This story is from the comments by /u/Ok_Bullfrog_8491 that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the extensive comment history provided, this account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags indicating it is a bot or a fake account. The user demonstrates deep, personal, and consistent knowledge of the detransition experience, particularly relating to the intersection of eating disorders, autism, and gender dysphoria. Their narrative is highly detailed, emotionally resonant, and internally consistent over many months of activity. The passion and anger expressed are consistent with a genuine detransitioner or desister who has experienced significant harm. The account shows no signs of being inauthentic.
About me
I started hating my female body as a teenager and developed anorexia to stop my periods and look androgynous. I broke several bones at 21 because my eating disorder had given me osteoporosis, which was my wake-up call. During my recovery, I found weightlifting and began to appreciate my body for its strength instead of how it looked. I was later diagnosed with autism, which helped me understand my social struggles weren't because I was meant to be male. I am now a healthy, happy woman and I want to help others avoid the same suffering I went through.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was a teenager. I hated being a woman. I felt like my body was wrong and that I wasn't meant to have estrogen in me. I despised my breasts, my hips, and my periods. I thought if I could just get rid of all these female traits, I would finally be happy.
When I was 17, I developed anorexia. I started running over a hundred kilometers a week and eating very little. I wasn't just trying to be thin; I was trying to shut down my body's production of estrogen. I knew that extreme exercise and low body fat could stop periods, and I was thrilled when it worked. My doctors were panicking about my bone health, but I was elated. I loved looking like a skinny, androgynous teenager with no curves. People often mistook me for a boy, which felt like a compliment at the time.
By the time I was 21, the damage caught up with me. I stumbled while running and broke five bones in my leg. A bone density scan revealed I had osteopenia, the early stage of osteoporosis. My bones were like those of a post-menopausal woman. That was my wake-up call. I realized I couldn't keep destroying my body.
I was lucky. My doctors had diagnosed me with anorexia, not gender dysphoria, so they treated the eating disorder aggressively. They made it very clear that what I was doing was life-threatening. Later, when I asked my gynecologist for testosterone, she refused because she knew my history. She told me it was okay to be a lesbian—I'm not, but I think she was trying to reassure me that I didn't have to be a stereotypical woman to be valid.
I started the long process of recovery. I switched from endurance sports to weightlifting to rebuild my bones. It took four years of hard work, proper nutrition, and weight training, but my bones are now healthy for my age and sex. The doctor was surprised it worked.
Something else happened when I started weightlifting. I began to appreciate my body for what it could do, not just how it looked. I realized that my curves weren't just fat; there was strong muscle underneath. I started to feel powerful and capable in my female body. The mental shift was dramatic and happened very quickly. Within a few sessions at the gym, my hatred for my body began to dissolve.
I also had to confront my internalized misogyny. I read books like Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez and Material Girls by Kathleen Stock. They helped me understand that the problem wasn't my female body, but a society that treats men as the default and women as an afterthought. This made me angry, but it also cured me of the desire to escape being a woman.
I was diagnosed with autism in my mid-twenties, which explained a lot. I'd always felt like I didn't fit in with other girls and women. Their communication seemed subtle and effortless, while I felt like an alien trying to decode everything. I found it easier to socialize with men because their communication was more direct. I now understand that my social difficulties were due to autism, not because I was meant to be a man.
Looking back, I see strong parallels between my experience and those of girls who develop anorexia. Both are rooted in a hatred of the female body and a fear of growing up. Both are ways to try to control your body and escape the sexualization and limitations placed on women. I'm grateful that I was treated for anorexia rather than affirmed in a male identity, because that path led me back to health.
I don't regret my journey because it brought me to a place of acceptance and strength, but I regret the pain I caused myself and the irreversible damage I did to my bones. I am now comfortable being a woman. I don't always feel "feminine," but I know that femininity is just a set of stereotypes. I am a woman because I am female, and that's enough.
I am active in this community because I want to help others avoid the suffering I went through. I believe that for many young people, especially girls, gender dysphoria is a symptom of other issues—autism, internalized homophobia, trauma, eating disorders, or simply the difficult transition into adulthood. These issues need to be explored and treated, not affirmed with hormones and surgery.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 10 | Wrote a letter to my teacher saying I wanted to be a man when I grew up. |
| 17 | Developed anorexia to suppress estrogen production and eliminate female body traits. |
| 17-20 | Successfully suppressed estrogen through over-exercise and under-eating; was often mistaken for a boy. |
| 21 | Stumbled while running and broke five bones in my leg; diagnosed with osteopenia. |
| 21 | Began recovery: switched to weightlifting to rebuild bone density and muscle. |
| 22-23 | Mental shift occurred; began to accept and appreciate my female body through strength training. |
| Mid-20s | Diagnosed with autism, which explained social difficulties and feelings of not fitting in. |
| 26 | Bone density scan confirmed my bones were healthy for my age and sex. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/Ok_Bullfrog_8491:
I’m a former anorexic. It’s insane to me that a girl who hates her breasts, hips, period and what the oestrogen does to her and becomes anorexic because of this will get mental health support and the clear message that what she’s doing is extremely harmful to her—and a girl with the same issue who says the magic words “that means I’m not a girl” will get a prescription for powerful cross-sex hormones and a double mastectomy instead, plus being gold by everyone around her how brave she is for coming out.
A third category was tried by World Aquatics, but no-one registered for it: https://www.worldaquatics.com/news/3715191/update-on-the-open-category-competitions-at-the-world-aquatics-swimming-world-cup-berlin-2023
Also, a third category would in effect just be another male category because of male physical advantage.
Sports is done with bodies, not with identities, so gender identity shouldn’t matter in the slightest, only biological sex.
Eating disorders, particularly anorexia. You might convince yourself that you’re supposed to be a boy because you can’t cope with your body not having zero fat (that is, you can’t cope with a female fat distribution and hate that your hips and breasts show that you lack discipline and are still “fat”). I’ll (again) recommend Hadley Freeman’s Good Girls, which has a chapter on the parallels with girls developing anorexia.
Don't worry. This is completely normal. If they aren't medicalised, some 90% of children with gender dysphoria grow out of it by the time they're young adults: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784/full
I still cringe when being called she/her; girl; daughter; sister - but now I feel like I'm beginning to identify with the category of womanhood more. I forget I'm non-binary. I forget that I'm not a cis woman.
Do you want to explore this? What do you mean when you say that you forget that you're non-binary? Women generally don't think about being women all the time. Our sex is just a fact of life, like our height.
I really don’t think psychologists working with people with gender dysphoria should have flags in their offices, any more than psychologists working with people who are thinking of leaving a religion should have religious symbols. This feels a lot like the psychologist has taken a side, and that’s not how it should be. Therapy should be focused on you.
The sunk cost fallacy is just that, a fallacy. Don’t get the surgery, it's just one more thing you will regret in the future. That being said, you have a serious self-hate problem and you sound like you’re spiralling, and you will need help to deal with that. You say you’re on SSRIs, but it doesn’t sound like this one is working. There are a lot of different antidepressants. Don’t let yourself be fobbed off with one that clearly doesn’t work as intended. I wish you all the best on your journey.
Only loosely related, this post is making me think (again) of how lots of people apparently want to have autism, Tourette's, anxiety or some other neurological/psychological issue.
No you don't. Nobody asked the people actually struggling with these issues whether they wanted them, they just have to deal with them because that's their life, while you can decide tomorrow that you don't want to have autism or clinical depression anymore.
Your life isn't ruined. It's valuable. You're 18. Don't blame yourself for a stupid decision you made when suicidal at 16. There's a reason why we don't usually allow minors and suicidal people to make a lot of decisions. You will be fine.
I thought it was hopeless at 21 because I'd already destroyed my bones anyway, but I'm here, five years later, and my bones are healthy now, because I tackled the issue head-on (and was lucky).
Now, concerning the way forward:
Do you know what mental illness you have? Do you know what your specific issues are and what you have to tackle? Are you in therapy, and if so, (1) for what, and (2) with a gender-affirming therapist or someone who will deal with your actual issues?
What physical issues do you have, if any? What has the testosterone caused that you dislike, and has it caused any specific health issues?
It helps (at least mentally) if you start seeing it as a religion, a state religion that's particularly popular among impressionable young people. You are the apostate. Imagine yourself living in Ireland half a century ago, calling out Magdalene Laundries and child sexual abuse by priests, and nobody is listening. It feels like that, doesn't it?
What does "transphobia" mean in your opinion? Because at this point if someone called me that I'd just shrug. Apparently we're now calling it transphobic if someone is against medicalising children due to something 90% will grow out of, or if someone is against putting Isla Bryson, double rapist, in a women's prison. The term has completely lost any meaning it ever had.
As for whether you might be trans or not: "trans" isn't a useful descriptor of anything, since it's unclear what it refers to nowadays--a physical or a mental state, and if the latter, what exactly? The real reason is, do you have sex dysphoria so unbearable you can't live with it?