The "MEDICALLY TRANSITIONED REPLIES ONLY" tag from an outsider talking about a non medical phenomenon rubs me wrong.

I honestly haven't met a single detrans woman who concluded that being a man was harder or less pleasant than being a woman. The time I passed as male was the first time in my life that people defaulted to assuming I knew what I was talking about, didn't constantly question my competence or assume my existence was a performance for men, didn't label neutral personality traits as "being a bitch". Detransition was about accepting my body, being unable to continue to damage my ribs with binders. Wanting to stop constantly reinforcing my dysphoria with the idea that I was "born in the wrong body". Not wanting to permanently be perceived as much younger than I am.

It had absolutely 0 to do with wanting to return to the "privileges" that women have. Being treated like a woman again actually just immediately sucked. What a joke.

You absolutely look like a woman to me in the second pic and I would not guess that you've been on T. I would anticipate continuing to pass as male to straight people and anyone who doesn't spend much time around GNC women though. That might be bit of a sore spot if you're worried T has permanently changed your appearance but imo you're genuinely just back to being butch (and from experience that's how people treat masculine women even with no T involved).

You look great btw.

Transmeds don't reject gender identity ideology at all, in fact they're a lot more rigid about it than the general trans community. The general trans community has more of a vague "explore your gender, identify however you feel comfortable, there are no wrong answers" type approach, the transmed community had me convinced that my severe dysphoria was indicative of having a literal physical difference in my brain that meant I was guaranteed to be miserable and highly likely to kill myself if I did not find a way for "my body to match my brain". To transmeds being trans is a birth defect and a medical condition and there are no alternative ways to cope with dysphoria because HRT and surgeries are simply what the treatment is.

Transmeds are also not remotely open to the idea that someone could've been "truly trans" yet still decide to try to live comfortably with their natural body. If you are really trans, that's conversion therapy and self harm. And if you succeed, then you were an attention seeking trender and you're hurting real trans people by talking about it.

I don't think that everyone who wants to hear from "the other side" should post here because it endangers the subreddit's status as a support group and might make people think they can come here to debate. But there's not really a good third option for communities where you can show up with questions and get a large range of responses without anyone being banned.

Despite what the trans community may have told you, we're not looking to recruit.

You are trans. Detransitioners were trans too at some point. They didn't detransition by convincing themselves they weren't trans, they detransitioned by changing the fact that they were, usually because it wasn't right for them. You sound like you're happy being trans, or would be if it weren't for your parents. That is not something you can (or at least should) talk yourself out of.

Try not to be so preoccupied with whether you can do something that you forget to consider whether you actually want to. If you could talk yourself into detransitioning, would you actually be happier? More fulfilled? More at peace with your body? Do you think that in your situation, you'd honestly look back at being trans as something you were happy to get away from, rather than something you miss?

These aren't rhetorical, I have my assumptions but I can't answer these questions for you. What I can tell you is that many people are here because they (often subconsciously) transitioned out of self hatred, or to escape feeling unloved. Detransitioning for the same reasons is not the way to go.

For what it's worth I think you look like a woman who's never been on T. You don't have a super feminine face but neither do most women. You look normal (and beautiful).

I'm not sure what type of makeup would work for you either tbh, I think you suit the natural look. I have similar eyes to you, deep set and slightly hooded, and they're a pain to do makeup on if you're new at it because most of the guides assume a different type of anatomy. Winging out a little bit of brown eyeshadow with an angled brush might look cute but getting the placement right would take some practice.

You look great as is, truly.

I can definitely understand that and I don't want to invalidate that experience as I haven't been on T myself.

But, from my perspective, OP absolutely looks female in the first pic too. I was never on T but did consistently pass for years and had lots of people telling me I looked male and that they could never even imagine me as a woman. A big part of moving on was moving past the idea that I "wasn't a woman" or "didn't look like a woman" with short hair and in masculine clothes, because society's ideas of "what a woman looks like" are simply wrong and it becomes incredibly easy to recognize femaleness when you spend more time around GNC women.

If this is a first step for OP I'm genuinely happy for her but I do hope it doesn't lead to the trap that some people in this subreddit seem to fall into of yet again chasing a gendered ideal instead of finding comfort in the understanding that what a man/woman can look like is much broader than what society tells you and that they are perfectly fine just as they are.

I am female but also autistic and I've been desisted for years now with fairly minimal dysphoria (had extreme dysphoria prior to and during identifying as trans), I hope my advice is still welcome.

What helped me the most was an approach of body neutrality and a decision to stop fixating on my dysphoria. I think the hard part about gender dysphoria when you're autistic is that we have a natural inclination to fixate on things but unlike in most other situations we are told that this fixation is a natural part of self discovery and that trying to rid yourself of it would be akin to self harm. The thing is that there are a lot of things I would like to change about my life. I would like to stop being autistic, I would've liked to be born taller, perhaps to different parents, perhaps in a different region. But there is no productive end result to fixating on these wishes which helps limit the degree to which I do. It's only for the wish to be born the opposite sex that I was told that there is a solution, and that these feelings mean something and must not be ignored. That's what made my dysphoria spiral out of control (to the point of suicidality because I believed that even after transitioning, my life would not be worth living if I wasn't truly male).

When I decided to approach my body as something entirely neutral (my body is my body and that is all it needs to be), and decided to stop treating the desire to be born male as any more productive than the desire to be 6 feet tall and born in a different country, my dysphoria went way down. I think the trans community is generally aware that fixation makes dysphoria worse, which is why they reassure people on things like height dysphoria by telling them it's not a huge deal, not worth dwelling on, totally still possible to pass and live a fulfilling life without being able to change your height, etc. The issue is that it's seen as transphobic to apply this way of thinking to things you're dysphoric about that can be changed by hormones or surgery, and letting go of that mindset can be hard. I do not see myself as transphobic and I did not cut off the trans people I knew but I did have to distance myself from pretty much all transition related content I was looking at on social media, because it wasn't healthy for me. It was stopping me from embracing body neutrality and was keeping the thought that my body was "fixable" (and therefore, in need of fixing) present in my head.

I am ok now. It has been many years since my body has caused me any suicidal thoughts, I can look down in the shower, I can speak to people without being sickened by the thought of them knowing I'm female. I'm not super thrilled to be a woman or to be in the body I'm in but that was never the goal, neutrality was, and the all-consuming obsession is gone.

I'm not looking to enter a debate, it was just very strange to me to see someone suggest the transmed community to people who have doubts when in my experience all they do is try to help someone understand if they're TruTrans or not, which is a concept I assumed most people on this subreddit no longer agree with. If your experience has been different then I'll agree to disagree.

Yeah I believed in the "wrong body map" too until I realized that there is very very little that's actually hardwired into our brains and babies literally have to play with their own limbs before their brain can learn where everything is positioned. Lots of people still have muscles they don't even know how to use because they never learned how so their brain isn't sure how to connect. I may never know why it felt so distinctly right to see myself with a prosthetic penis but after thinking about it longer it makes 0 logical sense to me that it's because I had an understanding that I had a penis hardwired into me from birth and that connection never died out even though I went my entire life up to that point being unable to touch or see said penis. Transmedicalism doesn't account for neuroplasticity. And since detransitioning I've trained myself into and then back out of expecting myself to have a flat chest, so I'd say our brains are pretty damn malleable.

To me it feels odd to read that some people think transmeds believe in gender identity, because the whole premise of transmed is that it opposes gender identity in favour of biological sex.

Maybe we were in different transmed circles then because the amount of FTM transmeds I've seen claim that they are literally male because their brain is/because they took on that social role probably outnumbered those who saw themselves as female individuals wanting to pass as male.

I'm sure it comforts you to frame detrans people's experiences that way but I'd like you to be aware that it's incredibly rude to come into our spaces to explain to us how you think it works.

No true Scotsman, btw. I wanted to be a boy from a very young age. Can remember being distressed about not having a penis at age ~4. Started thinking of ways to gradually subtly socially transition at around age 6 when I had no idea trans people even existed. Thought I had tumors on my chest at age 8 because the idea that I could grow breast buds was so foreign to me (and proceeded to be even more upset when my mom told me it wasn't cancer). Repeatedly got very close to committing suicide as a teenager because I was so distraught at the idea that I could never be male. Nobody was surprised when I came out. I successfully and happily passed as male, consistently, for multiple years.

I could've been a transmed poster boy with how Very Truly Trans I was. You never, ever would've labeled it as "not real dysphoria" before my detransition. Was my distress at not being male "just following a trend" before I even knew trans people existed? Be real. You want to shove us into a box because it makes you more secure in your own identity.