This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "Dontknowanymore746" appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic actor.
The comments display a high degree of internal consistency, emotional complexity, and personal narrative depth that is difficult to fake. The user describes a long-term, nuanced struggle with their transition, dating, self-perception, and the process of questioning, which aligns with the passionate and often painful experiences of real detransitioners and desisters. They offer detailed, personalized advice to others, citing their own decade-long experience, which demonstrates a genuine engagement with the community's struggles. The account shows no signs of automated posting, scripted rhetoric, or the agenda-driven patterns often seen in inauthentic accounts.
About me
I was a feminine boy who was bullied so badly that I transitioned in my early twenties to escape the harassment. I lived as a woman for a decade, and while it brought relief at first, I eventually felt like I was living a lie, especially in relationships. I realized my dysphoria was rooted in trauma and social rejection, not an innate identity, and I worked hard in therapy to accept myself as a male. I now see myself as a gay man and am planning to have my breast implants removed. My journey taught me that we need to address the underlying causes of pain instead of just changing our bodies.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was very young, around 8 years old. I was a very feminine boy and I was bullied relentlessly for it. I couldn't talk, walk, or even stand without being called a fag or a sissy. As a teen and young adult, it was even worse. People would spit at me, dump trash cans on me, and guys would chase me, grope me, and pants me to try and figure out if I was a boy or a girl. It didn't matter if I tried to conform; I was always seen as wrong. My home life with my dad was also very difficult. I felt completely unacceptable.
Transitioning felt like the answer. It was like a switch flipped. Overnight, I went from being a target to being acceptable. I started hormones in my early 20s and lived as a woman for about a decade. At first, it was a huge relief. My emotions felt more stable on estrogen, I liked looking younger and more feminine, and I could finally move through the world without constant harassment. I even had a breast augmentation. For a long time, I was happy to just be trans, navigating when to be stealth and when to be open.
But after about ten years, things started to change for me. The feeling of living authentically began to fade, and it started to feel more like a charade. A big part of this was dating. I'm attracted to men, and I began to feel deeply uncomfortable with the idea that they were with me without fully acknowledging that I am male. I wanted to be seen as a gay man, not as a woman or some exception. I realized I had changed my body to solve a mental and social problem, and it began to feel dishonest.
A huge part of my questioning came from realizing that my dysphoria wasn't some innate, unchangeable thing. I learned to separate it into social and physical parts. The social part was about how others saw me and how I thought they saw me. The physical part was that intense, panicked feeling that certain body parts were wrong and shouldn't be there. Through a lot of therapy, meditation, and hard mental work, I learned that this physical dysphoria was actually a negative thought loop—a kind of hyper-awareness that would trigger panic. I treated it like a localized panic attack. I worked on breaking those thought patterns, accepting that my body is just my body, and that there's nothing wrong with being a feminine man. I had to make peace with my biological sex.
I also had to confront my past. I experienced childhood sexual abuse, and I believe that was a major trigger for my feelings of disconnection from my body and my desire to change it. A doctor once dismissed this connection, but working through that trauma was essential for me to heal.
Now, I see myself as a man. I don't regret my transition entirely because it was a path I needed to take to get to where I am now, but I do have regrets about the permanent changes. I benefited from non-affirming therapy that helped me tackle my underlying issues instead of just affirming my desire to transition. I'm currently still living socially as a woman because I pass and it's easier for now, but I am saving for a mastectomy to remove my breast implants so my body can better align with how I see myself: a feminine gay man.
My thoughts on gender are that it's largely a social construct. We are our bodies; you can't be born in the wrong one. For some, transition might be the right choice, but I strongly believe it should never be the first or only option offered. We need to address the underlying reasons for dysphoria, like trauma, internalized homophobia, and societal pressure to conform. The idea that dysphoria is always innate and can only be cured by transition is harmful and prevents people from finding real, lasting peace.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 8 | First recall feeling I should have been a girl; began experiencing intense bullying for being feminine. |
| Early 20s | Started hormone replacement therapy (estrogen). |
| Early 20s | Socially transitioned and began living as a woman. |
| Early 30s | Had breast augmentation surgery. |
| 33 | Began seriously questioning my transition and exploring detransition after a decade of living as a woman. |
| 33 | Started therapy focused on underlying trauma and breaking dysphoric thought patterns, not on affirmation. |
| 34 | Came to terms with myself as a male and began identifying as a gay man (current age). |
| 34 | Decided to pursue mastectomy to remove breast implants (planned). |
Top Comments by /u/Dontknowanymore746:
It sounds like you have a sexual fetish or paraphilia.
Consider looking up about autogynephilia. Basically it means you're sexually or romantically attracted to the idea of yourself as a woman. Not everyone with AGP will transition. You can read an example of someone that didn't need to transition on PDF page 40 of this document.
The big thing is you don't need to be ashamed of your sexual desires. You're not a freak. You simply have a kink. You just need to understand it so as to not let it rule you. If you let it go too far, then it could lead you to transitioning. It's much healthier to just accept it's something that turns you on.
If you're curious of transitioning, then read this post from someone with AGP that transitioned. You can decide for yourself if that sounds like the life you'd like to lead.
No matter what, just wait until you're older to transition and stop looking at porn. Give yourself a detox for awhile. And please don't steal your sister's or mother's clothing. Buy your own if you're going to wear stuff.
That's the thing. I feel that way now, and I've always said that to anyone else that asks, but as a kid I couldn't do anything right. I couldn't talk without being called a fag, couldn't walk without being called a sissy. I couldn't even stand without being told I was doing it wrong. As a teen and young adult people would spit at me. I had trash cans dumped on me. Guys chase me. Guys grope me and pants me to see if I was a guy or girl, and it didn't even matter if I tried to conform. Somehow there was always something wrong. Like the closest I could get to acceptable was to wear the most boring clothes possible and just stand in a corner. That doesn't even get into my dad and all of his shit.
Transitioning felt so right and easy. Overnight I went from unacceptable to acceptable. It's just after a decade of coming into my own, it feels so weird to think I had to change my body just to live in society, and so wrong to date guys who don't want to admit to themselves that they're not straight.
Hi Lisa. It's good to see you on here.
I think a lot of people are in need of similar healthcare to trans people but in reverse. Like it can't all be undone, but many detransitioned women would probably appreciate having facial hair removal. Similarly many detransitioned men would appreciate having mastectomies covered by insurance. It's a bit beyond gynecomastia when someone has D cup breasts. There may also be ongoing hormone treatment needed if someone had their gonads removed.
Therapy is a huge thing as well. Therapy that focuses on body acceptance, dealing with negative thoughts, trauma focused therapy, and how to handle isolation if you end up losing friend groups when you detransition/desist are all sorely needed.
The biggest thing needed for everyone is an end to the idea that gender dysphoria is innate or can't be treated. If someone believes there is no cure for their mental health issues, then they'll never be able to get better. You need to give someone hope for something that they can strive for. That's the allure of transition. It is sold as the only answer to feeling better. Amputating body parts is perfectly reasonable when you truly believe it's the only way to feel any level of happiness or peace in your life.
As a community, there needs to be acceptance. Like people can't view the community as being the same as "ex-gays." There also needs to be safeguards against echo chamber thinking that leads to people being radicalized down a new belief path. Many people here have already shown they're susceptible to that sort of thinking.
Out of curiosity, do you have specifics that you're looking for when it comes to a phone or Skype interview? Would it just be about current needs, or a deeper discussion on how the system allowed someone to transition in the first place?
I feel the same. The trans people annoy me because of how self righteous they are in their attempts to dismiss detransitioned people as not having ever been like them or just seeking to confirm their decision to start transitioning, but it’s the aggressive GC people that never transitioned or even questioned themselves that really upset me.
People who are questioning or seeking a place to discuss realizations for why they felt they were a different gender needs a place to speak without being shamed. There are very few places anywhere that don’t shame detransitioners. It’s not helpful when people on a support sub shames them as well. When people are trying to talk about beliefs like they’re a boy for liking masculine things or a girl for being feminine that formed during childhood, it doesn’t help to yell about sexism or call someone a misogynist. Children are raised in our current society and go through a phase where they build stereotypes in their mind because that’s how the mind works. Or how do we talk about the fact that on an individual level a really feminine teenage boy could reasonably believe on a subconscious level that being a girl would be safer in the same way a teenage girl can believe being a boy would be safer when someone is ready to make points from a class analysis that ignores the individual reality of a person. These aren’t easy topics, but they have to be broached if people are going to heal.
None of this is saying this sub should start banning people, but it would be great if GC people who never transitioned or desisted would remember that this isn’t a place to vent their anger at trans people, especially when the people they’re venting at are often traumatized individuals who are in a very sensitive place when they first start questioning. Basically if you’re going to consider a gender identity that doesn’t align with biological sex a mental problem then act like it and treat people with compassion.
I'm sorry but no to the whole reincarnation thing. If you want to argue that it is contagious than you need to argue from science, not from religious or spiritual beliefs.
This is an ugly way to prey on people to pay for your psuedo-therapy. People who are detransitioning have been harmed enough without you spewing such bull at them as a reincarnation problem. Reality is what is needed.
I wouldn't say I'm always happy, but I'm more happy than sad. I mean I'm in a weird spot right now where I'm still passing and would like to have a mastectomy to undo the breast augmentation I did, but those are temporary issues. Plus there are other issues in my life that I'm dealing with, but overall I have at least some sense of peace and hope for the future.
Accepting the truth of my reality did bring me a certain amount of peace. So that was a good benefit, but that alone didn't make things better.
I found some level of contentment in acceptance of a few things.
Nothing is permanent. Life is always changing. There's nothing you can do about it. So it's pointless to try to stop or prevent change.
We all suffer, and we can't prevent ourselves from suffering. No matter what we do, there will be moments in life where we suffer, sometimes greatly. That is simply a fact of life. The only time suffering ends is when you die, but that's also the end of experiences and possibility.
No one is owed a single moment of happiness or joy. You must treasure moments of joy as the miracle that they're are in this life of suffering, while accepting that eventually that joy will leave us no matter what we do. And you must also actively work to create joy and contentment in your life because there is no guarantee of either. There's no guarantee even if you attempt to do so, but at least it gives you something to strive for.
With that I can say that at least I have more moments of contentment than discontent.
I would say this, I'm not against someone with a sound mind and who is old enough to fully understand all the risk, pros, and cons of transition that decides to do so. Part of being of a sound mind is understanding that you can't really change sex. It's just not possible. All you can do is modify yourself to appear closer to the opposite sex, but you don't actually change sex.
What I am against is the belief that transition is the only possible treatment for gender dysphoria. There are other treatments possible and those should be made available and people should strongly consider trying them before transitioning.
At the end of the day though it is your life and your choice. I'm not going to misgender or deadname someone, I'm not going to talk someone out of transitioning if they want to and seem fully aware of the realities of transition. I won't even do so if you're not aware, I'll just try to make sure that you become aware of what transition really is. I will continue to believe that dysphoria is a mental disorder, but I don't think mental health issues should be stigmatized. I won't agree with every goal of activism, but that's because I feel some goals are based on really faulty logic.
Also, if someone is questioning, then I'm going to have a negative tone to transition. That is solely to provide the counter to the positive stories of transition so that you can be fully aware.
To give you a very quick summary, it starts inbthe early 1900s when doctors first began experimenting, but was hindered by WW2. Once it starts back up the psychiatric community discovered what was going on and were appalled. They accused the early doctors of experimenting on people with a wide range of mental illnesses, and gives some examples of how the surgeons had more of a can we do that instead of should we attitude.
Those doctors made heavy use of John Money and early surgeries on intersex people as justification for doing it to this new group of people they said they'd discovered. The early criteria they used to pick who was a transsexual was someone who was gender non-conforming with with same sex attractions yet a disgust of having same-sex sex. Those surgeons wrote a number of studies to justify their actions and often used flowery language (like describing someone turning from a gloomy, rainy day to a spring morning), made use of tests they'd done on giving people with mental illnesses that had desired cosmetic surgeries, and oversold the quality of the results.
Eventually discrepancies in their data was noticed, and it became apparent there was a higher regret rate then they'd been saying and a lot more complications. Among other things it was realized that trans people weren't usually satisfied with one surgery, instead many continued to seek more and more surgeries. There also was a spike in regret that would occur around 2-5 years after SRS. This is around when John Hopkins closed their clinic, partly because studies had shown that people were helped at an equal rate when they received just therapy as when they received surgeries instead.
Rather than stop though, the early doctors switched their focus onto the symptoms of distress, and made arguments that some people truly were transsexual and sold it to the public as a medical condition. The problem was that the data seemed to show that the people considered truly trans were actually only those that didn't seem to regret receiving surgery, with everyone else labeled as not actually trans. The doctor's also used random tests to decide who to give surgery to. For example, one doctor recommended yelling at a patient to see if they cried. If they cried they were really a woman, if they got made they were a man.
The doctors also had to deal with what seemed to be a large fetish element for straight people that were coming in, and they had to deal with the fact that patients lied. This was to the point of one clinic warning about cases of older trans women pretending to be the mothers of younger individuals brought in so as to corroborate the lies.
The article concludes by stating that their evidence is that the doctors doing this have been performing unethical surgeries on mentally unwell people for financial and esteem reasons, weren't providing proper support, and were engaging in the medicalization of gender non-conformity and homosexuality so as to deal with what had originally been considered a criminal problem.
Your younger self probably didn't think of the issues of aging. Few people do. Lord knows I didn't.
Now you're at a new phase in life and you need to consider what would be best for you in the long term. Acknowledging the truth of your situation is always the best. Nothing good will come from running from reality. What you do now that you can see reality is up to you.
The thing is there is a way forward. It may not feel like it right now, but there is a way. Give yourself time to think and consider. You don't have to decide anything today.
One good thing is you're not alone. There's a number of people here and out in the world in the same position as you.
I get everything you're saying. I was that kid that you are too, but you've got some things very wrong.
Many on here won't want to hear it, but there are definitely ways that gender conforming women are treated better than really feminine guys, but you're also missing out on the ways that women are treated badly. You're not going to escape street harassment, it's just going to take a different form.
Even more worrisome to me is that you actually think most guys would be fine dating you. That's simply not true. You're facing the same dating issues, with the added factor that there are even less men willing to have a long term relationship with a trans woman than there are gay men with a feminine man.
You're also not thinking of the negatives of transition of which there are many.
Like really, just consider moving to a different area. You'll get all the things you currently want, including men attracted to femininity, without having to alter your body. Like if you're in the US then just move to LA or NYC and your problems are solved. Plus it'll be much cheaper than having to pay for FFS.
In the meantime, lie to your parents that the therapy worked so you can stop seeing that Catholic therapist. Seeing them is worst than no therapist at all. That's only going to give you a really fucked up concept of yourself.