FACE TO FACE | She regrets her gender transition: full story with Daisy Strongin
I was chronically online, depressed, and desperate to become someone else. Transition felt inevitable in 2015. Detransition wasn’t finding a new identity—it was the relief of letting go of gender entirely.
Overview
Daisy Strongin describes how childhood gender nonconformity, depression, and chronic internet use led her to socially transition at seventeen and begin testosterone at eighteen via a single informed-consent appointment, followed by top surgery at twenty. After the initial excitement faded into isolation and regret, she detransitioned in May 2020, later marrying and having two children. She also recounts her return to Christianity, her attraction to Catholic tradition and the Real Presence, and her family’s baptism and confirmation at the previous Easter Vigil.
Full Video Summary
Daisy Strongin traces her journey to early childhood, when she idolised male characters and felt half-boy. In middle school she cut her hair short and adopted a male persona, but entered high school trying to be feminine. Chronic internet use and depression led her to Tumblr, where she discovered genderqueer and later learned about female-to-male transitions through YouTube. Convinced by online messaging that suppressing a trans identity could lead to suicide, already struggling with suicidal thoughts, she concluded that transitioning would resolve her misery. At seventeen she came out as a trans man; pronouns became fiercely important. Immediately after high school, at eighteen, she obtained testosterone through informed consent at a Chicago clinic in a single brief appointment costing sixty dollars. She says the decision felt inevitable given the era, her mental state, and the absence of visible detransitioners in 2015. After a couple of years on hormones, she had top surgery in 2018 at age twenty, reasoning that as a man she did not need breasts, though she later recalled being indifferent or pleased during puberty. She admits she enjoyed the fantasy and the control it gave her. The excitement faded after she legally changed her name. She felt isolated, aimless, and incomplete, sensing she would never feel whole again. She realised she did not want to be a trans man anymore; she wanted a husband, a family, and a normal life. She grew exhausted by the political controversy surrounding her existence and by feeling like a permanent hybrid whose maleness was always up for debate. In May 2020, she skipped her weekly testosterone injection and decided to detransition. She was terrified of living as a woman with a deepened voice and mastectomy scars, but felt profound relief in letting go of gender identity entirely and simply being what she is. She soon met her husband, married, and quickly had two children. She grieves her inability to breastfeed, which she finds emotionally painful especially in her daughter’s early infancy, though she focuses on the fact that formula nourishes her well. Strongin also recounts a parallel spiritual journey. After abandoning her childhood Protestant faith, she returned to Christianity during her transition but felt locked out because she was trans. Detransitioning removed that barrier, and she began praying and reading Scripture with an open heart, eventually feeling overwhelming peace. After exploring an Episcopal church, she and her husband were drawn to Catholicism by its claim of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, its systematic theology, and its rootedness in tradition. She says she fell in love with the faith, and she, her husband, and her son were baptised, confirmed, and received First Communion together at the previous Easter Vigil.