This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's posts demonstrate:
- Complex, nuanced, and contradictory personal experiences consistent with a genuine detransitioner/desister who is still using testosterone.
- Consistent personal history (e.g., starting T in 2017, being a butch lesbian, specific events like the Orlando shooting as a catalyst).
- Emotional depth and introspection about complex topics like dysphoria, social pressure, relationships, and health, which is not typical of scripted bot behavior.
- A clear, sustained, and passionate perspective that aligns with the stated experiences of many in the detrans community.
About me
I am a masculine female who started taking testosterone in my late twenties after a decade of resisting. I was driven by a deep desire for physical strength and safety after traumatic experiences, and I loved the muscle and confidence it gave me. I now see my transition as a quick fix for my internalized homophobia and the pain of not fitting in as a butch lesbian. I still take testosterone for the physical benefits, but I no longer identify as male. I live as a female who is mistaken for a man because it makes life simpler and keeps me safe.
My detransition story
My journey with gender has been long and complicated. Looking back, I think a lot of my feelings were shaped by being a masculine lesbian and the world's reaction to that. I never felt like I fit in with other girls, especially during puberty when the boys I used to play sports with outgrew me and I lost a lot of my friends. From a young age, around preschool, I remember feeling like there was something wrong with me because I masturbated, and I didn't even understand what that was until I was twelve. I also always had what people called "penis envy." I made prosthetics as a kid and genuinely wished I had a penis for practical reasons, like standing to pee, and because it felt like it would make me less vulnerable.
I learned that females could transition when I was 16, and the idea was always in the back of my mind. For over a decade, I resisted it. I lived as a very masculine woman, a butch lesbian. But that came with a lot of difficulties. I was constantly misgendered, called "he" or even "it." I got carded trying to use the women's restroom. People were always asking me my pronouns or if I was trans, which became incredibly frustrating. My own mother could only understand my sexuality by calling me her "son," because she couldn't grasp the idea of a woman loving women.
Things came to a head for me around 2016. The Orlando shooting happened, and it felt like there was a huge anti-LGBT and anti-woman backlash online and in the world. I started feeling really unsafe. That same year, I had two scary experiences with men. One was an ex's father who grabbed me and slapped my ass, and another was a man who rubbed his genitals on me. I felt so small and weak and defenseless. I saw a buff, shirtless man running down the street looking free, and I felt a deep longing for that physical strength and safety. I thought, if women want someone strong to protect them, and I can't even protect myself, why would anyone want me? My exes always seemed to end up with men after we broke up, which reinforced that feeling of inferiority.
So, after resisting for ten years, I started taking testosterone in 2017. I was in my late twenties. The physical effects were everything I wanted. I gained about 30 pounds of muscle and finally felt strong. My voice dropped. Women started looking at me differently, and my relationships were taken more seriously. I loved no longer having a menstrual cycle and the chronic pain that came with it. I was willing to accept the downsides, like hair thinning, which got to the point where I started shaving my head. I had zero intention of stopping, even at the cost of my health.
But even while enjoying the changes, I started to question things. I began to see transition as a "quick fix" that didn't address the deeper issues. I wondered if my dysphoria was less about being born in the wrong body and more about internalized homophobia, the trauma of being harassed, and the extreme pressure of gender roles. I started to notice that a lot of other masculine women were transitioning around the same time, and it began to feel like a social trend. I worried that my partner loved me for the effects of testosterone—the way I smelled, my personality on it—and not for my true self. I also developed a fear of testosterone shortages, realizing my well-being was dependent on a pharmaceutical supply that might not always be reliable.
I never had any surgeries. I considered bottom surgery because I would still prefer to have a penis, but the risks, like potentially having to "shit in a bag," far outweighed the reward for me. I pack sometimes, but that's it.
Now, I still take testosterone because the physical benefits, especially the strength, are important to me. But I no longer identify as male. I know I am female. I just let people assume what they want. I pass as male, so I use the men's room to avoid trouble and let people call me "he." It's easier than the constant battles and stares I got when I was androgynous. Life is simpler when you blend in. I don't regret transitioning because it gave me the physicality I craved, but I regret that I felt I had to do it to be safe and to be taken seriously. I think if society were more accepting of gender nonconformity, especially for butch lesbians, my path might have been different. I benefited from the hormones, but I think I would have benefited more from a world that made space for masculine women.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 16 | Learned that females could transition to male. The idea planted itself in my mind. |
| Late 20s (approx. 27) | Started taking testosterone after a decade of resisting. This was in 2017. |
| Present (30s) | Still taking testosterone for the physical benefits, but no longer identify as transgender. I live as a female who passes as male for ease and safety. |
Top Comments by /u/MessiahJohnM:
Nah you look great! But also there def is a special group of people (men and women) who find us irresistible. It caught me off guard at first since it feels conflicting (being called the second ugliest girl in high school school and then going off to college to have a group of women who found people like us gorgeous).
No you look great! 😊
There’s conflicting evidence about brain sex. There’s primary lit on white/gray matter ratios, it’s thought that males orient themselves differently in a spatial sense than females, increased aggression for males, various subtleties. Risk taking behavior.
But then there are journal articles showing this huuuuge amount of overlap, honestly to the point that if you are GNC, you’re probably not an outlier for your biological sex OR the opposite sex. Think of a scatter plot showing so many data points scattered around that nothing can be truly concluded from it.
The answer is that this is heavily debated and much of the science seems to change with us on a social level. The question becomes: are we asking biased questions? (Always.)
Also are we using the right equipment to even answer those questions? Are we interpreting it accurately, or is that filled with bias as well??
If you do end up deep digging into fMRI studies (much of what has been used to determine brain differences), be warned: fMRI data isn’t always accurate. Here is just one of many articles (with the actual literature cited in the easier to read link) talking about those flaws:
I think it’s clear that it’s NOT clear. Anecdotal evidence tells me that there are behavioral difference in heterosexual members of the opposite sex. When I look at my gay peers, it almost seems like we were socialized for be a type of way and it didn’t work on us gays for whatever reason. Does my love for sports make me a man? Driving stick shift, good at math, sports, speed solves of Rubik’s cubes, tendency towards aggression, homosexuality, gift at spatial reasoning, etc make me a man? I don’t think so. I’m a woman who has been the only female in the room many times, but same goes for my girlfriend, and she is not a man and has no desire to be.
The biggest difference between me and her is the presence/absence of gender dysphoria. But I grew up in a conservative area and she grew up liberal. I felt alone watching my younger male cousins dating girls many years before I ever got the chance. I got carded to use the female restroom before I ever touched T. I think those experiences impacted the presence of gender dysphoria more than my masculinity did.
It was maybe 60% genetic and 40% environmental in my case. Genetically I seemed to want a penis from a young age (I made childhood prosthetics basically) and held other physical signs than being just gender nonconforming. Also physically development wise I developed “male” features like “man hands” (female length, but wide, strong looking hands that people often remarked on...wider than men much larger than me). That brow ridge thing, Other physical traits to combine with my behavioral masculinity. Like weird behavioral and intellectual interests that people would not think of as being male. I do wonder why more women did not compete in Rubik’s speed solving or dance dance revolution comps...the latter being what I thought to be female dominated until I began to compete.
Environmental: my dysphoria became unmanageable circa 2016. I’d always been questioned if I were a “real woman” going to the bathroom and stuff, but I felt less safe than previously, starting with the orlando shooting and seeing more and more anti lgbt stuff (trans hitting mainstream was harmful to me...it’s like someone who has a genetic predisposition for enjoying alcohol but trying to avoid consumption constantly being offered some).
I was constantly asked my pronouns and if I wanted to transition (yes, I had since I learned females could transition when I was 16, but I’d just dealt with my dysphoria previously), and maybe I was looking more female than I used to because straight men began hitting on me when that didn’t really happen before. Not just expressing interest, but like my ex’s father sexually doing things to me. The same year this ex military man who was going to transition into a “lesbian” rubbed his genitals on me through his pants after I’d clearly expressed that I’m only attracted to AFABs. I didn’t know he had any interest at all in me but was clear as vodka that I do not want dick in my life unless it is a part of my own body.
I was physically weak against these men, and the feeling of both already having dysphoria plus the feeling of needing to defend myself now, plus this feeling of most women wanting someone physically strong to “protect” them, something I never felt I could be without juicing, sort of pushed me over the edge.
I saw this buff guy running down the street topless, looking so free, and i felt so alone and undesirable. I was scrawny and defenseless. Why would a woman ever want this when she could have a man? Couple that with my exes always seeming to go for men after breakups...and how could I not feel inferior ?
The men who called themselves weak were always stronger than me, where I couldn’t defend myself, much less another woman as well. Men always bring up guns as an equalizer, but I couldn’t have pulled a gun out when either of those men were harassing me. My arms were held onto. I needed strength in my physical body.
Also saddening, right now, with society trying to “protect” girls by having their genitalia inspected to “prove” their womanhood in GA, and the multitude of years that real women like caster semenya, have been told not to be “real” women because they were great competitors, their bodies produced “too much of” a certain hormone, yet even if she was intersex, she was raised female. She had to overcome those damaging things women are told about being weaker than men, much weaker, not standing a chance. Overcoming those matters more than T levels....trans women show us all the time just how much testosterone matters (females grow muscle via IGF1 I believe, T helps, but not as much as one may think...most female muscle is built via a diff mechanism than men). Every bathroom law trying to protect...not ME, but women (even AMABs) who conform to gender stereotypes, has hurt me.
People like to gaslight this experience saying that THEY CAN TELL some butch woman is female, but not everyone can. One person knowing I’m female doesn’t change the mixed reactions. It doesn’t change my experiences of security guards carding me to enter a restroom, while I’m simultaneously harassed by my ex’s father, my relationships with women constantly disrespected by men asking girlfriends out right in front of my face. My exes seeming to prefer men. Wondering if my sexuality is somehow damaged or wrong. Feeling as if I wish I could be heterosexual, the superior sexuality, all while feeling sick when trying to get myself to want to kiss a guy. I felt like the only way to not be alone was to be heterosexual.
I could not bring myself to not be repulsed by men, to not feel uncomfortable in female clothing, so I did the next best thing and turned into a “straight man.”
Even though I question my transness, the reality of the ideology, etc, I feel much better in this body, even though I know it is not male.
It’s the contradiction, the complexities of it all. In the protection of women as a class, some women will inevitably be hurt in the process. I don’t have the slightest clue.
Edit: TLDR - I believe society is trying to do good rn. However, there are a lot of attempted changes and a lot of backlash to changing society so rapidly.
Compromise at many levels would help many things, as we are more divided than ever.
Oh damn. Shit has blown UP. I thought this thing seemed a bit like a fad 10 years ago when we had like 3 women in my college gay club start identifying as men (I had dysphoria too but something felt strange about the increase in self identification, so I waited until the Orlando shooting to peace out of my butch ness).
But honestly...I can’t blame a single one of those girls, gay, straight, bi, “pan”, whatever. There’s this growing male backlash, mostly reading toxic incel shit, that scares me (and I imagine any girl or woman) to death. Post Orlando shooting hearing guys talk about trying to state mandate women, no matter how implausible, I had to somehow make myself into the ugliest, “lowest value female” that could possibly exist, and what is lower value to straight guys than a woman who looks like a man? :p
It’s scary right now...there’s some type of anti woman backlash that I’d never seen as a teen girl myself. Yeah, guys called each other women and gay and all that, but no one was bringing bombs to school because no girl at school had expressed interest in him yet.
Some incel dude blew his hand (and his face is pretty jacked now) up recently trying to KILL teen girls with a bomb. Little boys are getting violent because they think being a virgin pre 18 somehow makes them outrageously ugly/abnormal.
I’d gtfo of womanhood too if these crazy serial killers were trying to get with me, when I went home and read yaoi thinking gay men acted all nice to each other.
But there’s also a group who does feel like they’re using GNC women in a way. It almost feels like, “hurry, take them in while they’re down, act nice and try to get them to believe our ideology!”
And then when one doesn’t agree with 100% of it they’re kicked out just as hard as in the trans community.
I have this problem called “being moderate,” which I thought was normal. But these days? Radical belief is the only way to go (it feels like…I could be wrong).
To OP: yeah I’ve felt used by em. Before, after, all of it…but just when I don’t agree with statements. Back when gender crit had a subreddit I got banned on a few accounts for disagreeing with aspects of the ideology. Rubbed me the wrong way.
What’s this “eggy” thing people are bringing up??
Also yeah...actually I think the people asking me over and over AND OVER really pushed myself into a path I had resisted for around a decade. The constant “what are your pronouns” questions, combined with orlando and this assumption that all gnc people are trans thing was (were?) all too much for me, a lesbian who had been resisting using PEDs for a long ass time.
Then some child r*pist who I was unknowingly friends with (or rather I did not know of his charges...I knew he was on probation but he was also GNC, but now I think just AGP...not gay) hugged me goodbye at his house one day and rubbed his junk on me. I couldn’t move because of the right grip he had. Another incident that year of my ex’s father grabbing my arm and pulling me to dance with him (he was drunk. I was sober) and slapping my ass, those two incidents had me feeling weak and like I NEEDED to be equal. After all, if you’re a woman but no one will accept it, why suffer through periods, migraines, etc when PEDs are basically being thrown at you? When being strong is all I’d ever wanted to be and this magic hormone could make me more able to defend myself. I still fear getting off and becoming weaker again. I don’t like men/“have a man to defend me” like women are “supposed” to. And then all this talk of women liking masculinity? Shit. It just holds me in my desires.
How do you even accept those strength differences? I worked out before and now as well, and the differences are INSANE. Like angering. My first few months doping I couldn’t figure out if I was angry about how strong T makes you (and that disparity) or more stoked about my own strength gains. I wasn’t a hot woman so men at the gym never offered me PEDs that allow women to stay feminine. I was just stared at from afar.
Oops this got so long. Tldr how are gnc women, who often love sports, gonna say no to PEDs when even their general practitioner is asking them if they friggin want roids? Like no shit bruh!
Imo it’s the easy option, the “quick fix.” I know trans people say alll the time “no one would go through ALL THIS...” blahblahhh. But imo it was the easy option for gender dysphoria. It treats surface level desires. Nothing is explored beyond that. What is the deeper meaning to these feelings? The therapists say there is none. “You’re just trans.”
Bullshit. We aren’t born with any sense of who we are. We just are. We exist factually as male or female (or intersex, but generally leans towards something that is perceived as male or female by others) before we have any concept of it. We don’t get to choose our identity.
Hey! I relate to the daughter hood thing (realized I didn’t say that in the OP). I didn’t post in that thread but my mom literally is ONLY able to understand my sexual orientation if she calls me her “son.” She is unable to understand me as a woman who loves women. Nothing against my mom. She’s been full of good intent, but I did not pop out in the way that she expected/wanted. I think sometimes people have such rigid ideas of gender that when someone doesn’t meet those ideas they may legitimately mourn over it if it’s their kid not meeting those more statistically probable characteristics.
I’m almost 31 now. My mom has never taken my sexuality as seriously as she does now that I am a “straight guy.” How is gender NOT supposed to pop up in our heads? It’s almost like I was obese and treated shitty because of that and people were accusing me of being “too obsessed with my weight.” (Edit: and now that I “lost all that weight” aka pass as a gender, I’m noticing that people of all body types seem to be quite weight focused...how else would they notice someone else’s weight if that wasn’t an original fixation of theirs???)
In reality I didn’t notice my hypothetical weight until it was repeatedly brought up to me as being an inherent issue with my being.
Thanks for your post btw. You really sparked a lot of thoughts for me and probably many other people.
My answer doesn’t fit in the choices: I’m not grossed out by my vagina, but I would much prefer a penis (and to lack a vagina).
Both for pragmatic reasons (stand to pee, sex would be awesome) AND one less hole vulnerable to being penetrated. I don’t use my vagina in any capacity and would prefer it not to be there.
I don’t think it’s “disgusting” though.
Before we begin I did not downvote you just to be clear. We may disagree, but disagreeing can be eye opening. With that said:
The thread is talking about females, girls, the “uterus owning people.”
No one asked about society at large. High school is like some segregated social experiment that doesn’t totally cut contact from the outside world (and is influenced by it), but becomes its own system.
Society at large is becoming more divided between the sexes, and yeah, more men than ever are transitioning too, BUT there’s a distinct difference in age that one comes out w gender dysphoria, and there’s been a larger rise in AFAB transitioners than AMAB. In fact, the following article states that 70% of gender clinic referrals are for AFABs now, whereas looking at stats just 10 years earlier, AMABs were the primary individuals seeking care:
But with that said, what is your less anecdotal/biased idea that actually encompasses society holistically? I’d like to hear it.