Lift The Veil.

Parents Get Busy & Learn Why

'Medical Transition Is Not Place For a child.'

Sincerely,
TReVoices & Everyone Else

hen I told people I was going to create a photographic series about trans men who wanted to “detransition” and become women again, I was told to expect a backlash. Actually, I was told I would be crucified — look at what happened to JK Rowling recently. At the very least I’d better take a holiday from Twitter. One person told me I should not be focusing on detransitioners when trans people are still struggling for acceptance. But this would be to silence key voices when we should be having an inclusive and nuanced discussion about gender identity, especially at a time when the government is deciding how, or whether, it will reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

https://medium.com/@barereality/the-detransitioners-72a4e01a10f9

I know trans people for whom social and medical transition has been the best outcome. For many people it can be a positive experience. I fully appreciate that. But it doesn’t work out for everyone, and it is not sustainable, or fair, to silence one community to serve another.

The women in my project, who are from the UK and other European countries, have all encountered anger, disbelief and trolling online. Detransition — when someone ceases to identify as transgender and may take steps to reverse their social or medical transition — is a controversial concept.

It adds to concerns that children and young people may begin the process of transitioning yet later regret it. In April, the government announced plans to ban under-18s from having gender reassignment surgery. Currently under-18s are allowed surgery only with parental consent.

There has been a surge of children, particularly girls, identifying as trans in recent years. In England, 74% of children and young people referred to the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic are girls. Why this increase among girls? The reason is not yet clear, but Penny Mordaunt, when she was minister for women and equalities, promised an inquiry.

This is one reason why I felt drawn to document female detransitioners. I wanted to understand and depict their circular and painful gender journey. For me, the idea of having my breasts, ovaries and womb removed, and then wanting them back, creates a feeling so unnerving that I can’t occupy it for long — that’s why my artistic lens focused on women.

I’m not shy of the taboo. I spent five years photographing and interviewing men and women about their breasts, penises and vulvas for my books Bare Reality, Manhood and Womanhood and the film 100 Vaginas. I’ve documented the realities of our bodies and interviewed my subjects extensively about the relationship between sex and gender.

In 2018 the Government Equalities Office estimated there were anything from 200,000 to 500,000 trans people in the UK. It is not known how many of those have surgically transitioned. In 2014 there were 172 sex reassignment operations performed on the NHS — double the 83 of a decade earlier. The figures do not take private surgeries into account. There are no accurate figures for the number of people detransitioning. Most of the detransitioners I spoke to never went back to the doctor who performed their original transition, and to all intents and purposes may be considered a success story by their therapist or medical team. Charlie Evans, who set up the Detransition Advocacy Network in the UK, says she has been contacted by hundreds of detransitioners. I spoke to various people with experience in the field — doctors, therapists, nurses, endocrinologists — and while no one wanted to be quoted, off the record they predict this is merely the beginning.

I fear that the detransitioned women I interviewed are canaries in the coalmine. Not only for detransitioners, but for womanhood. They all, in some combination, found being a woman too difficult, too dangerous or too disgusting. “I put the problem inside myself,” says one, “when actually it is with how the outside world sees women who don’t conform to feminine norms.”

I fear that the detransitioned women I interviewed are canaries in the coalmine. Not only for detransitioners, but for womanhood. They all, in some combination, found being a woman too difficult, too dangerous or too disgusting. “I put the problem inside myself,” says one, “when actually it is with how the outside world sees women who don’t conform to feminine norms.”

If you read the stories on the Detrans subreddit online forum, detransition has been a difficult experience for many. How should this be addressed? The women I spoke to said they were all accepted as trans fairly unquestioningly by therapists and doctors. Should the assessment be more thorough and investigative? Does the current “affirmative” treatment model allow the “wrong people” to transition — people for whom simply being a girl, a woman, a lesbian, could have been an acceptable and happy experience?

Detransitioners have chosen the salamander as their mascot because of its ability to regenerate organs and limbs. It’s a positive symbol. Though women who fully surgically transitioned will never be able to regenerate or replace their missing organs, it’s not too much to hope that they can feel emotionally and psychologically complete.

“I want to work on accepting my body exactly the way it is now,” Ellie, pictured on the cover of this magazine, told me. “This is what should have been encouraged from the beginning.”

Sinead, 29
https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*3CtYSKhO1mb1RrXLSl0fdg.jpeg

People on Twitter have told me I’m not genuinely trans, that I’m transphobic, or that I am a sock account. There are people who refuse to accept there are a growing number of detransitioners. Some think that just our existence hurts trans people. On the other hand I have found it hard to hear some feminists refer to detransitioned women as mutilated, or say trans women are grotesque, because I have trans friends.

I wanted to be a boy when I was younger. From 15 it intensified. I googled “I’m a woman but I wish I was a man” and through the power of the internet I found out about [gender] dysphoria and transition.

I had an extreme envy of men and an extreme resentment of myself. I just thought men were better. In a way I had my own strange kind of sexism.

A few painful and difficult things have happened to me that I think were behind me wanting to be a man and not be a woman. I know I was not in the wrong, but they are things I can’t talk about publicly. What I know now is that transitioning wasn’t the way to deal with those things. You go to the gender clinic and within a couple of months you’re on testosterone. The psychiatrist said I was trans. I thought if they prescribed me testosterone then I must be trans. Aside from general questions, no one explored if there were other issues or challenged me.

I’ve tried to talk about background issues with therapists, but gender dysphoria was seen as the cause of my problems and not a symptom of them. Actually I think my gender issues came out of mental health issues, not the other way around.

I felt better when I went out as “Sean”, especially when the testosterone kicked in and my fat redistributed and my voice got deeper. Men stopped looking at me. I thought transitioning was the best thing I had ever done. I was so happy.

The fact is, though, I’ve never drunk as much as when I was Sean. I still hated that I was female. I was still depressed. I still had to drink myself blind to forget. Going to the pub as Sean wasn’t enough to counter that, and I had a breakdown. After that I knew I had to deal with the problems. I realised that I wasn’t trans, and I should never have gone down the medical route.
When I first detransitioned it was hard to accept that I wasn’t a trans man or a “normal” woman either. These days I’m completely apathetic about the results of the testosterone and the mastectomy scars. I don’t like them, I don’t hate them. And that’s progress.
But I still have those dark nights when I sit alone in a room and I think I’m ruined, disfigured and damaged, and I’m not even 30 yet. And then I get better nights when I think it could be worse. I could have got a phalloplasty. I don’t want to be insensitive to other detransitioned women who did get a phalloplasty, but I’m glad I didn’t get one.

I don’t like shaving — I didn’t shave when I was Sean — but if I go to the shops now I shave my face and if I’m wearing a V-neck top I shave my chest. I always wear a hat so people can’t see my baldie bit. I’d like to work towards more confidence. Dating is off the table for me, at least for now. I feel like I would have to tell someone about my trans past and that I have been masculinised.
I’m in group chats with other detransitioners. I know about 100 detransitioned women myself. But we all know others who aren’t active online or in group chats. The official numbers of detransitioners aren’t collected, they aren’t known at the moment. But I think we are the tip of the iceberg. There will be many of us to come.

I wish the psychiatrist at the gender identity clinic [in the UK] had given me a better assessment. Part of me wants to go back to the clinic to look my psychiatrist in the face again, but I know that’s driven by anger. I don’t think they can help me, so there is no point in going back.
I want detransitioners to know they are not alone and they can come forward and find other people to talk to. I hope when people see these stories and photographs, they will see that even though we have been changed by testosterone and surgery we are still strong and beautiful, just in a less stereotypical way. We are still women.

Ellie, 21

I came out as lesbian to my family in Belgium when I was 15. They were OK with it and I felt quite comfortable dating girls. At some point, though, I started to question myself a lot. I couldn’t picture myself growing up to be a woman. I found a trans organisation in Europe offering psychological appointments, and so I went and told them what was going on in my head. I was surprised by their advice; they only told me about masculinising treatments and surgeries. I think it was a completely different answer to the one I was really looking for, so I came out very confused, but they had planted a seed.

I started watching popular videos on YouTube about girls becoming good-looking boys. I began to think that my body would look better if I took testosterone. I set myself a goal of looking male. And that quickly went from being a goal to feeling like a need. By the time I was 16 I had strong [gender] dysphoria. I decided to tell my parents because at that age I couldn’t access treatment without them. To start with they were very supportive, but the next day it was a different story. They both said they accepted me the way I was, and I could present myself any way I wanted, but they would have concerns about my health if I took hormones. My mother told me she was worried I would regret it. I thought she was transphobic.

My parents took me to see a psychologist, who told us that I was not trans, otherwise I would have known from the age of about three. He said I should wait till I was 18. I was upset that he discredited me in front of my parents.

I convinced my parents to come with me to the trans organisation I had first been to. The doctor they referred us to was completely different. He said why wait till 18, when I would have better results if I started taking testosterone straight away? He said that the effects of taking testosterone were reversible and there was nothing to worry about, which shocked me because I knew this wasn’t always true. [Some of the effects from taking testosterone may not be reversible, depending on how long the hormone is taken.] But I knew this was what my parents needed to hear to agree, so I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t foresee the emotional changes of testosterone. It felt like I became numb. I used to cry a lot as a way to relieve my emotions, but I cried only twice in four years on testosterone. I liked the physical changes. I am tall and have always had quite a masculine body, but once I started on testosterone people always read me as male.

I started using the boys’ changing rooms at school and changed to the boys’ sports teams. My next goal became a mastectomy because it made me very uncomfortable to be a boy with breasts.
I used to play basketball competitively and would train every day. That stopped as soon as I started on testosterone because it would have been considered doping. I hadn’t changed my gender, so officially I couldn’t play with boys either. When I moved to Germany to go to university nobody knew I was trans, people just assumed I was male. I was very quiet about that. And I started playing basketball again, in a male team. Everyone on the team thought I was a guy, but I felt completely out of place. Realising I didn’t really belong in male spaces is part of what drove me to detransition. Playing sport in a male team made it clear that I just don’t have the same socialisation as the men. Women are competitive, but not in the same way as men. It slowly stopped making sense being a guy.

I started reading more about feminism and understanding things differently. It’s hard to grow up and not really see other masculine lesbian women. I had put the problem inside myself, when actually it is with how the outside world sees women who don’t conform to feminine norms. I just wanted to be human, neutral, myself. I felt as if the only way I could be myself was to look like a guy. Transition was not the ideal solution, but it did help me. Some detransitioned people want reversal surgery. I’ve realised that the way forward for me is to accept myself as I am now. I will always have an Adam’s apple, and my hands and wrists are probably broader than they would have been because I started on testosterone when I was still growing. I struggle most with my deep voice and my beard. I will always have a beard now.

It’s hard that I don’t feel like I belong in female spaces any more. I don’t want to make women feel uncomfortable and be questioned. I use the men’s changing rooms, but I don’t feel comfortable in there either. It sucks.

My transition was not necessary, but I don’t want to be regretful. I want to work on accepting my body exactly the way it is now. This is what should have been encouraged from the beginning.

Nele, 23

A lot of detransitioners feel very alone in this, so my partner and I are lucky — we have so much in common and we have each other to talk to as we detransition together. Most of all, we love each other.
We met when we both trans. At the same time she was reading up on radical feminism, she started to see being trans differently, and her research influenced me too. I realised that my transition was based in unhealthy reasons.

I transitioned relatively late, when I was 19. I just didn’t feel like a woman. I had massive dysphoria about my body — I’ve struggled with an eating disorder since I was young — and I knew I was attracted to other women.
My breasts started growing when I was nine years old. I had to wear bras, I wasn’t allowed to run around naked in the garden anymore, although my two brothers could. My hips grew, and I didn’t fit on the swing in the playground anymore. Men started looking at my breasts. I experienced a lot of catcalling and men tried to grab me on the streets. My breasts felt like sexy signs I was carrying in front of me that I couldn’t get rid of.

To be honest, when I decided to come out as transgender I wasn’t completely sure about it, but I felt like it was what I needed at the time. I knew I couldn’t keep living the same way anymore — it was either stop eating and die, or transition. When I was 18 and moved to university, that was my opportunity.
In Germany you are required to have therapy before you transition, and it did help me to feel better and stabilise my life. However, when I started hormones I felt incredibly depressed. I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone in case they said I wasn’t really trans — transition felt like my only solution and I was totally focussed on it as a goal.

My parents were very supportive and used my pronouns and name. My detransition is affecting my mother more than I thought it would. I think maybe she’s asking herself why I thought I was trans in the first place and what she might have done wrong, or what influenced me.

I considered transition quite carefully. I knew I might be left with a permanently deep voice, and I decided that was something I could live with, even if I changed my mind. I also knew that despite the mastectomy, if I stopped testosterone I would revert to having a female-shaped body because of my hips. My hairline has thinned, and it won’t grow back, but I still have lots of hair.

My clitoris is a lot bigger and very visible. I don’t mind, because I think my vulva is one of my good features. It was before, and it still is now. But it can be uncomfortable in some clothes and if I play sport, because my clitoris protrudes beyond my labia.

I have vaginal atrophy. I wasn’t warned this could happen. There is nothing on the testosterone packet or prescription that warned me about the gynaecological side effects. No one told me about the clitoris growth or vaginal atrophy. I get random pains, like stitches, in my vagina and vulva. Nothing helps. I am very optimistic though, I hope that now I am not taking testosterone my body will recover and heal and function the way it should again, but we don’t know.

Transition gave me hope. The trans community was also really nice, I met like-minded people and didn’t feel alone. Since being public about detransitioning, some of my old friendships have changed. Some have turned their backs on me and won’t talk to me anymore. One told me I am literally on the same level as a Nazi. It’s very black and white thinking. I think should all be able to have different opinions. But I also have trans friends who have been supportive about me detransitioning.

My goal was to look thinner, and mastectomy erased my anorexia. Of course I preferred myself without breasts. It also stopped me being seen as a sexual object. But I was treating symptoms, not the causes. I couldn’t change society, but I could change myself, and that’s what I did. It was a kind of short cut for me.
Although my political opinions about being trans have changed, the fact is I don’t really regret my transition. I can’t say that having a mastectomy is easy, but it was easier dealing with the problems that come with having breasts. To be honest, I can’t stop being happy that I don’t have breasts.
My body is simply me. I don’t see man or woman, I just see me.

Lee, 62

I transitioned when I was 44. I thought I’d be a different person as a man, happier and more confident, but my life was still screwed up. I saw a counsellor for five years, which helped me understand why my life has been so complicated. I thought I wanted to be male. But how would I know what it’s like to be a male? I’ve never been one. I can’t be. I’m an approximation of a male on the outside, but really I’m a woman on testosterone who has had surgery. This is just my opinion, and other people can have their views, but I don’t think there is such a thing as being born in the wrong body. I think that the causes often begin in childhood.

I see the cause of my transition as being my mother, grandmother and father. My brother was idolised by my mother and grandmother. He was the golden child who could do no wrong, their “little darling”. I was a “little heathen” and a “hussy”; I could do nothing right. My mother was always angry with me and very critical. I spent most of my childhood saying sorry and pleading with her. I hated my body from when I was a child. I thought I was fat. I hated the frilly dresses my mother would put me in. I wanted to wear the same clothes as my brother and have the same haircut as him, but she wouldn’t let me. My body felt like a prison when puberty started. I thought my periods were like a nightmare, it seemed so wrong to have blood coming out of my body.

When I was 15 my father got in touch with us after many years. I was pleased to hear from him. He would take my brother and me out and he bought us things — a stereo, clothes — and gave us money. He seemed like the perfect father. He invited us to stay at his house and my mother didn’t want us to go, but wouldn’t say why not. Of course I went anyway.

The first evening he raped me. He came in the next morning and he did it again. Afterwards I think I sat in the lavatory for about an hour. It’s like I didn’t know where I was.
Later my mother told me how violent he had been. She told me about a time he’d hung me out of the window by my ankle when I was a toddler to scare her. I have a feeling I was sexually abused as a child before she left him.

One morning when I was 44 I saw a female-to-male transgender person on television. I’d never seen one before. I thought: “That could be me.” It seemed like it might be the answer. I went to see a gender doctor privately in London. On the first appointment he said, “Let’s not waste any more time,” and injected me with testosterone. It was what I wanted, but I now think it was wrong — what I really needed was psychotherapy. I was screwed up. It was my head that needed help, not my body. I really liked the testosterone. It

took a long time to get a beard and body hair, but I built up muscle very quickly.
I hated my breasts and couldn’t wait to get rid of them. I know a lot of trans men bind, but I didn’t because you can’t exercise in the gym with a binder, they are very uncomfortable. So I had a mastectomy a couple of months after starting testosterone. Within a couple more years I had a hysterectomy and ovariectomy, prosthetic testicles put in and a metoidioplasty, which is supposed to make your clitoris look like a small penis. In reality mine wasn’t big enough, just quarter of an inch. I ended up having a vaginectomy. Then I had a phalloplasty. They took skin from my arms. The scars are still prominent. It’s a very serious and complicated procedure and I didn’t heal easily. I had to take antibiotics many times.

I’ve had a lot of counselling, and I came to this huge realisation that I regretted transition. I wish I could go back to how I was before I saw the gender doctor.
I thought I would detransition, but I’ve decided I can’t physically do it. My body can’t take it. I’m not sure I’d survive all the surgeries. I’d be battling my body for the rest of my life. I have to accept my body the way it is now. On the outside people see a little bloke. Inside I’m a traumatised little girl. But I’m more accepting of myself for the first time ever. I just wish I’d been helped to accept myself earlier.

Amber, 21

It all happened very easily. I started testosterone when I was 17, I had a mastectomy at 18 and a hysterectomy, including removal of my ovaries, at 20.
In my early teens I felt uncomfortable with having a female body. I didn’t like my breasts, hips or face. I didn’t fit in with other girls. When I was 14 I googled, ‘Why do I feel like a boy when I am a girl?’ I came across information about being transgender, and I thought that must be it. I started identifying as a man.

It was a difficult time. I dropped out of school and was sent to a therapist. I told him I wanted to be a man. He mostly wanted to talk about why I left school and told me I needed to get out more. He wasn’t quick to accept the idea I was a trans man. But as he wasn’t getting anywhere with me I think he gave up and decided to help me transition. He referred me to an endocrinologist.

I was excited when I started taking testosterone because I thought it would make me feel better. Unfortunately it didn’t. I was mentally unstable, but I don’t know if I would have been anyway, or if that was because of the hormones.
I still didn’t like my body, so I went to a plastic surgeon and had a double mastectomy privately. There was no therapy before the mastectomy, I just did it. I had wanted to be flat so much, but I thought I looked terrible afterwards. I have huge scars and the nipples are in the wrong place.
Despite being on testosterone, a couple of years later my periods started again. They weren’t painful but I thought that they were gross and I didn’t want to live with them. They felt like a burden. My endocrinologist recommended that I could get a hysterectomy to stop my periods. I was referred to a gynaecologist and within a couple of months I had surgery to remove my uterus and ovaries.
I felt good about the hysterectomy because I wouldn’t have periods anymore, but at the same time something felt wrong, and I didn’t know why.

Around July last year I realised I still felt uncomfortable with my body. I researched online again, and found other detransitioners. In the end, what finally helped me to accept my body and realise I am a woman, was understanding that there were other women who were like me; they’d had similar life experiences to me.

The reason I dropped out of school, the reason I was so unhappy, was because when I was 11 I was sexually abused. Looking back, I think that’s when I started being really uncomfortable with my breasts.
I also found porn at around the same age. It was mainly lesbian porn, which made me feel like being a lesbian was something that appeals to men and that women were just sex objects. At a time when I was coming to understand I was a lesbian, the porn made me think it was something deviant, a fetish. I realise now I became disconnected from my body.

I identified as a man because I wanted people to see me as a person, not as a sexual object. I saw a man as a person and a woman as a sexual object. Perhaps if there were no sexism and homophobia in the world, no one would need to change their body?

When I thought I was trans I don’t think anything could have changed my mind, but the therapy I had was useless. The therapist never brought up trauma, abuse, my sexuality, or anything. I didn’t bring it up either, but I wasn’t thinking about it, I just wanted to transition to feel better. Dropping out of school, the therapy, identifying as trans, none of it addressed my real problems.

I’m OK with being a lesbian now, I guess. I have recently met other detransitioned women. It’s a relief to feel normal around them. I feel self-conscious around other people because of my chest.

I feel ashamed of how my body is. I have lost the most female parts of my body. I think I look weird and feel like a sexless monster. I want revision surgery. I want to change where the nipples are or remove them. I also hate that I have to take artificial hormones forever, which of course has side effects and health risks.
For me, transition was a kind of self harm. I was trying to destroy the person I was.

Thomasin, 20

I was a trans man for 2½ years.
When I think of growing up, everything was pink or blue. I played with Barbie and pink stuff because that’s what I was given. I probably would have played with my brother’s Hot Wheels toy cars if I’d felt there was a choice. Overnight, when I was 13, all the girls started wearing make-up. I tried to fit in, but I didn’t really want to. I felt like I had gone wrong compared with all the other girls.

I knew I didn’t feel attracted to boys sexually and it was obvious I felt different to other girls. I went online and found the term “asexual” on Tumblr. At school we’d been taught about being gay, but I don’t remember the term lesbian ever coming up. I thought that if I didn’t fancy boys then I must be asexual.
I recently found one of my first Tumblr posts, which went along the lines of: “I don’t like wearing dresses like other girls, I don’t want to put make-up on, could I be agender?” I applied how I felt about sexuality to gender: I don’t fancy boys so I must be asexual; I don’t feel like girls so I must be agender.
I soon felt confused by agender and non-binary, and I thought it would be easier to say I was a boy and decided I was transgender. I joined some transgender groups on Facebook. Some older trans people started messaging with me, which, in hindsight, was pretty ropey. I had just turned 16 and one person I was talking to was a man who identified as a trans woman in his forties. I don’t think it was OK that he talked to a 16-year-old girl the way he did. If I’d tell him I had doubts about being trans, he’d say doubts are normal and I should ignore them.

When I was 16 I decided to come out publicly as trans. I gave my parents a letter one morning on my way to school, basically saying you know me as your daughter but I am your son, Percey, and I need this to survive. Don’t get the wrong idea about them, but they went off the handle. My dad took it quite badly because he felt like he was losing his daughter. He asked why I thought I was a man. I think it’s interesting now that I couldn’t give him an answer.
They did some research online and read that it was best to let me transition and support me. So they helped me to get referred to a gender identity clinic in the UK.

Online there is a lot of advice about how to behave in your meeting at the gender identity clinic so you’ll get what you want. With a lot of pushing I got referred to an adult gender clinic because I wanted hormones and a mastectomy. However, by my second appointment I decided I didn’t want hormones at all. At the time I was saying I didn’t need hormones to be a man, but I think I was scared. I always had doubts about being a trans man. But either someone would say it’s normal to have doubts, or I would tell myself that.

I still wanted a mastectomy — wanting not to have breasts never changed — but I went back to being non-binary. I also still wanted a hysterectomy. I have really bad cycles, on-the-floor-in-pain kind of stuff. I need time off every month. Honestly, I think the fact that I hate my periods is part of why I felt I was trans.
I was told I could be waiting for months. I’m grateful now that I didn’t have the mastectomy, but at the time I was self-harming and felt terrible.

I can’t explain why I changed my mind about being trans, but kind of overnight when I was 18 I realised I may want kids. I don’t know what to put it down to — except maybe age and maturity. I started seeing holes in me being trans. I started questioning everything again.

Then some unexpected words came out of my mouth: “I need to accept womanhood.” It was so strange because I couldn’t say the word woman before — it used to make me feel ill, but it just changed.
A lot of people have said to me I was never trans. Well, I was. I was seen by my GP, the gender identity clinic — people accepted it, I changed my passport, all my documentation.

I feel better about my body as a woman than I used to. But I can’t turn around a lifetime of feelings in one year. I accept my breasts now. I used to only be able to shower or bath once a month when I was trans because I hated my body so much. I do it every day now and that’s an improvement!
I’ve accepted that I like women. I get that there are people with serious gender dysphoria, but I think the biggest reason that women are transitioning is because they can’t accept they are lesbians.
I got the “Valid” tattoo when I was non-binary to say I know myself best, I’m valid. I know other detransitioned women regret surgery choices and they have all my respect for everything they have gone through, but I’m glad the tattoo is the worst thing I came out of this with. I’d like to think it’s technically still applicable: I’ve accepted I am “valid” as a woman.

The Detransitioners was originally published by The Sunday Times on 12th July 2020. Amber and Nele’s photographs and stories are published here for the first time.
Edited 19th August 2020 to remove one photograph and story.
Photographs and words by Laura Dodsworth