This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on this comment history, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's narrative is complex, internally consistent, and emotionally nuanced over a significant period (2019-2021). They express a very specific, conflicted perspective—a person with sex dysphoria who benefited from HRT but is disillusioned with both transgender ideology and gender-critical (GC) rhetoric. This nuanced position, including the detailed critique of Blanchardian typology from a personal standpoint, is not typical of a simplistic troll or bot script. The passion and internal conflict align with the genuine distress of someone grappling with their medical and social identity.
About me
I was born male but always felt my body was wrong, wishing from a young age that I had been born a girl. I transitioned and hormones gave me relief, but I detransitioned because I was terrified of how the world sees trans people and exhausted by the pressure. Stopping hormones made my dysphoria come back worse than ever, leaving me feeling completely detached from my body. I now believe my detransition was an act of self-harm, driven by fear and not because transition itself was wrong for me. I am considering retransitioning to relieve my dysphoria, but on my own terms without any ideology.
My detransition story
My journey with transition and detransition has been long and complicated, and it’s rooted in a deep feeling that my body was just wrong. I was born male, but from a young age, long before I knew what being trans was or had any internet access, I had this persistent wish to have been born a girl. It wasn't about wanting to wear dresses or act a certain way. It was a profound discomfort with my male sex characteristics themselves. That feeling never went away.
I eventually transitioned from male to female. I took hormones, and for a while, they helped. The social anxiety I’d always had almost disappeared, and the crushing weight of my dysphoria lessened. I was never someone who made being trans my whole personality. I kept my distance from the LGBT community and avoided advocacy groups. I just wanted to live my life and be seen for who I felt I was.
But it became exhausting. I was constantly anxious about whether I "passed" or not, and that anxiety kept me from wanting to go out in public. I grew tired of trans identity being a political football, and I was terrified that no one would ever love me or that I’d lose all respect and job opportunities if people found out I was trans. I saw the way the world viewed people like me, and it filled me with shame and fear. I started to feel like a normal life as a transgender person was impossible.
This fear and exhaustion led me to detransition. I stopped taking hormones. But that didn’t solve anything. In fact, it made things much worse. About nine months after stopping, I felt emotionally numb and completely detached from my body. The dysphoria and dissociation came roaring back, worse than before. I felt like a shell of myself, horrified by the masculinization returning to my body. I started to feel like detransitioning itself was an act of self-harm, a way of running away from my true self because I was scared of the world.
I got caught in the middle of a lot of toxic online debates. I spent a lot of time reading gender critical (GC) content and detransition stories, and I think it was a form of digital self-harm, just seeking out things that validated my worst fears and insecurities. I started to question if my dysphoria was even real, or if I’d just been influenced by ideology. But deep down, I knew my experience was different from someone who was just unhappy with gender roles. My problem was with my sex, my body.
I don’t really believe in "gender identity" anymore. I wouldn’t say I "feel like a woman." But the core feeling remains: my body does not match who I am, and being categorized as male feels deeply discordant. The idea of just being a feminine man is painful because I don’t know how to be comfortable with being male at all.
I don’t have regrets about transitioning in the sense that I think it was the wrong choice for my dysphoria. The hormones did bring me genuine relief. My regret is about the world we live in. I regret that living as a trans person is so incredibly difficult, isolating, and politicized. I feel like I was pressured into detransitioning by my own fear of that world, not because transition itself was wrong for me.
Now, I’m considering retransitioning, but in a different way. I’m thinking about going back on hormones but without buying into any ideology. I can accept that I’m male, but I see myself as a trans woman—something distinct from both men and women. It’s a form of extreme gender nonconformity that allows me to relieve the dysphoria without the pressure to perfectly fit into a box.
My thoughts are my own, and I dismiss anyone who says my doubts are just "internalized transphobia." That’s just gaslighting. I also strongly believe that detransition stories shouldn’t be used as a political weapon against people who truly benefit from transition. It’s a personal medical decision, and we need to make room for both narratives without denouncing either side.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| ? | First remember wishing I was born a girl |
| 22 | Started hormone therapy (MTF) |
| 23 | Stopped hormones and detransitioned due to fear and social pressure |
| 24 | Experienced severe return of dysphoria and dissociation, began considering retransition |
Top Comments by /u/246011111:
I do think that if you detransition, adult or not, it's unhelpful and a bit immature to just leave it at "the trans community made me do it". You can call it a cult all day long, but deep down there's still a reason you made the decision, and I think examining and taking responsibility for it is important for personal growth.
That said, this post is so typically callous and dismissive, and I wish some trans people didn't feel like they had to invalidate detransitioners to defend their identity.
Keep in mind, this is coming from an anti-LGBT conservative think tank. Some other shining articles of theirs:
Same-Sex Marriage vs. the Real Thing
Public School LGBT Programs Put Kids At Risk
Not to mention they funded a study about gay parents, rushed it through peer review, and manipulated the outcomes in an attempt to sway courts against marriage equality. I’m not a fan of HuffPost but they have one of the more comprehensive articles on this.
The right has been attempting to use detransitioners and radical feminists as a wedge to divide LGBT people and weaken support for LGBT rights for the past few years. Notice the shared “totalitarian” wording.
"You just have internalized -phobia/-ism" is an argument I dismiss out of hand now, because it's gaslighting, plain and simple. Whoever I'm talking with across the internet does not know me better than I know myself, and attempting to shame me into toeing the party line by fishing for self hate is underhanded as hell.
Hey, I've seen a lot of your posts around the subreddit, and while I know having a child who says they have dysphoria must be scary, I'm a bit worried about how you're approaching this. I know I don't know all the details of your situation, but I just want to offer from my personal perspective, please don't write off what she's saying completely. Dysphoria is real. Turning to someone you trust for help with dysphoria and being met with a brick wall of diminishing and invalidation can be traumatizing — I know, because I've been there personally. It might seem sudden to you, but she might have been struggling with these feelings for a while before she could put a name to it, and chances are they are not solely a result of external factors. Just, please don't get swallowed up in outrage. Your daughter needs you as a source of empathy and support to work through this.
It really bothers me when I see detransition narratives being used as political leverage against transitioners. There should be room to recognize that transition shouldn't be the only treatment for dysphoria, while not denouncing those who do benefit from it, just as there should be room to separate gender identity ideology from the condition of sex dysphoria itself.
Oh no please don't get me wrong, I understand why women make those judgments about men, and I try not to take it personally. I've been in similar positions where I had to assume the worst for my own defense and be proactive for my own safety in my transitioned life.
I'm mtf.
I don't think the main reason behind my transition was sex role stereotypes. I felt despair over my sex characteristics (and still do). I've stopped believing in the idea of "gender identity," and I wouldn't say I feel like a woman uwu or anything like that anymore, but the prickly core is still there, the inescapable idea that my body does not match who I am and being in the "male" category is discordant in and of itself.
The reason being a feminine male sounds painful to me is not because I think males can't be feminine, but because I don't know how to be comfortable with being male.
Well, I don't think transition resulted in an unhappy solution per se, and I certainly don't view it as an addiction. I was never the kind of trans person to make it their whole identity – you know, the pronouns in twitter profile, lives and breathes trans politics kind. I keep my distance from the lgbt community and never got involved in advocacy groups or anything, and prefer to not talk about being trans whenever possible.
The reason I'm thinking about detransitioning in the first place is because I'm just tired. I'm tired of the anxiety about passing that keeps me from going out in public, I'm tired of trans identity being used as a political football, I'm tired of seeing people like this and realizing that's how the world will see me no matter what I do. There's no chance anyone will ever love me. There's no chance of keeping a job or even respect once people find out. And if things keep going the way they are politically, we're going to be some of the first against the wall. I don't understand how anyone can say they feel "gender euphoria" or pride about being trans when, despite the genuine happiness transition has brought me, it's brought shame and fear in equal measure.
I guess, really, I don't want to detransition, and I don't want to be talked into detransition either. If I knew there were a future for me as a transgender person, I'd keep going. But I don't.
Hating trans spaces is already enough proof that you aren't trans.
Whoa, that's kind of a big claim. The problem with trans spaces is that the people in them are often ideologically driven and make transition their entire personality, while not everyone who transitions shares those beliefs. Your politics don't determine if you experience dysphoria or not, and "truscum" are an entire subcommunity of people who consider themselves trans and don't like trans spaces.
I transitioned MTF and I'm struggling with this right now, because the way my body and mind have changed since getting off of HRT is haunting me and the dysphoria and dissociation are coming back. I don't know if my transition was a coping mechanism, but right now being detrans feels like that's the self-harm instead of transitioning...I know this is my mind trying to trick me but it's still hard to stay strong against. I wish I could give you some advice, but I don't really have it for myself — just know you're not alone in struggling with this.