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 suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor. The user's comments display:
- Personal, detailed narratives about their transition, detransition, and specific physical/emotional experiences.
- Consistent internal logic in their story over time, including evolving perspectives.
- Technical knowledge (e.g., shaving techniques, hormone half-lives, workout routines) that aligns with lived experience.
- Emotional complexity that includes anger, regret, and nuanced advice, which is consistent with the stated passion and pain of many detransitioners.
The account exhibits the hallmarks of a genuine individual sharing their personal detransition experience.
About me
I started identifying as trans in my mid-twenties after a long struggle with my body and an eating disorder. I began taking testosterone and had top surgery, but passing as a man only made me feel more like a fraud and completely isolated. I realized transition was a form of escapism from my deeper problems with depression and self-esteem. I've stopped hormones and am now detransitioning in secret, filled with regret over the permanent changes. I'm trying to rebuild my life by focusing on my health and rediscovering the interests I abandoned.
My detransition story
My journey with transition and detransition is long and complicated. I started identifying as trans in my mid-twenties. For a long time before that, since I was a teenager, I struggled with what I called gender dysphoria. I hated my breasts from the moment they developed and had an eating disorder; I was underweight and my periods were very irregular, only coming a few times a year. I think my poor health really stunted my development and made me feel like a child in an adult's world.
I hit a wall in my mid-twenties. I couldn't imagine any kind of future for myself at all. It was like there was just a grey, foggy wall with nothing beyond it. The only future I could suddenly see for myself was living as a man, completely stealth. That vision felt like a lifeline, so I grabbed onto it and started running. I thought, "life is short, I have to try this, and if it's a mistake I'll just stop." I now know that’s not how it works. You can't just undo it.
I started testosterone. At first, it was great. I started passing as male within about six months, even though I started later than most. But the better I passed, the worse I felt. I started to feel like a fraud, like I wasn't a "real" man. My biological reality felt like it was screaming at me, especially as I developed more male secondary sex characteristics that felt unnatural on me. The hormones also started causing serious problems. After about a year and a half, I got painful cystic acne and started losing my hair. I was on what was considered a low dose, but I believe messing with your hormones like that will always cause problems eventually.
A huge part of my struggle was with my chest. I hated my breasts intensely. When I started binding, that actually made my dysphoria worse because I was constantly aware of the discomfort and the need to hide them. Binding became mandatory and all-consuming. I worked a labor job for two years to save up for top surgery. After the surgery, I ironically started developing bottom dysphoria for the first time, because my chest was now the only thing that matched how I looked, and everything else felt wrong.
Living stealth as a man was incredibly isolating. I became afraid to get close to anyone because I was terrified they would find out my secret. I felt like an intruder in men's spaces, like the restroom. When male friends would share private experiences with me, knowing they'd never do that if they knew the truth, it felt awful. I was also treated like a young boy, called "buddy" even in my late twenties, which was frustrating.
My thoughts on gender really changed during this time. I started to see that a lot of people in the trans community seemed to stay in their born sex's gender role, just with different pronouns. When I passed well enough, I had to meet male social expectations, and that made me question the whole idea of gender from a trans perspective. I realized how much biological sex actually matters in how people see you and interact with you.
I decided to stop testosterone. I’ve been detransitioning in secret because I'm still read as male and I'm just too exhausted to explain myself. It felt like waking up from a dream, or finding out a god I believed in was dead. It was freeing but terrifying because I had built my entire life around the idea that transition was the answer. Now I'm trying to rediscover the passions and hobbies I abandoned.
I do have regrets. I regret the permanent changes, like my deeper voice and the hair loss. I regret the years of my life I lost to this, focused on passing and saving for surgery. I regret the top surgery most of all. If I could go back, I’d tell myself to focus on getting healthy, to explore my interests without the lens of gender, and to try and build a life in the present instead of trying to fix a future I was afraid of. I think a lack of life experience, especially never having a healthy intimate relationship, played a huge part in my decision to transition. I was very influenced by online communities and friends who romanticized transition.
I now believe that for me, transition was a form of escapism from depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety. I benefited from stepping away from affirming therapy and thinking about these issues on my own. My sexuality has also changed; I had identified as asexual before testosterone, but my sex drive changed on T, and now off it, I’m finally interested in dating and the idea of having children, which is something I can't do naturally anymore.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Teen Years | Struggled with body image, hated breast development, developed an eating disorder. |
| Mid-20s | Hit a low point, could not see a future. Only saw a future as a man. |
| 26 | Started testosterone. |
| 27 | Began passing as male. Started saving for top surgery. |
| 28 | Got top surgery. Developed new bottom dysphoria afterwards. |
| 29 | Stopped testosterone. Began detransitioning in secret. |
| 30 | Currently detransitioning, focused on rediscovering old passions and improving health. |
Top Comments by /u/icarus_syndrome:
Honestly I'd say your questioning the procedure already is enough. My 2 cents on it are that if you're getting top surgery to escape the pain of binding more than any chest dysphoria maybe reconsider. That's my biggest red flag just based on personal experience, the binder hurt so much it was actually worse than any negative feelings I harbored for my chest and I figured it was better to surgically intervene as I thought I would be trans for the rest of my life and I'd rather not spend that life binding...
If you have any feelings of quitting testosterone in the future, have even the slightest notion of wanting children, have no issues with partners touching them, and are generally comfortable with them now, perhaps you don't need to remove this part of your body...
Here's my take on it. First off, as you've heard often: it's a crapshoot. You can't control when side effects finally kick in and to what degree.
Second, it's a synthetic hormone, and you are going to be living with test levels that body is naturally unequipped to handle. This is also true for men who run test for bodybuilding. Sure, they're "built for test", but they are still running more than the whole "naturally equipped to handle" and they experience a plethora of shitty side effects as well. So for the "should I inject testosterone and will I be healthy doing it?" my answer is no to everyone except guys whose bodies cannot produce any to the point where they cannot function.
The side effects will hit eventually, for both sexes running anything beyond homeostasis levels:
>external from skin issues to hair loss
>emotional
>reproductive health
>internal like heart health, lipids, etc
I was on what was considered a low dose of test, and for the first year and a half it was all great until I was getting painful cystic acne out of no where. Then I noticed I lost hair and got norwoods. Some people develop this earlier than I did or later. I personally believe its always going to go downhill at some point messing with steroids. It starts out great, and then problems start stacking up.
The fact that there is no undoing a lot of this is something I think a lot don't weigh, considering transitioning is already a do-or-die situation where it's just impossible to really judge these consequences when anything could be better than what youre going through now in such a desperate state of mind.
Same boat, detrans-ing in secret right now. I've been stealth, so it's mere survival, too exhausted to deal with expressing it when I know I'm read as male. Trying to focus on myself internally and trying to rediscover passions I abandoned to put effort into transition in this period. By the time I leave my current job I'll probably be read as female again, and I'm not going to say shit because I'm just too worn out to care what they think. Going back to my super feminine birthname should hopefully tie up everything after that.
Lifting is not part of the "trans contagion". Fitness has become very popular these days, especially with all the fitness celebs on social media promoting their idealized bodies and selling supplements. "Trans contagion" is more an issue of internalizing sexist comments when you're doing things outside of your gender narrative (such as being in the weightroom). Then when expressing your "dysphoria" to the affirmative trans community online, they will do nothing to persuade these emotions stem from anything else. Because your transness is "valid."
Yep, hey. Though I went from bodybuilding to being more focused on training for strength. Lifting is a very fulfilling hobby.
Anyone who shames you for wanting to work out is projecting their own insecurities and naive bias tbh. Idk what kind of gym you go to, but there are tons of muscular women who are regulars in mine, and people respect them. Moving outside of your gendered construct does not mean you are the wrong sex. Lift and take pride in your hard work and gainz.
Being stealth was isolating, even if marginally healthier than being involved in the trans community in my opinion. You realize just how much biological sex actually matters, from how people perceive your upbringing to how they expect your body to behave. This led me to feeling like an intruder in the restroom, and with male friends sharing their private experiences with me (knowing they never would have if they knew the truth.)
To answer the OP's question, I was on tumblr, but the trans part of it had a tendency to make me cringe so hard it always resulted in resisting the temptation to transition heheh, because yeah! Couldn't relate at all. It was a combination of youtube binging and a twitter full of friends who romanticized the whole thing while being NEET that finally got me. I shoulda stayed on tumblr!
only way you can know for sure is getting bloodwork... If you're worried, monitor your hormones with bloodwork. Otherwise observe your menstrual cycle and recall your "normal" from pre-T. Speaking very generally it can be a few months for the synthetic test and it's half life to clear out of your system. A year sounds like enough time, but even with healthy E levels it will still be a year or two to see expected with changes like bodyfat redistribution happening to it's full extent.
The length you're on can increase permanence of certain effects, like hairloss, but it's also dependable on your genetics imo. Some people get a bit or entire regrowth back and others don't. Your voice will always be low but it can potentially lighten up into more of a boyish/tenor range with time. Otherwise you have to train it.
hope that helped.
it was bad man. Pretty much the moment they appeared on my chest I even considered awful things like "if they got cancer they could be removed," and when I had an eating disorder they were the "fat" I wanted gone. Of all the self destruction I harbored toward my body, my chest was the worst. And I was only an A cup. I worked labor for 2 years to pay for surgery. It is not only a huge investment of money, but time.
I was also very young. As I became healthier and older it wasn't my breasts that I hated so much anymore but the fact that I had to bind them and the binder. Again, at that point I felt I'd be trans til death. It seemed the most logical choice.
You must examine why you hate them so much. Don't just say "dysphoria" and call it a day. I guarantee you will find other answers. When you find these answers you will find, it is possible to live with an accept these parts of you. Again, you have doubts already is a big red flag to me, and I can remember lying in so much pain post OP thinking I'd never reccomend it to anybody. So I ain't gonna reccomend it to you. GL kid
This is all just based on observations of following steroid forums, so heh, I AM NOT A DOCTOR, but iirc part of mood/MI issues in men getting off the juice is from their estrogen crashing or getting too high + their body isn't adjusted to producing it's own hormones since theyre administering so much exxxtra, it might have trouble kicking it back. Regular steroid users go on "cruise" cycles for this reason. A quick search about "testosterone withdrawal" is saying more or less all this for men, it shocks the system. Feeling like shit ensues.
https://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/11/27/how-long-does-testosterone-stay-in-your-system/this article cites sources and even gives half life for different types of exogenous testosterone, so perhaps you can get an estimate of how long it's lingering in your body.
In females, it's now a matter of the estrogen taking back over (for anyone who didnt get hysto). Hormonal imbalance or fluctuations can cause all sorts of mood issues for everyone. I mean shit, look at PMS. It's unfortunately difficult to find much resources on quitting test as FTM, and most stuff I've found just lists re-feminization months after the fact, and almost always mention mood swings of varying degrees. I don't know your dose, but if your doctor seems to be on board with going cold turkey I assume that must be fine vs. tapering off.
According to the link above, test cyp is about out of my system by now, and yes, I did get more depressed and fatigued at an even low weekly dose, and still am spending a lot of time feeling exhausted in bed outside of work. I think the most dangerous part is your body unable to produce any hormones to go back to function without exogenous ones, and if you still got your reproductive system, that shouldn't be an issue. Anything that worries you report to a doctor, find some kind of support through therapy or family to help alongside potential depression is all I can think.
body ache could come from atrophy, i recommend to keep some kind of active routine to lessen these symptoms and do something for your mental health at the same time once you're over the cold. Mental health can play an effect on the immune system:
https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-does-mood-affect-immunity
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128113516/the-immune-system-and-mental-health the abstracts on all these are interesting reads
best of luck to you
edit: another thing I just recalled is when doctors have FTM stop T prior to surgery. I was ordered off a total of two months for top surgery. Even before knowing my dose, the information packets I received mentioned a pause on HRT for surgery (to decrease risk of bloodclots, a different doc told me) If doctors are making you stop before cutting you open, it's probably safe to stop if you're not going under the knife.
Nuts, I was underweight too, no sex drive, bras were pretty optional with a small a cup, period every 6 months- this should be the most telling part tbh. 24 years old and my cycle may as well had made me a child. Period would just spring on me 2-3x a year. I think severe eating disorders can really put you "behind" in that sense. I actually look younger than I did when underweight bc I'm in such better health, even after being on testosterone so long.
also finally interested in dating and making babies LMAO
OTL wish I could compare before and after boobs but i got 'em peri'd