Portrait 79 in my series of 100 ex-trans/detrans women: Kerry/34/new york “As an autistic child I always had a really hard time making and keeping friends. Id been in therapy since 1997 and on medication since 1998. Going to see a psychiatric professional was as normal to me as getting a haircut. Yet nothing get easier. I made my first best friend when I was 14 and had serious issues with boundaries due to sheer lack of social experience. The shared limerence introduced me to the LGBT community as we mistook it for love. We crashed and burned as all codependent relationships do and I found myself alone again but now I had a better idea of what I was missing. I desperately craved a sense of self worth and companionship. My first real friend after that introduced me to her childhood friend who was a trans man. We shared a lot of similar life struggles but he seemed happy. This was not an impulsive decision I made. Three years later I came out on Facebook. I hadn't told a soul I was even contemplating it. Back then in 2011 there were not as many resources or representation for trans men. Most of what I found was on Tumblr or in local LGBT youth groups. I started getting involved in local pride organization and planning. I volunteered at the center. I spoke at TDOR events. I learned the local history in New York. Id been out for three or four years when people started asking me why I hadn't started hormones yet or started saving for top surgery. The real reason was i wanted to wait until id gone a full three years without a psychiatric breakdown before making permanent changes to my body. When I explained this I kept getting the same response: maybe the reason I'm having breakdowns is the lack of gender affirmation in the mirror and hormones would make it all better. Next thing I knew I was in a documentary for the local community health center and paying $10 for a six month supply of testosterone. I found joy, but not in the mirror. It was in the day cares where I worked. I was always eager to tell kids there was no wrong way to be a boy or a girl. Somehow that did not apply to myself. I didn't stop taking hormones until after the pandemic had started when my husband, then boyfriend, had started to question his gender identity. We were having a conversation about it where I said the words: "honestly if I had come out today I'd probably be nonbinary or something. I don't think anyone is really 100% anything." He replied: "you know you're allowed to change your mind right?" And he meant it as a humorous comment but it really hit me deep. The idea that someone could remotely detransition was not even on my radar. Had anyone informed me of that possibility I might've detransitioned years prior. I had zero representation cross my path. That would soon change. In 2023 we moved to California and I got pregnant. I still identified as nonbinary when I delivered my son in 2024 in San Francisco. I sat in my backyard when he was napping at 4 months old and could not do anything but pray. I may have been a confirmed Catholic but I wasn't actively religious and hadn't been since I was probably 13. I was seeking any kind of higher power to give me clarity that I hadn't wasted the last 12 years of my life pretending to be someone else. I just cried and in my head I could see this little girl who had been told to change by doctors and friends in order to be loved her whole life. I always felt like i had never been good enough. I felt defective. The identity I wish I had sought first was through God. We are all made perfectly and growing as a person is different than changing yourself. You will never learn how to love yourself by trying to be someone else.” >kerrysblessed< for Instagram and tiktok