Context: I originally came out as ftm when I was 12, I recently turned 18 and have only just came to the realization that I am not trans, and feel quite uncomfortable with being perceived/assumed to be male. I feel that although I have never taken steps to medically transition, I still look quite masculine and it upsets me.

I do not know how to tell my mother, who from the beginning was extremely unaccepting, and I assume that when I tell her she will say, "I told you so/Do you understand what you put me through", and I belive she will never let me hear the end of it. I am also extremely embarrassed about this, I am scared to tell my friends at school, who have only ever known me as my male name.

Any advice is appreciated!!

hi all, i (20, almost 21 AFAB) started slowly detransitioning about 2 years ago; first by dipping my toes into femininity, then we’ll over a year ago i changed my name from a very stereotypical man name (James) to a still masculine, but more whimsical name that I always loved (Forrest). i love the name Forrest deeply - i feel connected to it, it encapsulates me very well, and it makes a good brand name lol (i’m an artist). however, i’ve come to identify as solely a woman and more and more so, i want to distance myself from the LGBT community. i’m attracted towards quite masculine, “normal” cis straight men, and i can’t help but feel a large amount of shame surrounding my name. i’ve slowly been making it to a point where i’d like to start going by my birth name again, but at the same time i don’t want to get rid of Forrest completely. but again, at the same time, i don’t want to be viewed as trans or even nonbinary (never been on HRT but have a very androgynous natural body, i’ve been mistaken as MTF quite often). i’m feeling the pressure more and more so due to my growing interest in dating, and the fact that my social life is in flux. i am also a bit worried by the response i’ll get to using my birth name again, as i’m in a heavily LGBT social circle, and from old friends. any thoughts? advice? i appreciate it :)

for context i came out almost a decade ago, 2015. i identified solely as FTM for 7/8 years, transmasc for about a year, and now i’ve reached the point of… i’m just a woman. that’s all!

also, my birth name is Diane. i considered Eloise as well since i love the name, or another nature-based name, but i’ve always had a connection with Diane and it would be easiest since i never legally changed my name.

I stopped mtf hrt about 2 months ago after being on it for 2.5 years, and honestly, I now feel like I have my mind back. I haven't seen much about experiencing that on this sub (I am quite new), and was wondering if anyone else shared that. I had severe brain fog when on it and I could never think straight. I kind of feel like that headspace kept me on it longer than I would have been without it.

A phrase I hear a lot in this subreddit, usually told to people who were assigned female at birth.

The idea of "You're not trans, it's just puberty, it will pass..." argues that the girl who just got into puberty might hate their periods and breasts, and that's completely normal, it will pass when the person enters womanhood.

I am not going to talk about whether it's true or not. I want to focus on that how pathetic this is, when it's true.

Male puberty has it's hardship too for sure, but it's mostly about grow in height, deeper voice, having a beard and generally maturing.

Female puberty is usually painful. It usually causes the person physical pain and body dysmorphophobia. And it starts when the person is just around 10. You begin getting tortured by your pathetic, painful and uncomfortable biological nature when you were just a kid.

What happens when you become an adult is you just accept the changes. Nothing gets fixed, torture never ends, you just accept it. The puberty ends this way.

The girl becomes a woman by accepting that she is pathetic and inferior, by accepting the changes that happened.

Hey so I live in QLD Australia and I changed my name legally two years ago and I was wondering if anyone knew what the process for changing it back legally is? I'm not sure if I need to go through deed poll again or if I can use my old documents

A big thanks to this sub by the way, it's really helped me not feel so alone

And I’m not even talking about other trans people, I don’t even have trans community. But amongst cis people, there are two main sets of beliefs around trans people.

1. There is no such thing as “gender identity” it’s just mental illness. These people dont like me now, and if I detransition, they’ll continue to dislike me, because they’ll always see me as someone mentally ill or stupid enough to have ever transitioned in the first place.

2. There is such a thing as “gender identity”, and it’s a part of who someone is. And if I detransition it either means I’m too cowardly to live my truth, or that I’m mentally unstable and don’t know who I am and believed something about me that was untrue.

If i stayed trans, I’d still at least have a baseline level of respect from group number 2, but if i detransition ill be seen by both groups as pathetic, weak, mentally unwell, unstable, untrustworthy etc…

hey detrans girlies!! so i know finding bras after top surgery that fit well can be hard. i’ve bought some lately i can put inserts into but I think it’s also affirming on some days to be able to wear something that gives feminine shape without inserts. even before i transitioned i was small chested, so i went to aerie to see what would work for me now. i bought their wireless shaped bras in 32b. this size fits perfect for me even though i had top surgery, and doesn’t have extra space. this is not an ad just a suggestion lol to look into some of the 32a-b flatter bras if someone doesn’t want padding

For context, I think it wasn't a good idea to take HRT. I am AFAB and I've been on testosterone since 2019. Now I wanna get off because I think I made a mistake. I thought it was going to fix my problems but it just made me dislike parts of my body even more. I even got top surgery and regret it deeply. I cannot go out topless bc i am ashamed of what my chest looks like.

I take nebido injections every three months, and also get my blood drawn, I still have all my reproductive organs so if I stop, my body would be able to restore the estrogen dominance. The place I get the injections requires its patients to first get their shot from the pharmacy and then have them sit down for the injection. They're not reslly thorough too. If you sit down they'll injections what you have at hand without checking your medical records.

If I were to get the medication in the pharmacy and then just leave, they would see I've been there to pick it up and assume they've given me the shot.

Sooo, what if I just stop cold turkey? The side effects (though I am ready to go through them to be off HRT) and how low does it take my body to reach estrogen dominance again? What changes can I expect when?

I am comming to terms with being a man again and Im afraid, honestly. Am I supposed to like wide shoulders? is that the body Im supposed to dream about? And Im supposed to envy men with wide shoulders wearing an fking polo t-shirt who has a rolex? I find all of this extremely ugly and I cant imagine being like this... Polo shirts? really?

I cant imagine a future where Im the man of the house, I cant. I would feel so envious of my wife to the point I just wouldnt marry her

and also, my name, I feel like a pussy if I dont go back to my original name, but the name brings me really bad feelings and memories from my childhood

please help me find myself

Has anyone here ever experienced any kind of backlash from people who found out they were posting here or in other detrans spaces? I want to discuss things in more depth but I'm afraid of being identified on here and facing some kind of reprisal for it. My social sphere is already small enough as it is.

I was exposed to estradiol for about a month at the age of 16. it hasn't been long since i've stopped taking it. considering where i live it's not very viable to see a GP on my own. I want to have a family. i'm just desperate for reassurance that my testosterone will come back and i won't be infertile for the rest of my life. This was perhaps the biggest mistake i've ever made.

Hi people. I'm a 17 year old AFAB. In my childhood, I absolutely hated being presented as male, I always hated having short hair style that my parents always told the barber to do and loved wearing dresses.

But as the time went on, I felt repulsed by wearing dresses I loved wearing in childhood. I finally let my hair grow and after a while it became so hard to handle, I cut it very short a few months ago after letting it grow for years. I felt a certain dissociation with my female identity.

At 14 I figured I was bi and I preferred women. I live in a country where homosexuality is frowned upon. I hated the colour pink with a passion. And a year ago was when my thoughts began to emerge. Having hit puberty, my breasts had grown a lot, and I just hated looking at them. Sometimes I would look at some skinny dude with a flat chest and be jealous of him.

The first time I heard about the term trans was when my (LGBT phobic) family was discussing an actress, now an actor who changed his gender after his mother died, and they said he was a man mistakenly born with female genitals. That he had a mental issue.

Now I feel weird thinking about it myself. I never felt like a man myself, but I hate being a woman, who I am. Sometimes I wish I was a tall, skinny pretty man who attracted all women he wanted, but I know I will never be him, because 1. I am short, chubby and ugly, 2. It is so hard to transition here and you will forever be labelled a mentally Ill person, 3. I'm afraid if I do, I won't be him, but a version of myself way uglier just with short hair and flat-chest.

And I implied my feelings to my mother before, quoting it from 'one of the people I saw online', and she told me that it's impossible to change gender, it's all only a delusional movement from the west. She said you are either born a biological man or a woman, if you don't fall anywhere on the spectrum then you have a problem. Her words teared my heart into pieces and I never brought that up again.

Now I just wonder what is this feeling. Am I really trans or is it just a phase? Is it really possible to be the other gender? What even is gender? I know I can never become the man I want even if I transition, a cis man. I don't wanna be persecuted either:( it's messing up with my mind from inside.

for those who haven’t had top surgery- about how long did it take for you to start noticing a difference in size? did you go back to normal or are you smaller than before?

also, did any of you talk to a therapist about detransitioning? did you gradually taper off T so you wouldn’t get the crazy hormonal crashes? or just cold turkey on your own?

knowing everything you know now, is there anything you would’ve done differently with your detransition process?

thanks!! xx

I miss the friends I had before I detransitioned. I was part of a community of great people who were so kind and fun to be around, but when I detransitioned I felt judged and we all kind of stopped talking. I only have one friend from before I detransitioned and she is lovely. I guess I'm just mourning the social life I used to have. Since detransitioning I have friends but they all seem to be what I would call "modal friends". My friends at work only really talk to me at work, my friends from church really only talk to me at church. I love these friends but I'm mourning having friendships that were "all the time friends". Does anyone else feel this?

It’s been a very long journey filled with internalized misogyny and homophobia. Sometimes I tried being AS FEMININE AS POSSIBLE, but it just felt off. My first attempts to be a “girly girl” started in my childhood. Since I was quite tomboyish and lived in a very conservative household, my parents would constantly criticize me, saying something like “Why can’t you just be a NORMAL girl?”. Well, cuz I CAN’T.

I ended up taking testosterone at the age of 20, cuz I thought “well, if I can’t be a “normal girl”, I must be a boy then”.

I’m almost 26 now. It’s been 2 years since I started detransitioning. And only now it seems like I finally started accepting myself as a lesbian woman.

Many thanks to each of you on this subreddit. It was so important to find such a community at the time.

You pretended that transitioning helped you overcome it, didn’t you? You probably even believed it, for a while at least, anyways.

But if you’re like me, you hated yourself before transitioning, and you hated yourself after transitioning too. Maybe for different reasons, or to different degrees, but still.

Please be honest. Did you actually, truly, honestly overcome self-hatred after detransition? Or is it just another drastic change you made in hopes that it would make you into a new person, a person that maybe this time is actually worthy of being loved?

I can’t help but feel that the desire to detransition is coming from the exact place that led me to transition, and after I “finish” detransitioning (whatever that means) I’ll end up right back here, perhaps even worse.

I’ve done lots of therapy, I’ve listened to and practiced a lot of “mindfulness” and “radical self-acceptance” and “body positivity” stuff, but I don’t think that was ever going to work for me.

I can unpack and repack and unpack the reasons for my self-loathing until the day I die, but I don’t think it will ever fundamentally help me overcome it.

Sometimes I feel like the only happy, well-adjusted people are those who can numb themselves with comfortable self-narratives, no matter how fictional hose narratives are. They cling to fictional narratives around religion, innocence, righteousness, struggle, hope, heroism, even “truth”.

Why shouldn’t I just cling to a comforting fictional self narrative too, everyone else seems to be, and the ones who don’t seem desperate to convince themselves and others that they are somehow immune to believing things that are untrue and that they are somehow made more virtuous for it.

If self-delusion helps override self-loathing, is it really that bad? We only have one, incredibly short, confusing and chaotic life to live and we’ll never be capable of truly understanding it anyway.

Been plucking my chin and mustache hairs because I haven't been able to schedule laser lately, and using an epilator on my body and its making a big difference. Also shaping my brows, moisturizing, growing out my hair and changing my style a bit have all combined to make me basically always read as female now. I feel so at peace with myself now and like I don't have to hide or change any aspect of myself, I didn't realize I was limiting my self-expression as a trans man until I accepted myself as a gender non-conforming lesbian.

I've read several articles regarding neurological observations in (pre-HRT) trans people, such as a neuron in the amygdala of trans women being closer in size to closer to cis women, certain genes commonly appearing in trans people, mutations in hormone receptors, general brain activity in trans people being closer to their cis counterparts, theories of hormonal imbalance in utero similar to that of homosexuality, etc. Are there any arguments against these pieces of "evidence?" I believe in autogynephilia, ROGD, COGD, HGD, and a person's external factors as all being valid and highly likely reasons for a person's believed transness, and I'm so close to simply accepting my sex as it is, but this still haunts me.

I could see the specific gene one being tied not to genes causing gender dysphoria directly, but autogynephillia or COGD as an explanation, but I'm not sure about the others, as I haven't been able to find anything.

When you "detransistion" or "desist", you can't really talk about your experiences.

Suddenly, you don't know what it was like, and never were "trans".

You could've done everything possible to yourself, felt miserable, been assaulted, etc; but it doesn't count for shit when you go against this ideology.

People who haven't even experienced sex-dyphoria will argue with you, saying you are wrong and don't represent "trans people".

When we did and continue to, as we have the same mental illness.

Hell, the local news would rather hire some random guy with sex-dysphoria, than an actual woman to talk about woman's health.

This is exhausting.

Looking for support from other detrans women. I've been off testosterone for 7 months and I'm getting to be happier with my appearance, femininity, feeling like myself again, etc. I'm trying really hard to get breast reconstruction and it's a long process. I miss my boobs a lot and feel like my flat chest is the biggest reminder of my past choices and the pain I have about it. Of course, I'm working through this in therapy.

I deal with a lot of feelings of inferiority when it comes to other women. Today, when my fiance was talking about breast implants he said "if they don't bounce, are they even boobs?" This was right after he said he prefers natural ones (this was an abstract, hypothetical discussion, not about me). I know he didn't mean to be talking about my future body like that and had that "oh shit" kind of realization afterwards but I'm just hurt. It's not even about him, I just want to feel attractive and real. I have no problem with implants in general but I miss my natural body. I miss my natural femininity that I didn't have to prove.

Has anyone felt this way and found ways to get confident and comfortable again?

I stopped T in may (my last shot was in february but the effect is supposed to last 3 months) and i still haven't had my period. I thought it was going to come back sooner but i was almost 2 years on hormones so idk.

This is probably stupid but i now miss menstruating even though when i did i hated it, was physically uncomfortable and ended up dysphoric, i feel like a broken woman lol.

I stopped taking T over the summer. I've been taking intramuscular and subcutaneous injections since early 2017 (about 7 years) and have also had top surgery. In stopping here's a few things I've noticed that make me glad that I finally took the leap and stopped.

1. I feel better. I'm not really sure how to explain this, but I feel like I can feel, if that makes sense. I feel emotions, I feel as I can relate to people better emotionally. T more or less reduced my emotional capacity to the size of a walnut. I am still not overly emotional but I would say my ability to feel and relate is about the size of an apple now.

2. My body feels better. Though my skin still lacks a lot of sensitivity, I can finally feel endorphins again, especially after a good leg workout. (On a side note, is that normal? I never felt leg workouts when I was on T outside of general soreness, but off of T, my legs feel absolutely amazing for a few hours after doing a lot of strength training).

3. I noticed my hair seems to be coming back in thicker now. I was seeing the faintest hints of male pattern baldness, however it seems to have reversed a bit. Also noticed a lot of my body hair, especially chest and stomach, almost instantly disappeared. My arm hairs are still a bit dark but it's much less noticeable than before. The backs of my hands, which were becoming hairy, have noticeable thinned out and lightened up, another positive.

4. I was fairly muscular before and I noticed a definite nerf in strength. (Part of that is due to the fact I cannot go to the gym regularly anymore.) I am okay with this, I was never super strong. I also noticed a general decrease in appetite.

5. I feel much more focused, and I can make it through long days with a lot less stress and anxiety. I can focus on my classwork better and my attention span feels more improved now. So there have definitely been some positive mental crevery as a result.

6. On the negative side, I have a body which has always retained fat like crazy. While I still haven't shaved my face or socially detransed yet, I'm a bit heavier and I know my fat didn't hesitate to revert. I think it's obvious if you look hard enough. My beard is patchy but it's still coming in, though not as fast as before.

7. (Skip this one if Sexuality/bodily functions give you the icks). In ways I can't really articulate I feel almost constantly aroused, which I recall being something I experienced before though I don't know if it's normal. I have had two periods since I stopped and they have been of average length, around 2 days of heavy blood and 3 days of light. I felt no dysphoria in having them, it was just nice to know that my body still works. I have been on the fence about my sexuality for a long time and T made me asexual. In the past month I can say that I am pretty sure I'm a nonseasonal bisexual, meaning I am bisexual year round.

8. I realize that even when I was on T, I never really perceived myself as a man. I occasionally saw a man representing me in my dreams but I really never felt that was me. I've always just felt like a younger sister, just sort of there, and not the main character. Realizing that I've always felt like a woman at heart has been freeing, to say the last. I'm done lying to myself lol. I am getting too old to live unhappily.

Some days I regret my double masectomy, while other days I am glad I don't have breasts. (I work close to a jail, in a city where sexual assaults happen to almost 1 in every 6 women) I plan on getting my breasts reconstructed some day. I also want to get female vocal surgery, but I'll have to save for a while for that one. My plan now is to get into a different job where I will be safe to start socially detransitioning. I think I will change my name to something gender neutral.

If you read this far, then I thank you and I hope you have a great day. If anyone is interested I will post an update in a year. I don't use this account for much other than discussing detrans issues because I get some odd messages whenever I post here (not from members of this subreddit, you have all been quite lovely 🫶 )evereg

I need help; no one seems to have answers for me. I’m a male, and two years ago, I transitioned to female, but today, I no longer want to continue with this. I want my life back, and I want to stop applying chemicals to my body that are only disrupting its natural functions. I deeply regret harming my once-healthy body. Two years ago, I had a double orchiectomy and started taking estrogen. I stopped taking estrogen six months ago, and my doctor scheduled an evaluation appointment for January next year. I’m very afraid of osteoporosis, and I don’t want to go back on estrogen. I have so many questions. 😓 Is there anyone who has gone through this who can help me? Can I go back to taking testosterone? I’ve read that, in males, testosterone can be harmful due to cardiovascular risks. Can I live without hormones if I have proper calcium supplementation? Does anyone know or have answers? I don’t know anyone close who has gone through this, and here in Mexico, it feels like the topic of transitioning is just starting to gain traction; obviously, the topic of detransitioning hasn’t even begun to be discussed. I would be incredibly grateful if someone could share their experience with me. 🙏🏼

isn’t it crazy just how much support there is for transitioning, how basically no one in leftist or mod arenas question it, just how irreversible it can be and how that is downplayed. and then when someone stops identifying as trans how ppl on the left end of things seem so weirded out by your existence, i have had struggles i vent to friends about to with long videos of me explaining the pain im in and they didn’t even respond or say a word. its so isolating. and if you speak up suddenly you’re “transphobic” and conservative when i am not those things. i am still under the belief that trans ppl exist however i do feel there are also a portion of those trans ppl like me who are maybe still figuring themselves out, going through trauma, or just tired of gender norms, etc. my gender dysphoria felt so real at the time and now i have gender dysphoria being seen as a man and with changed to my body. i just want to help ppl understand that surgery or hormones are hugeeee!! decision that shouldn’t be as normalized as they are in my opinion without therapists asking the proper questions. before top surgery i had to see two therapists. none of them asked me about my sexual trauma or how that affects my identity…which is a huge part of why i transitioned and detransitioned once i found out im not a man after surgery…its just ugh so many feelings im feeling

This probably sounds kinda crazy, but does anyone else relate?

In popular trans discourse, “tucutes” are those who do not have dysphoria, generally do not get surgery or hormones, tend to still identify strongly with their biological sex, sometimes even dress in a manner typical of those of the same sex. Yet, they still insist that they are trans.

Basically, I think I want to do this in reverse. I have no desire to “identify as a man” or to stop taking hormones, or to purchase a whole new wardrobe, I’m not gonna pretend like my dysphoria just disappeared, but I want to insist that I am not trans. I dont want to be associated with “trans” anything. I don’t want to go around claiming to be ”detrans”, and when people ask how I identify, I just identify as myself.

Has anyone gone this route?

I am a 24 male wondering whether to start MtF transition, I've always had a sort of feeling that I would have been better off if I had been born a female (already since first grade of elementary school) but this remained a sort of unrealizable dream and I didn't think about it much.

During high school for a limited period of time I had the interest in wearing women's clothes but my father caught me after a few days and punished me, this totally blocked this interest of mine that I had.

A few times ago I became friends with a group of people where there are several MtF trans and this made me think that maybe I could become that girl I wanted to be since birth?

I just find them cute while I feel like crap, why can't I be cute too?

So I've slowly started to transition into looking more feminine as much as I can (I'm not on hormones or anything), I'm still on the cis male spectrum but definitely more feminine than before and it makes me extremely happy... for the first time some days I don't look totally gross and I think my body could be cute.

My parents are very homophobic and are a little confused about what I'm doing but they don't think in the slightest that I'm trying to appear feminine, they definitely wouldn't support me in this.

I honestly don't know what I should do, the transition scares me but also doing nothing... I'm afraid of becoming more masculine now that I've discovered that my body is quite androgynous.

I'm also fucking scared of being alone, becoming trans would distance me from my parents forever and I think it would make finding a romantic relationship almost impossible... I'm already having problems now, I've only had one girlfriend and it's been 10 years and I still haven't managed to find another one.

Please can someone with a similar experience help me?

I don't want to be trans... I would have liked to be born female and that's it but that's not possible.