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 inauthentic.
The user's writing is nuanced, emotionally varied, and shows a consistent, deeply personal perspective developed over time. They reference their own desistance, offer empathetic advice to others, and engage in complex ideological critiques, all of which align with a genuine detransitioner/desister experience. The passion and criticism present are consistent with someone who has been personally harmed by their experience with transition ideology.
About me
I started questioning my identity at 22, feeling out of place as a male and drawn to online trans communities where I found a sense of belonging. I socially transitioned to live as a woman, believing it was my true self, and nearly began medical treatments. Right before starting hormones at 24, I had a major shift in perspective and saw it as an escape from accepting myself. I realized my drive was a mix of autogynephilia and discomfort with masculine expectations, not an innate female identity. Now, five years later, I am completely comfortable living as a male and am focused on my real life, not a designed identity.
My detransition story
My whole journey with this started when I was around 22. I was struggling a lot with feeling different and out of place. I have ADHD, and I think that played a big part in how I got fixated on the idea of being trans. My anxiety was high, and I felt a general discomfort with the expectations placed on me as a male. I started to believe that my unhappiness and feeling of alienation were because I was actually a woman on the inside.
I began identifying as non-binary first, which felt like a less scary step. But pretty quickly, that evolved into believing I was a trans woman. I spent a lot of time in online trans communities, and I definitely feel I was influenced by what I read and the friends I made there. It offered a sense of belonging and a clear, if difficult, path to a "true self." I started socially transitioning, changing my name and pronouns, and I even made plans to start hormones and laser hair removal.
But I never got that far. Right before I was about to start medical intervention, around age 24, the whole concept just stopped making sense to me. I started to see it less as an identity and more as an ideology, a kind of practice or ritual that people devote themselves to. I began to critically question the idea of a "true self" that you have to uncover and become. It started to feel embarrassing and delusional to me. I couldn't rationalize how a male thinking he had a female essence inside him was any different from other identity claims that everyone agrees are constructs. It all started to feel like an escape from the difficult work of accepting myself as I am.
I realized that a lot of my drive to transition was related to autogynephilia (AGP) – a sexual attraction to the idea of myself as a woman. I also think I was deeply affected by the cultural stigma in leftist spaces that makes people, especially men, feel ashamed of just being men. I was envious of women and femininity and hated masculine expectations, but I came to understand that didn't mean I had to be a woman. I could just be a man who rejects those strict expectations.
So, I stopped. I detransitioned. I deleted my social media accounts connected to that identity because I even received hateful messages from people in the trans community for talking about my detransition. It’s been over five years now since I desisted. I’m hairy again and have a beard. I have no problem being male anymore.
I don’t regret exploring it, because it led me to where I am now, but I absolutely regret ever going as far as I did and almost making permanent changes. I have a much better relationship with my body now. I feel clear-headed. There's no more fantasy in my head about what I'm supposed to become; I'm just me. My body is just a biological system, my organs don't "mean" anything about who I am. They're just parts of me that help me function.
I benefited greatly from stepping away from that ideology and accepting my sex. I’m not “normal” and I probably never will be, and that’s okay. I’m focused on my life, my career, and my real relationships now, which is far more important than designing an identity.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 22 | Began to feel alienated and uncomfortable with male social expectations. Started researching gender identity online. |
| 23 | Identified as non-binary, then as a trans woman. Began social transition (new name/pronouns). |
| 24 | Had appointments to start estrogen and laser hair removal. Stopped right before starting, detransitioned, and returned to living as male. |
| 29 | Present day. Have been desisted for over 5 years. Comfortable and accepted as a male. |
Top Comments by /u/Usual-Scratch-3838:
We talk about transition entirely wrong.
Transition is a practice. A ritual devotion.
We don't say religions are true "because otherwise people would stop". Faith is a lifelong pursuit. Every trans person has regrets, as does everyone. Faith is not a constant. It's always being challenged and questioned and repositioned and interrogated. In life, there are moments of joy and moments of pain and doubt.
The way we measure trans regret is not correct. Regret is not all or nothing. With how hostile the gender conversation has become, we're not at a place where we can have an honest conversation about transition as a practice instead of an identity typology.
Wild that postmodern academics who claim everything is a construct suddenly decide that race is material and immutable. Race is more of a construct than sex. Truth is, they just sympathize with trans people more. It's not politically advantageous for liberals to empathize with transracialism. Probably how a lot of second wave feminists felt re: transgenderism. Give it fifty years.
I deleted my account last week because I was being targeted over a post here. Numerous hateful messages from transwomen, downvoted, received the 'reaching out' message thing from Reddit, 40+ shares on my post... I don't care, it was a burner, but the messages were a little disturbing. Full of assumptions and bullying about why I detransitioned.
I think most straight men would have a little AGP if they somehow encountered cross dressing, but most never will. Gender aesthetics are segregated, and straight men rarely cross that threshold.
There's definitely a ton of references in pop culture to a man wearing womens clothes and making a sexual joke or taking pleasure in 'performing' as a woman.
i think about this a lot. i struggle with the idea that one person's objective material existence can be another person's "true self". like, if a male thinks that my female body reflects his deepest innermost personality, and he should be recognized as the same as me because of that, it means he associates my body with a specific personality or lifestyle that he believes he has in common with me. the more you think about it, the more weird it is that people think like this, honestly.
What I'm about to say isn't nice, I know that. But after I desisted, I met a transman with a horrible patchy beard, and I felt a little sussed out by transition in that moment. It felt like they fetishized what it means to have my natural biology, biology that's just circumstantial for me, biology I didn't choose and almost rejected. Something is just growingly unsettling about transition to me lately...
I don't think it's too different from the drive to want tattoos, piercings, the "right" fashion, in order to be accepted by a subculture. Trans and queer has become something akin to being goth or emo, and aesthetic changes and body modifications are ways to signal you're part of the in-group.
Trust me, when you're in your 30's, all of this stuff stops being important. Focus on you. Your career, your friendships, your relationships. Way more important than designing yourself.
This to me is what ROGD is all about. With all of the critical discourse in leftist spaces, there's something that has made us so ashamed of being "men" and "women" and has us dissociating from ourselves.
I rationally know "man" means adult male, as it has for centuries of English language. Yet I still find myself discomforted with it. Where I see the word "men" pop up in society doesn't feel like me.
Oddly enough, I'm totally fine with "male".
I think there's such a cultural stigma developing the critical milieu of leftist spaces that makes no one want to associate with the horrible things they've decided "men" and "women" are.
Who said it's not ok to be envious of women and femininity? I don't love masculine expectation either. That doesn't mean being trans is the next logical step. Try to recognize, being trans is just an idea. It's not "real". You're always still you. And you can adopt aspects of femininity, you can loosen the grip of masculinity, without being a woman, if that'll make you happier.
Think of trans more as a methodology, rather than being "real" or "delusional". There is no "real trans". It's just a modern social and medical therapy. The question is, do you really need that therapy or could you live without it and accept your masculine female self?
That's sweet of you to consider their experience. Maybe ask their parents for help? You could say you were only pretending to be a man and thought it would help you feel better, but now you realized it wasn't good for you? Maybe they'd understand that.