This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, this account appears to be authentic.
There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor. The user's comments are highly detailed, nuanced, and show a consistent, evolving personal narrative of questioning and exploring gender identity without having medically transitioned (a desister). The language is complex, empathetic, and shows a deep, long-term engagement with the topic, which is not typical of automated or troll accounts. The user's passion and occasional frustration align with the expected emotions of someone personally invested in this difficult subject.
About me
I'm a female who spent years questioning if I was trans, feeling a lot of confusion tied to my attraction to both men and women. I felt a strong pull to start testosterone, but I was terrified of the permanence and losing my connection to the butch community. I decided to wait and started asking practical questions about what I actually wanted my body to look like and how I wanted to be seen. I realized you can have dysphoria without being trans, and that medical transition is a choice, not an identity. Now, I'm comfortable just being me, a masculine woman who took her time and has no regrets about waiting.
My detransition story
My whole journey with gender has been one long period of questioning. I never really landed on a solid label for myself. For about five years, I've been trying to figure out if I'm trans or what, but I've never medically transitioned. I'm a female who is attracted to both men and women, and a lot of my confusion has been tied up with that.
When I was younger, I was romantically attracted to women but felt weird about the idea of having sex with one. I even thought vaginas were gross, but that changed as I got older and gained experience. I also realized that I like men in a straight way, meaning I want to be seen as a woman by them, not as a man. But at the same time, I present in a pretty masculine way—I have a men's haircut and wear men's clothes. This created a lot of conflict for me because, even though I was trying to be careful and educate myself about the risks of transition, I still felt this compulsive drive to think about going on a low dose of testosterone.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what "dysphoria" even meant for me. Instead of asking "am I trans?", I started asking more practical questions. What exactly did I want my body to look like? Did I just want a lower voice or a more masculine face? How did I want strangers, or future partners, to see me? I realized that I didn't want to lose my connection to the lesbian and butch community, which I felt might happen if I was read as male.
A big part of my hesitation was the permanence of it all. I saw a lot of value in waiting. I even decided I wouldn't consider taking testosterone until I was at least 26, because that's when the brain is fully developed. I believed, and still do, that you can transition at any time in your life and get good results. There's no rush. The worst thing that can happen from waiting is that you stay in a questioning phase until you figure things out.
I also saw how some people's reasons for transitioning or detransitioning didn't always add up, which made me even more cautious. I came to believe that you can have feelings of dysphoria without being trans, and that medical transition can be a choice, almost like a cosmetic one, that doesn't have to be tied to a specific identity. Some butch women get top surgery or go on T without identifying as men, and that's valid.
My own thoughts on gender are that sex is innate—I was born female—but "gender" itself is a complicated idea that isn't innate. I don't really have a strong gender identity, and I've stopped caring about finding one. For me, it's more about what choices will make me feel most comfortable in my body and my life.
I don't regret not transitioning because I never went through with it. My journey was all in my head and in my research. I think taking my time and critically evaluating everything, from my sexuality to my motivations, saved me from making a decision I might have regretted. I benefited from thinking about things in a pragmatic way, not an ideological one.
Here is a timeline of my journey based on my comments:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| Early 20s (2019) | Had been questioning my gender for about 5 years. Presented masculinely (men's clothes, haircut) but remained unsure about medical transition. |
| Early 20s (2019) | Decided to postpone any decision about testosterone until at least age 26 to allow my brain to fully develop. |
| Early 20s (2019) | Shifted my focus from abstract questions about identity to pragmatic questions about desired physical changes and social perception. |
Top Comments by /u/wifidiety:
You know, critical thinking doesn't have to be rude to trans people. If trans people come to this thread because they are having doubts or other issues, meeting them with transphobia or telling them transition is always an awful option for every single person is not going to help them.
And if you're not trying to help people who come here with their problems, then you're probably just here to shove dogmatic views down ppl's throats, which is exactly what ppl on threads like ask_transgender do but from the opposite philosophical perspective.
It's unhelpful, unfriendly, and unsupportive. And believe it or not, presenting your views in terms of black and white with no nuance does NOT encourage critical thinking.
Bro. Why are you even here? If you just came here tryna fight you came to the wrong place. You could learn a lot if you were actually open to hearing other people’s experiences, but you obviously have a very narrow and closed mind when it comes to the topics discussed here. And you seem to have a lot of ignorant assumptions about detrans folks and other people in this sub.
OP it sounds like you need to talk to your wife further about this. Perhaps even see a therapist together. There is a lot to unpack in this situation about your beliefs about each other, about gender, probably about sexuality, and about the future of your relationship.
I doubt that staying silent and accepting that she will always see you and refer to you as a man will actually make your problems any better.
I don't think seeking to overcome gender identity confusion and seeking to change a person's sexual orientation are at all the same thing. The former seems reasonable, the latter seems downright homophobic and wrong. I thought we, as a society, had moved past gay conversion therapy? If this person is offering both services I would be highly suspicious of him and his practice.
I think many trans ppl are against gatekeeping because in the relatively recent past medical professionals tried to bar people from accessing medical transition due to transphobia. I think this has led many, if not most trans people to believe that any barriers to transition = transphobia.
I agree. OP I think transition "taking too long" is an odd reason to consider detransition. Like...you decided to transition because of dysphoria, but feminine changes are taking too long so now you're just gonna continue with male puberty?
I'm not trying to convince you to detransition or not, I'm just pointing out that your reasoning doesn't add up, and I encourage you to dig deeper into your thought processes to figure out what's really going on in your feelings.
You are not preventing ANYONE from making terrible life changing decisions with your dogmatic rhetoric. Nobody who is considering detransition wants to hear you spew hateful ideology. They want support. They want information. They want to hear other detransitioners' experiences.
If they wanted to hear from the likes of you to help them they would go to r/ GenderCritical. And there is a reason that they don't.
Sorry to hear you are suffering :( not sure if this helps but you could stay on hormones and detransition socially. Medical ‘transition’ and trans identity do not always have to go hand in hand. You can do whatever is gonna help you live your best, most fulfilling life
I'm more along the lines of tato_tots, but tbh it doesn't seem like there really is an objective measure of "being transgender". So many people on here have talked about seeing a therapist and medical practitioners who "diagnosed" them with Gender Identity Disorder and subsequently prescribed them hrt, only for them to detransition months or years later.
That doesn't mean transition isn't a viable long-term treatment for dysphoria for anyone, just that it's harder to know who will benefit long-term than we're led to believe.
I can see where you are coming from, but there are plenty of cancer patients who have YouTube channels or instagram accounts where they talk about their experiences having cancer. And for some of them, their illness does become a big part of their identity.
I think similar parallels can be drawn with trans people. For example, Kalvin Garrah on YouTube. He has been transitioned about 4 years, and I don’t get the feeling he will detransition in the future. Yet he is open about is trans identity and is commonly known as a popular ftm youtuber.
Ofc, he does say that he is stealth in some areas of his life. But again, people have shared their lived experience that they were stealth and later detransitioned, so we know that being stealth and being “truly” trans do not always go hand-in-hand.