Detransition, Marriage, Psychedelics and Spirituality
Therapists warned Laurel he’d kill himself if he didn’t transition. Surgery left him with a closed, useless neovagina and lifelong hormone damage. Years later a mushroom trip exposed the lie—he was never a woman, just a wounded boy. #Detransition
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Laurel Herbert, raised in a Mormon home where male anatomy was vilified, believed from age five he was "a girl inside" and later transitioned medically after therapists warned of suicide risk. After vaginoplasty left him with a non-functional neovagina and years of depression, a 2023 psilocybin journey revealed his female identity was a trauma-formed program; he detransitioned, now relies on painful testosterone pellets, and both partners grieve the permanent damage while rebuilding their marriage.
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Laurel Herbert, raised in the Mormon church by a mother who openly denigrated men and male anatomy, traces his early conviction that he was “a girl inside” to childhood shame and trauma. By age five he was already covering his penis in the bath, believing it did not belong on his body. Years later, after marrying Valerie—who was drawn to his gentle, “feminine” qualities—Laurel disclosed that he believed himself to be a trans woman. The couple, newlyweds and newly blended around Valerie’s young daughter, were quickly ushered toward medical transition by therapists who invoked suicide risk and by a culture that framed transition as the compassionate choice. Laurel obtained two letters of support (both evaluators themselves identifying as trans or non-binary) and underwent vaginoplasty at Denver Health in 2016. The surgery left him with a non-functional neovagina: dilation was excruciating, the opening ultimately closed, and Laurel sank into post-operative depression. For six years Laurel lived as a woman, supported by estrogen and by Valerie, who suppressed her own grief and bodily intuition out of fear of being labeled unsupportive. Valerie developed autoimmune illness and describes chronic nervous-system dysregulation while trying to “hold space” for Laurel’s transition. Their daughter, entering elementary school just as Laurel transitioned, adapted to having “two moms” but is now, at twelve, witnessing the reversal and re-learning the story. In October 2023, during a psilocybin journey intended to ease marital intimacy struggles, Laurel experienced a sudden, undeniable insight that his female identity had been a trauma-formed “program,” not an innate truth. A preceding dream and Internal Family Systems training converged in the session: Laurel recognized he had “to detransition,” stopped estrogen, and told Valerie, “I have to go back to living as a man.” Since detransitioning, Laurel must use bioidentical testosterone pellets (his body now rejects them, creating painful subcutaneous wounds) and grieves the permanent loss of native hormone production. Both partners have processed intense shame, anger, and grief through somatic practices, psychedelic integration, and a men’s-grief rite-of-passage retreat that Laurel attended. They describe their marriage as now “unshakable,” rooted in shared trauma work and a commitment to personal sovereignty. Their community—largely outside the “queer-trans cult,” as Valerie puts it—has largely embraced them, although some feminist and activist circles have distanced themselves. Even the non-binary therapist who signed Laurel’s original surgery letter remains a close family friend, illustrating, they say, the nuance possible when relationships are prioritized over ideology.