This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags indicating it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's writing is highly nuanced, emotionally complex, and shows a clear, consistent, and evolving personal narrative. They describe a specific experience of gender dysmorphia and trauma as a gay man, distinct from a binary transition, which aligns with the concept of a desister. Their passion and criticism of trans activism stem from a place of personal experience and a desire for a more nuanced conversation, not from the simplistic talking points of an inauthentic account. The long-form, reflective nature of the comments is not typical of bot behavior.
About me
I was born male and my struggle was never with my sex itself, but with the painful expectations of manhood I learned from my strict Christian upbringing. For years, I hated my male body and tried to escape through an androgynous appearance, driven by trauma and internalized homophobia. I never medically transitioned, and through self-reflection, I realized I could define masculinity for myself. Now, at 37, I’ve reached a point of self-acceptance where I can live comfortably in my body. My journey shows that dysphoria can be overcome, and I believe these complex stories need to be heard.
My detransition story
My journey with gender and transition is complicated and deeply personal. It wasn't about being born in the wrong body for me. I was born male, and I was okay with that. My struggle was never with my sex itself, but with what I thought it meant to be a man.
Growing up gay in a strict Christian home was really hard. My dad was horrible, and I started to associate everything "manly" with him and the expectations I was supposed to fulfill. I began to hate my own body for showing signs of masculinity. I hated my body hair, my muscles, having a beard, rough skin, and short haircuts. I felt viscerally disgusted when people pointed out these features or treated me like a man. I didn't want to be a woman; I just wanted to look boyish and androgynous to feel safe and avoid those manly expectations. It was a form of escapism from a reality I found painful.
I now understand this as a type of gender dysmorphia, rooted in trauma and internalized homophobia. The discomfort wasn't with being male, but with the social role and the physical traits associated with manhood that I had learned to fear and hate. For a long time, I hid these feelings because they made me feel vulnerable and embarrassed.
I never medically transitioned. I never took hormones or had surgery. But I lived in a dysphoric state for years, presenting in a way that distanced me from my natural male body. I was lucky that the current climate of rapid medicalization wasn't around when I was younger, as I could have easily been convinced that hormones were the answer to my discomfort.
Over time, mostly through self-reflection and reading the stories of others in communities like this, I started to unpack the roots of my feelings. I realized my body didn't trap me in a destiny I didn't want. I learned that I could be a gay man and define masculinity for myself. It was a slow process. Around age 25, I was finally able to keep a beard without freaking out. Now, at 37, I’ve reached a point where I can have body hair and build muscle without that old sense of revulsion. It’s not completely gone—it’s like a scar—but I have power over it now instead of it controlling me.
I don't regret transitioning because I never medically did it. But I do regret the years I spent hating my body and feeling disconnected from myself. My journey was one of social discomfort and internal struggle, not medical intervention.
I believe that for some people, being trans is a real and biological reality, perhaps similar to how being gay is. But I also believe that the current narrative often conflates many different issues—trauma, internalized homophobia, body dysmorphia, social anxiety—under the single umbrella of being transgender. This lack of nuance creates a situation where people who might overcome their dysphoria, like I did, are instead pushed toward irreversible changes.
My thoughts on gender are that it's largely about social roles and expectations. Your sex is your biology, but your gender expression is how you navigate the world within that biology. Identities aren't just declared; they are formed through lived experience. I'm a man because I've lived the experience of being perceived as one, even when it was difficult, not because I simply identify as one.
The trans community’s fear of detransition stories is a real problem. These stories need to be heard so that people can make fully informed decisions. Understanding that dysphoria can be caused by external factors and can be overcome is crucial. Silencing these conversations only leads to more people making choices they might later regret.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Childhood | Grew up in a strict Christian home. Felt early discomfort with masculine expectations and social roles. |
| Adolescence | Developed intense dislike of male secondary sex characteristics (body hair, muscle, etc.). Felt this was tied to trauma and internalized homophobia. |
| ~25 | A significant milestone. Was first able to maintain facial hair (a beard) without intense feelings of disgust and dysphoria. |
| 37 (Present) | Reached a point of much greater self-acceptance. Can maintain body hair and build muscle with minimal discomfort. No medical transition occurred at any point. |
Top Comments by /u/Barzona:
What?? Gender affirming care has a high risk of exacerbating gender dysphoria because transitioning is merely an ever-moving goalpost that continuously reminds a person of how they are different, and since dysphoria never ends, it also requires complete and utter dedication to that person's emotional state to shield them from their own insecurity which, in turn, makes people feel justified in oppressing and abusing anyone who won't sacrifice their own humanity in order to give that to them?
Here's my shocked face -> 😐
The whole thing is designed to make you internalize the idea that your incredibly nuanced internal soul-like identity is trapped in a binary body that's going to deny you a full transcendent experience that others "just wouldn't understand." To refuse that notion probably makes a person who once felt that way suddenly feel confined all over again with no other way to feel until they are able to center themselves on a new perspective.
It's very easy and assuring for me to, now, center myself with the understanding that there's nothing about my body that's going to force me to be someone I'm not, and that I have full control over my destiny, no matter my physical existence. Also, reconnecting with the biology I once despised lets me feel more human than I ever felt. It's good to have both a sense of my abstract internal self coupled with being able to ground myself as a human, with both of these things complementing each other.
That's reality, after all.
Sorry to cut in, but I go a step further and refuse to allow anyone to describe my sexual orientation as a genital preference. My sexual orientation is not a penis fetish, it's an attraction to adult male sexual development.
Not that I want to hurt anyone's feelings, but that will never include someone who only looks the way they do through medicine. People should be allowed to have that boundary respected, and since my sex life doesn't exist to validate gender identity, exclusion can't invalidate it. It's no different than if a man thinks that his manhood is being threatened by being turned down by a woman for sex. A transman is far less threatening, but effectively has the same problem, and if people are coming after you for turning them down for sex, then this belief is still a threat. Same with transwomen.
They need to drop the bedroom thing, now and forever.
I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm fear-mongering, but I'm speaking what I believe is the truth.
They aren't fighting for equality. They are fighting for dominance. This is a culture war, and they do not seek a middle ground. They've decided what they want the world to be, and that's what they are fighting for.
They believe that the only correct moral high road is to force a culture where people are only ever affirmed and never questioned for their identity choices. If they entirely socialize how we interact with each other, then anyone who transitioned, mistakenly or not, will never have to regret it because it will be better to stay that way.
Science just gets in the way of how people feel, so they choose to ignore things like that in lieu of working with a narrative that is more inclusive. Inclusive, but also designed to otherize anyone who isn't "one of them."
The wild thing is, what argument could anyone possibly have against it? If we all respected each other's identity choices and pronouns instead of saying, "That's not what I see, so I'm not going to do it," would that not be a more peaceful world? We've lived for a long time in a culture where self-accountability was the law of the land and external affirmation was not a guarantee, but they believe that transness can not exist in such a world, so they push to make it all one-sided. "If transness is something that can not be ethically limited, then it's the world that needs to change."
They have no qualms about silencing person after person. They literally have whole teams per page devoted to it. They believe they are right and that anyone who opposes them is a bigot. Unless you can articulate the problem with what they are doing, there's nothing you can do. How do you argue against world peace?
Well, the ability to maintain the "unlimited, unchecked transgender affirmation" ideology will definitely come to an end. They created a situation that they thought they could maintain by endlessly expanding the meaning of what it is to be trans and that if society just all played along and was "supportive" enough, it could go on forever. Their entire strategy with "evolving language to be more inclusive," which only ever involved nebulizing the meaning of terms to be about what you weren't rather than what you were, really polarized people who believe that differences and boundaries matter, and that words have meaning, not "non" this or that.
As detransition is taken more seriously as a true reality of what's been going on, there will be actual space for people to come to the conclusion that their trans identity was entirely ideological and then make a decision about how they want to go forward from there.
If trans people truly exist, they need to be free from the ideology surrounding them because if a person needs an ideology to validate the existence of something, then that something isn't real. It's either an objective reality that can exist in a world that doesn't have to revolve around it, or it doesn't even exist.
Even if people went along with it, a group of people could never create a space for "cis" men/women only. Activists would immediately attack it and demand am explaination for a space that specifically excludes the trans counterpart and when the issue of "real biology" comes up, they'll say your can't draw that line with trans people.
"Cis" is a trap to erase the difference between real men and women and people who alter their bodies to resemble the real thing. It's essentially something you call yourself in order to take a back seat in your own gender.
The narrative surrounding transness is that any kind of message, question, or alternative story that might lead a person away from transitioning is an attempt at erasure or conversation and has to be silenced. They believe that trans people are the happiest when they aren't exposed to doubt about their choices, so if someone decides to do it, it won't matter if they realize later on that they made a mistake, the community is geared to never allow you to have to face your mistake. It's geared toward
So, essentially, the trans community is partially made up of a ton of detransitioners who haven't accepted it yet and don't want to. I have heard many times from people in that community that their "greatest fear is detransitioning." A person who knows themselves enough to know that transitioning was right for them isn't going to be afraid of detransition stories.
The only way they are the ones in the right is if their assertions that they are literally men/women on the inside are objectively true. While I believe their feelings sometimes come from a real place, nothing entitles them to binary validation when they know damn well that their bodies are still those of women/men and everything they do to challenge that is artificial.
It's not bigotry to view someone objectively and also to take into account that other people in the world exist and that the gender divide is meaningful and exists for a reason. They don't get an eternal pass just because of how they "feel" or "identify." If we reframe society around people's spoken identities, I really think it would destroy us. Nothing would have meaning, and I think even they would get tired of that.
But, anything anyone says that challenges their narrative is simply seen as something that literally denies people's existence at a metaphysical level. The way they internalized the concept of "gender identity" and how there are "endless genders" has them wired to react to any dissention as an attack worthy of their virulent and oppressive behavior.
I think that anyone who believes reconfigured male genitalia equals female genitalia isn't all there. A person would have to reduce biological sex to a "shape" to believe such a thing and in the real world that isn't how it works. It's one reason it seems that their community is trying to distance itself from bottom surgery since it indefensibly exposes them.
As unpopular as this is going to sound, a heterosexual male who transitions might only be a lesbian on a social level. Otherwise, homosexual female people exist and are.. actual lesbians. A heterosexual male is really not the same thing as a homosexual female, regardless of their internal gender. The two don't effectively amount to the same thing.