This story is from the comments by /u/will-I-ever-Be-me that are listed below, summarised with AI.
User Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "will-I-ever-Be-me" appears to be authentic. The user demonstrates a consistent, deeply personal, and nuanced understanding of detransition, gender identity, and related psychological concepts (e.g., AGP, Jungian theory, trauma). The comments reflect a long-term, evolving personal journey, including specific details about their own transition, detransition, and internal struggles. The language is complex, self-reflective, and emotionally resonant, which is consistent with a genuine individual processing a difficult and often stigmatized experience. There are no clear red flags suggesting it is a bot or a bad-faith actor. The passion and occasional anger present are consistent with the harm and stigma often experienced by detransitioners and desisters.
About me
I was born male and my discomfort started as a teenager, feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to be a certain kind of man. I transitioned to live as a woman for several years, thinking it was the solution to my depression and trauma. I eventually realized I was using transition to escape my problems and a deep-seated hatred for my own masculinity. After stopping hormones, I faced the difficult work of learning to accept myself as a man. I'm now in a much healthier place, understanding that true peace comes from balancing both my masculine and feminine sides, not rejecting who I am.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was a teenager, feeling deeply uncomfortable with the changes of puberty. I was born male, and the pressure to be a certain type of man felt overwhelming. I didn't have any healthy male role models growing up; my father and the other men around me were insecure and expressed a violent, immature version of masculinity that I wanted nothing to do with. I felt a lot of internal shame and a sense of emasculation from that.
I started identifying as non-binary first, around the age of 19. It felt like an escape from the box I was forced into. This eventually led me to a full transgender identity. I began taking estrogen and lived as a woman for about four years. During that time, I got top surgery. At first, it was empowering. It felt like I was finally taking control and creating myself. The trans community online was a huge influence; it felt like a supportive space that gave me a script for my feelings and a new identity to adopt.
But over time, that feeling faded. The initial euphoria wore off and it just became my new normal. I started to realize that my transition was, for me, a form of escapism. It was a way to compress all my problems—my depression, my anxiety, my low self-esteem, and my trauma from a religious upbringing—into one single folder labelled "dysphoria." I could blame all my pain on being born in the wrong body instead of dealing with the real, messy issues underneath.
A big part of my motivation was what I later understood as autogynephilia (AGP). I was sexually attracted to the idea of myself as a woman. It was a powerful fetish that drove a lot of my decisions. I also struggled with internalized homophobia; accepting that I was a gay man felt impossible in the environment I came from. Being a straight woman in my head was a much safer, more acceptable fantasy.
The turning point came during the pandemic. I had a lot of time alone to think. I also had some profound experiences with psychedelic drugs, like acid, which helped me see things from a different perspective. I started studying Jungian psychology and concepts like individuation, the anima and animus, and the Tarot. I realized that I had been trying to annihilate my masculine side completely, and in doing so, I was making myself half a person. True peace came from balancing both the masculine and feminine within me, not from rejecting one entirely.
I realized that my transition was an act of self-harm. I was running from who I was. Estrogen was damaging my body, keeping me in a state of perpetual pre-pubescence rather than allowing me to grow into an adult man. The trans identity, which once felt empowering, began to feel like a pitiful way to see myself as a perpetual victim. I decided to detransition.
Stopping hormones and reclaiming my life as a man was difficult. I had to face all the trauma and self-hatred I had been avoiding. I had to rebuild my relationship with my masculinity in a healthy way, without the toxic influences from my childhood. I don't regret my transition because it was a necessary part of my journey. It was the destructive path I needed to take to finally break free from the fundamentalist religious ideology I was raised in. It ultimately led me to a much healthier place where I can now accept myself as a male person, a man, without needing any labels or identities. I see gender now as a social construct, a mask we wear. I’m just me.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 19 | Began identifying as non-binary, influenced by online communities. |
| 20 | Started taking estrogen and living as a woman. |
| 23 | Underwent top surgery (double incision with nipple grafts). |
| 24 | Began detransitioning after realising transition was a trauma response. Stopped hormones. |
| 25 | Fully re-identified as male, working on integrating masculine and feminine aspects of self. |
Top Reddit Comments by /u/will-I-ever-Be-me:
Honestly, I believe this wariness is valid. The shared social constructed reality of the Transgender Ingroup is a juggernaut to behold.
Transitioning works because people who are trans program themselves to be trans. If that identity collapses... well, that's a mindset individuals need to reach on their own. It's cruel to shove people through labyrinth doors, even if you can see they're standing in the open frame.
Granted, I don't know anything about this individual, but I will listen to what they are telling me.
What this individual is telling me is that they are somebody who is feeling insecure & fraudulent regarding their own production, work, and [marketing of / objectification of] their self.
Classic projection. Well wishes to 'em.
I got everything I ever wanted & realized it left me empty inside & dependant on unnecessary pharmaceuticals.
Thankfully, 'everything I ever wanted' included no surgeries, so I was able to detransition without still needing to be dependant on pharmaceuticals.
>Imagine a community for multiple personality disorder that tells you the other personalities are real, and that society has an oppressive concept of how many spirits house one body? Sounds horrifying, right? Sounds... familiar though?
ayyy I dunno if you're intentionally making a reference-- but yeah this exists, I could trot out five busy subreddits devoted to this idea.
As you might expect, the 'plural' community has a significant overlap with the trans community, in many cases with individuals using membership in one identity group as a jumping board to be of both identity groups.
Personally, coming into awareness of those communities, and dipping my toes into that particular oblivion, is part of what gave me to context to wake up and realize what I was doing to myself, both in regard with my sex as well as with my personal concept in general.
Aye. That's the point of this particular social powergame.
imo the way to consistently win-- is to not play. Sucks to lose a friend like that, but eh, it's also a blessing for them (hah) to show you how their priorities function.
I'd suggest having a conversation with her, about what you've shared here.. but we both know the futility of that. People who have the emotional space to hold these conversations without defaulting to taking offense, don't play these games in the first place.
She mentioned the week before she began detransitioning she took shrooms and had a whole moment where she felt so overwhelmingly at peace with herself as a woman. Meanwhile my most recent trip on shrooms made me feel very confident I was in fact trans without doubt for a couple of weeks.
In my experience, psychedelics can both open one to new perceptions & well as allow one to run 'further down the rabbit hole' & further cement their pre-existing beliefs.
Similar to how stoned thoughts can feel full of monumental insight, but when sober again, the same thoughts sound strange and disjointed-- but it sure felt like we were onto something big!
Robert Anton Wilson said it well: What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.
"oh no my penis is an inch under the average"
Thank you for providing such a relevant example of the dismissive, negligent attitude trans activists typically take when concerns are raised regarding the long-term health prospects of the literal children whom are railroaded into these medical programs.
ngl the way she's speaking in the second screenshot.. idk I don't know her or you or your relationship, but I just, get a sketch vibe..
It's a thing, sometimes, where folk glamorize, on some level, the thought of having another dependant on them.. emotionally, physically, medically, any of these sorts & others. Some people find fulfillment in knowing another person depends on them. This isn't good nor is it bad; but it can be healthy & it can also be unhealthy & determining which is a judgment call best reserved to be made by the particular folk in question.
be well brah
Right? It's so gaddamnded insidious. What a horrific message for social authoritarians to be drumming into the minds of children.
Is this what body positivity looks like? Teaching children that they're 'born wrong'? That sounds to me an awful lot like a certain religious doctrine that fucked me up something fierce as a youngun. And to think, I left that doctrine, for this doctrine.
Marx had it right-- first as tragedy, then as farce. I can only laugh at the absurdity of my own choices. I find that way healthiest for me.
Your honesty in sharing is bad-ass & I am grateful for your willingness to talk about this difficult subject.
What you write here is a fantastic, non-judgmental testimony of this experience of self-directed cross-sex attraction. It is very similar to what I myself experienced, though my AGP was partial. Meaning, I was attracted to myself as a woman with male genitals. I've noticed this form of AGP seems to be becoming increasingly popular within the trans community, what with the memetic concepts of 'mouthfeel' and 'girlcock'.
I wish others who are considering transition would know just how common this experience is-- & its commonality being exactly why discussion of the subject is so taboo in trans spaces.