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My name is Prisha Mosley. I’m a detransitioner, an advocate and, now, a mother.
When I was a teenager, I believed that I was a boy trapped in a girl’s body.
I found this idea online. For me, it was the blogging platform Tumblr. Today, it’s TikTok, Instagram and other platforms, whose algorithms promote inappropriate content to vulnerable children. The platforms may be different, but the social contagion is the same. I was a young, struggling, questioning teen. I was extremely open about my mental health and self-esteem issues on these platforms, and before I knew it, the wrong people were eager to convince me exactly what was wrong — namely, that I was born in the wrong body — and how I could supposedly fix myself.
The apparent “fix”? To start identifying as my “true self” and medicalizing myself down that path.
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The trans community felt like a place where I finally made sense. It was full of people who, like me, felt out of place in their own lives. People who told me I wasn’t broken or confused — just misunderstood. I really trusted them. I trusted the trans activists who said that my suffering was due to my innate transness. And above all else, I trusted the doctors and therapists who told me that transition was the only way forward.
That misplaced trust cost me more than I could have ever imagined.
I spent years on high-dose testosterone. I underwent a double mastectomy. These interventions were presented to me as necessary and caused permanent damage before I was even old enough to grasp what permanence meant.
And now, as a mother, I understand that loss differently.
Motherhood changes you. It changes how you weigh the cost of decisions. It sharpens your sense of what matters and what doesn’t. It forces you to think beyond yourself and to consider not just who you are, but what you are able to give.
There are so many moments now, mostly while holding my child, when the weight of those decisions feels heavier than it ever did before. Among those things is what was taken from me physically: It affects my future, my health and my ability to fully show up as the mother I want to be.
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For example, my scarred chest where my breasts once were is numb. Something I think about often is that laying my baby on my chest and lighting my chest on fire would feel the exact same way to me: like nothing. If not for the doctors and therapists who pushed me down the path of medical transition when I was most vulnerable, I would be able to feel my sweet baby’s head on my chest.
Worse than the numbness was the searing pain of complications from the mastectomy that manifested years later after I gave birth. My surgeon left pieces of my breast tissue behind, which caused my milk to come in. But due to the nature of the surgery and the grafting of my nipples, the milk was trapped in my chest. I was unable to breastfeed my newborn baby. That excruciating experience, emotionally and physically, changed how I view pain and grief.
I am lamenting that thousands of other kids right now are being told that their trauma and discomfort can be fixed by destroying their perfect bodies — and pressured by doctors and therapists to do so.
I regret that I was not protected. I regret that there was no sane doctor or adult who might have stopped to think that this was not the best path forward — after all, my parents were misled by the doctors and therapists just as I was. I regret that the professionals I trusted treated my confusion and, ultimately, my deep-seated trauma as something to affirm instead of something to work through and understand.
But above all, I am lamenting that thousands of other kids right now are being told that their trauma and discomfort can be fixed by destroying their perfect bodies — and pressured by doctors and therapists to do so.
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I once was that kid. I know exactly how it starts. It begins with them seeking outlets to decompress. They get sucked in and finally feel at ease. They feel celebrated by an individual or group — finally feeling accepted after being hungry for it for so long. Eventually, they will end up at the same clinics and doctors’ offices I did, and get a brief rush of dopamine. But for a lot of detransitioners like me, it fades over time.
When I began speaking out about my experience, I lost the support of the trans community almost as quickly as I gained it. The same people who once supported me unconditionally turned on me. I was harassed, threatened and even doxxed for telling the truth about what had happened to me.
For a community supposedly built on love and acceptance, they have an awfully hard time loving and accepting those who may have had negative experiences or downright manipulative ones while transitioning. I have received no love or acceptance from them since the time I saw that my “trans identity” was hurting me. I have had to find support elsewhere.
This Mother’s Day, I am grateful for my children. I am continuously grateful for the perspective that motherhood has given me. But that gratitude coexists with a reality I cannot ignore. No mother should have to look back and realize that almost every single health outcome during her pregnancy and postpartum was because of decisions she was misled into making. No mother should have to lay her baby on a flat, numb chest. And even more so, no mother should have to look at her kids going down the same path I did and realize that they’re being exploited.
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