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[gwynversionone]

Gwyn V1.0 Pt 2: Transition to De-Transition

CONTENT WARNING: De-Transitioning, Dysphoria

So, somewhere around November of 2012 (I actually went into my old Facebook to get timestamps this time) I was starting to present as myself. I didn’t really “come-out” to people for a few more months but I didn’t stop myself from dressing and acting how I wanted to. My mother and almost everyone else I lived with may have insisted on dead-naming me but, I only got mis-gendered around 25% of the time by them. I actually found comfort in the fact that people would apologize when they realized they referred to me as “he,” it made the experience “more real” for me. It was about this time that I was accepted into a social group at my college. Dorks who would hang out in the cafeteria playing Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic, luckily I was already in to the former and was easily brought in to the circle.

Around February of 2013 I had decided to let everyone I hung out with know that I was a trans woman and that I would like to be called Cassadee. To my utter surprise I was met with absolutely zero resistance. This was the point where I was truly able to begin to be myself as I had a genuine support system in these people after this point. I won’t lie, I’d really like to name names in some kind of self-indulgent attempt to reconnect with these people but, I haven’t talked to any of them since the day I had to de-transition and it would seem so out of place to attempt that through here. I would however, like to share a memory (that is depicted in the video I will release 7/13/18). Some where near the end of February we had a random “snow-storm” that shut down our community college for the day (North Carolina has no idea how to deal with even a remote amount of snow.) I remember we had all decided to meet and just drive around town looking for whatever card game related items we were interested in. I knew that one of my friends was in the hair technician program at our school, so I figured I’d go for broke and ask them to add some highlights to my hair. They were happy enough to oblige and that night we got the needed materials from a local beauty store (I actually remember the exact store we went to.) I wanted my hair to resemble Cassadee Pope’s (who was actually the person I derived my name from) and my friend delivered in a great way. I remember that I almost cried when I looked in the mirror after we were done, it looked perfect. This look didn’t actually last me very long as I was finally able to convince my mother to bleach my hair completely blonde about a month later.

My shift into blonde-dom (if you’ll permit me to use the phrase) was another turning point for me, as blonde was seen as “the most feminine hair color” in my mind. Once I was blonde there was absolutely no way that someone would mis-gender me! Honestly, it kind of worked, even my peers at school that I wasn’t out to began to be curious about the rapid change in self-expression I began to show. A few people eventually began to use my preferred name and pronouns as well. It was this new found confidence that allowed me to finally wear a bikini (around the above-ground pool that we owned) and I also started dating as Cassadee at this point also. I had friends who I’d hang out with and go shopping, who would encourage me to buy what I wanted to wear and who would push me to not bend to anyone else, they actually helped me use a “women’s dressing room” for the first time. These experiences were amazing and I do look back on them fondly now but, if my life was going to be a roller coaster then drops come immediately after the peaks.

The first low-point I had since I began transitioning was in July of 2013, when I was informed that we couldn’t afford to maintain my blonde hair any more. This is somewhat understandable as an adult today, I didn’t have a job or any finances of my own and we never really had an abundance of wealth of our own. So I decided to dye my hair black, as it required no maintenance and I didn’t want to witness all my natural brown hair overtake the blonde. I instantly went into a dysphoric state. This hurt more than I could express. It was around this time that whenever I felt any kind of deep-cutting pain that I just got another tattoo. This is very much why I have so many vapid and dis-interesting tattoos that I despise. Some time near October of 2013 we ended up moving to escape my then step-father’s infidelities. This move resulted in more depression past what I had already experienced and this caused me to miss registration for my next college semester. I decided to cut my hair shorter and get it closer to it’s natural hair color as a way to cope with these feelings.

Near the middle of December I think my mother noticed how miserable I was becoming, I was never leaving the house and couldn’t visit my friends as often seeing as gas was getting to be too costly. However illogical this may seem though, she found money in the monthly budget to pay for me to DIY my HRT. I was through the roof! I had spent the last few months trying to wear her down on the issue as I had been doing extensive research into it. This part of the story does come with a disclaimer by the way: I’m not going to encourage or advocate for DIY. I am also not going to dissuade you from taking the necessary steps to live a happy life. DIY was pretty expensive and honestly if I was doing everything over I’d convince younger me to get a job to aid in financing the endeavor. January 19th of 2014 I began using Estraidiol and Spironolactone. I was ecstatic and decided to take a picture every day to chronicle any changes I had. This lasted for maybe a week before my un-medicated ADHD just kind of made me uninterested in doing it. I actually stopped taking pictures almost all together as I was convinced at the beginning of the month to chop off all my hair because I dyed it so much. I hated the result that came from the haircut and subsequent re-bleaching of it (because clearly the excuse used to get me to cut my hair was so damn valid.)

The last part of this story is going to get very, very sad. I just want to give any reader the fairest of warnings possible. After all, how often has someone de-transitioned because they “wanted” to? I lasted 3 months on HRT before I was told we couldn’t afford it anymore. This was the most brutal and final blow my ego could handle. I went out and got a monroe piercing and a nostril piercing, at this moment doing anything to keep the slightest grip on my “femininity” as I spiraled into a horribly dark episode of dysphoria and depression. I stopped wearing makeup altogether shortly after the month of April, when I realized that I had no more energy left in me to fight. I started just accepting that I was being pushed out of my life, out of my own happiness. The month of September wasn’t particularly eventful until my mother told me I needed to make a “male” Facebook account (at the time I was still using “Cassadee’s” account, hoping I could go back to who I was) due to her talking to my biological father and needing a way to show him and his family the son he never got to see grow up (just typing that last part makes me sick.) September 25th 2014 was the last day I took a picture for my old account, I subsequently made it the profile picture for my new account as well. I held on to all my old clothes and even my unfinished bottle of spironolactone, always clutching to the thought of “being able to pick everything back up, whenever I had my own job and life.” It took another year before I tossed out all my clothes and makeup and another year before I tossed my grand-prize trophy, the bottle of spiro. Still unfinished, but somehow just as empty as I was.

[gwynversionone]

Gwyn V1.0 (A story of De-transitioning) Pt. 1

CONTENT WARNING: Self harm, contemplation of suicide, de-transitioning, slight dysphoria talk.

So, this story has to start with my coming out of my shell yeah? That’s essentially how these go from what I’ve seen.At as young an age as I can remember I did all the generic stuff that you’d expect or have heard about eggs doing. I wore my mom’s high heels, she would paint my nails, I preferred to play outside with girls, I played with every one of my friend’s barbies (no way in hell my adopted father would have a boy that owned “girl’s toys”.) So as I grew up I was bullied a lot for being a defenseless crybaby, literally like all the tropes you can think of. As I grew into an awkward 13 year old who dyed their hair black and wore Tripp pants, I began painting my nails myself and wearing “guy-liner” (thank you Pete Wentz and Gerard Way.) My mom and her second husband just assumed it was because I was into emo music. This was my continued way of dress and I started experimenting with dying my hair more colors (at least the ones my Mom would let me get away with.) 

At 16 years old I began dating a girl who was in a grade lower than me. We dated for the next year and a half and she ended up being one of only two people who I mentioned “feeling like a girl” to. She didn’t understand it, at 16 in 2007 I wouldn’t really expect her to. But one of the kickers was, she was 6 ft 2 and so was/am I. She would let me try on her clothes every once and a while which gave me further chances to explore myself and legit was the happiest I was during all of high school. Unfortunately our relationship had a fucking awful ending, like suuuuuuper bad. I made it out of the relationships with some of her clothes and like every other girl with some of their exes clothes, they became MY clothes. 

So, come age 18 I have a car and can go where I want. I start spending more time outside of the house and have a social life. I start cruising craigslist trying to truly figure out who I was. I chatted with maybe 3 or 4 people from craigslist before enough shitty experience made me realize that wasn’t the avenue to explore but, by this time I knew I was trans and I knew I had to do something about it. I started trying to talk to my mom about these issues and her bizarre and horribly het-centered response was “Well what if you meet a girl you really love and she doesn’t want you to be a girl?” At the time I was floored, “Why would I ever start dating someone who didn’t accept me for who I am?!” However, this seemed to be an adequate line of questioning for her to block me with. I started just using all my spare money to go to Hot Topic and buy whatever I could without rousing suspicion and if that didn’t work well my cousin would come with me and give moral support and be my “cover.”(If you’re reading this btw please get back in touch, I miss you dearly.) After about 2 months and turning 19 I finally decided I had to come out, for real.

After the high of Say Anything’s “Anarchy My Dear” tour, where me and my cousin went and jammed to all of our new favorite songs, I had decided it was time. We had talked about it all that night and they decided to be there for me when I did it (they were always better with “sjw” topics than I was (at the time at least.).) It was midnight, but I was too high off of adrenaline from the concert, so we went and knocked on my mother’s door. It was an hour of arguing and trying to get them to see my side. Her husband used a false story (this was later confirmed to be false) of knowing a trans person as an excuse of trauma that wouldn’t allow me to be myself around him. I was livid, I hardly slept that night. The next day after her husband went to work we had a second discussion. She decided to use her previously mentioned go to argument in an attempt to squash my hopes yet again. We both departed to our rooms where in an attempt to cool off. However, she left her door open (I believe that this was on purpose to this day) she got on the phone with her mother and began talking loudly about sending me to live with my adopted father so maybe I would learn some respect and not to talk back. I became furious at this point, I grabbed the nearest sharp object I had and in the only ever act of self-harm I’ve ever committed I violently stabbed myself 4 times in my right thigh. She eventually came to check on me and after seeing me attempting to stop the bleeding (which didn’t last too long anyway) she threatened to call the cops on me and have me committed. It was at this time I called my aunt (the mother of the previously mentioned cousin) who I managed to come out to just a few months before and said I could rely on her if need be. She agreed to come pick me up, I packed whatever I could and left.

I lived with her for roughly 3 months. In that time I visited my mom twice to pick up more of my stuff (which I then would have to sell in order to have money to get back and forth to school.) Both times I visited my mom we’d argue and she’d lock herself in the bedroom and threaten to kill herself. There was nothing I could do, I love my mom, she’s the only one I’ll have after all but, I knew I couldn’t stress my mental state more and I had to have faith that she’d come down and be ok. After the three months were up she finally had enough of the radio silence and agreed to have me back exactly as I was (by this point I was pretty much living full time at school but my aunt didn’t want me living full time in her house so I wouldn’t “traumatize my younger cousin,” that’s the younger sibling of my previously mentioned cousin to be clear.) I came back to my mother’s house and began living full time almost immediately. The only time I was forced to hide it was whenever they had friends over (not often) or whenever we had to go to my grandparents house.

That’s the end of part 1. Part 2 will cover the events leading up to my de-transition and the de-transition itself. In the interim I am going to post a bunch of my pictures from my old transition. I’ve come to terms with what’s happened over the years and I really love all these photos.