Johanna jumped off the gender correction inquiry: "Coming out as a trans was my last hope"

- I thought I was a trans person because I had body anxiety and liked to dress masculine. The two together become transgender people, says Johanna Berling.

Johanna says that since her early age she had difficulty accepting her body. At age 15, she became ill with anorexia. She says it became obvious to hate her body and to punish it by not eating.

Johanna read online about transsexualism and talked to a friend who had undergone a gender correction and told us how happy he was. She thought that maybe her life could be good if she did the same thing.

She wanted to have her breast removed, do a so-called mastectomy, and start taking testosterone. But as a 17-year-old she was too old to go to the children's reception KID, she had to wait a whole year to start an investigation.

- I was hoping it would not be a struggle to feel good in my body. That the mastectomy would make me automatically like my body. That testosterone would make it fun to live in my body. Because it wouldn't have been fun to live in my body, she says.

In December 2018, Johanna finally got to visit the adult reception Anova at Karolinska in Stockholm, on her first visit.

- The only people I trusted who were competent enough to decide if I was trans or not were after all the care. And the first thing they asked me was "When do you want to start taking testosterone?"

For Johanna, the long wait had an unexpected turn. She started going to a private psychologist, which led to her jumping off the investigation.

- He said "what if it wasn't the transness that made you get anorexia?" I kept telling myself that I got anorexia because I'm trans. He made me think the other way around: What if I say I am trans because I still have anorexia survivors? It was very eye-opening for me, says Johanna.

The realization that she was not trans was a grief, she says.

- This was not the solution for me, probably. I so much wanted it to be my happy ending and to realize it hurt so bad.

When Johanna came out as a girl again, she felt great shame. She says she didn't want everyone to know she was wrong. Today she thinks it's okay not to have the answer to what life should be like.

She is critical of how she was dealt with during her investigation.

- The care should be those who are impartial who dare say: "You are trans or you are not trans". The job of care is to make diagnoses. The job of care is not to be kind, she says.

Anova, who received Johanna during her first visit, does not want to comment on individual patients. But they emphasize that no gender-corrective treatment is started before diagnosis is made.