- Devon Price was born female, but started using testosterone in 2018
- In 2020, he ‘tried to be a woman again’ but it made him ‘miserable’
- READ MORE: Woman, 20, sues AAP over claims she rushed trans drugs
A trans man who has changed his gender three times through surgery and medication wants people to stop seeing ‘transitioning’ as taboo.
Devon Price, 35, was born female but struggled to identify with either gender. He was curious about testosterone and started taking the hormone in May 2018 to become more masculine.
But his mental health hit an “emotional low” during the Covid pandemic in 2020, when he tried to “become a woman again” by ditching hormone medicine and shaving his body, wearing lots of make-up and floral, form-fitting dresses.
But it made him “miserable,” so less than a year later he switched again – this time taking an even larger dose of testosterone than the first time.
He went a step further this time and opted for top surgery where the breasts were removed to create a more masculine looking chest. Devon now lives as a man.
Devon Price, 35, was born female but struggled to identify with either gender. Curious about testosterone, he started taking the hormone in May 2018, switching in 2020 but not switching again until a year later.
But Devon wrote in a blog post about his journey, “I can only imagine how different my transition would have been if detransition, doubt, and gender experimentation were treated as completely neutral, even unavoidable things.”
“It’s just better for everyone involved if we don’t treat detransition as if it’s some scary taboo, that it’s just a person experimenting and exploring their body autonomy,” he shared. USA today.
Mr Price said: ‘You as a trans person almost always – I think most of us – struggle with the fear of ‘am I going to regret this?’
He accused the anti-trans movement of oversimplifying the issue and assuming that detransitioners “have woken up every day and decided they’re not really transgender.”
The exact detransition rate is unknown, although there are a growing number of lawsuits by detransitioners against their medical providers, leading some to speculate that a class action lawsuit may be pending.
Some studies show that as many as 94 percent feel satisfied after transition – but they rarely follow patients for a long period of time.
Mr Price said: ‘There is enormous pressure on many of us to present our story to the public as neatly as possible; That as children we always knew that the menopause immediately made us feel better about ourselves, that life was just dramatically better afterwards.’
Many have questioned whether there are enough barriers, such as mental health assessments before surgeries, especially when children are involved.
Transition can be social, through changing pronouns and clothing, and medical, through hormones and surgery to align with their gender identity. Mr. Price has done both.
He first came out as non-binary (meaning they didn’t identify with either gender) in 2016, after struggling with an eating disorder during puberty and experimenting with how to handle his new curves .
“It gave me a hollow, static feeling that I didn’t know as gender dysphoria,” he wrote in a blog post last June.
In 2018, he started taking a low dose of testosterone, which gave him a deeper voice and stronger muscles.
Testosterone is a male hormone that stops the menstrual cycle and reduces the ovaries’ ability to produce estrogen, meaning it can affect fertility and sexual function.
But it can cause vaginal atrophy and symptoms similar to those after menopause, including dryness, irritation and bleeding.
He stopped taking hormones in late summer 2020, but resumed them less than a year later.
Despite the fact that Mr Price had already undergone a transition, he was again prescribed testosterone in a higher dose in 2021.