This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this user account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags indicating it is a bot or an inauthentic actor.
The comments demonstrate:
- Deep personal narrative: A consistent, detailed, and emotionally resonant personal history of dysphoria, desisting, and recovery over many years.
- Internal consistency: The story remains coherent across multiple comments made over a nearly three-year period.
- Nuanced understanding: The user shows a sophisticated grasp of the topic, discussing therapy modalities, societal pressures, and the difference between sex and gender in a way that reflects lived experience, not just copied talking points.
- Empathetic engagement: The user offers tailored, thoughtful advice and support to others, which is complex for bots to replicate convincingly.
The passion and criticism expressed are consistent with a genuine desister who feels harmed by their experience and the prevailing medical and social approaches to gender transition.
About me
I'm a female who first felt dysphoria as a teenager, which was tied to unresolved sexual trauma. My desire to transition became an obsessive focus that only intensified my distress after I joined trans support groups. I stopped identifying as trans at 26 and found therapy that treated my underlying anxiety and trauma instead. I worked through my issues with my female body and my internalized misogyny. I'm now 34, completely comfortable as a woman, and incredibly relieved I never medically transitioned.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was a teenager. I'm female, and I began feeling sex dysphoria and gender dysphoria around that time. It wasn't constant; the intensity would go up and down, but it was a heavy presence in my life. A big part of it was related to unresolved sexual trauma. I wasn't directly abused, but I was an observer of sexual abuse as a child, and as a teenager, several adult men made sexually inappropriate comments to me. I started privately identifying as a trans man and planning my transition shortly after that started happening.
For years, from age 16 to about 24, I thought about medically transitioning. I was seriously considering phalloplasty and a hysterectomy. My desire to have a male body had a strong sexual component to it; I had an intense desire to take on a male role during sex. I also had a lot of discomfort with my internal organs, especially my uterus. It felt like a foreign object that didn't belong to me.
When I was 24, I started seriously exploring transition options. I joined trans support groups, both online and in person. But that's when things got worse. The advice I kept getting was to examine every single gender-related feeling in minute detail. I became completely preoccupied with tracking my discomfort and dysphoria. It made everything so much more intense. I went from feeling mildly dysphoric to feeling like parts of my body were completely unbearable. I now see that pattern as obsessive, similar to the 'O' in OCD. The more I ruminated on it, the worse it got.
There was also this huge pressure because it felt like I had to figure myself out to make this massive life decision. If I got it wrong, the consequences would be huge. That anxiety just fed the obsessive thinking.
I also got really into the supposed science behind it all. I have a STEM background, so I tried to understand the literature on brain sex differences. I even got hormone tests and was enrolled in a sketchy brain study. But what I learned is that the differences between male and female brains are just slight population averages, eclipsed by the huge variation between individuals. There's no such thing as a 'male brain' or 'female brain' in any meaningful sense for an individual.
After about two years in these groups, I decided to stop. I desisted. A huge reason was that I finally started getting good therapy, but only after I stepped away from the trans framework. I found a therapist who used CBT and something called metacognitive therapy, which helped me learn how to manage my thoughts and anxiety. I realized that when my symptoms were framed as anxiety or trauma, therapists knew how to help. But when the same symptoms were framed as gender dysphoria, they treated me like a unicorn—something unique and outside their understanding—and would only offer transition as a solution.
I started doing the hard work of processing my trauma, not just the big events but also the low-level trauma that comes from being a woman in this society and the messages we get about our bodies. I worked through my intense fear and disgust around pregnancy and my uterus. And eventually, my relationship with my body completely changed. I'm now 34, and I've been non-dysphoric for about nine years. I'm really happy I didn't get any surgeries. My body is the same, female body, but how I feel about it and how I use it during sex is totally different. I have the sexual satisfaction I always thought would require a male body.
Looking back, I see that my desire to transition was a form of escapism. I had internalized a lot of misogyny from the guys I hung out with; they were disrespectful to women, and I started to distance myself from my female friends. I associated my own intellect and serious thoughts with "feeling like a man" because they believed women were frivolous. I now see my former male gender identity as functioning similarly to a religious experience. It was a framework I believed in, and I had feelings that matched it. When I stopped believing in that framework, those feelings stopped.
I don't regret exploring transition because it led me to where I am now, but I am so relieved I never medically transitioned. I think I benefited greatly from non-affirming therapy—therapy that addressed my underlying anxiety and trauma rather than affirming a trans identity.
My thoughts on gender now are that it's a significant cultural construct. As a female, the sexed aspects of my body impact how I move through the world and how people treat me. That experience is what I call womanhood. I also think that a lot of distress comes from not fitting into cultural expectations and the oppression women face. When that distress is hidden, it can make you feel alone and like you're different from other women, when really, we're all dealing with it in our own ways.
Here’s a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 16 | First began experiencing sex and gender dysphoria. |
| 16-24 | Period of repressing dysphoria and privately considering transition. |
| 24 | Began seriously exploring transition, joined trans support groups. |
| 26 | Desisted; stopped identifying as trans and began therapy for anxiety/trauma. |
| 26-34 | Lived non-dysphoric and happy as a woman. |
Top Comments by /u/CheneMoyen:
Firstly, I really appreciate that you are thoughtful about these things! It makes my day when men care about being egalitarian in terms of the sexes.
In terms of dominating discussions and crossing boundaries, I have seen those same patterns of behavior in my LGBT social groups and in female-only spaces.
I've also had the experience in connections with some detrans men that the detransition process led them to contemplate gender equality in new ways, and made them a better ally to females. I've also noticed this with biologically male people who transitioned and continue to live as trans women, but who leave the original ideology / belief system that led them to transition in the first place, and now their living as a trans woman is more an artifact of their past life choices. I personally think it's the belief systems that people get into, especially in online subcultures, that cause these behavioral issues.
Mod here - I temporarily locked comments on this post because I'm concerned that some of the content included will draw out a flame war. (Edit: After I added this comment, OP edited the post due to the same concern. Keeping comments locked now just for the time being. Thank you OP for a thoughtful and interesting post!)
Ohh, I resonate with this so much.
I read someplace that historically, women who really grate against cultural restrictions imposed on them based on their sex are more likely to identify with other women if they have a strong community of women to bond with who are also resisting those cultural restrictions. And that if we don't have that, we may be more likely to identify with men or see ourselves as being categorically different from other women. (Using "identify with women/men" intentionally here, since for most of history identifying with men didn't mean identifying as a man.) When I read that, I had a "whoooah" moment, like, yes, that's how I operate! It's stuck in my head since then.
Happy International Women's Day! I'm so glad you are able to get into the holiday this year.
I'm so happy that you listened to yourself and got off T! It is a difficult path, but I know so many detrans women who feel that detransitioning was one of the best decisions they ever made. Just know that you are amazing and worth it. <3
Ignoring those doubts for a while wasn't your fault - tons of very intelligent people have done the exact same thing. Our culture makes it really hard to listen to that little internal voice, particularly when it comes to doubts around gender transition. You've got this!
I know exactly how you feel. I had a lot of guy friends when I was younger. They always respected other men, but they were blatantly disrespectful of women, even in front of me and other women. It definitely encouraged me to want to become a man. Now I'm just choosier about who I invest my time in - I'm not friends with any of those guys anymore.
For me personally, acknowledging that women are oppressed in my culture, and that that oppression has caused me suffering, helps me get out of the trans mindset and stay resilient and mentally healthy.
It's common for women collectively to pretend that they're okay with the way they and other women are treated and perceived, and just keep the discomfort inside. That creates an illusion that most women aren't distressed by being sexualized, talked down to, etc. The distress is hidden. So then as girls grow up, and feel that distress, they think it's something that makes them different from other women, when really it's something that makes them the same as other women. The narrative of "I'm distressed by the way people treat me due to my sex, and this makes me different from other women" contributes to the framework of gender dysphoria. That's why a lot of women are so outspoken about it here - the silence was the problem.
I do think that some women have a sharper anxiety response to being treated in sexist ways, compared to some other women. Some women get an intense anxiety or trauma response from getting leered at; it's their body sending a strong signal that something is wrong in their environment, or that danger may be near. Some just get annoyed and keep it to themselves. Some repress any negative feelings as a coping strategy. Some feel nothing. None of these responses reflect badly on the women having them.
I think the alert/danger signals our body sends us are valuable, but for some people, there's a need to manage them so they don't interfere with our mental health. Mindfulness and CBT are great tools for this. Maybe I should post some helpful stuff in this vein in this sub. 🤔
I feel you! My biggest regret from high school is that I distanced myself from my female friends and hung out with a group of guys. They were very misogynist, and I just ignored it. Their basic ideas about how women think, what goes on inside a woman's mind on a continual basis, were just not true. They believed that women were frivolous and unintellectual, whereas men think Serious Thoughts, and that's why philosophy and other intellectual pursuits are the domain of men (their belief, not mine). I was a serious thinker, so I started to associate my inner sense of my own intellect with "feeling like a man".
I think they should teach us in history about all the women in various eras who felt crazy because their thoughts were supposedly "man thoughts".
I love this. Thanks for the uplifting Saturday post!
Some things I've learned to appreciate about being female...
The durability of my body. Statistically stronger immune system, longer predicted lifespan. I used to be jealous of men's physical strength, but now that I understand the tradeoff in durability, I prefer the roll of the dice that I got.
Getting to experience love and physical intimacy between two females. I think it's very special, and I feel blessed to have been born a lesbian.
There's also the complicating factor of: how does a personality trait get assigned the label of "masculine" or "feminine"? These things aren't fixed - being emotionally expressive and artistically inclined were considered masculine personality traits in the past, and wanting lots of sex or being fixated on sex was considered a feminine trait. If you took a person with his or her natural tendencies, and plonked them down into a random point in time and geography, they could be considered naturally masculine in one time and place, and naturally feminine in another.
I've been around in detrans/desister communities for a while. Here are the main categories I've seen for how people's GD has been reduced or eliminated:
Spontaneous insight. Sometimes, someone has an "aha" moment and realizes they aren't a man / woman, or stops believing in the gender ID framework, and their GD quickly resolves, is massively reduced, or changes in nature. One important note with this is that it doesn't mean the dysphoria wasn't real, or that it was a different "type" of GD. Some real psychological conditions can and do spontaneously resolve due to mentally reframing the problem, and GD is one of them. That gives us an interesting insight into how GD functions from a clinical perspective.
Resolving root causes. For example, I have a friend whose GD greatly lessened when she was diagnosed and treated for depression.
Brain re-mapping using evidence-based tools such as CBT, mindfulness, and exercise. We have tons of data showing that these practices physically affect the brain structures that are involved in anxiety, depression, and OCD, and that they reduce the symptoms of these conditions for many people. GD seems to function similarly to these conditions in many ways, and many people with GD have been able to reduce their distress using the same tools that are suggested for anxiety, OCD, etc. There really needs to be clinical research on this, but clinicians won't touch it right now because of the political climate.