This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
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's writing is highly personal, nuanced, and emotionally complex. They describe a consistent, long-term internal struggle with gender identity, sexual orientation, and body image that spans from childhood into adulthood. The narrative includes specific, non-generic details about their life experiences, family dynamics, and the evolution of their thoughts over time. The tone is passionate and often critical, which aligns with the expected perspective of someone who has personally grappled with these issues. The account shows no signs of automated posting or a manufactured persona.
About me
I was born female and from age four, I desperately wished to be a boy to escape feeling powerless and uncomfortable in my own skin. My intense desire to transition always flared up during my lowest points, like breakups or depressive episodes, acting as a coping mechanism for deeper trauma and internalized homophobia. I realized I was running from the shame of being a masculine woman and never went through with any medical steps. I now understand I am a woman, comfortable with my masculine appearance, though finding community can be lonely. My journey taught me that for some, the push to transition can be a way to escape other pains, and I don't regret choosing to desist.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender has been confusing and deeply tied to my own self-image and the world around me. From a very young age, I felt different and out of place. I was born female, but I never felt like I fit the mold of what a girl was supposed to be.
When I was about four years old, I started having this intense wish to be a boy. I would pray to wake up as one, with a penis, and for everyone to just accept it as if I had always been that way. This wasn't just about wanting to play with different toys; it felt like a deep, desperate need to escape my own body and life. Looking back, I think a lot of this came from seeing how boys were treated versus girls. They seemed to have more power, more freedom, and I felt powerless and uncomfortable as a girl, especially an "ugly" one who didn't fit in. I also realize now that there was a sexual component to it, even that young—an arousal tied to the idea of having a male body, which is something I still don't fully understand but recognize as a part of my experience.
I grew up in a time before social media was everywhere, and I was pretty isolated. I didn't know transgender people existed. If I had, and if it had been as accessible and encouraged as it is now, I absolutely believe I would have tried to transition. The option wasn't really there for me then; in the 90s and early 2000s, it was a long, difficult process. By the time I was a teenager, I had figured out that I was attracted to women, which added another layer of confusion and shame because my family wasn't accepting of that. I felt like a freak, a pervert, and that terror of being gay made me want to hide even more.
Throughout my life, my appearance has always been very androgynous. I've always been misgendered. I have features that are naturally very masculine for a woman, and I often pass as male without even trying. For a long time, I cut my hair short and wore men's clothes, not just as a style, but to see how it felt to be seen as a man. There were times, especially during low points like when I dropped out of college or went through a breakup, that I became convinced I was a repressed trans man. I even came out to my family once when I was 28, during a manic episode, and told them I wanted to transition and get a penis. It felt completely real in the moment.
But I never went through with any medical steps. Something always held me back. I could never fully shake the feeling that, at other times, I wished I could be a more feminine woman. I realized that these intense desires to transition always flared up when I was deeply depressed, anxious, or in crisis. It was a coping mechanism—a way to escape the pain of being me. I was running from the shame of being a masculine woman, from the trauma of my childhood, from the feeling that I was inadequate and unlovable as I was.
I also struggled with internalized homophobia and a complicated relationship with my bisexuality. I'm attracted to both men and women, but with a strong preference for women. For a while, I even doubted that and thought I might be a repressed straight person, which seems crazy now. The idea of being with a man as a man, in a gay relationship, felt like an escape from the vulnerability of being a woman in a heterosexual relationship or the perceived shame of being in a lesbian one.
Now, I understand that I'm not trans. I'm a woman, albeit a very masculine-looking one, and I'm comfortable with that. I don't regret not transitioning, but I do regret the years of confusion and pain. I regret that my appearance makes it hard to find community, especially among other queer women, because so many people who look like me now identify as non-binary or trans. It can be lonely.
My thoughts on gender now are that it's incredibly complex. For some people, transition is absolutely the right choice and they are truly happy. But for others, like me, it can be a way to escape deeper issues—trauma, low self-esteem, depression, internalized homophobia, or social pressures. I think the current culture, especially online, can create a lot of incentive to identify as trans, and it doesn't always allow for the kind of questioning and exploration that people like me needed.
I benefited from time and from eventually understanding the patterns in my own life. I didn't have therapy that was specifically about this, but figuring it out on my own was what worked for me. I don't think medical transition is something to be taken lightly, especially for young people, and I worry about the societal pressure to affirm without question.
Here is a timeline of the major events related to my gender questioning:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 4 | First remember intensely wishing to be a boy, including wanting a penis. |
| 12 | Realized and accepted I was attracted to women (and later understood I was bi). |
| 15-29 | Periods of cross-dressing and presenting masculinely, often being misgendered as male. |
| 20 | A significant period of gender questioning during a low point (dropping out of college). |
| 28-29 | Most intense period of questioning; came out to family as wanting to transition during a manic episode. Realized it was a delusion and not what I truly wanted after the mania passed. |
| Present | Desisted. Comfortable identifying as a masculine, bisexual woman. |
Top Comments by /u/ExistingPie2:
That was an interesting read. She's a queer woman who is currently married to a trans man who had worked at a hospital that provided trans healthcare to youths.
If anyone can talk about real people and real cases, she can. The article goes through a few of the patients she encountered.
Talking about it makes it harder to sweep under the rug. It's inconvenient that things go wrong, and it's not 100% successful.
Reddit still has a bit of an illusion of being old reddit, but it is fundamentally different, and has been probably since around the time it became a corporation.
Before it was like "did you doxx somebody". And now it's like..."did you say something that did not have a disclaimer that trans is a real phenomenon, and that all trans people are valid? Because really that is essentially violence against trans people and that's banned."
That really sucks about your post. But it is definitely unsurprising.
I would read it. I like Matt Walsh enough to be entertained by him. I know a little about the movie and book from some of his programming on youtube.
I kind of resent though that he's one of the few people who these big sites like youtube give a pass...it's because he's entertaining, and people like him. To a certain extent, he tries to be fair, and scientific, but it's all arbitrary. I've seen many other people get content taken down, or banned, whose opinion I think has more value, is closer to the truth or whatever.
So it's like ok, I'll watch you Matt. Or you Candice Owens, or you Joe Rogan because if I want to watch something about the topic of detransition, trans people in sports, or basically the "conservative" view of a lot of topics I guess these are my only choices, and I have to endure watching them have a platform for some of their ideas I think are incorrect, and I get to see them be these representatives that can sometimes be embarrassing. For example, some of these people, not Matt Walsh necessarily in this case....have an interest in these topics, and are invested in helping detransitioners, preventing kids from making mistakes with drastic consequences...and it's because of their own private motives or beliefs. Like I don't know, they can't handle trans people and think they're gross. Or they don't want certain groups in society to have power, so they hide behind the cause, which is disingenuous.
I've listened to Jesse Signal, he's very well spoken and I share a lot of his views. Good on him speaking out. He's not even saying anything that controversial, more just that they are hardly proven to be harmless, that there is some reasonable question as to if they're okay.
Puberty blockers not being harmless is an inconvenient truth. I don't have a vested interest in keeping people from living their best lives and I think that some people would be happier if they never went through puberty (because they're trans).
I never physically transitioned, but I pass as a guy without even trying. I have to try for people to think I'm not an ftm, or a cis guy, or an mtf woman.
I feel like I make a lot of cis guys and trans guys uncomfortable with my appearance. As a "butch" woman, when I cut my hair short...I appreciate that I look like a guy on some level, because I make kind of a handsome man, but I'm not getting the same thing out of it like a guy would. As a butch woman, I like the things about my haircut that don't look completely like a dude's haircut. (For example, opting out of line-ups and straight sideburns). I like that I don't really have any facial hair. I like that my neck isn't thick. I like that my waist doesn't taper the same way as a guy's would. I accept that I won't pass as a woman to most people, at least at first glance, but I like the times that I do.
There are a lot of cis and trans men out there who absolutely hate that they look like lesbians. Maybe they don't really look like them, they just think they do. But I get it. It's not a personal insult to me, they really just want to look like guys.
If there were no women walking around looking like me, it would be easier for people to correctly gender men, for it never to cross people's minds that that man doesn't just have a soft face, or looks really young, or doesn't have a lot of facial hair. Maybe he was born with a vagina.
It bums them out that they look like me. But for me? Not so much. Like I didn't like that I was hit with an androgyny stick when I was young, but I admire male clothing and male haircuts, and it doesn't make me spiral into dysphoria to pass as a gender-conforming man. (When people think I'm mtf it bums me out and makes me feel disempowered).
Coming from someone who is an older millenial, I can only imagine that social media has a lot to do with why so many more people are transitioning and why a certain proportion of them weren't really trans and/or end up regretting it in the end.
When I was a kid I had a sense that I was a pervert a really young age, there was something deviant about me. Even when I learned what gay people were, I was so repressed I was like "Glad I'm not that! How shameful." When I was 12, I ended up fully admitting to myself I was very very gay. Maybe bi, but I definitely had sexual feelings for women and I definitely preferred them over men. But for most of my preadolescence I was able to completely repress my feelings and my identity. It was that fucking terrifying to be gay. I think the only reason I could even admit it to myself when I was a teenager because I was exposed to certain gay celebrities on TV. I knew who Ellen was. There were some movies where women would kiss each other. And it wasn't always portrayed as a good thing, or a cool thing, or an OK thing, like it often is now, but it wasn't like, this 1950's, lock them up in a psych ward or murder them sort of deal. It had a certain mystique, it was almost cool in a rebellious sort of way. It was cool on like, MTV's The Real World.
When it comes to my gender, before I ever knew transgender people existed, I had a phase that was more than just wanting to be a tomboy, my number one wish that I would ask a genie was that I could be a boy, to wake up one day as a normal looking boy, and that magically everyone would act as if I had never been a girl. And I would have a penis. I really really wanted a penis at 4 years old. Even though I'm basically an adult lesbian woman now and nothing makes me happier than lesbian sex and being with people with vaginas and using my own vagina.
Had society been different...that might have made the difference between me transitioning or not. I did not have an option until I was older, like 18, to go the ftm route. I don't even know if informed consent was what it was now when I was that age. Certainly when I was a young child, ftms in order to transition in the 90's and early 2000's they were like, living as a man for a year without hormones, they were seeing multiple doctors and having to get letters, and having to travel far distances to find doctors that might be even half competent enough to remove their breast tissue and give them a normal looking aesthetically pleasing male-looking result.
I grew up very isolated. I feel like there is a very deep and significant difference between me and someone who grew up around more people, especially children, at a young age. I watched a lot of TV. In my teens, I had more access to the internet, but it was a very different place. I didn't get my own computer until I was 15. I didn't text with a cell phone in high school at all. I had a myspace when I was 17 maybe. I was 22 when I discovered tumblr, which is now outdated.
I would imagine there is such a big difference, for kids growing up who are 15+ years younger than me. Who have pretty much from the getgo had access to the internet and computers and tablets. Who were helicoptered even more than I was. Who were exposed to trans people from a young age, and indoctrinated with the idea that it's not a bad thing. (Which I agree, it isn't. If you're trans, you're trans. Live your best life.).
There is so much temptation to be trans. To be ftm, in my case. And here is a big wide internet, of places where you can socialize without the dangers of in person interactions, and spontaneity, and continuity. This is where you get to express yourself, and have an identity, and be seen. If you are someone who feels different, and alienated, and not enough. And if you are someone whom society does not value your body and your appearance, maybe because you are physically a girl who is more masculine, there is a ton of incentive to convince yourself you're actually a guy. Even though it's not untrue, that some people are disgusted by trans men, that they abuse them irl, there is enough people at least, who you can find online AT LEAST, if not irl too, who will praise you. And call you brave. And tell you for once that you are beautiful, like genuinely tell you that, and feel proud for you for how much you are developing into a young man. And telling you all these ways you wanted to act, but didn't feel like you have permission to...now it is your prerogative. No one in progressive society would ever tell a trans person they can't express their gender. It's easy to convince yourself you're happy because you are being yourself, rather than happy because you're NOT being yourself, you're getting to escape yourself, you're getting to cope with your social problems by wearing a mask.
For me, the times in my life where I really started to doubt I was cis and contemplate going trans...even coming out to family and friends at one point...
It didn't have to do with the internet. I know a lot of people here maybe they only had tumblr and other forums as their social outlet, so the internet had a lot of power and influence. A lot of people here also met predatory people through the internet...some of them encouraging them to be trans. Some of them were just a negative or even abusive experience, and the trauma from that led to coping unconsciously by deciding to go trans.
However, I did have a poly phase when I was young in my twenties. I identified that way and sought out those kinds of relationships because for me it felt very authentic. I didn't want or at least feel like I could handle the responsibility of being somebody's main partner. I felt like I'd rather be someone who is "out of my league"'s side piece than the monogamous partner of anyone who wanted to date me.
And I met someone online. And they were neutrois, afab...they were older than me, and smarter than me. And I had never had a job and wouldn't get my first job for a few years. So they had a ton of influence in my life. All I did with them was let them sexualize me and tell me I make such a cute androgynous person...and I was like sure, go for it. I feel like an ugly woman. I am rich in androgyny...I feel appreciated! They didn't tell me to transition or anything. They themselves said they wanted to cut off their breasts but they didn't because they liked that other people liked them. That was sad for me, it's not like I would have preferred their body without breasts.
And I paid for that relationship more than I got out of it. There was an imbalance of power. I should have just has no strings attached hookups until I had more life experiences, and then found someone who was closer to my age, and my looks, and my intelligence. They were very very cute and charming, and funny. It's not like I didn't appreciate that. But I was trying to live my own life...work on my social anxiety, get jobs, get education and job skills...and I was side tracked by them. They even were the ones to dump me at one point because I remained an anxious needy loser who still couldn't manage to get a job. They tried to have sex with me later in my life too, which pissed me off. Like oh, I wasn't good enough for you then, but I am now? Because you're in a low place?
Maybe one of the connections is that just how some people mistakenly believe they're trans when they're not...a lot of people mistakenly believe they're poly when they're not.
I also think polyamory and trans overlap because being trans can be a reason to go poly. They feel like they couldn't find someone who wants to be exclusive with them because the people they want to date may feel deprived if they can't have sex with cis people. So instead of narrowing their pool of people to date, they say ok I'll find people who like me enough, just they want to have other partners too.
I'm trying not to crap all over poly people. It's just a lifestyle, people know themselves and some people know that's what would make them happiest. But some people are in it but it's not for a good reason.
My family did not consider the possibility that they would have a child that wasn't straight. By the time I was a teenager my mom would admit gay people would exist so it wasn't totally unspeakable.
But when I was a little kid experiencing same sex attraction, it was terrifying because at first I thought it didn't exist, that I was a freak. And then I learned that it is the inferior way to be, and that other people have a right to hate another person for it, and I learned that I can't do anything wrong, ever, not just not act gay, but I had to be a perfect person because if there was always the threat of dredging up my sexuality. One of the ways my family and people at school could punish me was by alluding to my sexuality, or by violating mental and physical boundaries. Or by intimidating me with their femininity and their sexuality.
Plus, I looked like a boy and I don't have a diagnosis but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm autistic.
That's too much for a kid to deal with. In hindsight it's like how can you escape this shit without doing something crazy.
I've questioned my gender at multiple points in my life since my childhood. The last time I seriously questioned it I was in my late twenties. I had a notion that I was an extremely repressed trans man, and that's why I never went ahead with transition.
I was going through an extreme life crisis. I was seriously depressed and I had a manic episode. During the manic episode, I had a bunch of crazy beliefs. The trans thing was just one of them. It felt very real though. I even came out to my family. I felt like the only way to be happy was to become a man.
But I never committed to anything, and after the mania wore off I realized it was a delusion.
I noticed the pattern in my life of when the thought of living as the opposite sex came into my brain...and it was always during really low points in my life. Like the worst years of my early childhood when I dreaded every day and I used to cry a lot. Or that time I dropped out of college. You'd think it might be obvious what was up but I honestly didn't instantly put two and two together.
And it's not like I didn't have a self awareness of feeling inadequate as a woman, and jealous of other women, even when I was a little girl. It's just that there were times when I kind of wrote it off. I really just felt like I hated myself and like whatever I lost in being a woman would be less than what I would gain as a man. And also kind of like I'm such an ugly woman anyway that there's no point.
The internet used to be good. Illegal activities are obviously a problem, but besides that no one needed to interfere.
I think eventually there will be a tipping point and some platform will come along that was like pre-corporate reddit and older forums. A lot of people want that.
Yeah now you have offshoot sites and stuff, and discord but they don't get enough traffic. And you have 4chan, but that has a certain culture and if you're like me and you're boring and straightforward you'll feel deprived because over there it's kind of like a game of making jokes and how to deflect from what OP wants to talk about.