This story is from the comments listed below, summarised by AI.
Authenticity Assessment: Not Suspicious
Based on the provided comments, the account "wsclose" appears to be authentic and not a bot. The user demonstrates deep, personal knowledge across multiple unrelated topics (wig styling, fertility struggles, mental health, and gender ideology critique) with a consistent, passionate, and nuanced voice. The personal anecdotes about their sister-in-law and fertility journey are detailed and specific, which is difficult to fabricate consistently. The account exhibits the expected passion and frustration of a genuine desister or detransitioner. No serious red flags for inauthenticity were found.
About me
I started feeling a deep discomfort with my female body when I was a teenager, and I thought transitioning to male was the answer. I even started taking testosterone, but it didn't fix the anxiety and unhappiness I felt. A therapist finally helped me see that my distress was really tied to other issues like autism, OCD, and an eating disorder. I stopped hormones after realizing I was using gender as an escape from those deeper problems. Now I'm focused on my real mental health and learning to live with the permanent changes from my time on testosterone.
My detransition story
My journey with gender started when I was a kid. I struggled a lot with what I now understand was gender dysphoria. I felt uncomfortable with my body, especially during puberty. I hated developing breasts and felt a deep sense of wrongness with the changes happening to me. Looking back, I see that this was mixed up with a lot of other things: low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. I was also influenced heavily by what I saw online and from friends who were exploring similar feelings.
I started my transition socially, changing my name and how I presented. I got really into learning how to use wigs to look more masculine, and I spent a lot of time in online communities sharing tips about wig types and where to buy them, trying to help others while I was figuring things out for myself. I thought changing how I looked was the answer to my deep unhappiness.
I eventually started taking testosterone. I thought it would fix everything, but it didn’t. The feelings of discomfort and anxiety were still there. During this time, I was also struggling with an eating disorder and serious body dysmorphia. I was weighing my food and had intense anxiety about my weight. I now realize I was looking for an easy out, a quick fix for a much deeper problem.
A major turning point for me was getting non-affirming therapy. I found a therapist who actually pushed back and asked hard questions. Instead of just affirming my self-diagnosis, she made me dig into the root causes of my distress. We talked about my autism, my OCD tendencies, my history of depression, and my eating habits. It was hard and uncomfortable, but it was what I needed. I began to understand that my issues with my body were more connected to body dysmorphia and trauma than to being born in the wrong body.
I also became deeply suspicious of the medical system around transition. I saw how easy it was to get hormones, sometimes in just one appointment, while people with real medical hormone issues had to jump through hoops. I saw clinics pushing hormones on very young kids, and it made me angry. It made me think about how different my own childhood could have been if I’d been encouraged down that path without any questioning.
I decided to detransition. I stopped taking testosterone. I don’t regret exploring my gender because it led me to a better understanding of myself, but I do regret the permanent changes the hormones caused. I now have to live with those consequences.
My thoughts on gender now are that it's a very complex issue that is often oversimplified. For me, it was a form of escapism from other mental health problems. I benefited immensely from therapy that wasn’t just about affirmation but about uncovering the truth. I’m now focused on my health, my family, and building a life based on reality, not on a feeling I thought would solve everything.
Here is a timeline of my journey:
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| ~12-13 | Started feeling intense discomfort with puberty and hated my developing breasts. |
| 20 | Began socially transitioning, changing my name and presentation. |
| 21 | Started researching and using wigs to present as masculine. |
| 22 | Began taking testosterone. |
| 23 | Started non-affirming therapy that addressed my underlying anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia. |
| 24 | Stopped testosterone and began my detransition. |
| Present | Working on coping with my autism and OCD, and managing the permanent effects of taking hormones. |
Top Comments by /u/wsclose:
Good!
I recently found out my SIL works at a clinic that heavily pushes kids (as young as 8/10) into hormones and surgery... Made me pretty mad when she accused my husband and I of being transphobic and hateful for wanting kids to go to therapy instead of starting them on hormones.
She told us "You just don't care about trans kids, and they are so happy when they get to go on hormones right away" made me disgusted, and seriously reconsider our relationship with her if she's so blind to what's in front of her. Really pissed me off and made me want to distance my own kids from her for fear of her confusing them. Because when I was a kid i struggled with gender dysphoria and I can only imagine how screwed up I would be if I was a kid in today's current climate.
She really buys into pretty much anything the media tells her. Won't allow anyone to question how she's been told to think, even when evidence and science shows she's wrong.
She thinks that you can just stop taking cross sex hormones and everything is back to the way it was before. Oh, and that cross sex hormones are 100% natural and don't cause any damage. Her and people like her are so frustrating to be around, I feel like I can't talk about these topics with them because I become evil somehow because I dare to disagree. When these things need to be talked about and questioned. Otherwise anyone who questions their biological sex could/are harmed by affirming care. It also opens doors for more people to self diagnose and that's pretty scary.
It is that easy. One lady in my town only needs 1 appointment before she prescribes hormone replacement therapy for anyone who comes in self diagnosed. While adults with actual hormone imbalance issues have to wade though multiple appointments and blood panels before they get prescribed anything.
link "Statistical reliability is crucial in order to ensure the precision and validity of the analysis. To make sure the reliability is high, there are various techniques to perform – the first of them being the control tests, which should have similar results when reproducing an experiment in similar conditions. These controlling measures are essential and should be part of any experiment or survey – unfortunately, that isn’t always the case."
"While numbers don’t lie, they can in fact be used to mislead with half-truths. This is known as the “misuse of statistics.” It is often assumed that the misuse of statistics is limited to those individuals or companies seeking to gain profit from distorting the truth, be it economics, education, or mass media.
However, the telling of half-truths through study is not only limited to mathematical amateurs. A 2009 investigative survey by Dr. Daniele Fanelli from The University of Edinburgh found that 33.7% of scientists surveyed admitted to questionable research practices, including modifying results to improve outcomes, subjective data interpretation, withholding analytical details, and dropping observations because of gut feelings…. Scientists!"
I'm always highly sceptical of "research" done with surveys for a very good reason. The data from the research in question was gathered by an activist organization. So who knows the methods they used to generate the survey, if everyone was given the same survey, if it was repeated, who was given the survey, and how those individuals were selected. Lots of unaccounted bias and unknowns that just can't be accounted for.
Then address those symptoms and don't pretend that changing how you look and sound will fix it.
*After reading your post history I can see you might also be struggling with an eating disorder as well. I think you need to be working with a psychotherapist about your body dysmorphia before you start taking things that can permanently damage your body.
I'm commenting this same comment again since the other post was deleted.
"The National Center for Transgender Equality was founded in 2003 by transgender activists who recognized the urgent need for policy change to advance transgender equality. "
Who conducts the study matters and the NCTE is an organization founded by trans activists. So any study they conduct is bias.
The organization is also a total joke.
"Overview
NCTE is in the midst of total transformation as we realign our organization toward racial justice, inside and out. We would like to acknowledge the ways that we have participated in racism, anti-Blackness, and other forms of oppression through our workplace policies and culture. Over the years, these conditions harmed our staff in innumerable ways. We received a serious wake-up call when in 2019 many NCTE staff left the organization in response to the harm they experienced.
Since then, we have been working to examine how we got here and how we can create an organization that supports all of our employees to thrive. We are deeply committed to transformation and invite our community to hold us accountable in this crucial work.
A previous version of this page was written in 2020 in an effort to be transparent about what happened and what we’re doing make it right. Now, in January 2022, we are offering an updated statement.
What Happened
In 2019, a large number of our staff walked out of the office in protest of what they felt was an “unequal workplace.” The incident was widely reported in the news, including The New York Times and Jezebel. Several former staff wrote an open letter published in Out Magazine outlining the issues they faced and why they left. Over 400 LGBTQ activists, organizers, and community members also signed an open letter in support of those former employees. That year, our staff went from 21 to just seven.
In addition to these news stories and feedback from former and current staff, we hired a Black feminist consulting firm that specializes in racial justice in the nonprofit sector to conduct a third-party assessment of the organization. They interviewed current and former staff, current and former board members, and community leaders.
For many years, NCTE has experienced high staff turnover, especially for staff of color. Our staff quadrupled in size in just a few years, but the organization’s culture and structures did not offer enough support to the new staff who were all hired into high-pressure jobs. The firm found a culture of white dominance as well as inadequate structures and policies to support NCTE’s staff. This showed up in numerous ways:
Not prioritizing staff of color internally and communities of color in our work
Resistance to talking about race and a fear of conflict
No Black staff in senior leadership and high turnover of Black staff
A culture of urgency and overworking leading to staff burnout
Top-down decision making and lack of transparency
Focus on work product rather than process, relationships, and culture
Inadequate policies for disability accommodation
A unionization dispute about whether supervisors should be in the same bargaining unit as their supervisees
All of these things and more led us to the situation in 2019 when staff decided to walk out. And in the process, we have lost our community’s trust. This is something we take very seriously, and we are now doing the work to transform our organization. "
But did you talk about your eating habits and how you weigh your food Or about how you are worried about being fat? How about the anxiety you talked about when you don't weigh your meals?
I think you need to be honest with the professionals you say you are working with. But that means you need to be honest to yourself first.
Ok, take a breath.
Fertility issues are very frustrating and emotional to go through. It took me 10 years to get pregnant/keep pregnancy to term. I was on birth control for 7 years and that screwed up my body's cycles badly (depo worked great in preventing pregnancy, but sucked when we wanted a family)
From what I tried and what I learned the best advice I can give is stop thinking and stressing about it!!!
Work on yourself both mentally and physically. Weight/weight gain can cause issues (as much as we all love to hear about it from a doctor)
Set up a vacation or low stress staycation. Working on becoming parents should be fun wink wink and about the two of you. A baby is just a bonus!
Take lots of walks and do things you both enjoy together. What ended up working for me was a combination of a few things. I lost 60lb on the keto diet (if done correctly and balanced is fantastic) I started working out 4 days a week (lots of bike rides on my e-bike to start) started doing things for me and my significant other (cooking and planning fun outings) and finally I saw a counselor and they helped me work through a lot of emotional issues I have/had. It really wasn't any one thing that did it, but a combination of it all.
Also maybe have blood work done to see how your hormone and thyroid levels are doing. Your partner should get checked out as well to be sure all your bases are covered.
What works for others might not work for you, so don't expect the same outcome. Some people can get pregnant just by looking at a man it seems. So it's important not to hold yourself to the same standards.
You might have had it all along and just noticed recently. A lot of people conflate being trans with other underlying mental health issue. That's why it's important to spend time digging and finding the root cause of the distress and not just slapping on a label that's easy. (Just because the shoe fits doesn't mean it matches the other foot kind of situation. )
Also, seeking a second opinion is never a bad idea when it comes to reality vs. what you think/feel.
You also need to deep dive into what HRT truly does to your body and the long term health risks associated with it. It's not sunshine and rainbows, I've seen a lot of posts from people who start it only to realize after that it was a mistake and now they have to live with the consequences. Taking extra time and knowing the changes and risk associated are not a bad thing and it might benefit you in the long run.
But at the end of the day I assume you are an adult and can choose for yourself. Just make sure it's a fully informed decision and not one made emotionally.
Knowing you are autistic and continuing to address issues/learn coping mechanism are two different things. It sounds like you stopped learning to cope and started looking for easy outs.
I also advise you to seek a second opinion with a professional that will push back and dig. As well as be honest with them. They can't help you of you lie or have already decided on your diagnosis.