Here is the English version, for my English-speaking friends. My life certainly not been uneventful, but I keep on moving forward through everything that has happened and that will happen still.

Some people may think that I’m moving backwards – but for me it’s simply moving forward on my path. I don’t like the word „detransition“: it is too loaded and is often used or abused by certain circles for their own purposes, and as I said, I’m not going back, but forward. I don’t regret anything either.

Detransition is the process of giving up identification with a different gender (than the gender that was determined at birth, usually by a doctor) and completely or partially reversing the gender transition in social, legal or physical terms. However, I don’t feel like I’m undoing anything that I did in terms of transitioning or going backwards – even though it may seem like it from the outside. 

I simply continue on my path.

A look back into my past: I grew up as a girl, lived as a woman and then have been receiving testosterone injections for 2.5 years, as well as a mastectomy to make my body more like that of a man and live as a trans man. For me, this was an absolute necessity of life – something I had to do to survive. 

I just wasn’t able to relate in any way to my femininity – even though I’m starting to embrace it now.

The little, sometimes a bit dreamy, always living between books and drawing pads (I learned to read with my grandma when I was 4-5 years old, I grew up with my grandparents in Germany) tomboy that I was, was abused by a family friend when I was 4 years old for the first time. This was followed by a rape at 14 and another at 19; the last one was in June 2022, complete with bruised ribs, pain for months, and bleeding. In addition, there were other types of abuse from various people who were more or less close to the family during my teenage years.

I always wanted to do boy’s things (my grandpa built model airplanes, I wanted that too; or a model train; and I really wanted a chemistry set) – but that wasn’t possible: I was a girl. At the same time I heard that I was “nothing but a girl”, they would have preferred a boy. And then I was called “Mannweib” (it’s a difficult to translate derogatory term for a woman that is too mannish either because of her behaviour, looks, or bother to be a ‘real’ woman) again because I somehow didn’t meet the standards for girls – I didn’t come across as delicately feminine either in behavior or in body.

I later moved in with my mother, who now lived in a strictly conservative Christian community: after many years of alcohol and drug addiction, she converted to Christianity and became drug-free through her faith. At that time, I was 13-14 years old. When I dared to talk about the abuse and rape, my mother took me to the police – and they asked me (at the age of 13!) whether I had wanted it and what clothes I was wearing. Back in the Christian community, I was then burdened with shame and guilt for what had happened to me – as the daughter of Eve, as a woman you are the „eternal seductress“. The joys of purity culture. I then started asking myself questions about my sexual orientation. I didn’t know what it was about the other girls and me. Was I attracted to them? Was it just admiration, or was I a lesbian? Or was it just that I just felt so different from them? Was it something else? Or did I just want to be like them, but had my previous experiences irretrievably robbed me of everything? 

At some point I ended up using the label ‚lesbian‘ because I didn’t know what else to do with all these contradictory feelings and questions. And just talking to someone wasn’t possible either.

In any case, I was fascinated by other girls and women, by their beauty – and yet I felt different. Not nice. And I had been told from a young age that I was too fat, I had also been told the N-word and other insults as well as beatings. When I turned to a Christian community counselor with my questions, the answer was conversion therapy and exorcism prayers – things that were repeated later in my life. 

It didn’t help, except that after that I rejected myself even more. There had to be something wrong with me.

I had a boyfriend in between – probably more out of rebellion – but he turned out to be a loverboy (‘Loverboys’ or ‘romeo pimps’ are human traffickers who usually operate by trying to make young girls or boys fall in love with them. Sometimes they manipulate young people in other ways. Once they have victims under their influence they exploit them, for instance in the sex industry). Luckily my mother got me out of there just in time before something happened – I still remember her standing in front of the door with the police officers banging loudly on the door. I was 16.

Nevertheless, despite some good moments, I often found life in the Christian fundamentalist community to be a confining prison with an overload of guilt cults and other problematic things. I was there for 7 years. The marriage I then entered into was my ticket out of there and brought me to Switzerland.

I had some kind of butterflies in my stomach and loved this person as a human being, but was I mature enough for marriage? Difficult question. In any case, it lasted for 20 years.

This marriage was my ticket out, and at the same time my ticket into other trouble. Of course there were good moments, but also very dark ones – and so I moved from bright moment to the next bright moment, thinking after each dark moment that it certainly was the last – I just had to change enough, do better; otherwise I deserved what happened to me: because nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, and certainly I make the most mistakes. 

But instead of getting “better,” I became more and more like what the person I was married to accused me of: for decades I heard and felt that I didn’t live up to what their ideal woman should be: first they said that being a “mixed breed wasn’t really desirable at all, but then it was nice and exotic”, that I should cut off my hair because it was annoying and that one could tell where I came from (and with some people one can tell that they are descended from monkeys). ), that I’m fat, ugly and useless, and whether I ever think about anything? Often shouted at, and they sometimes raised a hand – but without hitting. Fear was an often present companion. I remember I always wore black clothes back then. Only black, I liked that – exactly like today. But my spouse didn’t like it – so I threw everything, everything away and got things in colors. We then sat on the sofa and watched TV. The protagonist of the series always wore black. Then I heard: “You could dress like that too”… 

I gave up singing, dancing, pen pals, everything that didn’t fit their ideals of what was good and useful (at the same time, an inner resistance developed in me) – my family back home in Germany told me several times that I was in in thrall to them, obeying to each thing, like a little dog to their master. At the time I didn’t want to hear that, it made me angry – today I have to agree with that.

Surely the person I was married to also had their demons, difficulties and sufferings, which unfortunately we never talked about in all these years. Maybe things would have been different then. I am not and was not perfect and have made mistakes. But the words, feelings, gestures burned themselves in: as a woman I seemed to be a complete failure – and on top of that, the feeling that I never really fit in anyway, or fit into the mold – or the role models that had been given to me so far.

Through the abuse that started in my childhood, the rapes, the racist insults of all kinds over the years, beatings, a narrow escape from being taken hostage in a holdup at a bank (Commerzbank) on a Friday afternoon (I still get nervous every time I enter a bank since then; when I’m in a room, I have to sit where I can see the exit, or right at the exit), cheating in my marriage, being hit on by random men, and all the words and other things that have happened in my marriage I lost my self-esteem, could no longer set any or hardly any boundaries, and doubted myself. I have often thought that it would be better if I didn’t exist and never had existed. Being a woman was somehow connected with being at the mercy, being weak, being oppressed, being cheated on and not being protected by anyone. The strong ones are men. And from everything I’ve heard, am I even a real woman? And the thoughts that I had when I was a teenager, how do they fit in?

Towards the end of our marriage, my spouse discovered that “he” was actually a she, a trans woman, and began her transition. When I saw her blossoming, I thought that everything would be fine: I was happy for her. And at the same time I fell into a deep crisis: I saw her in front of the mirror for hours, with make-up on, in women’s clothes and a wig, admiring herself and being in love with herself, or, the reflection of herself in the mirror. On one hand, I could understand it: when you finally find yourself and see yourself for the first time, like yourself, feel good, and are happy, you want this feeling to never end; It’s something indescribable – being trans involves gender dysphoria, but also gender euphoria, which is talked about much less. The happiness, the euphoria that you feel when you are finally yourself or are one step closer to being yourself.

In these moments the questions arose for me as to who or what I actually am? If what she is represents the „real woman“ (super feminine, making full use of all the stereotypes – just like I had heard more or less all my life that I wasn’t a real woman because I didn’t fit that), what am I then? Probably not a woman. What then? Something in between? Masculine? A man? What? At the same time, I had to hide my body because I had the female body that she didn’t have (yet). Everything was slowly falling apart. But it wasn’t because of the transition – looking back, this marriage was never built on a good foundation, and it’s good that it finally came to an end, even if it was painful. During this time, I often felt left alone – as a spouse, there was no one with whom I could talk about my feelings.

There are many more things that happened in my life, but I don’t need to talk about them here. They influenced me in one direction or another. It’s not about assigning blame, it just happened. The conversion therapies I had to undergo and have undergone – several, as a teenager, but also as an adult over 30 – have also done a lot of damage. It is time that such therapies were banned once and for all!

For various reasons I experienced burnout and went to a clinic for 3 months. Beforehand, I got a binder at the Trans Congress. I saw it and felt the need for it. I couldn’t do anything with my femininity anymore, and I no longer felt comfortable in my body – less and less for a long time, and at that time, not at all anymore. 

I kept putting it on in the clinic and it felt good. Really, really good. It felt like a tight hug (of which there have hardly been any in 20 years…), like a protective armour; I felt good, strong, protected, confident. This is how I wanted to live – this way and no other. I wanted to be strong, self-confident, and not dependent and at the mercy of anyone! And in my eyes that wasn’t female, but male.

Back home from the clinic, back in my somewhat feminine role, felt like a complete disaster. That was the confirmation for me. I wasn’t cut out to be a woman. My current spouse told me that she was in love with someone else, that she had never really been in love with me, that I was just “available” back then – our marriage was officially over, but unofficially it had probably been that way for a long time, even if I only now admitted it to myself. I then tried again as a woman, really feminine – but it didn’t work anymore. I spoke to my psychiatrist and began my transition with testosterone, and later a mastectomy.

The feeling of relief was immense, as was the feeling of happiness. Finally arrived, finally at home in my body, finally left all the crap behind me! A new life could begin – I felt good and confident. Live again. Breathe a sigh of relief. It was clear to me that to transition is not what solves problems, but rather that you have to work on problems. But I really felt better.

It was a step that was necessary for ME to survive at the time. I don’t know what condition I would have been in or whether I would have made it otherwise. Just going shopping seemed like a torture before – at my local LIDL there was always the same “Surprise” salesman who had suggested to me more than once that I go “to him” for a little “happy hour”. After my experience, I simply couldn’t stand things like that anymore, and with the transition they were no longer there. Breathe. Confident. Feel comfortable in your own body. Finally! Peace of mind, in that regard. Finally.

With inner peace came reflection. Empathize. Feel it. And being able to learn from a few people (without them trying to lecture me). Interestingly, through drag I saw, felt and learned that there is also strength in femininity. Through Native American, Jewish and Iranian women I learned about different femininities, gender roles and strength than what I had previously experienced and seen. This started a thought process for me about a year ago, but since my transition was underway, I thought, I can’t change anything, question it, even cancel it, or do anything else now. And who to talk to about it? I somehow had the feeling that such questions were not necessarily welcome – especially because anything remotely related to detransition is used by certain groups of people to de-legitimize trans people.

And then came October 7th with its events, the horrific massacre by Hamas of the population of Israel and especially of women. This brought back all the traumas for me – from my own experiences during the second intifada to the rapes. And since the box was opened, other trauma came back –  also that of my marriage, the insults, the never-being-enough, the eating disorders – even if these of course have nothing to do with Israel. I have now started to address these traumas together with my psychiatrist. It’s a lot of work, but it’s good and the right thing to do. It’s also time to banish some beliefs from my life. 

I needed the transition to survive and at the same time I realized that I am now ready to move towards the feminine. I don’t like the word „return“ and it doesn’t really fit, in the sense that I was never really there because I was persuaded, or I let myself be persuaded, that I was never really right or good the way I was. But what is the “right” way to be female, or a woman, or even a human being? Isn’t it humanity? 

To be and remain human and not to adhere to entrenched norms – long hair and pink, short hair and blue? For those to whom it suits, that’s wonderful – for those to whom it doesn’t, it’s not a bad thing, because there is also half-length hair and many other colors. If there’s one thing I wish for, it would be that I didn’t have to experience all those bad things, even though they contributed to me being the person I am today. If anything, my only regret is that I cut my hair short again in October even though it was already quite long, and that I didn’t have the courage to tell my endocrinologist in early January that I didn’t want any more testosterone and then had another 3-month injection. Old habits die hard (“You never see anything through to the end!” “You’re no good!” – Then I’ll just see it through, no matter what!).

Transitions are not linear. So easy from point A to point B. 

Just as our life stories are often not linear, but rather confused – and yet a rich, fragrant rose garden can develop from them. It is important to take your time, not to rush things, to be well accompanied and to listen carefully to yourself, including any doubts you may have. They are also part of the symphony of life and want to tell us something or draw our attention to something so that we can continue to grow in the direction that is right for us, whatever that may be. I may not be completely in the norm, but does that matter? My female intersex me is a little wink from G-d or nature, depending on whether you are religious or not.

Who am I? Just Ari Yasmin.

And I still believe that life is a wonderful, precious gift, unique and beautiful – and it is worth living it, fully and completely. To see the small miracles of life where they are and to be grateful for them, for every moment of beauty that we encounter every day despite everything that may happen in this world.

Just take a deep breath. Look ahead, move forward.
Grateful.