This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags indicating it is a bot or an inauthentic actor.
The user's narrative is highly detailed, emotionally complex, and internally consistent over several months. They describe a deeply personal and difficult journey of transition, detransition, and the resulting psychological and social ramifications. The language is nuanced, self-reflective, and includes specific, believable details (e.g., shaving the back of their hands, the "paperwork walk of shame") that are not typical of scripted bot behavior. Their expressed frustration with both trans ideology and the detrans community's reception aligns with the expected passion of someone who has experienced significant personal harm.
About me
I believed I was a man for over ten years and transitioned to live authentically. I took testosterone and had surgery, but the changes felt superficial and didn't give me the life I imagined. I realized my desire was based on an unrealistic fantasy and discomfort with female stereotypes, not a true male identity. I've since detransitioned and now understand I can be a masculine woman without changing my body. I accept that my gender feelings were fluid and have moved on from that chapter of my life.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started a long time ago. For over ten years, I genuinely believed I was a man trapped in a woman's body. If someone had asked me if I would press a button to have always been a cis man, I would have smashed it without a second thought. That feeling was so deep and so real for a decade of my life.
I was always a masculine person, what you'd call gender non-conforming. I think a lot of my desire to transition came from a place of discomfort with the expectations placed on me as a woman, especially in relationships with straight men. I'm bisexual, but I found the dynamic in heterosexual relationships really uncomfortable. I hated being called "cute" or "beautiful" and I preferred to be the more dominant, masculine partner. I started to believe that to live and love authentically, I had to become a man.
So, I transitioned. I took testosterone and had top surgery to remove my breasts, which I had always hated. I legally changed my name. For a while, it felt exciting, like I was finally becoming this idealized version of myself. I thought I was on the path to my true self.
But the reality of medical transition wasn't what I expected. Testosterone gave me a lot of body hair in places I didn't want it, like my hands, feet, and back. The changes were mostly superficial; it didn't give me some intangible "manness." I also never passed completely as male, and even when I did, I didn't feel like people treated me any differently. Over a couple of years, my opinion completely changed. If you offered me that cis man button now, I don't think I'd press it.
I began to realize that my desire to be a man was about living out an unrealistic fantasy. I wanted to look like an idealized, young, hot man, not the reality of what men actually are or what I could realistically achieve. I had this growing feeling that I was living a lie. I started to make a list of things I actually liked about being female, and it began to outweigh my previous discomfort.
I came to see that being a woman is just physical; it doesn't dictate my personality or who I am. My previous trans identity felt like it was built on stereotypes. I reframed my whole transition as one big mistake. The worst part was the paperwork shame of having to change my name back everywhere.
I also started to see the ideology I had absorbed online in a different light. I had watched a lot of trans content creators who presented transition as the only path to authenticity, but they never talked about the potential for regret or the hard realities. I feel like the profession is ideologically captured; even my therapist argued with me when I said I was detransitioning. I'm deeply worried about some of my trans friends, especially since I think I inspired one of them to start their transition, and I hate that I did that.
I now believe that gender identity might be a lot more fluid than we're told. It's not always "born this way and forevermore." You can have classic dysphoria for ten years and then just wake up one day and be over it. There's no guarantee you won't regret medical transition. I think you should only go down that road if your dysphoria is truly ruining your life and you've exhausted all other ways of coping, like creative outlets or just accepting yourself as a gender non-conforming person. Being trans is a much harder path.
For me, I've come to accept that I'm just a butch woman. I have a more masculine personality and style, and that's okay. I can be that without changing my body. I have some regrets, especially about the permanent body hair from testosterone, but I'm trying to move forward.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| ~15-25 | Wrestled with intense feelings of gender dysphoria and the desire to be male for over a decade. |
| 25 | Started testosterone and began socially transitioning to live as a man. |
| 26 | Had top surgery to remove my breasts. Legally changed my name. |
| 27 | Began to feel I was living a lie and that my transition was a mistake. Realized I had an unrealistic ideal of manhood. |
| 28 | Stopped testosterone. Began the process of socially and legally detransitioning back to living as a woman. |
Top Comments by /u/effever0:
I've wondered the same thing, since those stats were a part of my decision to transition, too. I've heard that detransitioners tend not to get tracked because they don't tell doctors they're dentransitioning, they just stop going to the doctor. Not to mention the transition rate has shot up in recent years, and regret can take years to manifest. We probably won't see the results until five years post peak trans. We'll see how many people detransition then.
LOL my therapist argued with me when I brought up my identity as a detransitioner, too, and then passed on to my psychiatrist that they thought I would regret detransition, even though was very firm about my detransition and explained my feelings and beliefs in detail. The profession is highly ideologically captured, they don't listen when people have different experiences.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say the detransition rate is only 1%...
I think people think that supporting transgender people means holding 100% of the party line...which means playing down detransitioners. It's a weird leftist thing where they never want to admit that the other side could be even a little bit right on anything. It's extreme partisanship in action.
Same here. My social circle online is still very trans and I'm sure they'd all block me if they knew what I thought of trans culture. Like, I don't hate individual trans people, but nobody on the inside is arguing against some of the most harmful rhetoric (things like "you don't need dysphoria to be trans" or egg culture is particularly egregious imo)
What, specifically, are you seeking from T? Because what it will get you is mostly vocal changes and body hair. Fat redistribution is frankly really subtle and requires working out. If you really want the hair then fair, but T won't give you an intangible manness. Only hair on your butt.
I actually really hate the body hair. I have hair on my hands and feet and shoulders and on my ass. Everywhere. I thought I wouldn't be hairy because my dad and brothers aren't but it skipped a generation I guess. Now I shave the back of my hands every few days because it drives me nuts.
I thought about this while browsing a dating app the other day and seeing some profiles of other queer people. Most of them are just normal people. But some people put so much floof on their profiles... It's just a visible minority. I think a lot of the loudest and most annoying are just kids.
Rewriting your past and reframing childhood experiences as dysphoria when you didn't think of it that way at the time. It's SO EASY to do this if you were a GNC child.
But I don't believe that anyone is 'truly trans.' It's just that some GNC people choose to take hormones, and some don't. The question is: do you want to medicalize yourself for the rest of your life and live as a trans person, or do you want to be GNC? You're the same person either way, but being trans is WAY harder.
I'm bi, but I think for me the desire comes from being masculine and wanting to relate sexually/romantically to men in a masculine way. I don't like being called cute or beautiful, and I prefer to be sexually dominant--and god damn most straight men just act out the same tired gender roles without thinking about them. I don't like het vanilla sex, it just doesn't turn me on, either, so there is a big sexual element to this.
For me, I found I just prefer to date bi or gender nonconforming men, or women. Relationships with straight men tend not to pan out for me because that dynamic is so uncomfortable.
But I have to wonder what elements of yourself you consider to be a homosexual man. For me, it's very a sexual thing--I want to be the masculine partner and have someone who is more feminine than me, I want to fuck a partner with a dick, or barring that, I'll take a strap-on. I basically just came to accept that I'm a butch woman with a fetish.
You should probably ask your doctor about medical questions, not reddit.
In my experience social detransition is embarrassing but not that bad. You get used to repeating the shpiel and most people just accept it pretty easily--more easily than transitioning in the first place, really.