It's like being detrans is a bad thing to a lot of these people

Yup, that's exactly it. Transgender activists' sole belief is that transitioning is the only cure for gender dysphoria, so if somebody (such as yourself) proves that wrong, they will outcast you from the community and from their lives entirely. The very same thing happened to me when I detransitioned, and I lost about half of my so-called friends.

These are some of the exact thoughts that were running through my head while I was debating on detransitioning.

Detransitioning is not "going back to your original gender", because you would still be trying to fit yourself into a box. As you said, you aren't feminine; you don't have to be.

I've also been pretty isolated (dropped out, have no friends/siblings) during the end of my transition and realizing I needed to transition because I seriously was driving myself insane with trying to be something that's just impossible for me to be. What I need to be is me, and the kind of person I am -- who I am -- is dictated by my actions and my thoughts, not what sex I developed as in utero. The label Woman will never encompass who I am because a woman is merely a female-born human being, but the connotations that follow that label may always leave me feeling alienated from other women because I'm not a stereotypical feminine woman, most women aren't anyway.

I've only started the process of detransitioning, I think around New Years -- I really can't remember, I wasn't even keeping track of what day it was, I was too locked up in my head thinking about all this -- but I feel so much better and I am so much better than how I was because I accepted myself as a person who is also female. I'm not "feminine", I don't enjoy things most women/girls around my age do, but that doesn't make me any less female than them.

I know it's not something you can just do, but try not to concern yourself so much with how others think of you if you detransition, because if they think you're retarded or a pussy for taking care of yourself by doing what you know is right, their opinions and they themselves are not worth your time, especially not your emotional and mental labour on trying to please them. Anyone who thinks you're bad, weak, or anything else for being yourself, are just projecting; they are so insecure in their identity that they must belittle you in order to feel superior.

If you want to talk about this privately, I'm more than eager to, as it seems we're going through a pretty similar situation.

I just skipped my testosterone injection yesterday and have decided that last week was the last time I'll ever do HRT. I started HRT around my 17th birthday last year, so I was 11 months on testosterone. The truth is that it never will be enough. All transitioning is, is denying your physical reality, in order to insert yourself within a comfortable place in society. Gender/sex dysphoria, whatever one wants to call it, is an incredibly real thing, but, in my opinion, transitioning shouldn't be the only solution to it, and it most definitely shouldn't be mainstream.

Because of my experience, I'm skeptical on whether transitioning has actually lead people to live happier lives, or if these people are plagued with delusion, from themselves and the people encouraging them. Being a man and being a woman are nothing more than physical states of being.

I think that the roles placed upon our genders by society is the reason so many masculine/androgynous females and so many feminine/androgynous males believe that the only way they can exist in this world, is to conform to these gender roles, and because they feel most comfortable conforming to the opposite set of gender roles, they must conform completely.

Females aren't allowed to take interest in typically male culture, and males aren't allowed to take interest in typically female culture.

This week has been one of my hardest, yet one of my best, because it has brought me clarity. I am a female, and I am nothing more because of that factor; who I am as a person is not dictated by the physical state I developed as in the womb. Who I am as a person is dictated by what I do. I am a proud taxidermist and lover of biology and nature. I am proud of my skills and my accomplishments as an individual, not because of my gender.

Ask your friend why they want to become the opposite gender.

Will it make it easier for them to be themselves as an individual?

Do they wish not to be objectified by strangers because of their physical appearance (assuming they're female)?

Will they feel more comfortable wearing the clothes they like, if they were the gender the clothes were meant for?

If their reaction to anybody's doubt of their identity is emotional (ie. anger, feeling invalidated, self loathing, etc.) then they are DOUBTFUL of their identity, and need psychological help before deciding to physically damage their body forever.

And I say damage because, though for some, the only permanent changes aren't harmful, but putting synthetic hormones into your body, ones that not only are improperly regulated, but are only meant to be used on people with actual hormonal disorders and only for a certain amount of time, has extreme potential to be dangerous, and has been proven so.

Ask your friend if they're ready to live their life on "medicine" until the day they day.

Ask them if they're prepared for when something WILL go wrong from doing HRT for too long, when you don't even have a physical condition requiring it.

Ask them if they're ready to live a painful and possibly shorter life, because they decided to mess around with drugs for fun.

HRT is meant for people with physical conditions who do not produce enough of their body's natural hormones. Most of these people are elderly, and only do HRT for a short amount of time. What your friend is doing, is EXPERIMENTING with a drug, which has little research on the actual affects of it. Ask them if they're ready for when their experiment goes wrong.

Transitioning is not becoming yourself, it's becoming what you want to be. To find yourself is to accept yourself. That is what made me realize I was heading down the wrong path.

I walked into a gender clinic and got a coupon for testosterone for the Wal-Mart pharmacy in under 30 minutes, and detransitioned after being on it for 11 months. The accessibility is definitely a contributing factor in the increasing number of children, teenagers, and adults detransitioning.

Nobody is actually trans. The concept of transgenderism is completely illogical and downright delusional. Nobody is born in the wrong body; if you truly believe you weren't "meant" to develope as the sex you are and that you absolutely must alter and mutilate your body in order for it to feel more like yourself, you need serious fucking mental help, not surgical procedures and experimental drugs. Medical professionals don't encourage delusional people who truly believe they're not actually human into changing species because, Fun Fact: you can't alter your biology

live as a female

By this, do you mean you tried to live as what society views a female should be?

I'm FtMtF (basically a detransitioner), and after being on testosterone for a year, I realized why I wanted to be seen as male; males and females are treated differently in society, and are expected to conform to a strict catagory (depending on country).

Even though I detransitioned, I'm still uncomfortable with the language assigned to females (ie. she/her/lei, woman/donna, pretty/beautiful, ma'am/madam, -ess, etc.), and to be honest, I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I don't like to call myself anything; I can't change my sex, I'm just a person who's female.

I'm 17 as well, but I thought I was trans for 5 years and was on HRT for one of them. I wish I could have realized sooner that transitioning was only a bandaid for the real issue(s) I have, but at least I got out of that cult-like ideology.

What made me realize though, is that male and female are simply physical states of being and that me, as a person, is not defined by what gender I am. However, I think I always will wish to have been born male, but that's all it is: a wish; my physical state of being is not something that can ever change. All transitioning is, is conforming to the set of gender roles society places upon the opposite sex; and I truly thought that masquerading as the opposite sex for my entire life, devoting my entire self to resembling something I could never be, was the solution. I even realized then, that all I would be doing is playing pretend and trying to be something I'm not, but I didn't care, as long as I was anything but me, because all I am is a female. Conforming to a certain thing (like gender), to the point one feels they must dangerously alter their body in order to resemble what they desire, is absolutely delusional, to say the least.

Especially after detransitioning, I notice how much I relate to male characters in media, and how far off I am from the female characters. In my opinion, I think a lot of people feel they must transition to fit in, because they simply aren't how their gender is percieved to be in society. I see a lot of posts about how males think transitioning is the right solution because they like [insert typically feminine interest], and females thinking the same thing because they like [insert typically masculine interest]. Society is far too segregated based on sex. Gender is indeed a social construct, I agree with you, and transgenderism only enforces that construct: that males must be one way and females must be another way.

I kind of went on a tangent there, but my advice is to quit worrying about your identity. You don't have to identify as anything in order to exist the way you are; the labels will come on their own accord. If you worry too much about which identities or labels fit you and try too hard in order to fit them exactly, you'll start to lose yourself. There may never be a label or identity that fit a person 100%, because people are unique, regardless of sex.

Side note: another one of the many things that led me to believe I needed to transition, is that the language used on females never sat well with me (woman, girl, she/her, pretty, etc.). The cult would call this "social dysphoria", which is just another delusion that enforces the construct of gender.

It's incredibly reassuring, as well as inspirational to me, to know that there's people like me that aren't completely miserable. I wish I could give you a more thought out reply like I did the rest, but I'm rather tired lol. I appreciate you commenting so much though, so thank you. It really does mean the world to me 😊

Don't identify as a woman, identify as yourself.

im just female, a person

And that's all you have to be. Your personality, hobbies, clothing, etc., don't dictate your gender, your biology does. You don't have to change any aspect of who you are to better fit the label of Woman.

I absolutely despise the gender difference between certain words, like son/daughter; brother/sister; mother/father; waiter/waitress; mister, sir/misses, missy, miss, ma'am, madame; and when speaking Italian, I hate being referred to as donna/ragazza/lei as opposed to uomo/ragazzo/lui. It's the connotations that come with the words rather than their literal meaning. I see "sir" as a term applied to a superior whom one respects, and miss/ma'am applies to damsels in distress, in need of a man's help.

The way I see it, terms assigned to males are primary whereas those applied to females are secondary (for example, waiter/waitress), which is an accurate reflection of how different females and males are treated in society. Men are humans and women are the other humans.

In my opinion, gender only exists if you want it to. Gender is a social construct that enforces individuals to fit into a certain binary catagory, based on whatever sex they developed as in utero; it's all built up from stereotypes. Gender is a prison and to be free from the restrictions it places upon men and women, we must learn to accept ourselves and others for who we/they are.

Nothing in this world is inherently female or male, other than our physical forms. There is no hobby, word, or clothing article that is inherently gendered, unless you believe only a certain sex can enjoy that thing.

Thank you so much, that truly means a lot to me. As of right now, I don't think I can afford a good therapist, especially in California. But I think I'll be okay. For the past 2 days, I have been in such a shitty mood just from thinking. I even thought suicide was the greatest option, but after forcing myself to realize that what made logical sense was indeed the truth, I realized that what was a facade this entire time, began to crack.

This forum and everyone's stories (as well as the comments) have helped me realize the truth, and now that I understand myself and understand why I've been forcing myself to be something I'm not for almost 5 years, I think I'll finally be okay. Well, maybe not 100% okay, but at least I know what I need to do in order to better myself and become happy, as a woman.

Again, I'm truly appreciative of what you said about me. I usually brush off the compliments or kind words I do receive because I believe them not to be true, but yours sound genuine. That could just be because I've been avoiding the truth for so long though, but thank you.