This story is from the comments by /u/neitherdreams that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the extensive comment history provided, this user account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic actor.
The comments display a high degree of personal, nuanced, and emotionally consistent storytelling. The user shares specific, multi-faceted experiences with trauma, abuse, neurodivergence (ADHD, OCD), desisting, and the process of healing over many months. The writing style is complex, introspective, and contains natural digressions and self-corrections that are difficult to fabricate consistently.
While the user is passionate and holds strong, critical opinions about transgender ideology and healthcare, this is consistent with the stated warning that detransitioners and desisters can be "very passionate and pissed off." Their perspective aligns with someone who has personally navigated gender dysphoria, found community in a detransition space, and is critical of the environment that initially influenced them.
About me
I grew up in a strict home where being a girl felt like a punishment, which made me want to disappear. I tried to escape by creating a genderless persona online and cutting my hair, but it was really about safety, not identity. I never medically transitioned, and I'm grateful for that now because it gave me time to heal. Through therapy and moving out, I slowly realized my discomfort came from trauma, not from being female. I'm now learning to accept myself as a woman, and I'm focused on the harm caused by pushing medical solutions on vulnerable young people.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was very young, shaped by a difficult home life. I was raised in a strict, sexist environment where being a girl came with a lot of negative messages. I was constantly told I was either too smart for a girl or too weak and stupid because I was a girl. I was made to feel that my body and my mouth would inevitably lead me into danger. This created a deep sense of fear and self-hatred towards being female. My main abusers were women, which made it even harder to feel any connection to my own sex. I felt like I didn't belong with girls, but I didn't feel like a boy either. I just wanted to be invisible, to erase myself.
As a teenager, I became deeply depressed and developed an eating disorder. I struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. I felt completely disconnected from my body and didn't remember much of my puberty because I was in a kind of haze. I started presenting as genderless online. I created an aggressive, confident persona because it felt safer than being me. I buzzed my hair off and dressed to hide my figure. This wasn't about wanting to be a man; it was a desperate attempt to escape being a girl. I was deeply involved in online communities, but I never fit in with non-binary circles because they often insisted there were no differences between males and females, and my pain came from being acutely aware that there were many, many differences.
I never medically transitioned. Growing up outside the USA, hormones and surgery weren't really an option for me back then, and honestly, that's probably what kept me safe. I was terrified of men and had a lot of anxiety just leaving the house. I also have diagnosed OCD and ADHD, and I strongly suspect I'm autistic, though I’ve never been able to get a formal diagnosis. These conditions made it hard to read social cues and connect with peers, which fed into my feeling of being an outsider.
My turning point came gradually. I had to do a lot of difficult work, mostly on my own, to separate my own feelings from what I’d been taught to believe. I started asking myself hard questions: did I like certain clothes because I genuinely enjoyed them, or because they made me feel safe and invisible? I realized that a lot of my identity was built on anxiety and a need to hide. Moving out of my parents' house and living on my own was a huge step. I had to go through a lot of exposure therapy to feel safe in the world. Over time, I began to understand that my sex wasn't a cage. Being a woman doesn't mean you have to fit a specific mold. There's a huge variety of ways to be a woman.
I desisted—meaning I stopped identifying as non-binary—because I couldn't keep lying to myself. The ideology I had encountered was full of magical thinking and contradictions, and it was making me more suicidal. I felt like an apostate for having "bad thoughts," like acknowledging the reality of biological sex. Leaving the toxic online communities was essential for my healing. The process of feeling comfortable as a woman has been very slow. I still have bad days with body dysmorphia, where I avoid mirrors and have a hard time accepting compliments. But I finally feel like I'm not a mistake.
I don't believe you can change your sex. I think gender dysphoria is real and incredibly distressing, but it often has roots in other issues like trauma, autism, OCD, internalized homophobia, or sexism. I fundamentally disagree with the way transition is often presented as a simple, life-saving solution without a honest discussion of the risks and the fact that it doesn't change your biological reality. I've seen the harm this can cause, especially to young, impressionable people who are often neurodivergent and looking for a place to belong.
I have regrets about the years I lost to this struggle, the pain I put myself through trying to escape myself. But I don't regret that I went through it, because it led me to where I am now. I'm still learning to be comfortable in my own skin, but for the first time, I feel like I'm moving forward. My main issue now is with the political movement that surrounds this topic, which I feel erodes women's rights, medical honesty, and safety. It’s repackaged homophobia and sexism, and it preys on vulnerable people. I just want people to be able to live their lives honestly, without feeling pressured to change their bodies in drastic, irreversible ways, especially when they are children.
My Timeline
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Childhood | Grew up in a strict, sexist home environment. Developed a deep discomfort with being female. |
| Early Teens | Severe depression, eating disorder, and self-harm. Felt disconnected from my body during puberty. |
| Mid-Teens (approx. 14-15) | Created an online identity as "genderless." Presented as neutral/agender to escape being a girl. Buzzed hair, wore hiding clothes. |
| Late Teens | Began the slow process of questioning the ideology. Realized my discomfort was rooted in trauma and a desire for safety, not an innate identity. |
| Early 20s | Moved out on my own. Underwent exposure therapy for anxiety. Started to decouple my identity from my upbringing. Officially desisted. |
| Present (Adult) | Continually working on self-acceptance as a woman. Managing OCD, ADHD, and body dysmorphia. Advocating for honesty in healthcare and the protection of women's spaces. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/neitherdreams:
bro i don't even fucking date and i don't even know who i'm interested in and this shit makes me SO blisteringly mad it's insane LOL
Blaire White really did have it right when she said transwomen who are attracted to men (like genuinely. entirely. that's part of their sexuality outside of a feminization fantasy or a paraphilia/fetish) and tw who are attracted to women are like night and day, it's fucking wild.
warning: incoming long rant.
the amount of uncomfortable experiences i've had online when guys like this realize i'm a woman and immediately think they have to compete to "outfem" me or wtfever could fill a book.
one conversation was literally just about food and i mentioned my lunch, and immediately someone like this piped up and went "i'm a growing girl, i need to eat so much, ahhhn" in a very unconvincing, this-is-what-the-women-in-the-porn-i-watch-sound-like voice, and the awkward silence was so palpable afterward because no one knew what to say. and i don't blame any of the guys for not ripping the piss out of him because standing up to this bs can ruin so much for you, but it's so goddamn tiring!!! the guy continued to make super sexualized remarks like that for the next hour and half we were grouped together - i just ignored him.
the game in question has a "woman of x" tag to help ladies find each other in queue. guess who exclusively uses the tag because no actual woman in her right fucking mind would put a target on her back like that online.
i once watched a 6'2" tw scream in the face of a 5'smth" transman who dared to suggest that there are experiences that come exclusively with being born female and that women aren't obligated to date anyone they're not attracted to, and i remember that moment just making the last pieces of goodwill i had for the movement at large just wither and die. the different pronouns don't change the dynamic.
if you act like a male sexist, take up space like one, shriek like one, resort to violence like one, bring your entitled bullshit energy to spaces where it's not wanted and think you're gonna threaten your fucking way in, i'm no longer doing you the courtesy of pretending.
i am done.
ppl underestimate how much language softens our perceptions of certain things. and assholes like gallagher intuitively know how to tune and tweak their verbiage so they can sound perfectly harmless and cool to explore.
this isn't a new tactic. priests and youth leaders and politicians have been doing it for ages. and as long as it works, they're gonna keep doing it.
it's disgusting. and it makes me sad so many apparently can't - or won't - see through it.
i honestly believe the end goal here is just to have everyone wandering around in an incoherent haze of word salad so the loudest people with the most social clout can manipulate, date, prey, and bully whoever they fucking want.
words have meanings, and they always will. words need to have meaning.
this is the same attitude that gets you sneered at if you don't want to be called a uterus-haver, chestfeeder, bleeder, non-man, or literally any other weird dehumanizing label other than "woman," which has been fine and worked for everyone for the last billion years.
"this doesn't happen."
"actually it does."
"ummm, if it happened, then it was probably for a good reason."
"no, it was an entirely negative experience for me."
"...you just need to take responsibility for your choices!!"
"are you saying that kids can and should be able to consent to comparable procedures that need guardian approval and should be freely allowed to do things like smoke, drive, get a tattoo, adopt a kid, vote, and sign up to die in war?"
"I SAID I'M SORRY IT DIDN'T WORK OUT FOR YOU!!!"
it's like talking to a fucking bot and breaking their communication protocols. they have no actual real reply to your statement, so they just grasp for the next best thing and repeat it ad nauseam.
never mind that almost all of these kinds of interactions remind me deeply of the narcissist's prayer, which i will leave below for anyone interested.
That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.<
paraphilias and addictions are two sides of the same coin. they're very common expressions of instability and you'll find them EVERYWHERE in the community, especially in spaces where every single highly personalized and specified kink, fetish, humiliation, condition, and degradation is not only validated, it's encouraged and packaged into a distilled identity you can build your entire life around.
we're normalizing, accepting, and are either indifferent to or dismissive of heavy porn use, and now we're watching the dividends. it functions like alcohol and drugs, and actively makes the watcher detach from the subjects of the "film." it dehumanizes women and men, it fucks up your ability to get aroused normally or without insane/hurtful amounts of stimulation (the threshold of which escalates over time, just like other addictions), it involves trafficking, rape, violence... i don't know, man. it seems like way more trouble and moral decay than it's worth.
people don't talk about how huge of a part it plays in transition because they want to ignore it. with mtfs it's basically an open secret at this point, everything is so overtly sexualized, though it's an issue in the ftm spaces as well (i've met enablers and users in both).
nah, look her up. she's not ignorant, she's malignant. she's well known in the trans community. actually kind of surprises me that people here don't recognize her name. she operates on minors pretty routinely and lies out of her ass on her tiktoks. she is literally absolutely everything wrong about modern medicine.
it's not going to spread anywhere as long as objective fact about anything trans-related is considered right-wing propaganda. there are too many high-profile people involved in the industry and who are trans themselves (and they're very visible with millions of dedicated fans).
time is the only thing capable of making a dent in this situation.
the comparisons in the files to other questionable practices are pretty apt - the ovariotomy craze, in particular, is probably the most relevant, especially since the massive increase of young women who identify as trans in the last couple of years.
at least some countries are rolling back the more extreme "healthcare" measures, esp wrt minors. that's my only comfort at this point tbh.
that level of dishonesty is detrimental to everyone, not just detransers. teenagers hear this stuff and believe it totally, and so do kids, and so do people who start transition with unrealistic standards set for themselves. hormones have wildly different reactions depending on who's taking them. some women are on T for years and don't masculinize almost at all, and their voice barely drops. others are on T for a couple of months and change irreversibly. others develop autoimmune issues, thyroid problems, blood pressure spikes, vaginal atrophy - the list goes on and on - yet some others are on it for a decade or two before any of these problems begin to show up.
it's not consistent. hell, hormone treatment for people with literal imbalances is basically experimental, and they actually need hrt for physical, medical reasons. look at the big gaps in knowledge we have about birth control or the endocrine system, particularly wrt women, and how it links into menstrual cycles and their relation to general health.
there's no fucking way hormones change your sex, lmao. hrt doesn't make you "basically intersex," either, which is another amazingly stupid take i've seen gaining traction lately.
that's like saying someone who did chemo without having cancer qualifies as a cancer survivor because they made themselves sick. or someone who chopped off their own arm is a combat-wounded amputee. not the same thing, not even close, and stop using people as meat shields for your flimsy political agendas.
to summarize: this is a lie, and it makes rational trans and/or gnc people who are honest about what their hrt/bodymodding/plastic surgery procedures do to and for them look like unicorns for being normal people, it invalidates those who detransed because they realized changing sex is impossible, and it also (unintentionally, probably) makes the term "trans" completely obsolete.
if you could change sex, you wouldn't need to be on hormones forever. it would be a treatment cycle with an end in sight. if you could, people wouldn't be able to clock you immediately even long after transition. if you could, we wouldn't need the qualifier "trans" before anything, because there wouldn't be a notable difference between people who transitioned and people who didn't.
if you have to cope by telling yourself hrt can change your literal genetic makeup, okay, you're free to live in that fantasy forever and date other people who will join you in lala land. but you're not allowed to press that belief on others at all costs, and you can't use it as justification to treat anyone you dislike like shit.
this is just another flavor of "omg the vaccines make children autistic 🥺" type of bs.
"gender" and sex are inextricably linked. no amount of henry the 8thing this is going to make that untrue. you can believe whatever the fuck you want, but you can't make it miserable for everyone else.
one of the worst parts of living in this political climate and in the city i live in is the constant asking for pronouns. i know people would rather be safe and say "they" so they don't get ass-blasted by someone like the loony toon that banned you, but good fucking god is it triggering to hear it OVER and OVER.
i interacted with someone like this yesterday - she was, very bluntly put, just a super rude woman who believed using he/him pronouns gives you the excuse to steamroll everyone and be an asshole because ummmm it's affirming and masculine or something (which is fucking insulting to guys and masculine women alike, because being masc doesn't automatically you're an unhinged shithead).
it's so tiring.
every time i think about wanting to start dating, fear of stuff like this stops me.
all this thread has taught me is that the next step is investing in a very big hammer and naming it "Boundaries." we could pass it around as needed.
i know that the anger that ppl react with when they're rejected isn't logical, but how tf does anyone even begin to believe that if someone's just fundamentally not interested in you, there's anything that you could do to make that change? esp when the "hurdle" in question to "overcome" is A PERSON'S SEXUALITY? 😧