Finding Purpose After Detransition - Soren Aldaco's Story |The Bridge S2 Ep5
There are so many ways to solve a single problem, and as soon as you realize that, I think it gives you more freedom than any physical intervention ever will, because your mindset is the lens you view life through.
Overview
Soren Aldaco, a 23-year-old detransitioned woman, recounts identifying as trans at eleven after online grooming and family instability, starting hormones at seventeen, and receiving a double mastectomy at nineteen before detransitioning six months later. Now a graduate student and advocate, she has revived a Texas lawsuit against her medical providers and urges young people to adopt a flexible, growth-oriented mindset rather than viewing physical intervention as the only solution to distress.
Full Video Summary
Soren Aldaco describes growing up as a vulnerable child raised largely by a working single mother and grandparents, with limited parental presence. She spent much of her time online, where she encountered mature content and was groomed while seeking role-play opportunities. She discovered the concept of being transgender in these spaces, and the idea resonated with her existing discomfort with her developing body following abuse. After an online girlfriend identified as trans, Aldaco began identifying as transgender around age eleven. In tenth grade, meeting her biological father for the first time triggered a crisis that led to inpatient psychiatric care. A psychiatrist there fixated on her trans identity, broke confidentiality by telling her family that all her struggles stemmed from being trans, and set her parents up for failure by framing it medically rather than addressing the family dynamic. Her father and stepmother became affirming and took her to a support group, while her mother practiced a watchful waiting approach. Aldaco grew distant from her mother and closer to her affirming father and stepmother. At sixteen, she met her future wife, another female who identified as trans. After her wife started hormones, Aldaco began testosterone in January 2020 at age seventeen, prescribed by a nurse practitioner who was part of the same parent support group. Two months later, COVID-19 lockdowns began. The relationship became violent and chaotic. Seeking reprieve from the abuse, Aldaco obtained a therapist’s letter authorizing a double mastectomy and had the surgery in June 2021 at age nineteen. She detransitioned six months later, not because she suddenly loved being female, but because she realized her suffering could be addressed in ways other than body modification and wanted to model a different kind of womanhood for the young girls in her life. She now views pain as a fact of life but suffering as optional, and draws on her Christian faith to accept her experience while pursuing justice for others. Aldaco filed a lawsuit in Texas in 2023 against her medical providers, seeking precedent to protect others. She notes the case involves complex statute-of-limitations questions and Texas tort-reform barriers, but says the Texas Supreme Court unanimously revived the case in June 2026. Now twenty-three, she is a graduate student in educational psychology studying how young people interpret feelings about their sex, and she works as an advocate and policy analyst. She is married to a man and hopes to have children, viewing her future with optimism despite her past.