This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, there are no serious red flags suggesting this account is inauthentic, a bot, or not a detransitioner/desister.
The comments display a high degree of emotional nuance, personal reflection, and consistent, empathetic advice (e.g., sharing a poem, a detailed personal story of bullying, and specific recommendations for therapy and meditation). The language is complex and contextually appropriate, showing a deep understanding of the community's struggles. The passion and anger present are consistent with someone who has experienced personal harm related to gender issues.
About me
I was a girl who never fit in, and after being bullied for it, I thought my only escape was to transition to male. I took testosterone for years, believing it would fix my deep unhappiness, which was really rooted in childhood trauma and discomfort with puberty. Through therapy focused on my trauma instead of my gender, I learned to process my pain and reconnect with my body. I eventually stopped hormones, realizing I was trying to escape being a woman instead of embracing that I could be one in my own way. I'm now at peace as a woman, but I live with the permanent loss of infertility from my time on testosterone.
My detransition story
My journey with gender was complicated and, looking back, I think it was driven more by pain than by a true sense of self. I was a girl who never fit in with what was expected of me. I was gender-nonconforming from a young age and the other kids, especially the boys, were cruel about it. They bullied me viciously, called me "it" and "the he-she," and even physically assaulted me. That experience left me with a lot of trauma and made me feel like I was being punished for not being a "real" girl. I started to believe that womanhood was a narrow box I could never fit into, reserved for people in high heels, and that my preference for sturdy boots and cozy sweaters meant I didn't belong.
This feeling of alienation, combined with a deep discomfort with my body during puberty, especially with developing breasts, led me to believe that I must be transgender. I thought transitioning was the only way to escape the feeling of being wrong. For a few years, I identified as non-binary and then as a trans man. I was deeply influenced by what I read online, and it seemed like the perfect explanation for all my pain. I started taking testosterone. I never got top surgery, but I desperately wanted it and hated my chest.
The testosterone did change my body, but it didn't change the deep-seated issues I was carrying. I still felt the same anxiety and depression. I realized that my desire to transition was a form of escapism. I was trying to run away from the trauma of my childhood bullying and the discomfort of female puberty. It was like I was trying to fix a flooded house by just painting the walls a new color. The real problems were still there underneath.
What really helped me start to untangle everything was non-affirming therapy. I found a therapist who didn't focus on gender but instead helped me process my trauma and my anxiety. She introduced me to mindfulness meditation, which was a game-changer. Learning to sit with my thoughts and feelings without immediately trying to fix them or run from them allowed me to see what was really going on. I also found a lot of peace through yoga, which helped me reconnect with my body in a gentler way.
I eventually stopped taking testosterone. I don't regret exploring my gender because I think I needed to go through that process to understand myself better. But I do have regrets about the permanent changes the hormones caused. I'm now infertile, and that is a serious and permanent loss that I have to live with.
My thoughts on gender now are that it's incredibly fluid and personal. I don't think there's one right way to be a woman. I see myself as a woman who is just different, and that's okay. The pressure to conform, whether to traditional gender roles or to a new transgender identity, can be overwhelming. For me, the answer wasn't in changing my body to match an idea, but in learning to make peace with myself as I am. The poem "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver became really important to me during this time, especially the line, "You do not have to be good. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." That's what I'm trying to do now.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| My Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Childhood | Viciously bullied for being gender-nonconforming. Experienced trauma from this. |
| Early Puberty | Felt intense discomfort with my developing female body, especially my breasts. |
| Around 20 | Started identifying as non-binary, then as a trans man. Heavily influenced by online communities. |
| 21 | Started taking testosterone. |
| 23 | Began non-affirming therapy focused on trauma and anxiety. Started mindfulness meditation and yoga. |
| 24 | Stopped taking testosterone. Realized my transition was driven by trauma and escapism. |
| Present (mid-20s) | Identified as a woman again. Living with the permanent effects of hormones, including infertility. |
Top Comments by /u/anxietytalkthrowaway:
OP, you’re still a kid, and as a kid your JOB is to explore the world and yourself. Having thought one thing about yourself for a while and then ultimately grown out of it isn’t you being an “attention-seeking teenager:” it’s you behaving in a way that’s perfectly healthy and developmentally appropriate. You’re doing just perfectly, OP: if any of the adults around you got overly invested in the identity of a 12-year-old child, that’s not your fault. It’s never a kid’s responsibility to take care of the emotions of the adults around them.
I can also promise you that in a few years what you’re feeling now will seem very, very distant. You’re still changing and growing so much. If you’re not in therapy for your anxiety issues, I’d also highly recommend trying to find someone who can work with you on that. You only have the one mind and body, and you deserve to feel good and comfortable in them!
Hello, friend.
I normally don't comment here, but I felt compelled to respond to this.
I have to admit that my initial reaction to this post was irrational anger, because it reminded me of a bunch of stuff that I've been fighting against my entire life. I was a very gender-nonconforming kid, and I was viciously bullied by the boys at school, up to and including being physically assaulted. They called me things like, "it" and "the he-she." Reading your post brought me right back to being that little girl being told that she ought to be punished for not doing "girl" right. It stung. It made me feel dragged down and hopeless. Is being a woman for people in high heels and bandage dresses only, and anyone who prefers to wear sturdy boots and cozy sweaters must immediately march down to register at the enby bureau? Where is the place for diversity in womanhood within this worldview? What must this poster think about women like me? Feelings like that led me to think that I should transition, a few years ago, and this post definitely triggered me a bit.
That's all to say that our feelings about gender can be incredibly complicated and deeply wrapped up in our personal histories and traumas. Isn't it wild that I went through all of those feelings over a few words on a screen from a stranger? It would be totally unfair of me to be angry at you, OP. Your post isn't about me, and it makes perfect sense that you'd be feeling what you're feeling and thinking what you're thinking. I do think that it might be helpful to step back a bit, though.
Imagine a young woman younger than yourself: someone who might come to you for advice. Maybe she's 18. Let's imagine that this young woman loved, more than anything, horseback riding. She adored horses. She lived to ride. Horses brought her nothing but joy. But then some terrible things happened. Maybe she got bucked off of a horse and broke her hip, and the recovery process was slow and painful. Maybe she was assaulted by a man who worked at the stable. Now, she says, she's come to a realization: she doesn't like horses, she never liked horses: she's selling her horse and never going back to a stable again. Does she sound like someone who's come to a deep realization about her inner self as a horse-hater, to you? Or is something else going on?
I fully believe that gender expression and your feelings about your gender can be very fluid. But what you're talking about doesn't sound like someone who's finding fulfilment and happiness from exploring a new side of themself. You sound like someone who for a variety of reasons -- illness, trauma, dramatic weight loss -- feels profoundly disconnected from and disgusted with her body and things that used to bring her profound joy, right now, and is desperately searching for an easy explanation for that disconnect.
Friend, I don't think that changing your name, your pronouns or your outfits is going to be the cure for your discomfort with yourself. Focusing on what your unease with yourself and your body at this moment might mean about your gender identity is like picking out new window treatments for a house that was just flooded. You've been through a few very traumatic experiences in rapid succession: to put it bluntly, anyone would feel like crap and start flailing around looking for a fix. For some people it might be substances: for you, it seems to be ruminating over your gender. Although I'm not a doctor, I also suspect that female hormones won't be the solution. Some things that I do think might help:
-- Therapy. You don't mention therapy anywhere in your post, but you should definitely be pursuing it. Not gender therapy, please: just the regular, long-term kind, preferably with an experienced therapist who will be able to help you process your illness and sexual assault.
-- Nurturing yourself. Are you eating well, OP? Drinking enough water? Getting enough sleep? Going outside and getting enough exercise? Spending time with loved ones in real life? Getting out into nature? Pursuing hobbies and favorite activities? Allowing yourself to dress in ways that feel comfortable and good to you without excoriating yourself over how you look in them or fretting over what liking this particular outfit might mean, and whether it's hard-soft medium-high femme or not?
-- Meditation. Please, please try out some mindfulness meditation. Give it time and stick with it, even if the effects aren't immediately apparent. I think that it might be enormously helpful to you.
However you decide to go, OP, I really hope that you'll try your best to be kind and patient with yourself. You don't need to present yourself in any particular way or call yourself any particular thing: you're doing a perfect job of being a human animal exactly as you are.
I usually just lurk here, but this response made me think of one of my favorite poems. I don’t know if you’re a poetry reader at all, but this one sometimes helps me to take a step back when I’m being cruel to myself.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
This is what they wrote in another sub:
Why is this study being done?
De/retransitioning has been, and often still is, simplistically interpreted as ‘sex change regret' by the general public, mainstream media, researchers, and the medical establishment. The framing of de/retransition as regret has worked to invalidate trans experiences and identities, as well as justify increased gatekeeping of access to gender affirming medical care. While trans and queer scholars have objected to this interpretation of de/retransition, there has been no sustained focus on the narratives of individuals who have de/retransitioned. The purpose of this study is to challenge this framing of de/retransition as regret by collecting and analyzing the narratives of individuals who have undergone this process and interpreting these narratives through a queer and trans theory lens.
My goal is to produce research that does justice to the experiences of individuals who do not easily fit into binary categories of gender, which will ultimately allow for the proliferation of alternative gender(ed) identities and embodiment. Additionally, my project’s questioning of the use of de/retransition as justification for medical gatekeeping, as well as its challenging of the normative temporal constraints put on folks who wish to transition has the potential to inform current knowledge on, and approaches to, trans healthcare.
Hi OP! I’m so sorry to hear how badly you’re feeling right now. If you haven’t tried it yet, i’d HIGHLY recommend mindfulness meditation: it’s been massively helpful for me in terms of managing my intrusive thoughts. If you live in/near a decently-sized city there is probably a meditation center where you can learn for dirt cheap or free (if they charge too much you can def contact them and they are very likely to be able to work something out for you). If you don’t, the headspace app offers a free introductory course, Insight Timer is completely free, and there are also books and podcasts out there that explain the basics well (if you’re not a crunchy hippie type “Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics” by Dan Harris might be helpful). Give it a wholehearted try for a few weeks and see how you feel. If classical sitting meditation is difficult for you, yoga or tai chi might also help you to ease into a mindfulness practice and enter into more of a detente with your body — I personally really like Yoga with Adriene on YouTube.