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About me
I was a depressed teenager who felt my developing body was wrong, and I found an escape online by believing I was a boy. I was heavily influenced by those communities and pursued testosterone and surgery, thinking it was the answer. The initial relief faded, and my underlying mental health issues never went away, leading to deep regret. I've stopped hormones and now live with permanent changes like a deeper voice and infertility. Through therapy, I've learned my pain was from other issues, and I'm finally finding peace with myself as a female.
My detransition story
My journey with gender was a long and difficult one, and it’s only now that I feel I’m finally understanding what happened. I was a very unhappy teenager, struggling with deep depression and anxiety. I felt completely out of place in my own body, especially when I started developing breasts during puberty. I hated them; they felt foreign and wrong on me. I now see this as a mix of puberty discomfort and what was probably body dysmorphia, made worse by my low self-esteem.
I spent a lot of time online, and that’s where I found communities that offered an explanation for my feelings. They said my discomfort meant I was transgender, that I was really a boy trapped in a girl’s body. At the time, it felt like a revelation. It was an escape from being me. I was heavily influenced by what I read online and by friends I made in these spaces who affirmed this new identity. Looking back, I think I was also struggling with internalised homophobia; the idea of being a lesbian was frightening, but being a straight man seemed simpler.
I socially transitioned first, asking everyone to use a new name and male pronouns. The initial feeling was one of relief. I felt seen, but in a new way that wasn't really me. That social pressure and the desire for that feeling of relief pushed me to pursue medical transition. I started taking testosterone. The changes were rapid and, for a while, exciting. My voice dropped, and I grew facial hair. I even got top surgery. I was convinced this was the path to happiness.
But the happiness didn’t last. The underlying depression and anxiety never really went away; they just changed shape. I started to have serious regrets. I began to question everything. What if I had been wrong? What if my problems weren’t about gender at all, but about other things I hadn’t dealt with? I realized I had been using transition as a form of escapism from my deep-seated issues.
I made the incredibly difficult decision to detransition. Stopping testosterone was scary. I had to face the permanent changes I had made to my body. My voice is permanently deeper, and I have facial hair I have to manage. The top surgery is irreversible. I am now infertile, which is a profound loss I grapple with every day. These are serious health complications from the path I took.
I’ve benefited greatly from therapy that isn’t focused on affirming a gender identity, but on understanding the root causes of my distress. We’ve worked on my depression, my self-esteem, and unpacking my past. I’ve come to believe that gender is a social concept that I tried to force myself into, rather than a true identity I was born with. My discomfort was with puberty and society’s expectations, not with being female itself.
I do have many regrets about transitioning. I regret not exploring other reasons for my unhappiness first. I regret the permanent alterations to my body. But I don’t regret the journey because it brought me to where I am now, which is a place of much greater self-awareness and peace. I am learning to just be.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 13 | Started puberty; began to intensely hate my developing breasts. Felt deep discomfort and depression. |
| 16 | Found online transgender communities; became convinced I was a boy. Socially transitioned with a new name and pronouns. |
| 18 | Started taking testosterone. |
| 20 | Underwent top surgery (double mastectomy). |
| 23 | Began to experience serious doubts and regrets about my transition. |
| 24 | Stopped testosterone and began the process of detransitioning. |
Top Comments by /u/asherofthesun:
Consider for a moment that there's no bad person in your relationship. There doesn't need to be a bad guy for things to not work out, or for both of you to have moved or grown enough from the experience to realize it may be time to move on, or take a break and spend some time apart to reflect.
He may genuinely recognize that he cares for you as an individual, but may also feel that he too, cannot help how he feels or may even fully understand it. And that's ok, that's part of growing. There may be a lot of internalized guilt for him that he may not even be fully in touch with or prepared to handle, maybe there are other things going on right now for him.
It's one of life's great opportunities for growth is learning how to navigate your relationships in a changing world and through our constantly growing and changing selves. Allowing room for others to grow, must also necessarily imply a willingness to allow others to continue to remain just as they are, even if you may be ready for something new.
I encourage detransitioners to be more vocal about this if it's within their power. Stories about how you were influenced can bring a level of critical awareness needed in order to address this epidemic effectively and also shed light on the possible signs and list predatory behaviors and tactics that other people may be experiencing but not awoken to the realization of yet.
So much sadness and regret in your post and so it's understandable that you would be experiencing such turmoil.
Do you come from any spiritual traditions? Something to help you understand and make sense of your life through different ways of seeing? Do you have support systems do you have in place yet that you can lean on during especially difficult periods like this? You are dealing with a lot, however, remember that you are not alone. This community exists with your struggles and pains in mind. We are here for you, and each other.
A healthy amount of caution and skepticism should be reserved for any experimental treatmens. Hormonal treatment regimens have not been used in this context long enough that we can make any kind of definitive claim about what "typical" experiences should be on these medications. Like with any experimental medication, it helps to see the distribution of experiences along a bellcurve with things you might expect to see in a majority of the cases in the middle, and more extreme outcomes at the end.
This was always the risk of allowing the use of shame-based rhetoric in the sphere of public debate. And now the use shame tactics are so commonplace with transactivists because it's a convenient tool to suppress information and to silence dissenting voices, particularly in the context of debates around gender identity. The only people who can actively stand up to transactivists are detransitioners themselves and their allies. Everyone else has been shamed into silence.
The journey to understanding one's own gender, is a path that only the heart can render. In the madness of attempting to force change, we forget the delicate balance of life's range. Like the petals of a flower crushed in vain, we break what was meant to remain.
Just Be.