This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on this comment history, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic detransitioner/desister.
The comments display:
- A consistent, nuanced, and personal narrative about the user's detransition experience.
- Emotional depth and self-reflection, including specific details about trauma, family dynamics, and feminist philosophy.
- A natural, conversational tone with no automated or copy-pasted language.
- A perspective that aligns with known detransition experiences, including desisting without medical intervention.
About me
I was born female and my discomfort started with puberty, where I felt sexualized and hated my developing body. I thought I was a man because it seemed like an escape from my trauma and difficult family life. After living socially as a man for several months, I realized my pain came from misogyny and abuse, not from being the wrong sex. I never medically transitioned, and I now understand I am a lesbian woman. I'm finally learning to accept myself by healing from my past and building a better support system.
My detransition story
My journey with gender was long and complicated, and it was rooted in a lot of pain that had nothing to do with being born in the wrong body. I was born female, and for a long time, I hated everything that came with that.
A lot of my discomfort started in puberty. I hated my breasts. They didn't feel like they belonged to me; they felt like objects that attracted unwanted attention and made me a target. I had been sexualized from a very young age, and that trauma made me want to disconnect from my body entirely. I also had really low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. My parents and I had a terrible relationship. They were very controlling about how I looked and dressed, and they projected their own body insecurities onto me. I felt like I could never be the perfect daughter they wanted, so I started to hide things from them. I felt like they wouldn't love me if I wasn't who they expected me to be.
When I discovered the concept of being transgender online, it felt like an escape. It was a way to become someone completely different, someone who wouldn't be sexualized or judged by my parents' impossible standards. I was heavily influenced by what I saw online and by the friends I had in those communities. I started to believe that all my problems—the trauma, the self-hatred, the discomfort with puberty—were because I was actually a man. My parents tried to stop me by taking away my clothes and my phone, but it just made me rebel harder. They became the enemy, and it destroyed our relationship for a long time.
After I moved out at 18, I immediately began living full-time as a man. I used male pronouns and dressed exclusively in men's clothes. I thought this was the solution. But after several months of living that way, I had a slow and painful realization. My gender dysphoria wasn't caused by being born in the wrong body; it was caused by my abuse, the sexualization I experienced, and the deep-seated hatred I had developed for being female. I started making friends with women who actually liked being women, who saw it as a gift and not a curse. That was a perspective I had never encountered before. Through radical feminism, I began to understand that my discomfort was with misogyny and the social status of women, not with my sex itself.
I never took hormones or had any surgeries. I only transitioned socially. For me, that was enough to figure out it wasn't right. I’m glad I was able to experiment, because I needed to go through that process to understand myself. I needed to see what was on the other side to know it wasn't the answer.
I don't believe I was ever truly transgender. I think I was a traumatized young woman who saw transition as the only way out of her pain. I don't believe in the idea of "feeling" like a man or a woman. To me, gender is a social tool used to enforce stereotypes, not an internal identity. I'm a woman, and I'm a lesbian. A lot of my struggle was also tied to internalized homophobia; it was easier to think of myself as a straight man than a gay woman.
I don't regret transitioning socially because it was a necessary part of my journey to self-acceptance. But I do regret the years I spent hating myself and the damage it did to my relationship with my parents. I'm now learning to be okay with being a woman. It’s a daily process of unlearning all that negativity. I manage my dysphoria now with practical things, like wearing a comfortable sports bra. The most important thing that helped me was getting away from the toxic environment I was in and building a new support system.
I also have OCD, and using self-help workbooks for that was far more effective for my mental health than anything related to gender transition ever was.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 13 | Started puberty. Felt intense discomfort with my developing breasts and being sexualized. |
| 15 | Discovered transgender identities online. Began to question my gender in secret. |
| 16 | Parents found out, confiscated clothes/phone. Our relationship became hostile. |
| 18 | Moved out of my parents' house. Began living full-time as a man socially. |
| 18 | After several months, realized my dysphoria was from trauma, not from being trans. Began to detransition. |
| 19 | Started building a new life, making female friends, and learning to accept being a woman. |
Top Comments by /u/sneezingcats:
Full disclosure: I think taking her phone away, going through her computer history, and taking her clothes away and replacing them with "acceptable" options as was suggested is just going to push her farther away from you. She doesn't trust you to know what's right for her because of these things - I know when I was a teenager in a very similar case that those things made me NEVER want to listen to my parents again, because they were taking away my privacy and my possessions. It's clear you're trying to protect her, and she probably understands that, but it won't help her trust you.
I had to experiment to figure out that I was not transgender. My parents didn't let me buy many boy clothes or experiment with pronouns, and all that did was make them the enemy in my eyes. After I moved out, I lived full time as a man for months before I realized my gender dysphoria was caused by abuse and sexualization. I probably could have figured this out sooner if I'd had a good professional to talk to and a larger support system.
Everyone is different, but in the long run I'm glad I experimented with clothes, pronouns, presentation, etc. Get her a good comfortable sports bra if she has trouble with her chest, that's what makes my life easier now.
The most important thing IMO is to talk to her - it sounds like you both are going behind each other's backs. My support system never included my parents, and that destroyed my relationship with them. If it's possible for you, get her a therapist or other kind of mental help so she can work things out alone as well. But building a stronger relationship with your daughter is so important. Let her talk to you about gender, let her figure things out with you. Be open to having conversations where she can share her feelings without feeling like she'll be shut down. This is a strange time for both of you. But I think there is potential for you two to become closer instead of growing farther apart.
Good luck!
I'm not that much older than you, but I think I can offer a similar perspective. My dysphoria and discomfort improved 1000% when I got out of the house and out from under my parents' control - how I looked and dressed was never good enough for them, and they projected their body insecurities on me. I realized I actually wanted to be a woman and that it was okay to be female when I started making friends with other women who /liked/ being women. They didn't over-sexualize themselves or others, they didn't believe womanhood was inherently bad or restricting, they actually believed being born female was a gift... and I'd never encountered that kind of genuine sentiment before.
I identified as trans for years because of sexual trauma, mental illness, and hatred of my body, as well as being belittled by my parents for how I dressed and looked. But once I was free of the environment that pushed all of those things on me, I started to detransition and (for the first time) be okay with being a woman.
You're still really young. Life might not get any easier right now, but with every passing year, you'll get more perspective and more experience. If you have female friends you look up to, try talking to them. Radical feminism helped me accept my body, it may or may not help you. If you want to be more feminine and embrace that part of yourself, go slowly. That's what I'm trying to do right now, actually, and my mother's voice is still in the back of my head telling me I look ridiculous... but I'm ignoring her and living the life I want to lead regardless. Your parents' opinion on how you dress is, at the end of the day, not more worthwhile than anyone else's. They have their own issues, and it's not your job to shoulder them.
There's no easy solution with the therapy issue, unfortunately, but if your parents aren't willing to help you find one, there actually are a lot of good self-help workbooks out there (I have OCD, and that's been one of the most helpful things for managing it that I've ever found).
Anyway, you will be okay. Self-discovery is hard for all of us. Focus on what you like, not what you are. Sorry for the novel-length reply!
No, not in the sense that trans people use it, which is generally "comfortable with your gender assigned at birth and, thus, experiencing no gender dysphoria." I experienced, and currently do experience gender dysphoria for a variety of reasons, but I am not trans. I'm also a feminist, so I don't believe in the whole "gender assigned at birth" terminology. "Sex observed at birth" is more accurate. And nature doesn't really give a shit about whether or not you're comfortable with your sex. It's just a fact of life. I'm certainly uncomfortable with being a woman, but I can't turn into a man.
So no. I'm not cis. And I really don't think anybody is - imo, gender is a tool used to keep women and men into a specific societal structure. Not a sense of "feeling" like a man or a woman.
Yeah, I'm a woman. I guess from a non-gendercrit standpoint I'd be nonbinary (and I did identify as such for years). Am I comfortable with the social status of women, the misogyny we endure, the alienation from other women I experience as a lesbian, the assumption that I have certain likes/dislikes and strengths/weaknesses based on the fact that I have a vagina? Am I comfortable with my breasts, the way that they feel, the attention they attract? No. But I'm learning to be proud of the history of women before me and the potential that I have to add to that legacy. In addition, I think that if I lived in a place where I wasn't objectified or hadn't been sexualized from a very young age, I'd have none of the reluctance I had to be seen as a woman.
It's true, I don't have the parent's perspective! Thank you for being respectful though, being a parent is the greatest responsibility and I have nothing but admiration for them/you. I only wanted to share my experiences from when I was in a similar position as your daughter. It's obvious that you care about her. But when something comes out of nowhere so strongly like this, there may be some avenues of communication that are blocked. I don't know your family, all I can offer is my experience. My mother and I spent almost all of our days together, too, and I hid my gender dysphoria and experimentation from her because I felt like she wouldn't care about me if I turned out not to be the perfect daughter she wanted. Irrational rebellious teenagers are just that. But I needed to know that my mom would still be my mom no matter what I wore. That's some of my detransition story - once again, I wish you good luck and thank you for listening. I appreciate it. And good luck to her for the game today!