Me, detransitioner: "I've changed my gender twice. I was wrong"

• Activism Two Rockefellers, one Kennedy, one Getty and Abigail, granddaughter of the Disneys, 'pay' for 'green' attacks on museums

• Space The stolen accounts of Anne, the first space 'criminal'

It didn't take long for Carol to realize that she wasn't a girl like the others.

At the age of four, she flatly refused to wear a dress, her classmates bullied her for being a tomboy and her mother, a "deeply homophobic and religious" lady - as her daughter describes her - made her life miserable by trying to that it

So much so that she felt the urge to change her sex many years later with the sole goal of ending her own hell, one from which she has decided to return.

This 41-year-old Californian turned LGBTQ activist has become a woman again after backtracking on the process.

She took the path of detransition.

She now says that she is rebuilding "her life of hers from the ashes."

The pressure of her environment was such, born and raised in a rural and conservative town in California, that Carol F. -she prefers not to reveal her last name or the name of her town- thought that the way out was to undertake a radical change.

Despite the fact that she knew that she

, when she felt attracted to some of her teachers, and despite the fact that she already had a stable partner since she was 20, the woman who is today the mother of her son and his wife of two decades.

"I felt bad, disgusted with myself," she recounts.

So in the spring of 2015, at the age of 35, she started taking testosterone and had a double mastectomy.

He grew a beard and her voice deepened.

“At first I felt better taking the testosterone.

I had more energy and felt

», She explains in a blog about her process.

She also helped the perception shift around her.

"I stopped drawing attention to myself and was treated better than ever by my coworkers, and even strangers."

But something didn't quite fit.

In the psychiatric hospital where she worked, she saw lesbians like her, adolescents wanting to make a sex change, with the feeling that it was the wrong step.

And two years after becoming a

.

"Plus, the transition ended up making my gender dysphoria worse," she says.

"Now I was worried that men would find out that she didn't have a penis when she used the men's bathroom.

Because I was smaller than most men.

Because my voice wasn't that deep."

The turning point was the antidepressants that he started taking as a man.

“After a month of treatment, I felt like my whole world had come alive.

he explains.

"Suddenly, and with some terror, I realized that I never needed to transition."

She further discovered that her gender nonconformity, the rejection of her own identity, pointed directly to her mother.

"I had some very tough fights with her, although they didn't last very long because she was very abusive and scared me," he says.

"She would not let me wear short hair and she said that women were in this world to serve men."

.

Soccer is for children, she said.

In addition, she condemned homosexuality and forced her to date boys in the hope that this would lead her to her liking.

She even went so far as to have relationships with men to see what would happen, but at the age of 19 she took the step of communicating her true sexual orientation.

Carol herself remembers that

put her through hell.

"I lost friends, they told me that I would never be allowed to be at family gatherings because she was sick and would cause harm to small children," she says.

Carol's case is not unique.

In the United States there are no official figures, but from the forums on the internet and the increasing activism it is clear that the numbers of detransitions are growing.

Lisa Litman, a scientist and specialist in gender dysphoria, carried out a study with 100 cases of detransition in which almost 25% explained that

led them to make a sex change, which they later became they repented.

Another 38% talk about trauma, abuse and mental health problems.

This 41-year-old Californian fits that profile.

In his four and a half years as a man, from 35 to 38 years old, there were some really dark moments.

“I got very depressed and wanted to get out of my life.

I isolated myself by watching non-stop transition videos for months.

, but I knew what a shitty move it would be for my family, so I held on to the transition as a way to feel at peace again."

His relationship with his wife was also greatly affected.

She felt confused, despite supporting her partner throughout the process.

meant that she was now straight or bisexual, which was actually untrue.

"Her life was also being turned upside down emotionally," Carol says.

"

just a year before, he was a new mother and now his wife was trying to become a man."

Going back to who he was was even harder than changing his sex.

She "she was terribly scared and embarrassed" at having to explain the new change to those around her.

.

I didn't know how I would tell my wife and son that I wanted to stop living like this.

I felt like a complete loser."

Today she considers that it is the best decision she has made in her life.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more