522 Comments
Feb 19, 2022Liked by Helena

it's really hitting me hard that in those early transition pictures, you look so much like a young girl (currently 13 or 14) I know who started identifying as male 2+ years ago, not long after a partial hospitalization for suicidal ideation. she still hasn't returned to school in person post-covid and her mom has already mentioned puberty blockers and hormones. I'm so worried for her but I don't know if I should say anything because some of my close friends are trans and are involved in supporting this family, and would be heartbroken and angry if they heard my discomfort with this situation and my current view of gender ideology. but I am personally so thankful that I have "transphobic" parents which was a big reason I never pursued medical transition and now as a 27 year old am enjoying being female for the first time in my life. thank you for writing this, I'm so glad you are in a good place now and I know you and other detrans women are making a huge difference by speaking out.

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Feb 19, 2022Liked by Helena

This is beautifully written, even if some parts require the reader to be fairly well versed in online-speak. Most of the conversation about trans that I’ve come across has been about male to female, in which cases the links with autism seem overwhelming in adolescents and with more disturbing things in adults. This window into female to male trans has been fascinating to read. I am a man and found a lot of your account unexpected, probably more so than a woman would have done. I also wonder if your experience with testosterone has given you a bit of an insight to some of the challenges it causes in all men and the behaviours we have to check and modify; I do wonder if it wouldn’t help many ardent feminist types to have some similar understanding. Anyhow, that’s somewhat off topic. I’m very pleased you’re out the other side and on the up and up. Thanks again for a brilliant essay.

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The courage it takes to tell your story with raw honesty, with the clear purpose of helping others by naming your own demons in hindsight, should make you proud and serve as an inspiration to others. Wherever your path leads you, your survival of this trial by fire and your efforts to prevent others from being similarly burned makes you, IMHO, an exceptional human being.

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Feb 20, 2022Liked by Helena

Thank you for sharing your story. I am probably about the age of your Mom. I started down the gender rabbit hole when my then 15 year old daughter came home from school and talked about wanting to cut off her breasts. So many young people's bodies are being destroyed. Your voice is needed. Thank you.

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Feb 20, 2022Liked by Helena

Thank you so much for writing this. I am 63, and this really explains the trans experience better than anything I've read. I can even see how I could have fallen into it if I were young in this time period. I'm in a volunteer position with an organization that is very much into the whole you-must-accept-who-kids-say-they-are thing, and I am going to save this to share with my supervisor at an appropriate time. I think he will be open to it. I think, too, we need to recognize that money is a huge factor. There is now a trans industry of pharmaceuticals, surgeries, therapists and more, and they do not want their livelihood to be threatened, regardless of the cost to the young people they "serve." Thank you again. Very well written and helpful.

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I have read or viewed so many stories of detransitioners at this point and read many anguished accounts from parents. This is the one that made me realize that without a doubt I would have gone down the same rabbit hole as you did Helena, had I been in your generation. The length of this post is entirely warranted, and I read every word of it. It is one thing to read about a child or young person getting testosterone in the first visit to Planned Parenthood. I have read that again and again and again. It is just so hard to believe it! On some level, I think I just could not absorb that this is truly happening. It is quite another to move through that experience of the first visit to the clinic from the young person's perspective, with the receipts to prove it. The people who "affirmed" you are normal people, who really thought they had your best interests at heart. That is in some ways more shocking than imagining them as monsters intending to harm young people, because it illustrates the systemic rot of gender ideology. The details of your story are important, both to those of us who had no idea about the Tumblr culture that drew you into this, and--much more importantly--to other young people who have been down the same nightmarish rabbit hole. You are a voice they will hear, a voice to help them emerge from the gender cult themselves.

Helena, I was a smart, weird, and awkward girl too. We have always been around, generation after generation! :) My teen years were hard even without the harm you experienced from this damaging cult. I found my way to blossom in the world and heal myself through music and writing. I can see you are doing the same thing with your strong and clear writing. Keep following your own star. You are a beautiful, brilliant, and shining light!

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Feb 20, 2022Liked by Helena

This is an incredible story. I had mental health issues as a teenager in the ‘70s and if the internet had been around then, god only knows where I would have ended up. Your most recent two photos are so compelling in that the stress and anxiety that are so apparent in the earlier ones is gone. Cheers to you on your quest to find your true, authentic self! It does get a lot better!

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At some point you asked yourself "How could I have been so stupid?"

The answer was just one sentence before that. You were not stupid at all. You were just a kid. Shame is not on you, but on the far more conscious, experienced and willful adults that drove you through the "transitioning" process.

As a highschool teacher in Spain, just turned 26, I am deeply concerned about the way this is unraveling in my home country, before my own eyes, among my students and friends. ROGD is making its appearance in my learning institution, and the approach is, for now, that of affirmation.

Thank you for sharing your experience. What I take from this, besides some very enlightening examples and testimonials, is that the whole story starts and ends with a smile.

In a weird way, it was that first smile that revealed hope and faith in a process at that point to be yet discovered. And although you lost that smile along the way, you were finally able to get it back, and oh how gorgeous it is.

Cheers from Spain, and thank you so much.

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Feb 20, 2022Liked by Helena

You are very insightful and a great writer. I remember you saying that you just scratched the surface of the Tumblr social contagion world. It would be great if you wrote more about it because people from older generations have no clue about it.

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Feb 19, 2022Liked by Helena

this was so powerful. i grew up in some of the same (mostly harry potter) tumblr communities, around the same, and while i only ever identified as nonbinary at the time, i can absolutely confirm everything you said about the tumblr environment and how it encouraged young girls to take on trans (and other ‘oppressed’) identities. i’m so glad that you’re doing better ❤️

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Thanks for writing your story. I have enjoyed listening to your story over many podcasts. Tonight I sat with my 14 year as she/he chose not to speak to me yet again. It's been more than a year. I use the preferred name and pronoun but we have refused further medicalization. I see how much is out of my control. Have you healed your relationship with your mother? I know this is your story but her heart... and the pain of being branded abusive by the school, therapist etc...

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wonderful job, this is amazing work. thank you. I want everyone to read this. What you say about Tumblr is so very painfully accurate. I have had a similar realization that has felt just as good as you describe yours, though I have never put the beliefs of gender theory into practice with my own body and self identity. The time I spent on Tumblr as a teen and the indoctrination of critical race theory I received in college definitely made me a nihilistic asshole hopeless person. It's good to know that now. With that experience behind me, I've also become a person I quite like. I'm very happy for both of us. <3

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"There’s an enormous amount of shame in realizing how much hurt and chaos has been inflicted on others in your pursuit of ideas you now think were ridiculous and destructive." See also how child soldiers are "recruited" in West Africa.

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This is marvelous. I think your story would make a powerful film. Have you considered screenwriting? (You know, in your free time.)

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Feb 21, 2022·edited Feb 21, 2022Liked by Helena

Beautiful essay Helena. As a former tumblr teen (who VERY fortunately never fell into trans ideology myself, but watched many people in my online circle fall into), this all rings exceptionally true. I think a lot of older people who understand and speak out against trans ideology, e.g. the fabulous Abigail Shrier, don't really understand how powerful of an influence these online communities are over the minds of our generation. How could they? It's a foreign world. I hope your essay reaches as many people as possible, and I'm so happy you have been able to get out with (minimal) physical harm and turn your life around. You deserve to be so proud of yourself.

I was moved to tears reading your essay not only because of how moving your story is... but also because my own little brother, who I love very deeply, is falling down the trans ideology rabbit hole. I know in my heart that this is probably not the right choice for him and he very likely will only feel worse after transitioning medically. Although you obviously are female and have different specific struggles, so many of your experiences and mental health struggles ring SO true to his experiences that it's uncanny. I don't really know how to help him and sometimes it feels so hopeless... but I am trying to figure out a way to do so with compassion and understanding. Quietly watching and listening to the growing detransitioner community has started helping me, I think.

Anyways...thank you again Helena. You are an extremely bright person and your story needs to be heard - it is sadly so, so similar to many other "trans youth"'s stories.

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Feb 20, 2022Liked by Helena

I can't even begin to express how impressed I am with the young people, like yourself, who's stories of detransition are so insightful, honest, and generous. You possess self actualization that honestly stuns me, a self awareness that I didn't have until I was well into my 30s.

I am so fearful when I think of the many other young people, and even fully formed adults, who are getting caught up in this phenomena and making decisions that will be harmful to themselves. And I seethe with anger when I know that there are adults that fucking know full well that they are hurting children for their own selfish reasons.

But I have a sense of hope lately, when I read stories like yours, knowing that other confused, hopeless, scared kids have a voice they can turn to when they realize they've been groomed and mislead by an ideology that saw them as a cause and not a person who needed help. I know they can find you, if they try, and hear your story, and the stories of other brave detrans individuals. They can get their lives back because of you all being unwilling to just go away, and instead guiding them back to themselves. You let them know it's ok, it'll take time, but there's a path forward. And that is huge. You are amazing, and I don't say that lightly. I hope you know how amazing you actually are.

Great article. Thank you so much for sharing.

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