It’s not politically correct to admit this, but I don’t think homosexuality is something you are born with. Being exclusively attracted to the same sex is something I think only comes from trauma. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. I’ve always thought female anatomy was disgusting, and it’s always felt safer and more natural to be with men. That makes zero sense if you really think about it. Pretty much every gay guy I’ve ever been close to admitted to me at some point that he was molested, but that he wouldn’t talk about it because he didn’t want everyone to think that getting molested is what makes people gay.

I am fairly certain my husband will leave me after I finish detransition. And all those dysphoric feelings will come back with vengeance.

I just needed to live butch.

I went from being a depressed, eating disordered, dissasociating lesbian into identifying as non-binary and starting to appear hyper femme for about ten years with a masc name and pronouns, following some kind of queer internet wave. I truly had rapid onset gender dysphoria, instead of seeing my other symptoms. It gave meaning and community, but I felt very hollow and had still no connection to my body and was still depressed.

Two years ago, I started to consider top surgery but challenged myself to a full year of only wearing masculine clothes and to stop doing makeup and to allow myself to cut my hair short for the first time. Turns out that was all I needed - my so called dysphoria just went out of the way as soon as I committed to actually presenting masculine. I just needed to live as a butch dyke! The non-binary movement was so strong around me that I didnt even consider it - I went full on into the "lipstick can still be nonbinary" thing from the beginning.

I just want to tell any "ftm enby" questioning social transitioners like me who still appear very feminine - why dont you present masc if you are dysphoric? What scares you about it? Why is it easier to do a fucking masectomy than cut your hair and drop the eyeliner?

Im so much happier now, and feel crazy writing this and having this experience. Im just a masculine woman who loves other women. A couple of months ago, I socially desisted. It was embarrasing to come out again, I really was out in every aspect of my life. But I feel so much more authentic now. I actually love myself, finally.

HRT and depression/anxiety.

Depression, Stress, Anxiety and Transitioning - Your experience?

Hello everyone.

I started HRT (estradiol) in July. Outside I have lived as a transgender woman for 2 years. And I really felt a lot of euphoria at first. However, I have chronic depression and moving soon to another city which stresses me out a lot. And now for around a month I have anxiety that I might regret transitioning. The breast tissues already formed and slowly grow.

I do not know if it is because of the stress now that the anxiety comes up or the depression. It started around the time when the US election was and the German government failed.

Also I wonder again what is the cause of the feelings. Did depression lead me to being trans? Or is it the other way around? Or do both just coexist?

Now I am really thoughtful of it and it cant get out of my mind, which is annoying since I have many intrusive thoughts as well. When I move to the new town, I will start looking for a new therapist, but this will take a long time here due to the waiting lists which many psychotherapists even stopped because of too large demand.

But without talking to much words without adding any meaning:
Does anyone here have similar thoughts? Or did someone? What was the final conclusion?
Any tips how I can reach my inner peace again?

Could it be that I would like to live like i am but not doing hrt?

Best, a tea loving person

Few days ago I made some posts on a different sub, saying ‘I don’t feel like a girl’ (I am a girl). I mentioned feeling disconnected from femininity, feeling femininity was a performance, ‘dissociating’ from my body. I said that I felt like a man on the inside - except, I’m quite happy living as a woman. It’s just that I don’t feel like a woman. I feel like some dude in a girl’s body. And I don’t connect with other girls socially. I already feel as a guy as it is, and on top of that, as a lesbian, too, I feel weird about getting into a relationship with a girl - like again I feel like a man even mentioning that I’m attracted to women. Almost predatory. Since I always feel like a guy, I have altered my body, my food intake etc to be ‘like the other girls’ but something has always felt ‘wrong’ inside.

But here’s the thing; I like makeup and looking like a woman (I think) - I like being a woman. But I don’t feel like one - I feel like a man. Buy I don’t want body hair, a beard etc. And I don’t want testosterone or to ‘come out’. That spooks me. But these doubts about gender pop up all the time - and someone said to me ‘yeah it’s going to keep doing that till you transition’. I couldn’t breathe last night when I read that. When I imagine what I want to be it’s a confident (maybe a little gender non-conforming) woman. But I worry - all the time - that I’m kidding myself. It got to the point last night where I was 100% convinced I was trans. I felt my world fall apart. Maybe I am a trans guy in denial… and all these people were right (I deleted the thread - got scared / upset).

I’m asking on the detrans forum because I want to see if anyone felt like me, transitioned, then regretted it. I would like some advice without someone shouting ‘omg EGGGG’ - because I can’t handle it.

Thanks all.

Edit : this gained more comments than I expected and it’s a lot to reply to but I just want to say a big thank you to you all. All comments are really thoughtful - cannot explain how grateful I am. I was having an absolute breakdown last night, thought I had been ‘trans all along’ and my fears were only confirmed by other people. I still have a lot of ‘issues’ - i.e, sexuality - but I see now I have no basis on which to argue I’m trans. If it wasn’t for this thread, I would probably still be looking into transition!!

I'm 16F and I started detransitioning a few weeks ago:) Of course I've never been on hormones, but I naturally have a very androgynous face. So, with my hair this short, I can pass as a guy. Even when I had long hair I'd get asked whether I was a boy or a girl. Back then I was dressing in a very neutral and covered up manner though, so that (hopefully) played the biggest part lol

Anyway, I'm kind of impatient to look like a woman again XD I want to wait until I actually look like a girl until I change back to my birth name in school (1st year in upper secondary). I'm kind of nervous to do it haha, they've never known me as anything else. But they'll see I'm female at some point, it might even be now! I just hate looking like a trans person. Now that my hair's grown out a little bit (Not much, but I think it's enough to look "suspicious") I feel like a trans guy that doesn't pass, especially using my "male name". But if I changed back, I fear I'd feel like a trans woman 😅

If there are any ways I can look a bit more feminine, I'd appreciate the tips. I want to be relatively conservative for the time being, especially since it's winter, but anything minor I can do would really help

I don't want to share my face here, but if you think you'd be able to provide better advice by seeing me, I can do that in DMs:) Only to women though, please (unless you are very stylish) 🙏

Thanks for any help!

I saw another poster here talk about this the other day Im pretty sure. It really bugs me when people outside the community talk about “ooh its a journey” or “wow youre so strong for self discovery” when you feel grief so much and your self esteem has been impacted. Yes, it is part of my character but it shouldn’t be, because this is an ideology based on homophobia and misogyny, not to mention the othering faced before and after detrans/desisting. Feelings of being behind come up a lot (yes ik “it gets better after hs etc”, im sure it will) and I feel extremely jealous of my peers. I feel like a leper to normal people and it’s even more difficult to relate to others(im on the spectrum also). When my girlfriend brings it up, I ruminate and spiral into a silent rage for like a week at a time.

I hate being a man. I like that transitioning has helped my dysphoria but I hate what it represents. Internally I am one but I feel like I’ve joined the dark side so to speak. I’ve taken out a good woman and put a gross man in her place. Is there a way for me to make it seem like it never happened? I guess I still ID as male, it’s what feels “right” in a vacuum, but I can’t get over how I’m basically contributing to female oppression. I feel such fucking immeasurable guilt for wanting to be a man. Can I still privately identify as male while also trying to go back to presenting as a woman? Lately I just feel like there’s an evil in my soul and one of the ways I could possibly make up for things I’ve done in my life is to try to be a woman again for the sake of other women, even if I don’t really want to be a woman, but god are men terrible.

I would say for most of my life I was your average cis guy. It wasn’t until early this year I had just a huge wave of gender envy enter into my head. I don’t really know where it came from. I feel like its me hating myself. Being a neurodivergent, nerdy, introvert, fat guy in a small conservative town is just hell. Especially when I can’t really move out. I just had this insane hatred for myself as I could never lose weight or looksmaxx. Seeing these transitioners and their stories was just so weird for me. People like me who were able to become what they desired. Its a weird situation for me as I want to accept I can’t change myself but I always get this insane wave of envy when I see cis and trans women. I just don’t really know what I can do to actualize myself.

This might be kind of long, I apologize...

I've been in a long term relationship with a man for quite some time now. He has been with me prior to my transition, during it, and after. There were conflicts along the way but I do feel loved by him. He knows I struggle a lot and he reassures me often and compliments me often and I really appreciate that.

I find myself constantly comparing myself to other women and feeling like I'm not good enough... I felt that way prior to transitioning, during it, and stronger than ever after having detransitioned.

When I see or meet a woman with nice features and/or especially a cute voice I feel this deep, hollow sadness in me that reminds me that I won't have that. It's worse if he is there at that time too, I have this nagging voice that tells me that he'd probably be happier with a woman who is more feminine and didn't have all these insecurities that hold me back from doing the things we used to have dreams of doing together (like doing livestreams, karaoke, etc). That voice in my head says that he will stay with me until someone better enters his life, or that he'll stay loyal to me but never be as happy as he could be otherwise. I hate that thought...

This is really eating at me and it's causing the relationship to suffer. I can't bear the thought of hurting our relationship any more than I already have with this. I can't help but feel like I'll never find real love again if this fails. I'm much too weird. Please, I'm at the end of my rope. Anything helps.

Actually they were all made me transation at the end. Males have to do that, males have to wear that, males have to act like that. First step, "handsome not cute", masculine, cool and other things.

Eh yes i want to wear skirts and other things i still love them so much and let's say idk care about them, i can cope with clothes but what about the rest? I hate male socialization, whenever im in a friend group with males i get so much bored or im just getting mad with the conversations going on.

About the emotions. Don't just try to hugbox. We all know because of patriarchy and gender roles society expect braveness, most of the times domination, think about it there's a literally sentence like "Behind every successful man there is a woman" why can't i be the supportive figure, why can't i be the emotional one, why am i have to step up for someone.

Also "be yourself" isn't the answer. when u be yourself u getting excluded from society i don't want to be alone. I just want to be like anyone out there. Why i have to suffer just because of my personality or gender i don't even know anymore

PLEASE SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO DEAL WITH FCKIN GENDER ROLES

Also technically considered a vent so sorry if I did the flair thing wrong. Long time lurker, first time poster. Was socially out as a transman since 13, was on hormones for a year at 21-22, just turned 23 in Oct so it's been about a year off.

My familial relationships have improved a bit (as expected), but I've lost almost all my friends due to detransitioning and becoming more critical of transitioning. I've tried to explain myself and let them know that me being critical doesn't equal me being transphobic, but they didn't want to hear it. I have like two other people in my life other than my BF and even then I feel like I can't truly be open about how I feel in fear I'll lose them too.

I'd consider myself a pretty outgoing person and I try to strike up conversation with people on my college campus (complimenting someone's shirt, making convo in a class, etc.) but nothing ever seems to stick and I've had multiple people lie to my face about not having social media. Idk. I'm also visually impaired and can't drive at night, which sucks bc most if not all of my campus clubs meet at night and Uber doesn't run where I'm from (small rural town).

Idk man. Does it ever get better? Will I ever find friends? The only time I've ever had a group of friends was when I was out and they dipped as soon as I wasn't interesting enough for them. Does anyone have any advice? I'm feeling so low and like it's not even worth it to try anymore.

Does anyone have any advice about how to stop thinking about gender so much on a daily basis? I have been off hormones for 1 year (though no social detransition) and this is one of the biggest factors that made me realize my transition was not good for me in the first place — how much it programmed me to constantly analyze social norms as they relate to gender and constantly feel like a freak no matter what set of norms I aim for at this point. Whenever I mention these worries even lightly to other people, I realize that most others don’t even worry about these things at all, or if they do it’s not very frequent. For me it feels 24/7 that I can’t have an interaction, watch a TV show, listen to a song, or even walk past someone on the street without thinking about how gender relates to the situation and how I’ll never be normal even though I may “seem” normal to others.

On a conscious level I no longer believe that gender needs to be a huge defining factor of how I perceive myself or others, but subconsciously I see the dynamics everywhere and am constantly noticing the ways I don’t fit in. I really don’t want to be consumed by these type of thoughts anymore and I’m trying to get better, I’m just wondering if others have struggled with this and if there are any strategies that have helped.

Hi, I changed my gender marker when I socially transitioned back in 2018. Over the past two years I have basically become more masc presenting and I am having so many issues with my ID showing F. I had to have a letter from the doctor to change it to F, will I need a new letter to change it back to M? I can’t find any info online about Arizona.

I know a lot of people may view this time as negative due to the pandemic and political uprisings, but I really enjoyed the creative/identity freedom people were expressing online and in public like never before.

Yes the transgender “trend” was ultimately harmful to a ton of people, but I like to look back at those times with a sense of nostalgia - it was fun at the time, and I’m glad I got to experience it.

All the alt fashion, crazy hair dye and eyeliner, booming fandoms, etc. it was so much fun, even though I never really took part.

I wonder if you guys feel the same at least a little. I was in the midst of my identity crisis at that time but I’m glad I can look back and still think of happy memories

I've been identifying as some form of not-cis for over 10 years now. It started when I was 17 and came out as genderfluid, using they/them and later he/they pronouns. I considered myself to have fluctuating physical and social dysphoria; there were plenty of times where I hated my breasts, my curves, the pitch of my voice, and my feminine "baby face". There were even more times that I hated being seen as a woman, I felt more comfortable being referred to with masculine terms, and I felt like I was just putting on a woman costume rather than being a woman, among other similar sentiments. Looking back now, I can see that most if not all of those experiences were caused my something other than dysphoria- I struggled a lot with body image issues and disordered eating, and I was an autistic teen trying to force myself to adhere to social norms to try to end the bullying and harassment I faced. But at the time I was sure it was dysphoria.

As time went on I got more and more aggravated that my family and others in my life didn't support me and weren't willing to make any effort to change how they viewed me. I had gender-affirming friends, but a lot of the people I interacted with in my day-to-day life just saw me as a woman, which only made my "social dysphoria" (hatred of being seen as a woman & desire to be referred to otherwise) worse. I started to wonder if I was actually a binary trans man, though that might've just been a cope. I came out a second time as FTM when I was 22, dropped they/them in favor of only he/him, and started looking into medical transition. But I had doubts the entire time. I even sat down and made lists of reasons why I might be and might not be a man (which I still have, and are very helpful for reflecting). I think on some level I knew I wasn't.

But more than anything, I wanted top surgery. Breasts were always my biggest source of discomfort; I cried whenever I had to go shopping for new bras, got pissed whenever anyone remarked on my chest growth or how puberty was affecting me; not helped by the fact that I had a large cup size (DD at my thinnest; it went up from there as I gained weight). The following year, when I was 23, I actively pursued top surgery and got an appointment with a surgeon. However, I found out that in order for my insurance to cover the expensive surgery, I had to be on testosterone. I did not want to be on testosterone; I had been adamant that I wanted top surgery only and that HRT wasn't right for me. But because I wanted top surgery that badly, I went to an informed consent clinic to get started on HRT. They did an initial appointment where they had me read a packet about typical transition times and some of the risks of testosterone and did bloodwork, and at my next appointment I was given testosterone. I had my top surgery a month later. It would've made sense to stop testosterone at that point, but I had deluded myself into thinking that being on T was the right choice now, too.

I was on T for the next ~2 years, and for the most part I was happy. I actually enjoyed a lot of the changes- I liked having a deeper voice, I enjoyed the fat redistribution giving me a male body shape, and I was grateful for the clitoral growth that led me to finally being able to orgasm after years of never once doing it. But towards the end of that timeline, I started being unhappy with some of the changes. I was really dissatisfied with the increase in body hair and with my facial hair. I tried to argue with myself that I hated the facial hair just because it was patchy, and after a few more years on T I'd have a full beard and be satisfied. But both the though of having a full beard and the thought of being on testosterone for years more made me feel a sense of dread. In February of 2022 I stop HRT cold turkey, citing insurance issues as an excuse. I've now been off T as long as I was on it, and I'm so glad I made that decision.

The problem lies in where I am now. I feel like, on some level deep down, I am a woman. I feel like, on some level, I have always known that, I just lived in denial. I want to be more feminine (though I also enjoy my androgynous look and I'd do both). I hate the stress of explaining my name and pronouns and identifying myself as trans at every turn, especially now that I no longer pass. I miss female camaraderie. Being trans feels like more effort than it's worth, and if I could snap my fingers and magically socially detransition without consequences, I would. The problem is that there are consequences. I'm scared to deal with my parents, who hated when I identified as nonbinary and only came to accept my gender identity when I started pursuing medical treatment. I'm scared to deal with my grandparents, who have been incredibly accepting from the get-go. I'm scared of potential social fallout, because all of my friends and social circles and hobby groups are incredibly trans-affirming and I have no idea how they'd react to a detransitioner. I have no idea how to handle things like name and gender incongruencies, how to undo the few changes I've made (gender marker-wise) and how to pursue the few changes I still want (a legal name change; I never got mine done and don't want to revert to my birth name). And I still mostly hate being referred to as a woman, and feel like being called she or ma'am or whatever is "misgendering me". I feel completely stuck, like I got myself into this mess and there's no way to get back out. Do I carry on living as trans forever, feeling stressed and burdened all the while? Do I suck it up and detransition, risking the potential social fallout? Do I find some middle-ground nonbinary identity that will hit most of the boxes for me, even if its not perfect? I have no idea what to do. Advice and support is very wanted. Sorry this post is so long.

I’m 26, considered myself a trans man for 10 years, but it hasn’t felt right for a while.

I only transitioned socially since I live in a place where transitioning medically and legally is difficult (impossible even in the last years). So then, what’s the point at all? I can’t emigrate, can’t do anything here. And I’m tired of being stuck in this in-between state.

Yet, after ten years of this, it’s difficult to flip the switch in my head back. I’m used to this. How long has it taken you guys to get used to being yourself again? I don’t feel like a woman. Don’t feel like a man anymore, either. I’m not sure what I feel at all.

Ever since I’ve realised that I’m going to desist it feels like my family is starting to support me more, or maybe I’m just noticing it more now? Either way for the first part of my transition my family (mostly my mum) was sceptical and wouldn’t use my preferred name or pronouns. She had many talks to me about how there was a lot of recent studies seeing a trend in teenage girls identifying as FTM and while not openly hostile she was clearly unhappy about it. I asked her about the name and pronoun thing and it turns out she was doing on purpose because she thought affirming it would hurt me and make a possible detransition harder. All this to say she definitely didn’t believe that I was trans (obviously rightly so) but that fact is making her sudden acceptance really difficult.

For the first time she apologised because one of her friends misgendered me, she openly talked to me about one of her other friends deadnaming me and ranted about how it’s so rude. She’s even been helping me with passing, suggesting haircuts and buying me clothes (like tops with built in shoulder pads etc) to help me look more masculine. I feel so fucking terrible, I know that it took a lot for her to get to this point to accept me and I know when I eventually tell her that I got it wrong it’s going to hurt her so much. I was adamant about it and she put so much energy into making me happy all for it to turn out that I’m not trans like she thought.

It’s also so embarrassing to have to admit that I really was wrong, I keep telling myself that it’s okay to make mistakes when discovering yourself (which to clarify it is) but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. All the time I spent crying and getting into arguments with her over hrt, acceptance, how I really am trans etc is replaying in my head.

I feel so stupid and guilty and embarrassed and I still haven’t even told a single person. I hate living with this secret especially because it’s not like I can hide it, it comes through in social situations. I’ll be sitting having a conversation then suddenly remember that they see me as a completely different person than I actually am, even worse I’m the one who created that fake persona, I’m not sure how to get away from it. It’s draining all my mental energy and hurting relationships.

I’m scared that this acceptance that my mum is giving me will increase too. Since I’m graduating HS in 2025 and am basically in my final year of school I decided that desisting socially now will make things harder and more complicated and to leave it until I move cities for uni but fuck it feels so far away and I feel like I’m trapped here. I would give anything to be able to go back and stop myself from ever coming out, my life would be so much different. People at school wouldn’t look at me like I’m alien, I would be able to have friends I relate to without a barrier between us, I’d be able to dress and express myself how I want. It’s so isolating and so stupid that I did this to myself.

I was on T for 5 years and been off it now for 1 year. I've sadly become a victim to the dreaded male pattern baldness. It could be a whole lot worse, but it's still so bad that I can't leave the house without a hat. I can not afford a hair transplant so I'm doing whatever I can to naturally restore as much as possible. This is probably the one thing that is preventing me from feeling fully like a woman again and I honestly don't always know how to deal with it.

I feel so stupid for not thinking about this possibility back before I started T. All it would take is one look at my brother, my dad and my grandpa to know I would end up with the same bad hairline.

Idk what everyone else's experience with this is, but I never once experienced that the doctors put much weight on these kinds of consequences. They mentioned the possibility of course, but they never tried to "scare me" with it.

I just needed to get this out there to like-minded people.

How did yall determine you weren't trans / aren't trans anymore?

I've lived as a transman for over 10 years but I'm not sure it's the right thing anymore. I have no regret in particular, I just feel like it's not "right". Super unhelpful I know, it's just as unhelpful for me.

I get frustrated when people tell me it's clearly my fault because I didn't "think it through". I started my transition as an adult, I thought about it more than I can quantify, and I socially transitioned before getting any HRT. But I'm still feeling these doubts and it's not taken seriously.

It's worth noting that while I had HRT, I never got the surgeries because I simply couldn't afford it. I've only recently saved up the money but now I don't want to go through with it. Medically I can detransition relatively easily, but socially there would be a lot of work. I've been like this for so long it's all my coworkers know (I don't even know if they know I'm trans), my education records are under my current name, etc etc. It just seems so daunting.

It was so much work to get here and I really don't want to go through it again, but I can't deny it no longer feels like I'm doing the right thing.

I don't necessarily expect anyone to have a magical checklist for determining if I'm really trans or not, I just wanted mostly to vent.

However I am still interested in hearing how you all determined this wasn't the life for you anymore.

Also sorry if I made any mistakes. It's my first time posting so if I need to fix something just tell me.

do you think if detransition were romanticized/commercialized the way transitioning is it would be helpful or harmful?

ive noticed that trans spaces/content tends to be more like a fandom space and detrans spaces/content tend to feel more like a grief support group. being trans and transitioning definitely has its drawbacks and struggles but i think transitioning tends to be a lot more of a fun and exciting experience than detransitioning. looking forward to positive changes is more fun than accepting what you can't change.

i see a lot of depressing posts on here about feeling different from other people, feeling isolated and undesirable, feeling like there's something wrong and unfixable about your body etc. which i totally understand and relate to. if it were a trans person saying these things my honest advice would always be to try to socialize and form relationships with other trans people but thats not realistic for a detrans person. i meet trans people in public all the time incidentally but to my knowledge ive never met a detrans person. when i was IDing as a trans man meeting/seeing other trans men (esp ones with similar features/body type as me) decreased my dysphoria so much. how could i hate myself for traits i share with someone i admire? loving and admiring and being attracted to trans men made me feel grateful for my body and having something in common with them.

i think trans people being portrayed positively, having trans role models and being trans being seen as something positive to be proud of makes it a lot easier to accept being trans and having a visibly transgender body as a positive instead of something to be ashamed of, or feeling like you're inferior for having a different body. when somebody questions their gender and they search for community online they see cute pride flags, popular characters being headcanoned as trans, paintings of greek and roman gods with top surgery scars and bottom growth, happy t4t relationships, androgynous outfit ideas, etc. the trans community tends to be very positive and fun and "marketable" like a fandom. there's merch of every pride flag and symbol in a lot of popular stores. most detrans content is extremely negative (for probably obvious reasons). detrans content by detrans people are usually vent posts or warning posts and detrans content by non-detrans people (most of it) tends to be more focused on fearmongering people out of transitioning than helping people who have already (de)transitioned and they tend to be very negative about detrans people emphasizing things like that our bodies are "mutilat*d" (cant write the word on this sub) and our lives are ruined because they care more about making non-detrans people terrified of becoming like us than considering how things like that are going to make detrans people feel.

i wish i could word this more eloquently but do you think (in a hypothetical world) that "detrans" having the same connotations as "trans" as an Identity to be proud of rather than a negative life experience would be beneficial to the detrans community or harmful? if people questioned their transition and looked online for community and found detrans fandom headcanons and detrans youtubers who make fun silly jokey detrans content and art of greek and roman goddesses portrayed as beautiful women with top surgery scars? or do you think its something that shouldnt be commercialized/fandomized like that?

i know a lot of the ppl in this sub have the opinion that trans positivity (in a fandom-y way) is harmful but i feel like the risk of people detransitioning as a trend/social contagion(?) is pretty low. and i feel like people might think that romanticizing something serious and sometimes traumatizing like detransitioning (and all the regret and dysphoria and self-hatred that often comes with it) is insensitive, like romanticizing mental illnesses or disabilities or self harm.

idk what im trying to ask im high and i cant tell if any of this makes literally any sense sorry lol. anyway for fun drop ur favorite detrans headcanons mine is coach beiste from glee. shes such a comfort character for me and making her a trans man was the stupidest writing decision ever

I think The Substance really spoke to my feelings about transition and my ruthless pursuit of changing (abandoning) aspects of myself.

Of course I didn’t strive to be the epitome of female beauty and desirability — I sought to get as far away from it as possible — but my desire to transition was also rooted in the anxiety about the unrealistic expectations set on women.

The ending (spoilers!) where she attempts to stop the effects of the substance from decaying her body further (relatable) it all goes wrong. And she ends up turning into an amalgamation of her ideal self and her real, imperfect self, and becomes monstrous.

It felt a lot like my journey with detransition. I loved it! It really shows the violence embedded in body dysmorphic thoughts and in the unrealistic expectations society places on women that we then internalize.

I think this film has been embraced by trans people too, but like many of the famous “trans coded” films more often feel like detrans coded films, because they typically end with the message of accepting oneself. And with the message that it is misguided to try to turn yourself into someone you’re not.

So I’ve been off T nearly 2 years now, was on let’s say 3.75 years but 2 solid years of taking it as prescribed. It took around 6 months for my cycle to return and returned I guess somewhat normal as I’d always been irregular now the past 8 months it’s been more regular unfortunately and the past month it just won’t stop at all and it’s like heavy heavy like where’s all this even coming from heavy. I just had a Pap smear and everything came back normal so not much to do there. Is birth control my only option?

Hello,

I’ve been thinking over detransition for a very long time and hoping I can get some help here. Just talk I suppose. I’ve recently had this come to a head where I broke down, I feel like I have to do something about this and feel sure of it, it’s just I feel a lack of motivation and struggle to feel happy anymore without me doing something.

Mainly I don’t know how to embrace being male and how to come to terms with detransition. I’ve contemplated it for so long. I never liked the idea of being a boy but have experimented with clothes. I transitioned really young so I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in to a man or what it feels like, just that I’m interested in this experience that I never had. I’m scared of people’s reactions, and partly even my own if it turns out I really hate it. I have a supportive person, but still live with someone who doesn’t know.

I’m interested in the social aspects, physical appearance and libido of a man. I like women and would also like to have biological children of my own one day as well.

I don’t think it helps I never had a father since I was very young. I just have never had any male role model. I feel like I really missed out and feel lost and lonely on this discovery, none of my trans friends said they have ever felt the same. I feel like transition was such a bad mistake when I feel like I could’ve gone without all these drugs now. How do you embrace being a man, what was coming off estrogen and going on to testosterone like for you?

I started blockers when I was 13 in 2016, went on hrt at 17 in 2020 and I’m 21 now.

I, 17ftm(tf?) have huge gender dysphoria but I am trying to understand I will never be a man because I just can't make it happen. This is how I was born, but I can't stop being uncomfortable with being referred or seen as a woman, and with thinking of myself as one. How did you stop feeling like that? I really need help on it

I did laser hair removal on my facial hair about 2 years ago, and since that, and the longer I've been off of T, the less coarse the facial hair has gotten. It's still dark enough that I need to remove if in some way tho. I never had a full beard or anything but enough that its noticeable Well I'm finally at a point where it's fine enough that I can use nair to get rid of it instead of shaving every other day! It lasts all week and I feel way better about how smooth my skin is after :)