This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic detransitioner/desister.
The comments display:
- Personal, nuanced reflection on their own transition experience and the evolving trans community.
- Internal consistency in their perspective as a gay man who transitioned.
- Complex, specific opinions that go beyond simple talking points, showing a depth of understanding of community dynamics and history.
The passion and criticism expressed are consistent with a genuine individual who has experienced significant personal hardship related to this topic.
About me
I'm a gay man who started exploring transition in the late 2000s because I hated myself and thought becoming a woman would make my life easier. My medical transition was rushed through without anyone ever addressing my deep-seated depression and internalized homophobia. I now live with the permanent consequences of surgeries and a body that feels stuck in a lonely middle ground. I am completely isolated, no longer belonging to the gay community or being seen as my true self. I deeply lament the life I lost and believe I needed help loving myself, not just a path to change my body.
My detransition story
My journey into transition started in the late 2000s. I was a gay man who was deeply uncomfortable with myself. I found a lot of early community online, and the prevailing logic back then was very different. There was a lot of talk about autogynephilia (AGP), and while I don't think it's something to be ashamed of, that framework was a big part of the conversation. For me, it wasn't about a fetish; it was about a deep-seated self-hatred and a belief that transitioning was the only way to fix what was wrong.
I never seriously believed I was a woman. I knew I was male. But I thought that by becoming a woman, I could escape the misery of being a gay man. I internalized a lot of homophobia and felt that if I were a straight woman, my life would be easier and I would be more accepted. This was a form of escapism for me, a way to run from my own reality.
When I went to college in the mid-2010s, I saw the culture shift completely. The online world and real life became dominated by a new understanding of transness, and the old ideas were pushed aside. I found myself caught between these two worlds. The medical teams I saw treated me like a classic case of gender dysphoria, a settled science. They didn't try to understand the cultural pressures or my internal conflicts. I was just thrown into a system of toxic positivity and affirmation without any real exploration of my underlying issues, like my low self-esteem and depression.
I took hormones and had surgeries. I am now infertile and will be dependent on pharmaceuticals for the rest of my life. These were the consequences of choices I made as an adult, and I don't feel anger toward the medical community or other trans people. I made my bed, and I have to lie in it. But the outcome isn't what I was promised.
Transitioning completely broke its promise for me. Because of the huge cultural shift and the influx of people who don't have classic dysphoria, it's now impossible to just live as a woman. You live as a trans woman, and that comes with a whole set of assumptions, usually that you're heterosexual. As a gay man, this is incredibly isolating. I'm seen as a straight woman by the gay community I belong to, and paradoxically, by the same trans community that often views lesbian trans women with suspicion. I'm left with surgical scars and a body that can't masculinize properly, stuck in a lonely, torturous middle ground where I don't belong anywhere.
My thoughts on gender now are complicated. I think the current model does a disservice to people like me, gay men who were trying to escape themselves. We needed help addressing our internalized homophobia and self-hatred, not just a quick path to medical transition. I don't regret transitioning in the sense that I'm not angry, but I do deeply lament the life I have now. The physical changes are permanent, and the social outcome is one of isolation. I don't fear being hormone-dependent for life, but I do mourn the future I thought I was building and the community I thought I would find.
| Age | Year | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Late Teens | Late 2000s | Started exploring transition online, influenced by AGP discussions and internalized homophobia. |
| Early 20s | Mid-2010s | Went to college; began medical transition (hormones) amidst a shifting cultural landscape. |
| Early 20s | Mid-2010s | Underwent surgical procedures, resulting in infertility and permanent physical changes. |
| Now | Present | Living with the consequences: pharmaceutical dependence and social isolation as a detransitioned gay man. |
Top Comments by /u/Top-Slip7454:
"Gatekeeping" is one of those activist buzzwords that make my eyes glaze over at this point. Gatekeeping has not existed in any serious clinical setting in the USA for close to two decades now. Even what the ultra-right Missouri AG proposed was not "gatekeeping."
And because gay people (like myself) are more likely to fit the "classic" clinical g.d. model, the "care teams" we get handle us like one-and-dones, settled science, without even attempting to understand that the cultural changes behind the new understandings of transness affect us too (for the worse). So we get thrown into the same toxic positivity affirmation blender in-spite of never seriously believing that we're women.
So now there's a whole cohort of gay men who won't be able to integrate properly in the community, mainly because we're seen as "straight women," paradoxically by the same community that reads transbians as "men in dresses." Some us even have surgical scars, inabilities to masculinize, etc. It's a lonely, torturous life.
As an aside, the new model completely broke the promise of transition. Because of the influx of non-dysphorics, fetishists, etc., transitioning flat no longer works. It is simply not possible to live as anything but a trans woman or interloper, complete with implied heterosexuality.
It was mostly self-hating AGPs who were already in well-established careers who led the charge to discredit the theory, namely the libertarian economist Deidre McCloskey. It doesn't need to be anything to be ashamed of, nor is it inherently fetishistic.
Should add that I don't feel anger towards anyone in the community or the medical establishment, nor do I feel anger towards or above those who do feel anger. This is a lot on your body, wallet, and psyche, and I was an adult who made these choices. With that in mind, I do not fear or lament the prospect of being pharmaceutical hormone-dependent for life; it's a choice I made, and these are the consequences. Further still most people I know are medical patients in one way or another.
That's fascinating! I started my journey some time in the late 2000's, and that was the prevailing logic on online resources. By the time I went to college in the mid-2010's, the culture online and IRL shifted entirely toward lesbians. But, what remained was the community's internalization that "straight trans girls" integrate with cishet women, which I find is still internalized by the less secure transbians.
I also found, as a leftover from the old skew, a resentment toward man-attracted trans women, an almost internalization that we're somehow more "real" (we're not, we're in the same misery boat).