If I’d been a boy, liking girls would have been normal.
I hear kids, adolescents, and adults discuss gender dysphoria as if the only options are transitioning, a life of misery, or an intentionally shortened life. This is not true. There are desisters like myself who go from 6/6 symptoms of gender dysphoria to 0/6 without ever transitioning.
Back when I was desisting, I found one anime where a girl who thought she was a member of the male sex had learned to embrace her womanhood after puberty did not go the way she expected. Watching her story provided me with hope that I could come to terms with my body too, but it probably would have made my experience less scary if I’d had a story from someone who was real to look to. That was not available to me, but now I’m in a place where I can write that story for others. Here is an account of what led to my dysphoria, the steps I took to desist, and my choice not to transition when given the opportunity.
Sometimes I felt incompetent at girlhood. Still, I was more bothered by how I was treated as a girl than the fact that I was a girl — rather than wanting to be a boy, it was more like I sometimes wanted to be a girl who was treated like a boy.
As a little girl, I was an androgynous mess. I’d wrestle with my brothers while wearing glittery skirts. I roughhoused and played with matchbox cars like my male peers, but, like most little girls with dolls, I gave the cars names and families. Both dinosaurs and dolls frequented my tea parties. I generally found it easier to play with boys, and I was one of the fastest in my grade, but I had one close female friend.
I don’t recall having any deep personal issues with being a girl, but there were some pre-pubescent complications that may have set the groundwork for my later issues. My long hair was hot and itchy. My brothers weren’t lectured when they sloppily folded laundry or accidentally tooted at the table. I wanted a lightsaber so I could play Jedis with my boy cousins instead of a doll, which meant sitting with my aunts. It turns out Girl Scouts don’t ask to be another Girl Scout’s boyfriend — oops. I wasn’t allowed to play flag football like my big brother. There was even an incident where my school’s Eric Cartman tried beating me with a wooden cane for playing football at recess, but that fight ended when a mom noticed I was walloping his jiggly butt.
The other boys didn’t attack me, but it was weird that I was a girl who wanted to play with them. My female classmates seemed to find me even weirder – I could not understand the social dynamics in girl groups. Sometimes I felt incompetent at girlhood. Still, I was more bothered by how I was treated as a girl than the fact that I was a girl — rather than wanting to be a boy, it was more like I sometimes wanted to be a girl who was treated like a boy. On good days, being a girl who could rough and tumble was a source of pride and all of the physical activity meant there wasn’t much of a gap between what my mind was thinking about and what my body was doing.
Around my 11th birthday, the start of puberty led to a nosedive in how I viewed my sex. I was informed that one day blood would just leak out of my vagina. Absolutely terrifying. I tried praying to never have a period even though I was no longer a Christian.
In addition to the promise of future bleeding, my legs were littered with nicks from clumsy shaves. The baldness was even worse than the blood — bald things feel so sticky and prickly. I could hardly stand touching my legs. Periods and shaving weren’t even my biggest concern. I was forced to wear bras despite my sensory issues — I couldn’t focus or hear properly with the way those nasty things moved against my skin (I was later diagnosed with Autism). My chest already hurt enough, even without plastic, metal, seams, and stiff fabric digging in. Seriously, with how much growing pain I had on my chest, it seemed hard to believe I’d only sprouted little buds instead of DDs. Some days I was in too much pain to horse around.
I guess it ended up not mattering that I couldn’t horse around as often — older female relatives gave my young male relatives permission to ignore me on the basis that I was a girl. Between feeling like I wasn’t allowed to interact with male peers and the envy I felt towards boys, I lost my ability to have male buddies at school. I was unable to make female friends to fill the sudden void, and I lacked shared interests with my female relatives.
Part of my struggle to connect with other girls stemmed from the fact that they were starting to go “boy-crazy” while I was trying not to notice how pretty they were. If I’d been a boy, liking girls would have been normal.
Puberty was not going well. I envied the boys whose treatment still included rough-and-tumble play. My crushes on girls and high energy felt like boy feelings. I wanted to live a boy’s life. I felt like I should have been born with a Y chromosome.
Once or twice I had an urge to take a giant bread knife, place the blade under my breasts, and saw straight up. While I kept DIY surgical urges to myself, there were a few times I angrily verbalized my desire to be a boy and have a Y chromosome. I was never tested for gender dysphoria, but that’s all six symptoms. They lasted well over six months, and I suspect my tanking social life and thoughts of self-mutilation would have qualified as “clinically significant.” Regardless of a diagnosis, I was miserable, and my attitude towards my body was not conducive to a good life.
It turns out Girl Scouts don’t ask to be another Girl Scout’s boyfriend — oops.
In retrospect, I believe that my young self was using a coping mechanism called “phantasy” or “displaced meaning.” Instead of fixing their problems when life isn’t going well, people will spin a narrative around an alternative life where one change has fixed their problems. For example, instead of working on social skills to have a successful date, a single man who longs for a happy marriage may become focused on buying a rose-covered cottage as this purchase symbolizes a gentle romance. Of course, the cottage doesn’t come with a free wife, and should he realize that upon purchasing it, he’ll either have to confront his singleness head-on or start telling himself he’ll find his happy life once he adds a porch lit with string lights.
From listening to Rene Jax in the documentary I Want My Sex Back, it seems as though hormones and surgeries are goods people can displace meaning into, in addition to all of the meaning that can be displaced by reimagining life as the opposite sex.
In my case, I could think about my potential life as a playful boy with a welcoming family, plenty of friends, and no sensory issues. I could tell myself that my life would be fixed if I could just find a way to be a boy. It didn’t do anything to improve my actual life, but it felt like a nice escape.
I’ve seen multiple girls be on cloud nine the first time they wear a binder. Within a month, they’re just as miserable as they were before ... When they further their transition again, the boom, bust, new goal post cycle repeats. I suspect it’s because being a member of their sex is not actually their underlying issue.
To be fair, my dysphoria/displaced meaning was not entirely illogical. I probably would have been treated better by my family had I been a boy, and there’s a chance I wouldn’t have lost my male buddies. I wasn’t in a place where I could fix some of my problems, so confronting reality head-on seemed unproductive.
However, my dysphoria/displaced meaning was not entirely logical either. I was not born a boy, and nothing short of intervention from my ex-God could have changed the fact that I started down the female reproductive pathway in utero.
I didn’t know about medical means to block puberty, but it’s not like stunted bone development or breast binding would have allowed me to resume my rough-and-tumble play.
Additionally, I highly doubt life would be perfect as a boy. A body part full of nerves that spontaneously hardens – male puberty probably would have been rough on the senses too.
While I was too masculine to fit in with girls, I was still too feminine to always fit in with boys. Heck, I might have ended up as a little boy who felt like he should have been a girl so he could wear red pumps and host tea parties.
While displaced meaning was not the sole driver of my dysphoria (wanting a direct means to prevent growth pains and bleeding is not symbolic enough to be displaced meaning), it was a significant driver and one of the most important thought patterns I had to become aware of to desist.
Even though my young self didn't know terms like "displaced meaning" or "phantasy," just recognizing that thought pattern led me to conceptualize myself as a "brain who struggles with blaming her problems on her girl body" rather than "a brain who struggles with being in a girl body." Even though my body still felt like the problem, diagnosing my mindset as the problem motivated me to start trying to accept my sex.
Another key motivator was that I did not know about medical transitioning. I’m a bit younger than Jazz Jennings, but fast internet was expensive, so nobody in my community knew about concepts like transgender. I had come up with the idea that I should be a boy all by myself, and I was on my own with figuring out how to handle such a feeling.
With my limited knowledge and resources, my two options were to continue being miserable about what I couldn’t have or somehow learn to be grateful for what I did have. I knew it would be healthier to appreciate my body, so I was pretty motivated to find a way to accept my body even as it kept progressing towards womanhood. I didn’t exactly want to be a woman, but I wanted to want myself and understood being a woman was a big part of who I was becoming.
With these two motives, I spent ages 13 and 14 working through my mental problems and making choices I thought would help me come to terms with womanhood.
The strangest thing cured my anxiety about periods — actually having one. After eight days of blood, cramps, acne, and mood swings, I survived, and the survival of something that had been so scary gave me confidence. It wasn’t my choice to bleed, but it was my choice to frame it as a chance to toughen up and take care of myself rather than a sign that my body hated me. It made being a woman seem cool – my sex handles that every month!
The progression of puberty added more hormones to my system, and I was getting gayer by the day. I still wanted to be straight, but not nearly as much as I wanted a girlfriend or was disgusted by the male form. I decided to hold off on coming out until I was more mature, but even privately acknowledging my homosexuality made it easier to start getting used to liking girls and to stop being mad at myself for not gushing over boys. Even though I wasn’t officially out (everyone kind of assumed I was a lesbian), I somehow ended up in a co-ed friend group, which provided a nice balance between relating to girls as a girl and relating to straight boys as someone who likes women. It hurt to admit, but I could also see that some of the past male buddies I’d lost were more due to my social issues than my being a girl. It was one less reason to hate being a girl, and I was more aware of the underlying issues I really had.
One of the most important choices I made was to stop shaving. With soft hairs covering my legs, they became nice to touch again. I liked the tan glow my hair provided. Sure, I was bullied for not shaving, but bullying was nothing new. The sensory relief was well worth the bullying, and it was kind of nice that kids were too busy calling me “Chewbacca” or “hairy-ass dyke” to have time to call me “retard” or “stupid swine.”
Happy with my legs, I took some advice I’d heard from my mom and dad: stand in front of a mirror each night and find three nice things to say about yourself. After a few months, I started to feel better about myself overall, but the time spent looking in a mirror made me feel worse about my breasts and all the scratch marks from bras and my wrestling with them. Luckily there was an easy fix to that. I went braless — haven’t worn one since I was 14. My sensory issues got better, and now that my chest was free, I could complement what was blossoming.
My long, itchy hair was the next to go.
I wasn’t in a place where I could address the bulk of my social issues, but bothering to do my math homework turned out to be a better way to cope with my loneliness than wishing I’d been born a boy. Math did not care about who I was. The selfish subject only cared if I could solve its problems, and solving tricky problems required my complete focus.
I could no longer keep up with boys physically and still struggled in girl groups, but becoming good enough at math to tutor classmates finally gave me a social role others appreciated. I’d found myself a new niche without having to leave my sex, and tutoring provided a structured environment where I could practice new ways of interacting with peers of both sexes.
My legs were littered with nicks from clumsy shaves. The baldness was even worse than the blood — bald things feel so sticky and prickly, and I could hardly stand touching my legs. Periods and shaving weren’t even my biggest concern. I was forced to wear bras despite my sensory issues — I couldn’t focus or hear properly with the way those nasty things moved against my skin.
When I ran out of math to do, I’d distract myself with anime. It probably wasn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, but it was better than letting my mind spiral.
Anime ended up providing two unexpected benefits: a story about desisting and an interest in drawing. Watching a girl who had thought she was biologically male embrace being female seemed like confirmation that my goal of sex acceptance was possible. When I felt myself starting to think about being a boy again, I could replace those thoughts with the story of a woman content with her adult life despite it not being what her young self would have chosen. As for my interest in drawing, drawing myself and other women helped make my growing curves feel more familiar. Additionally, drawing provided me an outlet for my emotions, allowing me to start learning to process them without outbursts or distractions.
It took about one year of consistent effort to get the upper hand over my dysphoria. There were still days when something like an unpleasant visit with relatives would make me want to be a boy again, but I had enough skills to quickly reorient myself and spent most of my time content with being female.
After another few years of continuing my sex acceptance efforts and negotiation for better family relationships, I finally reached a point where I’d fully desisted. It took time and effort, but I find life is much more pleasant now that I like my body.
Most of my efforts to desist boiled down to not ruminating over being a boy, learning to accept my body’s natural changes, and ditching the non-essential aspects of womanhood that caused too many sensory issues.
While the specific steps I took may not be applicable for everyone, long-term efforts, learning healthier thought patterns, getting used to one’s natural body, and addressing the underlying issues driving dysphoria are common themes in the stories of desisters and de-transitioners.
In hindsight, joining a team sport like soccer or lacrosse could have been a good place to practice socializing with girls and getting used to how to move with my changing body, but the steps I took were good enough to get me through puberty.
After watching others transition, I strongly believe some mental and physical issues are inherent to battling one’s sex, even in an environment full of external validation.
To be clear, my desisting was not about perfectly following sex norms – it was about sex acceptance. I did find that not hating the fact that I was a woman led me to be comfortable with femininity, but I’m still fairly androgynous.
My rough and tumbley instincts aren’t as strong, and I let myself cry over romance movies. I wear my heels, skirts, jewelry, and nail polish until duty calls, and I’m dressed for manual labor. In one day, I’ve gone from skinning a deer to slicing fabric strips for a petticoat. I’ve come around to enjoy female chit-chat, but I can handle male banter.
I date women, but I do so as a lesbian.
During my later teenage years, I had opportunities to transition. I was even in friend groups where being trans became a requirement to stay in the inner circle, complete with comments like “You’d be so much hotter if you were trans,” “Transition with me to defeat the patriarchy,” and “You have to be a transman or at least non-binary! Just look at your hair.”
I managed to stay on my path toward desisting. Even though I was completely unaware of the side effects of binding, puberty blockers, testosterone, and the surgeries, just remembering how awful dysphoria used to feel made losing friends seem way better than relapsing.
When the peer pressure was really bad, I was lucky to have made one close friend who would stand up for me being a woman.
Now I’m just smart enough to stay away from spaces advertised as “LGB” TQ+ because every single time I’m told to take testosterone and/or learn to be pansexual – I’m not worried about relapsing anymore, but there are better places to hang out.
Over the years, carefully watching others transition has made me even more grateful to have stuck with desisting.
I’ve seen multiple girls be on cloud nine the first time they wear a binder. Within a month, they’re just as miserable as they were before with two changes: they have more torso pain, and instead of saying they’ll be happy once they get a binder, the goal post has shifted to starting testosterone, undergoing surgery, or preferring a new pronoun. When they further their transition again, the boom, bust, new goal post cycle repeats.
I suspect it’s because being a member of their sex is not actually their underlying issue — their root problems are the stressors that they blame their sex for and are not using healthier ways to deal with. Sure, furthering their transition provides temporary relief, but it comes with medical side effects, lasting dissatisfaction with one’s body, and lost opportunities to address root issues.
I’m more than willing to admit that if I’d known about medical and social transitioning prior to my first period, I would have begged my parents to let me do it. I was confident I didn’t want to be a girl anymore, and I certainly didn’t want to become a woman.
But my ignorance eventually brought me bliss.
Thanks to my natural puberty, I have healthy bones, great lung capacity, functioning reproductive organs, good enough curves, no dependence on external hormones, no surgical wounds to treat, and an unstunted sexuality. Transitioning would have jeopardized all of these.
I don’t regret desisting.
To be clear, my desisting was not about perfectly following sex norms – it was about sex acceptance.
I didn’t exactly want to be a woman, but I wanted to want myself and understood being a woman was a big part of who I was becoming.
After watching others transition, I strongly believe some mental and physical issues are inherent to battling one’s sex, even in an environment full of external validation.
I don’t plan on forcing anyone to desist, but my belief that desisting is the best outcome of dysphoria makes me want to let others know that it’s possible. I can’t say my story is a perfect step-by-step guide to desisting, but I hope it has provided some techniques to think about and some reasons why it would be wise to consider desisting over transitioning.
I read this.. "Left-handedness increased over time after we stopped punishing left-handed children in schools, because some children are naturally left-handed and were now able to express it [...] In the same way, increased visibility and acceptance of trans people has led to a gradual increase in young people who feel comfortable expressing their trans identity"[1]
Except "left-handedness" isn't a debilitating disorder that requires risky physical intervention, while gender dysphoria is and gender change as a route of treating gender dysphoria is risky physical intervention.
It's not an "comfortable [...] identity", it's something that requires hospital resources to address. Calling this "comfortable" is as if saying "being able to admit having skin cancer is comfortable". Being able to admit "having gender dysphoria" doesn't make gender dysphoria "a matter of expression". It's still a disorder with symptoms, which "left handedness" is not.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/24/an-explosion-what-is-behind-the-rise-in-girls-questioning-their-gender-identity
Agreed with Liz Parker that I think this is valuable. Also for boys. I find your explanation of "phantasy/displaced meaning", with the example of "the man who pursues buying a house to symbolise a relationship instead of admitting a relationship is what he wants, and when he gets the house moves on to pursue porch lights", very clear and striking.
I do think that the issue can also be complex though, as you also sort of admit that you watched anime because "it was better than letting my mind spiral". I think there are many people who won't be able to figure all of this out alone and if they don't find help end up stuck having to decide between beating themself up by choosing to let their "mind spiral" out of "stoicism" or try to cope in some way.
This article I think contributes in some way to being a healthier coping mechanism as it is not a "fantasy" but a real story.
I think it won't for example get people who struggle with a social life a relationship, but it has been years since I have seen this quality of tolerance for diverse opinion anywhere on the internet. I think safety to explore both the option of considering gender dysphoria as legitimate as well as not being convinced is the only way a person can make an informed decision in the absence of a clear scientific consensus based on independently verifiable information.
I feel like I can breathe on this substack, unlike on pretty much every other social media, not have to feel afraid of asking any question/saying wrong word(s) that will result in being psychologically "beaten" or otherwise retaliated against.