This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or inauthentic. The user's language is consistent, complex, and emotionally charged in a way that aligns with a passionate desister's perspective. The comments reflect personal experience, nuanced (though strong) opinions, and a clear, sustained ideological stance over time.
About me
I started my journey hating the changes to my female body during puberty and found community online that told me this meant I wasn't a woman. I pursued a non-binary then trans male identity, taking testosterone and having top surgery, chasing a feeling that never lasted. The online spaces felt cultish and dragged my mental health down further until I left and found a therapist who helped me find the root causes. I realized my struggle wasn't about gender but a rejection of self, fueled by trauma and an inability to accept myself. I now live with permanent physical changes but have found a deeper self-understanding, regretting the path I took but not the person it forced me to become.
My detransition story
My whole journey started with a deep discomfort during puberty. I hated the changes happening to my body, especially the development of my breasts. I felt like they didn't belong on me and that they made me a target for unwanted attention. I was also struggling with depression, anxiety, and very low self-esteem. I didn't feel like I measured up to what a woman was supposed to be.
I found a lot of community online that told me these feelings meant I wasn't really a woman. I was influenced heavily by what I read and by friends in these spaces. I started identifying as non-binary, which felt like a way to escape the pressures and expectations that came with being a woman. Looking back, I see that a lot of this was internalized misogyny; I thought that to be a strong person, I couldn't be a woman. I thought non-binary was a way out.
This escalated. The non-binary label didn't feel like enough to solve the deep discomfort, which I now believe was a combination of body dysmorphia and an inability to cope with the reality of my female body. I started to believe I was a trans man and began pursuing medical transition. I took testosterone for a period of time and I eventually got top surgery to remove my breasts.
For a while, I thought this was the solution. But the feeling of things being "right" never lasted. It was like chasing a high. I’d get one procedure or make one change, think it would finally fix me, and then the unease would return, and I’d feel the need to change something else. It was a constant, exhausting push for something that always felt just out of reach.
Being in those online communities felt cultish. There was immense pressure to think a certain way, to use specific language, and to never question the path of medical transition. I noticed a lot of hostility towards anyone who seemed comfortable with themselves. It felt like a group of deeply depressed people reassuring each other that more medical intervention was the only answer, and it started to drag my own mental health down even further.
My turning point was stepping away from those spaces and starting therapy with a professional who wasn't just there to affirm my identity. This non-affirming therapy was actually what helped me the most. My therapist encouraged me to "take it back further" and look for the root causes of my distress. I began to understand that my desire to transition was a form of escapism. I was running from trauma, from the discomfort of puberty, and from a deep-seated self-loathing. I was trying to use medical science to fulfill a physical impossibility because I couldn't accept myself as I was.
I realized that at its core, my struggle wasn't about gender. It was about a rejection of self, a kind of narcissism where I was so focused on how I was perceived and the image I projected that I lost all connection to who I actually was. I came to see that "non-binary" and transgender identities often just reinforce the very gender stereotypes they claim to break. It’s gender essentialism in a new package. The truly revolutionary act would have been to embrace being a gender-nonconforming woman and expand what it means to be one.
I have serious regrets about my transition. The top surgery is permanent, and I have to live with that every day. I am now infertile because of the hormones I took, and that is a profound loss that I will always grieve. I regret that I was so influenced by online spaces and that I didn't get the right kind of psychological help sooner.
My thoughts on gender now are that it is a social concept, but sex is a biological reality. I believe we need to help people, especially young people, become comfortable in their own bodies rather than encouraging them to change their bodies to fit a feeling. I think a lot of this is driven by normal human feelings—wanting things you can't have, sexual desires, and the pain of not fitting in—that get pathologized into a medical condition.
I don't regret the journey entirely because it led me to a place of much deeper self-understanding, but I deeply regret the permanent changes I made to my body in pursuit of an impossible ideal.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 13 | Started puberty. Felt intense discomfort and hated my developing breasts. |
| 16 | Struggling with depression and low self-esteem. Found and was influenced by online trans communities. |
| 17 | Began identifying as non-binary to escape the pressures of womanhood. |
| 19 | Started identifying as a trans man and began taking testosterone. |
| 22 | Underwent top surgery (double mastectomy). |
| 24 | Began to question my transition, left online trans communities, and started non-affirming therapy. |
| 25 | Stopped taking testosterone and fully desisted. Understood my journey as a form of escapism from self-loathing. |
Top Comments by /u/kitwid:
Now ask yourself why you're so afraid of having these totally normal thoughts, so afraid of being labeled a "TERF" for what are totally ordinary reactions to perverse, intrusive male behaviors. It's almost as if, without the community mandate not to notice, a lot of this stuff just seems like run of the mill hetero masturbatory habits, rather than the impossible to understand radical queer identity they claim it is.
What's strange I guess to me is just how much political thrust AGP seems to have. Andrea Long Chu got an article in New York magazine arguing for child sex changes and is an open and out autogynephile and people somehow take him seriously?
It's not very complicated, it's not that deep, ideologically speaking, to figure out what AGP is and its interests, but whole institutions are beholden to it AND cannot point it out for what it is. I guess our economy really does more or less revolve around catering to straight men's libidos since we ban anything that seeks to limit them.
Absolutely, because at the core of it is the requirement to deny basic reality. You have to maintain a cult mindset to get people to think that way.
It's astonishing just how many detrans people talk about how cultish it is, how everything feeds back into it, how much work is done to coerce language and thought, how much pressure they felt to act certain ways, not speak up if they were uncomfortable etc. and people still have the audacity to be like "It's not a social contagion! Children are in charge of their own decisions!" It's insane.
They retweeted a specific comic of theirs that basically describes narcissism to a T - they talk about not feeling like they have an identity, imitating bits of ones they come across, and fearing that people will see through the facade to the "real you" and hate it - only to comment with "whoever diagnosed this as gender dysphoria was right". I was like come on bro please talk to a real psychiatrist and not the internet hugbox
It just keeps advancing because nothing works. They think one thing will be enough to finally feel right, but then they get that thing and it still isn’t quite right.
So they push a little more, ask for a little more leeway around the meanings of things so they can “technically” be what they want to be, but then that obviously doesn’t work because a technicality is not the same as the real thing and it’s a desperate act of insanity to pretend otherwise. But they don’t learn and just keep pushing.
Once I desisted I realized that wanting something I couldn't have wasn't really that unique. Lots of people want all the time, for all sorts of things they can never really have. Some people want to be taller, some want to be famous, some want fast cars and big dicks and a different upbringing and a completely different life. Growing up is making a space for yourself in the world via what you can actually do. Chasing dead ends is for people too afraid to grow up.
I don't know that I was ever so far committed to transition that I would be able to confront it if I did have AGP by that point. I can't speak to your experience but you're probably in the wrong sub to hear anything other than this: if you're hetero male, it's probably AGP. If you're a gay male, it's HSTS.
I feel like being attracted to women as a hetero man while also wanting to be a woman is like having your cake and eating it too. You want to both obtain an object of desire (a sexual partner) while simultaneously embodying that object of desire. Which I feel like is a very human and understandable behavior, to try and capture something natural and make it obtainable, possess-able, but also is sort of emblematic of man's hubris--things are beautiful because they are ephemeral/fleeting/just out of grasp. Making that thing terrestrial by trying to make yourself into it is a kind of egocentricism that puts you at odds with the natural world.
A community where the worst thing you could ever be is a happy, well-adjusted person who likes themselves, eats right and exercises, and the best thing you can be is a self-mutilating suicidal narcissist.
It's almost too on the nose. It seems like parody.
It definitely is. Unfortunately the superego is strong, and people these days can be manipulated to act against their own instincts and interests, near permanently. Seems like this person's body is subconsciously screaming at them to stop, but there's unfortunately always the chance of them creatively interpreting this as a sign to try even harder.