So, as some of you may know, I used to be transgender. Over the course of ages 11 to 14, I went from demigirl to genderfae to genderfluid to transgender. From 12-14, I went by Liam. I go by my legal name now. No, I wasn't forced to detransition. It was fully my choice. I searched 'detransition' into Scratch and found... nothing. Not a single project. So I figured someone might as well do it. I was 10 when COVID hit. A super naive, innocent ten-year-old. I was also that age when puberty hit. The combination wasn't good. My exposure to the internet quickly put me into LGBTQ circles, and to fit in, I convinced myself I was bi. Pan. Omni. Whatever. Here on Scratch, it's convenient and boosts your popularity to go by unconventional pronouns. So at 11 or so I started putting she/they in my bio. At 12, school reopened. I was so so SO self-conscious. I hadn't gotten used to puberty. I was awkward. I had terrible acne. I quickly started hating my body. The Internet said it knew what I was going through. I was transgender. I hated my body because it was the wrong one. The bio pronouns quickly went to "any", then "he/they". According to trans circles, I should be happy now that I'd found myself. I should be free. I was miserable. The more I wanted to look like a boy, the more I hated the way I did look. Frizzy long hair- wish I could chop it off. Weird face- if only it was masculine. Because my problem wasn't that I was stuck in the wrong body. It was that I had serious mental health issues such as my self-image, sense of identity, and severe depression, and I was escaping into a mask I named Liam. Liam didn't have those problems. Liam didn't have Sparrow's flaws (sparrow is not my legal name for the record). I could make Liam anyone I wanted. As long as that wasn't me. I thought the problem was my body when the problem was my mind. One day, at 13, I woke up and felt extremely feminine. I was overjoyed. Everything felt like it fit. In my mind, that was a "fluid fem day", a one-off occasion. I couldn't wait til my masc days started to feel like that. I went on Scratch and commented on a profile, "I'm having a day where I feel fem and it feels so good!" or something like that. It took a few more months for it to click. Breaking up with my ex was a large part of the wake-up. Then it was falling for another guy and wanting to be pretty. Then wearing a dress and feeling good in it. By the time I entered ninth grade, I had fully detransitioned, even if I hadn't realized it. I took a large step back from the Internet- some time to recalibrate. One day I heard the word 'detransitioner' and it all just... clicked. Looking back, some of the adults in my life convinced me to shut out my parents, shut out the hateful people who would question me. I was a pawn in their agenda.... And I don't want anyone else to go through the misery I did. For a year now I've been sharing my detransition story, hoping to help someone who thinks transitioning will help them when it might be the opposite. I'm pretty nervous to post this, actually, since the topic is politically charged and ST would probably find some reason to ban me. But I think it's important enough to risk, ya know?
love y'all <3
