Hi internet- I'm a trans woman in Florida and I need help.

I'm not a prisoner or a child, but i was still forcibly detransitioned by the State of Florida between 2022 and 2024. Planned Parenthood forced me off hormones in an act of anticipatory obediance to the trans healthcare ban that was eventually signed into law. I had been on HRT for ~5 years. I had fully socially transition and was passing- living my best life as a woman.

There was no place to go after Planned Parenthood dropped me. I spent over 2.5 years being forcibly detransitioned and I had no way to help myself. I lost my job. I lost my looks. I lost my VOICE. I'm looking for the words to describe the psychological and physical torture of having your body, identity and soul chemically excised from you but I don't think anyone but the trans community will ever really understand.

I'll try though: Imagine having to walk through liquid curtains of hydrochloric acid every day. And every day the acid gets more and more concentrated- but not only does the acid burn your skin and melt your face, it also seeps into your chakras and severs the links between your mind, body, and soul. Eventually leaving you an empty, disfigured husk- A revolting parody of the person you used to be.

In February 2024 I finally got in contact with a local lgbt charity hoping to get back on HRT but they weren't helpful. Mostly they just wanted to shame me for being unemployed. I want to say this plainly: Liberal institutions will not protect you from the law when they ban HRT. They wouldn't even give me the name of a clinic until a judge issued a stay of the healthcare ban. The ban was lifted for about 6 weeks and I was lucky enough to make the window, get a PCP, and get back on HRT.

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To their credit, they did eventually get me in therapy and very quickly hit me with a suprise (well, not much of a surprise) autism diagnosis. I won't be naming them right now because I'm still a client, and that therapist is my only connection to the outside world right now.

There's so much more to this that I don't know how to narrativize yet. I was so poor in 2023 that I survived on less than 35¢ of food a day. I ate almost exclusively rolled oats and bagged sugar, averaging about 350 calories a day. I think I was well on my way to starving to death. By December I'd lost basically all my body fat, much of my of muscle mass and my bones were sticking out weird.

So, even though my situation is more stable, I'm still in a very precarious position. HRT is TIGHTLY controlled here. The max estrogen level you're allowed in Florida is a quarter of what I was on in Colorado, and that's just not enough to survive on.

I've managed to cheat my labs a little, so for now I've got my full dose. But once my current RX is up I'll be at risk of getting my HRT yanked because my estrogen levels are "too high". And I can't survive on a quarter dose. And I can't survive a 2nd round of detransition.

Forced detransition has broken me at a fundamental level, and I don't know if I'll ever get the person I was before back. I just know I can't move forward until I get this story out.

If there's anyone out there who actually cares, please fucking help me. I live in Broward County and my partner and I have tentative plans to move to either Portland OR or Denver CO. I'm too damaged to work, and my partner's income is just enough to keep us treading water. We have basically no means to save for a move, so if you can help, or have any contacts in those areas of the country- please, I'm begging you, (yes, YOU, in particular) Get in touch. I'm sofiegold on bsky and sofie_gold on Discord or email me c4hsofie at gmail.com

I'm a software engineer (LAMP stack, c, c++) and Linux sysadmin for 10+ years so if there's anyone out there that can gently ease me back into gainful employment that would be amazing too.

For my old moots, gart.gg isn't dead. I just had to pause development while I tested the limits of human suffering. Also, I love you and miss you.

Finishing this with a message to my transgender peers: Let me be your cautionary tale. Do not let them take your HRT away. Do not let them abandon you and write you off as a casualty. Save yourself and stay on hormones by any means necessary.

This is our last chance, and we don't have a lot of time left. Organize your community right now. If you don't have a community find them. Right now. Go.

❤️ Sofie 1/25/25