Why De-Transition

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• Transgender
• Transition
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• Death
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• Drone
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• De-Transition

  11 minute read  

Why I have decide to de-transition.

I have been aware of my gender dysphoria¹ since the age of 6. Actually I can only remember my life back to the age of 6, so who knows, possibly longer. Early childhood was awkward mentally for me because of this and since as male child I had more breast development than most boys, so life after puberty was awkward physically as well. Because of my dysphoria, I was suicidal and was almost successful once in highschool but discovery by a sibling put an end to that. In hind site I just wasn’t committed enough to killing myself.

Right after high school I met my soul mate
That helped me to fight the feelings inside me that I was in the wrong body. But after 25 years of marriage I began struggling again with my dysphoria. After 27 years of marriage my wife passed at the early age of 47 and I transitioned soon after with no reason to fight that option any longer.

In 2011 I began transitioning from:
The guy Opekktar Yggdrasil
To the girl Opekktar Yggdrasil

She was not happy about my dysphoria but being my best friend, soulmate, and the caring adult in the room of our relationship, supported me as best she could while voicing her dissent on the matter.

By 2012 I was living and working full time as Opekktar Yggdrasil(f). The company I worked for was very supportive and the team I managed appeared to be very supportive as well, though the power dynamic may have influenced their action even if I always ask for honesty and openness of my team and attempted to be fair and open myself.

By 2014 our company was downsizing following the guidelines of an outside auditor and I was told I had to eliminate 1 position on each of my two teams and figure out how to maintain coverage. I had to keep managed data services department running 24/7/365 with a crew of 7 and now my new challenge was to keep the same level of coverage and still meet our SLA with only 6. I modified the schedule and tweak the coverage and made it work. I went into the regional directors office, showed him how to make it work. I then had the privilege of calling in the chosen personnel I was to terminate, explain they had been terminated and escort them out of the building. When I was done I return to the director’s office where he ask me to shut the door and have a seat. He thanked me for my dedication and hard work and thanked me for stepping up to resize the teams and figure out the schedule and then told me I was being terminated and I was then escorted out of the building. (Even as I was being handed my hat I was being told what a great and valuable employee I was; O’ the irony of working in America, or I suspect any capitalistic society).

I will always remember that day; it was my birthday October 17, 2014. It was not a happy birthday. I was not really worried though. I was in high demand (so I mistakenly thought) Even though I was a manager I worked my way up from being a systems administrator, a disaster recovery specialist, then a network engineer, then a DBA, project manger and finally that job as a data center manager for manged data services. My sense of success, self importance, superiority and intelligence was going to be my biggest downfall. Up until this point nothing in the first 1/2 century of my life gave me any more challenge than bump in the road.

I decide I would change course and start a drone photography business and grow it into an aerial surveying business as a growth plan. Talk about getting you teeth kicked in. The endeavour was one of my most challenging but I still felt in control of everything in my life. In the past, I had successfully started and ran for a while; a hosting company of my own and a communications company of my own. Being an FAA rated pilot helped to to ensure FAA approval early on when drones began taking off and I was actually the first in the state of Arizona to obtain FAA approval for closed picture cinematography with a drone which is required by the MPA². The only problem was that I was doing this full time and burning through startup funds all from my own savings really fast.

As I began to run out of savings. I decided to get back into the IT industry to replenish some of my money. But after being out of the IT industry for a year and as most employers seem to look at self employment no differently than unemployment, it began to sink in that I may have screwed myself this time. When the first 50 years of ones life seem easy. A single hard year from hell hits one really hard.

I could not even get any call backs on submitted applications and so I opened myself up to the possibility that I would have to take what I could get to survive. Help desk, car sales, drone consultant, communications consultant. Any and every way I could think of to survive. But it was not working. While working 12 hours a day 7 days a week trying to sale cars. I lost my home, my rental home that is. (I lost my real home that I owned years earlier because my wife and I got swept up in the excitement of the housing bubble took a gamble and lost). It dawned on me, a bit too late, that hanging out at a car dealership fighting for the scraps the senior sales staff tossed aside was not going to help keep a roof over my head.

I hit rock bottom, found a home for all my pets, sold all my belongings and burned though every penny to pay bills and buy food. Sleeping on the floor of the house I rented the last remaining night of my tenancy, I got a call from my nail tech saying she had a mutual client she told about me and she wanted to help me out and keep me off the streets. The next day I moved into the good samaritan’s home rent free with food and shelter for me and my dogs with the promise to pay her back when I finally found employment.

I finally got a job offer as a receptionist at a medical spa. Certainly not the glamor of the jobs in the past automating, designing, managing, teams, systems and facilities state wide, but I could now pay rent and look for work without the worry of living on the streets.

At the time of writing this post It’s been 8 years now. For the first 4 years I continued to apply to positions in the IT industry at every level. The last 4 years I have not even tried any more I will be 59 soon and I’m still working as a receptionist living paycheck to paycheck, no car, no insurance, no savings and still I have not transitioned any further from M to F than I did from 2011 to 2012.

I started this blog post out about why I decided to de-transition and I bet you thought I would never get there. But this is all to explain that my decision is not based on my dysphoria not being real or my idea to transition being in error. But my decisions in between have been in error. Where I work as a receptionist a good percentage of our clients are transgender some are transitioning like me male to female and some transitioning female to male. Seeing the success of others can either give one hope and motivation or over time bring one depression while sucking all hope away. I’m afraid I fit the latter for some very personal and specific reasons. Many in the transgender community speak of their male names and male lives as the dead them. They are always saying things like the dead me or my dead name. That is not me. I believe gender dysphoria like all things in life lay on a scale. If that scale were 0 to 100; 0 being cisgender and 100 being someone who would commit suicide rather than live as their true gender identity, I would guess I am somewhere around 45. I still feel I’m in the wrong body, but knowing I will never have the money to have the surgeries or treatments needed to transition, I would rather de-transition back to M and just not bother trying to pass in public and on the job anymore. The more I see people successfully transition the more I feel anger at the community, society and everything around me and I really don’t want that feeling anymore, not that I ever did want such feelings.

There has to be a time when one says enough is enough. I have always viewed giving up as a failure, but I have also viewed my life and transition the last 8 years as a failure as well. That is very unhealthy for me physically and mentally. I feel those in the community will view me as a traitor or the very least a quitter and of they are correct on the quitter part. Those religious haters will view this as a tool on how transitioning does not work. I can not de-transition at work because we cater to the community and I do not want to do anything to cause doubt or harm to those just starting out on their journeys and unsure of themselves. So I will have to find a way, a method of staying housed and fed that does not affect those vulnerable in the community.

I do not have the money for the legal fees and documentation to change my name and gender back yet, but I am tired of being half way between where I was and where I want to be. If I can not continue on the path I chose, I now choose to return to the fork I caused in my life and take the other path. Family supporters have expressed concern about my suicidal tendency but I really do not feel that is an issue anymore. I have become so disgusted with what I have done with my life in an attempt to transition and fail. I wish nothing more than to walk away from it all and never ever look back. I can honestly say today if you gave me a million dollars I would not put a single penny of that towards transitioning. I would however do everything in my power to forget this part of my life and distance myself as much as possible to anything resembling the transgender community, not because the community is bad, but because my failure in it is too painful. I still feel the only way to live happily as a transgender person is to transition and live life as your true self, except for me. The only way I can live a happy life is to get as far away from everything about my current life as possible. Not because of being transgender, but because of the pain of massive failure and the feeling of stupidity that goes with it. Being transgender and living as my true self is just part of that bigger picture at failing.

    It is odd that I did not feel that way about my life before transitioning. But I am certain it is not the transition causing the unhappiness but the experience of life after transitioning. The best way I think of describing it as taking your favorite activity and enjoying it for a while. Then for 8 years have someone beat the living shit out of you when ever you partake in that activity. I am certain that after 8 years you will not want anything to do with it, no matter how important or positive an effect it could have on life or happiness. That is how I am with transitioning. Even if you stop beating the shit out of me, I just no longer want the memories of it all.

I would also like to add that trans people are the toughest, most disciplined, hard working and dedicated people I have ever met in my life. (With the exception of myself of course). Working through an amount of hardship, pain and rejection most will never know. (Including myself). I had it easy, still do compared to most and I’m truly humbled by everyone I know who survives and thrives in today’s environment of hate and bigotry. As I step away from the community for my own mental health and recovery from our hateful society I wish all my brothers and sisters and everyone in between love and success.

    From the trans allie soon to be back in the closet. Is that is even a thing really after having transitioned and being out for a decade plus? Keep up the fight on the front lines!! I’m taking the desk job.

Transitioning was a challenge with resources and support. I am certain de-transitioning will be just as challenging with no resources or support.

Let us find out,

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