This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic user. The user provides a highly detailed, consistent, and personal narrative about their 3+ year transition, reasons for detransition (health, fertility), and the mental and spiritual practices they used to cope. The depth, introspection, and emotional nuance in the writing are characteristic of a real person sharing a genuine experience.
About me
I was born male and began transitioning to live as a woman in my early twenties, which initially made me feel happier. However, I became deeply worried about the long-term health risks of hormones and my desire to have children. I decided to stop and worked on my mental health through meditation, exercise, and learning to accept my body. My feelings of dysphoria eventually faded away, and I no longer think about my gender. I am now a happy and healthy man at peace with myself.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was around 23 or 24. I was born male, but I became deeply unhappy with my body and started to believe I was meant to be a woman. I began taking estrogen hormones and lived as a trans woman for over three years. For a while, it felt like it fixed everything. I was happier, my anger issues got better, and I felt more comfortable. I was fortunate to "pass" well, and I had a supportive wife, family, and job.
But after a few years, I started to think about the long-term future. I wanted to have children and build a stable life with my wife. The idea of being on synthetic hormones for the next 40 or 50 years really worried me. I read about potential health risks, like a higher chance of breast cancer and blood clots, and since there's a history of those in my family, it scared me. We don't have good long-term studies on these drugs for trans people, and I realized I was gambling with my health. I didn't want my happiness to depend on something so uncertain.
I also hated the constant mental effort. Being trans felt like a full-time job. I was always worried about how people perceived me, constantly checking my reflection, shaving, and thinking about my clothes. It was exhausting to be in a constant fight against my own body. I felt like I was always performing, and the fear of someone "finding me out" was a heavy weight.
I decided to stop taking hormones when I was 27. It wasn't an easy choice because I was afraid I would be miserable without them. But I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever it took to find peace and happiness in my natural body. I didn't want to be unhappy for the rest of my life.
Discovering online detransition communities was a turning point. It showed me that there were other people who had similar experiences and had found a way through without medical transition. This gave me hope that my feelings of dysphoria weren't a life sentence.
I started to work on my mental health in a different way. I have a background in Zen spirituality, and I returned to that. I practiced meditation and reminded myself that "I" am not my body. My body is just a vessel that will age and change; it doesn't define who I am. I also practiced gratitude, focusing on all the things my body does right—like having working legs, a mind that can learn, and eyes that can see. This shifted my focus away from what I disliked.
I also started exercising regularly, which helped with anxiety and made me feel healthier. I looked into the science behind being trans and found the evidence for a "gendered brain" to be very weak and inconclusive. This helped me see that my feelings might be more like a form of body dysmorphia—a mental fixation that could be managed—rather than a biological imperative.
Over time, the dysphoria faded. I don't really think about my gender anymore. I just live my life. Letting go of that constant focus on my appearance has been incredibly liberating. I am healthier, happier, and more confident now than I was when I was trying to be a woman.
Do I have regrets? Yes, in a way. I regret not questioning things sooner and falling for the idea that medical transition was the only solution. I'm now facing possible infertility as a consequence of the hormones, which is hard. But I try to focus on growth rather than regret. I learned a lot about myself, and I’m in a much better place now.
I see gender dysphoria as a real form of suffering, but I believe it's more similar to other body image issues than it is unique. The trans community often isolates it as something that can only be fixed medically, but I've learned that's not true for everyone. For me, finding peace meant accepting the reality of my body and building a life that isn't centered on how I look.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 23/24 | Started questioning my gender and began identifying as a trans woman. Started taking estrogen (MTF HRT). |
| 27 | After more than 3 years on HRT, decided to stop hormones due to long-term health concerns and a desire to have children. Began the process of medical and social detransition. |
| 27-28 | Worked intensively on mental health through Zen practice, gratitude, exercise, and researching the science of gender. Dysphoria significantly decreased. |
| 28 (almost) | Felt fully detransitioned and at peace, no longer pre-occupied with gender. |
| 30 (present) | Living happily as a man, grateful for the lessons learned and the peace found. |
Top Comments by /u/sentientmassofenergy:
Feel free to ask any questions you may have.
I share my journey only to help others.
I know how difficult it was for me to find alternative perspectives at the beginning of my transition, and I know it would have really helped me figure things out.
My story TL;DR
I was on hrt for over 3 years.
I had a successful transition, I passed well, found a lot of happiness, had a supportive job, wife, and family.
Then I began to think about having a family, and the thought of being on synthetic hormones for the rest of my life (50+ years) made me begin to worry about my health. I didn't want to risk my health for the sake of living out my gender.
This made me very sad and distraught. I thought that I would be unhappy if I detransitioned.
But I decided I would do everything I could to find peace and happiness despite my situation, because being unhappy for the rest of my life was not going to be an option.
I found r/detrans and realized, based upon others' experiences, that this is entirely possible.
I worked through my dysphoria with a healthy lifestyle, mindfulness, and self discipline.
Through this process I realized transition had actually taken more from my life than it had given me. It had taken my ability to have children, have normal social relationships, caused me constant worry about my body, friction with my family, etc.
Now I am far healthier, happier, and more confident than I was when I was trying to be a woman.
Transition ended up not being the best thing for my physical and mental health, and ability to have kids in the future.Giving up trying to look a certain way has been liberating.Just enjoying life and focusing less on my body has been a huge stress relief.
On being banned from r/transtimelines and almost every other trans sub: they really make it hard to deny their cult-like tendencies with their consistent censoring of alternative opinions.
Yeh it's funny that trans people say that "cis people don't think about their gender", therefore, by that logic, if you think about your gender "you're probably trans"..
Yeh seems more likely you just have a mental fixation, and it should be treated just like any other neurosis
I definitely understand your situation, I would have probably been in a similar one if my hand wasn't "forced" so to say.
I knew taking synthetic hormones just was no longer an option for me. The inherent health risks combined with my genetic predisposition for complications was pretty damning, and there was no mental gymnastics that was going to get me to continue on HRT.
I also found that the scientific evidence for being trans is very limited and inconclusive, so this gave me faith that my gender dysphoria wasn't a fixed thing I had to live with, and that I could probably work through it without hrt.
I think you just have to make a personal decision on what is a higher priority to you, pursuing gender transition and the challenges it brings, or working to accept your body, have gratitude for it, and making it as healthy as possible through exercise and eating well.
But without tackling the root cause of your feelings, these things may not help at all, which seems to be what you're describing.
There are numerous underlying causes of gender dysphoria, so it's important to explore that and get to the root of the issue, either through therapy or independent inquiry.
I see a lot of people battling with the "am I trans" question.
It's an exercise in futility and I think it's the wrong question to be asking.
Transition needs to be framed as something we have a choice about.
It's incredibly important that people understand that happiness be found on either path.
It is not 'transition or unhappiness'.
Glad it was helpful for you. It's definitely eye opening to hear these perspectives because they are so suppressed in the media and in lgbt communities. It worries me that this subreddit is one of the only places I've ever heard these perspectives.
For me personally (+3 years into my transition), when I first started looking into this stuff, it was mind blowing to find that there could be a truth that is different from the one that I was fed by popular opinion and the trans community.
A truth that suggests transition might actually not be our only option 😳
Breast cancer and blood clots.
We don't have any clinical trials of the various hormone therapies prescribed to trans people.
I'm not trying to strike fear into anyone; the preliminary evidence we do have from the limited short term studies that have been conducted, show low risk. But again, these are preliminary short term studies.
For me, the risks outweighed the benefits.
Of course
transgenderism is real
As real as depression and obsessive disorders.
I just dont agree with the consensus and complicity of the medical field and culture, encouraging and worsening the condition, and providing no alternative solutions other than medicalization.
I understand your perspective, but it's the "hot takes on transition/ trans agenda" that helped me see my way through this.
It's the difficult truths, like the lack of scientific evidence, that helped me realize that there other ways to deal with my situation.
But I definitely understand your concern for this sub getting banned. We really need an alternative for people to discuss their experiences, without the almighty tech company watching over our every word.
This post sums up my situation almost exactly. Im 27, more then 3 years into transition, transition brought everything I could have ever wished for- physical and mental. But the long term health effects are concerning me, especially at this time in my life when Im starting to think about having kids/ building a company/ marrying my wife. The constant worry about how people perceive me doesn't feel sustainable either.
For me, I think it's going to be important for me to change the things I've been focusing on; Stop staring at my reflection in mirrors and fixating on my physical appearance; Stop thinking about my life in terms of how people perceive me. Im also reconnecting with my spiritual practices of zen and meditation to switch my focus to the truer aspects of life instead of my physical body. I also want to remind myself that although detransition may be the more difficult path, it may make me a better person in the long run. It's so important to find a way to deal with the situations life gives us, but in healthy ways. And I just can't form a story around taking synthetic hormones that convinces me it's the healthy option.
I wish you the best on your journey. Don't be too hard on yourself, you are very fortunate to be trying to figure these things out at such a young age. Focus on being the best person that you can be, the rest of it, gender or otherwise, will fall into place.