Identity Crisis: The Detransitioner Taking on Planned Parenthood
I thought transition was the only way to fix my mental health, but weeks after my mastectomy I broke down in regret. I don't want other struggling young people rushed into hormones and surgery before they get real help.
Overview
Cristina Hineman recounts how joining a mostly transgender friend group in public school, combined with isolation during COVID lockdowns and worsening mental health, led her to identify first as non-binary and later as a trans man. After a brief Planned Parenthood appointment and an affirming therapist encouraged medicalization, she underwent testosterone treatment and a double mastectomy, experiencing regret just weeks later. Now detransitioned, she lives with permanent physical changes and has filed a lawsuit, urging that young people with mental health struggles receive help rather than being rushed toward irreversible surgery.
Full Video Summary
Cristina Hineman grew up homeschooled and happy, realizing at twelve that she was attracted to girls. Though she found online explanations of sexual orientation and transgender identities, she remained satisfied with her life until mental health issues worsened during her freshman year at public school. There, most of her friends identified as transgender, and she sometimes felt like the outsider as the “cis” friend. She began going by Violet, and when COVID-19 lockdowns isolated her during her junior year, she fell deeper into trans content on YouTube and TikTok while struggling with depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. She had already developed anxiety about her chest and began binding, eventually sustaining a shoulder injury that forced her to quit her job. In August 2020 she began questioning her gender, and by November she identified as non-binary and agender, initially wanting only surgery. However, after seeing peers voice-deepen on testosterone, she became jealous and started pursuing hormones. Three weeks after turning eighteen, she visited Planned Parenthood, where a nurse practitioner prescribed testosterone in under thirty minutes after presenting informed consent documents listing only testosterone, surgical masculinization, or “do nothing” as alternatives. The risks were discussed nonchalantly; liver damage was never mentioned, and after Cristina said she did not want biological children, the fertility conversation ended. She later understood that the practitioner could not even explain what would happen if she stopped testosterone. She began testosterone in November 2021 and experienced changes she initially interpreted positively, though she disliked the body and facial hair and clitoral growth, believing the latter might eventually resemble a penis. An affirming therapist encouraged her, and she saved for surgery. In December 2022 she consulted with Dr. Jeffrey Rockmore, a plastic surgeon who did not require a therapy letter. She signed forms describing the procedure as gynecomastia surgery and did not see him again until the operating room, where she drew her desired nipple graft size on a tissue box after declining his offer to show his own nipples for reference. She woke from the double mastectomy in pain and vomiting, and was discharged quickly. A brief euphoria faded into doubt; the night after her six-week post-op appointment, she suffered an anxiety attack and regret. Trying on a feminine tank top revealed a flat chest and protruding ribcage that horrified her. She broke down, told her mother and girlfriend, and realized she had been wrong. Six weeks and two days after surgery, she detransitioned, wearing her mother’s dress and shaving the testosterone-thickened hair from her legs. Now twenty, Cristina lives with permanent changes. Her voice remains altered, she has unwanted facial and body hair, and she endures random nerve pain in her nipple grafts. The absence of breasts and effects of clitoral growth negatively affect her sex life. Diagnosed with autism at seventeen, she believes she had sought a step-by-step fix for her mental suffering. She wishes she had received mental health help and pushback against transition rather than affirmation, and hopes her story will protect other vulnerable young people from being rushed down the same irreversible path.