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 an inauthentic detransitioner/desister.
The user's perspective is consistent, nuanced, and deeply personal, reflecting a long-term internal struggle with gender identity, sexism, and the decision not to medically transition. The writing style is conversational, includes personal anecdotes, and shows development of thought over time—all hallmarks of a genuine person. The passion and frustration expressed are consistent with the experiences of many detransitioners and desisters.
About me
I grew up as a girl who naturally fit in with boys and always identified with male characters. I assumed I would eventually transition to male because it felt like the only way to explain my masculinity. In my early twenties, I realized I could never actually become male and that my interests didn't define my sex. I decided against medical transition to keep my healthy body and embrace being a masculine woman. I'm now comfortable knowing I am female and that my personality is just a natural part of who I am.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender started when I was just a kid. I was always a boy. All my friends were boys, we played with the same toys, watched the same cartoons, and I always identified with the male characters in books and movies. It wasn't that I disliked girls; I just naturally found myself fitting in with the boys. I even remember thinking my penis would just grow in someday. I knew biologically I was a girl, but it never felt like a relevant part of who I was.
When puberty hit, it was mostly an annoyance. I was a late bloomer and didn't need a bra until I was about 16. My first period was just a practical problem that stopped me from swimming. In school, I took P.E. with the boys but changed clothes with the girls. Some of the girls in middle school even refused to shower with me, saying, "you're a boy!" In high school, I was in community theatre and was almost always cast in male roles. People who didn't know me often thought I was a boy, and I just rolled with it. I even used men's deodorant because I liked the scent, not because I was trying to be something I wasn't.
Figuring out my sexuality felt natural. I'm bisexual. Liking girls was easy and expected among my friend group. Liking boys felt more complicated because it made me feel "gay" in their eyes, but it was just part of who I am.
For a long time, I thought transitioning was my only option. I believed I was born in the wrong body. In my country back then, you had to be 25 to get sex reassignment surgery, so I just assumed that when I got older, that was the path I would take. I started identifying as a boy because it felt like the only way to explain why I was so different from the stereotypes of what a woman should be.
But around the age of 22, I had a major shift in my thinking. I realized that no matter what I did, I would never actually be male. I would never have the experience of growing up as a boy. The best I could hope for was a body that resembled a male's through surgery and a lifetime of medication. I would never have a healthy, natural male body. I started to learn more about how brains work and became convinced that there's no such thing as a "male brain" or a "female brain." Our minds are shaped by our experiences and interests, not by our sex.
I also came to see that a lot of transgender ideology is built on sexist stereotypes—the idea that if you like "man things," you must be a man, or if you like nail polish, you must be a woman. I hated that. I am a woman, and I am also very masculine. That doesn't make me less of a woman; it just makes me me. My body is female, and that is a biological fact. My sex was observed at birth, not assigned. My gender role—the expectations placed on me—was assigned, and I reject those stereotypes.
I decided to detransition before I ever medically transitioned. I never took hormones or had any surgeries. I realized that my life wouldn't be fundamentally different if I were male. I would still be the same person with the same interests and dreams. I thought about the specifics: if I were male, I probably wouldn't be with my current partner because he's straight. If I were male, running an infant daycare would be seen as much weirder. I would have been bullied for being feminine instead of masculine. The grass wasn't greener on the other side; it was just different challenges rooted in the same sexist society.
I don't regret exploring my gender, but I am very glad I didn't medically transition. I have a healthy body, and I don't want to trade that for a medically dependent one. I believe in bodily autonomy for adults, but I also think the decision to transition should be made with extreme caution. If questioning someone's decision makes them reconsider, then they probably shouldn't be doing it.
Today, I'm a woman who is comfortable being masculine. I sometimes still forget I'm a woman and mentally count myself among men when I think about my past. I find men's resources in psychology and self-help more relatable. But I know that my body is female, and that's okay. The people who matter love me for who I am, not for my sex.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Childhood | Always had male friends, identified with boys, played with boys' toys. |
| ~16 | Hit puberty late; got first period, found it annoying. Didn't need a bra until this age. |
| 16 | Joined community theatre; consistently cast in male roles. People often mistook me for a boy. |
| Teen Years | Confirmed bisexuality; attraction to girls felt natural, attraction to boys felt more complex. |
| 22 | Had a major realization; decided not to pursue medical transition and embraced life as a masculine woman. |
Top Comments by /u/Star_Aries:
Honestly, if you really don't want to be called a "terf", then you have to stop surrounding yourself with people who use that word.
Stop visiting trans/LGBT-spaces online, stop following all the "woke" people on SoMe, stop participating and stop caring.
"Terf" doesn't mean anything except to this little part of the population who mostly use it online to shame people they disagree with. Disconnect from those people.
Most people don't even know what "terf" means.
What a good friend! She actually treats you like a friend and not like a virtue signal or political ideology.
Remember that “finding out who you are” is not a thing. We ARE very little, so there’s not much there to “find”.
We CREATE who we are - and yeah, that can be hard, but that’s okay, we have our entire lives to do it.
Here's the controversial thing: You don't have to picture your life "as a woman".
That was my objection too. I couldn't picture my life as a woman, I didn't WANT to live my life as a woman. My female body sucked too, by the way!
Until I realised that there's not really much of a difference between "my life as a woman" and "my life as a man". I often think of how this thing would be easier if I were male, or I wouldn't experience this if I were male - but then I think about how there would be other things that would be harder if I were male, and how I would experience other downfalls if I were male, and the truth is I think it all adds up in the end, because all those things have their root in sexism. Male or female, it's all sexism.
My body is just my body. Being male wouldn't mean that I suddenly got my dream body, because plenty of men have weird bodies too and are too short, too tall, too fat, too thin...
And most importantly: The people who are closest to me love and respect me for the human I am, not for the sex I am.
The female equivalent to Mozart was Maria Anna Mozart. She was married off to a man her father approved of and that was that.
If you really look into history, this has happened time and time again. Being a truly remarkable woman takes so much more than it takes for a man, because men have been actively holding us down, discouraging us, and deleting us from history for many, many years.
Is this a joke?
Figuring out what to wear is so hard that it's the reason you haven't had a job for 3 years?
Men can just throw on a pair of grey sweat pants and they're fine? In any line of work? Any situation?
All women feel this pressure and it's just part of being a woman? There's no way around it unless you want to lose your dignity?
This post is misogynistic as f...
Also, you're very, very self-centered. If you had to be at your workplace at 7 in the morning with 10 hours of work ahead of you 5 days a week, at the end of which your outfit would be more than ready for the laundry, I promise you spending an hour in front of the mirror every day would be over REAL fast.
"Lol what" is really rude, and you have no reason to be rude to me. My comment was not a feminist take, it was a personal take, and my point was that you should look at how YOUR life in particular would be different if you were the opposite sex. I don't believe my personality would be different if I were male, so I believe I would have the same interests and the same goals and dreams for my life as I do as a female.
Like this:
If I were male, my best friend would probably still be my best friend, because she has ple ty of friends of both sexes and is not sexist.
If I were male, I couldn't be with my partner, because he's straight.
If I were male, it would be seen as much weirder for me to run an infant daycare.
If I were male, I would've been bullied at school for being feminine (just like I was bullied for being masculine).
If I were male, I would be seen as assertive and not as "loud and obnoxious".
If I were male, I would be seen as weak for crying at movies and books and theatre shows.
If I were male, I wouldn't have played the lead in our theatre production last year, because that was a female role.
And so on and on and on.
You can, of course, think patriarchy into this thought proces, but while patriarchy does benefit men as a class and supresses women as a class, it doesn't necessarily benefit each individual man while supressing each individual woman each and every single time.
So far, no research has been able to prove any reliable difference between male and female brains. No matter what, the differences between individuals are always bigger than the differences between sexes.
Brains are so plastic that they're easily moldable by our experiences. I read an example of a NYC taxi driver whose brain had formed multiple new pathways to make it possible for him to find his way around NYC without a map.
Am I making sense? English is not my first language.
I recommend the meta study by Gina Rippon for this subject; it's very interesting and enlightening.
I could talk about Jazz Jennings for a very long time, and I agree with most of your post, although I have to correct you - Jazz didnt get bottom surgery at 10 years old, but at 17 years old. She had however been on puberty blockers and hormones for so long at that point that it was very hard to operate, because there just want enough skin down there to make a "vagina".
The show also depicts the mother telling Jazz not to talk about the complications surrounding the surgery, as it might scare others away from getting it.
Jazz is certainly the poster child for "transgender youth" - there's even a Jazz-picture book for small kids.
And... Really? Jazz suffers from depression and BED to the point where she was too obese for the doctors to operate safely. Jazz's entire identity revolves about being transgender. If she ever wanted to detransition, could she?
I never had a trans community.
I originally decided to transition because I was a boy. My friends were boys, and whenever I heard the "man this, woman that" stereotypes, I felt more like whatever the "man" thing was.
I detransitioned because I would never be a man and never have the experience of growing up as a boy, I would only ever be a trans man, and that was not enough.
Needing a trans community in the first place is a red flag to me, actually. If you really are the opposite gender, wouldn't you just naturally hang out with the opposite gender? Your transition needs would be purely medical. You would only need doctors, not a community.
Trans communities exist for people who are trans identified, not for people who are man/woman identified.
Let's try to break it down...
Non-binary exists. That means that a binary exists.
Biologically there are only two human sexes - male and female. All others are anomalies of or between these two. A healthy human body is either male or female. So a healthy non-binary human sex does not exist.
Gender roles dictate that there are certain things men and women can and cannot do, wear, say or even think. This is a sexist belief.
Since non-binary begets a binary system, and a biological non-binary human is impossible, non-binary must refer to gender roles.
So, by being non-binary, people are saying: "Women wear dresses and love pink. Men drink beer and watch football. These are facts. Men and women are born like that. I, however, am different, because I love pink and drink beer."