This story is from the comments by /u/Windby that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the comments provided, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or inauthentic.
The user's comments display a high degree of personal, emotional, and experiential consistency. They share specific, detailed anecdotes about their own detransition timeline (e.g., being on testosterone for nearly 3 years, being off for 3 years), offer nuanced and practical advice (like specific voice training techniques), and express complex, evolving emotions like anger, regret, and sympathy that are consistent with the stated experiences of many detransitioners. The language is natural, with personal asides and varied sentence structures that do not resemble automated output.
About me
I started as a dysphoric teenager who saw transition as the only escape from my discomfort. I was on testosterone for three years and had a double mastectomy as a teen, which I now deeply regret. My detransition began at 20, and after a difficult few years, I am now consistently seen as a woman again. I believe my dysphoria was driven by trauma and social pressures, not an innate identity, and I feel permanently violated by the medical system. Despite the pain, embracing life as a masculine woman has been a difficult but necessary step toward healing.
My detransition story
My whole journey with transition and detransition started when I was a teenager. I was a dysphoric teen who felt socially isolated and, looking back, very sexually vulnerable. I thought I was a lesbian for a long time, but it turns out I'm bisexual. Back then, my thinking was that if you have dysphoria, you're trans, and the only known cure is to transition. So that's what I did. I started identifying as non-binary and transmasc before eventually seeing myself as a trans man.
I started testosterone when I was 17 and was on it for nearly three years. I got a mastectomy, a double mastectomy, when I was a teenager. I only needed one referral from a therapist, which I got easily despite having extreme mental health issues. At the time, it felt like a solution, a form of pure escapism from the discomfort of female puberty and the feeling of being a target for male attention. But it was extremely unhealthy. It felt good for a while because it was an escape, but it was a shield that ultimately magnified my pre-existing issues tenfold.
I started to detransition when I was around 20, and I've been off testosterone for three years now. The first year or so after stopping hormones was really hard. I felt like I wouldn't ever be seen as a woman again. It took about two years to start being consistently gendered female, and now, at three years off T, I am only ever seen as a woman. Even with short hair and men's clothing, it's uncommon for me to pass as male.
My thoughts on gender have completely changed. I don't believe in gender identity anymore. I see trans women as men and trans men as women. I think transitioning is a bad idea for almost anyone. For me, and I believe for most people, gender dysphoria is like anorexia or body dysmorphia. It’s a condition created by harmful social norms and internal issues, not something you're born with. I see now that my dysphoria was driven by trauma, low self-esteem, and a deep discomfort with the sexualization and vulnerabilities that come with being a woman.
I have immense regrets about my transition, specifically the surgery. It’s not just about the aesthetic loss of my breasts. I feel a deep sense of violation. I feel like I was experimented on by a system that took advantage of my youth and mental distress. My surgeon was a man who specialized in operating on teenagers, and I now believe he, and many others in this field, are motivated by something other than patient care—whether it's money, a fetish, or ideological validation. It feels like a form of sexual abuse. I wasn't able to legally drink, but I was allowed to amputate a healthy body part. I don't feel like I truly consented to the reality of what was happening. I was too young to understand.
I feel a lot of anger towards the medical professionals and, to a lesser degree, my parents, who thought they were doing the right thing. They failed me. What happened was monstrous, especially for those of us who were children. I feel permanently mutilated and struggle with this every day. Existing in my body is intensely triggering. It’s a waking nightmare of betrayal.
Despite all this, detransitioning itself has been worth it. It was terrifying to take that leap, but it’s better than living in the delusion. There's a beauty in being a masculine woman, even if society doesn't always see it. I've had to do some voice training to lighten my voice, not to sound hyper-feminine, but to reduce the gravelly sound from testosterone. I sometimes have to dress more femininely to be read unequivocally as female, which is frustrating because it feels like the trans movement has reinforced rigid gender roles. Any woman who isn't hyper-feminine is suddenly seen as non-binary or trans. It's regressive.
I've had to distance myself from my old trans friends. Staying friends with them held me back from processing my rage. Detransition is like recovering from an addiction; you often need to leave that entire world behind to heal.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 17 | Started testosterone |
| 17 | Had double mastectomy (top surgery) |
| 20 | Stopped testosterone (began detransition) |
| 22 | Consistently gendered female again (2 years after stopping T) |
| 23 | Present day, 3 years post-detransition |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/Windby:
Tbh transwomen are often extremely misogynistic. Their entire perception of what it is to be female boils down to aesthetics. Many of them are also attracted to women and envy them as a result. They want what they can’t have. They expect women to act and think according to their own male-informed perception of the world, and when women have our own specific internal lives (lives that they often can’t relate to because they’re men), they resort to humiliating us, sexualizing us, etc. pay them no mind. Most of them legitimately hate women.
Nope. Don’t believe in gender identity so I do not see trans people as the gender they ID as. However, trans people who make an effort to pass often take on a unique social role of their own. At the end of the day, trans women are men and trans men are women, buttt they have atypical experiences. I wouldn’t say a trans woman like Alexis Blake or Blaire as a woman, but as a trans woman. I also wouldn’t talk to or relate to them the same way I would a typical man. However, the trans people who don’t pass in any capacity and are seen as their birth sex? I can on see them that way.
People get surgery at 19 because they’re young and stupid. The surgeons take advantage of this for their own financial and personal gain. These kids don’t see this isn’t a good idea because they’re too young to imagine that one day they will be comfortable in their bodies without surgical intervention.
Doctors who act like this (including therapists) do this because you threaten not only their practice, but their worldview. Imagine this - you have spent the last few years as a therapist and written dozens of letter for teenagers and young adults to access HRT and surgeries. Or worse, you’re a surgeon who has performed mastectomies on minors, or people who’ve been legal adults for maybe a year or two.
How would that make you feel, assuming your motivations to enter this field weren’t initially malicious? Uncomfortable and guilty. You’d have to acknowledge you actively participated in the butchery of young people. And not only that, but people suffering from extreme mental issues. Detrans people who speak up are hated by many trans people because they see themselves in us. The parents of trans kids and doctors of this type hate us because we force them to reevaluate their ethics. And they don’t like the conclusion they come to.
I guarantee you she’s had patients that, in her subconscious mind, she knew should not have surgery. And she did it anyway, for money or to validate her practice idk. This is her guilty conscience shining through. It has nothing to do with you.
Anyway, fuck her. Go find yourself a breast cancer specialist. Trans surgeons are pretty uniformly POS and not trustworthy.
I’ll be honest with you, passing will not make you happy when other issues lie beneath the surface. I passed as a male, but this did not get rid of the issues that manifested my dysphoria in the first place.
Also, if you want real honesty, very few MTFs pass, even with surgery and vocal training. It is impossible for you to be a woman, but you can be a transwoman. If you are holding out to have a very similar experience as women by transitioning, I’m sorry to say that it just will not happen. It is not possible, same for FTMs. Personally, I think it would benefit you to do some soul searching as to why you want to be a woman. And HRT is also terrible for your body. My advice is to learn to accept yourself as your birth sex and detransition. I would recommend very very few people to persist with transition.
I get what you mean about not wanting to feel pressured to perform femininity, but I will say this and I intend it lovingly: if you’re a detrans woman and you want to pass unequivocally as a woman, you’re most likely going to have to perform femininity. Like, I do some voice modulating to get it into a low pitched, androgynously feminine range, and that combined with feminine clothing (not even dresses, just shirts and pants with a female cut) gets me gendered female.
Of course, you don’t have to be feminine and you don’t have to voice train. You are 100% a woman regardless. But if you have a male passing voice and dress in men’s clothes so try short hair, a lot of people will think you’re male. I know you know that and I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but I think the advice people give here is good. No, you don’t HAVE to perform femininity. But yes, for many detrans women we do need to go off T, possible voice train, and dress more femininely for people to intuit that we are female. Especially if we don’t want people to second guess and just assume we never transitioned at all, which I would assume is most of us.
I’m sorry you’ve been treated poorly. That’s not right. Part of this is that people will misgender “normal” women who never went on T just because they have short hair, and part of this is just that transitioning has made many of us androgynous to the point that we have to overcompensate to return to normalcy, even if temporarily.
I’m so sorry that happened to you <3 I have similar experiences of trans women treating me like a sex object and guilting me into sex, though I am bi. I have a lot I could say on this, but I’ll keep it short - you’re not broken for being exclusively SSA. It’s completely normal and the push for lesbians to be into TW is homophobic and male entitlement at its peak.
I have to be around transwomen often. I hate being around them, in fully honesty. The only exceptions are the clearly gay guys, since I have no trauma with them. My advice is to just avoid them and do not engage them if they try to talk to you. If you’re in a position, like work, where you must talk to them, keep it polite and short. Don’t let them in. If they get pissy that you’re not deferring to them enough, that’s their problem.
IME most transwomen are misogynistic at best and sexual predators at worst, so don’t feel bad for avoiding them. (I’m not saying all TW are like this, but that’s been my experience, especially since it seems most TW nowadays are AGP). Many transwomen are attracted to the label for fetishistic reasons and they will get upset the moment you don’t validate them as women, so you’re just keeping yourself safe by avoiding them.
I agree. A lot of teens are transitioning and teens are famous for their insensitivity and lack of emotional self awareness. Same experience w me. Once I started to learn emotional regulation I stopped caring about pronouns and stuff, because it is a major imposition, especially for family.
Tbh I see this as similar to a recently recovering addict leaving friends still suffering from addiction. I think for many detransitioners it is detrimental to our recovery and well-being to continue being around trans people. A huge part of detransition is often re evaluating your opinions about transition and feeling like you have the breathing room to be true to your actual beliefs.
I don’t agree tbh. Almost every single trans person I’ve know is very extremist. Trans people won’t necessarily hate you just for detransitioning, but they will hate you for expressing any doubt about the usefulness of transition and they will especially hate you if you no longer believe trans identities are valid. Tbh I think trans people and detransitioners are just often not compatible with each other, specifically if the detrans person has abandoned gender ideology.
It’s the sexual violation part of this that is really fucking me up. I was never raped but I had plenty of sexual harassment and men touching me when I didn’t want to be touched or ogling me. I now know it’s those feelings that spurred transition in the first place.
I had someone in the other sub tell me I shouldn’t compare my surgery to rape, but how else am I supposed to explain the psychological impact it had on me? It’s not just that I regret not having boobs. It’s that I specifically feel like an adult man abused me and took a body part for capital gain, and more than likely that he got into this field for fetishistic reasons. People don’t understand that implants aren’t going to make the violation go away, plus I was so uncomfortable with my breasts in the first place. I don’t know how well I’d adjust to implants.
I peaked 6 months ago. Two and a half years in and I was definitely a transmed, but i took full responsibility for my transition. I made constant excuses for everyone involved, but now I realize what happened to me was so deeply wrong. I was misled and failed by my therapist and what happened with my surgeon was incredibly abuse and I’m tired of pretending it wasn’t. People don’t go to these lengths to discount virtually any other trauma and it’s ridiculous.
Thank you for your advice, I’ll keep that in mind. I really do feel like my life is completely wrecked. I think about killing myself every day but I don’t think I’ll do it. It’s amazing to me people recover from this stuff. Sadly I think there will be many many more of us in the next decade.