I desisted at around 18 and lived half the time as male for a year but never took hormones. For me I realised that it didn't matter if I ended up passing because I would always know I couldn't ever be male and couldn't live my life pretending.

I worked on the other issues in my life which took many years and it's still in progress but I haven't had dysphoria in 4 years. If there are psychological issues going on in parallel it's better to face them first and if you still want to transition later on you can be confident it's the right choice.

I was early onset too and although I don't look particularly masculine (not petite but not broad either) I have similar reasoning and interests as men. Obviously female socialisation makes me overall very in between as an adult.

I also have a twin brother and I know in utero exposure to testosterone could be linked to homosexuality so it makes sense it could also cause dysphoria.

The whole trans thing was brought up by my psychiatrist so after detransitioning I tried seeing someone else and was assigned a random psychiatrist. I checked out his rate my md and it was 80% great comments and 20% people complaining about hormone gatekeeping and suggesting private paychiatrists in the city to get hrt prescriptions. At that point I knew I got someone who did their job right.

To me the worst part is a life time of medical problems. One of my ftm friends is in denial about his health and so dysphoric he can't go see a gyno but he needs estrogen cream to minimise vaginal atrophy and at this point might need a partial hysterectomy. This is inevitable when you're on hrt for many years. Same thing for transwomen who can easily develop prostate cancer or if they're on T supressors, heart problems. Not to mention, a lifetime of taking drugs and not feeling physically healthy because your body can't handle these synthetic drugs. I think many don't realise how it affects health.

A lot of people who go into hrt monosexual become bi and this has actually been researched. There is also a significant amount that make a 180 reversal.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-005-1793-y

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2014.1003028

There is no known explanation but guesses are a combination of hrt, seeing your body as different, and being treated differently.

If I could biologically change sex to male I would without any hesitation. I work with only men and prefer male friendships so I would be way happier this way but I've come to terms that somethings in life aren't easy or fair. Learning to love myself more helped a lot. Same for learning to appreciate being a woman. I grew up being told all the things women shouldn't do or how they should be and used to avoid everything feminine. Now I can appreciate these things and not hate who I am.

So physicians don't need to explain the possible side effects of HRT or that treatment is experimental? I feel like there should be at least a document explaining all these things that needs to be read first. I had this kind of medical coversation with my psychiatrist at the time.

Yes I'm happy. Its just one thing I can't have.

I also realise I didn't answer your questions. From what I know yes most detransitioners start young and switch back young because I think there's less to lose. I know one person who started in his 20s and now 6 years into T and going back for him involves losing his adult identity. When you're a teenager it's easier to brush it off. I notice a lot more regret with ftms because of similar reasons I had (mainly sexualisation) while regret for men is because they realised they don't want to be an old transwomen, only a young and hot one or realised how important passing is to be happy. Transmen can pass very well at any age while transwomen don't if older than 25. Even in very liberal circles the way we treat eachother is unconscious so passing or not is key to a happy transition. In my case passing wasn't enough.