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 suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic detransitioner/desister. The comments show:
- Personal, anecdotal advice (e.g., "Since detransitioning I've just been saying 'yeah, it was just a phase'").
- A consistent, passionate perspective that aligns with the stated experiences of detransitioners, including anger at perceived stigma.
- A plausible personal history (detransitioning, holding a psychology degree) that informs the comments.
The long, detailed comment on biology, while clinical, is presented as being from a "pre-med" background and is used to support a deeply-held personal viewpoint, which is not uncommon for passionate advocates.
About me
I was born female and my discomfort started with puberty, when I hated my developing body. I transitioned to male, thinking it was an escape from my depression and low self-esteem, and I took testosterone for a while. I realized the hormones weren't making me happy and that I couldn't change my fundamental biology. I decided to detransition, and I've found peace using medication to manage the hormonal aspects I always struggled with. I'm now a woman focused on my health, and while the social backlash has been hard, I've reached a place of true self-acceptance.
My detransition story
My whole journey with transition and detransition was complicated and rooted in a lot of confusion about myself. I was born female, and from a young age, I felt a deep discomfort with my body, especially when I hit puberty. I hated developing breasts; it felt wrong and foreign to me. I now believe this was a mix of body dysmorphia and the general awkwardness that comes with puberty, but at the time, I was convinced it was gender dysphoria.
I started identifying as non-binary first, which felt like a less intimidating step. This was heavily influenced by the communities I was in online and the friends I had at the time; it felt like the logical explanation for my feelings. From there, I eventually came to identify as a trans man. I took testosterone for a period of time. I never got top surgery, but I desperately wanted it and was pursuing it. I thought it would finally make me feel comfortable in my own skin.
Looking back, my low self-esteem and depression were major drivers. I had a hard time seeing myself as a woman and felt like being a man was an escape from all the things I disliked about myself and my life. It was a form of escapism. I also struggled with internalized homophobia; the idea of being a gay woman was uncomfortable to me, but being a straight man felt safer and more acceptable in a weird way.
After being on testosterone for a while, I started to realize that the changes weren't making me happy. Instead of solving my problems, I was just trading one set of issues for another. I began to deeply question what I was doing. My education in psychology and pre-med classes made me think more critically about the biological realities of sex and the limitations of medical transition. I realized that no amount of hormones or surgery could change my fundamental biology, and trying to fight that was causing me more distress.
I decided to detransition. Stopping testosterone was scary, but it was the right choice for me. I’ve had to deal with the fact that some of the changes from testosterone are permanent, like my voice, but I’ve made peace with that. Using the Depo-Provera shot has been a life-saver for me; it completely stopped my periods and helped manage the hormonal aspects that I always found so distressing.
I don't regret transitioning because it was a necessary part of my journey to finally understanding myself. It led me to where I am now, which is a place of much greater self-acceptance. I see gender very differently now. I don't really believe in it as an internal identity separate from sex. I think a lot of what we call gender dysphoria can be better explained by other things, like body dysmorphia, trauma, internalized homophobia, or the social discomfort of puberty.
The hardest part has been the social backlash. Just mentioning that I’ve detransitioned has caused me to face more immediate prejudice and hate than anything else in my life. I've been banned from groups and communities for no other reason than my past. It’s shown me that some people are so insecure in their own choices that they see my existence as a threat.
Now, I’m just me. A woman who went down a long, difficult road to finally accept that. My main focus is on being healthy, both mentally and physically, and living my life without labels dictating my choices.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 13 | Started puberty; began to feel intense discomfort and hatred toward my developing breasts. |
| 19 | Began identifying as non-binary, influenced heavily by online communities and friends. |
| 21 | Started identifying as a trans man and began taking testosterone. |
| 23 | Stopped testosterone after realizing it was not solving my underlying issues. Began the process of detransitioning. |
| 24 | Started Depo-Provera shot to manage menstrual cycle and hormonal distress. |
Top Comments by /u/liketreesintheforest:
I'm gonna just come out an say it. Nothing --not identifying as trans, being a woman, being an ethnic minority-- has lead to as much immediate prejudice and really vitriolic hate directed towards me as just mentioning that I've detransitioned. Doesn't matter if I say anything else, that fact alone is enough for a very very large group of people to automatically condemn me as everything from hateful to "genocidal" without anything else about me being taken into account. I've been repeatedly banned from irl social clubs, subreddits, and discord servers that have nothing to do with anything LGBT just because someone figures out or I mention that in my past I identified as a trans man and now no longer do.
At some point it has to be noted that it doesn't matter if you coddle these people to hell and back and say they're ok to make their own choices or anything else they insist you say. Just the act of having transitioned then later detransitioned in your past is enough for these people to fully capital H Hate us. They automatically twist us merely existing as an existential threat to their lives, no matter if we say nothing about anything transgender/medical transition-related for the rest of our lives.
People who OP and I am describing are unwell and unstable. Unfortunately they are also common. We have to stop giving them power and concessions because they're frankly bigots and so deeply insecure in their own choices that they think other people exercising our own autonomy is something to have a meltdown over. We need to fight back against that meaning we lose our opportunities and livelihoods but should consider ourselves lucky when they remove themselves from our social circles.
Speaking as a holder of a post-grad psychology degree, the types of people who can't stand to remain friends with others who make different choices than they would for themselves are not mentally well, do not have stable personalities or moods, and most likely aren't the types to be able to maintain healthy long term relationships of any kind.
I know it feels like the social pressure of everyone around you in a close knit community is huge right now, but you'd be surprised at how easy it is to rebuff people without having to over explain yourself or get upset. Since detransitioning I've just been saying "yeah, it was just a phase" to people I'm not super close with who knew and was curious. Everyone has accepted it without question so far. Just have that phrase or similar in your back pocket and it'll help you feel more assured and less anxious in seeing people again. For the friends you treated poorly as described, just send a heartfelt apology and say you were going through it, possibly adding in bringing them cookies or other appropriate minor gift as a peace offering.
A few things:
Messing too much with trying to alter the DNA strands (chromosomes) of already living fully gown humans as things stand right now could be pretty dangerous. This isn't altering a few lines of genetic code of a egg and sperm that just met in a petri dish. I see this as potentially cancer-causing and dangerous when it comes to forming things like protein as things stand genetically right now.
Sex starts developing in the womb. It is in the womb where eggs or the capacity to create sperm is created and cemented. No one has ever proposed a way for this to be changed after this stage of development has been started and completed. People ignorant of biology will point to obscure fish but we are not fish we are mammals. Gamete production does not change in mammals. There isn't even a theoretical basis for which this is possible.
Despite rare anecdotal images, even bottom surgeries that do exist now have limitations. Those that develop those surgeries are very open about those limitations. For example, surgeries being developed with the info in mind that no phalloplasty ever being able to become erect on it's own without internal mechanisms such as pumps, and certainly not connected to the complex physiological process of sexual arousal.
Pregnancy being viable is a thousand times more complex than just transplanting a uterus and artificially inseminating it. Even the way for which pregnancy is tested involves a blood test that can narrow down when fertilization occured within a very small time frame because the female body produces specific types of hormones at levels that, for example, double, each day after the fertilized egg implants into the uterine wall. Menstruation and pregnancy aren't isolated to the female sex organ (the uterus) and are multi-system full-body cycles/processes. There's a reason why gastrointestinal changes, skin/acne changes, and even psychological health changes occur monthly in time with so many women's menstrual cycles, and pregnant woman can develop temporary depression, psychosis, heart problems, abnormal weight gain, or even diabetes that disappears after the baby is born.
Human are continually developing (including psychologically ie neuroplasticity) but in a forward fashion. There are cases of, either due to natural statistical variance or a disorder, delayed development, but the human body doesn'r develop out of order. For example, an infant wouldn't be able to walk before being able to sit up or stand. Additionally, in utero there is a specific order of what body parts develop when as the initial egg and sperm cell starts to split and multiply, then later become specialized cells and body systems. What this means in this case is that you can't have someone be an already fill fledged adult and then have them grow a uterus, testes, prostate, penis, etc where there previously was none. For genitalia specifically, the cells which in utero had to either become female or male genitalia by the time one is born already developed into a configuration and can't go backwards into the other. Additionally, these cells have already specialized into one or the other and so the other can't spontaneously also occur out of nothing.
Source: pre-med classes
There are dozens of other reasons but I'm going to cap this off here unless anyone requests more information. I'd reccomend screenshotting this comment if you ever want to reference it because it could feasibly get removed.
If you look at the statistics for who is transitioning at a much higher rate (for example as published by the gender clinics in the UK) females are transitioning way more than males. It makes sense that if more females try to transition, then more detransitioners would also be female, just based on the numbers.
Plenty of men can still rock women's clothing into their 50s and beyond. Don't let a weird culture of putting youth on a pedestal let you have bad self-esteem. If you're worried about aging significantly just small things like working out a little, eating healthier, not smoking, not drinking excessively, and wearing sunscreen can make people look decades younger than they are as they age.
There's no guarentee, or really any evidence at all that shows, that estradiol and spironolactone will preserve youth. People age and look less young and cutesy regardless of whether they are natal males, natal females, and regardless of whether or not they transition. You're being fed images of people who transitioned medically using female hormones who are still in their teens, twenties, or very early thirties. A decade or two down the line and none of these people will still look like that, which is true for everyone.
It sounds like your main concern is surrounding aging and not even gender dysphoria-related, really. I strongly suggest looking into ways that doctors reccomend keeping your body healthy and young (looking and feeling) so that you can live a long, healthy, mobile, fit life, and see where that leads you and if it alleviates any anxieties to get at the root of what you're feeling.
Best of luck
Look into the depo provera 4x/year shot. It completely gets rid of that, periods, and also acts as what some consider to be the most effective contraceptive. I take it for PCOS (and use it as my method of birth control as well) and not having to deal with any of the emotional, hormonal, or physical results of a menstrual disorder + menstruation has been a complete life-saver. If you're in the US and worried about funds, I think it's free with most insurances.