"I began a rapid transition at 14 years old and was extremely uninformed and deceived about the realities of puberty blockers and hormone replacement. I was unable to truly comprehend the sterilization I underwent and was completely uninformed about the negative effects of lifelong puberty suppression and hormone replacement. I was too young to understand the effect of never having biological children, something I deeply desire now less than 10 years later. I was completely unaware that I would never have sexual functionality, sexual feelings, and sex drive."

"It's almost like I was caught between two different people in my head. There was Josh, the person I was born as. Then there was Jessica, the person I was becoming. It's almost like they were fighting each other. And ultimately my conclusion to finally quit them, to really stick with the male path, was just stick with what nature gave me. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do."

"Social expectations are stupid from a long-distance point of view. We [those with autism] don’t understand them very well. Things we don't understand we think are stupid. I think it's a pretty universal experience that young autistic boys are unable to act in a way that boys are assumed to act. We don't like rough and tumble play. You know boys are mean to each other. Autistic boys will be repulsed by that because now you’re hanging out with the girls and you’re sort of trying to differentiate yourself from the group of boys. That can look like being trans." – Ash

"I would point out that most autistic children grow up with a pervasive sense of not belonging or something being wrong. Right now we’re at a moment in our society when the answer for something being wrong when you’re young that is first given is trans."
– Raphael

"I guess I just realized that I could be happy without really completely changing who I am."

"I went to these gender clinics as a teenager with mental problems and an unrealistic image of myself…There, they confirmed that I was trans. Then I thought: so I must really be trans because they are the experts, and otherwise they would never make that diagnosis…

"I'm in therapy now. My therapist was shocked that this could have happened under the supervision of psychologists. I think those psychologists should have said: you have such a complex past; first go into therapy to process all that and then come back. I wouldn't have liked that, but I would never have come back, I'm sure.

"There are other and sometimes better ways to treat gender dysphoria than with a medical transition. Psychotherapy, overcoming your fears, learning to accept yourself. But self-acceptance was never discussed with me. You have to look at individual cases: what does that person need? I went back to the clinic earlier this year to get redress. I said: I was a teenager; why did you go along with the unrealistic ideas I had about myself? You pretended I was an adult. They replied: you wanted it yourself. But how can a 17-year-old boy with all kinds of mental problems know what is good for him?"

"Every day I wish that I was allowed to live through my identity confusions as a child and young adult without being irreversibly harmed. Like the studies show, I eventually grew out of my confusion by the time I was 22. But at that point my genitals were already amputated."

"I came across 'gender dysphoria,' and all of a sudden, all my trauma, all my anxiety, depression—everything made sense, or so I thought. I gave myself permission to discount everything and attribute it to a straightforward case of being dysphoric, when, in fact, it was actually a new, much more powerful obsession.

"The definition of 'gender dysphoria' is deeply appealing to someone in distress; it’s an invitation to abandon all your other obsessions and ruminations in place of Gender, but the only difference between this and every other obsession I had is [that] this was being affirmed socially, legally and medically."

"I hated myself. I hated everything about myself. I would no longer be a homosexual male. I would be a straight woman. That is how the therapist outlined it."

"[As a teen] I was called gay...I was told that I'm not a real man, that I could never ever be a real man...I looked very childish for my age and that's when bullying got really bad. At one point it got so bad I was generally considering taking my own life because I just couldn't take it anymore...to the point where I started thinking 'well, it is true I am not a real man and I guess they are right”...the very fact that I was born male became one of my biggest regrets...I started to despise my own body, every aspect of it that made me male...

"When I was 15, I first encountered the trans community online...I heard stories from several people on the internet who did undergo either hormonal treatment or hormone treatment and sex-reassignment surgery and they will tell me how their life got so much better after that. And I was like, 'there's the solution; right there, there's a chance for me to have some future, to be happy with my future, to feel appreciated. That's the only thing I have to do. I just have to change my sex. Oh, that should be easy thing to do.'"

"I associated being male with being awful, with being detested, disliked, with having my appearance made fun of, with being rejected from society from not being normal. And I started developing a true disdain for that, and I still feel that in myself and it’s terrible to say because it destroyed me. And being transgender has done nothing else then just try to erase this problem out of me, but it did not disappear. I just put a tarp on it. I pretended it didn’t exist. That’s it, that’s the truth of why I transitioned. So when I understood that fact, I was like, but this is not me, I’ll never be happy...I was still rejecting all of what makes me, me; and that’s when I decided to detransition...I am me again and it took a long while to realize that it’s okay to be me."

"I was very feminine. I liked Barbies, I liked pink, I liked dresses and all that stuff. It’s like an indicator of being a 'trans kid.' So I guess in some way some people would say I had gender dysphoria since before I knew. But then I found trans people on YouTube and on the internet when I was young, about 11. And I already had known at that point I was gay. I didn’t have the best relationship with that. And when I saw the trans stuff, the process, and the end result, I was like wow, that’s so awesome. I wish I could do that. And then, the more research I did, I was like, 'wow, I can do that.' That’s how it was compelling. I was this hurt gay boy and I saw these beautiful women online just getting surgery and living their best life."

"This past Friday I was very suicidal...I've been going through cycles of major depression or chronic depression and suicide ideation...It's been much worse since I had the vaginoplasty [2.5 years ago]...What led me to wanting it [vaginoplasty]?...It was kind of pushed on me...It was promoted to me...My therapist that I was working with at the time...He's based in San Francisco. He's a therapist, but he's a gender affirmation therapist, so it was pushed...He's the one that sent the referrals for both my facial feminization surgery...and the vaginoplasty. And I regret both the surgeries."