Detransitioner: ‘I thought living as a man would help me escape my problems’

An Australian woman who underwent a double mastectomy to appear male has shared how it failed to solve her “unhappiness”.

Speaking to Channel 7’s Spotlight programme ‘Detransitioning’, Mel Jeffries explained how she attempted to live as a man called ‘Mason’ from the age of 18 and had her breasts removed at 26 years of age.

Now she has re-embraced her birth sex, Mel stated: “I’m never going to be over it. They’re wounds, they’re not even scars. It’s like, I’m still bleeding.”

‘Magical thinking’

Mel reflected that when she was 16, she was “looking for a sense of belonging” and “everyone gives you so much love” in online communities if you live as if you are the opposite sex.

Being female is intrinsic to who I am.

“I was sexually assaulted and I feel like that was a big fuel for me wanting to transition and not be a woman anymore.”

“The magical thinking was like, I could be someone and I wouldn’t have to be me. I wouldn’t have to deal with everything that came along in my life.”

‘Thousands’

But instead of the double mastectomy solving Mel’s “unhappiness”, she realised after the surgery that the name ‘Mason’ was “so foreign and alien” to her.

She explained that “it’s not just that I’m a woman. It’s like my sex is intrinsic to my experiences. Being female is intrinsic to who I am.”

According to Spotlight, “thousands” of Australians regret their attempt to live as if they are the opposite sex.

Tripled

A study has found that the number of trans-affirming surgeries performed in the United States nearly tripled between 2016 and 2019.

‘National Estimates of Gender-Affirming Surgery in the US’, published in JAMA Network Open, analysed national data samples from 2016 to 2020 and found that the number of trans-affirming surgeries rose from 4,552 in 2016 to 13,011 in 2019.

Overall, over half of patients (52.3 per cent) were between 19 and 30 years old, while the most common surgery (56.6 per cent) related to the breast or chest.