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Reddit user /u/throwawaybpd1994's Detransition Story

Transitioned: 13 -> Detransitioned: 18
female
took hormones
regrets transitioning
trauma
puberty discomfort
heterosexual
This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
On Reddit, people often share their experiences across multiple comments or posts. To make this information more accessible, our AI gathers all of those scattered pieces into a single, easy-to-read summary and timeline. All system prompts are noted on the prompts page.

Sometimes AI can hallucinate or state things that are not true. But generally, the summarised stories are accurate reflections of the original comments by users.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious

Based on the provided comments, this account appears authentic.

There are no red flags suggesting it is a bot or inauthentic. The comments display:

  • A consistent, deeply personal narrative.
  • Complex emotional reasoning and introspection.
  • A logical progression of thought across posts.
  • A writing style that is passionate, nuanced, and reflective of lived experience, including the anger and trauma mentioned in the prompt.

This aligns with a genuine desister/detransitioner's perspective.

About me

I started transitioning as a teenager to escape the trauma of being sexualized as a female. I thought becoming male would fix my feeling of being an outsider, but I felt just as out of place. My body hatred only faded when I got older and built a life with more important things to focus on. Now, I simply accept being female as a fact and don't analyze it further. While I still struggle with the fear of degradation, I see my transition as a necessary path that led me to my current self.

My detransition story

My journey with transition started when I was very young, around 12 or 13. It began with a deep discomfort with my body that I now understand was rooted in trauma. When I got my first period, the adults around me immediately sexualized it, telling me I was "becoming a woman" and that men would now look at me and want to have sex with me everywhere I went. As a child, that was a horrifying and traumatic thing to hear. The idea of growing up to be sexualized felt unbearable, and I believe that was a huge reason I wanted to escape being female. A few months after that, I told my mom I wanted a hysterectomy. I didn't hate being female because I was a boy; I was terrified of what being a woman meant.

I started to transition socially a couple of years later. I think a lot of it was about seeking comfort and trying to escape that feeling of being an object. I never felt comfortable in women-only spaces; I felt like I was missing some key "womanness" that everyone else had. I assumed this meant I was trans, or actually a man. But even after I started passing as male, I felt the exact same sense of being an outsider in male spaces. I felt like an interloper because, deep down, I knew I wasn't male. I eventually realized that I just felt 'other' from everyone, regardless of gender. That feeling wasn't about gender at all; it was my own insecurity and sense of alienation that I was bringing into every situation.

I took testosterone for a while, but I never had any surgeries. I'm grateful for that now. The feelings of hating my body started to really dissipate when I was about 18. That's when I stopped medically transitioning and began to desist. A big part of that change was getting older and building a life for myself. I started working and going to school full-time, supporting myself. The more I had pressing, real-world things to worry about—things that weren't just how much I hated my female body—the less I hated it. Life got bigger than the "meat suit" I was operating, and that perspective changed everything.

Now, at 26, I almost never feel that way. I don't spend any time thinking about whether I "feel like a woman." I am a female person, and that's where the discussion ends for me. When someone refers to me as a woman, I don't analyze it any further than it being the simplest way to refer to a female person.

I do have some lasting struggles, particularly around sex and relationships. I still carry this deep-seated feeling that having sex with a man as a woman is inherently humiliating and degrading. It's a feeling I developed young and I haven't been able to shake it, even after everything. It keeps me from having the sex life I truly want.

I don't regret my transition in the sense that it was a path I needed to walk to get to where I am now, but I see it clearly for what it was: an attempt to escape trauma and the fear of sexualization. I benefited greatly from just getting older, gaining life experience, and putting myself in neutral environments. Working for a large company with clear HR protocols and a focus on mutual respect, not group-think, helped me learn how to be around people who are different from me. That skill—to respect someone you don't agree with on everything—was liberating and helped me finally develop my own sense of self.

My Age Year Event
12 ~2008 Started my period; was immediately sexualized by adults, causing trauma. Told my mom I wanted a hysterectomy.
13-14 ~2009-2010 Began social transition to escape the fear of being sexualized as a woman.
? ? Took testosterone for a period of time.
18 ~2014 Began to desist. Feelings of body hatred started to fade as I focused on work, school, and building my own life.
26 2022 Living as a detransitioned female. Almost no body hatred; see my sex as a simple fact, not an identity.

Top Comments by /u/throwawaybpd1994:

6 comments • Posting since December 14, 2021
Reddit user throwawaybpd1994 (detrans female) explains the importance of finding a neutral, professional workplace that enforces anti-discrimination policies but does not require 100% ideological alignment on topics like gender identity.
14 pointsJan 28, 2022
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I second what another poster said about finding work in a neutral environment that prioritizes accepting and supporting each other rather than requiring everyone to be 100% aligned when it comes to how they think about identity. Large, established companies often do this (mandatory anti-discrimination training, HR protocols, clear sexual harassment procedures, etc).

I could never work at a place that doesn't do the things I described above. But I also could never work for a place that expects 100% thought alignment on a topical political topic like gender identity. That stifles all diversity. If someone can't handle working with and being around people different than them, that isn't because that person is gay/trans, and somehow in a separate state of existing, having to deal with the "straights", but because that person hasn't learned how to cope when faced with someone or something that goes against their belief system.

There are no less than or better than people. There are only people. I would absolutely expand your environment into neutral, non group-think spaces and see what you learn about people who are different than what you've been exposed to. See what you learn about yourself. It's challenging but also liberating because that's how you really develop a sense of who you are as your own person in the world (ie. I think the same as these people about w,x,y, but not about z. I don't agree at all with this person about a,b, and c, but we really have d in common.) Being able to mutually respect and tolerate someone who doesn't think the same way about everything that you do is a wonderful skill.

Reddit user throwawaybpd1994 (detrans female) explains how focusing on work, school, and self-sufficiency helped her body dysmorphia dissipate as she got older.
9 pointsDec 14, 2021
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I desisted at 18 and the feelings of hating my body started to dissipate after I started working, going to school full time, and supporting myself. The more I had pressing things to worry/think about that weren't how much I hated my female body, the less I hated it. I'm 26 now and almost never feel like that. It really takes getting older and realizing how much bigger life is than the meat suit you're operating to navigate it.

Reddit user throwawaybpd1994 (detrans female) explains how being told she was "becoming a woman" and would be sexualized by men as a child led to her feeling dysphoria and later transitioning.
9 pointsMar 20, 2022
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Yes all of this. It is dysphoria, like another poster says, but it doesn't make it fake just because you detransitioned. I started my period at 12 and I remember being excited only because I thought it meant I was getting older, because I still had a child's understanding of what puberty was about. I didn't see it as a developmental milestone centered around sexuality because at 12, it SHOULDN'T be. But the adults around me immediately gave me the similar messaging: "you're becoming a woman!"

I remember at this same age being told by my mom that every where I went as a woman, men would look at me because they wanted to have sex with me. A few months later I told her I wanted a hysterectomy. I was a child and the mere thought of being sexualized (men will want to have sex with me every where I go) was so horrific I transitioned a couple years later to try and escape it. Looking back now of course it was horrifying. It's traumatic and damaging to tell a child with minimal concept of sex that the big, scary adult men in her life now all want to fuck her just because she had a spot of blood in her underwear. But it doesn't mean I was a boy, I was just so traumatized by the idea of growing up sexualized.

Reddit user throwawaybpd1994 (detrans female) advises a young woman to leave her sexually abusive boyfriend, arguing that she doesn't need to medically transition to escape being objectified.
9 pointsMar 25, 2022
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Dump the boyfriend. He is abusing you. It's okay to not want to be sexualized. You don't need to cut off your breasts or vagina because some scummy dude made you feel like they existed for his pleasure. Freed from all that, being female is great and as unsexual as you want it to be. You'll be okay once you grow up.

Reddit user throwawaybpd1994 (detrans female) explains how a deep-seated sense of humiliation, separate from porn, prevents her from having a fulfilling sex life with men, which she feels is inherently degrading.
5 pointsApr 3, 2022
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Less the porn for me, but the sense of humiliation is bigtime for me too. Even men that obviously don't expect anything "porn-ish", the humiliation is there. It feels like having sex with a man as a woman is inherently degrading. Even going through transition and then detransition it's still there, I just can't seem to shake it, it keeps me from having the sex life I want.

Reddit user throwawaybpd1994 (detrans female) explains how a feeling of "otherness" in both male and female spaces led to a mistaken transition, and that detransitioning allowed them to stop thinking about gender entirely.
3 pointsMar 10, 2022
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This is my own subjective experience that might in no way align with yours but I thought I would throw it out there anyway. For me, transitioning was very much about seeking comfort. I also didn't feel comfortable in woman only spaces, I felt 'other' or that I was missing a key "womanness" everyone else had. I assumed this was because I was trans/a man. But as a man I felt the same 'other'ness in male spaces (partially because even though I was passing I felt fundamentally like an interloper -- I was not male). Eventually I realized I felt 'other' from everyone, regardless of gender, and the way I thought 'women' felt and 'men' felt that I was missing had nothing to do with being women or men specifically, but all to do with my own sense of insecurity and alienation that I was bringing to the situation.

Detransitioned, I never think about my gender. I never 'feel like a woman'. I am a female person, and that's where the discussion ends. When people refer to me as a woman, I analyze it no farther than that being the most basic way to refer to a person that is female.