From Transition to Detransition: Abel Garcia’s Final Message
I was never going to be a real woman—just cosplaying a caricature. Transition leads to harm. Be like water, find your foundation, and build a healthy life.
Overview
Abel Garcia recounts encountering transgender ideology in middle school but only transitioning at 19 after a therapist immediately approved him and his father subjected him to a traumatic experience in Mexico. He received breast implants within a year but was blacklisted by the transgender community for working with police, which helped him realize he could never become a real woman. After detransitioning around 2020 and removing his implants, he spoke publicly and worked on legislation banning child transition before deciding to step away from activism to marry, pursue education, and start a family.
Full Video Summary
Abel Garcia first encountered the idea of being transgender in middle school but did not act on it because the concept lacked the widespread support and publicity it would later receive. After graduating high school and beginning college, he decided to explore transition further. At age 18 or 19, he saw a therapist in California who approved him to transition during their first appointment and explicitly stated she did not want to gatekeep him. However, Garcia did not immediately begin transitioning. He told his mother he was considering it, and when his father learned of it, he took Garcia to Mexico under false pretenses and had him sleep with a prostitute to confirm he was a man. Garcia identifies this traumatic event as the catalyst that pushed him fully toward transition, as he no longer wished to be male. In March 2016, at age 19, Garcia began his physical and social transition. Medical providers prescribed estradiol and later spironolactone to suppress his testosterone. Within eleven months, in November 2017, he received letters of recommendation for breast implants, top surgery, and bottom surgery, despite having told his therapist he only wanted to explore those possibilities later. He underwent breast augmentation but declined vaginoplasty because he had made a personal agreement with God to wait ten years for that procedure. While transitioning, Garcia attended the police academy and worked as a civilian liaison between the transgender community and law enforcement in California. When the transgender community learned of his police work, they blacklisted him and dragged his name through the mud. Combined with a seed of doubt planted by his earlier spiritual reflection, this rejection led him to gradually realize that no amount of surgery would make him a real woman; he felt he was merely cosplaying as a woman. He stopped medical transition in 2019 and socially detransitioned around 2020. He had his breast implants removed in December 2020, with the procedure eventually approved under the diagnosis of gynecomastia after California initially denied the claim. The process was awkward at first, as he had not lived as a man for several years. Garcia began speaking publicly about detransition in early 2020, hoping to be a voice for young men, as he had primarily seen young women detransitioners represented. He later moved to Texas in 2022 and became involved in activism, working on legislation such as Texas Senate Bill 14, which banned child medical transition, and assisting with a legal case in Missouri or Mississippi. Now preparing to marry, return to school, and start a family, Garcia is stepping away from public activism. He reports lasting physical impacts from transition, including genital atrophy and deteriorating eyesight, as well as a history of uncontrollable shaking. He advises detransitioners to be patient, find a good foundation, and surround themselves with supportive people. To those considering transition, he urges them to wake up to reality, warning that the path leads to physical, emotional, and mental harm, and that youth should not be medically castrated.