This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "slushpilot" appears to be authentic and not a bot.
There are no serious red flags indicating inauthenticity. The user demonstrates:
- Consistent, nuanced opinions on a complex topic over a year.
- Empathetic, personalized advice that varies depending on the OP's specific situation.
- Natural language patterns, including rhetorical questions, personal asides, and varied sentence structure.
- A clear, sustained focus on the themes of detransition, critical thinking, and the potential harms of affirmative care, which aligns with the passionate and often frustrated perspective of many genuine desisters and detransitioners.
About me
I was a depressed teenager who felt uncomfortable with my body and thought becoming a man was the only way to be happy. I took testosterone, but it didn't fix my deep-seated issues with self-esteem and I felt trapped. I realized my dysphoria was a symptom of my other problems, not proof I was born wrong. I've since detransitioned and regret the medical changes, feeling I was misled by an ideology that never challenged me. I now believe we need honest conversations about the complex reasons behind transition.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was a teenager. I was a very confused kid, struggling with a lot of anxiety and what I now recognize was depression. I felt uncomfortable with my body, especially as I went through puberty, and I had a really hard time imagining myself in a romantic or sexual relationship. I think I had a lot of internalized negative ideas about what it meant to be a woman, seeing it as a position of weakness. I thought that if I couldn't be the kind of woman I saw in media or in my fantasies, then maybe I wasn't a woman at all.
I found a lot of these ideas online, in communities where everyone seemed so sure of themselves. I learned the language, words like "dysphoria," and started to use them to describe my own confusion. It felt like I had finally found an answer and a community that accepted me. I socially transitioned, and with the support of a therapist who only ever affirmed my feelings, I eventually started taking testosterone. I was convinced that changing my body was the only way to be happy and to be loved for who I really was.
For a while, it felt like a solution. But that feeling didn't last. The further I went, the more I realized I was chasing an empty dream. I thought transition would fix my deep-seated issues with self-esteem and my discomfort with my body, but it didn't. I started to feel like I was in a trap; I’d invested so many years into this path that I felt I had to keep going, a concept I later understood as the "sunk cost fallacy." The idea of stopping and admitting I was wrong felt terrifying, especially because I was worried about how my friends and family, who had been so supportive, would react.
What really helped me start to untangle everything was allowing myself to be critical and to ask uncomfortable questions. I started listening to stories from other people who had detransitioned and realized my experience wasn't unique. I saw patterns, like how many of us had underlying issues like trauma, depression, or anxiety that we were trying to solve through transition. I began to understand that my feelings of dysphoria were real feelings, but they were a symptom of deeper problems, not proof that I was born in the wrong body. A big turning point was realizing that my one-dimensional view of what it meant to be a woman was part of the problem. "Sexy fantasies" are not what define a woman.
I finally decided to detransition. Talking to my family was incredibly hard, but I framed it as something "we" were misled into, rather than placing blame. They had supported me out of love, and they supported me through my detransition for the same reason. I do have regrets about the medical interventions I underwent. I feel like I was misdiagnosed and that affirmative therapy, which never challenged me to explore the root of my feelings, ultimately caused me harm. I now believe that for many people, this approach leads to negative outcomes.
My thoughts on gender now are that it's a complex issue with many different reasons behind why someone might transition. It's not a simple binary of "trans" or "not trans." For me, it was largely about escapism, internalized issues, and a deep dissatisfaction with myself that I projected onto my body. I don't believe there's such a thing as a "male brain" in a female body; that idea relies on harmful stereotypes. I think we need to be able to have honest, open conversations about these experiences without fear, because only by understanding the "why" can we truly help people.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 14 | Started feeling intense discomfort with puberty and my developing body. Felt unable to imagine myself in a future relationship as a woman. |
| 16 | Found online transgender communities and began identifying as male. Started social transition (change of name/pronouns). |
| 18 | Began testosterone hormone therapy after receiving an affirming letter from a therapist. |
| 23 | Began to seriously question my transition, realizing it wasn't resolving my underlying depression and anxiety. |
| 24 | Stopped taking testosterone and began the process of social detransition. |
Top Comments by /u/slushpilot:
I hope you can allow yourself some space to explore your feelings more deeply, and process where they're coming from. You absolutely need to trust yourself first, not what a faceless person on the internet tells you.
It's definitely possible that you worked yourself into those feelings, but your therapist can help process it together with you. It'll be uncomfortable and it'll take some time, but in the end you'll hopefully understand and accept yourself better.
For example, where you say "felt dysphoric", that is an overloaded buzzword you learned somewhere to package up your confusion—to name it without actually describing it. I'm not saying the feelings aren't real, so yes you're actually experiencing it, but you need to recognize that it is just a feeling. You'll need to really unpack what that means to you and describe it to yourself in your own terms, not as a single-word answer.
i can't see myself in a romantic/sexual relationship as a girl, for fear of being seen as less than my partner
Again, you need to reflect on why you feel this way. Is it because you witnessed unhealthy, disrespectful relationships around you? This doesn't have to be true! You are fully in control of who you choose to be in a relationship with, on your own terms. Be the woman, not the girl!
is this internalized misogyny
This is another overloaded buzzword—it's not a helpful theory for you to wrestle with right now. Use your own words. Trust your own feelings. :-)
That's terrible. I'm sorry for your struggles.
It sounds like this therapist is trying to cover the tracks that her profession is actually leading people down the wrong path, and would rather avoid dealing with it. I have a feeling that detrans patients — especially minors — are going to be a legal time bomb for psychiatry, and they suspect so as well.
Some people argue these things are one and the same. "Trans-women are women" etc.
One's social identity is NOT relevant on such documents: we don't record whether you identify as liberal or conservative, a Christian or an atheist, a rocker or a punk, or any other spectrum you choose... these things are subjective to your individuality and what makes you you.
Arguably, why would anyone even want to be put on a list where your unique entry singles you out?
Remember that one country where they made lists of people so they could conveniently dispose of them?
Don't be ashamed and stand up for yourself. Here are some words you can use:
"I'm still figuring things out, so I want to take a step back and work through some things"
"I learned a lot about myself from this experience, and I really appreciate your support"
"This was all very real for me, but I feel like I need to re-evaluate my perspective now"
"I hope you understand this is just as hard for me now as it was the first time I came out"
Good luck.
You're not even 15. Give yourself time to grow into your own body. Give yourself time to find someone to love, and learn what that is all about.
"Sexy fantasies" is not what being a woman is. You need to realize that this is a very one-dimensional view.
It sounds like you have a fascination with girls. That is normal. That doesn't mean you are one.
Being critical is healthy. I don't believe any of the criticism comes from a place of malice.
If you were hurt by transition because you went into it fully supported and completely unchecked, you might realize too late how much you would've appreciated a more experienced person to tell you the very real potential for a tragic outcome.
I really, really think it's important to hear things that might make you uncomfortable once in a while, so you can examine why. Maybe it's because there is some truth you didn't want to hear.
"you're not trans" is really dismissive of someone's personal experience: I'm just telling you that every detransitioner went through all the same issues you're dealing with. All of them. You're not special, how can you claim anyone else is less real than you.
There is no "cure" for gender dysphoria. It's something you really have to work through for yourself. A therapist can help, but it depends what kind of therapy we're talking about. A good therapist will help you to challenge your own thinking so you can eventually break that self-reinforcing cycle.
At its root, dysphoria is a deep dissatisfaction with the way you were born. That dissatisfaction and figuring out the reasons behind it is what therapy should actually deal with.
It sounds like you're suggesting that affirmative care and letting you go towards life-long hormone replacement and surgeries is the better "cure"? It's enticing, but it's really not.
Transition won't really get rid of that feeling, and everything just makes you feel like it's still never enough. It's important to figure that out sooner than later.
Who said it isn't real?
just realized they weren't Trans
That's incredibly dismissive of anyone who went through all the stages of changing names, counseling, HRT, even surgery. That's as "real" trans as you can get.
What's to say you're any different?
But you, you are really, really trans? All the people in this sub who spent years on hormones and had the surgery only to realize it was wrong—they're just trenders who just weren't trans enough?
The mental illness and the cultish mentality can be one and the same thing, too. It exists, but we're dealing with it all wrong.
It's like any mental condition where you ruminate on one issue too much and dig yourself deeper into it. They're all very similar: eating disorders, depression, etc. What you really need is something to break the cycle and stop yourself from reinforcing it.
That's the problem here. It's the only such condition that is expected to be affirmed, supported and reinforced. That is not treatment.
"I wanted to ask if she was still grateful for transitioning, if she was still as happy to be living her life as the man she believed she was, if she still believed she was a man. I could not find her, at least not under his name."
I do hope there are more doctors out there willing to share their opinions. Every patient's personal experience is going to be different, but doctors see all the patients through it. Even ignoring the position of authority they speak from, that unique perspective is invaluable, and I worry that it's not being heard.