A Marathon Not a Sprint

Airiel Salvatore, Ritchie Herron, Laura Becker and Soren Aldaco speaking at Detrans Awareness Day 2026

Airiel Salvatore, Ritchie Herron, Laura Becker, and Soren Aldaco came together to talk about their experiences of life after detransition as part of Genspect’s Detrans Awareness Day 2026 conference. In this panel discussion, they talk about the discomfort of uncomfortable truths and learning self-acceptance.

Stepping back from transition can be a challenging and complicated process, and detransitioners are in it for the long haul. Twenty-three-year-old Soren Aldaco, who started identifying as trans at the age of 11, was prescribed hormones at 17 and had a double mastectomy that went horrifically wrong at 19, says that detransitioning is a process that demands patience. Detransitioners need to take time to have difficult conversations. They need space to feel uncomfortable, to explore, and to bring all the discordant parts of themselves into coherence.

“Discomfort is unavoidable. The key mental challenge is interpreting that discomfort correctly rather than allowing it to trigger doubt or panic.”¹

There are no quick fixes. The vast majority of those who regret their medical transition find themselves isolated and cut off from support. Many are afraid to speak publicly because they know “their stories will be weaponized” against them. And on top of all that, detransitioners have to face reality and ask themselves some very difficult questions. It’s a marathon task, and as long-distance runners remind us, “discomfort is unavoidable” along the way.

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Laura Becker socially transitioned as a teenager, went on testosterone at 19, and was given a double mastectomy at age 20. She felt suicidal on the day of her surgery, but the doctors proceeded anyway. Her journey back from transition began two years later when she found the spark of courage she needed to face the abuse she had received from her father and other men in her life as a child. Now she is talking about her experiences and working as a peer mentor for families, particularly girls, who have had similar experiences to her own. She knows that many detransitioners would like things to go faster. But she is convinced that detransitioning is less about the speed and more about “how present you are while doing things”. It takes a long time to find a framework of reality. And detransitioners, like Laura, have to keep asking themselves, “Am I going to be present with myself and the things I really don’t like about myself and my life, or am I going to avoid that discomfort?” and forego the long-term gratification that comes with detransition. Like Soren, Laura says the process of aligning with reality instead of resisting it requires patience.

“Reflecting on how focus was maintained, how discomfort was managed, and how confidence fluctuated.”

For young women, embracing the uncomfortable and aligning with reality can mean understanding that there is nothing wrong with being gender nonconforming and realising, in Soren’s words, that if you live outside of stereotypical gender norms, “you don’t stop being a member of your sex.” For detransitioners, self-acceptance can involve not only coming to terms with the physical impact of medical interventions, but also challenging cultural messages that appear to demand that we perform gender in specific ways. These demands are shaped by sexist and conformist assumptions that the trans community claims to be subverting, but which it often encourages instead.

Transition and detransition are, however, more than just a women’s issue. Rigid ideas of masculinity can be just as reality-distorting for men and boys. Airiel Salvatore started cross-sex hormones at sixteen and underwent a colovaginoplasty in Thailand at age 25. He was driven to reject masculinity by a chaotic home life with an abusive father who told him he was not man enough. Airiel realized that his gender dysphoria was about building an identity based on his rejection of his father. On the panel, he explains that the slowness of his detransition process was due to his denial about running away from the maleness that his over-domineering father represented for him.

Ritchie Herron did, in fact, sprint to transition and back again. The fear of becoming a man and the fear of being gay drove him to undergo a surgery he regretted instantly. The idea of transition came to him swiftly. It was all about affirming and validating his belief that a quick and easy solution to his struggles was available. But it took him “many years and hard lessons to realise that there are many shades of men and women”.

“Accepting discomfort as a normal and expected part of the race helps preserve confidence when the effort intensifies.”

The process of detransition involves learning to tolerate rather than avoid distress. This is also true of the watchful waiting approach to helping gender-questioning young people considering transition. “For teens with gender dysphoria, it is not about pushing them to accept or reject their gender feelings. Instead, it is a neutral way to explore what is really going on—over time—while offering proven help for any other mental health challenges, like depression or anxiety, which often show up alongside gender dysphoria. It is a slow, steady way to understand the whole picture, backed by professionals who value careful assessment over quick fixes.”

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All of the detransitioners taking part in this panel discussion agree that transitioning was an unsuccessful attempt to avoid distress. In Laura Becker’s words, the way forward for detransitioners is to accept where they were before and are now: “Then we can feel love for our bodies and other people’s bodies.”

No single political, psychological, or personal project can lead to heaven on earth. According to the philosopher John Gray, there can be no “no such thing as an ideal life. There may be a best life for any individual, but not one that is without loss.” We must all learn to live with and accommodate loss and conflicts in and outside of us. Learning to accept and live with conflict and distress is unavoidable.

But acceptance does not equate with resignation, passivity, or political quiescence. More and more detransitioners are coming together, sharing hard-earned lessons, speaking out publicly, forming real helping communities, and building relationships with others. All of this creates a deeper sense of understanding and solidarity. More than 600 detransitioners, for example, have already signed up for Genspect’s Beyond Trans group sessions. Or as Ritchie Herron puts it in his down-to-earth way, we need to get up, get out, and keep busy doing things, physically and mentally, that stop us sinking into solitary obsession and rumination. And what is more, as Ritchie demonstrates so well in this panel discussion, nothing beats British humour for staying on track.

1. https://www.edinburghmarathon.com/news/running-advice/mental-strategies-10k

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