"You're the transman Scott Newgent, from the ‘What Is a Woman’ documentary, right? Don’t we know each other?” I immediately look down to avoid eye contact. It's one thing to be remembered for a great success in life. It’s quite another to be recognized for the single most significant regret you have, one that never releases its grip, leading to a life mirroring the Biblical Job:unending physical and mental health trials as well as financial tribulations - and I say this as an agnostic. The woman refuses to leave my table, where I am desperately looking for a work-from-home job, as I‘m now without the finances for a car. Her insistence forces me to look up and I recognize her; mortification doubles into fervent pain. As I open my mouth to engage in conversation with a woman who is not going to have it any other way, my mortification triples. I indeed do know this woman and her husband and children; I knew them on a deep level, the type of meeting that only happens once but leaves a soul forever changed. Years prior, due to complications from gender-affirming medical transition, I was struggling with urinary infections that were nonstop for seventeen months. One round of antibiotics would lift the pain from unbearable to slightly bearable and enable me to work the full-time job I desperately needed. I’d recently had a phalloplasty, otherwise known as transman “bottom surgery.” I needed good health insurance because my state did not have a qualified surgeon to take on the ensuing complications, leaving me fluttering from one ER on the weekend, then working five days, then bee-lining to another ER the following Friday. The health insurance from this sales job would cover the costs in another state with a capable surgeon willing to fix me, but not until I had the money to pay. And so I had to endure three months of ring-around-the-ER-posey. This game I was forced to play left me with lasting financial debt that I will never be able to repay - yet another regret. One major regret - having experimental bottom surgery - led to a cascade of others. For me, gender transition was and continues to be dangerous, causing massive and recurring health issues. It was not successful and cured nothing. It gave me PTSD. My left arm, from which the skin was taken to create a faux phallus, has essentially left me disabled. My right arm - my good arm - recently was diagnosed with hairline fractures because I stopped taking testosterone a little while ago. I basically now have brittle bones decades too soon. I have been let go from good-paying jobs because of my activism. Over five years ago, I began a fight to stop childhood medical transition. I started by helping write the first bill that was heard in North Dakota and have not relented, obsessed with saving children from my disastrous decision to transition medically rapidly, becoming one of the leading worldwide voices to stop childhood medical transition. Yes, a transman is leading the fight, and that in itself should cause you pause. I have dedicated my life to stopping my childhood medical transition, and the obligation has weighed heavy on my own family. I’m crippled with debt. I’m trans and I cannot detransition, even though I’d like to. The process has gone too far - there is no turning back. And so all I can do is try to be as resilient as Job, even though I understand no better. The woman in the coffee shop is still there, smiling at me, oblivious to the regrets that flash through my mind. "Oh my, Scott, how are you? We saw you in the documentary and were so thankful to see you alive; we have been worried about you for years. How are you now? Scott, what powerful testimony you have and are giving to so many." The smiling wife had been a customer before my appointment with the surgeon who was going to fix my original botched phalloplasty. I had done it! I finally had my insurance activated: success. But the insistent infections had taken their toll on my health, both physically and emotionally. A month prior, a doctor from my ER hopping insisted I get a PIC line put in my arm, the same tube they insert for cancer patients to receive IV their biweekly treatment. This tube traveled up my arm and ended right at the entrance of my heart, remaining for over 30 days. Each day, I would wake up, go to the hospital and receive IV antibiotics before I headed off to sell windows in people's homes. This woman wasn’t just a customer - she was my last customer. I distinctly recall the pain I had felt as an infection pulled on my bladder like daggers, but that quickly faded as I was embraced by the love and warmth emanating from the depths of this family's home. I was giving my presentation, saying "Here is the latch that opens the windows," when she interrupted me: "Scott, sweetie, you have blood running down your legs.” The kindness and genuine concern I felt from this couple, despite being strangers at the time, created a sense of comfort I will never forget. Their rare empathy hit a nerve within me, and I could not stop the tears I knew were coming. Once they started to flow, they didn't stop. I could not catch my breath, hyperventilating into the embrace of this woman and her husband. It was in his strong grasp I lost the ability to stand, yet I stayed upright because he held me along with his wife as his mammoth arms encircled us both. It was this nurturing man who began to comfort me in a whisper, "Shhh, it's ok, Scott, it's gonna be ok, you're ok, let it out." He reminded me of my father, who’d passed away a decade prior. Even though we were the same age, I felt from him a fatherly love I clearly must have needed. I was so grateful. Now here she was, years later, as I continued to try to navigate the complexity of emotion that characterizes regret, neither black nor white, positive nor negative, burden nor lesson, but all of these things, fueling internal growth whether I liked it or not. It is the degree of the negative that fuels the intensity of our regret; the harsher the adverse implications, the deeper the regret seeps into our consciousness. So yes, my regret is possibly as deep as it gets. I looked up at the expectant woman to give her my answer. “How am I? I’m still alive. And I live for my three kids.” When I was at my lowest, I thought about giving up entirely. But my kids’ faces came before and I made a promise: to live and to tell others about what happened to me. I’m far from perfect, as a person and as a parent. But I try. I try to help others so they don’t have the regrets that I have. Because of my regret and trying to make amends, my kids have had to grow up faster and better. But they are thriving, and that is everything. The woman smiled then and wished me well. I go back to looking at the want-ads with the free wifi from the coffee shop. I’m still an agnostic, but I’m also better off than Job. As a transgender man, I made the decision to undergo a medical transition, a choice which has brought about unintended consequences for my children. While I now recognize the detriment this decision has had on their well-being, there is an internal struggle I face in reconciling the need to raise awareness and understanding within society. On one hand, I am grateful for the opportunity to educate others and save other people's children from similar struggles. However, this gratitude is juxtaposed with the pain I witness my own children enduring as a result of my decision. It is a constant battle between acknowledging the selfishness underlying my initial choice and the desire to make a positive impact on society. Each day, I find myself grappling with regrets and questioning if this internal conflict will ever find resolution or if peace will ever be attained. The sheer magnitude of emotions I experience is overwhelming, and I am uncertain about how best to navigate through. Nonetheless, I am committed to understanding and addressing the consequences of my actions on my children's lives. I’ve endured the worst kind of suffering and the worst kind of regret. But I’m still here, and I’ll see my children grow up and for this I am forever grateful.