When I talk about how I treated my gender dysphoria without transitioning, people say I wasn’t really trans. They say I mustn’t have had actual dysphoria and I’m either stupid or a grifter. One person even said I must be incapable of making my own decisions and should have had a conservatorship to make them for me.

Slave to the Algorithm

I was 30 years old when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. By age 32, I was traumatized, isolated, and constantly watching TikTok videos of autistic trans people recommended by the algorithm. Trans people said this was a sign that I was trans. They said that wondering if I was trans meant I was trans. They said that anybody who felt they were trans was trans. The more TikTok videos I consumed, the more things progressed. First, I told my long-term boyfriend I was nonbinary—then trans—then thinking about getting top surgery. I should have been getting back out into the world and building my future, but I had become obsessed with finding the “real” me.

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For someone who they say was never trans, I did all the things you see transmascs on TikTok doing: cutting my hair into a mullet, talking about whether I wanted to use “they” or “him” pronouns, getting my new name on a Starbucks cup, dancing to music in my binder, crying about how I broke up with my boyfriend, and soaking in all the likes, follows, and comments saying I was “so handsome.”

By age 33, I had 50,000 followers on TikTok, but I was completely alone in real life. My dysphoria had worsened to the point that I experienced suicidal ideation from being in my female body. What began as exploring my “gender expression” had escalated into something that felt like life or death. I could no longer psychologically handle the reality of not matching the person I felt I was. Being called “ma’am” made me viscerally angry.

I booked therapy through the government and was assigned a male therapist who told me he identified as nonbinary. I genuinely wanted to explore resolving my issues without medical intervention, but after only a couple of appointments, I sobbed about how I didn’t want to be a woman who wore dresses, and my therapist encouraged me to come out to my parents.

The Creepy Doctor

I found a gender-affirming care doctor through a trans nonprofit organization. During my first appointment, he tried to persuade me multiple times to show him my genitals. While smiling enthusiastically, he claimed he could determine if I was intersex by examining them. I insisted that I knew what my genitals looked like and left feeling uneasy.

In an effort to avoid returning to the doctor, I scoured the internet for someone who no longer experienced gender dysphoria. I found Reddit threads claiming that dysphoria always returns and that the only treatment is medical transition. Meanwhile, trans people on X posted, “Just try hormones—you won’t regret it.” When I responded that it was irresponsible to encourage people to try something irreversible, they smeared me as transphobic.

Eventually, I didn’t know what else to do, so I returned to the gender-affirming care doctor, where I spent multiple appointments being asked questions like what kinds of activities I did as a child and how I felt about my body in the shower. I told the doctor I was bisexual, had been diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and OCD, and had experienced a traumatic childhood, was sexually assaulted and had previously worked as an escort. After each appointment, I was so exhausted that I slept for the rest of the day. I was worried about giving the wrong answers and being denied what I had been told was life-saving medication—but the doctor said I was at high risk and, “no matter what,” he would prescribe me testosterone.

My last appointment was a health exam, where I was instructed to remove my shoes and socks and lie down. The doctor checked my pulse in my feet, then my heartbeat in my chest, then palpated my stomach, and then began to pull my shorts and underwear down. When I flinched, he said he needed to examine my “hair pattern.” He insisted it was necessary, and because I felt I needed testosterone to continue living—because society had told me it was the only way to treat my dysphoria—I said, “Okay.”

I left the appointment feeling hazy. It was only a quick glance, but I knew it was entirely unnecessary. I felt like the doctor had tricked me into examining my genitals, especially because he had been so persistent about it during my first appointment. When I asked him why it was necessary, he shrugged and said something about there being studies. I wish I had had someone there advocating for me, and if the trans community hadn’t encouraged me to push everyone else away, I might have.

My uneasiness continued to grow. I delayed filling my testosterone prescription because I didn’t want to return to see the doctor. I contacted the nonprofit that referred me to report what happened. I was told he was the only gender-affirming care doctor accepting new patients in my city. The director said in an email, “You deserve to feel safe and to have choice in your medical decisions, but the system isn’t providing that for you and other trans folks right now.”

Recovery and Reflection

As months passed, I threw myself into writing my first book, Finding Autistic Joy, but people launched a smear campaign, accusing me of racism for using a stock photo of a raised fist on the cover. They claimed I was appropriating Black Lives Matter and comparing Black people to autistic people, posting my words out of context to perpetuate the narrative that I’m racist. This destruction of my reputation continued for six months straight and was so intense that I left social media, went on long hikes, and worked out for hours at the gym. While exercising, I listened to podcasts like Fucking Cancelled and Beyond the Self by disaffected leftists. After a year, I had lost 40 pounds, my gender dysphoria had disappeared, and I could see everything more clearly. I wrote a book called How to Survive Cancel Culture, where I detailed the impact of psychological warfare.

That time in my life feels like a fever dream. I’m 35 now, and looking back, I was completely consumed by a social contagion fueled by the TikTok algorithm. I didn’t “explore my gender expression”—I was brainwashed, and it ruined my life. For a while, I felt embarrassed and wanted to pretend it never happened as I worked to rebuild my life. But I have deep concern for young people who will inevitably discover one day that they’ve made a horrible mistake, only to be told by the trans community, “That’s on you.”

Despite what people say, I experienced what is currently described as gender dysphoria. I felt distraught in my body and believed I needed to remove my breasts and go on testosterone. I was exactly like the trans people on TikTok—so if I didn’t have dysphoria, then none of them do either.

For those who dismiss my experience by claiming I was never trans because I managed my dysphoria without medically transitioning, I have one question: Who’s at fault for prescribing testosterone to me, a person who isn’t trans? Is it me or the doctor?

If I was so confused by a social contagion in my 30s, how can children, who are also on TikTok and lack fully developed brains, consent to puberty blockers, HRT, and surgeries? How can they make informed decisions about their bodies when adults aren’t even taught how to protect themselves from psychological warfare? We’re seeing more detransitioners sharing their stories, and soon there will be so many traumatized victims that it will be impossible to call it “rare.”

Forest Van Slyke is a writer from Canada. She enjoys going on long hikes and trying new gelato flavors. Find her on X @forestvanslyke.

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