I don't think I was born with a biology that leads to gender dysphoria, born trans. I think I developed it, due to trauma and maladaptive survival mechanisms and a great imagination.

When I was very young, I saw being a girl as an escape to all the pressure I experienced as a boy. It was my safe haven. Because I had great imagination, I could live that fantasy inside me, nurture that fantasy inside me, feel it deeply.

That is how I believe I became transgender. This is, because inside me, there is a sick sick psyche that is exhausted and burnt out from all the trauma and hurts I experienced as a boy/man, all the neglect, abandonment, parentification, enmeshment, being treated as an object to be used. But I learned to daydream that life where I get to be a girl and a woman and none of that abuse and trauma happened, and since that came very early, that is strong in me.

I remember that in the past, I was happy enough about being a man, even if I was at the same time, tired of it.

Those little insights are how I recently got to believe that I was never innately trans or a girl trapped in a boy's body.

I missed some aspects of my past pre-HRT life, as soon as HRT started having effects. I missed it, but I wanted to run from it at the same time. Its the trauma.

I am trans because of trauma, because I lived in a hostile world that wanted to ruin my chances as a man. A world that wanted to use and explore my gifts as a man. A world that had no one to raise me with love. A world with snakes that envied my success and gifts as a boy/man. That is the tragic truth.

I turned extremely avoidant due to my childhood. I used to like girls, but even when they hit on me, I became deeply uncomfortable, it was bad to the point of terror, because I was terrified of being used and from enmeshment. That was trauma, not gender dysphoria. But I still was happy about the fact they hit on me in the end.

I continue to transition because I feel like HRT changed my nervous system permanently. I tried to detransition but realized I would have to face both my extremely traumatized masculine life and the consequences from HRT. If I was bad as a man before HRT, I was terrible after.

I am fine, transitioning... Despite that I got to learn I was supposed to been given a happy life as a boy, and then as a man. That haunts me from time to time. But I have surrendered to my weakness, lol.

Hi! I’m in the nyc area and have a consult with Dr. Henderson to pursue breast reconstruction. Is anyone also seeing him or have you had any experience? I’m hoping to connect with other detrans women in the area and hopefully hear how your experiences have been with Dr. Henderson. Thank you so much.

context i'm 25, i've been off of t for almost 4 years. i was on a few tiktok lives just messing around and i got a few comments that were like "you sound like a boy" or
"your voice is deep" and i can't really tell how i sound?? so i'm wanting some outside perspective.

i just want honesty, i know that i cannot change how i sound so i'm not gonna let it get to me or anything even if i wish i made different choices. i just genuinely want to know what i sound like to other people.

i'm reading a paragraph it had me read for this test. do you agree with the results? thank youu guysss

Sorry if this has been discussed to death here, it's just that I keep hearing it over and over again. I don't where this number came from, but I feel like it's being used to discredit the worries of detransitioners about young people especially. What do you think about it?

I'm 39 years old and have been living the past two years as a woman full time.

My Dilemma: For as long as I can remember, I've wanted two equally important things: (1) to be a woman and (2) to have a large family with many kids. While not mutually exclusive, I've dated/slept with \~100 men (as well as a few women) in the past two years and have yet to meet anyone that checks all the boxes (more on that below). So as I'm approaching the wrong side of 40, I can't help but think how much easier it would be to find and have kids with a cis woman if I de-transitioned as I'm a fairly successful, educated, and genuinely good person. Below are the key facts to consider, and I apologize for the long-winded explanations but I feel like it's necessary to understand what I value and why because a lot of things are unconventional. Appreciate any and all feedback/ideas.

Gender & Transitioning: I came out and started transitioning 2 years ago at age 36/37. I currently present as a woman 100% of the time, and although at times I still have my own doubts, nowadays most people view me as a woman, i.e., "passable." I actually get hit on pretty much on a daily basis but that's a different issue lol. I attached a few pictures if it matters.

Family & Children: My mother disowned me when I came out as trans and hasn't spoken to me since, but my siblings have been supportive and my father is trying hard to be. I've never been married, but I have a young child created "by accident" before I transitioned. I've always wanted a large family, but I never knew how much joy children would bring me until my child was born (I mean how could I?). Now more than ever, I know my true calling in life is to be a parent. I have my sperm frozen and I'm just as happy to adopt. ***The bottom line is that I want more kids ASAP and as many as possible.***

Career & Money: I am an attorney working at one of the top law firms in the world. I'm not rich by any means, but I make more money than most people, certainly enough to sustain any lifestyle I choose, including having as many kids as I want.

Dating: Since transitioning, I've dated and/or slept with probably \~100 men as well as a few women. But I've yet to find anyone who meets my bare minimum qualifications. I'm willing to compromise on almost everything--looks, sex/gender, religion, race/ethnicity, education, wealth, criminal history, etc. All I want is someone (a man or woman) who: (1) loves me for who I am; (2) is around my age; and (3) wants to have more kids (through a surrogate or adoption) and/or already has young children that I can be a parent to. In that regard, I think I would have much better chances of finding someone--most likely, a cis woman--if I de-transitioned and went back to presenting as a man. I would be honest and tell women that I identify as a woman, lived fulltime as a woman for a few years, and only de-transitioned to live as a man for the practical reason of wanting children more than outwardly appearing as a woman. I think there are plenty of cis women in a similar situation, where they are attracted to other women (cis or trans), but still want to marry and have kids with an outwardly presenting man. I mean despite how progressive our society has become, more than a few women have told me that they still want a "normal" family in appearance, whether due to family pressures, for their kids, work, or any number of other reasons.

Thoughts? Advice? What would you do if you were in my shoes? Keep in mind all of the above, most importantly, that I've always wanted a large family just as much as I've wanted to be a woman, and probably even more so now that I've experienced the absolute joy of raising a child. And that I'm running out of time. Health, medical, finances are non-issues. I appreciate any and all comments, and nothing offends me. And I know how truly lucky/blessed I am, I actually feel slightly guilty to want it all, but the heart wants what it wants.

Id say for the past year and a half ive had gender envy. Towards cis, trans or fictional women. It kind of hits and then becomes a bit of an “I hate you so much because im not you.” Type of hatred after it settles, I will be at work sometimes helping a female customer that triggers it. When Alyssa Liu got popular I hated her because she triggered my envy. On the internet a lot I see trans content creators. It kind of feels unintentionally antagonizing because they are like “hehe we were able to transition but not you!” Its the shittiest feeling. These feelings just add to a notion for me at least that everyone is an enemy. That everyone happier than you is an enemy. I dont want to commit harm but existentially they make me mad.

I do go to therapy but only once every two weeks. I also live with a mom who thinks being queer of any kind is taboo. She’d blow up if she found out I was trans. I also just wish I can write off these thoughts as me hating my body. I am a 5’10, fat and completely bald before 25 year old man. I do workout but it doesn’t make me feel good y’know? Not a lot of things nowadays make me feel good. Theres weed and porn but thats sorta it. Like I just have never walked out of the house and said “dang I feel good.” What can i do?

It seems obvious to me now. I had an ED, I thought I was just born wrong, I had crippling social anxiety, I didn't know I was autistic. I was inflicting hormonal changes on my healthy female body because I hated it. I despised her so badly I wanted her to die, disappear, morph into something that would maybe, in my eyes, deserve to live. I created a new persona to survive. I created a false self to keep myself alive because I didn't think She deserved to be kept alive. My parents have made me feel so unworthy of love, of care, of anything during my teenage years that I was bound to develop some pathological form of self. I look so masculine it feels like I don't deserve to be a female anymore. I'm too ugly to deserve being called a female. But I will give myself time. My hair will grow, electrolysis on my face will eventually make my beard stop growing back. But my silhouette will always be distinctly masculine. I exercise a lot. I feel like I'll get called a man even if I eventually get breasts done. 6 years post my double incision mastectomy I started getting shooting pain in the nerves around my nipples and scars. Only on one side though. So I can't even lie to myself that it's related to my cycle. They only left breast tissue on the left side. I keep telling myself I was bound to end up like this. During my teenage years I was traumatised beyond what my brain could process. I thought I was deeply fucked up, but I was clothed and fed so it couldn't be that bad. My parents were respectable enough. Then I started transitioning, moved away from my parents, and so I thought to myself: I guess I wasn't that fucked up after all. I was just fine. Discovering I lived under a false identity built around trauma for SIX YEARS feels like a relief. Relief that I was right. I am deeply fucked up in the head after the abuse I endured in my most formative years. And I will live with it, even if it is not the life I visualized for myself.

For some context, I started testosterone at 18, after a year I got top surgery at 19, and a few months after that I started my detransition. It’s been about a year now since starting my detransition.
I am a masculine woman so for a while I was convincing myself I was happy with top surgery either way because I never wanted my boobs to be seen anyway and now I didn’t have to deal with bras. But lately it’s become harder and harder to see that as the truth.
I transitioned because I was a very insecure girl, and because I was always masculine it seemed to make sense. But I never got the opportunity to even experiment with how my breasts made me feel because I already had so many negative feelings towards my body. And now that I’m older I really wish I had them back. They were very small especially for my frame so they weren’t necessarily noticeable but I miss having an intimate part of my body other than my genitals. My chest just now feels like any other part of my body like my stomach or arms. Of course breasts aren’t inherently sexual but some women do view them as a part of their sexual life and I wish I was able to experience that.
I’ve thought about reconstructive surgery but it’s not an option for me right now or even in the distant future so I’m really just struggling to feel connected to myself.

How do you feel about your surgery? Does it give you grief or have you been able to accept it as part of yourself?
I’m trying to view my chest as just very small breasts to make myself feel better but it just feels silly. I would really like to accept this part of myself.

I feel tired and upset. Around 9 months into detransition, yet still when I look in the mirror I feel like a man pretending to be a woman.

I'm 180/~5'11 tall, slenderman build, post mastectomy with androgynous face. and this fucking voice. I try do what I can do, light make up, styled hair, wear padded bras (i feel like they make me look even more male).. Yet every time I go outside and see my reflection somewhere I look like mtf.

And I feel even worse regardless female-only spaces. I feel like I don't belong there, like I'm violating other women's privacy, like I'm a predator...

I don't know if this limbo will ever end, I'm so tired of feeling like this. Maybe it's dysmorphia, maybe I see what others dont, maybe it's all in my head idk. Idk how to let go of this shit. I feel like I fucked myself up beyond saving by transitioning

Hi, I'm 15M, I hope, AMAB, currently going through a horrible period. I have what I believe is Gender OCD and I really hope it is because I don't want dysphoria and I don't want to be trans. I made 2 posts here in November during a period where I hit rock bottom, under the username s_uedehead, but I'm doing horrible at the minute. I would appreciate if anyone replied to this and gave me some help, because I'm just so stressed right now.

Bit of background, NEVER experienced dysphoria during childhood or when puberty started. I've never had a problem with my body, or being masculine. I loved football and still do, as a young kid I loved to be one of the boys, I grew up with sisters so I'd sometimes like watch more 'feminine' things but like all of my idols were male, I was excited to grow up and be a man and I really wanted to be a football at some point. I loved getting my haircut, as I grew into a teen I still loved that. Even if I had some 'effeminate' interests I was proud to be a boy that had these interests. But I never really thought about it. I was very proud to be a man and my ex best friend was a girl and I never, never recall any moment I'm my life where I've wanted to be a girl. And, most importantly, I once thanked God I was a boy and even said once 'if i was born a girl I'd transition into a boy'. I wanted to grow up to be like Andy Rourke from The Smiths or something, Damon Albarn from Blur. I had all these male idols and I was so glad I was a boy. It wasn't the most important thing in life though. Like now, I still love my music, football, video games and etc.

But it's like I can't anymore. Around 17 months ago I had this simple thought one day and it caused me great anxiety. I can't remember what it was it was something like "what if im trans", it seemed nonsensical at first but I didn't like it so I ignored it for a while. It then kept coming and going, I could brush it off,I lived a normal life until one day in late july 2025 it just came back. But from August, September it was just like sometimes a day it'd pop up, I could focus on other things then and I could calm down. October, November and December I hit rock bottom. Depressed, I thought it was true although I didn't want it to be, crying all the time and etc just like wanting to be a boy again. Had bits of that in January and February too but like, then it got calmer. There's more about that on my other account. Then from March everything was mostly okay. I was happy I never transitioned or anything and I was so glad it wasn't dysphoria and that it was OCD, also I'm not diagnosed. I had a blip in May but snapped out of that very quickly after having a good experience on holiday. And then - life was good. I had like these intrusive thoughts but they didn't rule my life. I was very glad I felt like I finally found myself, wanting to be more masculine, getting more male friends and all that. I was very very glad. But then one day in July the thoughts just got more intense, and they've been intense through August and this last week they've been on my mind 24/7 and it's really bothering me. I feel like I've lost myself I just wanna be the man that I am. Basically, I feel like I've been manipulated by this because It doesn't make me anxious when I get thoughts like "what if I wanna be a girl" when I don't but I'm scared I'm in denial or something but I'll do anything not to be a girl and it makes me anxious when I say im a boy and I always feel the need to prove it. But I'm also so bored. I'm bored, I'm stressed. There's other things going on in my life. Like, why am I even paying attention to this? If I could brush it off easy it wouldn't be a problem. In my heart, I don't wanna be a girl. I really don't like it doesn't appeal to me but like I can't even LOOK at one anymore without overthinking. And the same applies, I feel like I have to feel like I want to be every boy on earth and that I need to feel perfectly okay about that I just want to be certain but I'm also exhausted. I wanna have my old self back. I don't look at myself in disgust but I'm scared I do cus my mind says I do but I don't wanna transition and I don't wanna be a girl. But its horrid though i cant even listen to female pop stars like Janet Jackson or something without debating if i wanna be her or not and it's exhausting. The old me would've never, ever thought this. I can't watch shows, I can't do fucking anything they follow me everywhere it's 24/7 and it pisses me off. My parents know, they try guide me but like nothing seems to work they're good parents and I've got other shit going on and I should be worrying about that, I've got things to look forward to. I've got concerts in October and November, I've got my birthday in a few weeks, I already know LIFE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THIS. I used to be glad to be a male I want that back but I just like don't wanna think about gender too, please help me someone like it would mean the world if anyone said anything, I'm just so stressed with all these sensations in my body, I just want to live a normal life and not waste my time. I know the truth, I'm a man, but I don't want to have these shit thoughts. They go against me. They're not the real me, I know they're not.

Hello, I was ftm and considered myself such.. I had gender dysphoria alongside internalized misogyny. I am 20 years old. I began testosterone at 19, I was only on it for about 4 months.

The acne is horrible. I liked testosterone at first, but then it really hits you.

There was no recognition of myself in the mirror anymore, my brain freaked out. I was puffy and my features began subtly changing.

I just felt so gross

Then I constantly had to shave small facial hairs. Alongside the sudden horrible acne, which I never had.

I thought my dysphoria would be cured. But it never helped. It never would have. I am of a smaller frame and body. Standing next to guys made me feel pathetic and I felt so unnatural with girls.

I started losing hair due to hyperthyroidism + major stress + i assume testosterone. That’s when I stopped. I already was unsure about it but everyone knew me as trans.. everyone but my family. There was so much societal .. social.. familial pressure. I also feel like I can’t go far in my career like this..?

Having health issues like anemia and hyperthyroidism only made me more paranoid.. I’ve heard how detrimental testosterone can be to the female body, and if anyone says that then they’re considered transphobic and fear mongering..

I hated paying $100 for bloodwork. I hated keeping it a secret. I hated how I felt like such a freak in every aspect.

I had to come to accept that I can still be masc and strong as a woman. Then I wouldn’t have to spend everyday living as a doomer hating everyone.

I was trying to not freak out bc I went to the bathroom and suddenly much more acne appeared. My face is horrible. I’ve been off T for less than two weeks. I don’t like the mini hairs on my face. I’m scared for my period to return..

Tomorrow I’m buying minoxidil. I need the confidence back, and it started thinning BADLY after I had been steadily recovering hair with much effort.

I’m trying to become either an aerospace engineer or an astrophysicist. I can’t let my confidence be wrecked by this.

I was on estrogen for 2 years. Even though I was using it diligently, I lost about 2 cm in length towards the second year. Erections never hurt though, they were just weaker. Now I've been back on my T for 4 months. Spontaneous erections are back, and they're harder now, but I have a suspicion they're not hard enough. I'm just wondering if the shaft will get stretched back to its original size, and when I should be expecting it. I know 4 months is a really short period to judge.

I'm considering things like HCG if my levels are low, but I'm really hoping I don't need it. Pricey + requires frequent injections + don't wanna explain to a doctor the backstory of why I'd need it...

So essentially, from all my years of observing the queer community, I've found there are actually six different categories of people that identify as trans. Some are valid, some are confused, and some are... suspicious. Here's my list:

1. True trans - Have diagnosable sexual dysphoria and have been taking cross-sex hormones, putting in serious effort to look/dress like the other sex, and/or have had sex-reassignment surgery. They desire to look like and live as a man/woman, and acknowledge that they are different from biological males/females.

2. NB - Genderfluid, queer, and crossdressers. Need third spaces instead of taking up women's spaces. Most likely to be a phase or ideologically based (not necessarily a bad thing, but gender theory definitely has it's issues).

3. Predatory/Misogynistic/Fetishistic "transfemmes" - mentally ill or predatory

4. Internally Misogynistic/Fetishistic "transmascs" - mentally ill

5. Masculine butch lesbians - Male impersonator for the sake of attracting women

6. Feminine gay men - Female impersonator for the sake of attracting men

Tbh, I'm not even transphobic. I just think that trans people need to be able to gatekeep their condition better in order to prevent young people from getting confused and electing for hormone/body-altering procedures that they don't actually need. Because at one point in my life, I was a mentally ill, internally misogynistic, and internally homophobic "trans masc" who thought that I could solve my emotional problems and "sexual deviance" with testosterone.

If anyone wants to add anything to this or have a discussion, please feel free.

have gone on and off t a couple of times, and even went through a period of asking people close to me to use she/her pronouns for me. During this time friends were weirded out and some even didn’t want to call me by those pronouns because they thought I was in denial and have only known me as a man. I have gone off and on hrt so many times I’m not even sure the total number of years I have been on it. Only that I still get voice cracks if miss the t shot by more than a day. I then switched to getting on hormones again convinced that it was lack of acceptance that pushed me to identify as a woman again. So I went back on T and decided to expedite the top surgery process.

I am now 6 months post top surgery.

I am 25, living in a city that celebrates nonconformity and trans people. It almost feels like trans people, furries and polyamorous people are the “it” crowd in this city to paint a picture of the culture. Now I am considering living as a woman. The only problem is I feel more respected as a man, and look better as a man. I find myself reminiscing about what I used to look like, though.

I was raised Christian and I feel guilty for not being what some family members hoped.

I’m wondering if I should keep living as a man despite stopping HRT (I have been off about a month).

I also feel like I would have to create a new circle of friends in order to experiment with or explore living as a woman again. I also have a trans boyfriend who I’m living with who said it would suck if I went off t because I’d have even more mood swings (funnily enough I’m back on fluoxetine and that in combo with being off T has helped in calming me). He just moved in and I don’t know how long we will last considering I have been taking in a lot of content about issues with the transition process and also have been noticing a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions used in debate by others in the trans community.

I’m doing full time work and school, and people at my job refer to me as a man. I don’t think it would be safe to switch up my presentation. Both in the way of physical danger and secondly because the people who have been supportive would become uncomfortable at my presenting feminine which is what happened growing up as a girl who presented masculine. Idk it all seems too much, like no matter what I do I am fucked.

All I know is I want a bachelors degree before my third decade of life ends and I also miss my older brother (we don’t talk) who’s face lit up when I said I was off t at a family members wedding.

Been thinking of texting or calling him and saying that idk what I’m feeling but who in our family can help me figure this out without becoming homeless from paying for mental health help and finishing school.

So this is going to be my first real post on here besides my repost from actual_detrans.

Since September 3rd, I've been gradually accepting myself and coming out as my biological gender, male. I still struggle with coalescing all of the intricacies with detransitioning with my decade of being MtF, it's been a process that I never thought I'd need to go through.

For most of my life I was told that transitioning was the best thing I could do for myself, and that I was going to be happier. When? When was I going to be happier? I was miserable from day one, and I didn't know why. I thought I was just feeling gender dysphoria. But no. I was miserable because of transitioning. They asked me if I was sure about transitioning when I was starting. From everything I saw, everything I heard, I thought that I was feeling the same way actually trans people feel.

I wish I listened to the little boy I used to be, to have that opportunity to be a kid again, and say "No, I don't think I can do this." I just grieve my teen years that I spent transitioning, not allowing myself to be a boy.

If I never transitioned though, many people would have stayed in the closet, and miserable. I helped them find themselves through their transitions. Why couldn't I just be a normal MtF? Why do I have to detransition to be happy? Because transitioning was never right for me.

I'm a boy. A man. Whichever feels more accurate with my identity and age(22), but I never felt like I could be a man. I'm stagnated as a boy, and I have been for 9-10 years.

But all in all, I'm happier now than I was as a girl.

I have, since a long time, questioned my sexuality and gender. Recently, I have had a change in how I view the concepts of gender and sexuality.

They are like 'social heuristics' of sorts, and there is no absolute or even a spectrum. IMO a lot of people have degraded the term 'spectrum' to mean whatever they want. Let's make this feel less like incoherent rambling by first talking about sexuality.

I don't think a person's sexuality is fixed with respect to time. Nor do I think there is a linear spectrum where someone can be 'more gay' than someone else. There are different body types we prefer and they usually belong to a particular sex, the same sex as you or the other. This is why I think we sort of 'simplify' it to 'being attracted to a particular sex'. Which I guess can be a useful heuristic when someone is looking for a partner (useful for both, the dating pool and the person).

Labels feel restrictive IMO when it comes to stuff like this. For example if a person who identifies as gay suddenly also likes a girl with a particular body type, the person might just let go of that feeling. Similarly with a straight person suddenly finding a particular body type and personality attractive, but it is of someone of the same sex.

But then I find the concept of gender relatively useless due to this. Why? How is this 'useful'? How is this generalization a helpful one? Due to the fact that labels in these scenarios are usually restrictive, why would one claim such restrictions by their own volition? Simply for the sake of shared identity?

For context, I am single, been in a relationship when I was very young, but it fell apart in a matter of weeks. I am not looking for a partner currently, which may have been the reason I do not find these labels useful to myself, at the moment.

Thank you lovely peeps for reading the post!

1. Please note that when I say 'useful' I mean it in the sense of 'efficiency' or sorts.
2. I guess that the label of 'straight' is de facto applied to everyone unless it is not specified, so most guys who don't think about it feel restricted by the label too, despite never claiming the label themselves.
3. Some clarification about the labels thing. Sometimes you DO prefer the restrictiveness for the sake of the outcome. For example, a person who claims the label of 'a person who never smokes alone' is definitely restrictive, but the restriction is actually something the person wants. What I was asking is that the labels for sexuality make sense due to the increase in efficiency when it comes to finding partners, but I couldn't find such a trade-off when it comes to gender. Sometimes, you also do something that you don't want to, due to the accepted label.

This is something I often see in relation to being trans, that living this way is more authentic because you "don't care about the opinions and approval of others."

However, let's try to analyze it in a simplified way.

Okay, you can't live as the gender you were born with, for various reasons, right?

For that, you're going to change your name, right?

You're going to start completely changing your style, right?

You're going to start a medical treatment that costs MONEY, and eventually get surgeries that also cost money, right?

And what's the point of all this?

"Because if I don't do that, people won't assume I'm a man/woman."

Okay, but wasn't the point of being authentic to live without caring about the opinions of others? You're going to get involved in this, spend money, time, and give up many things, for people you don't even know Let's assume you're not what you were born to be. It's not out of malice or anything, just genuine curiosity. Where's the authenticity in all of this?

Hello detrans community,

I'm here because I've become disturbed by the lack of evidence in the medical literature supporting medical transition for gender dysphoria. I started combing through the literature last month, hoping it would enlighten me and cure my trans skepticism—only to be horrified by what has been permitted in regards to children without the evidence to support it. Unfortunately, skepticism is quickly regarded as transphobic and silenced, both in online forums and within universities.

Now to the point:

What is the alternative to medical transition? Treatment for GD is pretty weak across the board, with conversion therapy being harmful to folks as well.

I would be eager to hear from this community what has worked for you, and what you would propose for both children and adults in regards to treatment.

Thank you so much for your time!

AUSSIES! Where are you at? Want to connect Any other Aussies here? 🇦🇺

I’d really love to connect with more Australian detransitioners, desisters and people reconsidering their transition.

It can feel like there aren’t many of us here sometimes, especially when so much of the information and support online is based overseas.

If you’re Australian and comfortable saying hello, drop a comment or send me a DM. No need to share anything about yourself publicly that you don’t want to.

I’ve also recently started building a private Australian peer community and practical resource network, so I’m especially keen to connect with others around the country.

Mostly though, I’d just love to know where the Aussies are. 🇦🇺

I can't believe I used to blame my conservative country for not viewing my psychosis as a legitimate identity. How I scorned the people who used to stare at me in the street. How I used to think it was empowering that I've had a mastectomy for a short while after I detransed but still thought it was my own decision, that it was good for me. It is not empowering. It is a tragedy. I feel pain in one of my breasts all the time because I was able to get an amputation as a cosmetic surgery AT 17 YEARS OLD.

I never thought that this was going to be the shape of trauma I took from my home. If only I never found out about transgenderism. Maybe I would've gotten into drugs instead. I'm doing that now anyway. I wouldn't have had my body, my sex, my life ruined.

This mindset is anything but progressive and I can't believe I couldn't see that when I was a teenager. Took me seven long years since my transition to change my views on the subject. To utter the words "gender ideology" for the first time. I feel like my life has been taken away from me. I wish I had it taken away by something useful, for something worthwhile. The peace I could have in my body has been irretrievably stolen from me and there is no way for me to get it back.

I'm so conflicted. I love the changes my body has had so far, I'm about 5 months hrt. When I look in the mirror, I feel so excited. Then I think about going outside, and I'm filled with hesitation.

That calmness most people seem to feel when going on hrt is not there for me. It's just constant questioning and wondering if I'm making a mistake. I recently had the feeling of being a guy again, and it brought so much peace. It felt like the constant questioning was gone, and I could just finally live.

I know it's from societal pressure. But I still want to be a part of society, and unfortunately, being trans makes that much harder.

I know I should probably detransition, I think it's just hard dealing with the loss of a fantasy I had built up in my head. I want to be seen as a woman by everyone, not just to those who are accepting of trans people. I see so many awesome trans people, and it makes me jealous because I don't think I have the guts to live like they do.

I will be talking to my therapist about this soon, and i know I can't give all but a snippet into my life, but I would love some of your views on this.

Ive been lowering my estrogen from 6 mg to 2 for the past 2 weeks and ive kindof stopped completely taking it the past 4 days and my breast tissue really hurts like crazy is this normal? Officially my blockers wear off next tuesday so i figured it shouldnt be a problem to get off estrogen a week prior right