This story is from the comments by /u/Chelstrawberrymuffin that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the extensive comments provided, this user account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a fake account. The user demonstrates a deeply personal, nuanced, and emotionally charged history with transitioning, detransitioning, and the associated physical, mental, and social struggles. The narrative is highly specific, internally consistent over time, and reflects the complex, often contradictory feelings common among individuals who have medically transitioned and then detransitioned. The user's expressed frustrations with medical professionals, therapy, societal treatment, and their own mental health (BPD) align with known experiences within the detrans community. The account shows no signs of being orchestrated or inauthentic.
About me
I started identifying as a man at 19 because I liked how people treated me and I was struggling with my sense of self from autism and BPD. I was on and off testosterone for two years; it helped my mental health but caused difficult physical changes like a strained voice and health concerns. I finally stopped for good because living as a trans man made my life harder and I missed the ease of being seen as a woman. Now, I've been off hormones for a while and my body has mostly returned to how it was before. I don't regret the journey, but I'm learning to accept being a woman while working through my past issues.
My detransition story
My whole journey with transition and detransition is messy and complicated. I started identifying as a trans man when I was 19, mainly because I liked how people treated me when they saw me as a guy. It wasn't that I felt like a man deep down inside; it was more about the social role. I was on testosterone for about two years in total, but I kept stopping and starting because I was never fully sure about it.
Looking back, a lot of my desire to transition came from deep-seated issues. I have borderline personality disorder and autism, which made it hard for me to have a stable sense of self. I would basically change my entire personality and appearance based on who I was dating or what I thought people wanted from me. When I was a trans man, I acted how I thought women wanted a man to act—protective and strong. When I was a woman, I acted how I thought men wanted me to act—sweet and feminine. I didn't have my own identity.
I also had a lot of internalized misogyny. I saw women as weak and inferior, and I thought men had it better. I was jealous of the attention men got, especially from women. I started catfishing as a guy online from ages 13 to 17, and that really messed with my head. I began to believe I was actually a man. I also had trauma and a fear of men, which made trans men feel safer to me.
Testosterone did some good things for me mentally. It helped my BPD symptoms a lot. I felt more confident, stable, and less anxious. I also got a lot more attention from women, which boosted my ego. I found myself attractive as a man in a way I never did as a woman. I even became very sexual as a trans man, whereas as a woman I was basically asexual.
But physically, testosterone caused a lot of problems. My voice changed in a way that was painful and never sounded like a normal man's voice—it sounded high-pitched and cartoonish. I developed high blood pressure, my hairline started receding, and I was worried about my uterine health. I was scared of going bald or needing a hysterectomy at a young age.
I tried to detransition three times but kept going back on T because I felt like I was addicted to it. Going off it made me have mental breakdowns. Eventually, I stopped for good because I realized living as a trans person was making my life harder. People treated me worse, and I missed the ease of being seen as a cis woman. I also didn't want to rely on hormones forever.
Now, I've been off testosterone for a while, and my body has feminized back a lot. I look like my old self, and my periods came back regularly. My voice has lightened a bit naturally, and I've been voice training to sound more feminine again. I still have some lingering effects, like a more muscular build and some vocal strain, but I'm learning to accept myself.
I don't regret transitioning because it taught me a lot about myself, and it helped me work through my internalized misogyny. But I also see now that it wasn't the right solution for my problems. I wish I had gotten better therapy that challenged my beliefs instead of just affirming them. I'm still figuring out my identity, but I'm trying to be okay with being a woman, even if I don't always fit into traditional feminine stereotypes.
Here's a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 13-17 | Catfished online as a male every day. |
| 19 | Started testosterone for the first time. |
| 19-21 | Was on and off testosterone three times; total time on T was about 2 years. |
| 21 | Detransitioned for the final time and stopped testosterone. |
| 22 | Had been off T for several months; periods returned; started voice training. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/Chelstrawberrymuffin:
It is literally my biggest pet peeve for ppl to do any of the following:
A- Romanticize periods and downplay how hard it is and just use it as some weird autogynophylia fetish fuel
B- Pretend to have periods or claim to have periods even though they dont have ovaries and the hormonal up and down cycle that ovaries go through
I just watched some youtube vid recently of a trans woman claiming to have periods just minus the blood, first off, how the fuck is that even possible when trans women take the same exact dose of estrogen everyday and the whole fucking thing that even causes periods in the first place is the monthly rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone in an endless neverendling cycle? That might be off topic but thats just a genuine question of mine.
But anyways, to the point.. what the fuck is next? People having dysphoria over not getting the "pleasure" to have vaginal cancer? Is that what's gonna be next?
Periods are like an "unspeakable" sickness. Most people feel ill or injured on their period, because periods replicate feeling hurt or sick even whilst being perfectly healthy. The only difference between periods and actual illness struggles though is that women who have periods are socially NOT allowed to talk about it. Not even to say one peep. No mention of the pain, or else they will be called disgusting, bullied by men, judged, get weird side eyes, and/or be told to suck it up or "TMI". What other sickness is like that, where if you say a peep about feeling unwell with the sickness, you're mocked? (Mainly by men). Little to none. and thats what makes periods even fucking worse. The shitty experience aside, people are not even allowed to fucking talk about it.
Most the time it's more socially acceptable to just lie and say you have explosive diahhrea than say you're hurting from a period. The diahhrea, men will just laugh at light-heartedly, but the period comment, men are prone to saying incredibly sexist and rude remarks.
All these people who feel dysphoric about not having a period just need to imagine having deep and lingering pain and just feeling weak and tired and unwell, except you're not allowed to say anything about it, and you have to pretend absolutely nothing is going on. Maybe then they'll feel a little more grateful about the fact that they are actually priveledged. Not having periods is a priviledge and I will die on that statement on my grave. It is a priveledge, period. Periods ARE a disadvantage. They are a physical hinderence, often a work hinderence, and hell, even an emotional or mental hinderence for some.
Im currently on birth control to try to stop my periods but it just made my first period on the pill twice as long. im hoping it will do the trick soon bc i cannot tolerate anylonger feeling sick and like shit but not being able to say a word. In my opinion, the only reason they romantize it is bc they dont know what its really like, and what its like to be socialized to be ashamed of it and socialized to beleive its disgusting and taboo
im done with trans women thinking their stereotypes about femaleness makes them more of a real woman than real woman.
the world's most masculine woman on the planet is still inherently more female than the most feminine trans woman on the planet.
thats like me dressing up in a sombrero and celebrating hispanic culture and saying im more hispanic than real hispanic people.
i rarely see trans men say that theyre more of a real man than cis man, but literally every other trans woman online says it.. clearly their male entitlement and ego is still there
I’m a female and have never once in my life orgasmed at all, let alone a mind blowing one lol. To me it seems like men are the ones having a mind blowing orgasm all the time. It’s much harder to orgasm as a woman and some women never experience that kind of sensation their entire life due to either never getting the correct stimulation, or just due to how female arousal is usually a lot of more nuanced and hard to initiate. That definitely is a porn myth in my opinion
One big reason I transitioned because of pure envy and jealousy that all my female peers started talking about boys and giving boys attention and i FUCKING wanted that attention so bad. I felt jealous and offended they weren't attracted to me, so part of my journey in transitioning was becoming a woman's "dream guy" and getting that attention from women i was craving, and curing my jealousy.
No. Almost every cell in the human body is marked XX or XY, male or female. You don't have to do anything, look like anything, or act like anything to be a female, you just inheritly are. Sex is not a performance, it's just a fact of nature and the way nature created a being to be, eternally.
Oh my god. This is getting so fucking sad and pathetic.
"Your existence of a uterus offends me an fuck the fact that you had cancer on that organ, you mentioning having a uterus as the biological woman you are, offends me, so don't draw it, it'll hurt my feelings. Keep your cancer to yourself if it's about something that reminds me I'm not a biological woman"
I guess their inner dialogue was something like that.
yeah usually literrally, anytime you mention you are a detrans person online, people will assume you are lying and not beleive you/invalidate you, tell you to prove it, and completely discredit you or your story.
the fact that certain communities like to call every single detrans person online "fake" to try to pretend we dont exist and ignore us as people, is honestly the reason i post audios of my testosterone-induced voice so much. Because they can't argue and say i never transitioned, the proof is right there, lol.
The “I have my period thing” from trans women makes zero scientific sense. Periods are literally caused from both hormones being at their absolute lowest, estrogen and progesterone, triggering the start of a period and uterine shedding. It’s caused by a sudden drop and dip in hormone levels. But yet trans women take a steady dose of estrogen everyday- they don’t experience a hormonal dip that initiates periods.
In fact, taking a steady dose of estrogen everyday actually stops periods, it’s why taking birth control that has a small amount of estrogen in it everyday nonstop can literally stop your period because there’s never a hormonal drop. So that doesn’t even make any sense how a steady dose of estrogen everyday would “cause a period” when periods are initiated by a lack of hormones in the body. When estrogen is at its highest, that is when ovulation happens (release of an egg) not a period lmao XD when we have our period, all of our hormones are super low and that adds to why we feel so tired and like shit during that time.
Not to mention the obvious fact that a period is when the body discards the uterus lining after a pregnancy did not happen, and the muscle contractions of the uterus can irritate other organs in the nearby area, like the intestines and make them feel bad too. But if no uterus is even present, there are no contractions present to even be irritating other parts of the body.
Prostaglandins, which is what the body releases to stimulate uterus contractions (and irritating other parts of the lower pelvic floor at times) ARE RELEASED FROM THE ENDOMETRIUM (UTERINE LINING!) how the fuck are “contracting hormones” being released when those hormones are released by the uterus and you don’t even have a uterus? The “logic” isn’t logic-ing and the “science” isn’t science-ing. Literally makes zero sense whatsoever.
I have “the voice” from being on such a high dose that my testosterone level was regularly 900-1100 ng/dL (and I got my blood tests near the middle or end of my weekly cycle of taking shots. I just mention this bc if you get a blood test only like a day after your shot it’ll be higher. But no, that was my range like 4-5 days after my shot. Super super high T but somehow my doctor was okay with it.)
This is not misinformation at all. Your throat cannot properly grow in time in the span of like 4 fucking months (which is when the vocal cords tend to be almost fully finished in their development for ftms.) 4 months is NOT enough time whatsoever. Larynx growth is a very slow process, if it even grows at all. For some people it will hardly grow post-puberty.
I was on T for 2 years.
1.) High blood pressure/stage one hypertension which increases risk of stroke and heart attack. (The reason for this was because T increases red blood cell count and thickens the blood despite still having thinner female veins and a smaller female heart, so the female heart may have to work harder to push that thicker blood through the body. This is why men have thicker veins on average. To accomodate for their thicker blood.)
2.) Worse cramps during the time when I'd normally have a period. Even if I didn't bleed, I'd get horrible pain. I think it was due to drying out and atrophying of my uterus.
3.) Heart palpitations due to bulletpoint number one.
4.) Hairline/temple hair receding. (And I have family genetics for very full and bushy hair, even on the male side, so I was shocked when I saw that my the hair on my temples were receding so much and at such a young age.)
5.) Too much sensitivity of the clitoris. My clitoris on T was so damn sensitive that even walking was uncomfortable. It's better now that I stopped T. I fucking hated the feeling of that. It felt awful. I'd get smegma around my clit all the time because I couldn't even bear to touch it. I would shake out of fear everytime I attempted to clean the area around my clit. It was so sensitive that it was painful for me. But I already had a sensitive clit to begin with even pre-T. So that just made it.. so so much worse.
6.) More acne and ugly ingrown hairs growing out of my jaw and neck for some reason. (I still don't know why this happened. Everytime I plucked the ingrown hairs out, they'd just grow back in the same spot too. It was nasty.)
7.) Voice/vocal/throat pain!!! This is probably the biggest complain from Testosterone I have, so I saved the best for last. Testosterone gave me a very bizzare voice, with heavy vocal weight, but still small resonance. So in short, my vocal chords are large like a man's but my vocal tract remained small. This happened because I was put on too high of a dose and my vocal chords grew at a crazy rate, rather than the very slow and gradual voice changes that happen for a cis boy. I have voice pain and discomfort and feel hoarse and strained constantly, because my vocal chords are fucked up.
8.) Since I stopped testosterone mid-puberty, I experience voice cracks like a teenage boy does who is in the midst of puberty, except for me in my case, I am not sure it's ever going to go away. Because think about it, teenage boys usually have their voice cracks go away once their adult man voice matures. But I am never going to be going back on T again, so that "leveling out" of the voice is not gonna happen for me, so Im starting to accept the reality that I may have a cracking teen-guy-like voice eternally for the rest of my life. It just sucks to get so many voice cracks. Atleast teen guys can know that at the end of their puberty, it'll go away, but in my case, I don't have that hope to hold onto.
9.) I sweated a lot more on T and smelled a lot worse.
10.) My skin on T looked bad. My pores got bigger, my skin tone looked more uneven, my skin looked aged and rugged. I went from having youthful soft skin to having rugged skin that looked much more aged and almost even wrinkly even. My skin and facial complexion just did not look great when I was on T. I wasn't able to leave the house without foundation on, it looked that bad. Now my skin is a lot better.