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Reddit user /u/pinkspiderlilly's Detransition Story

Transitioned: 20 -> Detransitioned: 24
female
low self-esteem
internalised homophobia
hated breasts
took hormones
regrets transitioning
trauma
depression
influenced online
now infertile
body dysmorphia
retransition
anxiety
sexuality changed
This story is from the comments by /u/pinkspiderlilly that are listed below, summarised with AI.
On Reddit, people often share their experiences across multiple comments or posts. To make this information more accessible, our AI gathers all of those scattered pieces into a single, easy-to-read summary and timeline. All system prompts are noted on the prompts page.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious

Based on the extensive comments provided, the account "pinkspiderlilly" demonstrates a high degree of authenticity. There are no serious red flags suggesting this is a bot or an inauthentic account.

The user's comments show:

  • Deeply personal and consistent narrative: The user shares a detailed, emotionally complex, and evolving story of their transition, detransition, and ongoing recovery over many months. The internal reflections on grief, shame, dysphoria, and self-acceptance are nuanced and consistent.
  • Specific, grounded advice: The advice given to others is practical, patient-focused, and reflects lived experience (e.g., discussing hormone withdrawal, voice changes, navigating social situations).
  • A coherent, evolving worldview: The user's perspective on gender, community, and their own identity is complex and shows development over time, including critiques of both trans and detrans communities. This is not the simplistic, repetitive output of a script.

The account exhibits the passion and strong opinions one would expect from someone who has experienced significant personal harm, as noted in the prompt. The history is far too detailed, internally consistent, and humanly messy to suggest it is fabricated.

About me

I was a tomboy as a kid and started believing I was supposed to be a boy, so I took testosterone for over three years as an adult. My transition was really about running from my female body due to trauma and insecurity, not becoming who I truly was. I realized I was exhausted from trying to be male and started wanting to be a woman again. Now, I’ve been detransitioned for over a year and am learning to simply exist as a woman, appreciating both my masculine and feminine traits. I’m focusing on my future and finally feeling like I’m finding my way back to myself.

My detransition story

My journey with gender has been long and complicated, and it's taken me a long time to understand what happened. I identified as transgender for nearly a decade and was on testosterone for about three and a half years. I never had any surgeries, but I came very close to pursuing them. Now, I've been detransitioned for over a year, and I'm finally feeling like I'm finding my way back to myself.

It all started when I was very young. I was a tomboy and never felt like I fit in with the typical idea of a girl. I can remember having conscious thoughts of wanting to be a boy as early as eight years old. I was often mistaken for a boy in my childhood, and I think I started to believe that's what I was supposed to be. I learned about medical transition from the internet when I was around twelve, and that's when the idea really took root. For me, a big part of it was a deep insecurity in my own femininity and a lot of unresolved trauma. I associated being a girl with being weak, vulnerable, and unsafe. I created a kind of "male shield" in my head to protect myself.

When I started transitioning as an adult, I thought I was finally doing something for myself, taking control of my life and my happiness. But the truth was, I was running from myself. I hated my female body—my breasts, my voice, my figure. I would have panic attacks over the fact that I was biologically female. I thought if I could just become male, all my problems would be solved. Testosterone did change things. It mellowed me out, made it harder to cry, and I liked the deeper voice and the strength at first. But it never gave me what I truly wanted, which was to actually be a cis male. No amount of hormones or potential surgeries could ever achieve that.

A major turning point was when I started to realize I was jealous of "normal" cis women. I was exhausted from constantly worrying about passing, about pronouns, and from injecting hormones. I was tired of the politics and the community. I started having thoughts, especially when I was high, about wanting to be a woman again. I laughed it off at first, but the feelings kept coming back. I also began to understand my sexuality differently. I had identified as a lesbian before and during my transition, but I slowly realized I had buried an attraction to men, probably due to shame and trauma. The idea of being loved by a man as a woman started to feel more right to me than trying to be a man myself.

Deciding to detransition was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I stopped testosterone cold turkey, and the first couple of months were brutal with brain fog, fatigue, and depression. I felt a lot of shame and guilt, like I had irreversibly messed up my life. I'm still working on forgiving myself. My dysphoria hasn't completely gone away, but it's changed. It's more manageable now. I sometimes feel like I'm "too masculine" to be a woman or have a disconnect when people see me as female, but I'm learning to accept that those are just thoughts, and they don't have to control me. I see my dysphoria similar to body dysmorphia—it's a mental condition that I can work on and overcome with time.

Now, I'm simply a woman. I don't really like the term "cis" for myself. I enjoy being a woman and I'm learning to appreciate both my masculine and feminine traits. I dress in a way that feels feminine to me now, and I love it. I'm reconnecting with my body, which is a process. Sexually, it's been a journey relearning how my body responds without testosterone. I'm focusing on building a future for myself, thinking about my career, and what kind of life I want to live. I'm trying to move on from centering my identity around being "detrans" and just exist as the woman I am.

I do have regrets about the permanent changes from testosterone, like my deepened voice and increased body hair. I wish I had explored my underlying issues—like my low self-esteem, trauma, and internalized misogyny—more deeply before medically transitioning. I wish the therapist I saw had challenged me more instead of just affirming me and writing a letter for hormones so quickly. But I don't regret the journey entirely because it forced me to confront things I needed to face. I'm angrier at myself than at any providers, but I'm learning to be kinder to my past self. She was just trying to survive.

Age Event
8 First remembers having thoughts of wanting to be a boy.
12 Learned about medical transition from the internet.
Around 20 Started socially and medically transitioning (testosterone).
23-24 Was on testosterone for approximately 3.5 years.
24 Detransitioned, stopped testosterone.
25+ Currently detransitioned for over a year, living as a woman.

Top Reddit Comments by /u/pinkspiderlilly:

181 comments • Posting since August 30, 2022
Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) explains the female-dominated nature of detransition spaces, citing the recent spike in FTM transitions due to social contagion, body dysmorphia, and internalized issues, and theorizes that detrans men face greater shame and social isolation that prevents them from seeking support.
157 pointsDec 25, 2022
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There spike in trans people in the past decade have largely been female. A lot of people speculate it’s due to social contagion and how girls are more likely to follow trends, hence more transitioning, and then more detransitioning. Their reasons for transitioning could be body dysmorphia, internalized misogyny, internalized homophobia, etc. I think another reason why most detrans spaces are female dominated is because women are more likely to seek help and social support/build support networks. Just a hunch, but I figure detrans males deal with a specific level of shame that comes with much harder pressures due to how society treats men, especially feminine men. If the average dude is unlikely to seek help compared to the average woman due to male social isolation, I can assume that isolation is even more pronounced for detrans men.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) explains three reasons for the higher visibility of female detransitioners: statistical trends, women's social organizing skills, and societal pressures that silence men.
110 pointsJul 10, 2023
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(1) The uptick in transitioned people over the past two decades have largely been young females. Higher rates of FTMs would more likely see higher rates of detransitioned women, statistically speaking.

(2) Women (females) are overall better at organizing, creating outreach and support spaces for our emotional needs. We are generally, on average, more people focused than males are (whether it is nature or nurture is up for debate, reality is women are just more prone to organizing social groups and creating spaces, so there are a lot of resources and groups for FTMTFs, whereas less so for MTFTMs.) Detrans women are largely more outspoken/vocal about their experiences than detrans men, so you will see far more posts from us.

(3) On the flip side of the above, men often struggle with social isolation and people tend to be less empathetic/receptive to male pain, regardless of age. Not only that, most men grow up being shamed for their emotions and shut down when they vocalize it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a reason as to why detrans men are less likely to come forward.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) discusses the dangers of using "TERF" sites for emotional self-harm and advises that detransition should be a personal choice rooted in self-love, not external ideology or self-hatred.
58 pointsDec 9, 2022
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It's ok to read radical feminist sites, but some of this sounds like emotional self harm. What sort of mindset is this? "What I'm doing is wrong/degenerate" "I've completely lost my mind", this sounds a lot like self hatred. It's ok to not want to be transgender or to acknowledge yourself as trans, even if you disagree with the broader ideology that's grown from it, but the way you put yourself down is unhealthy. Detransition shouldn't be for politics or ideology, it shouldn't be done for anyone else. It should be done for you and you alone because you understand it to be the best option for you. You should be able to speak positively of yourself, even if you are trans. If you can't, you should really do deep soul searcher and figure out why you aren't happy. At the end of the day, trans discourse, feminism, conservatism, etc. are only as relevant to your life as you make it.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) explains how attending a female-only event where nudity was allowed was a profoundly positive experience that helped alleviate her dysphoria, and wishes such spaces could exist without being pressured to change their admission policies.
57 pointsJun 29, 2023
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Ive been to a similar female only event, you could be nude and everything on the site, literally one of the best experiences of my life and it really helped me alleviate my dysphoria. Theres nothing inherently wrong with women’s fests that do welcome trans women, but I wish female-only ones could be publicly advertised now without being absolutely decimated into changing. Sometimes I just want to be around other females and its as simple as that.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) explains how community shame and a desire to fit in can lead people to adopt a gay or lesbian identity after transitioning, based on her own experience of burying her attraction to men.
46 pointsMar 18, 2023
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I’d say many people fetishize and idealize gay/lesbian relationships right now. Either because they see it as less constraining than the typical gender role expectations of heterosexual relationships, or because of the “ew straighties” mentality among certain LGBT people and wanna fit in. I was only interested in women prior to and during my transition (FTMTF), but realized recently I buried my attraction to men for various reasons, and feeling shame from my community was one of them. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if certain people “become gay” when they transition because they feel shame over their actual sexuality.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) explains the misconception that dysphoria can only be treated by transition, sharing that alternative treatments exist and her dysphoria improved.
44 pointsJun 3, 2023
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"having dysphoria means you are trans and the only way to treat dysphoria is to transition", or similar "there's no alternative ways to treat dysphoria". i wish i had known that, yes, dysphoria is something that can be treated alternatively. dysphoria is not a death sentence, it can get better.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) comments on the lack of discussion about the difficulties of being trans beyond misgendering and violence, and highlights the rarely discussed issue of surgical regret.
41 pointsNov 13, 2022
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Wholeheartedly agree. I think certain circles of the trans community have completely done away with talking about how hard being trans actually is outside of "I was misgendered!!!" or random murder/suicide stats. There are trans people who regret surgery too and I see that rarely spoken about. Now I just wonder if this same person would also acknowledge detransitioners.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) advises a 16-year-old to postpone top surgery, calling it "so young" and warning of regret, complications, and irresponsible doctors.
36 pointsApr 5, 2023
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16 is so young. I'm not usually the type of person to tell someone to not do something, but if I were you I would put this off. Surgery is not something that needs to be rushed at such a young age, ESPECIALLY when you are still developing and growing. The fact that no doctor or therapist even warned you about the risks is legitimately disgusting and incredibly irresponsible. If you are having any doubts, please reconsider this. Dealing with the fallout of postponing a surgery til you are 18 is much better than going through with it and living with the additional consequences of that, which could be regret, complications etc.

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) comments about a similar experience where getting incredibly high led to admitting a desire to be a woman again, followed by detransitioning months later.
34 pointsOct 18, 2022
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I had a similar experience with drugs and my transition. I got incredibly high and in that state I told a friend that I wanted to be a woman again, but I laughed it off and moved on - ended up detransitioning a few months later. Thank you for sharing your story, it gives me hope for life after detransition. Thank you!

Reddit user pinkspiderlilly ([Detrans]🦎♀️) comments on the irony of trans individuals who avoid the "trans" label while making competitive comparisons about attractiveness.
30 pointsMar 9, 2023
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Kinda sad tbh. I saw this stuff often when I was still in the trans community. Like... if you're so comfortable and proud being trans, why do you so afraid of putting "trans" infront of "woman" (or "man" for trans men). Also "trans women are hotter than cis women" bro what is this middle school? Is the hotness factor all you got? Also, you probably don't actually think you're hot if you have to bring others down in the process. Hope this person develops a better self esteem.