How I Healed From Gender Dysphoria

You’re so amazing! Out of all the detransitoners I’ve seen, you’re the only one focusing in on the butch perspective. In my world, so many butches have transitioned. They need voices like yours. I love the way you helped yourself recover through art. It would be cool if you could help facilitate some type of art therapy for detrans people. Also, surrounding yourself with female music, etc is a great idea. I think all women should lean into female influences. It’s very grounding. Thanks for being you and for making me feel sane. Btw, I’m seeing Tori Amos on Friday!

My god, (or goddess!) - I’m so glad I found you. My best friend in college was a butch lesbian who transitioned in the past few years, and it always felt so homophobic to say yes, she’s a man, she’s really just been a man all along; and I was so afraid about her health and that she would think she’s too far gone and that she would feel so alone. But here you are! You’re a little older than we are and you’re off T and you’re happier and you’re finding community. I can’t tell you how much hope it gives me. Thank you so much for sharing your story, I hope I can show her your videos someday.

You have a gentle kind beautiful voice

Thank you soo much for making these videos. This stuff is so important to talk about. As a mid-20s butch lesbian with sex dysphoria & trauma, your videos mean more to me than I can express. ❤❤❤

Your YouTube channel is much needed. I’m a lesbian woman turning 29 & I have realised I have some sort of internalised homophobia (Which I need to work on, overcome). I’m also masculine presenting but very much in touch with my feminine side. It’s nice to see You a proud butch woman. Thank you for educating me with this channel sending love from the UK 🇬🇧

Seeing your humor and bravery helps me being the butch that I am. Thanks so much for gifting us with your perspective.

Listening to your story is very healing. From a woman to another one I think you're beautiful ❤️. Thanks for sharing, Carol🙏🏻

Beautiful words! I’m just a straight woman that happens to find you by chance. Loved this video it even talked to me. There is not a right way to be a woman…just celebrating womanhood in your own way!

I appreciate you being so straightforward and reasonable. Thank you.

"Sorry for rejecting my natural existence." That's deep, Carol; I 💗 it.

Thank you for sharing your story, Carol. The tips and tricks you shared are so practical. It brought tears to my eyes as a cis-woman (never had any thoughts or actions about being trans) but what you described around acceptance and appreciation of the female body, its weirdness and absurdity, the way it jiggles, the way it changes over time was so powerful, and is something that all born females definitely go through.

You talk about painful things, but your message is so beautiful it brought tears to my eys.

30:50 “You cannot purchase your true self.” So powerful

As someone who's very NOT artistically inclined, the idea of clay molding the vulva is real neat! These look so awesome!

Carol, I've been watching your videos and they are so insightful. I really liked your comments on healing rituals and making art. Have you thought about leading workshops for detransitioned women? I think it would be really beneficial for them. Workshops about loving your female body used to be common in feminist circles, and I think they need to make a comeback.

Thank you for talking about this topic and your experience, I think it’s extremely valuable nowadays. I’m not butch, I’ve always been somewhat of a ‘girly girl’ but ever since I’d discovered my homosexuality, I’ve been struggling with feelings of shame regarding my female body (it was an emotional horror for me watching it change and grow… now I am grateful that it’s grown healthy and right!) and how the society views me as a woman. At that time, the start of middle school, I gave up most of the ‘girly’ things that I liked: I cut my hair ‘boy style’, I wore masculine clothes etc out of shame. Unfortunately my ‘otherness’ drove my peers crazy, they loved to bully me, so when I started high school I grew out my hair, wore what the popular girls wore, and behaved in a way I hoped to get other people to accept me. At that time I kind of forgot about the whole problem with my body but I was still very ashamed of being homosexual (you see, even using the word ‘lesbian’ is still uncomfortable for me, as it was treated as an insult when I was a kid..). The dysphoria got unbearable when the pandemic hit and I stumbled upon the whole gender thing on the internet. Because I believed there was a way out of the problem other than acceptance of my whole self, I became miserable and struggled with an eating disorder. Weirdly, the most impactful thing that gave me hope and strength to choose the path of acceptance was seeing Tomoko Kawase’s (she is a Japanese singer) performances under her ‘tommy February’ project. The key point of these performances was her femininity and I found it absolutely beautiful. Now I still have struggles, especially with my physicality, but it’s gotten to the point where I am finally comfortable. Another thing I would like to recommend for anyone struggling with similar stuff is reading about the philosophy of taoism, it talks a great deal about acceptance and the wholeness of being a human. To anyone reading, have a nice day! :))

Your words bring me to tears. Tysm

It's interesting you talk about ritual and how as someone who saw themselves as logical, you saw them as silly. I think I felt the same too until I understood how everything we do can be seen as rituals with symbolic meaning, and to someone they may be hard doing or something they don't want to do. Like how depressed people have a hard time performing basic hygeine tasks. Humans are social animals are rituals are part of how we connect to each other; therapy itself is a kind of modern day ritual for healing. Still is evidence-based, but a kind of ritual nonetheless. I don't have gender dysphoria around my period, but used to find it distressing because I have pretty disruptive PMS symptoms, but now have reframed it as a time for reflection and change to help myself accept it.

I appreciate you so much, Carol ❤ Thanks for opening up about this.

This was beyond helpful ❤️🙏🏻 Can't wait to check out the rest of your content. Thank you