“I Was Just Hiding” — How Jade Martin Found Her Way Back To Femininity After Detransitioning

Jade didn’t ask to grow up early, but puberty came like a freight train—unannounced, irreversible, and isolating. She was the first girl in her class to get her period. The first to wear a bra. The first to be mocked for shaving.

At school, she was ridiculed for her femininity. At home, she felt too ashamed to talk about it. And online, she found a narrative that promised relief: if she felt uncomfortable in her body, maybe it was because she wasn’t meant to be in it.

At just 12 years old, Jade began transitioning. But by 21, her body was breaking down, her identity unraveling, and her soul quietly aching to return to the girl she’d once been.

Jade isn’t just another voice in the culture war over gender identity. She’s a survivor of it. This is the deeply personal story of a young woman who followed every modern script about gender and self-expression—only to realize it was a lie. In this exclusive interview, Jade opens up about what led her to transition, what brought her back, and how she reclaimed her femininity, one step at a time.

The Spiral Begins

“I got my period at nine,” she tells me. “And I thought I was dying.”

Developing curves, growing taller than her teachers, sprouting body hair, all in elementary school. The boys didn’t understand. Neither did the girls. She became a target for relentless bullying.

“They picked on me for shaving, for how I looked,” she says. “It made me suddenly super aware of myself physically. I went from being a confident little girl who felt like a princess in dresses to someone who felt like she had to be ashamed.”

That shame grew into body dysmorphia. And eventually, into something even more dangerous.

“I found people online who said what I was feeling meant I was trans,” Jade recalls. “That if I hated my body, if I was uncomfortable, that meant I was born in the wrong one.”

This was years ago—before gender ideology became so visible in schools and media—but online, it was already dominant. “Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter…they were all repeating the same message,” she explains. “You’re uncomfortable? You’re trans.”

She didn’t have friends to hang out with. She didn’t go outside to play. Her connection to the world was a screen. “I was lonely,” she says simply.

A Dangerous Path

At 12, she socially transitioned. Not long after, she began medically transitioning. That meant testosterone injections. But even then—just days before her first shot—she voiced doubt.

“I specifically told my friends I wouldn’t take testosterone if it would make me infertile,” she says. “And when I asked the nurse, he said it wouldn’t. That I should go on birth control so I wouldn’t get pregnant. But that’s not what I was asking.”

What she was asking was: Will I still be able to have children? And no one told her the truth, which is yes, testosterone therapy during female-to-male (FTM) transition can significantly impact fertility, often leading to infertility or at least a reduction in fertility potential, by suppressing ovulation and altering ovarian function.

“Immediately, the testosterone made me a zombie,” Jade adds. “I lost my energy. My teachers noticed. I just wasn’t myself.”

She thought maybe it was depression. But it wasn’t. It was her body reacting to something it never needed. Even more disturbing were the adults who facilitated it. Her therapist even prescribed testosterone behind her father’s back. “She knew he wouldn’t consent,” Jade explains. “So she called her friend at Planned Parenthood. I wasn’t even 18.”

Another therapist contacted CPS when her dad refused to go along with her transition. “I was 13,” she adds. “I barely remember it, but my sister confirmed it happened. CPS showed up at his work.”

And when she finally attended a medical check-up after months of being ignored, doctors told her something terrifying: “They said if I had kept going at that dosage, I would’ve gotten cancer.”

They kept prescribing it anyway.

The Breaking Point

By her early twenties, Jade realized something had gone horribly wrong. “I kept thinking—this was supposed to be the beginning of my life,” she tells me. “But I wasn’t living. I was still stuck behind a screen.”

What finally pushed her to stop was love.

“I met a boyfriend. And I thought—this is my excuse. I want to detransition.” Critics often reduce this moment to oh, she changed for a man. But Jade doesn’t see it that way. “Love makes you feel womanly,” she explains. “It makes you feel beautiful. But I was already done. I was just waiting for a reason.” So she stopped taking testosterone. Cold turkey.

But things got worse before they got better.

“I got gallstones. My gallbladder had to be removed. I developed IBS, colitis, ovarian cysts. I go to the ER for them. It’s painful to eat. These are lifelong issues. I was only 21.” And it didn’t have to happen.

“If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing,” Jade says, “I’d say: Give it three more years. Just get through the growing pains."

The Cost of Speaking Out

Some activists dismiss detransitioners like Jade as rare outliers or political pawns, but Jade rejects that.

“We’re real people. We’re not props. We’re struggling. Just because someone shares their story online doesn’t mean that’s their whole identity.” Still, she cautions against turning detransition into a brand.

"It can become another identity trap. A new performance," she explains. “You go from one curated self to another, especially online. And you don’t even realize it because now you’re getting claps for telling the truth instead of pretending. But it’s still a performance. You’re still doing what you think people want you to do."

She pauses, then adds: “When I was transitioning, it wasn’t just about becoming someone else. It was about becoming a character I could survive inside. That character was funny, charming, and unbothered. But it wasn’t real. I wasn’t real."

That insight stayed with me—the idea that some girls don’t want to stand out or blend in. They want to disappear inside something that feels safer.

“You need time to process what happened,” Jade insists. “You can’t go from one identity to another overnight. You’ll lose yourself again.” She personally gave herself a year before speaking publicly about her choice to detransition. “And even that wasn’t enough,” she admits.

A Quiet Return to Faith

Part of what helped her through that silent, private healing was something unexpected: faith.

“I didn’t believe in God when I transitioned,” she says. “But when I detransitioned, I immediately felt like someone had helped me. I didn’t call it God at first. But it was Him.”

That sense of divine interruption wasn’t just a comfort—it was a quiet kind of rescue. “There were so many moments where I could’ve gone deeper into destruction. And every time, I was pulled back. That wasn’t me. That was Him.”

Interestingly, her return to faith didn’t begin with church, but with awe. “It was like there was a hand over my life, always reaching in right before the damage became irreversible. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I wasn’t asking for it.”

And in the wake of that realization, she found herself drawn not just to the idea of God, but to the possibility that her body wasn’t a mistake—it was a gift. Her relationship with faith is still evolving, but it anchors her now. “He saved me when He didn’t have to. And He keeps doing it in ways I’m just beginning to understand.”

What Young Women Need to Hear

Jade speaks with striking clarity about both compassion and truth.

“I don’t think it helps anyone to affirm the idea that they can become the opposite sex,” she says. “It’s not true. And the truth is, it’s okay. You’re still worthy. But lying to people—telling them they can change their biology—it’s not kind. It’s cruel.”

For Jade, healing began with honesty.

“You don’t have to love everything about your body,” she says. “That’s not realistic. But the point of your body isn’t to be beautiful. It’s to live in. To experience life in. And it’s the only one you’ve got.”

Rediscovering Herself

Today, Jade is doing exactly what she loved as a little girl: writing.

“I’m working on a sci-fi novel inspired by transition and detransition,” she says. “That was my passion. I used to write stories and paint pictures to go with them. I’d say, ‘I’m going to be a writer one day.’” Now, she is.

When it comes to beauty and fashion, she's reclaiming the feminine style she admired as a child—bold, feminine, and unapologetically herself. Zara is her go-to shop, and she’s rarely seen without a pop of blue eyeshadow. The little girl who once loved fashion but felt unworthy of it is finally dressing up again—not to impress, not to escape, but because she delights in it.

“I used to think I wasn’t allowed to be a girl,” she says. “Now I know—I always was. I was just hiding.” Now, she’s weaving her past into a future that’s brighter and more honest than what the culture ever promised her. And she’s not hiding anymore.

And maybe those are the most radical things a woman can do right now—to embrace her femininity, and to tell the truth.