After ‘gender affirming’ surgery and cross sex hormones forever changed the shape of her body and the sound of her voice – Mel Jefferies fears she will never be the woman she once was. But she’s not done trying.
The Melbourne woman spent over a decade as ‘Mason’ after she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in her late teens, accessing testosterone to deepen her voice, grow facial hair and form muscles, and undergoing a double mastectomy at 25.
For a time it felt right – but often it didn’t – and for the past three years she’s been ‘detransitioning’ which, she says, is proving harder than her initial transition.
Now 33, she’s one of the detransitioners who added their name to an open letter this week calling for a national independent inquiry into gender-affirming care for children.
In Perth, Courtney Coulson is also detransitioning. She said she’s one of the “lucky ones” – she has no regret over taking hormone therapy but she’s happy she decided five years ago not to continue her transition nor undertake surgery.
She described the government’s medical inquiry as “too little, too late”. “It was entirely unethical to approve any treatment without sufficient evidence for its efficacy and safety,” she said. “It’s only now after countless children have had their lives needlessly ruined by harmful treatment that a medical inquiry is being launched.”
Sydney psychologist Professor Dianna Kenny was one of the more than 100 Australians who signed this week’s letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
Professor Kenny believes there are three groups of young people presenting with gender dysphoria and wishing to transition – those with unresolved trauma; those with learning difficulties or social deficits; and those searching for peer connectedness or struggling with sexual orientation. None of these were best served by medical or surgical transition, she said.
Source: ‘I spent a decade going down the wrong path’: Mel’s regret after transition