This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "eternal-salad" appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic detransitioner/desister.
The user demonstrates:
- Deep, nuanced knowledge of complex topics like autogynephilia (AGP) theory, including its psychological and sexual dynamics.
- Personal investment, sharing their own experiences with dysphoria, dissociation, and their strategy of repression.
- Consistent perspective across multiple comments over several months, arguing from a specific, well-defined viewpoint.
- Emotional reactivity and passion in debates, which aligns with the expected behavior of someone personally affected by the topic.
The account represents a specific viewpoint (a self-aware, non-transitioning AGP male) that is a legitimate part of the broader detrans/desist discussion.
About me
I was born male, and my struggles started at 13 when I developed some breast tissue that made me a target for bullying. This led me to understand my feelings as a deep-seated sexuality where I found euphoria in imagining myself as female, but it created a cycle of dysphoria. I considered transition as a practical solution but decided against surgery after learning it could remove the very drive that motivated me. To cope with feeling disconnected from my body, I took a demanding job and found that small doses of psychedelics helped me feel present. I've chosen not to transition, and while managing these feelings through repression is difficult, it has given me a stable sense of self-awareness.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started in my early teens, around 13, when puberty hit. I was born male, and I developed a small amount of breast tissue under just my left nipple. It was incredibly embarrassing. I was a skinny kid, so it was really noticeable, and the guys on my basketball team found out. They would grab and twist it when they walked past me in the hallways. I started wearing tape over it to hide it, but then they found that out too. The social shame was intense and made me want to disappear. That experience stuck with me, but I don't think it was the root cause of my later dysphoria. It was just a separate, deeply embarrassing trauma.
As I got older, I began to understand my feelings as autogynephilia (AGP). This wasn't just a simple fetish for me; it was a deep, complicated part of my sexuality that dictated my entire relationship with my body. When I wasn't engaging with those feminine feelings, I felt detached, stressed, and completely dissociated from my life and my body. It was like I was just going through the motions. But when I indulged in the fantasy of being a woman, I'd feel a rush of euphoria and bliss. The problem was that the high never lasted, and each time it faded, the underlying dysphoria and dissatisfaction with my male body felt worse. It created a cycle where I needed to go further to get that feeling back.
This drove me to seriously consider transitioning. For me, and I think for many AGPs, the drive to transition isn't about some inner female essence. It's a desperate attempt to find a stable way to exist in your own body, to quiet the constant dysphoria and hold onto some of that euphoria. I saw it as dealing with the cards I was dealt. I never saw it as a lie; it was a practical solution to a very real problem of embodiment.
I spent a lot of time online in communities discussing this, because most mainstream trans spaces would ban you for even mentioning AGP. I needed to understand it. I learned that for AGPs, getting bottom surgery is often a fatal mistake because it destroys your libido, which is the very engine of the drive to transition. I read about people who had SRS and then completely lost interest in living as a woman because that sexual motivation was gone. Because of this, I decided that if I ever did transition, I would never get SRS. It seemed like a sure way to regret everything.
My dysphoria and the AGP feelings were also tied up with serious dissociation. I often felt completely disconnected from the world and my own actions. I tried to overcome this by forcing myself into immersive situations. I turned down a job in academia because I knew sitting alone with my thoughts would make it worse, and instead took a job working in a prison where I had to be fully present and engaged every second. That helped more than anything else. I also found that a small dose of psychedelic mushrooms helped me reconnect with my body and exist in the present moment in a way that felt real and solid. You can't just think your way out of dissociation; you have to find a way to act and engage with the world.
I also struggled with the influence of porn, specifically sissy hypnosis content. It felt like it corrupted my natural paraphilia into something darker and more extreme, pushing me toward actions I didn't genuinely desire. I had to make a conscious effort to avoid it completely because it always made my dissociation worse in the long run.
Throughout all of this, I never socially transitioned and I never took hormones or had any surgeries. I practiced repression, which has its own downsides, like a lack of enthusiasm for life, but it felt like the right path for me. I knew that medically transitioning wouldn't solve the core issue, which was my relationship with my own sexuality and embodiment.
Looking back, I don't regret exploring these feelings and I don't regret the path I took, which was to not transition. I gained a lot of self-awareness. My thoughts on gender are that it's often a practical solution to a problem, not a mystical identity. For people like me, it was about managing a very specific and difficult sexual reality.
I am heterosexual and attracted to women. I believe my AGP is connected to that—a submissive desire to be with a woman who takes a dominant role, allowing me to escape the performance of maleness.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 13 | Puberty began; developed unilateral breast tissue, leading to social trauma and embarrassment. |
| Late Teens | Became aware of autogynephilia (AGP) and began cycles of dysphoria and euphoria. |
| Early 20s | Engaged heavily in online communities about AGP and transition; decided against SRS. |
| 23 | Worked an immersive job (prison) to combat dissociation; used a small dose of psychedelics to help reconnect with my body. |
| Present | Continue to manage AGP through repression and avoiding triggering material like sissy hypno porn. |
Top Comments by /u/eternal-salad:
Male here. When puberty hit, I developed breast tissue under my left nipple but not my right. It was mortifying. I’m a skinny guy so there was no reason for that happening other than hormone issues. My guy friends at school found out about it and would grab it and twist it when they passed by me in the hallway (it became common knowledge among the dudes on my basketball team). Then I started wearing tape over the nipple to keep it hidden. Then my friends kept grabbing my nipple and realized I was wearing tape over it. I wanted nothing else but to die
I’m 23 now and still have breast tissue under that nipple. It doesn’t bother me at all and I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about it. But I also have dysphoria and it has nothing to do with that nipple. I don’t think social embarrassment is a valid reason for dysphoria, unless it causes a structural trauma that results in dysphoria. But to me they just don’t seem related
There’s no way to get a derealizing person to “realize” through an act of mental effort, that’s actually just a play on the word “realize,” which in this case isn’t what needs to happen for a dissociating person to overcome the pain they’re experiencing.
“Realizing” or reassociating has to be an embodied effort at finding your place in your immediate situations and being satisfied with it. feeling your limbs and body become part of the immediate environment in a satisfying way. That’s how it needs to be done. I overcame dissociating by taking myself offline and finding myself in situations that I was required to be present for, fully immersed and participating in the present moment. It can help to take a small dose of mushrooms and just exist in the present in a way you can feel confident about. There’s not really any way to “talk” a dissociating person out of dissociating, they are really required to act and reconstitute themselves through acting, otherwise they’ll just experience more of the same.
It’s not all in your head, OP, it’s your body failing to find its ability to constitute and affirm itself in the actions it takes. focus on finding ways to engage in meaningful action so you can structure yourself and everything you think about around that.
I don’t think it’s clear that Chu is transvestic AGP rather than anatomical. Why would she get SRS if she didn’t have anatomical dysphoria? Of course, getting SRS is a fatal error for any AGP. The issue is that if you castrate yourself, you will no longer be invested in transitioning. She argued rightly in a piece earlier this year that she had the right to get SRS even if it wouldn’t make her happy, but it should’ve been more obvious to her that it wouldn’t make her happy, especially for someone like her who is self-aware enough to know that her drive to transition was connected to her sexuality.
- I've never been the teacher students "confide" in. I don't get personal with students.
OP already said she’s not encouraging female students to trust or confide in her. This entire line of thought is beyond stupid. No one wants to be called a pedophile without evidence especially when they’ve come to a forum like this to be vulnerable and open up. You’re discouraging valuable conversation about the possible downsides of transition by frankly being rabid and pointing the pedo finger at any trans woman you choose.
AGP definitely does not need to be ruled out for transition. Even the researchers who labeled the condition believed it could be valid justification for transitioning. Where Dana went wrong was in getting SRS because she destroyed her libido. She might as well have castrated herself and attempted to live as a male, for the same outcome in reducing dysphoria (which I have no issues with btw). Outside of castration, AGP dysphoria does not subside across the lifetime the way HSTS or FTM dysphoria does. In fact it often reaches peak intensity in one’s 40s-50s, but there are cases of it extending into one’s 70s and beyond.
The hardest thing to inform those who are half-informed about AGP is that it’s not just a fetish, but a struggle for satisfying embodiment. It’s entirely possible for an AGP to transition and not be someone who fundamentally “allowed a fetish to consume their life,” as you would no doubt interpret it, but instead be someone who was willing to sacrifice large parts of themselves and their relations to their community in the search for a more engaging form of embodied living. Sure, it’s related to male sexuality, and call that the single isolated factor if you want to, but AGPs themselves know better, as do the Blanchardians who condone their transition.
I'm struggling to understand the rationale behind HSTS regretting SRS. You said it's because they're "attracted to penises," so that means they're sad to see theirs go? I personally wouldn't say HSTS are attracted to penises, more so they're attracted to men, right? Plenty of AGPs are attracted to penises without being romantically attracted to men (Blanchard's "pseudo-androphilia").
I'm androphilic AGP. Which means that I'm exclusively attracted to men but I'm also AGP because my desire to be a woman was driven by sexual feelings.
I'm also struggling to understand this. You're "exclusively attracted to men," but are also attracted to the idea of yourself as a woman? So that would mean you're also attracted to women, right? Trans women who transition out of a truly exclusive attraction to men would qualify as HSTS... at least as far as I understand it.
Everything else I mostly agree with, I'm AGP myself and haven't decided whether or not I'll transition, but I feel very strongly that SRS wouldn't be for me.
I stay busy and stay immersed in what I‘m doing—at least that’s my goal. Right now, I’m working in a prison because it’s immersive. I turned down a job in academia because it wasn’t immersive and it led to me dissociating frequently. So I’m basically just taking it a day at a time. Sissy hypno is a no-go. I do everything I can to stay away from it because it leads to me dissociating more easily in the long term.
So you basically just replied with “nuh uh” and left it there, cool.
Let me just reiterate that a far greater percentage of FTMs overcome their adolescent dysphoria in early adulthood than AGPs. When a single AGP overcomes his dysphoria, it becomes international news within sexology and the subject of a case study.
Something to keep in mind when you preach about who should and shouldn’t transition.
Well said. In fact this is the perfect way to approach transition in general. Sometimes you have to deal with your situation by transitioning—doesn’t mean you need to make up some story about your gender ‘essence,’ it just means you’re doing the best you can with the cards you were dealt. Great job👍
This isn't difficult. You wrote that dysphoria is a form of suffering that should be lived with and left alone, because suffering "is always a very significant part of our life." However, the suffering of the OP caused by the "information chaos" of their body and hormonal imbalances is not a form of suffering that you feel is legitimate, or worthy of enduring.
But if you want to be hostile about it, there's no reason to continue this discussion.