This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's posts demonstrate:
- Complex, nuanced, and deeply personal reflection on their own medical and social transition, detransition considerations, and identity.
- Consistent internal logic across a two-year period, detailing a specific, non-binary stance (medically transfem but socially desisted/ideologically detransitioned).
- Highly specific, experiential knowledge of HRT effects, dosages, physiological changes, and fertility, which would be unusual to fabricate consistently.
- Emotional depth that includes fear, mourning, and ambivalence, which aligns with the stated passion and trauma of the community.
This reads as a genuine account of someone who is a desister or partial detransitioner, not an inauthentic operator.
About me
My journey started because I was born male but never fit in, and a history of trauma made me deeply fear being seen as a man. I transitioned medically to separate myself from that, and while the hormones and surgery made me feel more emotionally whole, they also permanently changed my body and cost me my marriage. I've always identified as non-binary, not a woman, and changing my legal marker to X felt right for me. Now, I accept that I am male but prefer to live in a feminine way, though this path has come with a lot of isolation and suffering. I'm happier in myself, but I have a very clear-eyed view of the high price I've paid to get here.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender has been long, complicated, and deeply personal. I was born male, and from a young age, I never fit in with typical male social groups. I was gender non-conforming my whole life and was often shamed for it. This wasn't about being gay or having a fetish; it was something else. I have a history of complex religious and patriarchal trauma that made me develop a real fear and loathing of being seen as a cis man. I associated masculinity with emotional bluntness, detachment, arrogance, and a potential for violence. For me, transition became a way to separate myself from that, a kind of willful emasculation that had nothing to do with sex.
I started my medical transition about three years ago. I began taking hormones—estrogen and a testosterone blocker—and it felt so right for me physically. The estrogen gave me an expanded emotional range that made my life feel richer and more colorful. I lost a significant amount of muscle and developed breasts. I also had facial feminization surgery, which was a massive procedure where a surgeon literally pulled my face off, shaved down my skull, and put me back together. I have permanent numbness on the top of my head from it, but I don't regret it; it improved my life.
Socially, I never really identified as a woman. I've always been more non-binary. I rarely wear makeup or dresses and present pretty androgynously. For me, it was about having more expansive options for how I could exist in the world than I felt I could as a cis-presenting male. I changed the gender marker on my driver's license to X, which felt right because it acknowledges that I'm something other than strictly male or female. I would never change it to F because, to me, that just isn't true. I understand that sex is immutable.
My transition had significant costs. It destroyed my previously successful social life and led to the end of my marriage, even though my wife was the one who initially encouraged me to start. We're happy co-parents now, but it was a loss. My body is permanently changed. My penis doesn't work like it used to; it's smaller, my libido is near zero, and I need Viagra to function sexually. I am likely infertile, which I sometimes mourn, but I had the foresight to bank sperm before I started, so I still have that option if I want another child.
I've experienced a lot of isolation. I don't feel safe in men's spaces, where I get looks of hatred or something worse, and I can feel the nervousness and fear from women in women's spaces. I pass as female about half the time, and it's almost perfectly correlated with how much effort I put into my presentation. I can't travel safely to many places anymore. It’s been a path of significant suffering.
I've gone on and off hormones a few times, tapering my doses to figure out what I really want. When I lower my dose, my testosterone comes back surprisingly quickly, and my emotions flatten out into a detachment that I find uncomfortable. That discomfort is usually what makes me go back on estrogen.
I don't have regrets, but I have a very clear-eyed view of what this has cost me. I am happier in myself, my career is fine, and my friendships with women are wonderfully fulfilling. But I had to massively downshift my expectations. I accept that I am male, but that I prefer to look and be seen as feminine. I will never be a woman. I'm just trans. It's a third way of being. My advice to anyone considering this is to go in with open eyes. Don't sugarcoat the costs. Your body will never be the same. You will suffer. You have to decide for yourself if what you gain is worth that suffering.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Early 30s | Started medical transition (HRT: estrogen and spironolactone). |
| Early 30s | Banked sperm before starting HRT. |
| Mid 30s | Underwent Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS). |
| Mid 30s | Changed gender marker on driver's license to X. |
| Mid 30s | Marriage ended, became co-parents. |
| (Various points in mid 30s) | Experimented with tapering off and going back on HRT. |
Top Comments by /u/BizcochodeLlero:
I'm a transfem and I absolutely know that my experience is distinct from both cis male and cis female people. I recoil equally from trans boosters saying there's no distinction between trans women and cis women, and from those in the de- or anti-trans community saying we're indistinguishable from cis men. Being trans is a third way that provides a unique experience of both retained formative experiences from before transition, alongside the profound physical and mental changes that HRT and other serious interventions can cause. I wish people could relax about the labels, and I wish the trans community weren't so reflexively protective and defensive.
I rarely wear makeup or dresses and present pretty androgynously, but when I do, it's not because I am making some normative, essentialist statement about "womanhood," which would be absurd, but because I want and enjoy more expansive options than I could confidently have a cis-presenting male. I also think that many people transitioning over-present with caricatured adornments because they have to force-override obvious secondary sex characteristics in order to get the desired social recognition. In social binary terms, if you're a 1 (maximally feminine secondary characteristics), people will see you as a 1 no matter whether you're stereotypically dolled up or if you're in a button up, jeans, and a ball cap. If you're a 7, mostly masculine, you might feel that you have to dress a 1 to be seen as a 4.
So my theory about all this is that most of us aren't making grand statements about what it means to be a man or a woman. Believing this gives me a sense of grace toward the binary transness that I would normally find pretty cringy. Yes a lot of folks (maybe me too) are very misguided and buy into falsehoods, but we're mostly just flailing about trying to find a social peg that minimizes discomfort.
It's posts and realities like this that add to my hesitation about desisting MTF myself. Twice the drive/half the pleasure is a very accurate and succinct way of putting it, and the reverse is true for estrogenic orgasms. I'm really sorry you're mourning your former experience, and I hope you're able to find a middle ground somehow. When I've stopped taking estrogen occasionally, orgasms reverted to male meh pretty quickly. I wonder if the same is true for FTM? If you're socially passing and ok with that, you could try stopping T for a couple months, but not socially detransition, and see how you feel?
I thought I'd nuked my gamete factory too, but I got a test 2years into HRT and while still on full dose, and I was still making 150 million sperm per sample. That was down by 3/4 from pre-HRT but still quite fertile. I was stunned. Get tested. You might get lucky like I have.
As an elder millennial transfem person, I have been happier since putting X on my driver's license, since it instantly explains to anyone inspecting it that they should expect ambiguous or mixed secondary sex characteristics and presentation.
But I have not and would not personally ever change it to F, as it's just untrue. Maybe the young kids are different and do believe you can change sex, but most of my 30-something trans peers fully understand the immutability of sex.
But I understand the practical reasons people change their marker, whatever their ontological beliefs about sex and gender; it's to get as close as you can to aligning your marker with the instant judgment of whomever is inspecting your ID. If you have visible breasts and no facial hair or shadow, or have had facial surgery, or otherwise pass as female, etc, an F designation purchases social ease and necessary/protective invisibility. And vice-versa for FTM... you raise far fewer eyebrows as an M than you do with an F while having a full beard, or no breasts, etc.
I've been generally happy with my transition, and my career, friendships, and parenting haven't suffered. I did lose my marriage, even though she encouraged me to begin transition but we're happy coparents together now. My penis doesn't work nearly as well as it once did, and it's smaller, and my libido is near-zero, but it still works when my girlfriend wants it (Viagra helps a lot) and is very capable of pleasure. I banked sperm in case I am ever in a situation to have a second kid, even though I mourn my chosen infertility sometimes.
I do not and never have fit in with male social groups, and there is no inner masculinity I need to discover or whatever. My female friends and partner are wonderfully fulfilling. Expanded emotional range on estrogen has made my life richer and more colorful. Happy or mostly happy transitions can happen.
But in order to be happy with it, I also downshifted my expectations and 'desisted' a bit, if only ideologically. I accept that I'm male, and that I prefer to look, be, and be seen as feminine. I will never be a woman, but without testosterone and with estrogen I'm also in many functional ways less male. I'm just trans, and always will be. A third way, an Other. I pass as female about half the time, and as androgynous male half the time, and it's almost perfectly correlated with effort and presentation.
For the love of God, just go in with open eyes and don't sugarcoat the costs and downsides. Your genitals will never be the same, and if you can accept or want that, great. Statistically, you'll likely not pass. You'll be unable to travel safely ever again to many U.S. states or a majority of foreign countries. Women will eggshell around you or give you fearful looks in women's locker rooms, while you will feel unsafe in men's locker rooms as they stare at you with hatred, lust, or worse, BOTH. Hair removal, especially facial hair removal, will be an expensive, painful, and top priority if you ever want to even sorta pass as a woman or a feminine man. My breasts grew nicely as pass as female in a swimsuit, but I miss being able to take my shirt off sometimes. Facial feminization surgery has improved my life and I don't regret it, but it's kind of insane that I and my insurance paid a surgeon $30k to pull my face off, shave my skull, and put me back together, and I have permanent loss of sensation on the very top of my head.
Even if your transition goes very well, you will suffer much. Whether you gain enough to be worth that suffering is up to you.
There's massive individual variability driven by (in my opinion) by critical, overlooked, and overlapping realities:
- The relative advantage conferred by current or recent T levels.
- The cumulative musculoskeletal and cardiovascular advantage of a T-driven puberty.
- The individual's genetic sensitivity to androgens/density of receptors.
In my experience, 1 is the least important and reduced the most dramatically by HRT. While 2 & 3 change much more slowly and to far less of an extent, if at all.
This is informed from recent books I've read including The Virility Paradox and Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography.
In my case I'm not super athletic, but on HRT I lost 7kg/15 lbs of muscle within the first year and then gained back 2kg of fat and stayed there. Many many women are stronger than me now, but I'm still stronger than the average woman. Elite women in any sport could surely kick my ass. 😂
I waited to transition until my first child was born, but I also banked sperm and I highly recommend it. It gave me peace of mind to try transitioning without fearing a permanent loss of fertility. I still have 10 vials on ice at my local university fertility lab, and they can last indefinitely if stored correctly.
Yes, possibly. I may stay on HRT and even still get FFS to soften my brow and orbits, but not worry about BA or GCS, dress neutral to boyish (or however the hell I want) and not give a damn about being different-even-by-trans-standards. Sounds dreamy. 💜
How did you definitively find out you have permanent low T? Testicular exam? How long have you been off E? Recovery, if possible, takes time. But low or no sex hormones at all is bad for your health, and if your testicular function is truly fried, then HRT, whether E or T or both, is a good idea. Just depends what your goals are.