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 demonstrates consistent, nuanced engagement with complex emotional and ideological topics specific to the detrans community. Their language is natural, uses personal anecdote, and shows the passion and strong opinions expected from someone who has lived this experience. The arguments are detailed and reference specific concepts (e.g., Tavistock findings, differentiating dysphoria and dysmorphia), which is consistent with a knowledgeable, invested individual.
About me
I was born female and started living as a man at 11 because I felt my developing body was deeply wrong. I took testosterone for years, believing becoming male was the only way to be happy. I now see my distress was fueled by depression, OCD, and internalized misogyny, not by being the wrong sex. I stopped hormones at 19 and found real healing in therapy that addressed my actual mental health struggles. I’ve learned that happiness comes from living your life, not from changing who you are.
My detransition story
My entire journey with transition and detransition was a long and painful lesson in figuring out the difference between who I thought I should be and who I actually am. I was born female, and from a young age, I felt a deep discomfort with my body, especially when I hit puberty and developed breasts. I hated them. I felt like they were this foreign, wrong thing attached to me. This wasn't about dresses or makeup or stereotypes; it was a visceral feeling that my body itself was incorrect.
I started living as male when I was 11 years old. For years, I was completely convinced that I was a boy trapped in a girl's body. I believed that if I could just change my biology to male, all my problems with myself and my place in the world would be solved. I thought happiness was on the other side of that physical change.
I took testosterone for several years. I never got top surgery, but I desperately wanted it and was pursuing it. My entire focus was on "being male" and fixing what I saw as a birth defect.
Looking back, my thinking was completely clouded by other issues. I struggled with severe depression and anxiety. I now understand I have OCD, which makes me fixate on things and get stuck on thoughts that feel true but aren't based in reality. The feeling that I was supposed to be male was one of those fixations. I also had incredibly low self-esteem and used the idea of becoming a new person as a form of escapism from my problems.
A huge turning point for me was realizing my own internalized misogyny. I had a real dislike for women, seeing them as a monolith. I had to confront that women are just people—incredibly diverse individuals. My prejudice was preventing me from accepting myself. I also had to grieve the fact that I was female. I had spent so long fighting it that I never once tried to just accept it as a neutral fact of my biology, like having brown hair or being right-handed.
My views on gender have completely changed. I don't believe in a "feeling" male or female anymore. I think that's the core of the problem. Most people don't sit around thinking about "being" their gender; they just are, and they get on with living their lives. Happiness doesn't come from your gender identity; it comes from your actions, your relationships, your work, and your hobbies—from doing things, not from being a certain thing.
I deeply regret transitioning. I regret the years I lost to this fixation and the permanent changes the hormones caused. I feel like I was sold a lie that changing my body would fix my mind, when in reality, I needed to fix my mind all along. I benefited immensely from therapy that was not affirming—therapy that finally challenged my beliefs and helped me address the root causes of my distress, like my OCD, depression, and internalized hatred.
I feel like I was heavily influenced online into believing transition was the only answer. Seeing the statistics from places like the Tavistock clinic—how many young people like me had autism, same-sex attraction, or trauma—confirmed for me that my experience was not unique. I wasn't a boy in a girl's body; I was a troubled, confused girl who needed psychological help, not hormones.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 11 | Started living socially as male. |
| 16 | Began taking testosterone. |
| 19 | Stopped taking testosterone and began detransition. Realized I had been wrong. |
| 20 | Started non-affirming therapy to address OCD, depression, and internalized misogyny. |
Top Comments by /u/JohnOfYork:
i literally have no concept of being female. i was living as male since i was 11 years old up until i was 19. i greatly dislike women and no matter how much i did to try to make myself feel comfortable as female nothing worked at all.
This is your problem right here. No other (sane, healthy) female in the world thinks about "being female" beyond medicine and hygiene. All "being female" means is having ovaries and a vagina. It doesn't oblige you to conform to any gender stereotypes, like wearing dresses and high heels, having long hair, etc. You need to stop trying to BE female or male and just DO things you enjoy instead.
You also need to confront your internalised misogyny. Women aren't a hivemind. You may have met some toxic and dysfunctional women - they may even have been members of your family - but women are human beings too and until you can accept them as complex individuals with their own unique personalities, thoughts and feelings - rather than caricatures and stereotypes coloured by your prejudice - you're unlikely to be able to accept yourself.
I honestly think the main difference between most cis people and most trans people is that most cis people don’t care about their gender, sex or identity at all. I’ve only ever seen trans people struggling with gender to any extent, whereas the health and happiness of cis people has more to do with “doing”, ie, their job and family and recreation, than identity and “being”.
It might be worth trying to just get away from caring about what you look like and who you present as and instead focus on doing over being. Forget about who you are. What do you want to do?
I think this is a very callous and disingenuous view, and I think this thread has been made in bad faith.
Many detrans people have been harmed by the rhetoric and actions of trans people. They don’t harbour hostility for trans people because of the way they choose to dress or the pronouns they call themselves, but because the detrans people here have been marginalised by trans activists and have in many cases been groomed and manipulated by trans people into harming themselves on false pretences.
Calling detrans people transphobic would be like calling ex-cult members “cultphobic”. It’s a very manipulative tactic to try shame detrans people into silence. It would be nice to say “not all trans people” but it would also be untrue. Being trans is not an immutable characteristic, it is a lifestyle choice, and involves willing subscription to a social and political philosophy. All trans people are subscribing to a belief system of their own free will and in doing so trying to reify it.
The only thing I agree with in your post is that hatred can become a form of self-harm, but this sub should be a safe space to work through that hatred. The hostility of the victims shouldn’t be silenced or mitigated for fear that it will offend the egos of the victimisers.
I don't care about gender stereotypes. I don't understand why everyone here thinks that what I care about, i don't. I just want to be biologically male. I don't care about gender stereotypes and clothing,
I think people struggle with it because they don't see why having a different body would make you happy. Most people wish their bodies were different in some way but beyond weight loss/ muscle gain nobody can seriously change them, and most people end up accepting their body and find happiness in more meaningful things. Have you ever grieved being female? It sounds like you think there's no happiness except for being male, but every other person on the planet derives happiness from more than just their sex. You need to grieve being female and accept being female. Have you ever had therapy for body dysmorphia? I think that might help lessen the feelings of wrongness.
Tough love inc.
You talk about socialising/ making friends but then you also say that you’re more attractive and get more male attention as a woman. What are you really interested in? Friendship or the validation that comes from “romantic” attention?
What is it exactly you struggle with when it comes to socialising? Why do you think “gays want nothing to do with you” if indeed that’s true? What do you lack in common? And how is it that everything guys do is “bro-coded?” Meaning what? That all the guys you talk to are stereotypical fratboy jock types? Well, obviously I would think an effeminate gay man would lack much in common with sportsball beerswiggers, and I’m not sure why’d you want to be their friend anyway.
I’ve found the diversity of personalities in real life to be much more diverse than in the Breakfast Club. What are your actual interests/ beliefs/ politics etc? All these are the basis of friendships. But friendships aren’t easy for anybody, they require compromise and maintenance and good faith on both sides.
Just out of interest, when was the last time you met somebody that you thought “I’d enjoy hanging out with them”, and why?
I’m just pointing out that some de trans people weaponize their trauma in a way that irrationally attacks trans people - transphobia if you will
I haven't even seen these attacks you're alleging, but as I've discussed, there's nothing irrational about feeling anger and hostility to people who have lied to you, gaslighted you, manipulated you, and brought you into harm. Are all trans people gaslighters? No, not all trans people proselytise. But it's like trying to separate Christians from Christianity if you've been subjected to a Christian conversion camp. Not everybody can do it, and for most people it will take time.
How is being trans a lifestyle choice?
Because you can desist, obviously. You can't choose to stop being black or gay or male. You can choose to stop being trans. This entire sub is testament to the fact that transness is not a fundamental, essential, immutable category of being.
Being trans is not a choice - they never chose to experience transgender gender dysphoria & much like us are simply trying to live their lives
Gender dysphoria just means "unhappiness with gender". It's not the same as body dysmorphia, which was the condition behind anorexia, bulimia, and transsexualism, and which was often characterised as a a delusional fixation with some perceived "wrongness" or flaw in the body itself.
Unhappiness with gender is - sorry - a joke. Happiness doesn't come from gender in the first place. The idea that gender dysphoria exists at all is just trans gaslighting.
People who are deeply unhappy - often as a result of trauma - and hate their bodies can latch on to "transgenderism" as a silver bullet cure for all their problems. It sells you a literal transformation of the self. That transformation is impossible, as all the people in this sub have discovered.
If you care to look it up, check out the Tavistock findings and Hannah Barnes work uncovering them. The people working in the UK's premier gender identity clinic became rapidly alarmed and then quickly blew the whistle on what they viewed as the highly dangerous practise of gender affirming care. Why? Because:
- 97 percent of the referees had comorbid conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and body dysmorphia
- 48 percent of the female referees had autism
- 35 percent of ALL the referees had autism
- 90 percent of females were same sex attracted
- 80 percent of males were same sex attracted
And most importantly:
- The outcomes of GAC were negative for the vast majority of referees
The clinicians blew the whistle because what was interpreted as "transgenderism" was in many cases actually just internalised homophobia or an extreme averse reaction to trauma and memories of sexual abuse.
So, sorry, but you're wrong on all accounts. It's pretty clear to me you're a trans person trying to disrupt the sub by preventing people from criticising the philosophy of transgenderism. You can't be a desistor or detrans and still believe transness is some magical quality of the spirit. So, yeah - sorry that this entire sub is triggering to you, but you're breaking the rules by posting here.
I don't think that there's no happiness being female.
Then where do you think the happiness comes from? I'm male but I'm neither happy or unhappy being male. It's just my biology. You say you "don't feel female", but then what do you think "feeling male" is? You could ask a million cis men and outside of stereotypes of masculinity none of them could define "feeling male". If it's just a feeling, and you already know reality contradicts it, why give it any credence at all? Why trust that it's true? I have OCD - I have lots of feelings about things that I know aren't based on reality and can't be trusted. Why trust a feeling that tells you that you'll only be happy if you're male when that isn't true for the rest of the planet? Why are you the exception?
I’m glad you shared your story, as upsetting as it was to read - I really feel for you, it’s an incredibly shitty situation. A forum that should be a source of support and understanding has instead been colonised by ideological zealots.
I think every detrans person is fighting for evidence-based medicine - psychological, pharmaceutical or otherwise - so I’d say your point of view is completely valid and welcome here.
That’s fair, I’ve seen a lot of detrans posters criticising gender itself as a concept and saying transgenderism is just an affinity for gender stereotypes, which I personally agree with and would expect, because that’s what happened to me. I had a wistfulness for femininity borne from being atypically masculine and from romanticising/ idealising aspects of femaleness, coupled with low self-esteem and a lack of understanding for the realities of transitioning. I just find it hard to believe that amongst a community of detransitioners, a desistor or detransitioner wouldn’t at least question the possibility if all transness was elective. If so many people were convinced they were trans only to realise they were wrong, isn’t it possible all trans people are just as equally convinced, but not fundamentally trans? That coupled with the fact I haven’t seen the attacks the poster is alleging (which they are doing in vague terms) and they also seem to be trying to get detrans people to stop being gendercritical. Seems suspect to me.