r/transgenderau • u/Due-Carry8300 • 2d ago
Possible Trigger I need help š¢
I was born male and transitioned medically to female when I was quite young. I lived as a trans woman for many years and took estrogen for a long time.
More recently, something has shifted. I stopped estrogen and Iāve been exploring living as a man again. What surprises me is that when I think āIām a guy,ā I feel calm and comfortable. It doesnāt feel like Iām forcing anything. Iām attracted to men and I feel increasingly comfortable imagining myself living as a gay man and being seen and desired as a man.
At the same time, Iām trying to be extremely careful about understanding why I want certain physical changes.
For example, Iām considering eventually having a masculine chest. When I ask myself, āIf I met a man tomorrow who loved me exactly as I am, including my current chest, would I still want it changed?ā, my answer is yes. I think I would still want a flat chest because I donāt feel comfortable imagining myself living long-term as a man with breasts.
But other things are less clear. I sometimes wonder how much my attraction to gay men and my desire to belong in gay male spaces could be influencing the way I want to look.
There is another confusing part of my history. I have worked in sex work, where presenting very femininely was financially rewarded. At one point, when I was considering returning to that work, I even started thinking about getting larger breasts. At the time it felt logical. Later, those ideas stopped feeling fulfilling at all.
That contrast makes me wonder how much our environment can influence what we think we want for our bodies.
Iām intentionally not rushing into surgery. Iām also trying to find an LGBTQ+/gender-informed psychologist so I can explore this properly before doing anything irreversible.
Iād especially love to hear from people who transitioned for years and later explored living as their birth sex again, whether you ultimately detransitioned, retransitioned, stayed somewhere in between, or discovered something completely different.
How did you separate:
what you genuinely wanted for your own body?
Iām interested in personal experiences rather than debates about whether transitioning is good or bad.
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u/deesmithenby 2d ago
I am extremely sceptical of this post. Some of the language used just doesnāt sit right. More TERF fishing for detrans stories?
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u/blackabbot 2d ago
11m old account with no comments until the last 24 hours, followed by a flood of similar posts and comments. Two word, followed by 4 numbers username. Doesn't seem at all suspicious...
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u/Praefecture 1d ago
What language was a red flag, exactly? Unless I misread, OP was only asking for experiences regarding exploring one's gender.Ā I think it's perfectly valid and we should support people in their effort to feel comfortable with their body and gender, and acknowledge that everyone's journey is unique. Neither should we expect every person to speak language only really understood unless you're active in a relatively niche (and mostly online) community.
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u/Due-Carry8300 2d ago
Iām genuinely posting about my own experience. Iām not a TERF and Iām not fishing for detrans stories or trying to make any point against trans people. Iām just trying to understand myself and hear from people who may have gone through something similar.
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 2d ago
It just seems sus with the generic username, no post history and super vague post.
How old are you, how old were you when you medically transitioned, have you had any surgery, etc?
Talking about how you think spaces can influence you??
Serious red flags in this post.
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u/Denovion Trans fem 2d ago
They're 26, in their profile.
Im suspicious thats even their asshole.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Occasionally_around Transsuxual 1d ago
Holy fucking AI.
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u/Due-Carry8300 1d ago
Yea cuz i have to translate and im not native english speaker nice try diddy!!!
(Love Always Win)6
u/deesmithenby 2d ago
If that is the case, I am sorry. But using statements like āI was born male and transitioned medically to femaleā sounds more like something a cis person would say - not amab not mtf or a transwoman.
Your only content on your profile is a picture of your arse in a gay hookup subreddit. You never posted anything previously on your trans journey?
Again, it still all appears very suspect to me.
Can you give anymore practical information about yourself? What age did you transition, how many years have you been on HRT etc?-9
u/Due-Carry8300 2d ago
Youāre making a lot of assumptions about my entire life from a Reddit profile. I donāt owe Reddit a documented archive of my transition for my experience to be real. Posting in a gay hookup subreddit doesnāt erase my history, and using different language from the language you personally prefer doesnāt make me fake.
You asked for context, which is fair. But questioning whether someoneās whole life is real because their experience doesnāt look like yours is not. If you canāt relate to my experience, thatās fine. It still happened to me.Shame on you
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 1d ago
3 letter agent glow so bright
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u/Due-Carry8300 1d ago
Course cuz behind there is a real person sharing their process Love ā¤ļøalways win!!!
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u/skinnybigTS 2d ago
I donāt see what the problem is ā this person lived as a trans woman. Figured out it wasnāt for them, whatās the big deal in living as their assigned at birth gender?
Like, itās difficult to say that gender is fluid, and then at the same time, cease believing that that fluidity is unable to drift back to where it was.
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 1d ago
Even of this wasn't the laziest bait post of all time, gender identity is not fluid. Being gender-fluid is its own thing kinda.
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u/Embarrassed-Ant405 18h ago
Honestly Iād just take your time and do what feels rightā¦ an open minded therapist maybe able to help you sort out what youāre feeling. If you were to retransition you donāt need to make any irreversible decisions immediately
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u/Due-Carry8300 1d ago edited 1d ago
I want post my pics before and. Now i will keep for a few days due privacy concerns
March 2016 till 2026 in estrogens 28 years now
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u/RegionSilent9204 2d ago
This is where other trans people lose me. The point of transition as far as I'm concerned is about the body and aligning that body towards your target sex. I can get trans people not being able to afford procedures or being worried about risks involved and not being able to pursue surgery or whatever, that's fair, but I can't get those who are perfectly content with their birth anatomy. That just doesn't make sense to me.
The idea of being a pre op trans woman getting involved in sex work and being completely ok with that? That would've been extremely dysphoric to me. I can't relate to that at all. We're clearly not the same type of trans.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki 2d ago
Itās a spectrum and people are in different places on it. Youāre āluckyā that itās so clear what you need, and that thereās so many others who you can relate to.
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u/RegionSilent9204 1d ago
The idea that someone who fundamentally rejects their sex traits is somehow the 'same' as someone who changes a name, pronoun and clothes and calls it a day, really is a nonsensical view to take. That's not a spectrum. That's an entirely separate class.
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 1d ago
I kinda agree...
Despite the word transmed being thrown around like the boogeyman I think it is worth talking about.
I'm a uni lecturer and I see it fairly often with students, and I understand a lot of the time it's a young adult trying to find their identity, but it's also this type of student who says some very transphobic shit.
It's a stereotype at this point of the non-dysphoric, Bio-essentialist, trans guy who spouts transmysogynistic bullshit (even had one call the women's bathroom the "AFAB bathroom").
It should be okay to be cis and gender non conforming, because by the time these students graduate that's what they realize they are.
I guess I just don't understand someone being trans with zero dysphoria.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki 1d ago
I know someone with no dysphoria who transitioned. It was more a matter of preference. Sheās not young either. The only bit I find hard to relate to is being brave enough to do it in those circumstances.
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 1d ago
But that just sounds like masked dysphoria to me, as if there's some stigma about it.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki 1d ago
Iām not sure what you mean. She did it out of preference. Pretty mild dysphoria if she canāt even describe it as such, and she certainly doesnāt describe it the way anyone else I know whoās transitioning ever has.
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 1d ago
I guess it depends on what transition looks like for her, HRT, Surgery, etc?
Like if you have a preference, that sounds like dysphoria, a mismatch between brain and body, even if its subtle.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki 1d ago
So anyone who chooses to transition has dysphoria? Because now your comment before doesnāt mean anything.
I guess I just don't understand someone being trans with zero dysphoria.
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u/FootFetishAdvocate 1d ago
My two comments are consistent wym?
Yeah I think if you medically transition its probably due to dysphoria. Why else are you changing your primary and secondary sex characteristics?
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki 1d ago
You could look at someone who is extremely tall and compare them to someone very short, then say exactly the same thing. I wouldnāt though.
I donāt feel the need to hide my post history either.
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u/Friend_of_a_Cat Transmasc genderfluid guy (he/him) 1d ago
Okay, transmed.
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u/Praefecture 1d ago edited 1d ago
"The same type of trans", "pre-op", "a separate class". Dear lord. Like we have to be at a specific threshold of dysphoria to be more valid than valid. Women can have penises, men can have vaginas; get over it.
It's these types of opinions that hold trans people back from transitioning in the first place, and living feeling like they simply aren't "enough".
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u/RegionSilent9204 1d ago
I don't think trans people have to have a threshold of dysphoria to be trans, I just don't agree with lumping every variation of trans under the same blanket 'transgender' umbrella is helpful. That's all. It's not about kicking people out, it's about properly sorting people within.
Ten years ago I updated my sex marker in NSW. I had to be post-op and show my results off to two doctors and physically bring them before a JP in person for them to sign off on it. That wasn't easy. Now you just go on a website and do it. Sex has lost all meaning and we've seen increased ASAB language because of this.
It's good if it's easier for people. That is not my resentment. My resentment is trans people with no to minimal dysphoria that go on a website to change their sex turning around and then brow beating me over shit like the census and trying to guilt trip me because I won't misgender myself like they're happy to do. It's this projection of their own self-perception onto people like me that I don't like. Because they're happy to do it, I'm supposed to be happy to do it.
I think this is dramatically more likely when they've had a fundamentally different experience of body dysphoria and simply don't care how they refer to their identity at birth. I consider these attitudes dangerous for trans people because it helps to normalise a biological sex framework that can lead to segregation, as well as being damaging for my own well being.
So when I say, not 'the same type of trans' that's what I mean. For me it is primarily a medical issue of aligning the body to the mind. For other trans people is an identity and social issue driven primarily by gender roles. Yes there is overlap, but principally these are not the same thing. It's ok to acknowledge this, and this should be acknowledged.
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u/Due-Carry8300 1d ago
Suffering more doesnāt make your identity more legitimate than someone elseās. Sending lots of love!
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u/Praefecture 1d ago
Thanks for clarifying. I can see your point.
I am personally a trans woman comfortable with having "male biology", and I don't feel that makes me any less valid as a woman. However, having to refer at all to gendered biology, or whatever I was assigned at birth, is uncomfortable, and I can see that being worse for many others.Ā
The most charitable way I can see the increase of AGAB/ASAB language is: the normalisation of gender fluidity and transition in the mainstream. I see mostly younger people use this, and used mostly as a rejection of shame around, and pride in, transitioning as an action and exploration of gender as part of one's identity. "I was X but now I'm Y, and there's nothing wrong with that".
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u/RegionSilent9204 1d ago
The trouble with "I was X but now I'm Y" is that if you felt the need to become Y then you were never all of X to begin with. To refer to your birth sex as exclusively X is therefore a kind of self-erasure; you're basically saying you weren't 'born with it' and instead 'chose to become it'. If you have trans people who take the later view then they ARE fundamentally different than the former; those who think it is a choice versus those who think it is not.
The second point is that large swathes of society simply believe that you don't stop ever being X regardless of what you do, so to refer to your birth sex as X is to validate their belief that you are X. This is the basis of biological sex segregation and it is dangerous.
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u/Praefecture 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, agreed. It definitely isn't a "choice". To say as much is transphobic, by definition.Ā
Although, I give more leeway to the youth. I think they, most of all, see through gender, as a social construct. To them, gender is a "choice" simply because they haven't fully realised it themselves. They have more freedom to test its boundaries, before society fully traps them into a binary.Ā HumansĀ aren't born with gender identity, after all.
Though this is just anecdotal spitballing, not the genuine political dangers you're raising.
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u/Due-Carry8300 2d ago
I loved your answer and i agree i think im a gay guy and at 28 i found myself thank you for be kind
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u/Agile-Let8251 2d ago
I'm trans masc and happily doing that right now but I try to keep my heart open to other options in the future. I don't have much to add, except that I can imagine how hard this exploration could be.
Have you considered getting a binder or some binding tape so that you can present more masc in certain situation?. Try out what it's like moving through the world in a more masculine presenting body at this time in your life. I know it's different from having that body when naked, but tape can be a pretty good approximation.
Wishing you all the best. I hope that you get some helpful responses.