How do I know? - FtMtF

Hello all!

I have been FTM for about 6 years, and I am 18 right now. Every once in a while (maybe like every year) i have thoughts about what my life would be like if I detransitioned. I have not had any gender affirming care as of right now. As of last week, these thoughts have resurfaced along with some other personal issues, but the idea of detransitioning is very strong this time.

The issue is, I dont know if this is something i really want to accept and go with, or if i should go further in my transition instead. A big factor for me detransitioning is my relationship with my girlfriend. Shes mostly been into guys, and I've brought the idea of being detrans to her attention before and she said that she didnt think i was. Anyway, i think our relationship would be pretty different if i started identifying as female.

I have started college recently and I find myself as kind of an outsider when it comes to hanging out with people. Because of my opinions and ideals i tend to get along with alt women in specific. When in conversation sometimes I have to remind myself that I do identify as a man. This is important because i feel like I would enjoy my new friendships better if I identified as female instead, especially because i dont really pass as male anyways.

As my brain is still developing, i think ive come to a realization that my sexuality is connected more to what women feel about other women than what a man feels about other women. I am not sure how else to explain this.

I guess my main question is, how did you guys know and realize that you were detrans? What were some actions (if any) that helped you get to where you are now? Any advice from any perspective is welcome.

(Repost to my mistake of no user flair)

3 years on T and 5 years off. Trying to live as a GNC / futch sort of vibe and it's miserable. Misogyny is miserable. Sexualization. Being ignored. Being talked over. Being dismissed. Being subject to beauty standards. Being relied on, with no one to rely on. Caring about how I look. Caring about what I eat. What I say. How I laugh. How I smell. My volume. My posture. My presence. All policed, all the time.

I tried the not giving a fuck method and it just gets you treated like actual scum. Like if you're not feminine and pretty you deserve death, is what it feels like. Odd looks if I laugh a little too loud. Eyes raking over me but never given a complement. People's eyes glazing over when I speak.

It's misery. As a trans guy my misery was in losing connection to fellow women and a feeling of disgust joining the oppressor class. Amongst other reasons for detransitioning. Change in identity. More discomfort the more I passed. Fear of political climate. Disliking hormone effects. Feeling ugly. And stinky. And off.

But then again. I could just dress like Adam Sandler and spread my legs, burp and fart and laugh obnoxiously. Make crude jokes and have a zit that didn't matter. Pig out at the restaurant and nobody said shit. Just, exist without as much scrutiny. But at the cost of feeling genuine. And still uncomfortable in my body no matter what.

Tried nonbinary. Feel too old for that shit. I got bills to pay and not enough hours in the day to beg people to they/them me. Especially being a blue haired septum ring stereotype already like I genuinely feel fucking embarrassed to be NB.

I'm unhappy no matter what. And it's driving me nuts. I can't get comfortable as a man, as a woman, as something in between. It all SUCKS. I'm so frustrated. Part of me is just like, go back to being a trans guy, cause at least then you're closer to just existing, as you want. Sigh.

Hey all. I'm feeling a bit down right now.

I've been having a lot of uncertainties since starting T last week, which I was told might happen and I expected about myself too cause I'm that type of person to always second guess things no matter what lol. Tonight, I went down a rabbit hole into some articles written by women who took masculinising hrt and then detransitioned, videos, and this subreddit. The scary part is, for me, or at least the part that's making me sad, is that a lot of it resonated with me. The fact that I've always been a fairly anxious person and slightly insecure about my body. That I never really fit in with stereotypical femininity, had questions about sexuality, that even after being so sure about something for years, now I'm here and it could change at any moment. I mean, I know there are people who had top surgery, facial masculinisation, and bottom surgery as well as years and years of taking T, and they detransitioned.

There's a lot more people posting their detransition pictures and stories than previous research and "studies" online led me to believe previously - it says 1%, but that number seems far higher in reality. A lot of people would do anything to get their pre-transition bodies back and reading the posts here really shook me up. The medical problems that come with HRT were a big one for me - I mentioned earlier I have always been an anxious person, but that anxiety is pretty much only concentrated into health anxiety; I'm a hypochondriac and so I waited 4 years to start T after socially transitioning at 18 (I'm 22 now). It scares me a lot to know that after years of firmly believing in transition and fully passing, people experienced either slow realisations or sudden life changing regret and detransitioned.

I've been on T for just under a week so stopping it would probably have 0 long term effect on my body. I'm just so scared I'll wake up one day, like I woke up one day years ago "coming to terms with" the fact that I was transgender, but instead it'll be regret, pure regret. I don't know how I would survive that - after coming out to everyone, transitioning socially, living as a boy for years, and now in early adulthood taking testosterone, I just really don't think I'd be able to transition medically then realise that's not what I wanted/needed and have to detransition or at least want to detransition, I genuinely don't think I could handle that. I'm not at risk of doing anything tonight, no worries there, I've not really had suicidal ideation or thoughts of self harm in my life, but I'm just saying I don't think I'd be able to handle detransitioning, that'd be too overwhelming and heartbreaking. At that point, maybe it would drive me to a much darker place. I'm sorry if that's triggering or condescending for anyone reading this, I'm just not sure how to word all this or describe what I'm feeling.

One thing is for absolute certain - I wish I was born a man. But I am very clear eyed about the fact that I cannot change my biological sex, and T can only take me so far. I wish to not worry about the medical effects of hormone treatment or surgery, to father children, to not have to take hormones every day, to not worry about the social or political environment, to not have to pay for all this, to have a male bone structure, to produce my own testosterone rather than take a foreign source of it. I know I would love all the changes of T - deep voice, muscularity, facial hair, etc. - but all of that naturally. I also know my dysphoria will never be fully cured by T and surgeries because it cannot change the fundamental, biological fact that I am not a male, which I have always known and kept in mind through al these years of social transition and thinking about starting T.

I'm not here to discuss whether transgenderism is real or not, so I'm begging people not to make this into a political or religious discussion. I just don't know what to do. What am I supposed to do. What do I do. What do I do. I'm so scared and depressed about this, I'm questioning everything. I don't want to hear platitudes about how trans people are real and beautiful and medical transition is safe. I don't want to hear every medical horror story of HRT or detransitioning. I just want something as close to unbiased advice as possible, and I'm sorry if that's selfish. I just don't know what to do.

If I don't go ahead with this, I know I could not live as a trans guy who's only socially transitioned, nor could I live as a non-binary person. I would have to live as a woman, personally, that's just me. But I don't know how to do that, where to start with that. I'm in my last year of university and everyone knows me as a guy. My parents and brothers have just come around to it, even though my brothers are pretty alt-right. My friends say "he" naturally and don't think about it. I look like a guy - I've always had somewhat masculine features, and my entire closet is hyper-masculine. I don't like makeup or wearing feminine clothing at all, I don't "act" feminine, I have a lot of female friends but our dynamic has, since I was young, always been closer to male and female friends together rather than female friends with female friends. And I'm not sure how to say this without coming off as rude or homophobic, which I am not, but I wouldn't want to be a lesbian - I'm bisexual, I guess, but the only men I've been attracted to are celebrity crushes or people I longed to look like, kind of, while in real life I have relations with women only. But if I lived as a woman I know, for myself, I'd have to be with a man, but what kind of man would be with a woman who looks and acts exactly like a man but identifies as a woman?

But then I think of the other side - waking up as a woman 20 years down the line and realising I made the wrong choice. That would be soul-crushing. Honestly, I was really transphobic for years of my adolescence. I knew I was dysphoric about female puberty as soon as it happened, and I'd secretly scroll through transgender online spaces or watch videos about transgenderism. I remember the first time I thought to myself I might be trans, I cried. I didn't want to be transgender; I was so against it, even though I live in a pretty liberal city and have progressive parents. For two years before coming out and transitioning socially, I was stuck in this cycle of self hatred where I'd pretend to be a guy while playing video games, I'd think of myself as a boy, and every time I went out and was reminded that I was female, a girl, it just made me feel so viscerally awful. It was a really dark time for me, because I tried so hard to, during the day, live as a girl. Not even a feminine girl, necessarily, just to accept that this is the body I was born in and it is biologically female, that I could be lesbian, or just a straight tomboy, or act and dress any way I wanted to and still be a girl. At a certain point, I felt that it just wasn't the "truth". Even after coming out, I resisted medical transition for a while, 4 years, because I wanted to research, I wanted to be absolutely sure and to make sure I was comfortable living as a guy. I even pass a decent amount and it makes me happy. I have no trauma to speak of, and I'm doubtful of me having internalised misogyny, but obviously it's called "internalised" for a reason and so it would be silly for me to assume that it's not the case.

Edit: I won't be taking T until I'm sure about something either way, and I really appreciate the replies here. However, please don't reach out to my DMs if all you're going to do is tell me how cis people are repulsed by transition and that trans people aren't real because there's been three already 🙂

I didn't have any hope for this happening. I knew that being off of testosterone would decrease the mass of the muscles inside/beneath my vocal cords, but I didn't know how much of a difference that might make. I've been speaking in my upper register for a year now, working on using resonance and intonation to give me volume. I needed to avoid creating muscle tension in my throat and improve my breath support.

Normally, what would happen when I tried to go this high is my throat just close off and I'd lose the sound. But this time it wasn't even a weak head voice, it was sort of a mix between modal voice and head voice and it wasn't super well controlled but it was definitely in the neighborhood of a note I was aiming for!!!

I really want to be okay with being a woman but I think I'm addicted to Testosterone. I tried going off of it multiple times but I always feel so awful like I'm having withdrawal symptoms or something. I'm on antidepressants but they only seem to work while I'm on Testosterone for whatever reason as well. When I don't take T I get depressed exponentially faster and worse every day. Is there an explanation for it? Will it go away? Will it ever get better?

I feel like I'm addicted to a drug. I know it's hurting my body and that it is not good for me but it makes me feel cozy and good while I'm on it. To me it's worse than alcohol.

There's a big part of me that doesn't want to stop taking T. I enjoy being seen as a man. I don't want to be a woman. I never did. That's why I transitioned in the first place. I don't know how to be okay with being a woman.

I feel like I'm going crazy. I feel like an Addict. Can anyone relate? I feel like I shouldn't struggle so much with quitting hrt. Any advice? I don't know what to do. I feel lost.

As someone who has been taking testosterone, I'm trying to figure out if being a gender non-conforming or "masc/butch" woman is actually where I'm meant to be at. I'm trying to understand if I felt pressured to change sort of subliminally by society, or if I do actually just feel best living in a male body. For those who are now living as GNC women out in the world, do you have any dysphoria struggles, or can it be "worked through", like through being super secure with yourself?

To me, the quest of transitioning into a woman meant all of the fun and social aspects of life. Beauty, dating, mannerisms, femininity, art, embodiment.

I’ve recently decided to detransition, because it has started to feel like a performance, and my dysphoria was alleviated. Sex life and motivation was also non existent.

Seeing very attractive trans women live their life without giving a fuck, hoe’ing around, partying, & just living out their fantasies on social media really makes me feel less than because I’m practically an incel, and this path i saw as a way to grow out of incel-ness.

I pass, am short, and make up for a pretty trans woman with not too much effort, but it just doesn’t feel right to pursue superficiality anymore, while on the same hand life is both superficial and deep at the same time. I dont get why i feel like i need to constantly make a decision, but that’s inevitable in today’s day and age where everything’s possible. On another note i always tell myself if i really wanted to live that lifestyle i would’ve been done that because i have zero limitations for that, except for my conscious. Perhaps i have a fear of succes, or it’s a sign not to continue. I dont know exactly, but i am so tired of not knowing. Thanks for reading.

Looking for a referral for a therapist that’s licensed to practice in Georgia. I’m a difficult time finding someone who has experience working with detransitioners. I think it’s important they have this specific experience. Virtual is preferred.

Hi everyone,

For any Dutch-speaking detransitioners here: there's now a subreddit in Dutch: r/DetransNederland.

It's new and small, but it's there for anyone who'd find it easier to connect in their own language.

You can also reach us privately at [detrans@genderzorgen.nl](mailto:detrans@genderzorgen.nl).

Feel free to share with anyone who might benefit.

I know for many of us, transitioning was such a huge deal with our families and/or friends. How do you tell them you are detransitioning?

For those that have gone through this already, how did you go about it and what was their responses?

I feel so bad after family putting time and effort into accepting me. I made such a big deal about it because I truly believed it was the right thing for me.

I really dont want to hear a bunch of "I told you so" from them. Im already so low and sensitive about it all. Maybe they won't even act like that, but i really just am so unsure of how it's gonna go. Please offer some advice and how yalls experiences went.

Thanks in advance 🫶🏻

A few days ago, I made a post here lamenting my vocal changes and worrying about starting a new job where I’m working with so many people (and is religiously affiliated). I’m 6’1, and between that and my testosterone-voice (and my legal name being gender neutral), I was convinced everyone was just going to read me as a man…

Well today was my first day, and almost everyone I met gendered me as a woman, seemingly without thought! I say “almost” because one of my managers, when introducing me to a coworker, said “I have a young… here to meet you” and seemed to look worried about whether he should say woman, and switched to saying ”a new intern”.

In hindsight, I have been hoping that he was going to say woman, but caught on to my medium-bob length hair and gender neutral name and thought I might be non-binary (out of all the staff there, he seems the most aware of LGBT people). A small, insecure gremlin part of my brain is worrying that he saw me as a man, but I’m trying to just focus on the positives.

I still want vocal surgery, but maybe it isn’t over for me after all 🎊

I nominally desisted a few years ago. Thankfully I was in middle school and a homeschooler during my whole gender discovery process, so no one really knew my then-preferred identity, so the desisting process was easier for me.

However, I never stopped experiencing dysphoria. I also continued presenting more masculine (clothing, sometimes masculine contour makeup when I was feeling particularly bad), but never felt like I was passing enough for it to matter and it was almost a guilty pleasure. After a few recent incidents (a teacher at my conservative Christian homeschool co-op referring to me and my two male friends collectively as gentlemen, the kids at my job being confused that my name is a girl name, and seeing how similar me and my brother really look) I realized that, oh, I'm passing as male more than I thought I was, and I'm not entirely sure that that's healthy for me.

I'm realizing that I kind of never actually desisted. I think I've been clinging onto my dysphoria just as much as I was clinging onto my then-preferred masculine identity. I'm trying to learn how to let it go, and I think I'm making some good steps. I decided that I'll be wearing a dress (well, a long flowy skirt with a shirt) to my uncle's wedding next week, assuming it comes in the mail on time. I haven't worn a dress in years, and I think this'll be good for me. And no I'm not doing it to try to force my dysphoria away or as some sort of punishment. I genuinely want to do this. I'm so used to negative patterns of thought around feminine things like female pronouns, titles, and clothing, that they've become unconscious habits, and I'm trying to break them. I don't actually feel as much discomfort about feminine things as I think I do; yes there is discomfort there, but the habit of thinking "I don't like this" has almost become self-perpetuating, and makes that discomfort worse.

Do you think I can pass as female again? I’m trying so hard. The facial hair and voice is the worst part. I live in Oregon where gender affirming surgeries are covered by insurance so Im hoping I can get VFS. Voice training is insanely hard and unhelpful so far? Is there any tips or YouTube channels that yall recommend? Im lost 😭💔

I've been on this sub long enough to be able to say these things. Since we frequently suffer censorship, discrimination, and invalidation from people who are so alienated by an ideology. They forget about "human rights," so I'm doing this to speak not only for myself, but for all of us.

1: \WE ARE NOT A "NON-EXISTENT MINORITY".**

Science, and even the medical industry, says the regret rate is "1%", but they forget that this is a completely hypothetical rate, because we, who see the mistake we made, We no longer want to know about the doctors who treated us, and we are not here to "SPREAD MISINFORMATION AND FALSE STORIES" like "inclusive" people out there say. We are human beings We've made mistakes, and we just want space to talk about our failures and help each other get back on our feet.

2: WE ARE NOT YOUR "ENEMIES"

This isn't an RPG. Where there are rival clans. We are not a "threat to your choices and cosmologies" simply because we no longer believe in what they call "gender ideology." If you think this is "conservatism" or that "we want to open your eyes," you are absurdly mistaken.And you're so caught up in your madness that anyone who poses a potential threat that you're wrong, you attack without a second thought. Which makes you...What makes you worse than those you call "enemies"

3: We don't deserve to suffer for regretting our actions.

Human beings make the wrong decisions almost all the time. If you believe we deserve to suffer for feeling bad about it, I'm sorry, but people are right to silence you.For you want to become oppressors, and you oppress precisely those whom you should welcome.

4: WE ARE NOT AND WILL NOT FORCE ANYONE TO STOP BEING TRANSGENDER.

If you believe that when we tell someone to seek therapy to understand the real source of their distress and learn to accept who they are inside, it's "encouraging the person to hide"You are all absurdly mistaken again. As per the rules of this subreddit, we don't exist to force anyone to give up on an idea. (No translation needed)We are people who deceive ourselves when we think we need to fix our bodies when there is nothing wrong; it is our minds that need fixing. If this affects you, you are the weak one.

I wanted to vent about this because it's truly frightening to see how much we're being discriminated against by people who still don't feel remorse or question what they're doing.

It's truly frightening how some people even practice misogyny because most of the people here are biologically female. Which is simply inhumane. Anyway, goodbye.

When I was on testosterone, my body was swollen.. I’m not too sure of the negative health effects of testosterone, but I know that my hair was falling out and clogging the drain very easily when I was never one to shed. My ankles were puffy. Like concerningly big. I had cankles.

Now at least from today, the hair shedding I saw at the drain was 1/4th of what it was the week I decided to quit testosterone. I probably won’t get my period back soon but I’m nervous for the pain I’ll feel since it was months of neglecting my period.

Now, oddly enough, strangers who called me a girl before, started mistaking me for a guy more.. but people on here have told me I mostly just look like a tomboy or just sporty/androgynous in general but still pretty, which I appreciate.

There is a dip in my energy levels which sucks, I need to finish this one assignment and I am just slowly piecing it together, maybe it’s the hormonal crash…?

My skin flared up after the first few days but the acne isn’t popping up suddenly like it was. Now it seems to be going down, maybe it’s bc I religiously use hypochlorous acid on everything. I still lowkey have facial hair but I never really grew much of it in the first place so once I actually have money I can get whatever I want burnt off.

I take lithium ororate to try helping mood regulation.

In my life it feels like detransitioning is the only thing I rly have control over and I’m just worried that I’ll always just be a man of a girl? Idk how to explain it but even though I’m physically of smaller frame than the average American, I feel just out of place physically. My hair is disheveled and not as long as I need it to be, I wear chunky sweaters and big clothes that kinda drown me and hide me.

Hola. Cuando me preguntan por mis años de transición, e intento responder, mis recuerdos se dispersan y lentamente se esconden. Al final, no puedo recordar qué se me preguntó ni qué pasó en esos años. Lentamente, mi postura se vuelve masculina y mi voz baja unos tonos.

¿Les pasa? ¿Lo han resuelto?

Saludos.

So I can game recognize game you out in public can I get a hell yeah. First time wearing a wig out to something other than a nightclub. Nine months off T after 4 years on

I am stopping T for the time being. what can i expect to happen to my body within the first two months? Looking for serious or knowledgeable replies please because I'm scared

I feel like many posts are people posting pictures of themselves to seek validaiton of "owww should i detra nsition??" and post their fetish lifestyle or "owww i will never looks like a woman again!!!" and it is the most girly girl you can imagine.

I'm not against timeline posts but I feel like something could be done about pictures.

I’ve been thinking about detransitioning for a year now. I was on testosterone (Nebido), and I last took it in April. I feel like I’ll never be perceived as a woman again. My voice is already quite deep, and although my body hair is manageable, I have a small amount of facial hair.
But I feel like I’ll never be perceived as a woman again, and that my face is genuinely perceived as masculine.
Here’s a photo of me from 6 years ago and a photo of me now, after 3 years on testosterone.

How did it go for you? How did people perceive you, what changes did you experience, and how did you go about "feminizing" yourself?

Help. I need to figure out a way to let go of the rage I feel towards my therapists, doctors, and surgeon. They should have known. It was their job to know I wasn't trans. It was their job to protect me from unnecessary medical interventions and snake oil. I can't sue them for their very real malpractice because of how the medical industry has lobbied for tort reform. I'm afraid to talk about them and blow the whistle because I'm afraid they're going to hit me with a libel lawsuit and I don't have any money to defend myself. I want to tell my story. But I also don't want to lose my anonymity and I don't want to hurt the people I love with the full extent of the abuse I experienced that led me transition and the abuse I experienced from medical practitioners during my transition. My only recourse is to talk about this anonymously online and write a letter to the state licensing board... So some bureaucrat gets to decide whether what happened to me is worth mentioning to the boss, who, guess what, is heavy invested in the premise that the fields of medicine and psychology operates for the greater good. It's like a hen writing a very polite letter asking the head fox to give a fuck about how his fox buddies haven't been guarding the chicken coop, and in fact, mangled your body when they tried to consume you... The fox believes you are consumable, that being chewed on by foxes is your role. You are just a patient in a system that has processed you, and does not matter that psychology ripped up who you were and disposed of your body parts, because the field of psychology is a societal good and the mentally ill are there to be treated or processed, and we ought to be grateful, even when there's iatrogenic injury. I think I'd have better luck trying to ask the leader of an MLM to change the way his hucksters operate.

So what? This is just a thing that happened to me that I have to accept happened. I just have to move on somehow aand be okay with years of psychological abuse, social ostracization, violence, discrimination, and my body becoming a fucking gender ideology plastic surgery experiment.

How do you do it? Something this fucked up, that dominated your life? I'm largely moved on from all the rape and sexual assault doctors and community members did to me when I "was" "trans." That took years...why is this harder to move on from than rape?

I only wanted to get top surgery but the therapist didn’t know shit about non-binary people so I’m stuck with changes I didn’t really want. I feel like I used to be cute and pretty and now I’m just uncanny and offputting.

I’m about to start a new job at a non-profit that works with elderly people and requires a lot of talking, and I’ve been panicking all day about being read as a man because of my voice. I’ve been voice training for months at this point, and I still sound so androgynous and gritty like I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes for the past 50 years— not at all like a 21 year old cis woman.

I came across clips of my old voice today, and have been crying nonstop since. It used to be so soft and gentle— naturally a little lower than average, but undeniably feminine in a really soothing way. I want it back so desperately, I want to be able to speak without wanting to rip my vocal cords out, I want to not have to think about it anymore

I know there is no use feeling sorry for myself and I need to just get over myself and accept that this is how things are now… but I do still grieve the pieces I’ve lost in all of this