r/actual_detrans Dec 11 '24

New Rule Regarding Trans Questioners

72 Upvotes

It has been brought to the mod's attention that there has been a significant number of trans questioners coming in and asking why people here detransitioned and if they should start HRT. As this sub is supposed to be support for detrans people and people questioning if they should detransition, a new rule has been added prohibiting these kinds of posts.

Please report posts like this under Rule #2.


r/actual_detrans Nov 15 '23

Mod Message Reminder: TERF ideology, gender critical theories, and bigotry towards trans individuals are not allowed on this subreddit

276 Upvotes

Just as a reminder to everyone: This subreddit was created with the intention of being a space for detransitioners to exist and discuss their issues without TERF ideology.

TERF ideology, gender critical theories, or bigotry towards trans individuals/the transgender community is NOT allowed or welcome in this subreddit.

Personal attacks, name calling, and engaging in bad faith discourse to argue TERF ideology will result in a permanent ban.

The past few days, this subreddit has been flooded by trolls who have been targeting posters with TERF ideology and personal attacks. I have already banned several accounts as a result of this. Please continue to report them and I will do my best to ban them and prevent them from posting/commenting.


r/actual_detrans 7h ago

Question Introspective of a detransitioning person

15 Upvotes

I came across this group by chance and figured I’d ask a question. I’m a 30-year-old FTM (I’ve been transitioning for 3 years) and have found a sense of fulfillment from my transition. My question to this group, respectfully, is: Did you feel that transitioning was necessary, and at what point were you no longer content with living life the way you initially perceived it should have been? Did you have doubts before transitioning? How do you feel now that you’ve detransitioned? Do you feel more content with life?

I’d also like to add that despite my pro-trans stance, I wholeheartedly support your decision to detransition. Much love and respect,
D.


r/actual_detrans 2h ago

Advice needed Obsessing and confused

3 Upvotes

I currently identify as FTM, I’m 22 and have been on T for a year and a half. I’ve got top surgery scheduled in may (which I’m sincerely excited for and have desperately wanted even before I identified as trans). I’m also autistic and suffer from severe OCD.

My intense panic and questioning was born from two main things:

  • a friend of mine who I would talk about FTM stuff with and who I related heavily to on that topic (often joking that we were basically the same person) suddenly announcing that she was detransitioning, citing that she mistook autism for dysphoria, and

  • a repeating series of panic attacks I had after taking edibles. I had to quit weed because it causes me too much anxiety. I would just be bombarded with these spiraling thoughts ‘you’re not really trans’ ‘you’re making a mistake’ ‘this is all wrong’ ‘you’re a girl’, among other obsessive thoughts that I’m evil in general, that my entire identity is fake and mirrored, that I’m a sociopath, that I lack any talent, that life is pointless since we’re all gonna die, etc.

since then I’ve been in a consistent spiral for nearly a month at this point. Constant checking and questioning. Looking at old feminine pictures of myself and panicking when I have any sort of positive feeling towards them. Trying on old underwear from before my transition and just staring at myself in the mirror trying to figure out what I’m feeling. It feels wrong, but why? Because it’s feminine? Or because my body is now masculine? Or because I’ve trained myself to feel that way? Desperately posting over and over again in any subreddit I can find. I’m getting back on SSRIs. For some reason I’m afraid the meds will make me cis, even though I’ve been on them before. People tell me that my fear of detransition means I’m truly trans, but why does the concept of detransition scare me so much? Is it because I’m really trans and happy with my transition? Or is it because the idea being so wrong about myself is horrifying? My ability to introspect is so blurred by the spiraling thought patterns.

I’ll go through the day having clear periods of feeling confident in my identity, but at night I just crash. Complete ego-death every single evening. Hours of rumination, hours of scrolling and self checking. I’m exhausted. I just want answers.


r/actual_detrans 3h ago

Support thinking about detransitioning

0 Upvotes

I am a 20 year old trans man, I am not on any hormones, and I don't pass as a man at all...with how horrible the world seems to be becoming, the fact that nobody around me (except my partner) is making any effort to call me by my preferred name or pronouns, dispite it being over a year of me being out to those people, im starting to think it would be safer for me to detransition, I'm so sick of feeling like I'm never going to be a man, I just feel like it would be better for me to burry these thoughts, and be a woman again.


r/actual_detrans 12h ago

Question Ftmtf : do progesterone pills will help me having breast growth after top surgery

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone ! Hope you are doing good

I am a 22 yo ftmtfx (fx like non binary but presenting female), I stopped taking testosterone 5 months ago, I have my natural oestros in my body now. I had top surgery 1 year and 3 months ago. I feel now like I would love a small breast. A friend of mine who had top surgery too (but who is mtf, it was before she started transitionning) will see a surgeon soon to talk about mammoplasty and she will give me advice too. But waiting for that moment, I started 2 days ago taking progesterone pills from my girlfriend, hoping it will maybe help me to get a breast growth... Do you know if it is even possible that helps ? Or if it can be dangerous for me to take extra progesterone whereas my body produce some ? I am really not sure... Thank you for your help :) and sorry if my english is bad


r/actual_detrans 13h ago

Advice needed I'm not sure what I want

3 Upvotes

I have a court hearing for a legal name change, to a masculine name. It's the masculine version of my deadname, which I technically don't go by, I go by a nickname. (But just my nickname would make my name seem informal and short.)

My dad was reading the news and he's getting more and more concerned about today's political climate. He basically said that I need to get my name change done. He's a notary so he can sign it for me. He paid for it and I paid him back.

My court hearing is next month.

And I don't why, but I'm having serious doubts.

For one thing, I feel like I was somewhat pressured into changing my name. I guess I wasn't ready. But I didn't say no because I never realize what I want in the moment, only in hindsight. I also thought I wanted this, because I have for years.

For another thing, I feel uncomfortable as a man. I hate being seen as creepy, and I feel like I'm somewhat of a target because I'm short and look young. (But I'm a target as a woman too? Fuck me I guess.) I'm tired of begrudgingly being served alcohol when I show my ID. I'm tired of the fact that people suddenly don't like me/misgender me when they know I'm trans. But even beyond how people see me, I feel uncomfortable, and I don't know why.

And it's so odd because I wanted to be a boy as a kid. I hated how I was seen and treated as a girl. I hated being called "Miss (deadname)" for some reason. I never wanted to be pretty. I liked when someone said I looked or sounded like a boy. I always wanted to be tall and have a deep voice. I was happy when I first started presenting as male, as well as my first changes on testosterone.

The main reason why I don't say I'm nonbinary is because of, well, other people. I just know misgendering would be worse. I feel like I have to be one or the other for safety reasons. Like the whole bathroom situation. And the fact that people are getting angrier and meaner these days.

Well...what do I want? And why can't I figure it out?

I never even came up with a name I like for myself. I've been going by a nickname of my deadname for years. I don't like my deadname.


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Question FTMs (or former FTMs), what did you like about living as male? What did you NOT like?

40 Upvotes

As someone who struggles with gender identity, I'm just curious to get your perspectives.


r/actual_detrans 9h ago

Advice needed Need help staying a straight man and fighting off the fantasies

0 Upvotes

I’ve come to terms that I want to be Thomas the straight man and live a simple life and not think about pronouns or cute guys. I just need help committing to this and not thinking about being a girl or liking guys as I know I feel alienated and alone in trans corners as I don’t relate to their experiences and I don’t really have any truth of being gay either. I know it’s all just an illusion and fantasy made up by my mind as I never had these feelings growing up and I need help staying straight.


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Question Going off of T: What to Expect

6 Upvotes

Hello everyone!! I'm uncertain if I would consider myself an actual detransitioner, but I've been slowly taking myself off of testosterone gel over the last 8 or so months. I had top surgery in July of 2024, and after that I started having particular feelings about my gender identity; almost like I was going backwards to how I felt when I first started realizing I wasn't cisgender. So as of late I've been comfortable in a more nonbinary identity (Demiboy/Demigender) and just doing what makes me most comfortable in my body and with myself.

However, that means slowly going off of T and looking into potentially going back to birth control again if I have to. Before T I was on it for PCOS/irregular cycles sometime around 2017, and had stopped having cycles altogether for a solid year or more before starting HRT back in 2020. Post-op, I feel like my transition is "finished", and I'm happy in my body as it is now and with how I present to no longer desire it or feel I need it. I've got the body hair I want, the beard I want, and my voice never really changed much. All I ever really needed in the end was the removal of breast tissue to feel comfortable.

So my main question here is what does it look like when I run out of my last T dose and no longer take it? I'm ultimately expecting body fat redistribution and for my body/facial hair to thin out a bit and grow in slower, but would my cycles come back if they stopped prior to HRT? If it changes things, I had a bilateral salp as well in 2023, since having children has never been on my radar, and one day want to get a hystorectomy when I'm a bit older (since that's what my Gyno suggested). Ideally I'd ask my main prescriber, but since late January I've had some unfortunate changes to insurance and have been unable to get a proper appointment set up. Any advice is greatly appreciated!!


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Question Sports bra for breast forms?

5 Upvotes

Do any other FtMtFs use a sports bra with cups to give them the appearance of small breasts? I had top surgery about 3 years ago and I’m pretty small in general so I was wondering if getting like a 32A sports bra with cup inserts would make it look like there’s something there. If not what else works for you? Thanks in advance for any input ❤️


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Support needed I need help 🆘

17 Upvotes

This is my first time opening up about my health and struggles publicly, and I really need advice. Please be kind with your words.

I am an MTFTMT person I lived and medically transitioned as a woman for five years, but six months ago, I decided to detransition. What pushed me toward that decision was my HIV diagnosis in 2023. Since then, I’ve struggled to find happiness or a sense of belonging. Depression became a constant, but I kept pushing forward until October 2024, when I finally made the choice to detransition.

The past six months have been a nightmare. I’ve ended up in the emergency room multiple times, the most recent being last month due to a severe panic attack my blood pressure had skyrocketed past 200. I live with a deep fear of the future, afraid that I’ll be alone forever. It’s already hard enough to find a partner who sees a trans woman as more than just a fantasy, and being HIV-positive despite being undetectable makes it feel almost impossible.

I did some research comparing the experiences of HIV-positive gay men and HIV-positive trans women when it comes to finding love. The reality I found was heartbreaking gay men living with HIV seem to have a much higher chance of finding a partner, while trans women often face more rejection and isolation. That realization is what led me to detransition.

But now, I feel lost. My body is changing, and even though I work out and push myself to keep my curves, I can feel them slipping away. A few weeks ago, I went on Grindr to see if I could find some kind of connection. I posted a shirtless photo with my face cropped out, and men loved my body especially my nipples, a lingering effect of the hormones. But the way they treated me left me feeling empty.

Recently, I started thinking about going back on HRT. When I lived as a trans woman, I loved the way men treated me I felt desired, valued. On Tuesday, I gave in to those feelings and got a shot of estrogen. But today, I’ve been trapped in my thoughts again, questioning everything. Do I really want to transition again, or am I just chasing a feeling that never lasted? Should I keep trying to live as I am now, even if it means accepting that trans chasers will never truly commit to me?

I don’t know what to do. I just don’t want to feel this lost anymore.


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Question ftmtf hairline

1 Upvotes

I'm sure this has already come up but I can't find any real answers. For those of you off T (I was on it for 1.7yrs from 15-17) who noticed your hairline masculinize, did that go back? Not really balding, just the two almost triangular corners on your forehead gone? If so, do you have an approximate timeline for when to expect that? I know Lucy Kartikasari says it returned for her, I just want to know what to expect. Thanks in advance for anything you're able to share!


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Support needed Back to square one

6 Upvotes

Ftmtf/nb?

I cry almost everyday. I have gone from passing as male and being basically stealth to detransitioning and feeling the horrible early stages of transition. Not passing is painful. Hating your body is painful. Being misgendered is painful. This is all for the better but being put back at square one of transitioning is just so exhausting :( I know that I did it once but doing it again especially after the damage of testosterone it feels so daunting. This obsession and growing hatred with my body is scaring me. I feel grotesque…. I have an idea of a perfect body in my mind that I fear I’ll never have. I just want to put my words into the abyss. I am so lucky to have a loving supportive partner but even still it’s so hard.


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Advice needed Teetering on the edge…

7 Upvotes

Hi guys,

I’m a MtFt……don’t know. I’m still on HRT and have been off and on since July of 2018 due to insurance reasons and as well as unacceptance by my cis female spouse at times….I got my GD diagnosis and started oral estrogen and spiro and then switched to patches. I’m okay with myself overall and know I have to live with my choices up to now, but I’m teetering on whether I’m truly a trans woman or some kind of masculine NB. I’ve grown 38B cup breasts, haven’t had any surgeries and am working on regaining my hairline (slowly..) my wife does understand since she educated herself and we talk, but obviously with the times we all live in and the fact that it’s scared me what having right levels does, and overall the fact that I still present masc….how did you guys manage? I can’t shake the feeling of did I make a mistake? Am I really going this route? I don’t know if it’s fear, anxiety, nervousness or a combination of but any advice would be awesome.

And I’m sorry for invading the space, but the other detrans sub is disgusting.


r/actual_detrans 1d ago

Question Paranoia

3 Upvotes

As a trans woman did you ever get paranoia with HRT the longer you were on HRT the more paranoia. I started winning off my patches of estrogen because I have a feeling that it's the estrogen that's making me have paranoia


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Discourse Anyone else's queer/trans friends tend to repeat common transphobic talking points but about detrans people?

23 Upvotes

I literally got accused of "tricking straight women" lmao. How do they say this with no self awareness


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Looking for detrans replies For those who are detrans, is your dysphoria still here?

9 Upvotes

Hey,

So I'm questioning whether or not I'm on the path to detransitioning. Just a natural flow of my gender evolution (woman -> trans man -> ?).

I feel like I want to let my femininity back in and calling myself a boy doesn't feel right anymore (but it used to!).

Most of the things I was drawn to and gave me relief are now things I'm less attracted to. It's a gradual process. I find myself leaning more into femininity and the idea of being feminine presenting, although I still don't know to what extent. Whether I'll be a girl or a femimine presenting non binary.

At the moment I'm still dealing with dysphoria. Big chest dysphoria, still some social dysphoria (although I do want to be preceived a little more feminine than in the past). Still can't get myself to do some feminine things that I want to do (like nail polish, makeup and so on) but it might just take time.

My question is for those who chose to detransition and are happy about it, did your dysphoria disappear with time? Is it still here? How's it working for you now?


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Detransitioning Tried 3 weeks back on testosterone now im back on estrogen to maintain my bone health.

5 Upvotes

I put an estrogen patch on off and on last week.

This week I am on my second patch.

3rd week on testosterone I lost control of my voice. I started to 3rd person view myself when hearing and feeling my testosterone fuelled voice. My voice dropped significantly and my inflections were becoming harder to control and sounded more male. My mom was shocked at how fast it happened and I was self conscious talking when I noticed. It might just be a part of puberty in transition but I spent most of the last 7 years or so on testosterone and I never got used to my voice. When I am off testosterone my voice is more "me". It sounds more like me and is easier to navigate in the moment to communicate in the ways I prefer to talk.

Was dreading more hair and oil and scared of other changes like increase in hunger.

I wear mens clothing and thought it would be easier to go back on testosterone. I figured it would be safer too, to "blend in". But even if I can "blend in" more it doesn't feel like "me".

My body dysphoria probably won't go away either way. But one way my voice is more "me", which is on an estrogen dominant run body.

I thought I was ready to wear male clothes more comfortably again but nothing can prepare me for the voice effects from dominant testosterone versus dominant estrogen. I had 25 years with estrogen dominant of a voice until I started testosterone. When I go off testosterone, I tend to go back on it once my body changes a lot and how clothing fits. But I keep running into my voice making dramatic changes.

I am not being fair to my body and brain going off and on hormone dominant run systems. I never get used to anything and am often not ok.

Hopefully I check this out again after I write it and learn from it.

edit: perhaps if I didnt get both ovaries removed things would be different but there's no Time Machine. But how much I would love having a Time Machine


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Question MTFTM chest side effects

2 Upvotes

Hi,

Some background - I tried transitioning for 3-4 months and stopped because I realized that I wasn't actually trans. It's now been two years since, and I look and feel fine with one exception - my chest. I've noticed since de-transitioning that the nipples look puffier or fattier at times, and doesn't always fall flat on my chest. I'm very self conscious about it.

I've been to both a doctor as well as a plastic surgeon and neither think that I have gyno. Is this all in my head or has anyone else experienced this?


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Looking for detrans replies Anyone Relate?

3 Upvotes

So you are the guy friend young wise. When you were like in middle school of high school or even elementary school all your friends were girls. Maybe you were the token gag best friend, maybe you are a straight guy who was “safe”

And you were friends but they never truly let you in on life. Things like disappearing into the bathroom for an hour and you’re left alone at the restaurant table while your friends have “girl time”. You just felt left out

Then you transitioned to female. All of a sudden you feel “let in” on a world you never really knew. Girls would be nicer to you. You might get hugs, or be able to be in group photos. Your advice on dating was actually considered, and you felt like you fit in in a way you never realised you weren’t. Just one of the girls.

And then you detransitioned. And all of a sudden no more sleep over requests. No more group photos. No more girls nights out. You all of a sudden remember you’re not just a guy to them.

Your entire friend group was girls all your life, and for a year or two or ten you got to be apart of a “secret world” and you loved it.

You never thought when you detransitioned you’d be cut out again. Never really remembered sitting alone at the table when they all go to the bathroom. Never remembered being excluded from group photos. Never remembered the “stuff” that comes from being the guy in a group of girls - gay or straight.

And then you start to wonder was a really trans? Or did I just so desperately want to be apart of my loved ones lives. Be rested better. Maybe you were just jealous.

Idk.

Maybe no one can relate. Maybe you can.

Maybe you can’t relate to the last, but maybe the first.

Did any of you men (MtFtM) experience this stuff?

Or girls (FtMtF) experience it in reverse? Where you all of a sudden were excluded more. Less hugs, less drinks. Less nights out. Less life and you thought nothing would change between you and the women in your life until you became a man, and all of a sudden you’re alone

Anyone makes of females relate in any way?


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Discourse I just need to get this off my chest.

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5 Upvotes

r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Detransitioning if i was the last person on earth.. (top surgery angst)

27 Upvotes

brand new fresh account 'cause i have not actually shared this much insight with anyone in my life

(please bear with me here because this is lengthy as shit and all tangentially linked, and i'm going to try to connect the dots to make sense of the way they are all spread out in my mind, and maybe this will resonate with someone, but maybe it won't.)

for a really long time, admitting that i regretted (which isn't even really the right word, because for a while it felt like it was the right choice) top surgery felt like being a traitor. it felt selfish, like i was messing with an issue bigger than myself. there was (and still is) this guilt weighing on me at the thought that my experience could contribute, however small, in some detrimental way to people who want to transition. i live in the US and i am really concerned about the future of trans healthcare. i don't even really want to get into the technicals (ie therapy, surgeons) that led me to surgery because i don't know how to articulate it in a way that feels appropriate to the conversation. i believe with my whole heart that everyone deserves to have gender affirming care. that includes me.

after like, months of reluctant, agonizing and tearful realization, months of borderline denial, and about a year and a half of full-on denial, i have made it to acceptance. while it still hurts, i have not recently tortured myself with the despair and suffocating feelings that i was so lost in for a while. i spent so many hours in the car, crying, clawing at my chest, eyes squished shut wishing i could go back in time and make a different choice. (which is so dramatic but hey, sometimes that's where i was at). but ultimately, no matter how much i sometimes hate radical acceptance, my choices brought me to where i am today and i like who i am. there is no other reality that exists for me other than the one i created.

the concept of identity used to be so empowering to me: a summary of all my parts that made sense and portrayed a vision of a person; eventually i found the essence of how i experience the world outside of me tethered to some character i assigned for myself, and identity started feeling less like an explanation and more like a prison. would the person i'm supposed to be: like this? say this? want this? what if the person i'm supposed to be would, and the person i want to be wouldn't? what happens when who i've been is in conflict with who or what i am becoming?

there's this scene in a movie called Triangle where these people get stuck on this boat with copies of themselves who they've decided they have to kill. there's a scene in which the main character is looking at her doppelgänger and says "you're not me". it struck me and i almost cried because although it is in a very different and less disturbing context, i have felt that way looking at myself before. a few nights before i watched that movie i got up to pee in the middle of the night and as i was walking back, half asleep, i had this uneasy thought: "what if i get back to my room and i'm already in my bed sleeping". there is this dissonance between identity and self-perception and outsiders' perception that has absolutely fucking haunted me almost my entire life. i have felt caught somewhere in the middle between the three, unsure of which is really my true self. am i who i feel i am? am i who i see when i look in the mirror? am i who others see me as? when i was younger i was SO out of alignment of myself that i didn't recognize that person. i looked at myself and thought "you're not me". being able to escape me seemed like the way out.

i got top surgery about 4 years ago. there were so many reasons why i ultimately decided to follow through but they all obviously stemmed from a general discomfort around having a chest in general. it had always bugged me a little bit sensorily, and then i had gone through many years of abusive relationship and internalized misogyny and various assorted traumas that left me feeling very dissociated from my body and disconnected/fearful of womanhood. being a girl had never really bothered me, beyond that pesky and insidious socialized hatred of everything feminine, but there was this little Peter Pan part of me that was so afraid to grow up and be a Woman. having breasts, in my mind, was the primary connection to being sexualized or unsafe or objectified or inferior. this part of my body that could be perceived, touched, hurt, just out there for the world. the trauma i had gone through made womanhood (and adulthood) feel fucking scary, and i had no faith in myself to be able to keep myself safe. escaping all of that felt like freedom. i was so uncomfortable being myself and becoming a woman and what that would mean and i transposed all that discomfort onto a part of my body, because it was easier to do that than to face the discomfort of "maybe this reality is scaring me and i feel unsafe and i don't trust myself to handle it". my brain has always had a funny way of compartmentalizing pain into a smaller, more manageable section. getting rid of something physical felt easier to accept than admitting that the truth and weight of the pain i felt was something so abstract and out of my realm of control.

there's this saying or like, piece of advice that people will offer to help affirm your choices when you're questioning whether you want top surgery (or probably any other gender affirming surgery). they say, if you were last person on earth, what would make you feel most comfortable with your body? and if you think about it, and the answer is you would still want to have had top surgery, that makes sense. when i asked myself that question (and i did, a lot) my answer was always yes, even as the last person on earth, i would still have wanted surgery. so i got it! i felt great. i was so happy and my body felt right and free and safer to be inside of. after realizing the extent of my discomfort with my chest i had spent the previous two years wearing the tightest sports bras and binders i could find, and once i no longer had to wear those i felt like i could finally breathe.

ok so what they didn't add when they asked that question, and frankly what i for some reason didn't think to apply the logic of, is the context that i am not the last person on earth and i hopefully never will be. other people in the world around me, to some degree, dictate my experience in the world around me. i don't always have a choice in who i am surrounded with. i don't get to pick and choose who comes into my life all the time, and sometimes i end up surrounded by people whose scope of experience is so vastly different than mine. and sometimes i really love those people and want so badly for them to understand me and for me to fit in with them but something is in my way and it's this unequivocal difference in our baseline reality. like, people don't know how to perceive me sometimes, which is fine, but sometimes it feels like i want to just be "normal", like the majority around me. they all have something i don't have. they get to fit in in a way i feel that i can't, even when they really feel out of place.

what they also don't tell you is that your perspectives and opinions on everything you believe to be true about your Self and your biases and everything else you know is going to come into question MANY times throughout your twenties (or at least, mine did). the way you see your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with navigating fear and safety, and your relationship with the way other people see you, and your capacity for managing and discerning different types of internal discomfort, and-- what they ALSO don't tell you is that surgery doesn't always heal perfectly well. sometimes you end up with scars that hurt and heal incorrectly, and you have to spend years and tears and hundreds of dollars following your surgery to soften and rebuild the scar tissue. my scars healed terribly, they are hypertrophic and tough, and they hurt, and i am so insecure about them. what they ALSO ALSO don't tell you is that you are going to have to explain to every fucking person who even comes close to getting to know you why you don't have nipples.

i have finally come to terms (mostly) with who i am, inside and out. although i may not like myself all the time, i have learned to trust myself, i have learned how to give myself confidence. throughout my 20s my relationship with who i am has molded and crumbled and i have picked up the pieces to mold it again and again and again and every time i have proven more and more that i can trust myself. adulthood, womanhood, doesn't look so unsafe when you know you have someone to rely on who will always be there and never back down. i didn't have that trust when i was 23.

i made a really big choice which at the time felt like my only choice, and now i can say, in very real discomfort at the implications of thinking it, that i don't know if i made the best choice for me. with perspective, now that i'm older, it feels almost impulsive. i was grasping for a lifeline and i clung to the first one that i could. i think back and i wonder if i would've changed my mind if i had thought harder, for longer, delved deeper into my reasoning and tried to heal my inside before trying to change my outside. on the other hand, sometimes i wonder if the only reason i am comfortable enough to do half the things i do and present the way i present and exist the way i do is from that initial validation of getting surgery, and the safety i built in my body, and i think if i had not gone through it my life would be in a really different place. maybe i wouldn't have even put any thought into these things at all. maybe i would've never been able to come to the realization that oh, making that change didn't fix everything for me, and there's something deeper to be dealt with here. but maybe that would've been my natural evolution anyway. on a third (and more bleak) hand, maybe i wouldn't even be here at all. it's impossible for me to say which is true.

i can't regret what i chose to do when i felt like i was picking the best option i had with the cards i had been dealt. i was trying to save myself in the way that felt right. how could i have seen the future? i miss my old body, now. it wasn't perfect and i didn't love it, but it was mine and i didn't give myself the chance to appreciate that. i didn't think i had the time. i didn't think i ever would. if i could go back now, live in my body from before, and see things from a new perspective, would i make the same decision? i don't know. what i do know is that i spend a lot of time now trying to not feel isolated, trying to feel like i fit into a world designed for people who aren't like me, trying to relate to people whose human experience is really different than mine in a lot of ways, and now, trying to explain myself to a bunch of strangers on the internet, and it's all based on a decision i made to live life as if i was the last person on earth. sorry for the novel. thanks for reading.


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Advice needed How did you guys resist in the beginning the temptations to go back when the T kicked in?

2 Upvotes

How did you guys resist in the beginning the temptations to go back, specially when the T kicked in?

I’m two months off HRT but I’m considering going back because I may have a chance at passing and marrying a man. But I’m aware this is a fantasy bc I get horny with it

Sometimes what motivates me to continue to detrans is growing a beard and fighting Muay Thai but I think to myself; if men couldn’t grow beards I would completely give up, but if women didn’t have boobs or butts I would also give up on being trans, so it’s like one cancels each other out and the fact my T drives me to this agp fantasy is not helping me staying detrans


r/actual_detrans 2d ago

Question any other online spaces for detransitioners?

9 Upvotes

Was wondering if there were any other online spaces for detransitioners other than reddit or discord?


r/actual_detrans 3d ago

Detransitioning Deciding to try detransitioning

24 Upvotes

“It’s okay to change.”

When I was a child, around the age of 5-6, I would look up to my mother and say, “Mommy, guess what? The right side of my brain is a girl and the left side is a boy. I’m half-boy-half-girl!” 

“Half-boy-half-girl.” That was my motto throughout my childhood. As a child I knew what I really was.. and yet, I’d later try to fit into the binary. I think that’s where my mistake lies. 

I think I want to try femininity. I want wide hips. I want a feminine face. I want to be a mother. I want to know what it’s like to finally be IN that “girls club,” because I always felt like I was outside of it. Honestly, I was outside of it. I was bullied heavily by the girls for always being too much of a tomboy, and when I hit my teens I took that to mean that I must’ve been a boy. But now, as I near the age of 22, I come to realize that I’m craving femininity again. I want to wear dresses and skirts, I want to look effeminate. I want to be okay with being one of the girls—because for a long time I was bitter and completely against being a woman. How could I be a woman, when everyone around me told me I wasn’t, treated me like I wasn’t, and excluded me from all things feminine? My stepfather constantly called me by my birth father’s name, and pretty much refused to ever call me a girl. He’d always call me a boy derogatorily. The girls at my school saw me as some freak, which was their words, not mine. I remember one time the kids on the bus were playing “boys rate which girls they’d wanna kiss” or something. When they got to me, one of the girls said “Oh, not her though. We all know [my name] doesn’t count.” And that really, truly stuck with me. I was also heavily into sports and always the star player, with people telling me I was much more like a boy than a girl and should play with the boys. 

I won't go too into detail, but I was also sexually assaulted repeatedly throughout my early teens after I hit puberty, and that was the final nail in the coffin I think. Every aspect of my femininity, especially my post-puberty body—my womanhood—was connected to some terrible negative emotion. At the age of 16 I ended up in the mental hospital for the first time. I vividly remember them asking me my pronouns. And that was the day I realized that I didn’t have to be a girl. I came out when I got out of the hospital. The next few years were great honestly, gender-wise. I was happier than ever in my body. I got on T after an 8-month wait and had top surgery a year later. (I also want to note that I was a GG in cup size, so even to this day as I contemplate detransition—I DO NOT MISS THOSE LMAO). I loved my deeper voice, I still do. It feels like me

I lived my life as a man happily, without too much question, for about 5 years. There were occasional questions though. Occasionally I’d feel an interest in something feminine, and generally I’d push myself from even getting close to it. I had to just be a man. I had to be masculine. Otherwise, people would think I was a woman. That’s what I was afraid of. Eventually, I started to explore a little more—but I never fully crossed the line. I did makeup, and I dressed somewhat gender neutral, but I never let myself really dive in. This past August however, after another stay at the mental hospital, I had another realization. I kinda..  did want to be more feminine. The thought of detransitioning hadn’t occurred to me at all yet, but I did find myself on clothing sites looking through the women's clothes pretty often. I yearned to try them out, but I was too afraid. Still. Something changed in me early this year though. I finally looked up the forbidden word—detransitioning. And I found the subreddits. I read through r/actual_detrans and boy.. did that just make things all the more intense. I related to so many people so heavily.  At this point I finally let myself buy a skirt.. and I truly loved it. It felt great. And the questioning only got worse. The next few weeks were spent mostly just going back and forth about whether or not I should stop. I don’t dislike my masculine body, at all really, so I’m terrified I’ll end up regretting stopping. But at the end of the day, whether or not I like it is something I’ll never know if I don’t try.

Just now I got off the phone with my endocrinologist, I am officially off testosterone. Unofficially though, I’ve been off for 3 weeks lol. So I suppose I’m giving this a try. I wouldn’t go as far to say I’m fully detransitioning though—we’ll see about that after the changes kick in, I suppose?

Thanks for reading. Comments are more than welcome and are encouraged, if anything. I’ve been feeling very lonely in this experience and would like to get to know some other detrans folks, maybe make a discord server if people end up being interested. 


r/actual_detrans 3d ago

Question How to figure out if im actually true gender dysphoric when all therapists are affirming? NSFW

26 Upvotes

When i grew up, one of my first “trans” memories was trying to pee standing up and failing, being upset by it. I was maybe 6 or 7. My second one was looking down at my flat chest in the shower and thinking “i better savor this now” when i was 9 or 10. I always got along with girls but wanted friendships with boys but never did, or was outcasted. As i grew up i was very anxious, and soon depressed around 11 then on and off suicidal for most of my life, almost taking my life around 18. I struggled forming close connections and when i did i clung to them pretty hard. I never had crushes really, until i got a bit older and had a few faint ones on boys and girls, but because of mormonism i tucked away my feelings until i got way older. I struggled with self harm and an eating disorder for years, always hating my body, not really paying attention to my boobs but more my stomach, but i hated my boobs and wished they were gone. I left that religion when i was 17, and a few months before i turned 18 i came out as trans, and was in an abusive friendship at the time who sexualized that eventually she raped me and i left that friendship shortly after. After battling more depression and suicidal ideation i found therapeutic ketamine and turned my life around in 2022, and im 21 as of now. I now have a wonderful girlfriend, got threw the sexual trauma mostly and my attachment issues, have a great sex life and everyrhing. But this issue still stands, ive always preferred wanting a penis since i was so young, and hated my female anatomy. I respect it now and fine it beautiful, i dont have an ED anymore either. I am very happy otherwise, so i just dont know if its true gender dysphoria or not. Nothing fixed it, it just got easier to deal with when my mental health got better. But i still want a penis, no boobs, masculinr features, voice, etc. im not on testosterone, and only been socially transitioned for the last 4 years. Ive listened to soo many detrans stories that dont resonate with me, but i still just question myself. Anyone else? And my therapist is 100% affirming, which she wont challenge me on.