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 a bad-faith actor.
The user's perspective is consistent and nuanced. They identify as a desister (someone who stopped before medical transition) and a gay man, offering detailed, personal experiences with obsessive gender questioning. Their advice is focused on mental well-being and skepticism toward ideological extremes, which aligns with the passionate but critical views found in the detrans/desister community. The tone and content reflect a genuine individual processing a complex personal history.
About me
When I was 16, I became completely obsessed with the idea I was transgender, and it felt like my thoughts were taken over overnight. I now see it was a mental health issue, a way to escape my anxiety and the pressure I felt as a feminine gay boy. I was incredibly lucky to realize this before I did anything medical to my body. Today, I am at peace as a flamboyant, happy gay man, free from that constant questioning. I don't regret exploring my feelings, but I am overwhelmingly grateful I never physically transitioned.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender started very suddenly. I was a teenager, and one night it was like a light switch flipped in my head. I went from not thinking about it at all to thinking about it constantly, every single day. I became completely obsessed with the idea that I might be transgender.
I didn't have a deep-seated feeling that I was a woman, but I couldn't stop the thoughts. I’d “test” myself by trying to imagine dressing as a woman to see if it felt right. I’d even convince myself that I must have had secret transgender feelings my whole life that I was in denial about. The obsession felt so real that I even started to experience what I thought was dysphoria; I remember having sensations like phantom breasts. I came out to friends and family a few times as transgender because I thought my problem was that I just couldn't accept myself.
Looking back, I see now that this was a mental health issue. It was like a form of obsessive thinking, maybe similar to OCD, though I was never diagnosed. I was incredibly lucky that I didn't actually start to transition medically. I desisted, which means I stopped before I took any hormones or had any surgeries. Sometimes, even now, I’ll cry tears of relief before bed, just thinking about how I made it out of that dark place without making permanent changes to my body.
I think my fixation on being transgender was a way to escape from other problems. I had a lot of anxiety and low self-esteem, and I was deeply uncomfortable with the expectations placed on me as a male. I was a feminine, gay boy, and I think I internalized a lot of homophobia, feeling like I couldn't just be a gay man. The idea of becoming a woman felt like a solution, a way to fix everything that felt wrong. I was also very influenced by what I saw online; it felt like a cult-like way of thinking that trapped me in a maze of ideology.
My thoughts on gender have really changed. I don't believe there's a fundamental, deep-down truth about who you are that you need to search for. You just are who you are. For me, that’s a flamboyant, happy gay man. I’ve learned to appreciate the good parts of masculinity without having to relate to the tough, aggressive stereotypes. I found peace by stepping away from the constant introspection about my identity.
I don't regret exploring these feelings because it led me to a better understanding of myself, but I absolutely do not regret that I never physically transitioned. I am so grateful I didn't. I believe transition is an extreme medical treatment for a specific problem, and it shouldn't be seen as an identity to be endlessly questioned. If it doesn't make you feel better, you should stop.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
Age | Event |
---|---|
16 | Experienced a rapid-onset, obsessive fixation on possibly being transgender. |
16 | "Came out" as transgender to friends and family on multiple occasions due to obsessive thoughts. |
17 | Realized the obsession was a mental health issue and desisted without any medical intervention. |
18 | Began to find peace and appreciation for being a gay man, separate from stereotypes. |
Top Comments by /u/malebranche1638:
If there's one thing you should know, it's that gender non-conforming behaviour in childhood is more likely to suggest homosexuality than transgenderism. That's particularly true of boys. Please consider the possibility that your kid will grow up to be a homosexual, I know I had many of these traits like your son and grew up to be a happy gay man
You can retake your manhood. Being a man is about more than literally having testicles, especially since science can now compensate for the testosterone your body is losing if that's what you want.
Giving up on life, making yourself a burden to society through alcoholism, and wallowing in regret is the only thing that can stop you from being a 'real man' if you want it. Rebuilding yourself after a traumatic experience will be more a testament to that than anything else, and you have nature on your side
One day people will see the horrible mistake that has been made by those who refuse to see any variety in the trans experience, but I don't think it will be soon. Until then I will say a prayer for every child or adult who is a victim of this cult-like way of thinking
There's something weird going on with straight women and male homosexuality these days. So many FTM detransitioners report being obsessed with mlm relationships, for instance they are addicted to bara hentai.
As a male homosexual it is quite strange to observe, this vision of gay relationships is not accurate at all. Gay men are generally the opposite of the 'soft' teenage heartthrob characters they seem to imagine.
It has given me a new appreciation for the argument that trans women have a distorted vision of femininity. To me it seems basically accurate and exaggerated, but now I see that maybe it is not accurate at all
IMO you're thinking way too much about the ideology of it. All this talk about 'Transmed', ''transphobic', 'radfem', 'queer', and whatever else is just trapping you in a maze. In fact you're probably thinking about everything too much altogether
There's no fundamental truth of who you are deep down that you need to be searching for, you just are who you are. Like people have observed here before, r/detrans risks becoming an ideological community that just replaces the trans community for desisters. But you won't benefit jumping from one cult to another
This was exactly my experience.
I haven't been diagnosed with OCD, so I can't say if I literally had TOCD. Maybe that's just a good way to describe my symptoms. In any case, it looked like:
- Rapid Onset - literally it happened in one night, like a light switch being turned on
- Thinking about it constantly - sometimes night would come around and I hadn't thought about anything other than gender all day
- 'Testing' myself - I would try to catch myself off guard by thinking momentarily about dressing as a woman and then trying to assess whether I enjoyed it or not
- I didn't feel sure if I was trans or not - I just thought that 'the only people who think they might be transgender are people who are transgender', I really didn't think that I wanted to be a woman deep down but I couldn't stop obsessing over it anyway
- I would convince myself I'd had thoughts and feelings about transition that I didn't, and would convince myself that I was in denial about it
- I DID experience 'dysphoria' - in retrospect it was clearly induced by my mental condition, but I for real sometimes felt phantom boobs and stuff like that
- I tried 'coming out' several times, by telling friends and family that I was transgender, because I thought that my problem was accepting myself and I had this obsessive belief I was trans despite the evidence
I'm completely fine now. I only come here because the topic interests me, I didn't transition so I'm not 'detrans' in that sense.
My advice would be - transition is an extreme medical intervention to solve a particular problem. If you're spending a lot of time thinking about your identity and introspecting... that's a red flag. It is possible to just be confused, and not every feeling about gender is evidence you are trans
Men who are able to engage in "normal" sex and penetrate another human being for their own sexual gratification, without so much as a single thought about the violence and reification of patriarchal society it represents, how are they the healthy ones compared to me and my AGP trans friends?
You're really letting your political fixations get the best of you here. Like it or not, you can't reason yourself into being healthy and normal by arguing that what we consider healthy and normal is actually pathological. I'm sorry I don't mean to be dismissive or rude, but unfortunately this kind of reasoning is just going to be a barrier to you feeling better about yourself and finding some semblance of peace.
You could probably help yourself out a bit by trying to take the good parts of masculinity seriously. I get the sense that you aren't ready for that, but I can tell you from experience that just because you grew up being a sissy it doesn't mean you can't come to have an appreciation for being a man and what that means. I couldn't have imagined it at one point, and in many respects I'm still divorced from masculinity as a whole, but just because you don't relate to beer swilling domestic violence redneck manhood doesn't mean you can't find some things to appreciate and even love in your birth sex. I'm still a flamboyant faggoty gay man and I'm very happy that way but I can now see merit in the 'man' part of that as well and I enjoy it, I think it's possible for you too
Unfortunately nobody on r/detrans can decide what's right for you based on a list of symptoms. It is probably better to see transitioning as a kind of treatment and less of an identity - ask yourself, is transitioning making you feel better? If the answer is no then you should stop, if it's yes then you should continue
He also says that he prefers the term "retransitioner" to "detransitioner" because he doesn't want to associate with detransitioners lol. I really admire David as a person and a performer so it sucks to say this but I don't think he's that much of an ally to us here. With that said, Drag Race has a ton of performers who detransitioned. Trinity the Tuck as well I believe
Sometimes I cry tears of joy before bed because I made it out of transition alive, and without surgery.
I desisted at like the earliest possible point, and sometimes I have this too lol. Sometimes I just cry thinking about how I'm happy now and I really thought that was impossible back then