This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor.
The user's writing is highly personal, nuanced, and self-reflective, detailing a complex internal struggle with gender non-conformity, social pressure, and ideology. The narrative is consistent over time, and the user identifies themself as a "female desister" and "GNC," which aligns with their described experiences. The passion and frustration expressed are consistent with the genuine perspectives found in the detrans community.
About me
I'm a straight woman who always felt more comfortable as a tomboy, but in college, I felt a lot of social pressure to identify as nonbinary because of my masculine interests. I started to believe my discomfort was about my gender, but therapy helped me realize it was actually tied to social anxiety and low self-esteem. I never medically transitioned, and I'm really glad I didn't make any permanent changes. I've come to accept that I am just a woman who doesn't fit the mold. My journey taught me that for some of us, self-acceptance is the real answer, not changing our identity.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender has been confusing and, honestly, a bit of a mess. I never fully transitioned medically, but I came very close to socially identifying as nonbinary because of the intense pressure I felt, both from inside my own head and from the world around me.
Looking back, a lot of my discomfort started in puberty. I was always a tomboy and felt much more comfortable hanging out with boys, talking about comics and stuff. I was lucky to have a group of guy friends who never made me feel weird for being a girl who liked "boy" things. My parents were great too; they never pushed me to be either girly or tomboy, they just let me be me. My little sister is super feminine, and that was just fine for her.
But when I got older, especially in college, things got more complicated. I started feeling like my natural tomboyishness wasn't enough anymore. I saw other people who were like me—androgynous, not super feminine—but they all identified as nonbinary. It started to feel like there was an unspoken rule that if you looked a certain way, you had to identify a certain way. I felt this weird, subtle peer pressure. Nobody ever directly told me I had to use they/them pronouns, but I felt like if I didn't, people would think I was a TERF, or that I was insecure, or that I was just a confused "egg." It was like my own social anxiety was amplified by this new way the world was looking at gender.
I had one specific incident that really messed with my head. I wanted to join the casual Ultimate Frisbee team at my college, which was only for guys. The girls only had a competitive team, and I just wanted to play for fun. I was talking to a nonbinary friend about it, and they said they felt uncomfortable being the "only non-woman" on a team. That comment hit me really hard. It made my own social discomfort—just not fitting in with most girls—feel illegitimate. Like my problems weren't as important or real. It made me question if there was something wrong with me for still wanting to call myself a woman.
I also struggled with internalized stuff. I'm a straight woman, and for some reason, people seem to find that confusing. They assume a masculine woman must be a lesbian. Part of my desire to maybe identify as nonbinary felt like a compensation for me not being a lesbian, which is a strange thing to admit.
I thought a lot about the concept of gender itself. It feels like nowadays, gender has become a choice for everyone, even for people who are cis. By saying that being a woman has nothing to do with your body, it forces everyone to make a conscious decision about their identity. Even staying as a cis woman is now a choice you have to actively make, and that choice feels like it says something about you. I just wanted to live my life as a masculine woman without having to pin a label on it, but it felt impossible. The constant pronoun circles and identity discussions forced me to define myself in a way I never had to before.
I never took hormones or had any surgery. The idea of medically transitioning never appealed to me. My struggle was almost entirely social and internal. I benefited a lot from therapy. I found a good, general therapist who helped me pull apart my feelings. She helped me see that a lot of my gender confusion was tied to social anxiety, low self-esteem, and the pressure I was putting on myself to fit into a new cultural script. She wasn't a "gender specialist," and that's exactly why she was so helpful. She was focused on helping me as a whole person, not on pushing me toward any particular identity.
I don't regret exploring my gender, but I am glad I didn't make any permanent changes. I've come to terms with the fact that I am a woman, a tomboy, and straight. My discomfort wasn't with being female, but with the expectations and boxes everyone—including the progressive community—tried to put me in.
I think there are real trans people out there who need to transition, and I don't want to take away from that. But my experience showed me that for some of us, the answer isn't to change our bodies or identities, but to work through our internal struggles and learn to accept ourselves as we are, even if we don't fit the mold.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Childhood | I was a happy tomboy, with mostly male friends. My parents never enforced gender roles. |
| Puberty (Age 12-13) | Felt some discomfort with developing breasts, but it was minor. I was lucky to have a small chest that was easy to hide. |
| College (Age 18-19) | Started feeling intense social pressure to identify as nonbinary because of my masculine appearance and interests. |
| Age 20 | The Ultimate Frisbee team incident happened, which deeply confused me and made me question my identity. |
| Age 21 | Started therapy with a general therapist, which helped me untangle my social anxiety from my sense of self. |
| Age 22 | Realized I was comfortable being a cis, straight, gender-nonconforming woman and stopped feeling pressure to identify otherwise. |
Top Comments by /u/smash_glass_ceiling:
You should totttallly go to therapy. Your fears about not passing could be coming from any number of places--internalized transphobia, general low self esteem, and so on... it's possible that detransitioning is the right path for you, but the best way to find out is by going to therapy. And whatever you find, therapy will help you deal with it! Seriously, it's the best.
Story time: I go to a fancy progressive liberal arts college (in the US). I'm not detrans myself but am GNC and struggled with my gender identity for a while so this stuff really resonates with me... anyway I visited our school's Gender and Sexuality Center, which has a list of tons of trans resources and not one detrans resource on their website. The site doesn't even acknowledge that detrans people exist--they aren't mentioned in the "laundry list" of identities, which includes gay, lesbian, trans*, transgender, two spirit, etc etc.
So I asked the guy who ran the center if he'd put up a link to one detrans site. He was a really nice dude and I suspect there were forces beyond his control preventing him from doing it--but in any case he declined.
Rip.
Hey there! I was actually just talking to my friend (happily HRT'd trans woman) about this the other day. She was so sick of the hypersexualized stuff and so on. She's thinking of moving to a new city because she's passing now and doesn't want people to know she's trans and then associate her with that stuff.
Not to say you're wrong about your dysphoria--just to let you know you're not alone :) and maybe also give you some hope for humanity.
Hi, I'm so sorry you're feeling this way. I can't believe people are shouting at you for sharing your experience. I mean, unfortunately, I can believe it at this point, but it's awful, ya know?
Unfortunately I'm just a female desister so I don't have much else to add except hang in there. Oh, and I read this article about a detrans GNC man the other day, you might find it relateable. https://www.papermag.com/perpetual-transition-brian-belovitch-2555638364.html
<3
Ime, the best solution to this is don't sell them.
Like, I'm sure there are genuinely dysphoric kids out there who would benefit from one, but the thing is, they can make one themselves. There's all kinds of things you can roll into a ball and stick in your pants. That way you sort of know it's coming from them
That sounds really hard. If you don't already have a good therapist, find one. That's generally a good way to get clarity on these sorts of issues, and pull apart how much of your feelings are from your actual gender identity and how much comes from your abuse history or your family's opinions. Hang in there, you'll get through this.
Yes, I second this, and sometimes they'll even surprise you! My therapist is a normie who is trained as a CBT/DBT therapist. And yet. She's awesome! Super non-imposing. The only way to know for sure is to maybe ask some good questions at the first session. I don't know which questions you would ask, but probably the more straightforward, the better. If there's an actual therapist reading this, or someone who has experience vetting therapists, please add more...
Anyway, it sounds like you are having a really tough time, and I feel for you. You sound like a thoughtful, intelligent person, and that can be rough sometimes, especially in today's dogmatic world. But it can also be a strength, and I have hope that it'll turn into that for you at some point. <3
Yeah. I want to go into a little detail about the ideas that helped me come to terms with myself, which picked up from a lot of places but ultimately everything clicked after seeing Tomboy and then watching an interview with the filmmaker.
Basically, have you heard of the concept of "radical freedom"? It means that you can't not make a decision about something, and every possible choice has consequences for the way other people see you and therefore the way you see yourself. Think about getting dressed in the morning: there is no "default" option, even wearing inconspicuous clothing is a decision that says something about your identity (to the people around you). Wearing no clothes also definitely says something. Basically, once you're old enough to dress yourself you are always making a decision and displaying your identity through that decision.
Now, I think gender is the same way, and it's got some particularly interesting interactions with puberty, sexuality, and coming of age. The new gender ontology has declared "being a woman has nothing to do with your genitals, it's about how you identify". That's fine! And I'm glad it's that way. But the claim that this has no effect on cis people by TRAs is patently false. By divorcing gender from genitals, they force everyone to make a choice. Even remaining cis is a choice that now supposedly signals that there is some "womaness" in you. This has been the center of my struggle with this stuff.
It's the same way that women moving into the workplace created a kind of identity crisis for many women. In the past, women were in the home, and that was that. Smart women, assertive women, and childless women could all live inside the home. But when so many women started working that it became a salient option for most people, women were forced to make a choice that would ultimately send a message to society about their intelligence, ambition, and values. I'm more than happy that women have this freedom now, but it's important not to deny the problems that this freedom creates. This is probably why feminism went through a "having it all" (kids + career) phase.
Anyway, more personally, it used to be that I could dress how I wanted and that sent a message, but I was still ontologically a woman and there was no question about it, because woman = vagina back then. But now I'm in this odd position where there are other options, the most salient one for me being nonbinary or gender queer. It's clear that something about me is different from other women, but I don't like the idea of leaving my sex behind, because it's personally important to me. But then thinking my sex is important to me makes me feel like I'm excluding trans women? But I'm not trying to! I can't help wishing that I could live and breathe the way I wanted without pinning myself down with a label, which is why I try to avoid pronoun talk as often as possible. Nonetheless, when the inevitable pronoun circle comes around I'm forced to make a choice. Even they/them is a choice, socially, whether it should be or not. I hope that someday we can go back to a world where gender wasn't so oddly rigid, where a character like Laure "must be a trans dude" when the situation is way more complicated than that.
Thank you! Your response actually makes me think of another angle I've been worrying about.
The idea of going on hormones has never been appealing to me, but sometimes I feel like I should declare myself as nonbinary. Like, it's stupid, but everyone else I know who is like me has declared themselves nonbinary, and peer pressure is weird. I feel like if I don't start using they/them pronouns, people will assume that I'm gay (not a bad thing but inconvenient), insecure, desperate, an egg, a terf, and so on. It might be just my anxiety, but in the environment I'm in it feels like being androgynous and cis draws more attention than being androgynous and nonbinary. Even though if you put me next to a typical nonbinary AFAB at my university we'd look pretty similar, the minute people know my pronouns (and they ask a lot around here), I'm the weird one.
Trauma can also cause changes in sexuality. Being gay is something you're born with, but that doesn't mean straight or bi people can't, say, have an unhealthy preference for people that remind them of their abuser and that don't match their true sexual preferences.
I also don't think it's helpful to refer to "fake" gender dysphoria, since dysphoria is a symptom rather than a cause. Trans people and cis people can both have gender dysphoria for a wide variety of reasons. A trans person can have gender dysphoria from being trans and then also have gender dysphoria from trauma.
The best concrete advice is to go to therapy and work on your trauma. That will give you clarity about how it relates to your dysphoria, if at all.