Here’s something a lot of trans people don’t want to acknowledge - when I was transitioning, the biggest constant social hurdle was explaining to people that I didn’t feel like a woman, because, newsflash - 99.9% of “cis” people also don’t “feel like” their sex/gender. They just are, and know and accept that they are, their sex/gender. When I was transitioning, I convinced myself that they just didn’t understand where I was coming from. When I detransitioned, I realized, yeah - they didn’t understand where I was coming from because it’s sexist as fuck and it doesn’t make sense. Being a woman or being a man is a biological state of being. I don’t “feel like” a woman the same way I don’t “feel like” someone who has brown eyes, or “feel like” someone who is five foot four. I just am those things. The problem is, our social baseline for “normal human” is A Man and “other” is A Woman. This “feeling like a dude in a girls body” is how almost every other woman around you feels because you aren’t really feeling like a dude, you’re feeling like a PERSON.

There is an inherent dysphoria and disconnect, I feel, for a lot of homosexual people (lesbian myself) because our sexual identities are formed under a structure that leaves us no visibility or space. The only social blueprint we have for attracting, or being attracted to, women, is the social blueprint of masculinity/maleness. It doesn’t mean we’re really men, it just means we had a more confusing time of things than some of our straight counterparts. Don’t let it bog you down into their weird cultural politics. Nobody “feels like a woman” or “feels like a man”, they just have traits we associate w masculinity or femininity. Some people are sexist enough that they believe this makes them “really” men or women. Other people are able to recognize that gender nonconformity is a beautiful thing, “masculine” women and “feminine” men are a beautiful thing, and there’s no shame in being one.

God, this post gave me deja vu! This is pretty much the exact position I was in at your age, down to the letter. First, let me say, as cliche and annoying as this is to read, you are still super young and you have been on testosterone a relatively short amount of time, especially if you’re only using gel. Don’t postpone this or push it off any longer, but if it comes to this, you are in a really good position to detransition. Probably the best you could possibly be in. Sure, there will be some changes you may deal with forever - I still have to shave my chest, I have a deep voice for a woman, etc - but personally, it only took a few years for my voice to settle back to “deep for a woman, but definitely a woman”, and my body is unmistakably feminine. My fat distribution settled out a lot as I went off testosterone and grew into my adult body, I am never mistaken for male these days (25) despite regularly passing in my youth (17-19).

Changing your name and gender back will be a pain in the ass, but it will also be very doable and a lot easier than you’re afraid it’ll be. My recommendation is to REALLY not put that off. I avoided the process for years out of stress and anxiety and it caused me some minor problems with the IRS, bank accounts, etc. When I got back around to it I was kicking myself, the process was so easy and I could have avoided all that headache if I’d just ripped the bandaid off fast.

Frankly, this fixation on “living as a boy” or “living as a girl” is taking up a lot of mental energy you don’t need it to be taking up. Who are you as a person? What are your interests, hobbies, values, outside of gender and transition? You’ll find as you discover these things that the differences between “living as a girl” and “living as a boy” are extremely minimal and the division we put up between them is incredibly outdated and sexist. There are hardships you will experience as a woman that men don’t have to experience - this sucks, but that’s one of the things that makes being a woman kind of special. You learn resilience, community, and strength through these experiences. But nothing about your day to day world or life has to change because you’re “living as a girl”. I wake up now, put on the same clothes I wore as a transman, watch the same shows, listen to the same music, make the same kind of art, roll the same blunts, decorate my room the same way, talk to my friends the same way… Why should anything about my life change? Why should anything about yours? Really evaluate how you perceive women in this society and ask yourself where that comes from.

You may lose friends - that’s a good thing. Anyone who would drop you for detransitioning is a fake and selfish friend to begin with. You are a human being, who exists on a much more significant level than your name or pronouns. If you had a gay friend come out again as bisexual, or vice versa, would you ditch them? What would you think of someone who did? As for your family, come to them openly and with vulnerability. I don’t know them and I don’t know how they’ll take it - but I know I had a lot of the same fears when I was in your position, and none of them mattered in the end. All my family wanted was to see me happy and healthy and if that meant detransition, it just meant detransition. Anyone who truly loves and cares for you will feel the same way, even if they need some time to adjust. Understand this may be a time of high emotion for everybody but that too will pass. Talking your therapist may not be very helpful if you’re looking for direct advice - this is a relatively new phenomena and often outside the scope of their experience! But a good therapist will be willing to be an objective force for you to work through this with, bounce these feelings off of, etc and it’s definitely worth bringing up.

All that being said, you are still REALLY fucking young in the grand scheme of things and nothing you do rn will ruin the rest of your life, or be unchangable, or unfixable, with the passage of time. Take advantage of that position. Really evaluate your core beliefs about what women are capable of and what being a man or woman truly means to you. Fuck what your friends think, have patience for what your family thinks, and for god’s sake, get your documents taken care of as soon as you can 😂😂 Love and luck on this journey but I promise, either way you’re gonna be okay.

Honestly things rings pretty true of my own experience - AuDHD, PTSD, no consistent male figures in my life, etc. I started transitioning at 13 and stopped at 18. I realized that I was living with a cognitive dissonance - I believed that women could enjoy, and be capable of, “boy things”, but also believed I had to be a man because my interests and comforts skewed so masculine. I realized my issue with being perceived as a woman was more to do with the fact that I understood, on a gut level, that women were not permitted the same access or respect as men, or safety, and subconsciously, I wanted to consider myself a person who was worthy of my hobbies, my interests, my place in society, etc.

Unfortunately, misogyny isn’t something we can just transition away, the same way ‘female’ isn’t something we have to try out - you’ve been female all your life, and you don’t have to do anything to be good at it besides exist as the person you are. I also know this SUCKS to hear - but personally, I found myself growing out of a lot of my dysphoria as I entered my 20s and started living in the adult world, making female friends who had my interests and convictions, and realizing that even though I still present masculinely, we still have so much in common and have so much respect for each other. There’s nothing that separates me from these women because I’ve worked to unlearn the idea that there must be. Do you know what I mean? The majority of people who experience dysphoria in childhood grow out of it, and when given the opportunity, grow into healthy and well adjusted adults - this disconnect may not be something you feel forever, and again, I know it might sound patronizing, but it is AGONIZING to be a teenager, and especially a female one. You may find a lot of this discomfort settling as you grow into yourself and the world around you, as you enter the world and find “your people”, etc.

It’s easy to assume that that just won’t happen for you because of the ways you feel so othered, but trust me, if you had met me in high school, I think we’d have a LOT in common. Work on finding security and stability in who you authentically are as a person, and spend less mental energy on who you are as a gender - putting together the puzzle of yourself can be an awesome process of learning and growing. Don’t try to force in pieces that aren’t fitting just because it’ll “fix” or “change” how other people perceive you. It won’t! The best thing you can do is accept that you have no control over the way you’re perceived, and if you live your life truthfully, in accordance with yourself and your values, people will see that and people will respond to it. Either way, you’re gonna be fine. Xoxo

Be honest with her if you really care about her and want this to work, if she’s a compatible partner she’ll be understanding, and if she isn’t, you don’t need to be with her anyway. Dating as a detrans person feels a lot more complicated than it really is. Majority of people, especially people worth seeing long-term, will not care that you spent a few years exploring your identity and it just didn’t work out.

I don’t have a lot of practical advice, but I do want to send you some love - this is very reminiscent of my own experience, just from an FtMtF perspective personally. I have CPTSD and severe issues with dissociation - the day I realized that “He” was just a character I’d built for myself, to keep myself safe, it was like a bomb had gone off in my life. The rug had been pulled from under me in such a severe and jarring way, like a bubble had just popped. It was so much easier to think that all of my problems could be summarized as “meant to be a man” than it was to come to terms w the reality of my life, which had up until that point, been exceptionally bleak. It was a confusing and shameful situation to come to terms with. I’m so sorry you’re experiencing it now.

What I can tell you, is that that moment was 6 years ago - it’s become so irrelevant in my life that I sometimes forget it happened at all. I really strongly recommend finding a therapist who specializes in trauma, and one who can hold some neutrality about gender and gender identity. I also recommend finding gay or gender non-conforming role models of your natal sex you can relate to and see yourself in. This made it a lot easier for me to feel like I was coming home to somewhere I belonged, regardless of how I presented or who I was attracted to. Find hobbies and outlets and interests where you work with your hands, where you can set yourself aside and just enjoy what you’re doing, not a video game or fantasy based endeavor but something that leaves you with a tangible product, that you can hold in your hands and say, I made this myself, this hobby and this skill is a part of me. Find things you can identify with, shape and define your personality with, where you’re at in life, that don’t have anything to do w gender.

IE - Hi, my name is FemShady99. I’m a filmmaker, a collage artist, and a really good cook. I’m a comedian, and I make people laugh.

This tells me so much more about who I am than a name or a pronoun ever did or could. This tells other people more about who I am than a name or a pronoun, and while it’s taken a long time to really integrate the parts of myself into one ‘whole’, and to break out of that dissociative spell, I am living such a more liberating life. I feel proud to know myself not as who I want to be seen as, but who I am, because that person is worth knowing. FemShady99, the cooking, filmmaking collage artist is such a cooler person to know than Jonah, the hyper-self-critical ball of anxiety and aimlessness. Learn who ‘SimplePapaya’ is through what brings you joy and personal satisfaction, not through this terrible cloud of self-loathing and fear. You don’t deserve that. You can escape it, I know you can because I did and so many others here did too, and when you feel like you can’t, remind yourself that you aren’t alone.

I don’t want to make it out like everything is perfect. CPTSD is a lifelong learning curve and it sucks. I struggle w it every day. But what I don’t struggle w is the constant burden of presenting myself how “Jonah” would like to be presented and instead just living an authentic and free life, doing things that bring me joy with people who bring me love, processing trauma as it comes, instead of living in it. Genuinely, I am 80 pounds lighter. Love and peace to you on this journey.

Of course! I’m almost 7 years out now and have had a lot of time to think and process, things were really hard when I first popped that bubble and I won’t lie to you and say they won’t be, but I’m honestly so happy with the life I’m living, even when it’s low it’s so honest and authentic and I feel so much more in touch with myself and my feelings without the constant noise of gendering myself. I truly wouldn’t trade it for anything. Living as a woman, being received as a woman, treated like a woman, can be grueling sometimes but I have a strong circle of female friends I’ve found in the last few years who I look up to so highly, who really make me proud to be the person I am, who make me feel supported and not so alone when things get hard. 100% you can find that too.

PS - stay in touch with your doctor if you come off hormones, PLEASE, don’t just ghost and go cold turkey - regularly have your hormones tested!! Your body will thank you!!

It gets much, much easier with time. Let yourself grieve, and focus on getting to know yourself now, as an adult. These coming years are just as formative for you as your teens, I would honestly even say more so; embrace them, experience them, get to know yourself, get to know the people around you, get to know what you want to do with your life, get to know what kind of art you like, get to know what kind of movies you hate. Etc. All it is to “be a woman” is to be a woman. Are you female? Yes. Okay, you’ve done it, you’re being a woman. Tada. Stop devoting all this mental energy into putting yourself in boxes. This is what is poisoning you, and it will make you just as sick in this direction as it did when you were transitioning. You are literally just a person. Take a deep breath smoke a blunt and go for a walk or something. You are literally going to be fine

I think it’s important to remember that everyone has ‘something’ - you may feel jealous of your coworkers that they aren’t dealing w this complication, but tbh, they all have something they don’t want or don’t know how to tell a partner. Your thing feels bigger because it’s kind of niche, but there are people every day, in every city, wondering how they’re ever gonna tell a future partner abt their felony, abt their abusive parents, abt the time they went to rehab, abt their bipolar dx, abt their crazy ex who won’t leave them alone, etc. They probably look at you and think you have it so lucky that you don’t have to think abt those things.

Dating is complicated bcuz people are complicated, but in the grand scheme of things, “I used to think I was trans” isn’t that big of a deal in social circles that aren’t like, rabidly obsessed w transition. Find your confidence and don’t be too in your head abt breaking this news or you’re gonna psych yourself out of every date you go on.

Butch here, I was on T for around a year, my voice dropped considerably tbh and for a while after detransitioning I was still “passing” as male - that being said I’m 6 years out now and even still being very butch I am rarely mistaken for male. It’ll take some time for your body to soften/settle out again, and if you were being mistaken for male before your transition you will probably return to that ‘degree’ of misgendering lmao, but eventually in my experience life can be continued as a butch woman. I grew my hair out to about shoulder length and that’s helped a lot, I can still style it masculinely but having a little flair there seems to push my perception from ‘tmasc/nonbinary’ to ‘masculine woman’. Time is your friend, just be patient and let your body rest and heal. Godspeed 💗

I definitely respect this but I would adjust your expectations towards re-entering society as a woman - these are all things that you are still going to be at risk of, and experiencing them as I began to pass as a woman again was very jarring for me personally. I transitioned because living as a trans man afforded me LESS harassment from men around me. I have no doubt that you experienced this as a trans man, but the reason trans men experience those things is because they, like cis women, are female. I would especially caution you to be cognizant if you are a person who dates/is attracted to men. You are not going to stop experiencing rape threats and discrimination because you’re a woman, you’re just going to experience them with different language.