This story is from the comments by /u/trialeterror that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the extensive and detailed comments from "trialeterror," this account appears authentic and consistent with a genuine detransitioner's experience. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or inauthentic.
Key points supporting authenticity:
- Personal, nuanced details: The user shares specific, lived experiences (e.g., phobia of injections, surgical outcomes, emotional struggles) that are complex and internally consistent over time.
- Evolution of views: The user describes a shift from believing in "true trans" ideology to critically rejecting it, including detailed reasoning and self-reflection.
- Emotional depth: Comments convey genuine passion, frustration, and pain related to dysphoria, transition, and detransition, aligning with the expected emotional intensity of someone harmed by these experiences.
- Consistency: The user's story remains coherent across multiple posts, with no contradictions in their narrative or beliefs.
The account does not exhibit patterns typical of bots or trolls (e.g., repetitive phrases, lack of personal detail, or agenda-driven messaging without depth). The user engages thoughtfully with others, offering support and advice based on their own journey.
About me
I wanted to be a boy from a very young age and started medically transitioning in my mid-twenties. I took testosterone and had top surgery, but I realized it could never make me truly male. I detransitioned because I accepted I am female and that my dysphoria came from trauma and unhealthy thought patterns. While surgery relieved some distress, I now live with chronic pain and some regrets. I'm finally at peace focusing on what my body can do, rather than what it is.
My detransition story
My whole journey with transition and detransition started when I was really young. I remember wanting to be a boy even before puberty hit, and by the time I was 9 or 10, I was convinced I was turning into one. When that didn't happen, it felt like a huge betrayal. I first learned about female-to-male transition when I was 16, and it immediately clicked with me. I told my friends and mom between 17 and 18, but I didn't really socially transition much back then.
I struggled with severe dysphoria for years. I hated my female body parts, especially my breasts—they made me feel sick to my stomach. I felt disfigured, like a man who had been twisted into a female form. I prayed to become male, fantasized about having male anatomy, and even hoped for things like breast cancer just to get rid of my breasts. I bound my chest unsafely, isolated myself, and cried constantly. It wasn't about thinking they were ugly; I just felt they didn't belong on me.
I started testosterone at 25 and had top surgery at 26. I was on T for about two years. At first, I was happy with the changes—deeper voice, more body hair, bottom growth—but deep down, I knew it wasn't making me male. I realized that no matter what I did, I would always be female. That realization was what led me to detransition around age 27. I stopped T because I couldn't handle the shots anymore—I had a severe phobia of needles—and because I started to see that transition was just cosmetic. It wasn't giving me what I truly wanted: a real, functional male body.
Detransitioning wasn't about suddenly loving being female. It was about accepting reality. I don't believe in "true trans" people or that anyone is born in the wrong body. I think dysphoria comes from faulty thought patterns and a lot of unresolved issues. For me, it was a mix of family trauma, anxiety, depression, and just a deep-seated curiosity about maleness. I also spent a lot of time daydreaming and escaping into my own head, which made it easy to get stuck in these fantasies.
I had top surgery, and while I don't regret it in the sense that it relieved some of my chest dysphoria, I do wish I hadn't done it. I lost sensation in my nipples, and sometimes I miss having breasts, especially now that I'm more comfortable with being female. I also have some chronic pain from the surgery and rib deformation from years of binding.
Now, I'm just trying to live my life without labels. I don't call myself a woman often—it's still a bit uncomfortable—but I accept that I'm female. I focus on what my body can do rather than what it is. I dress in a way that makes me feel good, regardless of gender norms, and I avoid anything that reinforces the idea that I should be anything other than what I am.
I don't think transition is the right solution for most people. It didn't help me, and I believe many others are being led down a path that doesn't address the root causes of their dysphoria. I wish there was better therapy available that really digs into why people feel this way instead of just pushing them toward medical interventions.
Here's a timeline of my key events:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 9-10 | First wanted to be a boy, thought puberty would make me male |
| 16 | Learned about FTM transition, identified as trans |
| 17-18 | Came out to friends and family |
| 25 | Started testosterone |
| 26 | Had top surgery |
| 27 | Stopped testosterone and began detransition |
I'm still figuring things out, but I'm in a much better place now. I'm not happy all the time, but I'm at peace with my decision to detransition. It was freeing to let go of the constant struggle to be something I could never be.
Top Reddit Comments by /u/trialeterror:
"If you HONESTLY think that there is nothing wrong with being LGBTQ+ for other people, why not yourself?"
This statement in particular is just so wildly out of this person's own lane. No one in the trans community would say this in reverse- "If you think there's nothing wrong with being cis, why not yourself?" That's just... not a healthy way to make decisions, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the decision-making process.
You can have all the strong feelings in the world and still conclude that, for yourself, transition or even identifying as trans just aint it. It's not always religious or ideological.
I find it pretty frustrating that so many people come here supposedly "wanting to detransition" or "not wanting to transition" or "not wanting to be trans" and then they just... do a 180 in all the responses. I get that it's not a simple or easy decision to make, but if you're trying to find an audience that will be a sounding board as you try to justify that transition is right for you, this is kind of a stupid place to do it. It's disrespectful to people who are here actually looking for advice and information. :/
I checked out your post history and it looks like you had a mastectomy too... Idk if you're like me, but I still experience "jealousy" over these types of posts- like, isn't it weird to be envious of something you already went through and wish you hadn't? It kinda goes to show that it's not just about the end results- there's a high in actually Doing It.
Part of me hopes it "works out", but another part of me hopes that more people recognize it for what it is, because even if the truth hurts for a bit, it's more liberating in the end. Take comfort in that. Fortunately, we're not responsible for hoping people into their ultimate conclusions. <3
Isn't it funny? We take anything and everything as a sign that we were meant to transition. My first day of testosterone was 6/26/16- I remember it because those numbers were/are significant to me for other reasons. I didn't plan it that way- it was just a coincidence. But I did feel that the universe was somehow affirming that this was the right thing to do.
It's hard to look into the face of what feels like fate and say "no, this isn't real". Sometimes the idea of fate can be empowering- other times, it's a prison. That flag doesn't mean anything except what you think it means- take it as a challenge lol. <3
Warning: I'm going to do a lot of religious comparison in this post.
I don't believe True Trans is a thing, but it's not because I was treated poorly- I don't think good or bad behavior makes someone right or wrong. I don't believe it because I experienced dysphoria myself, identified as trans for almost 10 years, and was basically the ideal candidate for transition. Didn't want kids, knew the risks, was willing to pay my own way and sign all the consents, no health issues, wanted ALL the changes, etc. And transition ended up flopping for me because I didn't have enough "faith" that it would work. I mean, science could show you that plenty of people benefit from religion the same way that they do from transition, but that doesn't prove that god is real any more than it proves gender (in the trans sense that you can be born in the wrong body) is real.
At this point, I'm pretty agnostic in both the religious and gender sense- I don't see the point in believing that gender exists when all of my life experience has proven otherwise, and people who want to persuade me that it DOES mostly just have their own faith to protect. Those people are free to believe what they want to believe but I don't want to be preached to. People (including me) can be dysphoric without believing that they WERE born in the wrong body and should mar their current body as a pseudo-religious offering. People do all sorts of things to feel closer to god, same as people do all sorts of things to get closer to their "gender identity".
I'm open to being proven wrong, but I'll admit I don't think that's possible. If there are structural differences in the brain of a female who identifies as male, I don't think that means she SHOULD have been born male- just that she is a different kind of female. Dysphoria is a feeling and it's real because feelings are real, but it doesn't mean that they're necessarily true. It doesn't mean that we should hurt our tangible bodies for the sake of that "religion"- something people do all the time, all across the world, and which is generally considered controversial, but ESPECIALLY when done to children and other vulnerable groups.
Look, love:
I am not sure I ever wanted to detransition, but felt like I had to if I wanted to be anything more than a delusional, degenerate, perverted freak.
Don't listen to people who say this sort of stuff. These aren't people trying to help you and I desperately wish they'd pipe the fuck down because they're just hurting people. There's a difference between helping someone through a difficult situation and pressuring/shaming them out of it. The desire to prevent people from transitioning doesn't justify cruelty or humiliation. I may not think anyone strictly needs to transition, but I don't think transition is somehow morally wrong either.
A really basic way to understand dysphoria is wanting to be the other sex (because of body parts, not so much social expectations in this case). Some people never have it, other people have it in the form of extremely invasive thoughts that interfere with daily life- I guess that's the "spectrum". Dealing with dysphoria without transitioning is about setting realistic goals, managing your expectations, making compromises with yourself, and learning to regulate your own emotions. Healthy stuff- things that are good life skills to have in general.
It's also really damn important that we're able to TALK ABOUT IT, which is why I think it's idiotic that there's a stigma around it and that some people think inducing shame is an effective method of "treatment". :/
This is entirely anecdotal, but I didn't really post "timelines" for several reasons, including:
- When a pre-HRT MTF grows their hair, wears makeup, and dresses in feminine clothes, people will probably assume, at minimum, that they are trying to pass as female. When a pre-HRT FTM cuts their hair, grows out their body hair, and dresses masculine, people will probably assume they are "just" a lesbian. It's usually very obvious when someone is pre-T that they are female.
- Since T is basically required for FTMs to genuinely pass as male, the changes that come with T are the ones we keep track of. Changes from T are slow. I was trying to track things, but you don't really notice changes on a daily basis. It doesn't become a habit, people forget. There's not really much else you can do to pass, so "progress" pics are kinda useless.
- I wasn't a Handsome Man. I'm not an unattractive human, but by male standards, I'm honestly just weird looking. IMO, many FTMs fall into this uncanny valley where they sort of look superficially like men, but there's often something unsettling. I'm not saying they're ugly, it's just the brain going "this is a strange looking male"- because they aren't male. Anyway, there's not much motivation to post pics when you don't feel like you've made "progress". It's common to see the claim "FTMs pass better than MTFs" but honestly I didn't see it or experience it myself.
- FTMs don't get as much support for their posts. If you go through transition timelines (at least when I used to) the average MTF usually gets a decent number of responses. If they ask for advice, they usually get makeup, hair, and outfit recommendations. The average FTM, on the other hand, usually sees a lack of responses unless they are EXCEPTIONALLY attractive- then you get a lot of men commenting "wow you look more like a man than me lol!" When asking for advice, the #1 Top Tip is....... go on T (back to points 1 & 2). Maybe fill in your eyebrows more? Contour your face? (Surely nobody will notice "A Man" wearing contour...)
"If you're thinking about your gender/think you might be trans, you're probably trans." The ones that were like "oh, that was dysphoria?" and it was, like... Sad Sometimes (tm). "Dysphoria can manifest in many ways, such as a headache from having to deal with all that stress." Like, I actually had dysphoria, but I was also "Educated" into believing that all of my ailments stemmed from Being Dysphoric lmao.
Trans people have a 3879038125% chance RISK of DEFINITELY committing suicide. NOTHING else works, listen to your Harto and don't let anyone Conversion Therapy u. <3
"Hearts not parts!" and the argument that caring about your partner's genits makes you shallow. Look... I'm genuinely not shallow. I've found some really goobery looking people really attractive based on their personalities. I'm sure there are lots of people like me but not finding someone's genitals appealing ISN'T BEING SHALLOW, IT'S BEING A BIOLOGICAL ORGANISM. But it felt way better to be able to think of other people as jerks if they weren't attracted to something I had no control over lol.
The animosity towards het/"cis" people tbh. There's so much of it when you get into the niche nerd/artist/weirdo communities lmao. "Gay trans men" are heterosexual females (hi) who feel weird about that for whatever reason. Same for a lot of "lesbian trans women". Even if they are doubting whether they want to transition, if they're in these kind of communities, there aren't many who are gonna be willing to claim the boringest, lamest, Most Oppressory identities. It's a Very Well-Known FACT that literally every online artist is trans, sorry I don't make these statistics up. 🤷♀️
I don't think dysphoria is quite the same as normal discomfort that everyone has- I think it's a level of severity or a specific type that is worthy of its own distinction. It wasn't that I was embarrassed about something specific about my breasts- it just made me feel sick to my stomach to have them. Imagine that your hair disgusted you, made you feel itchy (possibly psychosomatic) and ill and people were always like "oh, plenty of people dislike their haircut/texture/etc, you learn how to style it better as you grow up".
It's a bit of an oversimplification. Disliking your hair texture isn't a disorder. The existence of hair on your body preventing you from living a regular life is significantly more crippling lol.
That said, I don't think it's a 100% natural innate thing, and I think dysphoria is used for things that really are average levels of discomfort. Yes, there probably are people who have had dysphoria without having ever recognizing it as "a trans thing" and who learn to manage it other ways, healthy or not. It's something we need to look into more.
bored little straight girls
Look, I don't mean to be all "heterophobia" but can we admit that calling The Straights bored/boring might be confusing people? "Don't be so sensitive" is just... not how human feelings work. If I'm a dysphoric heterosexual female and I already think I should have been a male, seeing heterosexual females called boring and otherwise demeaned isn't going to make desisting any easier. It's not about being "sensitive"- it's rational to fear mocking and humiliation. And it's not reasonable to expect people to "admit their mistake" when, by all observable measures, they were not mistaken. It's asking for an unfair admission of guilt: lying about being trans or prostrating yourself as a gullible fool. I'm not a stupid person and I'm not going to let someone who has no clue what I've been through convince me that I am.
I tried to engage on twitter & talk about how it's more complicated than that, but I haven't gotten a response from Arielle. Ryan responded, but the engagement has been limited unfortunately. I'm not in the original video, but I'm in a similar position so... shrug