This story is from the comments by /u/vimefer that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the comments provided, the account appears authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or operating in bad faith.
The user consistently identifies as an intersex, agender desister who never medically transitioned. Their comments show a deep, nuanced, and personal understanding of the detrans/desister and intersex experience, including complex medical knowledge, emotional support, and personal anecdotes that span years. The tone is passionate and sometimes angry, which is consistent with someone who has experienced harm and stigma. The writing is coherent, varied, and shows genuine engagement with different users' specific situations over a long period.
About me
I was presumed male at birth, but being intersex meant I never fit that role, which caused me years of depression and dysphoria. A profound spiritual experience in 2004 lifted my depression and made me realize I am agender, not a man or a woman. I never pursued hormones or surgery, as my journey was about socially and internally rejecting the identities forced on me. I’ve found peace by accepting my body as naturally different and focusing on my strengths, like my voice through choral practice. My only regret is the time I lost to confusion and the way intersex people like me are so often misunderstood.
My detransition story
My journey with gender has been long and complicated, and it’s deeply tied to the fact that I was born intersex. For me, this wasn't about transitioning from one binary gender to another, but about untangling the expectations that were forced on me from a young age because my body didn't fit neatly into a male or female box.
I was presumed male at birth, but I never felt like I fit the role of a "man." This caused me years of severe depression and a lot of dysphoric thoughts. I hated the expectations placed on me and felt completely out of place. For a long time, I thought my discomfort was a gender issue, but it was really about being forced into a category that never truly described me.
A major turning point for me happened in 2004 when I had a powerful, spiritually transformative experience. It wasn't guided by drugs or therapy; it just happened. In an instant, the depression and dysphoria that had plagued me for years just lifted. It was like a switch flipped, and I could finally see myself clearly. I realized I wasn't a man, but I wasn't a woman either. I am agender. I don't have a sense of being any gender at all, and that's okay. This experience set me on a path to finally accepting my body for what it is: naturally different.
I never took hormones or had any surgeries. My journey was entirely social and internal. I had to desist from the identities that society and doctors tried to force on me. I’ve come to learn that my experience is different from many others. My body has its own set of challenges, and adding medical transition on top of that would have been too risky and complicated. My doctors have been investigating a potential genetic condition, which adds another layer of why medical intervention was never the right path for me.
Looking back, I don't have regrets about not medically transitioning because I never did. My regret is for the time I lost being depressed and confused, and for the way intersex people like me are often erased or used as a talking point by everyone. We are romanticized by some and hated by others, but rarely are we just listened to. Our bodies are seen as problems to be solved, and that needs to change.
My thoughts on gender now are that it's a social performance, a set of behaviors and roles we associate with men and women. For me, it's not an internal feeling I possess. I've benefited from finally understanding that and from accepting my intersex body. I found strength in things like choral practice, which helped me with my voice, and in building a physique I feel strong in. I found a lot of peace through my spiritual experience.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 12 | My voice became froggy and difficult to project, causing me pain when speaking. I was often inaudible and mocked for it. |
| ? (Teens) | Years of severe depression and dysphoria from being forced into a male social role. |
| 20 (in 2004) | Had a spiritually transformative experience that completely alleviated my depression and dysphoria, leading to self-acceptance as agender. |
| Ongoing | Underwent choral practice for years to strengthen my voice and improve projection. |
| Ongoing | Continued to explore and accept my intersex body without medical intervention. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/vimefer:
In a letter to The Wall Street Journal last year, 21 experts from nine countries said that survey was one reason they believed there was “no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide prevention measure.”
Moreover, the incidence of suicidal thoughts and attempts among gender dysphoric youth is complicated by the high incidence of accompanying conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder.
Gay men and women often told me they fear that same-sex-attracted kids, especially effeminate boys and tomboy girls who are gender nonconforming, will be transitioned during a normal phase of childhood and before sexual maturation — and that gender ideology can mask and even abet homophobia.
As one detransitioned man, now in a gay relationship, put it, “I was a gay man pumped up to look like a woman and dated a lesbian who was pumped up to look like a man. If that’s not conversion therapy, I don’t know what is.”
Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.
Muchas grandes, NYT. They really gave this the whole nine yards.
I lurk in detrans groups because, all in all, the stories in there relate closer to how life went for me - an expectation of gender and sexual identities were forced on my kid self, until I desisted from both and embraced how nature made me. Apparently about ~40% of self-recognized intersex folks are also trans, so there is a considerable overlap, but it's not the majority, and for a sizeable fraction of that overlapping group, the experience is quite different from perisex trans folks.
I've been explained point-blank how intersex must be defined and what my experience of being intersex must have been, by trans activists. Oh the cringe. I've had a few try and conflate their trans experience with my youth, despite the obvious disconnect. At times I've been told we're 'middle of the roads' that 'get to choose'... No, we get handed a platter of mismatched, incomplete features and disabilities. We don't get to choose shit. We don't even get to function in the first place, if unlucky enough.
All too often people involved in gender identity politickry romanticize intersex conditions, sometimes to the point it sounds like they feel they're missing out... It's thankfully rare but a few even resent us over their own misrepresentation of our experience, which is just crazy. The conservative side is of course no better with the proxyfication, tokenization... and the overt hatred, especially when they just lump us all in one giant dehumanizing bag. Even when they pay lip service in denouncing medicalist interventions on intersex children it's only as a rethorical point for attacking "the woke left", in reality they're totally relieved about our continued erasure and all too willing to continue enforcing it, keeping exceptions for mutilating intersex kids in their wholesale bans of healthcare...
AFAIR, SRS and HRT were initially developed and experimented on intersex children and mostly motivated by homophobia.
We have advocates of our own, I wish they got to directly talk for us more.
Darn, so sorry for the lost time, emotional scars and missed opportunities :( I wish I could help you relieve the guilt of self-damage, but I can only give you internet hugs, it's frustrating...
I have a great boyfriend, I have a safe and consistent place to live, I've reconnected with my little brother
The past 2 years especially ever since I got my own bedroom for the first time, I've gotten to know myself. I am now that feminine, pretty girl I always deep deep down wanted to be. And I have dropped my old awful friends.
You're in such a good place now, and with lots of life still to happen you have more room for catching up on what experiences you feel you missed so far, than you possibly suspect. Consider that there are quite a lot of people your age who will also have nostalgia or regret over 'high school life' they wish to have had or wish to re-live again - they too can relate. I promise there is yet more fun and joy to be had :)
I would be curious to see if intersex people have a ‘feeling’ of being a man or a woman, in the sense of say a transwoman feeling like a woman.
Most of us have a simple binary gender, regardless of body development. I'm among the exceptions for having no sense of gender.
These are all the right sort of questions to be asking, keep going.
Why was I the most depressed when identifying as nonbinary?
It might be that asserting a solid identity helps with alleviating self-doubt and anxiety...
Why did nobody explain to me the difference between insecurity/body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria?
It seems to be the result of a mix of plain ignorance of such problems, misaligned incentives on the part of the healthcare system, and even some good old incompetence sprinkled all around.
Why did I reject my feminity even though it was one of my favorite things?
Why was I made to feel that I needed to be in some way oppressed?
Why do I feel basic and dumb for in reality just being a straight cis girl?
Did you possibly deny yourself as a way to punish yourself, or out of internalized guilt ? It may sound cliché but proper therapy usually is the right answer to this type of question...
scheme to get their daughter in a “gay” relationship
Oh FFS...
As with most situations, shared responsibilities a-plenty here. The transboy for not being upfront (or even downright actively deceptive) about it to a potential mate. Conservative elements of society for enforcing an unsafe environment where keeping it secret may be the lesser evil. The girl for outing the transboy. The girl's parents for homophobic threats (that may or may not have legal followup...)
But I don't think the transboy's parents or the school are to blame for respecting what should be basic privacy.
I know if I truly express my beliefs I will lose a lot of connections. Not sure if there’s even a point to sharing everything per se but those Wpath files caused a ton of people to question me. It’s exhausting being quiet and exhausting to spread awareness. Also no one has really asked me my story or expressed concern like they don’t wanna hear it.
This is a sentiment that has been growing common in recent times, like people's politically-driven identities have become crystallized a lot - making them both hard and brittle, I mean. Being constantly vigilant about other people's reality-tunnel is exhausting, yeah, but I found from experience being as little threatening as possible helps, grey-rocking and passive listening skills are a must.
Your friends and acquaintances are not going to go out of their comfort zones willingly, and seek out your experiences as they perceive them to be discordant to their own maps of reality. You can certainly introduce them to it piecemeal, as tangents to things that are familiar to them one at a time. Yes it's a lot of slow work, sorry.
"You're the high-school intern, right ?"
"No, I'm your senior engineer."
*insert Pikachu face*
Paraphrasing and some is lost in translation from the original French conversation I had at the time, but yeah. I see you, and I relate.
You don't get the option to grow some facial hair, sadly... Other than that I found keeping some muscle bulk and maintaining a little extra weight might help look older, provided your fat distribution follows a sexual pattern, but it only goes so far :(
i've been working out to hopefully build a stronger physique and re-evaluate my gender struggles when my body is more to my liking.
I think this is the best initiative you can take at the moment, which will boost your confidence, and help you feel empowered and in full possession of your body and identity, alleviating self-doubt and dysmorphic thoughts :)
My own doctor said “We know very little about detransition”. Then maybe don’t use teenagers as your experimental guinea pigs for cross sex hormones and surgery…
It's one glaring thing in common with intersex kids... Scalpel first, regrets later, and the ones who oopsie are never the ones who pay the price in blood and pain...
It begs the question of how do we go teaching kids to stand for their own body autonomy optimally and fairly.