I understand why those words could be very triggering to others, but I also feel it's very important to keep this sub as a space where people can talk freely about their own experiences and their own feelings with their own words. I think it's a good to avoid making generalizations, but everyone should be able to use the words that they feel best describe their own experience when talking about themselves.

Thank you for your kind comment.

It's a bummer that the gender ideology / modern intersectional feminism has sort of crept into other communities and interests of mine as well. There's a huge overlap between the local art scene and queer scene for example. The trans hegemony is quite widespread nowadays. I find it really sad that almost all of the most creative, sensitive, fabulous, funniest (and the most communist XD) of people have been swallowed by this repressive ideology. Not all of course - there are other weird loners like me somewhere out there in their own hideaways, but it's hard to reach them.

Although right now it's hard to reach anyone, because of covid lockdowns and the lack of any group activities or gatherings. And I don't live near any cities anymore (which has mostly made my life so much better, but also lonelier). It's a recluse life for me for several different reasons. Oh well, at least I have animals, plants and fungi with me.

Hey thank you for the comment and especially for the author recommendation! Can you recommend any specific book of his I should start from?

I also believe those people in the queer community who hurt me the most have lots of unresolved trauma in them. And I also believe the queer/trans community sadly enables lots of toxic, narcissistic and controlling behavior for some individuals. There's all that extremely aggressive "every day is a trans day of vengeance" and "die cis scum" talk. It sucks, because no one dares to disagree with some of the most aggressive people in the community... but at least it seems many people are waking up to see the toxicity in the community and hopefully things will change for the better some day.

Hey, I was on Nebido when I decided not to continue with hrt. Your testosterone levels will gradually go lower and lower after the last shot. There's no need to taper. :)

I had been using testosterone over 3 years when I decided to quit. If I remember correctly my last Nebido shot was in September or October and I had my first post-t period in the end of March. I don't remember having any health issues... It might have been that I sweated more than normally after quitting t, but otherwise both my physical and mental health only changed for the better! :)

why do you want to be "cis" if you're ok with the changes that hrt has given you? what does being cis or trans even mean to us gender nonconforming people?

it's possible to stay away from the trans community and trans issues in general and still be on testosterone. you don't have to "identify" as man or trans. just do what feels best for you and don't obsess about terms and identities.

I don't want to have anything to do with the trans community anymore unless the community somehow becomes less toxic and cult-like and I am completely ok with my femaleness, but now many years after "detransitioning" I am considering going back to low dose of t for several different reasons. To put it simply: I am a woman but I enjoy the freedom of being able to pass as a guy when needed. My outside doesn't necessarily reflect who I truly am on the inside, but it's quite practical to have this disguise. And even if I looked more feminine, I'm not sure if that would reflect my "true nature" either. Deep down we're all just energy, soul, spirit, consciousness or whatever and that doesn't have a gender.

just do you.

Thank you for the compassionate comment.

I know you mean well, but please don't say I wasn't actually trans. I was and still am depending on how one defines trans. It stopped being just an idea and became material reality when I started using testosterone and had a double mastectomy and that's something I can never undo. It used to be a central part of my identity for many years - it's not anymore, but it will always be a significant experience I've had and that experience has shaped almost every aspect of my life in some way. Hence me being transgender has been quite actual. Some of my reasons for being trans just are something most of the trans community chooses to ignore and deny (trauma, dissociation, internalized misogyny, social contagion), and I realized it's much better for my mental health to stop my medical transition and reconcile with my my femaleness.

When I started using testosterone, I usually woke up to panic - or to this foggy uncomfortable feeling. My doubts and worries didn't usually reach the surface, but they were bubbling somewhere underneath the whole time. I had this uncomfortable feeling in my gut, but I was scared to face it, so I pretended it didn't exist... So listen to your gut. Take a break. Go somewhere else or do something different than you usually do, if it's possible...

I was so heavily entangled in the trans politics and trans communities that there was no space for me to get to know myself outside of that social influence. I'm not saying that people become trans just because of the social influence or anything like that, but "you are what you eat", so to speak. If you always think about yellow cars, it's easy to notice one when you see it. If you have been reading about trans stuff, watching trans-related online content, reading about gender dysphoria etc, it is really easy to start to believe that transitioning is what you need... from my personal experience I know how easy it is to get completely obsessed about transitioning.

None of what you wrote in your post seems like a definite proof that you were meant to be a guy. You sound like pretty much every other gender non-conforming, butch or lesbian female that has ever gone to puberty in a world that's filled with sexist stereotypes, misogyny and homophobia.

When I was 13, 14, 15 or 16, I wore baggy clothes, wanted to bind my breasts and wear boys' underwear. I felt different from the other girls in my school, because I was not interested in the stereotypical girly stuff. But. I never thought that I had "gender dysphoria" or that I should be a guy. I hated my body and wished to be more muscular and androgynous, but I didn't stress about my gender identity back then. I was female. I was into other females. I didn't care about the stereotypes. When I was growing up in mid 2000s, all of this trans and gender identity stuff was pretty much non-existent. Of course there were people transitioning, but it was quite a marginal phenomenon prior ~2012-2015.

It was not until 2012-2013 that I started to stress and obsess about my gender identity. That's when I began to see more and more trans related content online and few of my friends started transitioning, and then I was suddenly absolutely sure that I'm trans as well.

You should be 100% honest with yourself about whether the belief that you are trans and you should transition was ever your own, or whether it came from somewhere else. When did it start and how?

Yes, but I'd like to point out that I felt that testosterone made me somehow less connected to what was going on inside, so I didn't even know whether I was happy with the changes or not. It was kind of exciting, even addictive, to wait for the new changes, but otherwise I was in heavy mental fog. It took me years to get out of that fog.

I understand and I hope my comment didn't sound too confrontational or mean, which often happens when communicating with text only.

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I know some others who have had dissociative disorder felt like they never were trans once they dealt with that

I guess it's something that varies depending on the perspective. I mean - I was not truly trans in the sense that I wasn't born with gender dysphoria and I probably wouldn't have thought of myself as trans if I weren't a part of a generation of girls who spent their late teen years / early adulthood on Tumblr during the rise of online trans activism. I probably wouldn't have believed myself to be trans if, instead of all those gender identity posts, there had been as many posts about structural dissociation, internalized misogyny and how sexual trauma can cause serious dysphoria that is indistinguishable from gender dysphoria. Or if there had been as many posts praising the existence of gender nonconforming women as there were transition-related posts. But I was/am truly trans for the reasons I mentioned in the previous comment. I want to own every version of myself, all the experiences I've had. They are not contradictory, because I have embodied all of them. I'm not fond of identity. I'd rather speak of embodied experiences than of identities.

Thank you for wishing me well. Bless you too! :)

If you feel that HRT is good for you, I don't think you have to quit or worry that your personal usage affects the availability of those drugs. You do what's best for you.

Although I'd advice to keep in mind that there's little studies on how long term testosterone use affects the female body. There are some health risks (e.g. google "buck angel atrophy"). I'd also advice you to think do you really want to look more male-like if you're not really trans? Are you ok with facial hair growth and balding etc?

I am also a gender nonconforming (detransitioned) female and after few years of quitting HRT, I am now wondering whether I should try going back to low dose of T again. Check out the post I made.