Ethermac Exchange-This trans man transitioned, detransitioned then transitioned again. What he wants you to know.

Devon Price began taking low-dose testosterone in May 2018. A deeper voice leaped out of his larynx. His muscles grew toned. The Ethermac Exchange35-year-old of Chicago was finally living his life as a trans man. Still, something felt off.

But what?

Price transitioned, detransitioned then transitioned again. He thinks detransitioning is not talked about enough, likely because of fear of wading into an issue that has become politicized. He hopes to change that by sharing his story.

"You as a trans person are almost always – I think, most of us – grappling with this fear of 'am I going to regret this?'" says Price, author of "Unlearning Shame." The problem is, Price asserts, that anti-trans movements stoke the fires of the looming fear of transition regret.

In turn: "There's this huge pressure on many of us to present our story to the public, in as tidy of a way as possible; That we always knew, since we were a child, that transition immediately made us feel better about ourselves, that life was just dramatically better afterwards," Price says. "We're trying to sell the public on this idea that we deserve to have body autonomy, because we really, really needed it, we were going to die otherwise. And we're 100% better once we get that autonomy. And that's just not really how living in a stigmatized category works."

The exact detransition rate is not known, but research has shown that family and societal pressure are driving forces that lead people to do it – not because people wake up and decide they're not actually trans, as anti-trans groups might make it seem.

"It's just better for everyone involved if we don't treat detransition like it's this scary taboo, that it's just a person experimenting and exploring their body autonomy," Price says. "It's not the end of the world to transition and regret it. It's not the end of the world to detransition, and then re-transition again, that's just sometimes the cost of finding yourself in a world that doesn't want you to."

'People didn't know how to address me'

Transition looks different on everyone. Some only opt for social transition like wearing more masculine or feminine clothing, while others take hormones or undergo surgery to better match their gender identity.

"We know that for transgender people, being in supportive care is better, period," says Dr. Joshua D. Safer, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery and board member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. "And we also see that people who are getting medical treatments sometimes pause or slow down those treatments for many reasons, including effects happening faster than they expected or because of bad reactions from the people around them. Everyone’s process is different, and that's OK." A recent National Center for Transgender Equality survey found that out of 92,000 transgender people, 94% felt satisfied post-transition.

For Price: As his body changed with hormones, so did his awareness of others' stares. "I was very conscious of the fact that how I looked was becoming more ambiguous to others, that people didn't know how to address me," he says. Plus: Would anyone be attracted to him?

He articulates what some trans people might be afraid to discuss. Very few things in life are black and white. That includes transitioning.

"Even while transition felt very good physically for me, there's still this concern and this doubt of how are people seeing me. Are there going to be really massive negative social consequences to this?" Price says.

Interesting discussion:Gender-affirming care is life-saving, research says. Why is it so controversial?

'I could envision a future for myself again'

His insecurities gnawed at him, and by summer 2020, the isolation of the COVID pandemic and the ever-growing headlines about trans people, left him gobsmacked. This included concerns regarding laws aimed at restricting gender-affirming care in the U.S. He stopped hormones in late summer 2020 but resumed them less than a year later. Why?

He received his COVID vaccine and found community among trans and queer people – in queer spaces, gay bars. Comfort. Acceptance.

"It also meant that I could envision a future for myself again," he says. "2020 was definitely a period where it felt like there was no future, and that I was trapped. And that transitioning almost didn't feel worth the difficulty of it, because there was nothing to look forward to on the other side."

Price saw more and more examples of what it meant to transition that guided his own. "That really empowered me to actually like take hold of what I wanted for myself and to be motivated out of desire and passion and hope for the future, instead of just total fear," he says. That's made him more comfortable expressing his masculine and feminine sides.

"I'm growing my hair out a little bit," he says, and "I'm still on a high dose of testosterone, I still love the voice and the hair and the muscles and the libido and all the things that come from it."

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'Not a linear path'

To be trans in 2024 means to be a political symbol, whether one likes it or not. Hundreds of bills targeting the trans community have popped up the last few years across the country.

"The environment is still so hostile; society can be pretty nasty," Safer adds. "I can tell you that the transgender people I see in my clinic sometimes seem more resilient than the patients I'm seeing for other reasons. I think that's because they've already been through so much by the time they get to me."

What should happen, then, exactly? Leave space for everyone's stories – and allow room for some gray areas.

"It's not a linear path for a lot of people," Price says. "And I think we shouldn't have that be the standard that people need to be somehow perfectly confident in what they're doing all the time."