This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the comments provided, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags indicating it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's comments are highly detailed, emotionally complex, and internally consistent, describing a long, painful personal history with transition, detransition, therapy, and loss. The language is nuanced and reflects the passionate, often angry perspective of someone who feels genuinely harmed by their experience. The advice given to others is specific and practical, rooted in personal failure and recovery, which is difficult to fake convincingly.
About me
I was born male and my journey started with deep insecurity and a difficult childhood that left me feeling like I needed to escape myself. I transitioned, thinking it was the answer, but it ended up destroying my relationship and my self-esteem, leaving me feeling more lost than ever. I realized my dysphoria was a symptom of other issues, not a reason to change my body, so I decided to detransition. Now I'm learning to accept myself as a feminine gay man without medical intervention. I'm finally working on healing in the real world, trying to incorporate the best parts of my experience into who I truly am.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started a long time ago, and looking back, I can see how many different things played a part in it. I was born male, and for a long time, I struggled with feeling like I didn't fit in or wasn't good enough. I had a difficult childhood with my parents' divorce and issues with my mother, which left me with a lot of low self-esteem and anxiety. I spent a lot of time in therapy over the years, but it often felt like I was just a subscription, never really getting to the root of my problems.
I think a huge part of my desire to transition came from a place of deep insecurity and a need to escape from myself. I became heavily addicted to porn and spent way too much time online, in video games, and in internet communities. This created a massive disconnect between me and reality. Over about twenty years, I watched these online spaces become more and more sexualized, and the idea of being transgender went from a taboo sideshow to a mainstream identity. I started to believe that my discomfort with life and with myself was actually gender dysphoria.
I also realize now that I was probably dealing with internalized homophobia. I’m attracted to men, and I think I had a hard time accepting myself as a gay man. The idea of being a woman with a man felt safer and more acceptable to me than being a feminine man. I had a need to associate with women without being seen as a threat, and the idea of emasculation became very appealing, fueled by the porn I was consuming.
So, I socially and medically transitioned. I took hormones. I became "Jamie." For a while, it felt like I had found my people and my solution. But it was like shifting one addiction for another; transitioning became a compulsion. The community I found was often an echo chamber that encouraged more and more extreme steps. I met people who were completely dissociated from reality, obsessed with their own identities, and reliant on constant outside affirmation. I lost sight of who I was.
This path ended up destroying a lot of my life. I lost my partner, who I loved deeply. That loss was more painful than any dysphoria I ever felt. My family saw me as mentally unstable, and I lost the respect and admiration I had built over a lifetime. I ended up with a body that felt deformed from the hormones, and I was left with even lower self-esteem. I had to face the fact that I was lying to myself and everyone else about what I was. No matter how much I tried, I was never going to be a woman. I was a man pretending, and my brain—and everyone else's—could always tell that something was off.
I decided to detransition. I stopped the hormones. I’m lucky I never had any surgeries, so I have a foundation to return to. My family was relieved, and even my real-life trans friends were supportive, telling me everyone has to find their own path. I started seeing a new therapist who focuses on CBT and reality checks, not on affirming an idealistic identity. She helps me stay grounded.
My thoughts on gender now are that it’s okay to be a feminine man. There’s nothing wrong with a man who likes makeup, painted nails, or "feminine" things. You are what you are, and you can do what you want without changing your body. The black-and-white thinking of gender theory is damaging. We don't need to be separate tribes.
I do have regrets. I regret the pain I caused my loved ones, the time I lost, and the damage I did to my body and my mental health. I regret not seeing that my dysphoria was a symptom of other issues—trauma, addiction, low self-esteem, and a desperate need to escape—and not a reason to medically transition.
Now, I’m working on self-acceptance. I’m learning to live in the real world, not in an online fantasy. I’m trying to enjoy my body operating on its natural settings without obsessing over every little detail. I’m incorporating the parts of "Jamie" that I liked, like my empathy for women, into my life as David, a man who understands more about himself now.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 20s-30s | Struggled with depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Developed addictions to internet, video games, and porn. |
| 38 | Began socially transitioning to female, using the name Jamie. |
| 39 | Started taking estrogen (HRT). |
| 40 | Medically transitioned full-time. Relationship with my partner ended due to my transition. |
| 41 | Realized I was living a lie and began to detransition. Stopped taking hormones. |
| 42 | Began therapy focused on CBT and reality-checking, not gender affirmation. Started rebuilding my life as David. |
| Now (43) | Working on self-acceptance as a feminine gay man and healing from the experience. |
Top Comments by /u/OkAwareness1041:
Transitioning is a compulsion aimed to solve a fragile personality. The whole movement is narcissistic. The way they describe society by othering (cis, terfs, etc) and by forcing their own worldview to “educate folks” or shut down “the transphobes” just screams entitlement, victimization and abuse. The fact that opposing arguments are met with even more violent catchphrases: “blood in your hands” just shows how a strong cult mentality is enforced into others seeking validation and praise in a very specific way: through the pronoun game, the exhibitionism or trivializing medical interventions. Most of the trans people I’ve met are dissociating and have relied heavily on outside affirmations in a pipeline that grew in intensity on each social media migration (flickr with crossdressers, tumblr with gender ideology, twitter with porn and now Reddit with medicalism)
I am living proof of this. I wrote a post before about the way I got addicted to porn. Sites and queer communities became increasingly and overtly sexualized over a 20 year time period. They went from being cross dressed considered a taboo but sometimes shown as a sideshow to now a third of any porn site being transgender porn. T4T is often highly sexualized and uses fetish as a vehicle to violence. Transbians are very aggressive to the lesbian community and even shut them down and exclude them when they speak up about boundaries.
I’m going to be rough but reality checks are an important step to deconstructing these thoughts. It’s not a fair comparison between being a man (which you are) or an ugly woman (which you’re not), the choice is between being a man (a member of society, respected, responsible, a husband and a parent) or a social outcast that is highly sexualized, abused, lacking the features that make your wife want to be with you and if your mental state also suffers (very probable) won’t be able to be a good parent either. I’ve lost a lot along this path, and there were many people who adviced against it, but I didn’t listen because I thought they don’t understand my needs nor my feelings. My therapist encouraged that I explore to “find my people” and “find myself”. I was then surrounded by people who only had each other because most common people don’t want to spend time with someone who obsesses about their own existence, who presents wildly different and who honestly feels like a sideshow everywhere they go. My partner left me and my family consider I am mentally unstable. All the respect and admiration I obtained over a lifetime of achievement was erased over one huge destructive decision. Don’t lose what you love and those that love you for this ideology.
In my experience everyone was quite happy and my parents were relieved when I stopped. Your family loves you and will be more than happy to have a wiser David back that brings a lot of life lessons from Jamie. Even my real life trans friends have been supportive saying that everyone needs to find their own path. Please don’t fall into the peer pressure of the online trans community but just sit with your own emotions and embrace the clarity and pain it brings along. Seek a CBT therapist, ideally not gender focused so they help you to process this without any biases or indulging idealistic thoughts. There is nothing quite like living in the real world
Please focus on your spouse. The loss of someone so important in your life is crushing beyond anything you can imagine and way more painful than the “dysphoria”. Please try to understand that there isn’t “male and female interests” just things that are commonly liked by some people, including you. And please don’t use the filters, they are designed to mess with your psyche and make you lose the sense of reality. Even selfies and photographs affect your own sense of self. Don’t indulge them. Rely on reality.
| turn my head a little bit and it’s obvious I’m male
Your own words are really meaningful and rooted in reality. I’ve spent time with people who in instagram and Reddit looked “completely feminine” and once you’re in person with them and you see them moving it’s no longer so true. Our brains are very basic and can easily tell something is off. Filters are designed to override that instinct and become addictive.
I’ve met functional people with serious addictions who have just shifted them to transitioning (which is also a compulsive activity) or completely abstracted people who have no regard for reality and operate in a different realm (either entitled / victimizing /narcissistic). And everyone I’ve met so far falls into either of those buckets at some point of our conversations.
I wrote a post about this a bit ago. It’s been ongoing and normalizing these thoughts even through cartoons. Often the idea of depersonalization is at the root. The link between manga, video games and hardcore porn is one straight arrow that has resulted in trans porn and trans identities taking over western culture
Hey there, I saw you’ve been on HRT since you were a teen. As you age, life becomes less about being attractive and more about being comfortable. Do what you need to do. If you’re doubting so much, answer your doubts. Give yourself time to explore your feelings without the pressure of being “a man” or “a trans woman”. You can go off hormones or you can change your behavior while on them to explore.
Do whatever feels good for you and try to rely on your inner gut and not on outside sources, honestly nobody can tell you what is right or wrong since everyone is biased.
If you can avoid the need to label things, “this is what women do” “this is a manly thing” and so on. This line of thinking leads to rumination. Don’t try to tie everything together into “one big truth”. Just enjoy life as things happen and hopefully you’ll find the balance that you need.
To be honest, that type of black/white thinking is what causes people to believe in gender theory in the first place. We are not separate tribes, we are one community of people living together and the more we learn from the others the better we can make society for both. You are what you are, and you do what you want, some stuff has boundaries such as protecting women only spaces, gendered sports and respect for sexuality (lesbians are becoming terfs because of entitlement and pressure from the transbians). But other than that, we’re pretty much free to do whatever we want, some stuff has consequences (less opportunity for promotions if you show up to work in a pink skirt go spinny) but that’s your choice, you can also dress up as an elegant androgynous person (like Bowie and Madonna did) which increases those chances a bit.
Nothing wrong with being penetrated. Nothing wrong with any type of sex between two consenting adults. Nothing wrong with being attracted to different roles in sex. But you “are not the woman”, because you are not a woman, nor can ever be a woman, you can be a feminine male pretending to be a woman for the sexual kicks of it (agp) and you don’t need to change anything in your body for it. But I do recommend you stop watching porn. It messes with your psyche and puts you in path to only being able to have sex with others who are also so deep into it they can engage with your needs (sex addicts).