This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's posts display a consistent, detailed, and emotionally nuanced personal narrative about their transition, detransition, and the underlying trauma (an abusive, misogynistic father). The comments offer practical advice, show engagement with other users' specific situations, and express a range of emotions (relief, anger, regret, hope) that align with the stated experiences of a desister/detransitioner. The language is natural and conversational, without the repetition or rigidity typical of bots. The passion and criticism directed at the trans healthcare system and community are consistent with the genuine anger and harm that some detransitioners report.
About me
I started testosterone at 20, believing it was the answer after discovering trans communities online. My decision was heavily influenced by trauma from my abusive, misogynistic father and a deep desire to feel safe and approved of. I developed serious health problems from the hormones, including seizures that only stopped when I quit. I realized I had confused wanting to escape my life with actually wanting to be male. Now, I'm detransitioning, working through my underlying issues, and learning to be happy as a woman again.
My detransition story
My journey with transition and detransition has been a long and complicated one, and it all started when I was 19. I grew up in a small town in Canada, and back then, being transgender wasn't really talked about. It wasn't until the whole Caitlyn Jenner thing happened that it seemed to explode everywhere.
Looking back, I now understand that my desire to transition was deeply tied to my past trauma. I was raised in a very abusive home. My father is extremely misogynistic, the kind of man who believes women are weak and belong in the kitchen. My older brother could do no wrong in his eyes, while I was constantly criticized for my looks and my behavior. I have ADHD, which, combined with the abuse, led to me having severe aggression as a kid. The final straw was when my brother attempted to kill me in my late teens. It left me feeling incredibly vulnerable and unsafe in my own skin.
I realize now that I didn't transition because I was truly a man inside. I did it because I subconsciously wanted to be the "superior," desirable gender. I wanted to feel safe and, disgustingly, I wanted my father's approval. When I came out as transgender, he was thrilled. Suddenly, he wanted to spend time with me and teach me "the things a MAN should know." That was actually a major wake-up call for me. I realized that if he couldn't love me as his daughter, he didn't deserve to have me in his life at all. I haven't spoken to him since.
I also struggled with severe depression, OCD, and had horrible body image and self-esteem. I hated the way I looked as a female. When I discovered the concept of being transgender online, I dove in headfirst. I spent a week obsessively reading about it with little sleep, and by the end, I was adamant I needed to medically transition. I became part of an FtM group on Facebook, and the culture there was very strict. It was all about being happy and trans forever, and the idea of detransitioning was treated as this huge, forbidden sin. That pressure made the decision to detransition later on much harder.
I started testosterone in 2016 when I was 20 years old. I was on it for almost four years. The physical effects were rough. I developed serious health complications that no one had warned me about. My blood became so thick it couldn't properly circulate to my toes when I was resting, which put me at risk of blood clots or even losing my toes. My blood pressure spiked to dangerous levels. I also started having absence seizures, which was terrifying because it's never listed as a side effect. Once I started weaning off the hormones, the seizures stopped completely. I also had constant headaches and my throat became easily irritated when I talked.
Socially, transitioning was lonely. I've always had a fear of men due to my trauma, so I avoided them. But as a man, my interactions with women became really cold. They didn't want to talk to me or be near me. I went from having warm conversations to getting death glares if I even smiled. I felt completely isolated.
I started to realize I had made a mistake about a month before I joined this community. I remember looking at my mom and bursting into tears, saying I thought I'd made a huge mistake. Finding this group was a major relief because I honestly thought I was breaking some unspoken rule and that no one else ever detransitioned. It’s been a process of soul-searching. I don't see it as a pure mistake anymore; it was a decision that wasn't right for me, but I learned a lot from it.
One thing I realized was that I had confused feeling more attractive as a man with actually wanting to be a man. When I stopped focusing on how I looked in the mirror and focused on how I felt inside, I knew I wasn't happy. I'm now looking forward to detransitioning fully and having close female relationships again. I'm slowly collecting female clothes since I stupidly threw all mine out. I'm nervous because everyone in my small town knows me as trans, but I'm determined to be happy as myself.
I don't regret transitioning in the sense that I hate myself for it. It helped me at certain points and taught me important lessons, especially about my family. But I deeply regret the physical health problems it caused and the years I spent living as someone I wasn't, influenced by trauma and online pressure. My thoughts on gender now are that it's incredibly complex, and for some people, like me, the feelings can stem from other issues like trauma, internalized misogyny, and low self-esteem, rather than an innate identity. I benefited greatly from the idea of non-affirming therapy, where you work through the underlying reasons for your feelings.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Year | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 19 | 2015 | Discovered the concept of being transgender online and became convinced I was FtM. |
| 20 | 2016 | Started testosterone therapy. |
| 20-23 | 2016-2019 | Lived socially as male. Experienced serious health issues including thick blood, high blood pressure, and absence seizures. |
| 23 | 2019 | Began to realize I had made a mistake. Started weaning off testosterone. |
| 24 | 2020 | Joined this detransition support community. Stopped testosterone completely. Made the decision to detransition and live as female again. |
Top Comments by /u/HolyHellWhatDoIDo:
Oh god, you just reminded me that I actually was that person at the very beginning. I had a family doctor who wasn't experienced or very keen on the whole transgender thing, and she refused to prescribe me hormones. After I found the doctor that did prescribe them, he sent her some info about a course that she could take to learn about how to prescribe hormones, what blood tests to order, what to look out for, etc. She still refused. At the time I was frustrated and adamant that she must be transphobic.
Now I realize it wasn't that she was transphobic, but that she was doing exactly what doctors should be doing, she acknowledged that she wasn't the person to prescribe the hormones because she didn't have enough knowledge and wasn't comfortable doing so, so she denied. She's not a very nice lady in general, but I have to respect her for that.
Yeah that's really not fair. This was a very sweet post that reads as sincere. OP is just trying to say that they've learned something from us and that's what I call a win. We're here to educate people. Saying nonsense like that is rude and it shoots the progress we've made in the foot by alienating our allies.
Well, I feel like their talking about the doctor that the patient is going to in hopes of getting hormones. Which brings about the question, if the doctor doesn't know enough about transgender health care (which I take to mean, routine blood tests, physical changes, possible negative side effects to be watched for, etc.) then why is said doctor prescribing the hormones in the first place? Shouldn't the doctor, if they don't have the knowledge required, be referring the patient to a doctor that does have the required knowledge? To me it just reads like a recipe for disaster. Especially because there are also health issues that make it so you are not allowed to start HRT, so if the doctor doesn't know that, and the patient has one of those health issues, that doctor could potentially be signing that patients death certificate. Like it sounds extremely unsafe.
That being said, it could be read a different way, which is why I asked. I wanted to see if someone else reads it differently than I do.
The way I read it it sounds like the patients are teaching their prescribers (providers? I don't know which is the right term) about transgender healthcare, which is the problem, the provider has no business prescribing hormones if they don't know about trans health care. Kind of like a kid going to school and explaining to their teacher what their supposed to be teaching the class.
Oh god there's a lot for me personally, but the top two are:
I would have loved to know about possible health issues, that was an unpleasant surprise. I developed thick blood to the point that it no longer circulated to my toes at rest, spiked blood pressure, and ended up developing absence seizures. All of which have subsided since working my way off of hormones.
Second, that past trauma can have a significant effect. If I had known that this was mainly caused by the fact that I was raised in an abusive environment by a misogynistic, narcissistic father that absolutely didn't want a daughter, I would NEVER EVER have touched hormones even if you paid me.
Wow, I'm sorry to hear that! And yes, it's crazy how it seems to just get handed out. What I don't understand is that doctors do that, but then doctors also get annoyed about how drugs get advertised on tv with the "ask you doctor about..." tag. I mean, it's pretty much the same idea, both are medications that someone heard about from an outside source and thought it would work for them. So if you don't get to do that with other prescriptions, why on earth does it work with hormones?
Unfortunately yes, they do see it as a bad thing. I remember watching a video of a trans person bashing someone who was talking about detransition, and they tried to justify it. Basically they think that someone who detransitions makes the rest of them look bad, and they go against this rather aggressively. I remember when I was a part of an FtM Facebook group, this one guys mom saw this tabloid that said Caitlyn Jenner regretted transitioning and was going to detransition. Well she freaked out and no longer supported his decision to transition. So that's more or less the main reason why they hate us. Our existence forces people to realize that this can go wrong, and they really don't like that.
I'm sorry that you've lost friends over this, it's one thing to disagree with your decision, but they have no right to make you feel guilty over doing what's best for yourself. I felt guilt for a while as well, until I realized this: life is way too short to waste time trying to please everyone else, do what you need to do to make sure YOU are happy, your real friends will want the exact same thing for you.
Thank you! Yes it's definitely gotten easier over time. I've been doing a lot of soul searching over the last month and at the very beginning when I realized that I might not want to be a man I literally looked at my mom and burst into tears and started crying that I made a mistake. Since then I've realized that it wasn't necessarily a mistake, I made a decision that wasn't right for me, but I learned a lot from it as well, and it did help me at some points, so I don't want to look at it as a mistake and hate myself for the rest of my life. But that feeling certainly crept up again when I realized I hadn't researched the doctor properly.
You can still get your voice back. I find personally that if I drop too far down into chest voice (as in, if I drop my pitch too low and it's coming too much from the gut) then it gets rough and scratchy and terrible, but if I try to keep a balance between a chest and head voice, or even closer to head voice, it flows much smoother. However, I kept singing as T dropped my voice so my situation might be different from yours and also because of that, I maintained a very female sounding singing voice, and when I talk my voice tends to crack because it never got a chance to settle, so I wouldn't really recommend copying that. I know it's expensive, but a proper coach will be able to help you develop your voice, but you would have to know before hand which sound your going for. Like, I don't know if your considering detransitioning, so what I mean is if you intend to continue T, then you and your teacher would work on getting a smooth, comfortable, male sounding singing voice, and if you decided to detransition, you and your teacher would focus on getting your voice back to a female tone for both talking and singing.
Also, if I remember correctly, I believe it takes about 2 years for the voice to completely drop, so you might not be too far down. I say might because I obviously can't hear your voice so I can't really give an opinion on that.
But most importantly: DON'T GIVE UP!!!!! Your singing career is not over, I was on T for almost 4 years, and I've still managed some way shape or form to salvage my voice. If I can do it, I promise you can as well, you just can't lose hope. Look for a teacher, talk to them, you will find someone who can help you, but the only way that can work is if you hold onto your dream and keep that fire going! It's not over until you say it is!
You should never have to explain something to your doctor, if a doctor is unsure about something, they usually (at least their supposed to) consult another doctor, not look to their patient for information. Actually, I find that doctors (this could just be where I live though) tend to get pretty uppity if they feel like your trying to tell them how to do their job. Mind you, I've also met some rather unpleasant doctors (good grief the horror stories I could share) so that could just be personal experience.