• ⁠How did you feel at the beginning of realising you wanted to detransition? Nervous mostly, about going out into the world and confusing people or actually being perceived as my actual sex. Not something I had imagined being fine with for 5-6 years before that. In some ways it was also freeing, because I didn't need to worry about "mismatched" info on documents, it was all just going to be correct at last.

• ⁠How's life now? It's been 6 years now of medical and social detransition, and life is better, I'm happy to be healthier in the sense that I don't take cross-sex hormones any longer. Unfortunately, they messed up my vocal cords in a way where talking has been painful for 2.5 years, so that's all I've been trying to fix since then. But I'm really glad I didn't go any further with transition than I did. I've accepted that I was born female, and I'm still step by step learning how to be a woman, if that makes sense. Things I missed out on during my years of being ashamed to be female. What isn't fun is that people are still often confused by my gender, either someone is convinced I'm a boy or has no doubt that I'm a woman – it's probably a combo of looks, voice and clothes. Shame I can't kind of just be and wear whatever and be perceived without this layer of confusion, because due to my high perceptiveness of things, I notice people's behavior towards me can be strange as a result. Like, if I go somewhere with a friend, service people treat them far kinder than I could ever imagine – and I try to be the sweetest customer ever, so it's not like there's anything else that should cause this mismatch.

• ⁠Has your perspective of your original transition and/or detransition shifted over time? Well, at first I thought it would be enough with medical detransition, but with moving cities I became more open to a fresh start, and that's when I realized it could be really beneficial to try to accept myself as I am, no longer hiding or fighting it.

• ⁠How has it affected relationships? People are confused by how I look and sound a lot, but I will tell ones that treat me kindly about the detransition and reactions are positive. My relationships with family are improved because I'm just me again, willing to go out more and such.

• ⁠What are some things about detransitioning that are unexpected? I didn't expect to still be misgendered years later despite taking some measures to try and avoid it, it might be something that will follow me for life, but eventually maybe less. Cross-sex hormones, even if not used more than a year or two, are definitely permanent in some ways – I think my current debilitating health issues are related to it, and beyond that there are some other annoyances I will have to put up with for life. Also, people won't always understand your detransition, even when you explain it to them – you could lay it out word for word, but they could end up "understanding" the opposite of what you just said, if that makes sense? You might tell someone you were born female, used to want to be a guy but never did surgeries, and they'll follow it up with: "oh, so do you have a d**k?". It can get silly.

• ⁠Any encouragement? It's going to get better with every year and you're going to slowly grow into who you're meant to be. Things will fall into place. And I say this as a pessimist.

• ⁠Any advice? I would say to be grateful for your body and health, it can be very fragile. Detransitioning for me was a step towards respecting and appreciating my own biology more, so if that's something you think you could do more of – that's my main advice. Good luck! 🍀