This story is from the comments by /u/Dismal_Exchange1799 that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic detransitioner/desister.
The user demonstrates:
- Personal, detailed history: They share specific, consistent medical details (e.g., 7 years on T, uterus didelphys, tapering schedule) and personal trauma over many months.
- Emotional depth and nuance: Their comments express complex, evolving emotions like grief, regret, fear, and self-reflection, which are common in detransition narratives.
- Practical advice: They offer detailed, firsthand advice on tapering hormones, managing surgery regrets, and social re-integration, indicating lived experience.
- Consistent engagement: The tone and perspective remain consistent across posts, responding empathetically to others in the community.
The account exhibits the passion and pain typical of someone who has experienced harm from transition, aligning with an authentic detransitioner/desister perspective.
About me
I started transitioning at 14 to escape the deep pain of trauma and a difficult puberty, living as a man for 12 years. I realized my transition was a way to run from my female body, not because I was truly male. After seeing a detransitioned woman's story online, I understood my own trauma and began to medically detransition a year ago. I have a lot of grief, especially over my top surgery, which I can't reverse due to my health. Now I'm learning to accept myself as a woman and heal from the trauma that started it all.
My detransition story
My journey with transition and detransition is long and complicated, and it started when I was just a kid. I came out as trans when I was 14 years old. I lived as a man for 12 years and was on testosterone for 7 of those years, starting when I was 20. I also had top surgery when I was 18.
A lot of my reasons for transitioning were rooted in deep pain. I experienced sexual assault, and that trauma made me hate my body, especially my breasts. I think I was also dealing with internalized homophobia; I didn't want to be a lesbian. On top of that, I have a rare intersex condition called uterus didelphys, which means I have two uteruses. I got my period when I was only 8 years old and it was awful—my periods would last for months and were incredibly heavy and painful. My estrogen levels were always very high. I developed large breasts very quickly in fifth grade. All of this made me feel incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin and I grew to loathe being a girl. I thought becoming a man would fix all my problems.
But it didn't. For a long time, I was completely disconnected from myself. I was numb and couldn't cry. I now see I was deeply dissociated for over a decade. I started to seriously question everything around the time I was 25. My body had finally started to change more noticeably from the testosterone around the 5 to 7-year mark—I grew a beard—and I realized I didn't like it. I didn't want to be seen as a man or treated like one. I missed being part of women's spaces and I missed feeling my emotions. I felt like I was living a lie.
What finally woke me up was accidentally finding a video online of a detransitioned woman talking about how her transition was motivated by sexual assault trauma. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that was me too. I had been running from my trauma and my own self.
I decided to detransition about a year ago. I’ve been slowly tapering off my testosterone dose under a doctor's supervision. I went from 100mg weekly injections all the way down to 20mg. I wanted to do it slowly to avoid a huge emotional crash, and it's helped a lot. Since lowering my dose and stopping, I've started to feel my emotions again. I can cry now, which feels like a huge release. My face has softened, my skin is less oily, and my body fat is redistributing. I’ve lost a lot of the energy and strength I had on T, and that’s been a hard adjustment, but it feels more like my real self.
I have a lot of regrets, especially about my top surgery. I look at my chest and see a man’s sculpted chest with scars, not just a flat chest. I’ve been told by a surgeon that due to my serious disabilities and poor health, I am not a candidate for reconstruction surgery. It’s not safe for me. This is devastating and I feel a lot of grief over it. I’ll never get my natural body back. I get jealous when I see other women who have never altered their bodies. I’m learning to dress in a way that makes me comfortable and doesn’t draw attention to my chest.
My thoughts on gender are complicated now. I don't think my transition was because I was truly a man inside. For me, it was a trauma response and an attempt to escape the difficulties of being a woman in this world. I think being a woman is hard—we’re judged for everything—but you can’t run from who you are. I’m learning to accept that I am, and always was, a woman, even if my path was different.
I don't regret everything. I had some good memories living as a man, and that person was a part of me that helped me survive for a long time. But I am working on unifying myself and moving forward. I’m focusing on healing my trauma with a therapist and building a life where I can just be me.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 8 | Started puberty; got first period. |
| 14 | Socially transitioned to male. |
| 18 | Had top surgery. |
| 20 | Started testosterone therapy. |
| 25 | Began to seriously question my transition. |
| 27 | Began tapering off testosterone under doctor supervision. |
| 27 | Stopped testosterone completely. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/Dismal_Exchange1799:
If you have ANY doubts, stop right now. Pause. I’m serious.
Do. Not. Move. Forward. With. Surgery.
You need to be 120% certain that this is what you want.
You don’t need to make any decisions about detransition or your gender or whatever right now— you just need to think of this surgery.
Even if you cancel this it doesn’t mean you need to change anything else or make any decisions in your life. Surgeries can be rescheduled, but you know what you can’t get back?
Your body.
You’re young. The brain doesn’t stop developing until you’re 25-26. I started to rethink everything around 25, specifically with my gender. You’ll change A LOT mentally. I got top surgery when I was 18 and I regret it. I’m currently looking into reconstruction, but I will never have what I once had. And it won’t have feeling, it’ll just be aesthetic. I lost nearly all feeling in my chest after surgery. It has made me extremely depressed.
I’m now 27 and I wish I hadn’t changed my body. There was nothing wrong with my body, it was perfect. I didn’t need to rush into anything and I did.
I’ve had many surgeries (some transitional and some medical because I’m also chronically ill) and I look at my girlfriends beautiful body… she has no scars and she has the most perfect breasts— and I’m so gutted with jealousy. It makes me so sad to see someone nude who hasn’t altered their body in any way.
Ask yourself why you would move forward with an irreversible surgery if you have any tinges of doubt?
Ask yourself why you think you need this surgery?
It’s absolutely not worth it. You can never get your breasts back if you move forward with surgery, but you lose nothing by canceling the appointment. This is a huge decision that will permanently alter your body and you should not weigh the decision lightly.
I really hope you’re seeing a therapist OP. I’m sure the group is happy to help offer advice in this time, but this is definitely something you should talk to a professional about. You need someone who can walk you through these confusing feelings. I would urge you to be honest with your healthcare professionals about any doubts you’re having.
I truly wish you the best and I hope you make the right decision for yourself.
There’s absolutely no rush, just cancel it for now or schedule for a date much later like a year down the road. Don’t ever ever ever go through with anything you’re having doubts about. Especially not when it comes to permanent body changes.
I’m not sure how old you are, but I thought I was old enough to make this decision and I absolutely wasn’t.
Tbh, it took me until about 25 to start realizing I really fucked up. It’s like I could feel the moment my brain fully developed/matured. Teens—your 20’s are a whirlwind. Every year you’re going to change rapidly until your late twenties when things start to make sense. The trauma, the reason behind my wanting to transition, kept me in arrested development. This really clouded my decision making.
I promise you’ll figure out who you are one day. One day it’ll all make sense. Just please wait. It hurts so much more once you figure it out and “wake up” and now you have all of this manly characteristics and are missing body parts. It’s not an easy fix.
Give yourself time. Growing up is really hard. And they don’t tell you that growing up is actually until your late 20’s. It doesn’t magically happen at 18. It really takes time to be able to understand the consequences of your actions and to think ahead.
100% a beautiful woman. But I’m a child transitioner too so I understand how hard it can be to stop seeing that. I think it’s different for us because we’ve never been adult women. When I look in the mirror I’m like wow, I’ve never met her. It feels like I suddenly skipped many steps. Almost like that movie 13 going on 30 lol. I watched it recently and cried like a baby.
As someone who was on T for 7 years this was me 😅 when I decided to detransition and shaved my beard I was shocked at how quickly I went back to passing as female. I will say, I did start to see the biggest changes on T around the 5-7 year mark. It’s also ironically when I started to not like that.
This perspective on PCOS and receiving better care is an absolute lie. Women have a horrendous time being believed and receiving the right care in healthcare settings. The solutions for us are still awful as many medicines for this really fuck with our hormones. I have very complex reproductive issues and none of the options they’ve presented have ever worked for me without severely screwing up my hormones.
You’re not alone! I’m 27 (FTMTF) and coming off T after being on for 7 years.
Here’s what’s helped me:
Remember that transition is slow. When you transitioned to male you didn’t just wake up immediately male passing upon coming out. The same thing is the case with detransitioning. You and the people around you will have time to adjust because the changes are slow.
Take things are your own pace. For example, I decided that I’m just going to start slowly integrating more femininity and ambiguity to my gender as the changes estrogen brings naturally. If people ask my pronouns I plan to just start saying “any” so they know I’m not exclusively “he” anymore. I don’t feel the need to come out as non-binary or female or anything else again. The only people I’ve told are very close people in my life. As far as people in my neighborhood, synagogue, or even at work I’m just going to let things slowly unfold.
Eventually I’ll just look like a woman again after I get laser and E does it’s job.
People will start to catch on and understand.
We don’t always have to make a grand entrance in that way. You can inform people how to treat you by exuding confidence and by moving forward.
I know you’re scared, but things will get easier. You’ve done this before and you can do this again.
My favorite comment, thank you.
Having very tiny boobs is not the same thing as having scars, tiny nipples, and a sculpted masculinized chest. Women who get mastectomies due to cancer don’t even have the same look as this— in those cases they keep what they can, they don’t sculpt it to look masculine.
The only thing that gives this look is specifically top surgery, it cannot be compared to anything else. I don’t just have a flat chest, my chest looks like a man’s does…. But with scars.
I would be perfectly fine with small boobs. I don’t care about the size. I just want my boobs I used to have (they were small anyways).
It’s about looking at your body and seeing a reminder of what you’ve done to yourself. My body isn’t natural. I can never have what I had back. I look at my partner and I’m jealous. She has an untouched body. She’s never even had a surgery for medical reasons. It hurts.
Overall, it shouldn’t matter to you. Detrans females with top surgery are just expressing their pain, from a SURGERY. They’re not @ing people with small boobies. Completely different subjects. Separate those in your head.
You’re coming across as argumentative and insensitive towards other peoples suffering. You’re really out here trying to say it’s not that different?? Okay girl you didn’t have the goddamn surgery, so how would you know? Some of us have had both small boobs and then the surgery. I can assure you it’s totally different.
I went through this type of anger (minus the violent feelings) in my early stages. Detransitioning is a type of grief, anger is a big part of grief. I agree with another commenter that said you need to go through the motions— it’s how you’ll get out on the other side. Allow yourself to feel instead of repress.
The only advice I’d give is to make sure you’re not rage baiting yourself. When I was going through my anger phase I obsessively researched, read, and watched content that made me even angrier toward the whole thing. That’s actually a type of self harm, so don’t do that.
Your feelings are valid and they come from a real place. But it’s also valid to not want to turn hateful and bitter. I don’t think that’s a place anyone wants to end up for any reason.
You have to remember that you’re only one person. You cannot take down the entire transgender ideology, nor is it your responsibility to. Leaning into stoicism really helped me here. I had to realize that I’m no longer a part of that community. Being mad like that was only hurting myself. The focus should be on your detransition journey and integrating back into normal life. Not letting trans stuff have a chokehold on you.
I know it sounds impossible now, but I stopped caring. When I was super angry I sat down with myself and said, “okay, so are you going to dedicate your life to becoming an opposing activist?” When the answer was no I knew that I had to let it go. There ARE people who dedicate their lives to fighting against trans ideology. If you wanted to do that, you have free will.
However, if the answer for you is no, meaning you cannot take your anger and make it productive— then you should also step away.
The emphasis should be on healing. So, go through your anger, not above it or around it. But keep a close eye on it. Don’t let it control your life. You want to eventually walk away from this stuff. Hell, I wouldn’t even stay in the detrans community that long. I eventually walked away from that too (aside from occasional Reddit use). But I used to be big into Discord. I also realized it had a hand in fueling my anger.
And yes, remember that many of those who are still trans are victims too. Doesn’t mean they’re void of responsibility in some respects. But we were them once too. It’s always important to try to humanize things and have compassion. Being online and having political discussions and viewing rage bait content tends to do the opposite of humanize.
I don’t know if this will help you, but I try to have faith that everything will change one day. I think detrans people will have their spotlight eventually. Now is not the time for me to share my story, but maybe one day. I do see things starting to change. Things in Europe, systematic reviews, convos on social media and IRL changing… I do see it. It’s going to be slow but we’ll get there eventually.
How is this better for women though? I wish more than anything to be not noticed for my looks. Detransitioning and beginning to experience this again has been heartbreaking. I feel like so much MTF content I’ve seen is romanticizing women’s suffering. I’m just confused about this. I’m confused about why someone would want to be berated for what they’ve worn/haven’t worn? (the example you’ve provided)
Plenty of women don’t have boobs for various reasons. I’m struggling with this right now too. They make little padded bras you could wear for certain outfits. There won’t be cleavage but it might help fill the outfit out!
I’m sorry that we have to deal with this type of pain.
I don’t always regret my top surgery either, but clothes can really bring it out.
If it makes you feel any better you look unequivocally female. You’re looking great.
I hope you find peace soon.