This story is from the comments by /u/quendergestion that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the extensive comment history provided, this account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The comments demonstrate:
- Consistent, nuanced personal narrative: The user shares a detailed and evolving story of desisting, rooted in trauma (childhood sexual abuse) and healing through therapy (Internal Family Systems). The perspective is consistent over two years.
- Deep personal investment: The responses are empathetic, lengthy, and offer specific, often vulnerable, advice drawn from lived experience. The tone is passionate but thoughtful, aligning with the expected emotions of someone harmed by a previous identity.
- No scripted or repetitive language: The comments are highly varied, context-specific, and do not repeat slogans or talking points. They show genuine engagement with each unique post.
- Acknowledgment of complexity: The user consistently acknowledges that their experience is not universal, validates others' feelings, and avoids black-and-white pronouncements, which is atypical for troll accounts.
This is the profile of a genuine desister who is deeply engaged in supporting others.
About me
I felt completely disconnected from being a woman, which started from childhood trauma that made me feel unsafe in my own skin. I socially transitioned to a non-binary identity for years, trying to escape that discomfort. Finding a safe relationship and IFS therapy helped me understand my trauma was the real issue, not my body. I've since desisted and now live comfortably as a woman, realizing my dysphoria was a symptom, not an identity. I am just grateful I found healing without making any permanent changes to my body.
My detransition story
My journey with gender has been long and confusing, but I’ve finally found a place of peace. For most of my life, I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere, especially not with the category of “woman.” I now understand that a lot of this came from deep-seated trauma and a desperate need to feel safe.
It started in childhood. I was sexually abused by my father when I was a baby, and I have vivid memories of it. To cope, a part of me shut down. I developed what I think of as a “Robot” part—a manager that handled life without feeling anything. This part was genderless, an “it.” Because of this, I truly believed I was agender or non-binary for years. I also thought I was autistic because I felt so disconnected from people and overwhelmed by sensory input. Professionals even agreed with me. I felt like a complete misfit in my own body and life.
In my early thirties, I made a big change. I moved a thousand miles away, cut my hair short, and started using a neutral nickname. I wanted to erase any signs of femininity. I didn’t want to be a man; I just wanted the discomfort of being a woman to go away. For about six or seven years, I lived this way. People I met during that time only knew me by this new identity. Strangers would sometimes use "they/them" pronouns for me, which I thought I wanted, but it actually made me feel worse. It just highlighted that I was different, which was the last thing I wanted.
The real turning point came when I met a man who, for the first time in my life, made me feel truly safe. It was such a foreign feeling that I actually had a dissociative episode. My reality had always felt dangerous, so feeling safe didn't seem real. This relationship showed me that unconditional love and safety were possible. He helped me see that I didn’t need to change my body to solve my problems—like feeling awkward, not fitting in, or the trauma from my dad. I could address those issues directly.
Around the same time, I discovered Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. This was a revelation. It helped me understand that my psyche is made up of different “parts,” each with a role. I had exiles carrying the trauma, managers trying to keep everything under control, and firefighters that would distract from the pain. My “Robot” was a manager part trying to protect me. As I started to connect with these parts from a calm, compassionate place—my true Self—things began to heal. The safer I felt as an adult, free from my father, the more these “autistic” and “agender” feelings started to soften. I realized I wasn’t inherently bad at understanding people; I was just protected by a part that was scared to feel.
As I healed, I understood that my discomfort wasn’t about being a woman; it was about the trauma associated with it. I started to desist. I grew my hair out, went back to my original, feminine name, and started buying clothes from the women’s section—even if they were still flannel shirts and sweaters. I live in New England, where that’s a perfectly normal way for a woman to dress. People started using “she/her” pronouns without a second thought, and it felt… simpler. It felt accurate.
I’ve never taken hormones or had any surgeries. I am incredibly grateful that I grew up before the internet era where medical transition is so easily accessible. If I had been born later, I’m certain I would have pursued medical changes that would have been very hard to undo. My dysphoria wasn’t innate; it was a symptom of trauma and a difficult puberty. I believe that what many young people experience as “gender dysphoria” is actually a perfectly normal, though awful, discomfort with transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Puberty sucks for everyone. It’s awkward, smelly, and your body feels alien. We’ve started pathologizing this normal discomfort.
I don’t regret my social transition phase. It was a necessary part of my journey to understanding myself. It taught me immense compassion for people going through similar struggles. But I am deeply relieved that I never made any permanent medical changes. Changing my environment and working on my trauma was the real solution, not changing my body.
Today, I see myself as a woman, but that category is broad enough to include all of me. There’s no one way to be a woman. I can be strong, love hiking and hockey, and still be a woman. The goal wasn’t to find a gender identity; it was to find myself. And I’m finally getting there.
Timeline of My Journey
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Early Childhood | Experienced sexual abuse from my father. |
| Childhood/Teens | Felt like a misfit; preferred boyish things but was confused by gender categories. Assumed I was waiting for a penis to grow in. |
| Late 20s / Early 30s | Socially transitioned to an agender/non-binary identity. Moved away, changed my name, cut my hair short, presented androgynously. |
| Mid 30s | Met a partner who made me feel safe for the first time. Began to question the need for transition. |
| Mid 30s | Discovered Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. Began to understand my trauma and the protective "parts" of my psyche. |
| Mid 30s | Started desisting. Grew hair out, returned to my birth name, and began presenting in a way that is read as a woman. |
| Present (Late 30s) | Continuing my healing journey. Comfortable identifying as a woman and understanding the root causes of my past dysphoria. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/quendergestion:
It says a lot to me that the body in that tattoo has no head, so no eyes, ears, brain, or mouth to observe and interact with the world, nor arms to engage it and bring about change.
It's just the chest. Only the chest. And hints of plant life growing in a place that could otherwise have nourished human life.
This tattoo is deeply, deeply sad to me.
I think this is the right place. It sounds to me like it's extra painful on a personal level because he's regretting having had it done in the first place, so it's not just a question of physical pain.
The physical pain part might get good feedback in trans subs, but the emotional side probably not.
It's especially sad for me to hear when little kids, like 11-12, talk about having "come out" when they were 4 or 5, or having "known they were trans since then."
I distinctly remember happily telling my kindergarten teacher that I was a quarter monkey, a quarter fish, and only half human. Why? Because I loved the playground and swimming and had just learned how fractions work. I was sure of it though! I loved monkey bars. Therefore I was at least part monkey.
I think so much of this could be stopped just by asking children a question: "What does 'being a boy' or 'being a girl' mean to you?"
I think even the most progressive parents would be shocked and even appalled to find out it boils down to something as trivial (in the scheme of things) as my liking monkey bars.
Pretty sure we'll be able to gestate a baby in an entirely artificial womb before we'd ever be able to gestate one inside a man. And frankly I hope we don't ever get there either, because I'm afraid it will lead to the even further commoditization of tiny human beings.
I get this is an unpopular opinion, but every person has a natural right to be conceived through a loving act between their parents who are committed to each other for life. I understand all kinds of things get in the way of that (some of them completely natural/not anybody's choice), but I think it's always a net-negative to the child when those things happen, and we should never be doing them on purpose to satisfy an adult's desire at the expense of the helpless child.
I think he means the blockers, which are normally presented as "entirely reversible," but it's possible I've misunderstood.
From what I've read, if you do go through your sex's puberty, and later go on cross-sex hormones and come back off, your fertility can return. But if you go straight on blockers before going through any puberty, then directly on cross-sex hormones, you will be infertile for life. I don't think that's being explained to parents when they're pitched blockers as a reversible way to buy some time.
I don't know if this helps at all, so please feel free to ignore it if it doesn't, but women don't feel turned on by being women. Can you imagine if that were true? We'd just be horny all the time because we exist! And have you ever heard a stereotype that women are just too damn horny all the time? Of course not.
Feeling turned on by the idea of being a woman is just not at all an indicator of actually being a woman. If anything, it's the opposite. That's something men feel, not something women feel.
Could you be the guy who actually gets sucked so deep into his fetish that he spends tens of thousands of dollars and the rest of his life stretching open a hole cut in his body for the sake of fulfilling his sexual fetish? Yeah, I guess so. I'm sure for enough money you could find someone willing to do it to you.
But fast forward it farther than the first couple years of whatever incredible sexual experience you're imagining (which won't even happen until after several years of the pains of recovering from multiple surgeries) and ask yourself if it was worth it, if the prospect of living the rest of your life this way was worth those sexual experiences--assuming you ever even convinced people to have those sexual experiences with you in the first place.
It's all a lie. You cannot have what you're imagining. It's not possible. It's not some mean gatekeepers withholding it. It's that it isn't real--not for you, and not for anybody.
You can spend your life chasing the fantasy, if you want. Just know you'll never actually get there and it will mean throwing away all the years of your life you spent chasing it.
This feels like a special level of hell right now, doesn't it? Like, when other people go through trauma, like if someone drugs a teenage girl and cuts parts off her body, as a society, everybody sympathizes. They're like, "The monsters who did this should rot in prison." Even if they had convinced her she wanted it done, people would be saying the same things, that it's the worst kind of manipulation and abuse to warp someone's mind to want that.
And here you're going through something so similar, but a huge portion of the population is not just saying it was right for people to do it to you, but that if you're suffering now, it's your own fault because you wanted it.
I can't do anything about anybody else's voice. I just want to add mine to the side that says you're NOT crazy. What was done to you is horrible and violent and tragic. Someone should have protected you, and we should all be sharing your pain. Even the people who might say that for some other girl, in some other circumstance, the same actions could have been life saving, for YOU, they were life-altering abuse, and you did not deserve to have this happen to you.
I think people (and TBH, women especially) are outrageously resilient. I think there's still hope that you can live a life full of meaning and joy in the future, even suffering through what you've suffered and enduring what you've endured. There are too many examples of women in the past who have endured and overcome for me not to believe that could be true for you too.
The first step toward that is probably to grieve what happened. Somebody did something horrible and traumatic to you, and it can't be undone. Let that pain be huge when it needs to.
And keep fighting for all the parts of your life that are not that experience. I don't care if it's as small as, "Damn, I can still enjoy a really good milkshake," there are parts of your life that are outside the trauma. Lean into them. Help them grow. Make a list of them if it helps.
Grief doesn't shrink. Life grows around it, until eventually life is bigger than the grief it contains, not full of the grief like it is right now.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. Please hang in there.
Honestly a haircut would age you up a lot if you're open to it. Your hair is great, so by all means keep it if you love it, but I think you'd look older with shorter hair.
And if it makes you feel any better, my (cis, never on hormones) brother and I (desisted woman, never on hormones) still get asked for ID to prove we're at least 21, even though we're both well into our thirties. Some people just look young!
I don't know if this helps at all, but you probably don't have to worry very much about the adults in your life. Most of them get that young people go through a lot of stages of trying things and figuring things out when they're exploring who they are.
Your friends might still not have the maturity to see that as clearly, but for the most part, young teens are on to the next thing to focus on in each other's lives pretty quickly, so it's probably a matter of a couple awkward conversations, not like weeks or months of confusion.
Not quite the feedback you asked for, but I don't think you're actually missing out on anything without casual sex, especially if you're worried about safety. There's nothing magical about that experience, especially not if you're anxious about what happens when you reach full undress. It kinda feels like a roll of the dice, where you're hoping somebody random will affirm what you're insecure about in your body and want you anyway, but there are other ways to work through the insecurity that don't risk someone freaking out at you when your pants are down.