Soren's Story: How One Detransitioner Found Peace Outside of Medicalization — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:04I could not have wrapped my head around
3. 0:07what it would be like for them to cut my
4. 0:10incisions back open and manually drain
5. 0:13blood clots from my chest cavity until I
6. 0:16lived through that and so I was on that
7. 0:17hospital bed having it happen to me
8. 0:23at the time I thought I was gonna die
9. 0:24the wound was getting infected and no
10. 0:27one seemed to really care
11. 0:30[Music]
12. 0:32I think that nobody will understand the
13. 0:35complications
14. 0:36that come with these procedures and
15. 0:39these treatments until you experience
16. 0:41them
17. 0:43[Music]
18. 0:47I began identifying as transgender at
19. 0:50age 11 started hormone replacement
20. 0:53therapy at age 17 and by age 19 I had a
21. 0:58double mastectomy
22. 1:00next month I will be 21 years old
23. 1:07I had a little girlfriend at the time
24. 1:10who also began identifying as
25. 1:12transgender she was three years older
26. 1:14than me we were both you know tomboys we
27. 1:17felt very different from other girls so
28. 1:22when I heard that feelings of wrongness
29. 1:25associated with being a girl had a name
30. 1:29it was very attractive to me that I felt
31. 1:32very understood for the first time in my
32. 1:34life
33. 1:36I suddenly had something to build my
34. 1:40identity around my mom was a single mom
35. 1:43for the first five years of my life and
36. 1:46my stepdad was pretty severely disabled
37. 1:50so I came from a home life where I was
38. 1:54on my own for a lot of things like my
39. 1:57parents loved me very much they cared
40. 1:59but they didn't really know how to
41. 2:02parent very well
42. 2:05around 9th and 10th grade I met my
43. 2:07father for the first time I actually
44. 2:09reached out to him on Facebook and was
45. 2:11sort of like hey I think you're my dad
46. 2:14I found out I had a five-year-old little
47. 2:16sister who is now 10 years old and one
48. 2:18of the biggest joys in my life and a
49. 2:21pretty cool stepmom and them being very
50. 2:23open-minded and open-hearted they saw my
51. 2:26distress at home and felt like maybe
52. 2:29supporting me
53. 2:30and this identity was the best thing
54. 2:32they could do
55. 2:36we hear a lot would you rather have a
56. 2:40dead daughter a living son
57. 2:42and that was the sort of mindset that
58. 2:46they were exposed to and you know they
59. 2:49acted from
60. 2:51we started going to a support group not
61. 2:54too long after my mom did not like it in
62. 2:56this group they had a subgroup for
63. 2:58transgender youth in the subgroup for
64. 3:01youth we mostly talked about who was
65. 3:04starting hormones next who was getting
66. 3:06the next surgery what big relationship
67. 3:09mishaps had happened that week who was
68. 3:12struggling with self-harm when I
69. 3:15was feeling very heavy stuff in my
70. 3:17personal life and you know I was
71. 3:19relating to these other kids I began to
72. 3:23think oh this really is the right path
73. 3:24for me I got sort of Envy for the fact
74. 3:26that they were getting all these
75. 3:28procedures all of these modes of
76. 3:31affirmation that I was not there was
77. 3:33also a nurse practitioner in the group
78. 3:35whose child was transgender and
79. 3:39I ended up going to see him
80. 3:41within my very first visit he gave me a
81. 3:44prescription for testosterone I was on
82. 3:4611 different prescription medications
83. 3:48and all of these were maintained by the
84. 3:51same nurse practitioner not even a
85. 3:53doctor but a nurse practitioner who
86. 3:56prescribed me testosterone and estrogen
87. 3:59blockers
88. 4:01the beginning of my social transition in
89. 4:04the beginning of my medical transition
90. 4:05involved me being in a relationship with
91. 4:07another trans person we're highly
92. 4:09impressionable as humans
93. 4:12my relationship with said partner was
94. 4:14not too great and then when we we
95. 4:16finally broke up within a few months I
96. 4:19was undergoing surgery
97. 4:21[Music]
98. 4:34so this was during a pretty traumatic
99. 4:36point in my life I mean right off the
100. 4:38backs of the pandemic right off the
101. 4:40backs of a pretty
102. 4:42tumultuous relationship and of course my
103. 4:45surgeon had given me a checklist of
104. 4:47here's everything you need here's some
105. 4:49recommendations of things to say it was
106. 4:51just sort of spoon fed to me
107. 4:56afterwards I began to suffer major
108. 4:59complications we noticed the bruising
109. 5:01almost right away and despite sending
110. 5:06photos to the physician line that we
111. 5:08were given on my discharge we weren't
112. 5:11taken seriously at all I ended up going
113. 5:14to the ER after being dismissed three
114. 5:16times on uh June 23rd 2021
115. 5:22that was pretty horrific I spent eight
116. 5:25hours in the ER by myself
117. 5:29they had to cut my my scars back open
118. 5:33they had to sew drains in I remember
119. 5:35they stuck a Q-Tip in the in the hole
120. 5:38that they they cut open and had to sort
121. 5:40of aggressively knock out the blood
122. 5:42clots
123. 5:43I just remember being on zero pain meds
124. 5:45at the time my surgeons didn't think it
125. 5:47was that big of a deal but at the same
126. 5:48time I knew that I had been gaslit like
127. 5:50this was not normal I as a 19 year old
128. 5:53should not have been going through that
129. 5:56thank you
130. 6:04[Applause]
131. 6:08I mean after that I continued to live as
132. 6:11a man for six months but when I moved
133. 6:13down to Austin for school I
134. 6:18ended up taking a Sociology class where
135. 6:21I learned about how we develop a sense
136. 6:24of self
137. 6:25and we actually developed as a self
138. 6:27primarily through taking on the role of
139. 6:29other through role models
140. 6:32my little sister is my pride and my joy
141. 6:35I think I really took a step back and I
142. 6:37thought what if she came up to me and
143. 6:40said the things that I say to myself
144. 6:41what if she told me
145. 6:43that she felt her body was wrong when I
146. 6:46know for a fact that she is perfect
147. 6:49that there is not a single thing about
148. 6:51her that she needs to change it's so
149. 6:54hard to talk about her I love her so
150. 6:56much
151. 6:57I felt like for the first time in my
152. 6:58life I had a key to unlocking me to
153. 7:03maybe healing some of those parts of me
154. 7:05that I thought were going to be broken
155. 7:07for the rest of my life
156. 7:09and I sort of gave myself the chance to
157. 7:13accept myself for who I was without the
158. 7:17drugs without the obsessive need to
159. 7:21police myself
160. 7:23foreign
161. 7:25[Music]
162. 7:28medically detransitioning before that
163. 7:31ideological detransition because the
164. 7:34vaginal atrophy the hormone fluctuations
165. 7:39that were not just monthly but weekly
166. 7:42were just too much for me I'm not sure
167. 7:45whether or not I'm fertile because when
168. 7:47I went to the gynecologist after I
169. 7:49stopped taking cross-sex hormones she
170. 7:53said we're gonna have to wait for you to
171. 7:55basically go through the puberty 3.0 to
172. 7:58know what's up
173. 8:01I definitely know that while I did not
174. 8:03really ever want to have biological
175. 8:04children
176. 8:06when I was going through these
177. 8:08treatments and these procedures it's
178. 8:10certainly a possibility and something
179. 8:12that I would strongly consider when I am
180. 8:14financially and emotionally stable in
181. 8:17the future and I have pretty significant
182. 8:20parts of that that I'll never be able to
183. 8:21participate in now like breastfeeding
184. 8:25a child I don't think is capable of
185. 8:27knowing whether or not their future
186. 8:29lifestyle is going to be aligned with
187. 8:30motherhood or fatherhood or Parenthood
188. 8:33in general and these children who
189. 8:38shouldn't be concerned about sex at that
190. 8:40age
191. 8:41but who
192. 8:44might be concerned about sex 10 years
193. 8:47down the line we don't really know what
194. 8:49that's going to look like for them some
195. 8:51of them may never be able to orgasm some
196. 8:54of them may have intense discomfort due
197. 8:56to surgical complications because we
198. 8:58know that the the rate of complication
199. 8:59for sex reassignment surgery is uh
200. 9:03uncomfortably High
201. 9:10sometimes the compassionate response is
202. 9:12one which sets firm boundaries
203. 9:15at the end of the day
204. 9:17you need to be able to discern between
205. 9:20enabling and helping
206. 9:22that you giving me access to certain
207. 9:27drugs that you just giving me referrals
208. 9:30to whomever I asked for
209. 9:33didn't actually help me heal it affirmed
210. 9:37me in my delusion
211. 9:38[Music]
212. 9:41knowing what I know about my story and
213. 9:43what I know about the stories of other
214. 9:45women my age of other detransitioners I
215. 9:48honestly think that we might see another
216. 9:51metoo-esque movement in the next 10
217. 9:53years of people coming out about their
218. 9:55experiences
219. 9:57I'm still far from perfect I mean I
220. 9:59think all of us are I still struggle
221. 10:01with my mental health when I get
222. 10:03stressed out but a lot of how I got to
223. 10:05be so at peace with what happened to me
224. 10:07and how I navigate those difficult
225. 10:08feelings today is through mindfulness
226. 10:10and now when I I feel a negative emotion
227. 10:13like depression or anxiety or dysphoria
228. 10:16I lean into it a little bit I say this
229. 10:20is really hard and I give myself that
230. 10:22compassion that I craved growing up that
231. 10:24I thought I was getting from being
232. 10:26affirmed in my gender identity I realize
233. 10:28now I can give that to me and that I
234. 10:31need to in fact to not
235. 10:35suffer as you know I did for so long
236. 10:39[Music]