concerned. More important, though, was the immaterial improvements that treatment brought me. The process of altering my body gave me a sense of agency over myself that I had never known before. For much of my life, I felt paradoxically disconnected from my body whilst being imprisoned by it. It didn’t feel like mine — it felt like something imposed upon me. I had no choice in the matter of it. When I made the decision to pursue these treatments as something purely for my own wellbeing, I finally felt like this body was my own, and for the first time, began feeling comfortable not just within my body, but as my body.
Although my transition was profoundly positive in terms of medical/surgical aspects, the social aspects were far from ideal. I had difficulty ‘passing’ as male. Early in my transition, I generally read as a butch woman, which I had anticipated. I expected, however, that as my transition progressed (especially with T), that I would pass more consistently. This wasn’t the case. I was still often read as “female.” Most strangers referred to me as a woman. I took note of well-meaning people at university who would pause before addressing me, unsure of what pronouns to use and afraid of causing offense by asking. In spite of the efforts I put in to look masculine, to restrict my “feminine” mannerisms and affect, I was visibly TGNC, resulting in much distress.
As time passed, my mental health deteriorated as I began losing hope that I would ever ‘pass’ as male. I could not be present in social interactions, because I was too fixated on the sound of my voice, my habitual mannerisms, or whether I was being too expressive. More than anything else, I listened closely for the pronouns people used for me, and hearing the wrong one was practically unbearable. I began to contemplate additional procedures to masculinize my features. Far from the giddy anticipation I felt prior to my top surgery, making plans for these procedures was joyless.
In the winter of 2020/2021, I began to seriously consider whether I could continue my transition. I realized that my ruminations over additional procedures was not driven by my own desires. I’d wanted top surgery for my personal happiness, to be more embodied, but these procedures were solely to be read as male by others. I was at risk of disliking the results, of having complications, of losing that sense of embodiment that I’d finally found. And in a strange way, trying so hard to be seen as male made it all the more painful when I failed — what is I did all this, and I still didn’t pass?
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that my transition was no longer making me happy. It had begun to distract and hinder me from living my life.
Through the first half of 2021, I went on and off of testosterone to see if I could live without it. Although my feelings were mixed, I ultimately determined that I could, and that not taking it was the best choice for me. I attempted to disconnect from gender altogether, but found it difficult. “Opting-out” of gender was more theoretical than practical, because it permeates every interaction we have. Having resolved to stop my transition, I had to confront how I felt about myself as a gendered/sexed individual.
Once I let go of the expectation of being male, I was able to explore doors that I had previously closed off to myself. Because I had wanted to be seen as male, I had downplayed or totally ignored many of the facts about myself and my life that I felt threatened my male identity. For example: feeling male was distinct from the way I thought about myself. I wanted to be seen as male, but I still thought of myself as a woman. I felt commonality with women. I conceptualized myself as a woman, particularly in the context of romantic/sexual relationships, regardless of my partner’s gender. These feelings, I was told, were common for transgender people, and would change with time. But they didn’t. I had always emphasized the masculine aspects of me, especially from when I was younger, but I ignored all of the feminine. The truth is that both were part of me, and my detransition process allowed me to accept that.
Wanting to sometimes be seen as male, get top surgery and HRT, are all framed as “trans man” experiences. I used the label as a means of communicating my desires and internal experiences (albeit imperfectly), and to access the treatment that I desperately needed to feel at home in myself. I had never been presented with the possibility that a woman could want these treatments and still be a woman. And, if I had been presented with that possibility and was honest about it, I doubt I would’ve been able to access those treatments at all, because people who deviate from the “typical” and binary transition pathways are seen as liabilities. My identity as a trans man was necessary at the time, but eventually letting go of it was also necessary for me to find happiness again.
A few months ago, I was again presented with Joan of Arc. While cleaning out my closet (the symbolism is not lost on me) I found an art project from high school: two ink sketches of Joan of Arc. In one, she rides atop a horse, bearing a sword and flag, clad in armor and hair strewn about. In the second, she wears a dress with a singed, fluttering hem as she is burned at the stake. Although I scarcely understood it at the time, I believe my drawings were not simply the result of a quirky interest in 15th century saints. They channeled into my desire to be a courageously masculine woman, defying the expectations of a society that rigidly enforces a strict gender/sex binary. They channeled my fear that I would be persecuted for my nonconformity, and coercively feminized all the while. I did not have the language or the knowledge to express any of this — only a connection and a vague discomfort.
I have stated before that if I had passed well, I think I’d still be living as a man. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than where I currently am. On one hand, I would’ve avoided much of the distress I’ve felt as a result of “failing” in my social role a man. But I also would’ve never confronted the parts of myself that I had tried pushing out of my mind. Our identities are often messy, sometimes even incoherent. I believe the successes and failures we encounter, and the knowledge we have at any given point in our lives, will impact the way that we conceptualize ourselves. I cannot know with absolute certainty how I would think of myself or where I would be if things had been dramatically different, or if/when I didn’t know what I know now. Which is why I try to focus on this place where I currently am.
There are various terms which describe my gender/transition experience, examining them from multiple angles. “FtMtF” is a somewhat crude term, but is a simple way of describing my transition pathway. “Retrans(itioned)” similarly describes my “atypical” or nonlinear path. “GNC” recognizes that I fall outside the socially-accepted bounds of gender/sex. My favorite term is virago, which captures the warrior-like masculine women that have fascinated me for most of my life. Because I identify with my AGAB, I no longer consider myself “transgender” in the strictest sense, but still consider myself part of the broader TGNC community because of my continued nonconformity and shared goals. Ultimately, though, I try not to become too overly attached to any terms, in case they begin to become restrictive in the way “man”/”male” did for me.
I know a couple of things: my desire for top surgery and HRT were real, and I still enjoy the results of them. I have no desire to reverse them, and in fact, I think I would still be dysphoric about my body if I’d never transitioned. I am undoubtedly happy that I transitioned. My only regret is that I didn’t have the information that I have now, which may have allowed me to live a more genuine embodiment from the start. It is why I want to raise awareness of non-traditional transition paths. I want people to be able to make decisions about their own bodies, regardless of their identity or how well they fit into a predetermined narrative. There is no reason why a person with a binary identity must be forced down a binary transition, or why a nonbinary person cannot want a binary pathway. If a transition treatment would make a person happier and more embodied, why should we restrict them? Because my de/retransition was crucial to understanding where I am today, I want to challenge the idea that detransitioning is life-ending. I want to fight against the idea that transitioned bodies are broken or ruined.
What I want is for transgender and gender non-conforming people to have access to the care that they need. To have freedom, respect, bodily autonomy, and all the information we need to choose what’s best for us. TGNC people are constrained and repeatedly failed by sociomedical systems that are focused on assimilating us into the gender/sex binary, and if we want to be free of that binary, then we have to fight together.
