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Reddit user /u/monsterinthecloset28's Detransition Story

Transitioned: 20 -> Detransitioned: 27
This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
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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 narrative is highly detailed, internally consistent, and emotionally complex. It reflects a nuanced, personal journey of desisting after a long period of social transition, driven by trauma, autism, and internalized misogyny. The language is natural, self-reflective, and lacks the repetitive, agenda-driven rhetoric often seen in inauthentic accounts. The user acknowledges the complexity of the issue and the validity of others' experiences, which aligns with the passionate but thoughtful perspective of a genuine desister.

About me

I started identifying as trans in college because I was in a terrible place mentally, trying to escape my parents' emotional abuse. I thought transitioning was the solution to my deep discomfort, but it was really a coping mechanism to separate from my family. I almost medically transitioned but thankfully listened to my hesitation. I finally realized my pain came from trauma, autism, and internalized homophobia, not from being the wrong gender. I'm at peace now as a woman and am so grateful I found the real reasons for my suffering.

My detransition story

My whole journey with this started in college, around the time I was 20. I was in a really bad place mentally, and looking back, it’s clear that a lot of my feelings were tied to deep-seated trauma from my parents. They were very emotionally abusive and controlling my entire life, especially my mother. I never felt like I had a self that was my own; my feelings and thoughts were always dictated by what they told me to believe. When I got a little distance from them, I felt completely empty and had no idea who I was.

That feeling of something being very wrong with me led me to adopt a non-binary, and then trans, identity. It gave me a clear explanation for the constant pain and discomfort I felt. I could point to it and say, "This is the problem, and here is the solution: transition." It was a huge relief to have an answer. I remember vividly the first time a friend used they/them pronouns for me. At the time, I saw that as gender euphoria, but now I understand it was more about the feeling of being seen and respected by someone, which was a completely new experience for me after a lifetime of being told my feelings were wrong.

My identity became a way to separate myself from my parents and their abuse. It was easier to frame our problems as "they don't accept me because they're bigots" rather than confronting the full extent of the emotional abuse and control they had over me for two decades. I went no contact with them in 2019, when I was 24, which was absolutely the right decision for my mental health, but I still identified as trans for a few years after that.

I only ever transitioned socially. I changed my pronouns, bought a more "manly" wallet and stopped carrying a purse because it felt too girly, things like that. I came very close to medically transitioning; I was convinced testosterone would finally make me feel correct in my own skin. But I was always hesitant because, deep down, I didn't actually want to do it. I blamed that hesitation on "internalized transphobia" instead of listening to my own instincts.

I started to truly question my trans identity at the end of 2022, when I was 27, and that's when I stopped identifying that way. Letting go of that identity was a part of my healing process, along with being free from my parents' abuse. The constant feeling that something was wrong with me didn't go away because I transitioned; it went away because I finally addressed the root cause: the trauma.

I now see that my discomfort was a combination of many things: the trauma from my parents, being autistic and just not fitting in, being a lesbian and feeling like I wasn't being a woman "right" because of internalized homophobia and misogyny. I didn't know many lesbian couples in real life, and in media, it often felt like lesbians were portrayed as just friends who kiss sometimes, not people with real passion. I think I internalized the idea that a strong sexual desire for women was a male experience.

I don't really think about gender in terms of identity anymore. I'm a woman because I have a female body, and that's brought me a lot of peace. I don't regret my social transition because, in a way, it was a necessary coping mechanism that allowed me to survive a very difficult time and start to separate from my abusers. But I am so grateful I never medically transitioned. I know I would have regretted it deeply. It was a coping mechanism, not something that was true to who I am.

My thoughts on the whole thing are complicated. I believe some people have genuine gender dysphoria and benefit from transitioning, and they deserve support. But I also think the community often overlooks how other factors, like trauma, autism, and internalized homophobia, can influence someone's identity. For me, it was never about gender euphoria; it was about finding a way to explain and manage profound pain.

Age Year Event
20 ~2015 Began identifying as non-binary/trans in college, started social transition.
24 2019 Went no contact with my emotionally abusive parents.
27 Late 2022 Stopped identifying as trans and began to desist.

Top Comments by /u/monsterinthecloset28:

11 comments • Posting since March 9, 2024
Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) explains how the media's desexualized portrayal of lesbians contributed to her feeling that a strong sexual desire for women was a "male experience."
19 pointsMar 7, 2025
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I didn't experience that in a "gay man" way, and it was more about how I felt than my behavior, but I did feel that my desire for women was in a "man" way. It's so complicated and I think different people have different experiences with this, but even after seeing examples of lesbian couples there was still this sense that having a strong sexual desire for women was a male experience. I didn't know that many lesbian couples in my real life, and I feel like in media sometimes lesbians are kinda treated like "best friends who hold hands and kiss sometimes", not two people who passionately WANT each other. Maybe it's a fear that anything too sexual would be criticized as exploitative or male-gazey. This was by no means the only or biggest reason I felt trans, but I think there is something to it.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) discusses buying a "manly" wallet to avoid purses, only to be questioned by a male coworker who pointed out the absurdity of gendered accessories.
14 pointsJul 24, 2024
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There are other ones for sure, but one that comes to mind is buying a more "manly" wallet and not carrying a purse even though I liked them because they were too girly. I still have the "man wallet" (it works just fine and I haven't needed to replace it) and I had it out at work (after I desisted) and my male coworker was like "why do you have a man's wallet?" and said something to the effect about how "girls can do anything" and "a man couldn't have a girly wallet". I felt embarrassed at first because it reminded me of the ridiculous things I did in the name of "dysphoria", but it also really just highlighted how stupid this whole thing is in the first place, IT SHOULDNT MATTER????!! He should mind his own business, if that was the wallet I wanted to buy as a woman then who fucking cares?

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) explains that their "gender euphoria" was actually relief from emotional abuse and a self-esteem boost from being respected, not a validation of a trans identity.
13 pointsMar 9, 2024
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I only socially transitioned so I can't speak to the medical side of it, but I wouldn't describe what I felt as "euphoria" but more of relief and a self-esteem boost. I remember vividly the first time I heard a friend of mine in college use they/them pronouns to refer to me casually in conversation and feeling so good and at the time I saw that as gender euphoria/validation but in hindsight and as I've come to terms with the pretty severe emotional abuse from my parents I suffered as a child and teen, it was more like "my friend used they/them pronouns for me because I asked him to and he cares about how I feel" which was an entirely new experience for me after a whole life of being told that what you felt was wrong/didn't matter. I've seen people say that trans people force others to use their pronouns as a form of manipulation and they get a high off of controlling people's behavior, and I don't know that may be true for some, but I would guess that a lot more have an experience similar to mine. As far as the relief, my trans identity gave me something to point at and say "this is what's wrong with me! I don't have to pretend that I'm not in constant pain and discomfort! I have clear cut goals as to what I can do to feel at peace with myself!" In retrospect that feeling of something being wrong with me was most likely a combo of trauma, autism, being a lesbian and just like general misogyny and the feeling that I wasn't being a woman right. I'm honestly grateful that I had a way to acknowledge that I was in pain as opposed to just trying to hide it, but I also hate it because I came so close to medically transitioning and I would have regretted it. (Obviously that's not a judgment or an insult to detrans people who transitioned medically, that so easily could have been me if things had gone just slightly differently). So to sum up, no I didn't experience "euphoria", but I think it's safe to say that if there weren't positive feelings involved in transitioning many of us wouldn't have done it in the first place. Like most things in life, it's complicated.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) explains how parental abuse led to a trans identity as a coping mechanism, and the complex gratitude for parents who prevented medical transition despite their harm.
12 pointsMar 12, 2024
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This is so tricky for me because I absolutely agree that parents need to take responsibility for the things they did that caused their kids to be vulnerable to this in the first place (like what happened to me) but I also bet there are parents who are truly trying their best and are really trying to help their kids and are worried about their kids falling into this ideology and hurting themselves. And I also think there are parents who aren't concerned about the legitimate dangers of transition but just don't like the idea of their kid being a "freak" or in any way gender non-conforming, which I will never defend. My parents were very emotionally abusive and controlling and they caused a lot of trauma and destroyed my sense of self, which in turn led me to adopting a trans identity became I felt so disconnected from my body and my life, if that makes sense. And there were a lot of reasons why I couldn't confront the full extent of the trauma they caused and the pain of our relationship, so at a certain point I sort of used my trans identity to explain why there was trouble in our relationship in a way that I could understand and explain to other people. Like "they don't accept me because they're bigots" was way easier to understand than "they have been controlling my mind and my feelings for 20 years and I have felt like I couldn't breathe in their presence for my entire life and it's going to take me years to fully heal from their abuse". It was nicer to think that our problems would be solved if they just became more "woke" or whatever. (This is really hard to explain so I hope this makes sense to someone). I ended up going no contact with my parents (definitely the right decision) in 2019 as the big picture of our relationship started to reveal itself, but while I definitely questioned my trans identity around that time, I didn't actually desist until the end of 2022. I think both of those things needed to happen in order for me to start to truly heal. But on the other hand, I think if my parents had been more supportive of my trans identity at the time, there was a good chance I would have started to medically transition, and that would have been a mistake. So there's a part of me that is thankful to them that they didn't let me start taking testosterone, even though as I've said it's not that simple. And like, there was that almost three year period where they weren't in my life that I id'd as trans that I could have started medically transitioning and I didn't, so clearly they weren't the only thing stopping me. Idk, it's so complicated. I'm just glad that I'm free now of both their abuse and my trans identity and I can finally at least try to be whoever it is that I want to be. Sorry this was long and thanks for listening.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) explains why she doesn't personally identify with a gender identity but accepts the term "cisgender" as a practical label for being non-trans.
10 pointsMay 7, 2025
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I guess it’s because I gave up trying to navigate for any source of gender identity at all. I’m a woman because I have female parts, and its brought me a lot of peace not to reach for any identity at all.

I totally relate to that and feel similarly. For me it's like I have female anatomy and I don't have a need/desire to transition because of gender dysphoria, so that makes me a woman, not some arbitrary sense of "womaness" that can't actually be defined by anybody without using stereotypes. However, I do think that there are people who have legitimate gender dysphoria and benefit from transitioning and those people deserve support and respect, and I can understand the need for there to be a word that means "not trans" in certain contexts. I have issues with the trans community and how they often erase biological reality and rely on gender stereotypes. But I do understand how it could be seen as discriminatory/transphobic to be like "there's trans women and there's REAL women" or "there's trans people and there's NORMAL people". If cisgender is a word that can be used to avoid doing that, I'm all for it. Would I personally label myself cisgender in the way that means my "gender identity aligns with my sex"? No, because I don't think about gender in that way. Am I cisgender simply by definition in that I'm not transitioning to live as the opposite sex? Sure, and I'm ok with people calling me that.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) discusses the overlooked pain of long-term desistance, explaining the mental harm of identifying as trans for years without medical transition.
9 pointsMay 23, 2025
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I wanna start by saying that detrans people who went through any kind of medical transition are dealing with so many challenges that I don't have to and their experiences are very different than mine. Having said all that, I do think that often people from all sides of the trans topic (trans, cis, detrans, left, right, center, it doesn't matter) are dismissive of the pain felt by people who identified as trans for a long time without medically transitioning and then went back. I don't know where the exact cut-off is, but understand that I'm not talking about someone who used she/they pronouns for two months in college. I felt uncomfortable in my body and like there was something very wrong with me for years and convinced myself that everything would be ok once I medically transitioned, and then when I was hesitant to do that (because I didn't actually want to) I blamed myself for my own misery and thought I just needed to get over my "internalized transphobia". All this instead of trying to find help for the actual cause of my discomfort and poor mental health. I felt isolated from other people and since I saw transition as a miracle cure, I actually started encouraging myself to further the disconnect between what I saw in the mirror and I who I felt I was on the inside, because on some level I was afraid that if I allowed myself to be ok as a girl, the question of "what's wrong with me?" became less clear. People will make fun of "trans trenders" and assume it's attention seeking when someone identifies as trans for a long time without medical transition (and yeah there's some of that for sure), and on the other end it'll be all "what's wrong with experimenting with your gender identity especially if you didn't do anything physically permanent?" while failing to see the harm done. A lot of us were just in pain and didn't know what to do about it. I think the mental effects of identifying as trans for a long period of time needs to be talked about more, regardless if they medically transitioned or not. Again, people who medically transitioned deal with so many issues that I don't have to deal with, just want to reiterate that, but it has been interesting being on this sub and seeing a lot of detrans people share their timelines of transition/detransition and realizing that quite often their timeliness are shorter than mine, sometime by years. (I identified as trans/non-binary for about 6 years). I guess the long story short is this- as a desisted person I will keep my mouth shut and just be supportive during discussions pertaining to things that uniquely affect detrans people (of which there are many), but detrans and desisted have more in common with each other than not, and desisted people were not just "going through a phase."

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) discusses the complexity of feminine trans men, questioning how to distinguish genuine gender dysphoria from internalized misogyny or mental illness.
8 pointsNov 13, 2024
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It's very complicated for me, because on the one hand I'm like "let people wear what they want it doesn't matter" because I don't think enforcing strict gender roles is helping anyone. I do think that a trans man who has genuine gender dysphoria but still wants to wear feminine clothes should do what he wants. But what is real gender dysphoria and what is mental illness and internalized misogyny and a whole list of other things? Some may say that there is no such thing as real gender dysphoria, and while I don't agree, it is such a hard thing to define. But if I see a female person wearing a push up bra say "I'm a guy!" I'm gonna call bullshit on that, I just am. MAYBE I'm wrong, but I'm probably not. So do I think trans men can be feminine? In theory, yes, but to be honest when I hear someone say that I'm immediately skeptical.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) discusses how her parents' lack of support prevented her medical transition, which she is now glad about, but clarifies it wasn't done out of love and doesn't excuse their other harmful actions.
7 pointsMar 12, 2024
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I get that, my parents know ALL about playing the victim.And it might not be true in every circumstance, but I think you're right that it's not so much that trans spaces co-opt and fuck up healthy children, but that it feeds off already vulnerable and traumatized children (or 18-22 year olds in my case, but I was pretty broken). And I think my parents thought my going no contact had a lot to do with my trans identity, and even though I still thought I was trans at the time, even then I knew that had very very little to do with it. I don't know whether or not it's gotten back to them that I've desisted and I can't be bothered to find out, but I am kind of curious what they would think because their scapegoat for my not wanting a relationship with them is gone. But just to be fair, before I separated completely from them, I literally wouldn't have had the financial resources to transition or the ability to hide my transition from them (even though I was in my 20s) so I realize that's not the case with everyone but in my case their lack of support actually played a big part in whether I medically transitioned or not, which again is very confusing for me because I am glad that I didn't do it but I know it doesn't excuse all the other stuff they did and I don't feel like it was done out of love.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) explains how parental abuse and a lost sense of self contributed to her trans identity as a coping mechanism.
7 pointsJul 24, 2024
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I can't speak for everyone, and I haven't been diagnosed with and don't think I have BPD, but I have a lot of symptoms of PTSD/CPTSD because of very controlling and emotionally abusive parents I had growing up. I didn't have a sense of self that didn't rely on what my mother told me to think, and when I got just a little bit of distance from that I felt completely empty and I had no idea who I was, and that definitely contributed to my trans identity, like I needed something to tell me who I was. Years of trauma made me feel unsafe and uncomfortable in my own body and I was sold the idea that transitioning would finally make me feel "correct" in my own skin, that the constant wrongness I felt within myself would go away. I still struggle majorly with my mental health, but the only thing that made the persistent "something is very very wrong with me" feeling go away was completely cutting contact with my abusers. I wasn't allowed to be a person and being trans gave me away of being a person that was separate from them, and in a way I'm grateful for it, but it was a coping mechanism, not something that was real, if that makes sense.

Reddit user monsterinthecloset28 (desisted female) explains the conditional nature of parental support and the mental freedom found in breaking away, while discussing the oversimplified narratives surrounding trans people and their parents.
4 pointsMar 12, 2024
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Oof that is so relatable, I am so sorry that happened to you. For me it's like you feel ungrateful but you know it's all conditional and it's just not worth it at a certain point. Like even now I am struggling financially but there's no amount of money that is worth the level of mental control my mother specifically had over me. I just feel so much more free now that I don't have to think or feel or behave any specific way to fulfill somebody else's idea of me, whether that's my mother or the trans community or what other people think a woman is supposed to be. And like, as far as trans people who have bad relationships with their parents, I feel like we only hear a black and white narrative from both sides, that it's either "the parents are bigots who hate trans people" or "the parents were just concerned and trying to free them from this ideology", when I would guess that the vast majority are SOMEWHERE in the middle and that there is A LOT of scapegoating going on from all directions.