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Our booklet about Detransition

Download your booklet here:

︎︎︎PDF English
︎︎︎PDF Deutsch
︎︎︎PDF Français
︎︎︎PDF Nederlands
︎︎︎PDF Español
︎︎︎PDF Svenska

︎ Unfortunately, printed copies are out of stock and we are not able to print another issue. If you wish to print copies for yourself, feel free to use our self-printable PDF ︎︎︎

We’ve created Post Trans in June 2019. Our goal with this project was to make detransitioners and desisters see that they are not alone and that there is a diversity of people who, like them, decided to stop transitioning.  As Post Trans developed, more and more detransitioners contacted us to share their stories and ask for information and support. We realised that there was an urgent need for filling the existing information gap and providing resources about detransition.

This is how we came to the idea of creating a booklet on the topic. Just like for everything we do with Post Trans, we wanted the various voices of detransitioners to be central to the booklet. We gathered written experiences of 75 female and male detransitioners and created the content based on their wishes, advice and thoughts. The 50-page long booklet has the objective to reach detransitioners and desisters, their relatives and close ones, people who consider a transition and wish for more information, health professionals such as endocrinologists or therapists, or anyone who wants to learn more about the topic.

Our objective with the distribution of the booklet is to start discussions about detransition in an empathetic way, with the sole aim of improving detransitioners’ and desisters’ lives. We do not want to invalidate trans people’s lives and experiences in any way. Simply, we believe that it is time that detransitioners are included in conversations and that they start being listened to and cared for rather than being systematically dismissed.








We would like to warmly thank everyone who supported us throughout this project. In particular, the following organisations:

Printing and distribution in the US and Canada:

       

Printing and distribution in the UK:

   

Translations (FR, NL, DE), printing and distribution in Belgium:

My gender dysphoria began around the age of 10, not too long after finding videos on YouTube about transgender kids. I initially identified as a boy and I chose the name Lucas, though this didn't last very long because my mom rejected my gender identity. I think though that those feelings came from trying to escape the sexual abuse and grooming I experienced a year prior. It was directly related to my female body, and I wanted to escape being female as much as possible, and I did that through trying to be a boy.

This caused a lot of initial conflict in my family, but they eventually accepted it, and it went okay from then on. I jumped through a few different genders and names from then on, and finally settled on being a trans boy and my name was Nik.
Throughout my transition, I suffered so much. I self-harmed and considered suicide due to the dysphoria I was feeling. As I got older, I think part of this came from my developing body dysmorphia and eating disorder when I was 12. I think that although I identified as a boy, I never wanted to be a boy. I just didn't want to be me.

Around 16, I found Christianity. For the first time, I truly felt God speak to me. I became Orthodox not long after, and found my role in being female. God created me with such a beautiful gift, and I rejected the very essence of my being. Through prayer, I became more comfortable being female and settled into the role God ordained for me. My gender dysphoria started to fade after I began to heal from my traumas and lean more into my femininity, around mid 17 years old.

After hearing stories of detransitioners and desisters online, I found myself relating to them so much and finally decided to go back to identifying as a woman. I feel proud to be female. I used to hate that I could get pregnant or hate my period, and now those are things I look forward to and find gratefulness in. I feel very privileged to have not altered my body from my identity. I don't have any permanent regrets because of that and I am very lucky.

I hope that if there are any other girls out there who may be going through what I went through, that they see my story and don't have to go through all the suffering and hardship that my transition caused to me. I still go by the name Nik, and I think it much better represents me than my deadname, but I am definitely not a boy, and I am much happier being a woman, and I will be so proud to be a mother and a wife in the future (hopefully soon, fingers crossed).


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It all started after the first time I suffered from SA* at 13 years old. I started questioning my identity more and more every day, at first I thought I was non-binary, but then I realized I wanted to become and look like a man. I couldn’t really explain why, I just felt dysphoric about my own body, I hated my breasts and my curves, I hated makeup, dresses and such.

I’m from Argentina and we have the so-called “Gender Identity Law”, so it was extremely easy for me to go through the whole transition. I changed my name legally, started taking hormones, and got top surgery, all for free. I thought being a man would somehow drag me away from the oppression I suffered as a female but I was wrong.

I experienced SA* multiple times again, so I had to make amends with myself and accept this was not the way to escape my reality. I’m currently 22 years old and I couldn’t be happier being a woman. There are some irreversible changes that I must accept, but as long as I can be myself, I’m happy this way. I’m slowly healing from all the trauma through therapy and medication, all my family and friends support me, and even if I’m not part of the LGBT community anymore I’m grateful for the acceptance it gave me at the time.

*Sexual assault

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I'm bi, white & wore dresses & makeup but was good at sports, watched every match & if I saw a mens shirt I liked I'd wear it too. I hung out with friends from the lgbt community & attended pride, when I got into a toxic relationship with a guy my friends told me I didn't belong at LGBT places anymore as I was in a "hetero relationship" (I was welcomed back after I left him). My ex often joked my long dyed hair was a wig & yanked my hair so I cut my hair too short for him to grab until I got out safely.

Then I went through trauma again, got pregnant & the perpetrator was arrested, I gave birth & started living life under a neutral alias so I could get privacy.

I moved on but got pregnant again by a guy who drove dangerously when he was mad & 1 incident ended badly & I had a miscarriage.

I blamed myself so I hid under baggy hoodies & jeans & stopped wearing makeup.

My friends told me I looked like a boy, I looked handsome & passed well, they said this increasingly knowing I was vulnerable & hated myself for being feminine & weak thinking if I wasn't so girly men would leave me alone & stop hurting me.

My friends said maybe I was a trans & had gender dysphoria & sent posts & encouraged me to explore it as "I'd always had masculine hobbies & was like a tomboy anyway", took me men's clothes shopping, bought my binder & were supportive of it when I felt lost & alone & like they were my family & scared to lose them so for 4 years I bound my chest, dressed like a guy & practiced deepening my voice like they taught me, they encouraged me even when I said I still felt like a girl & wanted to grow my hair they always said I was just brainwashed by the cishet society.

I eventually started PTSD therapy but my therapists were more focused on my gender & encouraged my transition, then covid hit before I could start hormones, we went into lockdown, therapy went online & I couldn't see friends.

Having the distance between us I felt safe to buy dresses & makeup online to secretly wear at home & eventually I realised I was just a traumatised girl who needed proper mental health support not trans so I changed therapists who started helping me actually work on my trauma & I detransitioned.

I told my friends, they were furious & tried to persuade me I'd been brainwashed by the heteronormative society, I told my therapist who said the way they treated me was wrong & encouraged me to go no contact.

I'm now living life as my true self again & I'm happier for it.


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I have always struggled with my identity – my inner sense of who I am in this world, and what I want from it. So with that in mind, it’s unsurprising that I was drawn to experimenting with gender, finding various labels to try on and discard. Non-binary, genderqueer, demiboy, transmasc, trans man, and the list goes on. I was fresh out of high school when the exploration begun, and the rabbit hole took me deeper and deeper until I had absolutely no true sense of self. I was lost in labels, thrilled to try yet another new identity on and escape myself for a while longer.

That’s all it ever really was for me – escapism. I struggle with a concoction of mental illnesses and have dealt with intense body image issues for as long as I can remember. I have always been desperate to escape the mess in my head, and I believe that transitioning was one such attempt to do so. I was so full of self loathing, and it’s human nature to get as far away as you can from the person you hate.

So I ran, leaving behind a vulnerable young woman in the dust. I was in my early twenties when I started testosterone, and a year after that I had a double mastectomy. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. I was settling into my new identity as a man, and felt I was solving my issues with these decisions. That feeling of contentedness lasted a while, but the doubts eventually crept in. Little niggling moments of discomfort, of longing for a self I had erased. Those moments only grew in intensisty and duration, and before long I couldn’t ignore what my heart was telling me. I couldn’t even recognise myself in the mirror- it’s beyond unsettling to see a stranger staring back at you in the place where your reflection should be. The once validating sounds of “he” and “him”, “sir” and “mister”, became jabs to my gut, signs of a facade which had become far too convincing. My body, my voice, my face, my role in people’s lives – all of it had begun to feel overwhelmingly foreign and unsettling.

Accepting that I was wrong about myself was difficult, admitting that I was wrong to others was even harder. I know now that I am a woman – I was very lost for a long while, but I found my way back home. I was on hormones for just over 4 years in total, and I cannot undo a lot of what they did – nor can I magically return my chest to its former state. But none of that makes me any less of a woman. I am so happy that I can now embrace myself and heal – the same self that I once wanted to eradicate.


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