Clinicians at the university warned families that their children were suicidal “because they are born in the wrong bodies,” Lazzara’s mother, Lisa Lind, told Reuters. “I thought, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes, so she doesn’t kill herself.’”
Lazzara started taking testosterone in the fall of 2012, at age 16. She was still binding her breasts – so tightly, she said, that her ribs deformed. After a man groped her on the street, she decided to have breast-removal surgery, tapping the college fund her grandmother had left for her to cover the nearly $10,000 cost.
Initially, Lazzara was happy with her transition. She liked the changes from taking testosterone – the redistribution of fat away from her hips, the lower voice, the facial hair – and she was spared the sexist cat-calling that her female friends endured. “I felt like I was growing into something I wanted to be,” Lazzara said.
But her mental health continued to deteriorate. She attempted suicide twice more, at ages 17 and 20, landing in the hospital both times. Her depression worsened after a friend sexually abused her. She became dependent on prescription anti-anxiety medication and developed a severe eating disorder.
During the summer of 2020, Lazzara was spiraling. She realized she no longer believed in her gender identity, but “I didn’t see a way forward.”
That October, Lazzara was working as a janitor in an office building in the Seattle area when she caught her reflection in a bathroom mirror. For the first time, she said, she saw herself as a woman. “I had not allowed myself to have that thought before,” she said. It was shocking but also clarifying, she said, and “a peaceful feeling came over me.”
Then she began to ponder her sexuality. In middle school, she had crushes on girls. After her transition, she identified as a transgender man who was bisexual. Now, she realized, she was a lesbian.
Lazzara stopped taking testosterone. She later asked her doctor in the Seattle area for advice, but he seemed unsure about how to proceed. She found a new doctor and recently sought laser hair removal on her face.
Lazzara told Reuters she now realizes that gender treatment was not appropriate for her and that it took a toll on her physical and mental health. “I do wish my doctors had said to me, ‘It’s OK to feel disconnected from your body. It’s OK to like girls. It’s OK to be gender non-conforming.’”
Her original gender-care providers at the University of Minnesota declined to comment. In a statement, the university’s medical school said “gender-affirming care involves a carefully thought-out care plan between a patient and their multidisciplinary team of providers.”
Lazzara recently found the before-and-after pictures of her torso on the website of the surgeon who performed her mastectomy in 2013. She had given him permission to post the images because he was proud of the outcome. Seeing her body as it once was stunned her. “I saw my breasts before I got them removed. That’s my 16-year-old body,” she said. “I had no ability at that age to be in my own body in my own way.”
Since revealing she detransitioned, Lazzara said, many in the online transgender community who embraced her a decade ago have distanced themselves from her, and she has received hateful messages on social media. Now, when she sees someone come out online as detransitioned, she sends them a private message of support. “I know how lonely and alienating it can be,” she said.