This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or inauthentic.
The user's comments show:
- Personal, nuanced reflection on their experience as an autistic, desisted gay man.
- Consistent internal logic connecting their autism, social alienation, and reasons for initially identifying as non-binary.
- Varied engagement, including personal anecdotes and a detailed, patient linguistic debate, which is atypical for a simple bot.
The passion and frustration displayed are consistent with a genuine individual discussing a deeply personal and often stigmatized topic.
About me
I was born male and am gay, but I never fit the loud stereotypes, which made me feel like I wasn't a real man. I thought identifying as non-binary would free me from that pressure, but it was just a way to escape my own low self-esteem. I've since realized my low sex drive is just natural for me and not a sign I was asexual or another gender. Now, I've desisted and am trying to accept being a gay man, though I still struggle to feel connected to the label. My journey was more about social anxiety and internalized homophobia than true physical dysphoria.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender has been complicated, and a lot of it, looking back, was tied up in being autistic and not understanding where I fit in. I was born male, and I’m attracted to men, so I’m a gay man. But for a long time, I couldn’t accept that.
I never identified with the way gay men are shown in movies or on TV. They’re either super flamboyant and effeminate or hypersexual and into partying. I’m neither of those things. I’m autistic, and I think my brain was always trying to find a way to be as “normal” as possible. I felt like men, especially straight men, had some secret quality that made them men, and I knew I didn’t have it. I think I started to believe the idea that gay men are equivalent to straight women, and that messed with my head. I hated the stereotypes and the boxes people wanted to put me in.
Because I didn’t fit the gay stereotype, I thought maybe I wasn’t a man at all. That’s when I started identifying as non-binary. It felt like an escape from all the expectations that came with being a gay man. I could just be me, without the pressure. For a while, that felt like a relief. I even went to Pride events presenting as nonbinary.
But eventually, I realized that wasn’t right for me either. I was trying to solve an internal problem with an external label. I was dealing with low self-esteem and anxiety about not fitting in, and I thought changing my gender identity would fix it. It didn’t. I also thought I might be asexual for a long time because I had a very low sex drive and wasn't interested in the hookup culture. I later realized I was just a late bloomer, and my sex drive is naturally lower than most men's, which is perfectly fine.
Now, I’ve desisted. I’m trying to live as a gay man, but it’s still a struggle. I know factually that I am male, but I don’t really feel comfortable considering myself a man. My mind just doesn’t seem to let me fully connect with it. I don’t look feminine or even that androgynous, but I still struggle to see myself as male.
I don’t regret exploring my identity because I think I needed to go through that to understand myself better. But I do regret that I felt so much pressure to change who I was because of stereotypes. I wish I had seen more diverse representations of gay men—just regular guys who happen to love other guys, without all the performative stuff. I think that would have helped me a lot sooner.
My thoughts on gender now are that it’s incredibly personal and often gets tangled up with other things, like sexuality, mental health, and social pressure. For me, it was never really about gender dysphoria in a physical sense; it was about social discomfort and internalized homophobia.
Here is a timeline of my journey based on what I remember:
Age | Event |
---|---|
Teenage Years | Felt disconnected from being a male and from stereotypes of gay men. Believed I was asexual. |
Early 20s | Started identifying as non-binary as a way to escape social expectations. Attended Pride events as non-binary. |
Mid 20s | Realized my low sex drive wasn't asexuality but just my natural state. Underwent blood tests which showed normal testosterone levels. |
Now (Mid-Late 20s) | Desisted from identifying as non-binary. Now identifying as a gay man, though still struggling to feel comfortable with the label "man." |
Top Comments by /u/PriorityFree5780:
Not trying to butt in or mansplain, but you’d be surprised how much people do make it their business. Males in particular stigmatize other males not pursuing sex or being sexually assertive or aggressive to a considerable degree — my male peers in high school and college were shocked I was a virgin and not interested in sex (which I still am!). People assume you’re either gay or somehow less of a man if you aren’t always ‘ready,’ so to speak, and while in my case the former assumption happened to be correct it still does a disservice to people who either are asexual or just want to wait for the right time and the right person.
I thought I was asexual as well, until, not unlike you, I actually found that I was just a late bloomer in that regard (and ended up being same-sex attracted). Even so, I would say my level of sexual desire is still very low compared to the majority of men; it’s just how I am, and it isn’t intrinsically harming me or others, so I don’t consider that a problem or a disorder. In fact, I thought it was a symptom of low testosterone, too, but my levels came back pretty much straight down the middle of the male range. (Which disappointed me, because I was identifying as non-binary at the time.)
I do think it’s pointless to apply all these (increasingly specific) labels to anyone’s attractions or lack thereof. I think getting this hyperspecific especially with aspec labels only confounds things further and makes it harder for actual asexuals to find community. Some people do treat these labels as immutable, but others assert that they’re fluid, so I think this creates a lot of confusion for people who find their sexuality changing throughout their lives.
With all due respect, you’re misreading Google Translate’s very broad phonetic transcription. If you were to type in ‘trans,’ the transcription that Google Translate would give you is ‘tranz.’ If you were to listen to it read each word aloud, you would clearly hear different pronunciations, and if you were to use IPA to transcribe them, you would find that trans is pronounced /tɹænz/ and trance is pronounced /tɹæns/.
As for your other point, any amount of hypnosis porn trans people consume is irrelevant to the relatedness of the words. It’s a coincidence.
I relate to this. I don’t look feminine or even that androgynous, but I’m not particularly masculine, either, and I still struggle to see myself as male or as a man after desisting. My mind just doesn’t seem to be letting me do it. Like, I know it’s factually true, but I don’t really feel comfortable considering myself male.
I apologize if I’m coming off as passive-aggressive, because I don’t mean to. I feel like I’m being pretty straightforward. All I’m saying is that while trans and trance have a related element, ultimately they’re from different words. So, no, we’re not on the same page. They aren’t phonetically similar (not the same) for any specific reason besides that they evolved from similar words. There’s no occult implication being made.
The fact of the matter is that there is no hidden, symbolic link between trans (or being trans) and trance (or hypnosis), so I think we can agree to disagree. Curse and cursive are unrelated as well.
Thank you so much for sharing; I really appreciate your input and perspective.
Well, you’re right in that I don’t like how gayness is represented in most media. Gay men are either heavily “othered,” or portrayed as weak or otherwise secondary. I’ve noticed that a lot of gay characters tend not to have much personality that doesn’t directly involve being gay or that isn’t explicitly or implicitly linked to their gayness, rather than just being diverse people who happen to be gay.
So yeah, I think part of it might be that I never identified with any of the tired archetypes most of the world sees gay people in (i.e. flamboyant airheaded effeminate guy, hypersexual hypermasculine alcohol and drug user, or creepy groomer).
I think it goes a little deeper than that, though. I think a lot of it is my autistic brain wanting to be as “normal” as possible and hoping that being a straight woman instead of a gay man would fix that. I always felt that men, especially straight men, had something intangible that I didn’t that made them men and that made me not. I still don’t even know what it is, but a part of that could be due to the sort of ‘equivalence/equation’ mainstream society often draws between gay men and straight women.
I’m all for the freedom of consenting adults to do whatever and behave however they’d like, but when pretty much every representation anyone ever sees of men who love men feels performative in the same overly sexualized ways, trying to assert my own identity can get exhausting. I think not being bound by the box of “male” was my way of escaping that.
I don’t believe gay people should have to act a certain way to please others, but it’d be nice to see gay men represented in a way that’s just… different.
I don’t want to be inflammatory or anything, but you asked a question in (hopefully) good faith, and I answered in good faith. If you weren’t expecting anyone to answer the question honestly and not just confirm the connection you’re claiming, then I don’t know why you even asked it.
To make the facts completely clear:
- Trans and trance have a related element, but the connotations have nothing to do with each other. (Coincidence wasn’t exactly the best word, but my point is their similarity in sound doesn’t imply anything about either trans people or hypnosis.)
- Write and rite are unrelated.
- The two senses of ‘spell’ are related, but, again, the connotations have nothing to do with each other.
- Trance and hypnosis are connected. Trans and hypnosis, however, aren’t connected at all.
Honestly, nobody needs a degree for this. Some quick searching on Wiktionary or any other dictionary can confirm all of this for you. These similarities are all the products of evolution and natural sound changes, not black magic conspiracies.
Late to this, but I’ve gone to pride events in my city for the last couple of years. This year will be the first Pride Month where I’ll be presenting myself as a “gay man” (not out to everyone in my life, of course, but still) rather than as nonbinary.
Being autistic, a tee-totaler, and not really being into the party or hookup culture, it can get a little isolating. Parades aren’t the kind of thing I tend to stay at for very long, but I enjoy the positivity and think it’s really great that we have places where we don’t have to be ashamed. That said, though, I feel like in recent years things have gotten far too overtly sexualized, and it really sucks that those are the kinds of images the straight world will come to expect of me as a “gay man.”
What I’d really wish I had was just a safe gathering where our history and fight for our rights is celebrated. I think modern pride events perpetuate a lot of harmful stereotypes that I really don’t want to be connected to.