This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "super-porp-cola" appears authentic.
There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor. The user provides a highly detailed, nuanced, and internally consistent personal narrative about their transition, detransition, and retransition. They express complex, conflicting emotions (e.g., lingering dysphoria, social anxiety, relationship dynamics) that are characteristic of genuine human experience, especially in this context. Their advice to others is measured and acknowledges that transition can be right for some people, which is not a common stance for a troll account. The account demonstrates a clear personal history and evolution of thought over time.
About me
I'm a gay man who transitioned because I thought it was the only way to be loved, and I was scared of male puberty. My time living as a woman felt like an exhausting performance that never truly fit me. I ultimately realized that transitioning didn't cure my unhappiness and only added a new layer of social anxiety. I've now detransitioned and found peace in accepting myself as a man, though I still deal with some physical changes from hormones. My boyfriend loves me for who I am, which has completely changed my feelings about being unlovable.
My detransition story
My whole journey with transition and detransition was messy and confusing, and it took me a long time to figure out what was really going on with me. I now understand that a lot of my desire to transition came from internalized homophobia. I’m gay, but I repressed it for a long time. I thought life would be easier if I could just be a straight woman. I developed this idea that the only way I could be held and loved by a man was if I was a woman. I also had a lot of anxiety about male puberty; I really hated the idea of getting body hair and going bald.
I started hormones right before I turned 19, at the beginning of my sophomore year of college. For a while, I thought it was the right path. I passed pretty well as a woman, but it was exhausting. I had to constantly think about my voice, my mannerisms, and tucking was uncomfortable and stressful. I missed just being able to exist without all that performance. I also hated wearing makeup and women’s clothes; it never felt right, it just felt like a costume.
A big turning point for me was a psychedelic drug experience. I had a vision of a woman who told me I needed to be a woman to be happy, which at the time pushed me further into transition. But later, I read an article about a girl who desisted, and a particular quote hit me hard. She talked about looking in the mirror while trying to present as a boy and realizing it didn’t make her feel any better, that she was still miserable, and that maybe the answer was something else. That really resonated with me and made me question everything.
I detransitioned for the first time for a summer internship when I was 20. I lived as a guy for about four months. At first, I liked the freedom of using my natural voice and wearing whatever I wanted. It felt authentic. But I was still consumed by jealousy and dysphoria. Seeing my hairline recede or beard hairs grow in made me feel awful. I felt emotionally numb, and sex was harder to enjoy. So when I went back to school, I went back on hormones because I was scared of those feelings and thought it was the "safer" option to stop further masculinization.
That only lasted a few months. By the time I was 21, I detransitioned for good. Talking to my boyfriend, who is trans and has never doubted his transition, helped me see that my experience was different. For me, transition never made the dysphoria go away; it just added a layer of anxiety about how others saw me. Coming to terms with being a gay man was the key. My boyfriend is bisexual and loves me for me, which completely changed my perception of being unlovable.
I do have some regrets. I’m sad that I can’t have biological children with my partner, and that’s something I’m still working to accept. My body has changed from the hormones; I have breast tissue that I’ll probably need surgery to remove, and I worry about my fertility. But overall, I’m more at peace now. I don’t put much stock in gender identity anymore. I just try to do what I like, whether it’s seen as masculine or feminine, without worrying about the box it puts me in.
My thoughts on gender are that the hyper-affirmative nature of some online trans communities can be harmful. It can push people toward irreversible decisions without a full understanding of the limitations. Transition can be right for some people, like my boyfriend, but it’s not a cure-all, and it’s important to be brutally honest about the challenges, like the fact that you’ll always be your biological sex in some fundamental ways, and dating can be much harder.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 18 | Realized I was gay but repressed it due to internalized homophobia. Developed a belief that being a woman was the only way to be loved by a man. |
| 19 | Started taking estrogen (HRT) at the start of sophomore year of college. |
| 19 | Stopped HRT for one month to try to bank sperm, but dysphoria was too bad, so I went back on it. |
| 20 | Stopped HRT and socially detransitioned for a summer internship. Lived as a male for four months. |
| 20 | Restarted HRT when I returned to school, fearing further masculinization. |
| 21 | Stopped HRT permanently and socially detransitioned, coming out to everyone at school. Came to terms with being a gay man. |
Top Comments by /u/super-porp-cola:
Because gender critical radfems have a tendency to be very mean to men, and the ones who come here are usually in a bad mental state already. I can't imagine it helps, any more than it would help questioning FtMs to go on some misogynist men's rights advocates forum.
Well, one problem is the same one that trans communities have: as soon as people pass, they go stealth and are never seen again. For detrans men, we tend to pass as male a couple months in, and the detransition is barely relevant to us. Of course it is the exact opposite situation when we are trying to transition to female, same as for FtMtFs. Testosterone is a helluva drug.
My theory: visibility. For an MtFtM, assuming you didn't get surgery (most MtFs don't), you just get a haircut, pay a few grand to your local gynecomastia surgeon, and poof, you're back to being a totally normal guy. The only permanent effects are facial hair if you get electro, and maybe fertility. I'm not quite to this point yet, but I'm far enough into detransition that I've stopped hanging out here nearly as much, because I don't really need the support. Once I got back into the swing of detransition, it was basically exactly the same as before transition.
Unfortunately, for FtMtFs, the situation is a lot worse. T is much more powerful than E, and its effects (voice drops, facial hair, bone changes) are permanent. A lot of FtMs get top surgery, which is even more drastic. What this means is that many FtMtFs can't just snap their fingers and meld back into cis society, and as such more are in need of continuing emotional support.
I mean by no means is "TERF" on par with the n word but if a group of people says they don't want me to call them something, find it offensive, and would prefer me to call them something else, then I personally do it. The other day I learned that "people with disabilities" is preferred to "disabled people". Does that make any sense at all to me? No. Will I say "people with disabilities" anyway? Yes.
Yeah, I mean I'm pretty confident this thread is what inspired the OP. This poor questioning trans woman spills her heart out about her whole transition and regretting bottom surgery and how tough dating is and stuff, and the top comment on there is literally like "Yeah, you're biologically male so no one will ever view you as female, sucks to suck bro". Most of the other comments are cis people totally shitting on her for daring to go on one date with a lesbian and kiss her without disclosing that she is trans. I guarantee this would not happen to a FtM who posted here, and it definitely would actively discourage more people posting here about stuff like this.
At least in my experience it is definitely harder. I was able to easily find a therapist to sign off on going MTF, but it was difficult to convince my current therapist who has been seeing me for 2 years that I would be better off detransitioning, even after 6 months living as a detrans man with little to no dysphoria, and she was careful to seriously cover her ass in the wording of the letter. I haven’t actually taken the letter to court due to COVID but I imagine it will be a tough sell there as well.
"Am I trans?" is the wrong question imo. The right one is "does transition improve my life enough to be worth it?" It sounds to me like you feel better on estrogen but that you have a lot of anxiety around passing and presenting female. I definitely relate to the latter part but for me transition didn't actually make me feel better, I just tried to tell myself that because that way I didn't make some massive mistake of going on HRT for nearly two years just to toss it all in the garbage.
One thing to note is that if you can tolerate being a guy, it makes everything a lot easier, especially dating (especially especially dating cis women). Of course, if you can't tolerate being a guy then it sounds like transition is your best bet, but it's definitely not "equally easy either way". I was an awkward-as-fuck 16-year-old guy too once, and yeah I couldn't date girls at all in high school either, but college will shake that shit up like you wouldn't believe, if that's what you're doing afterwards.
Anyway, it's hard to tell. I see a lot of myself (a detrans guy) in you, but I also see a lot of, well, not-at-all-myself. I think you should just really be honest with yourself. Definitely don't do what I did and try to logic yourself out of detransition because you've publicly committed to transition; especially where you are right now in your life, if you detransition after graduating high school no one will need to know about your trans past, and if you end up staying transitioned then everyone you meet will know you as a woman.
Yet, there are facts that for years I have been trying to push away. Things that didn't fit. Sometimes it felt like I wasn't even trying to bury those facts so much as I was brainwashing myself into believing something that I knew wasn't true.
This was what ultimately led me to detransition, along with the realization that I was much happier before I transitioned.
Also I totally get what you mean about the bisexuality/AGP thing too. I tend to identify as gay as it is a good shorthand, but to be honest I think a better label is biromantic homosexual, as I'm not sexually attracted to women but am somewhat romantically attracted to them, but I'm strongly sexually and romantically attracted to men. As a result, I struggled with the concept of meta-attraction for a long time, but eventually decided that it just does not mesh with my experiences. I think it's more likely Blanchardians are getting this one wrong than it is that I am wrong about being attracted to my boyfriend.
It is also worth remembering that there are tons of options out there. You can take HRT or not, you can identify as a woman or not, you can cut your hair short or not, you can wear men's clothes or female clothes or androgynous clothes. It's all totally up to you. There's no reason you should try to force yourself into a box that doesn't fit you. At the end of the day, transition is something you do for yourself to make your life better; if it's doing that, then great, but if it's not, then you should seriously reconsider it.
I have read the sidebar. I am aware that the posts from you and people like you don't break any rules. I would like this to change, because these posts are distracting and extremely ideologically slanted, and they are hurting the reputation of this subreddit as well as driving detrans people who don't conform to gender critical views away.
I hope you can gain some perspective and realize that we are real people struggling with huge issues every day, not just some ideological pawns coming on here for fun debate time where we get to own the libs or whatever.
I don’t know if being 100% sure should be a requirement, but I can tell you there are trans people who are 100% sure. I’m sitting next to one right now — my boyfriend is trans, and growing up he repeatedly insisted that he was male and asked when he was going to get a penis, and when he found out that trans people existed he was immediately like “ohh okay that makes sense, that’s what I am”. He has literally never had any doubt about his transition.
Again, I’m not sure this should be the bar you should clear to transition, but those people are out there. Learning about how sure he has been helped me understand that transition was not the right path for me.