This story is from the comments by /u/Sissyfromhell that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the extensive and deeply personal comments provided, this account appears authentic. The user demonstrates a complex, nuanced, and evolving internal struggle with gender dysphoria, internalized homophobia, and the social pressures surrounding transition. The writing is highly detailed, emotionally raw, and internally consistent over a long period, which is not typical of bot behavior.
No serious red flags suggest this is a bot or a bad-faith actor. The user's perspective aligns with known experiences of many gender-nonconforming gay men who grapple with the option of medical transition. Their critiques of trans ideology and medicalization are passionate but stem from a place of personal conflict and harm reduction, consistent with many genuine desisters and detransitioners.
About me
I was born male and felt different from other boys from a very young age, even crying because I knew I'd never carry a child. I started exploring a social transition to female because I thought it would be an easier path than living as a feminine gay man. Online detrans communities and a good therapist helped me see my desire was rooted in internalized homophobia, not a true female identity. I've learned medical transition is a serious process that doesn't solve self-hatred. Now I'm working on accepting myself as a feminine man, grateful I never took hormones or had surgery.
My detransition story
My journey with gender has been long and confusing. I was born male and I’m attracted to men, so I’m a gay man. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt different from other boys. Some of my earliest memories are from when I was about five years old, crying myself to sleep because I knew I’d never be able to carry a child. I prayed to wake up as a girl.
Growing up, I was very feminine. Men, including my father, treated me terribly for it. I never had a single positive male role model or a real guy friend. I was surrounded by women because they were my only solace; they were kind to me when men were cruel. This rejection made me feel like I was bad at being a man, and I started to believe I’d be better off as a woman. I now see this as severe internalized homophobia mixed with what I believe is genuine gender dysphoria.
In my teens, around 13, being gay was still tough. I was one of only a few gay boys at my school. Around 2015-2016, I saw transgenderism explode online, especially on places like Tumblr and later TikTok. It felt like a new option was being presented. I started to idealize the life of a woman, especially a trans woman. I saw them getting more attention and respect than a feminine gay man like me. I felt more likable and accepted when people perceived me as a trans woman. The dating pool for gay men felt tiny and superficial, but as a trans woman, I suddenly had more options and felt more desirable.
I spent years, from about 18 to now (I'm 21), in a constant back-and-forth. I’ve only transitioned socially, which means I sometimes dress and present as a woman. I’ve never taken hormones or had surgery. When I present female, I’m treated with a kindness and courtesy I never get as a gay man. But it also feels performative. I have to worry about my voice, my walk, my shoulders—everything. Using women's spaces, like bathrooms or dressing rooms, makes me incredibly anxious. I feel like an imposter and I worry about making women uncomfortable.
I’ve spent a lot of time in online communities, both trans and detrans. The pressure in MTF spaces to start hormones was intense and felt cult-like. They’d often skip the "why" and just encourage me to start. In contrast, this detrans community helped me slow down and think critically. It showed me that transitioning is a serious medical process, not an identity you just claim. It’s something you do, not something you are.
I started seeing a therapist who isn't focused on LGBT issues, and she's been a huge help. She doesn't push me toward or away from transition but helps me get to the root of my problems—my low self-esteem, my body dysmorphia, my deep-seated internalized homophobia, and my struggle to accept myself as a feminine man.
I’ve learned about concepts like autogynephilia (AGP) and the old typology of transsexuals. It was a lightbulb moment. It helped me understand that many trans women are attracted to women and transition for different reasons. For me, as a gay man, my desire to transition seems more about escaping the hardships of being a feminine gay man rather than a sexual paraphilia.
I have real dysphoria. I hate many of my male characteristics. I even have gynecomastia (natural breast development), which I have a complicated relationship with—I like how it makes me look feminine, but it’s a setback for living as a gay man. The idea of aging into an old, lonely gay man is terrifying to me. Transitioning sometimes feels like admitting defeat and choosing a different, easier path.
But I also know I will never be female. I can become a transsexual, but I will always be male. Medical transition is a destructive process—it’s taking heavy, synthetic hormones and undergoing drastic surgeries. I believe it should be an absolute last resort for only the most severely dysphoric people who have exhausted all other options. I’m trying to exhaust my other options first.
I don’t know what my future holds. I’m still deeply conflicted. Part of me still wants to transition because life seems easier on the other side. But a bigger part of me knows it’s a gamble with my health and happiness, and it doesn’t solve the core issues of self-hatred and internalized homophobia.
I don’t regret exploring my gender socially; it taught me a lot about myself. But I am grateful I never medically transitioned. I have no serious health complications, and I am not infertile. My biggest regret is the years I’ve spent in mental anguish, torn between two identities, because I couldn't accept being a feminine gay man in a world that often doesn’t value us.
Here is a timeline of my journey so far:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| ~5 | Earliest memories of dysphoria; crying over inability to bear children, praying to be a girl. |
| 13 | Middle school; intense bullying for being gay and feminine. Gay marriage was legalized, but being openly gay was still difficult. |
| 18 | Began seriously questioning my gender and exploring a social transition part-time. Felt pressure from online trans communities. |
| 20 | Active in online detrans communities. Started therapy with a non-LGBT-focused therapist to address root causes of dysphoria and self-image issues. |
| 21 | (Present) Still questioning. Have not taken any medical steps. Continually working on self-acceptance as a gender non-conforming gay man. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/Sissyfromhell:
Disgusting. Get your head straight if you’re a mtf so “envious” about menstruation. If they are more dysphoric and bent out of shape about menstruation than the inability to give birth to a child… that says it all.
I cannot stand this coming from grown ass adult MTFs. They often couldn’t give a rats ass about being able to give birth or carry a child, the only “moral” or “wholesome” reason I can surmise a MTF would want a period.
In reality it’s severe anatomical AGP. Dysphoria for some yes, but a really unhinged kind. More than usual. Trans women don’t WANT periods- that is AGP fetishizing female anatomy, whether they realize it or not, not run of the mill trans-dysphoria. This is the shit that REALLY makes women hate us, I hate it too.
I think being trans nowadays has a lot more to do with being feminine or masculine, not being able to be how they want, than actual sex dysphoria. They think they cannot be fem/masc the way they are (not properly, can’t be fully accepted for it, doesn’t “feel” right) and they think this must equal trans. I think this can evolve into “I need a different body.”
I don’t think internalized homophobia and gender dysphoria cannot coexist. Besides genetic possibilities, I think I developed dysphoria as a child completely because people are homophobic, and I wasn’t allowed to be as fem as I was. I couldn’t imagine wanting a female body instead as a child, until later I knew it would be a “solution.”
My doctors never said anything like that. He and I are both well aware I and no other male can actually become female. That’s why activism & ideology doesn’t belong in the fucking hospital. It needs to be treated as a mental illness not an identity “coming out” like being gay. This is like a fucking disease.
They will treat you and give you hormones bc ideologically they believe you’re trans, that overrides their dormant better senses not to tell a young woman she can never be a real man. They have brain rot, or fear backlash from feeling the truth. We can become a “man” or “woman” in some subjective sense, but we should all be very clear, sex change, acronyms MTF FTM, are not literal…
But of course children/minors can’t actually comprehend this. Just another nail in the coffin.
I get the same treatment from MTF community. They tell me it is my choice and my decision but it’s obvious that I’m a “woman” and am meant to be that way. I desire to be a woman so I should become one. That my apprehension and fears about HRT are internalized transphobia manifesting. That’s just not the case. Transition shouldn’t be the first treatment for dysphoria. I’m sorry they treated you that way. I feel for you.
It definitely is contagious. Really curious documentation of this on “rupauls drag race.” There were not even a handful of trans women on the show before let’s sayyy 2018??
Now you can expect at the very least 1 trans woman each season, and some enbys. Tons of them now, when it was RARE before, even in a field and competition show where you’d expect to find them. Just a few. Now there’s dozens.
Many it seems are using transition as cosmetics and a way to enhance their drag as opposed to treating a disorder. Anybody that WANTS to be trans, needs evaluation. It’s a true and absolute last resort, not something you should want for yourself...
The reality is intersex people who legitimately need HRT and corrective/reconstructive surgeries are often the last to be treated. Insurance covers trans surgeries with a quickness because it’s a business scheme. There’s a reason it was/is considered elective. That’s a customer you’re guaranteeing to perpetuate your business. Leaving people who genuinely need these treatments last in line.
There’s no widespread market/movement to encourage surgeries to make money off of intersex people. But there is millions to be made off of millions of self ID trans people. They hand HRT out like candy to “trans” people, children, but it can be incredibly difficult to receive basic ACTUALLY physically medically necessary care as an intersex person.
I know a nurse, she is consistently angered trans men can get prescribed testosterone easily, but anybody else who genuinely needs it…? Good luck.
The pressure to transition in mtf spaces is very real. I feel bad calling it cult like but the groupie and “sisterhood” aspect of certain mtf people is concerning to me. They often skip the jump on why someone would want to transition and get right to it.
You should seek a therapist. I’m in a similar situation as you, born male, confused. It’s really important to get to the root of why you want to be trans, why it makes you feel good. For me I thought “I feel better dressed as a woman, it makes me happy, I must be trans,” it’s not as simple as that. This can be really complex, I definitely suggest seeking a professional therapist. Reddit can only get you so far. It sounds like you have a lot of thinking to do.
Perhaps this is unhelpful and I shouldn’t say it… but many doctors, even therapists who work with trans or lgbt populations, are creeps and predators. I have heard from both trans and intersex people, the severe medical mistreatment they experienced especially as teens and children, but as adults too. Unnecessary examinations of the body and genitals. Inappropriate questions about sexuality and development. Male and female practitioners alike.
Our minds and bodies are made to be an oddity. At best they are just trying to help and profiting off us, at worst they are predators getting off on our conditions. You are not wrong to feel how you feel, even if there was nothing “fishy” or odd about your surgery (beyond what is expected for a minor getting “gender affirming” surgeries…), a very intimate part of you was taken before you could seriously consent to it. I can only imagine the violation you feel by doctor, parents, the “community”, etc…
Anne Lawrence, despite the MASSIVE invaluable contributions she’s made to understanding autogynephilia, is a prime example. She was forcefully resigned from her practice as an anesthesiologist in 1997 after examining an Ethiopian female patients vagina while she was under anesthesia… “According to self-reports, Lawrence’s erotic interest surrounding medically-constructed vaginas and genital modification drove Lawrence to undergo genital modification in 1996. Lawrence’s inability to be accepted by coworkers and patients culminated in a forced resignation in 1997, after a March 31 incident where Lawrence examined an unconscious Ethiopian patient’s vagina for signs of genital modification. The record shows that Lawrence refused to believe a peer who told Lawrence several times that the Ethiopian patient did not have ritualized genital modification. Lawrence then digitally examined the unconscious patient personally after the gynecologic surgeon left the room.“
Basically, her own autogynephilic interest in transitioning, as well as her fetish and paraphilia for transitioning, medically-constructed vaginas as well as female genital mutilation, destroyed her career as an anesthesiologist. However, this horrible interest of hers is the basis for her later career as a sexologist and author on autogynephilia.
TL;DR people who seek or hope to treat trans people often have an agenda at best, a fetish at worst, motivating them to see us. At best they aim to help, at worst we are their play things.
Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of advice but if you “think” you’re a lesbian and you stopped using hormones months ago, try and let it go. You’re a lesbian. IMO trans is something you experience, develop and participate in, not something you innately are (like homosexuality). You will never not be a lesbian, I will never not be gay.