This story is from the comments by /u/Banaanisade that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the comments provided, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's comments display a highly specific, nuanced, and internally consistent personal narrative spanning several years. They detail a complex relationship with transition, including specific medical effects of testosterone, psychological changes, and a gradual process of detransition driven by health concerns rather than a sudden ideological shift. The writing is reflective, emotionally varied, and shows a deep engagement with the topic that is characteristic of a genuine lived experience. The passion and anger expressed are consistent with the harm and stigma that detransitioners can face.
About me
I was born female and started identifying as trans at 18, beginning testosterone two years later. While the hormones helped my dysphoria at first, they severely worsened my mental and physical health, so I had to stop after four years. I was denied top surgery, which was devastating and made me feel trapped for a long time. Now, years after detransitioning, I've found peace as a gender non-conforming woman and no longer worry about how others see me. I don't regret my transition, but I had to stop because it was hurting me, and I'm finally living authentically.
My detransition story
My journey with gender has been long and complicated, and I’m still figuring it out. I was born female and from a young age, I never felt quite right in that role. I first learned about being transgender when I was 14 after meeting an older trans guy, but I immediately went into denial about it. For years, I was just a gender non-conforming girl, even using a male name with my friends sometimes, but trying to force myself to be feminine.
When I was 18, I finally accepted that I was trans. I was terrified of my future as a woman and felt a deep disconnect from my body. I spent a full year researching and keeping a detailed journal to explore my thoughts and feelings before I even sought a diagnosis. In my country at the time, the process was strict. It took about six months of psychological evaluations, medical tests, and interviews before I was diagnosed with transsexualism and approved for hormones. I started testosterone at 20 years old.
Being on T was a mixed bag. On one hand, it helped my dysphoria immensely. It made me incredibly chill and laid-back; I felt anger more strongly but was less easily upset by little things. I loved the changes I got, especially my deep voice and my body hair. It felt like it gave me the space to grow as a person. But on the other hand, it was devastating for my health. It made my pre-existing anxiety and depression much worse, turning my sadness into a scary, internal anger that increased my self-harm. I developed weird physical symptoms like terrible muscle tension, chronic pain, and even trouble swallowing that sent me to the hospital multiple times. I was on a topical gel for two years, stopped because of these issues, then tried injections for another two years, but the problems came right back. The final straw was when my hair started falling out. I quit T for good after four total years on it.
I never got top surgery, which was a huge source of pain for me. My large breasts made passing impossible and caused me severe social anxiety; I stopped going out because I was so afraid of the attention and potential violence. I was denied surgery because of my weight, and no matter how much I starved myself, I couldn't lose enough to qualify. It made me feel trapped and destroyed my mental health for years. I’m still angry about it and still hate my chest.
Quitting hormones wasn't about regret; it was a practical health decision. Continuing would have hurt me, even though it had helped me. My period came back after a few months, though it was irregular and painful at first. Many of the changes from T reversed over the three years I've been off it. My voice lightened and regained a lot of its higher range, my face and body became rounder again as fat redistributed, and my bottom growth shrank back to how it was before. My body hair thinned out in some places, though I kept most of it. The hair on my head grew back thick again after a scary shedding period.
Letting go of trying to pass as a man was a relief. I spent years exhausted, constantly worried about how I was perceived. Now, I just don't play that game anymore. I dress how I want, and I don’t care if strangers read me as male or female. It’s surprisingly freeing. I consider myself a gender non-conforming woman. I don’t regret transitioning; it was the bravest thing I’ve ever done and it helped me survive a time of immense pain. It allowed the girl I was to grow up safe, and now I can embrace her as a part of who I am without it hurting anymore.
I’ve also been diagnosed with DID, which added another layer to understanding my identity, but it’s separate from my gender journey. My sexuality has always been broken; I’m not turned on by anything and identify as asexual. I was heavily into shonen-ai as a teen, not for arousal but as an escape into a world where same-sex love was celebrated, which resonated with me as a queer girl dealing with dysphoria.
My thoughts on gender now are that it’s not the most important question. What matters is whether a treatment helps you or hurts you. For me, transition helped, and then it started to hurt, so I stopped. I’m just trying to live my life in a way that feels authentic, without labels defining me.
| Age | Year | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | 2005 | First learned about being transgender but went into denial. |
| 18 | 2009 | Accepted I was trans and began a year of self-research and journaling. |
| 20 | 2011 | Started testosterone after a six-month diagnostic process. |
| 22 | 2013 | Stopped T for the first time due to severe health issues. |
| 24 | 2015 | Restarted T, this time on injections. |
| 26 | 2017 | Stopped T for good due to hair loss and returning health problems. |
| 29 | 2020 | Felt fully settled into my identity as a detransitioned, gender non-conforming woman. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/Banaanisade:
It is fucked. Being gender non-conforming and not transgender needs to be accepted and respected as an option for people, instead of non-conformity automatically leading to immense pressure to transition, and rejection of your own identity and understanding of self from others because they "know" you're "just an egg/scared/have internalised transphobia."
Gender non-conforming men and women exist and we're okay as we are, actually.
It's okay. You haven't ruined your future. Some changes are irreversible, but there is so much room for diversity, you'll be just fine in a few years. While your body won't be the same as it was before or grow into something it might have been, so many things in it keep changing throughout your life - as does your life itself, and your priorities, the things that matter. It hurts so much and feels so bad now because this is a fresh trauma that you're grieving; you're making sense of what you've lost or think you've lost, and the doors you feel are closed to you now. It won't matter as much in a few years. Your mind will get tired of obsessing over this loss and you'll start healing, because life will go on. Things that have nothing to do with your gender or your transition will keep happening, and while you adapt to these new phases, your transition will fall back into the background of things. Eventually you'll just be you again, in a life that is quite different from what you have right now. There's doors you can't even imagine yet that you'll be walking through. There's space for you in this world, and you can still be a perfectly happy person just as you are, with time and healing.
It won't hurt forever.
It sounds like you were traumatized by your experience, and reminders of it are now triggering to you. That's unfortunate, but not a character flaw or your fault. You're not doing anything wrong by having this reaction, and people have to understand that you've been through something very difficult, and that because of your experience, the subject will be uncomfortable for you.
I'd suggest trying not to expose yourself to too much talk of transgenderism for a while - it'll help you heal and recover in peace. Forcing yourself to endure exposure to the subject right now might be more damaging and make you feel even more uncomfortable than before. Rather than trying to chase the topic and beat yourself over the head with it in the hopes of recovery, let yourself develop a tolerance first to casual references such as seeing it in headlines and news, in spaces where you have the proper means to disconnect (walk away physically, close the tab, etc.) Don't let it control your life, either as a subject or as a trigger. You have to build your own safety up first before you can confront a painful memory like that casually again.
Good luck. <3
"Force" would be the last word I'd use regarding my detransition. It was literally just letting go and accepting my reality. It happened naturally over the course of some years and was not a deliberate choice I made at any point beyond the decision to stop HRT due to health reason, and at that time, I wasn't detransitioning nor did I have any intention to do so. The rest just followed naturally as I grew more comfortable with myself.
Sounds like you need a good dose of therapy for your mental health and identity, and a caring doctor who's willing to monitor you and your symptoms.
HRT can, and should, wait until your anxiety is better, and you have a clearer picture of what you need and what is causing what.
Why do you feel the need to placate your doctors? Just say you've taken time to think about your transition and have decided it's not the thing you want to be doing right now, and that you've stopped hormones and aren't currently looking to get surgery. Then get out of there and be done with it. Hell, send them an email if you feel like saying this face to face or on the phone is too much.
"I'm cancelling my future appointments due to personal reasons" is also a thing you can say. Just get out of there, you don't owe them a trans act.
Living as a woman post-transition/detransition isn't actually anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Try to redirect your mind away from your body and train yourself to do the same when you find yourself worrying about or simulating other people's reactions to you. I know very much that it's incredibly hard to get yourself out there and just "not worry", especially when you're young, but the reality is that most people will just let you be the way you are. If they ask questions, you can prepare answers ahead of time for most of them, but the majority of people just try to avoid awkward conversations and don't bring it up even if it crosses their minds.
You're not a disfigured gremlin, though. You look human and you sound human, there's nothing wrong with you. It's okay to have unique characteristics. It doesn't make you any less attractive or worthwhile as a person.
Not entirely true.
MPD, that is, DID is partially treated as a natural state of the person in question. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone diagnosed with and in treatment for DID. It's not as simple as you're making it sound.
DID is a childhood trauma disorder, which affects the integration of the mind. In a typical child, during the ages 6 to 9, the personality integrates from different personality states into a cohesive identity. Chronic trauma interferes with this development, and in patients with DID, prevents different states from integrating, which results in separate personality states developing into apparently separate individuals side by side, with the chance of further stress to the system rejecting further experiences from integrating, thus resulting in more personality states forming. Similarly, it is possible for personality states to fuse together, which is how the number of separate states is reduced.
There are two goals for treatment in DID: final fusion and functional multiplicity. The minority of patients with DID choose final fusion, that is, the merging of all personality states into one. The majority choose functional multiplicity, which emphasises communication between parts and aims to treat the dysfunction resulting from the trauma and dissociation, but does not aim to merge separate parts into one.
You may see the point already: the state of multiplicity is the natural state of a person with DID, and ideally, it is not judged as disordered on its own but rather as the state of the patient's identity. What the treatments aim to correct are the disordered symptoms that come with the condition, such as amnesia, symptoms of PTSD, and disorganisation or conflict within the system of parts. Even in final fusion it has to be accepted that there will always remain a chance for the fusion to break apart, and in fact, this is very common. The divergent development of the brain and mind cannot be "fixed" or undone at a later age no matter what treatment goal is chosen.
All this said, I don't see how DID is comparable with transgenderism at all. The two conditions are not related to each other, and have no characteristics in common, outside of gender identity being a common problem with people with DID, given how identity confusion/instability is one of the primary symptoms, and there can be multiple parts present who all identify as different genders, even orientations, from one another. So the relation is less the treatment received and more the overlap between patient groups.
I wish I had an award for you.
Reinforcing made up, oppressive gender roles in (GNC) children is not a good thing. A child's desire to express themselves in a non-typical fashion is not a threat to them or anybody else. Names are not permanent. Clothes are not permanent. Hairstyles are not permanent. Even pronouns are merely words.
Worst part of this still remains that the majority of children with atypical gender expression grow up gay, or are on the autism spectrum, or both. Being forced into a heteronormative expression is torture. I've been through it, and it is damaging.
Masculinity is a social construct, as is the concept of a "real man." You are a real male human being. You decide what that means for you, nobody else. Testicles are a body part, people lose body parts - this doesn't make them less human, or less of a man, or less of a woman. That's an injury you heal from. You can reclaim your manhood, because that is an abstract concept, it is quite literally whatever you make of it. It's not in your balls. It's not in your fertility. You'll be male regardless of any of that - and if you look at a dictionary, a man is a male human being.