Gay detransitioner slams NHS: "They should have never transed me" | Interview with Michael
They medicated me for five years. Now that I'm reversing, they don't want to know. The way that doctors are trained is littered within homophobia—it's transing the gay away.
Overview
Michael describes how untreated trauma from a sexual assault at eighteen led him through drug and alcohol abuse into an LGBTQ scene that reframed his feminine gay identity as transgender. After five years on NHS estrogen and blockers without counseling, he encountered detransitioners online, stopped treatment, and found the NHS had no pathway to help him. He now campaigns against gender clinics, arguing they medicalize vulnerable gay men and abandon those who regret transition.
Full Video Summary
Michael grew up in a loving home with no childhood trauma. He knew he was gay by age six and came out at fifteen. As a feminine, flamboyant teenager, he wore what he liked and faced some bullying but was generally supported. At eighteen, he was sexually assaulted, which sent him into alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, and couch surfing. He moved to Blackpool and fell into an LGBTQ social circle where older gay men and trans people reinterpreted his femininity as a sign he was transsexual. Adopting the name Caitlyn, he saw transition as a way to escape his trauma and start a new life. He obtained an NHS referral to the Sandyford gender clinic in Glasgow. During a two-year wait, he was bounced between mental health services and the clinic; no one offered trauma therapy, despite his substance use, eating disorder, and suicidal threats. In two appointments spanning less than six months in 2020, clinicians noted his feminine clothing and dislike of football as evidence of transsexualism and put him on testosterone blockers and estrogen without the recommended counseling. Over five years, he gained nearly half his body weight, suffered mood swings, joint pain, and heart palpitations, and was monitored only by blood levels, not wellbeing. He socially transitioned, used female toilets, and got engaged to a man who affirmed his identity, while cutting off his parents for refusing to do so. Doubts persisted throughout. After his relationship ended, he encountered detransitioners on TikTok and spoke with Richie, who urged him to consider whether he could live with regret. In late May, Michael called his sister, stopped his medication, and decided to detransition. At his June NHS appointment, staff admitted they had never handled a detransition before, joked that it was good he had not had bottom surgery, and could not tell him how long the blocker would remain in his system or how to restart testosterone. He had to demand hormones himself. Left with no care plan, he turned to a sympathetic GP who arranged therapy and mental health support. Now detransitioning, Michael says the NHS pathway is dangerous for gender-nonconforming gay men and amounts to "transing the gay away." He is left with gynecomastia requiring corrective surgery and is campaigning for detransitioners' voices to be heard, hoping to testify before the Scottish Parliament.