This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the comments provided, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags indicating it is a bot or inauthentic.
The user demonstrates:
- A consistent, personal narrative about their own gender confusion, desistance, and resolution through bodybuilding.
- Emotional depth and nuance in their responses, showing empathy and offering support.
- A clear, long-term engagement with the complex themes of the subreddit over more than a year.
- Opinions that align with a genuine desister perspective, including the acknowledgment that transition can be right for some people.
About me
I'm a gay man who started questioning my gender at 16 because I felt I didn't fit in as a feminine guy. I became obsessed with finding out if I was trans, which I now see was a form of anxiety and OCD. My confusion was really about low self-esteem and struggling to accept myself during puberty. Getting older and starting to work out helped me finally feel comfortable and proud in my own male body. I'm fine now and believe we need more conversations about reasons for gender confusion beyond just transition.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender started when I was around 16. I was a camp, effeminate gay boy, and I felt like I didn't fit in with other men. I couldn't see a version of a man that I could be or wanted to be. I felt different and disconnected from my own masculinity.
I never really thought about my gender until I started spending time online, specifically on a 4chan board. I had this intense "shiver down my spine" moment reading about transgender stuff, and it sent me into a tailspin. For about two years, I became completely obsessed. I would test myself for gender dysphoria every single day, trying to prove to myself whether I was trans or not. It was a cycle of intense anxiety. I now see this as a form of OCD, where I became fixated on finding a single answer to my discomfort. My mom actually found information about 'Pure OCD' on Tumblr, and that was the first real light at the end of the tunnel for me—the idea that my obsession could be explained by something other than being transgender.
I think a lot of my confusion was rooted in low self-esteem and feeling unattractive. As a feminine gay guy, I felt I was too masculine to appeal to gay men and too feminine for straight men. I felt like I had no place. I projected all my general teenage anxieties and discomfort with puberty onto the idea of gender. The idea of transitioning offered a clear solution, an escape from those feelings. Online spaces were a huge influence; every search I did pointed me toward "Are you Trans? Start your transition today." I never saw anything that suggested my confusion could be about something else.
I never took hormones or had any surgeries. I only ever transitioned socially in my head and online. I'm grateful for that now. What ultimately helped me was getting older and my perspective changing. I started going to the gym, which helped me connect with my body in a positive way for the first time. It made me feel proud to be a man, something I had never experienced before. It didn't necessarily make me more successful in dating, but it made me feel more comfortable and respectable in my own skin.
I don't believe I was ever truly transgender. For me, my gender isn't an essential truth I had to uncover. I was a young, philosophical, and obsessive person who latched onto a single explanation for all my problems. I don't regret exploring my gender because it led me to where I am now, but I do have regrets about the years of anxiety and obsession I put myself through. I'm angry that the only narrative I found online was one that encouraged transition, without any space for other explanations like internalised homophobia or body image issues.
Today, I'm fine. I'm comfortable living as a gay man. I believe transition is the right path for some people, but it definitely isn't for everyone. My main gripe is that we don't talk enough about the other reasons someone might feel confused about their gender.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
Age | Event |
---|---|
16 | Started obsessively researching gender identity online, experiencing intense anxiety and confusion. |
16-18 | Period of daily "testing" for gender dysphoria, socially identifying as trans online. |
18 | Went to university, began to gradually move on from the obsession. Learned about Pure OCD as an alternative explanation for my fixation. |
22 | Started going to the gym, which helped me build a positive connection to my male body and masculinity. |
Now (25) | Comfortably living as a gay man, with my past gender confusion feeling like a distant chapter from another life. |
Top Comments by /u/goonby1990:
In the UK a lot of social liberalism cuts across the political divide. For instance, the Conservative party introduced gay marriage and neither of the main parties are particularly religious. I think this mainstream consensus allows feminists on the left to criticise trans stuff without being seen as right wing. Labour MPs are afraid to touch it still, but a lot of left wing mainstream media figures like JK Rowling have spoken out about it. In the US, feminists see this issue as a right/left issue so they mostly side by default with the trans lobby
I think you should worry less about what your family and friends will think. You might feel stupid now, but I can guarantee that when you tell them that's not going to be their main concern. They will be happy you're making the right choice for you and particularly in a way that doesn't involve a lifetime of medical treatment, I think it's a thing where ripping off the bandaid will show you that a lot of your concerns were ill founded
> there is no detransitioning happening and presentation is still fully female.
IDK I think we need to accept this will be the case for a lot of detransitioners. What are you meant to do if you're at a point where you can never realistically pass as male?
This is really spooky for me, because I had much the same experience. A lot of detrans discourse is focussed on women, so thank you for speaking about your experience
I felt proud being a man, something I never experienced my whole life.
Same. It's like I finally had a vision in my head of a man I could be and wanted to be, when before that just didn't exist for me. I saw myself as different to other men. Gym put me in touch with my body and who nature intended me to be, I'm so happy I found that way out
Amber made a really interesting point about how she didn't start to question her identity until she starting experiencing pain in her reproductive system from taking testosterone.
Loads of responses to the detransitioner who recently went viral on Twitter are like "well you knew the potential consequences of testosterone so what are you complaining about?", but how you feel about your gender identity can change in response to physical changes. And it seems likely it wasn't made clear to Amber that these physical health problems were a possible consequences of taking testosterone
You know how differently you feel today from when you transitioned? One day you will feel as different from today as you do from then, that's how growing up and maturing works for everyone. Just because you're not happy today does NOT mean you won't be in the future, especially at such a young age. By the time you're 25, this will seem a world away - trust me! When I was your age I had my own gender journey, and today it feels like a different person.
It won't be long, please trust me on this. A year probably feels like a lifetime to you now, but it will come around before you know it.
It's kind of eerie to me how similar your situation is to mine lol. Nearly 10 years ago I was scrolling the newly created /lgbt/ board on 4chan, and I had that "shiver down my spine" moment. I went from never really thinking about my gender to obsessively 'testing' myself for gender dysphoria every day, which persisted for about 2 years until I went to University and gradually moved on. I remember my mom found a page about 'Pure OCD' on Tumblr and that was a light at the end of the tunnel for me, the idea that there was another explanation of my anxiety that wasn't just being transgender.
Now nearly a decade later I'm fine. I think a big part of moving past it was accepting that my gender isn't really anything to me, there was no essential truth of my gender identity to uncover one way or the other. It's easy to project any negative feelings you have as a teenage onto a discrete problem like being transgender, and the fact that everybody thought (and still thinks) that only a trans person could obsess over their gender made it a vicious cycle.
I'm quite a thoughtful, philosophical, obsessive person and it was really frustrating for me trying to prove to myself one way or another that I was transgender. I thought being transgender was the only possibility, but it just never felt right to me. That's why today I want people to know there are other possibilities, because it's obvious there are people out there who aren't really transgender and they sort of know it but are in various stages of transition because they can't understand why they feel confused about their gender
It's funny how people say r/detrans is full of cis people but then if you look at r/actual_detrans one of the top comments in one of the top threads right now is saying "not detrans... but I can solidly say, it is not your place" to advise someone against surgery.
But that's fine because if you're towing the line then who cares whether you've actually experienced what you're talking about or not. A million detransitioners can speak out and it will never count in their opinion, just ignore them
I agree with the person who said they're scared. r/Detrans membership is shooting up (it was 35,000 a few months ago) and if you frequent trans subs like I do you'll see loads of comments suggesting that people frequent it even when they disagree with the content.
The fact that we're free here to discuss transition honestly is attracting a lot of new readers and that threatens people who want to suppress the honest truth that transition isn't for everybody and isn't a simple fix for all gender problems
Edit: since I posted this r/detrans subscribers has passed 41,000
Yes I think so, although most people here seem to detransition for other reasons. I think some people would take issue that this means they're 'cis' though, for a lot of us the line between detransitioning for material reasons and for identity reasons doesn't really exist