This story is from the comments by /u/hellhellhellhell that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "hellhellhellhell" appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user presents a highly detailed, emotionally raw, and internally consistent narrative spanning several years. The story includes specific, personal medical details (types of surgeries, hormone doses, health complications), nuanced reflections on trauma, and a clear, evolving perspective that aligns with the complex experiences of many detransitioners. The advice given to others is thoughtful, repetitive in its key points (a sign of genuine conviction), and reflects the passion and frustration mentioned in your prompt. The account shows no signs of automated posting or a manufactured persona.
About me
My entire journey started in childhood as a tomboy who hated anything girly. I believed transitioning was the answer to my deep discomfort with my female body, not realizing it was a response to the sexual abuse I endured. I medically transitioned for three years, which caused permanent physical damage, but leaving my abuser and starting therapy made me realize my dysphoria was a coping mechanism. Now, I am detransitioned and see myself as a gender non-conforming woman, living with the permanent consequences of my medical decisions. I wish someone had helped me address my trauma instead of just affirming my transition.
My detransition story
My entire journey with transition and detransition was the most difficult and confusing time of my life. It all started when I was a kid. I was a huge tomboy and from a very young age, I went by a boy's name. People in elementary school often thought I was a boy and I never corrected them. I hated everything girly.
The real problems started when I hit puberty. I hated the changes in my body, especially my breasts. I felt deep disgust and discomfort with my female body. What I didn't understand at the time was that this feeling, which I called dysphoria, was actually caused by the sexual abuse I suffered throughout my entire childhood at the hands of my father. Being seen as female meant being a victim, and I felt like my body was the reason for the abuse. I developed anorexia and started self-harming long before I ever heard the word "transgender."
When I was about 13, I found Tumblr. That’s where I learned about transitioning. I saw stories of unhappy girls becoming happy, confident men. I saw them getting huge amounts of support. It seemed like a magic bullet for all my pain. I also started reading a lot of fanfiction and romanticized gay male relationships. Because of my abuse, the idea of being in a heterosexual relationship was terrifying and repulsive to me; it felt inherently unequal and abusive. I thought the only way I could be an equal partner and be loved for who I was, not just as a sex object, was if I was a man in a gay relationship.
My desire to transition became an obsession. It became my entire identity. I was 100% sure I was a boy. I started using a male name and he/him pronouns. When I was 18, I walked into an informed consent clinic, signed some papers, and walked out with a prescription for testosterone. It was incredibly easy. I was on T for three years.
At first, there was a sense of euphoria. Life as a man was easier in many ways. I was taken more seriously at school and work. People listened to me in class and assumed I was competent. I could walk alone at night without fear. I felt safer from sexual violence. But my underlying dysphoria never actually went away. In fact, I attempted suicide more often while on T.
T had severe effects on my body. I gained about 40 pounds and got stretch marks. I started balding within six months and developed a bald spot. I got terrible acne that left permanent scars on my face. My skin aged prematurely. My voice dropped drastically and became permanently damaged; my throat was always sore and I lost my ability to sing. I developed serious health issues like prediabetes, gout, high blood pressure, and an autoimmune disorder.
I also had top surgery to remove my breasts. Later, as part of my detransition, I got breast implants, but I hate how fake they look and feel, and I’m covered in scars from both surgeries.
The turning point came when I finally left my abusive father and started therapy to address the sexual trauma. It was like a switch flipped. The day I left him, I stopped feeling male. I realized my dysphoria had been a way to cope with the abuse and dissociation. Suddenly, I felt a new kind of dysphoria—I was horrified by the male features I had created on my body. I stopped taking T immediately.
Detransitioning was hard. "Un-coming out" was harder than coming out had been. I had to reconcile with the permanent changes. My body is covered in thick, dark hair that never went away, even years after stopping T. I’ve spent thousands on hair removal with little success. My voice has gotten a bit higher naturally over the years, but it's still hoarse and cracks. I can speak now, but my throat is always sore.
I don’t regret the social experience of living as a man. It taught me a lot and showed me that my value isn't based on my looks. But I deeply regret the medical interventions. I wish one adult, especially my gender therapist, had connected my dysphoria to my history of sexual abuse. She knew about the abuse and my eating disorder, but she never explored it. She even told me that detransition was a myth when I expressed doubts.
Now, I see myself as a gender non-conforming woman, or maybe non-binary. My relationship with gender is still complicated. I don't feel dysphoric anymore unless something triggers memories of my trauma. I believe that for me, being trans was a symptom of a deeper problem. I think real trans people exist, but for many others like me, dysphoria is caused by things like trauma, autism, or internalized issues. I strongly believe that young people, especially those with trauma, should have thorough therapy before making permanent changes to their bodies.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Early Childhood | Was a tomboy, often passed as a boy and used a boy's name. |
| Puberty (around 12-13) | Hated puberty changes, especially breast development. Developed anorexia and self-harm habits. |
| 13 | Found Tumblr, learned about transition. Became obsessed with the idea. Socially transitioned to male. |
| 18 | Walked into an informed consent clinic and started testosterone (T). |
| 18-21 | Was on T for 3 years. Experienced vocal damage, balding, acne, weight gain, and serious health issues. Had top surgery. |
| Early 20s | Left abusive father, started trauma therapy. Immediately stopped feeling male and ceased T. Began detransition. |
| Early 20s | Had breast implant surgery to reverse top surgery. Regrets the results. |
| Now (Several years after stopping T) | Identify as a gender non-conforming woman/non-binary. Live with permanent physical changes from T and surgeries. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/hellhellhellhell:
A lot of women are sexually abused as children and it is very easy to mistake the wounds left by sexual trauma for dysphoria. They can be pretty much identical. Women are also sexualized by strangers at a very early age so that can be traumatic. Many young women develop dysphoria at the start of puberty which is also when a lot of the sexual harassment and dehumanization starts for the ones who were lucky enough not to be sexualized or sexually abused before that.
In my case I didn't even consciously realize that I was trying to escape the sexual abuse that I'd suffered my entire childhood--the trauma just made me hate my female parts and being seen as female so much that I genuinely thought I was just a regular FTM. The sad part is I was right. I was treated so much better when I was passing as male and the sexual violence stopped.
- Do you think trauma can cause people to believe they're trans?Yes. It happened to me. I was sexually abused by my parent from my earliest memories until I was almost an adult. As soon as I left my abuser, I felt female just as strongly as I had felt male before and was extremely dysphoric because of all of the things I'd done to my body. My initial dysphoria was 100% cause by CSA trauma.
- If you do think that people can come to believe they're trans due to trauma, do you think that an identity caused by trauma is as valid as, say, someone who has known for their whole life, or isn't trans on top of mental health issues?I used to be trans when I lived with my abuser, and now I'm not now that I've had therapy relating to the abuse. Due to dissociation, I was a whole different person when I was living with my abuser. The person I was when I lived with my abuser was legitimately trans and felt legitimate crippling dysphoria. But, I still regret hormones, surgery, and getting legal name and gender changes. The identity may have been valid, but it wasn't healthy. The healthy thing to do was get my trauma addressed in therapy and get away from my abuser. Just because I was trans before doesn't mean I'm trans now. I would encourage anyone who has experienced trauma not to transition, not to even consider transitioning, until all of that trauma is resolved in therapy.
- Do you think mental health issues in general can lead people to believe they're trans, or that transness is actually a symptom of mental illness within itself for some people?Dysphoria can be caused by PTSD and dissociation. I know half a dozen detransitioners IRL and all of them were sexually abused (all FTMs except for one MTF). All had suffered from incest and CSA at the hands of caretakers (except for the MTF who was abused by their older brother.)
- Do you think that professionals (doctors, therapists, etc) look hard enough into why people think they're trans?Unfortunately, they really really don't. At no point was I asked whether I'd ever been through any sort of trauma, even though I showed many signs of sexual trauma: self harm, anorexia, very obvious PTSD, anxiety, inappropriate sexual behavior at an early age, etc. They never considered for even a second that my long list of mental illnesses might be contributing to my dysphoria.
- Do you think that being in trauma can cause gender dysphoria and feelings of transness to intensify?This was very much the case for me. When I was living with my abuser, I had intense dysphoria and attempted suicide several times because of it. I was on hormones, got top surgery, got masculinizing facial surgery, was preparing for bottom surgery--all of that. And even though I was living stealth and passing as male 100% of the time I was tormented by dysphoria. The DAY I left my abuser I stopped feeling male and began to feel dysphoria because I no longer looked female. Now that I pretty much pass as female and I haven't been living with my abuser for several years, I no longer feel dysphoria at all.
- Do you think that a person can be led to believe they're trans due to exposure to trans concepts?Tumblr definitely had a huge influence on my choice to transition. If not for Tumblr, I would never have transitioned. It was on Tumblr that I learned the narrative of unhappy girls transitioning to male and suddenly life being wonderful. I saw these trans guys posting selfies and getting just this huge outpouring of support and looking so confident-- support and confidence that I lacked living with a brutally abusive parent. I wish I had never joined Tumblr. It's a cesspool. I would never have attempted suicide if Tumblr hadn't taught me that suicide was an appropriate response to obstacles to your transition. I was young and impressionable and Tumblr made transitioning seem like the only way to be happy.
- Do you think there's any truth to the concept that some people identify as trans because of a fetish, whether they realize it or not?Definitely. Look at Jessica Yaniv. In my case, also because of Tumblr shipping, I romanticized gay male relationships. I was attracted to men, but because of my sexual abuse history was repulsed by my own female body. I still had sexual desires. The only way I could enjoy sex was if only men and no women were involved. I thought if I had a penis I could enjoy sex. I found every part of my female body to be sexually repulsive because of the sexual abuse. I saw heterosexual relationships as being inherently unbalanced and abusive because that was all I had ever known (first as a sexually abused child then as a girl in a sexually abusive relationship with a grown man who stalked and harrassed me for years after I got out). I read a lot of slash fiction and saw gay male relationships celebrated so much on Tumblr where my view that straight males were inherently predatory was also reinforced. I felt like I could only ever be a fully formed person rather than a sex object and victim if I was a man and I could only ever be loved and seen as an equal by a man if I was another man in a gay relationship. I wouldn't go so far as to say I had a gay male fetish, but I certainly couldn't see myself in a sexual situation without being triggered in a female body.
- This question is primarily for detrans people, but do you think that there's different types of dysphoria (some that seem like transness but aren't "true" transness), or different types of transness?I think there is a difference between physical and social dysphoria (I suffered both to an extreme degree when I was an FTM). I think that gender euphoria can also be present in trans people but gender euphoria alone isn't enough to make someone trans. I also don't think that NB is necessarily the same as trans. I'm NB now and I don't think I could be categorized as trans because 1) I don't feel dysphoria and 2) I'm not transitioning to anything. I don't think that NB or GNC should be under the trans umbrella but should be separate classifications. Sure, some NB people might experience dysphoria and wish to transition therefore be both NB and trans, but I don't think that is the case for all of us. I am NB but do not consider myself trans any longer. My relationship with gender is still changing all the time. In a year I may consider myself cis (though I really don't relate to the cis experience since I did grow up trans). I don't think that people who don't experience dysphoria and have no desire to transition should be considered the same kind of trans as dysphoric transitioning trans people but I don't think they should just be called 'trenders' or anything. Dysphoric transitioners have a medical reason to be classed as trans. People who aren't dysphoric but still don't identify with their assigned gender or identify with GNC should have their own label... I just don't know what it is. It's hard to keep everyone happy. But, I think it's pretty obvious that, while I consider their identities valid, they're not the same as transsexual transgender people.
- How do you think the issue of dysphoric trans youth should be handled, especially in regards to giving minors HRT?HRT is right for some people and not right for others but it's nearly impossible to tell who it's right for and who it isn't right for unless you delve deep into their issues and make sure they haven't been sexually abused and all of that. I think at minimum, youth who want to transition should be screened for signs of sexual abuse so all of that can be resolved before they address their gender concerns, because sexual abuse is uniquely disruptive to identity and can actually change your gender identity as it did in my case.
- I'd love to hear anything you have to say about self-questioning or detransitioning.
I'd like to say that detransitioning isn't the end of the world even if it might feel like it at first. There is hope. And anyone who is considering transition should first make sure they've been to therapy to resolve any past sexual trauma, particularly CSA.
Everyone took me more seriously both at work and at school. When I contributed to the discussion, people actually listened and trusted my expertise when I was going stealth as an FTM. People thought my writing was better when I was passing as male. I know that this isn't because my writing quality changed because when I submitted the SAME writing as a male that I had submitted as a female to writing workshops I got SO much more praise and terrifyingly this also translates to grading--I submitted a piece of creative writing I'd gotten like a B on in high school (where people knew I was biologically female) to a creative writing class in undergrad, WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING, and I got an A as a male (I was stealth). I was treated with more respect as a short and ugly man than I had ever gotten as a female with 'pretty privilege'. People wanting to get into your pants is not the same as being treated with respect. Now as an ugly gender indeterminate thing I get neither respect nor anyone trying to get into my pants, but I've made peace with it. Also, getting responses to informational interview requests in a STEM field is much easier with a male name.
I actually went into my transition thinking that men were going to treat me like shit for being short, but I never ran into that. Men clowned on me a little, but only my friends did that and I clowned them too. Looks really didn't matter and self-maintenance was cheap and easy. I could show up to school dressed like a clown and I don't think anyone would care. No one ever critiqued who much or how little I ate.
I was able to take walks alone at night with relatively little fear of being raped and murdered--more likely someone would try to mug me and see that I had nothing of value and move on.
One thing I will say though is that I missed female friendships when I was stealth. Even when I was perceived as a non-threatening man, female friends who didn't know I was trans assumed (understandably) that I didn't understand some of their experiences as women and so we could never reach the level of intimacy in our friendships that two women can have. As much as I love my male friends, I found that those friendships lacked the degree of intimacy I've found in very close female friendships. People, including other men, hold male friends at a distance. It's probably not noticeable to people who have never experienced very close female friendship, but it made me sad for men. I hope that as we break down traditional gender norms male platonic intimacy will become more normalized.
Un-coming out was harder than coming out for me. I understand what you mean. I was treated better as a man than as a woman and that was another thing that made un-coming out harder, but better to be true to myself and treated like a woman than be who I'm not and enjoy male privilege.
I felt this but times 1000 when I was your age, to the point where I was suicidal because of my body not matching what I wanted to be. I regret T and top surgery. I would have grown out of hating my chest. I never really did grow out of the goth tomboy thing, but I hate what T did to my voice and body. T gave me a voice that would be unattractive on either a male or a female. I can barely speak most days because my throat is so sore. T didn't turn me into an attractive male (though it did allow me to escape from being viewed as an attractive girl--instead I got to be viewed as a very ugly androgynous person which... was an improvement for me since the whole reason I was dysphoric in the first place was because of sexual abuse trauma). My friends who did not detransition and are still on T decade after we all started transitioning are not physically conventionally attractive men either, but I think they are attractive because of their amazing personalities. I've never really been too concerned about attractiveness--it's one of those cool things that some people have like being double jointed or a good poet--but it's not the end all be all or what gives people value.
My friends who are still on T look more like someone's bald uncle (they're all bald for some reason) than the twinky rockstars and youtubers they wanted to look like when we were kids, but they're happy looking like someone's bald uncle. I feel their joy and the rightness of transition for them the same way I feel in my bones the rightness of never going near T again for me.
If turning out looking like an average guy--a short bald uncle rather than whatever hot influencer the alt girls are into now--isn't something you'd be cool with, then maybe take some time to think things through some more. Having realistic expectations for transition is important. Men do not look young forever--no one does. The balding in my case happened very quickly and my hair has never completely recovered, sadly.
The thing is, most cis guys turn out looking like average balding guys with a gut anyway. This isn't exclusive to trans men. Beauty for anyone takes a rare combo of winning the genetic lottery, money, and hard work. I don't think that wanting to be a hot anything is a good reason to start HRT. You're basically taking a huge risk--the odds of being conventionally attractive are not in your favor. If desiring to be a "hot guy" rather than just a guy is what is motivating you to transition, I'd say slow down there. You need to set your expectations lower. T will eventually make you pass as a guy, but do not expect it to turn you into a hot guy.
In my case it turned me into someone with bad skin and thin hair lol. If being someone who is bald and has bad skin is something that would ruin your life, don't do it. If what matters to you is passing as male, then that's different.
You can still cut and dye your hair and build muscle without taking irreversible hormones.
All is not lost! I was on T for 3 years. My voice got higher after several years off T! You can hear the change here: https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/ffmnoi/my_voice_a_few_months_off_t_vs_a_few_years_off_t/
If you think reading about trans people made you feel trans, maybe read about women you admire. Read woman-centric books. Consume woman-centric media--Orange is the New Black is a good example of this--there's basically an all female cast and it helped me to rediscover the fact that I could still be a fully formed human being and character of consequence in my own story as a female. Hang out in gender non-conforming female spaces or just hang out with women in general. Meet some local witches.
I didn't get "cold feet" at any point until I'd already had top surgery and been on T for a couple years, so count yourself lucky that you didn't start yet!
If you do turn out to be trans in the end, waiting is no big deal. You're already 20 so starting at 20 or 30 isn't going to make a difference as far as your ability to pass if you choose to go on T is concerned since it won't change your bone structure or prevent you from developing an adult female body now. There is really no rush. Stop obsessively consuming trans content and revisit the issue in 5 years. Focus on other things that make you an interesting and cool human being. In the grand scheme of things, your gender is a trivial aspect of who you are. People who make their gender their entire identity as a person (there are cis people who do this too) are usually boring to talk to.
If you truly think that reading about trans people is causing your dysphoria, then blacklist it on your browser.
Also, you can try out a male gender identity without making irreversible changes to your body. Some trans men choose not to go on hormones and instead lift weights or alleviate their dysphoria in other ways. If you're more comfortable with he/him pronouns, you can keep the pronouns without going on T.
Either way, there is no rush to make this decision. Your brain is still forming. If you're on the fence about T, then you lose nothing by waiting until your brain is fully formed to make a decision.
Stopping T cold turkey does not cause withdrawals. It is a non-addictive substance. But, it was still irresponsible for them to send you off in crisis without further follow up. I stopped T cold turkey with no ill effects and women with PCOS who bring down their T levels with hormones report positive mood changes. Your crisis probably had more to do with detransitioning than T itself. Going off of T does not cause what you are describing--but the thought of T and knowing that you are detransitioning absolutely could. I'm so sorry you went through that. But, let's also not spread misinformation. People should know that you can safely stop T cold-turkey and there's no medical reason to "taper down".
I plan to go public when I'm financially stable--not just about being detrans but about the sexual abuse that my siblings and I went through that caused me to develop dysphoria. That'll probably be 10 to 20 years from now at the soonest so I'm sure I'll just be one of many who shared their stories publicly by then. Hopefully, by that point we'll be able to have an honest conversation in the LGBT community about detransition without making non-political tragedy political (from either side of the so called debate). I don't think the world is ready to hear what happened to me because one side will decide I'm transphobic simply for existing and the other side will use my story to hurt trans people. Or maybe I'm just not ready to have my own trauma treated as fodder for political discussion. Don't feel forced to go public before you're ready, friend.