29. Juniper

Juniper, 29 y/o, Sweden.

“I was 15 when I was presented with the idea that the reason why I hated the way I was being treated by my family and society, was not because society treats women and girls badly, but because I was actually a boy and thus shouldn’t be treated like that. I came out as trans and changed my name.

I was always afraid that maybe gender dysphoria was an emotional state that could be alleviated, either on its own or with therapy. I knew I was trans, I had no doubts about that. My doubts were always about its permanency, and the risk of making dangerous permanent changes because of something impermanent. But when I was 20 I had suffered so much from only being socially transitioned that I finally asked to get started on testosterone therapy and have my breasts removed. I saw no other way forward.

About 3 years later, with severly declining mental health, I finally got therapy. I got to learn how to deal with my emotions. Other things happened in my life as well, that supported my exploration within myself. The question arose for me, ”why do I feel like a man?”, and the answers I got were, because I feel like I’m too ugly and disgusting to be a woman, and because I feel like the only way I can get to be myself without being ostrasized is if I am a man. I started considering stopping testosterone, because it felt insane to deal with a psychological issue with physical, medical interventions.

When I asked for help, both from my regular psychiatric unit and from the gender-unit, they didn’t help me. I was told to accept my current state. And I was too scared to stop on my own. With all the hard work I put into passing and living as a man, having that torn down just to see if I might want to live as a woman again, it was something I just didn’t know how to do. So for three years, I just kept going on with my testosterone treatment.

Then came a turning point. My mood was very unstable, and I found out my testosterone-levels were very high, as well as my estrogen levels. It dawned on me how much I was hurting my body and my mind with testosterone. ”I can’t do this to my body”, I said. I started to taper my dose, because I was scared to quit completely. When that didn’t cause me any dysphoria, I realized that there was no reason to have any dose of testosterone at all, so I quit. At the same time, a new person had arrived in my life, who saw me as the woman I am, and loved me as the woman I am, and whose love for me, no matter what my body looked like, helped awaken a love within me for myself and my body.

Eventually, I came to realize that I wanted to stop, to not perform manhood anymore, and to not say ”I’m different from other females and therefore I am something other than a woman”. I came to see that my experience was a female experience. Only a female can hold the idea that she isn’t a woman and therefore need to change her body. Realizing this set me free, and helped me reconnect with my body.

I now live with what my doctors and I have done. My body suffers still from years of counter-sex hormone therapy, but I am healthier now that I have my own hormones, and that I don’t live in denial about my sex and it’s meaning. I know that I am a female, a woman, and I understand that the way I feel about how I am treated by society, says nothing about my sex, and everything about how society treats females. I am right to say that it is society that is wrong, not my body. I am a woman and the way I am is how a woman is. I don’t need to change a thing, I just need to love and accept myself.

I write about this topic in Swedish on my instagram @ettdjur