Staying You
Staying you
Hello and welcome to Staying You! I am so glad you found us!
Here, on our site, we share our lived experience as women and celebrate the awesomeness of being a girl, a biological female, a warrior, a witch, a queen, a mother, a daughter and the amazing things that being a woman allows us to achieve.
'Staying You' advocates for understanding and empowering girls and women struggling with their identity to accept themselves in the unique body they have. We hold stakeholders to account and seek the truth behind the sciences. 'Staying You' has been started by breast cancer survivor Mel Day, who knows all too well the pain and scars medical intervention brings because of the irreversible damage that has happened to her own body.
Her heart breaks at the amount of girls who don't want to be girls anymore and seek to change their gender identity. Mel doesn't want any one to feel the pain of hormone blockers, a double mastectomy and hysterectomy, she knows that these don't often work out the way people want, and that you will always carry those scars for life. She wants to provide a safe place here for people to share their transitioning struggles and detransitioning stories, a place where parents can share their worries and concerns and talk openly about the distress this movement is having on their lives and families.
Identity
One day you might feel strong, fast, loud another you might feel sad, inadequate, worried or afraid. Feelings change. But your gender can't change. You are born into the right body at the right time. But your identity, how you might like to look and present yourself will change a lot depending on your age, how you feel, what you like, who your friends are, these may change everyday! Some days you might like to wear jeans, a hoodie and have short hair another you might like to don a dress and heels and get out there and party. The way you present yourself to the world is your identity not your gender!
About Me
Mel Day is a teacher, and also works in the fields of sociology and counselling. In 2018 - 2020 she underwent life altering treatment for aggressive breast cancer. Mel has discovered that the cancer care she received has many similarities to the medical interventions that women and girls identifying as trans experience.
When Mel underwent treatment for her stage 3 invasive breast cancer, she lost both breasts to a double mastectomy and was placed on a debilitating medical pathway. Mel's double mastectomy was beyond painful, she describes the pain of losing her breasts as worse than the pain she experienced when going through child birth. She woke up, out of surgery, struggling to breathe, she felt like she had been run over by a truck. She couldn't feed herself, dress herself and even had trouble walking. She had drains that removed the liquid that was pooling in her chest; she had to carry the drains around for 3 weeks, post surgery, in bags slung over her shoulders. Mel had to undergo daily physiotherapy exercises to regain arm and shoulder movement. Mel's chest has never looked or felt the same and she has needed 3 lots of painful chest reconstructive surgeries to correct the cosmetic complications and abnormalities caused by her double mastectomy.
Not only did the removal of Mel's breasts create life long physical issues but unfortunately, the type of breast cancer that Mel had means continued suffering. Mel's cancer was ER positive; which means that her cancer is positive to oestrogen and she may develop cancer again as she is prone to cancers that grow and feed on the natural occurring oestrogen in her body. Oestrogen is 'one of the main female sex hormones; it is needed for puberty, the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, bone strength' (Healthdirect.com) and 'regulating the reproductive tract, the urinary tract, the heart and blood vessels, bones, breasts, skin, hair, mucous membranes, pelvic muscles, and the brain' (Hopkins Medicine, 2024). For Mel the only way to stop her type of cancer from reoccurring has been to completely halt her body's oestrogen production, to achieve this she has had to take Tamoxifen (a hormone blocker) and has had to have a radical hysterectomy and bilateral oophorectomy (whereby her uterus and both ovaries were removed).
The consequence of this life saving cancer approach has left Mel Day with irreversible physical damage that she would not wish on anyone. The side effects of her surgeries and the hormone blockers have been breathing problems, bone density loss, stage 4 osteoporosis, chest pain, head to toe skin rashes, early onset menopause, hot flushes, sterility, stomach pains, nerve pain, chest pain, numbness, restricted arm movement, loss of interest in intimacy and vaginal atrophy.
Finding out that individuals seeking support for gender dysphoria often receive the same invasive medical intervention as stage 3 breast cancer patients, in the form of double mastectomies and hormone blockers, coalesced in Mel creating 'Staying You', a forum where she could empower those struggling with their identity to make informed choices and share their struggles.
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"I am beyond shocked, I am so sad and deeply upset, that so few organisations are helping girls know the consequences of medicalising their identities and are not instead supporting them to love themselves for all that they are in the perfectly healthy body that they are born in" - Mel Day, 2023.
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