Since I realized my identity of being a trans man was caused by trauma, depression, low self esteem, autism, adhd, confusion, puberty, gender envy, sexual assault, I’m genuinely questioning everything. I have a lot of trans friends. But how do you feel like a man? Gender is a social construct, society decided how men and women are supposed to dress and act. There was this study there they compared cis men and women’s brain with trans men and women’s. The result was: there are noticeable differences but they couldn’t 100% explain transgender identity based on this data.
And the thing with you are born with female genitalia and your brain develops incorrect and suddenly produces wrong hormones or whatever, also kinda weird to me and not 100% the answer.

My point is, there’s no answer which actually completely proves that this is reality. If anyone knows better than me or is educated about this feel free to explain it to me.
I’ve noticed a pattern of people with serious mental health issues ended up trans, and those health issues weren’t even connected to their identity. I think all of my trans friends are mentally unstable.

While starting testo I never got the education I needed, they just expected me to know my identity,

Since I’ve been losing weight, putting on muscle, cutting my hair, I’ve noticed that I have very little desire to transition any longer. I’ve been off estrogen for 4-5ish months and I feel more like myself than I ever did whilst taking it.

I no longer worry about being ‘clocked’ or not being accepted. Everyone sort of accepts me at baseline and it’s so freeing.

I am just curious about any followups y'all have had with medical providers that were involved in your original transition, regardless of if they were supportive or not. Have you had the same PCP? Were you part of any research studies? Did you talk to your doctor or therapist or surgery team when you started detransitioning?

As a 19 year old, I was part of a research study on mastectomies being a beneficial intervention for female teens and young adults with dysphoria. I later detransitioned and expressed this to the research team. I called this researcher to discuss how my results will be included because I don't think the questions and study structure was able to capture my experience. It was....... something.

Long story short, we had an awkward call where I think the researcher assumed I was just there to sue. When I only wanted to understand how I will fit into the study. Several years passed. Now, the researcher is a surgeon. That surgeon is now assigned to my breast reconstruction consultation........

I have no ill will towards individual providers unless I feel there was legitimate malpractice. But I'm prepared for this to be a really awkward patient-doctor relationship for the next.... 3ish years?

Which--side note--crazy it took me 6 months to cut my breasts off but 2 years minimum to replace them.

I’m slowly detransitioning back to female and whilst people I’ve talked to so far have been supportive there definitely feels like a limit to how much they can hear me talk about this stuff.

I’m trying to keep busy and engage in my hobbies but I feel like being detrans is like a stain of black tar across the windscreen of my life and I just don’t know how to move on or connect with people anymore. Doing small talk (or even medium talk) with friends feels like I’m lying, I guess I am cause 80% of the time my brain is just like “hey you don’t have breasts and look like a freak and no one will ever love you and you are weird and incomprehensible” and because I was suicidal a few months ago I feel pressured to present that I’m “getting better” whenever anyone asks.

I guess ultimately I am grieving a hidden grief that I don’t think anyone really has the time or energy to comprehend or support me with and I don’t really have the energy to put myself out there anymore to build connections. I don’t gave the type of relationship with family to get support.

Part of me wants to be alone so I can finally take time to figure out stuff without outside influence but I don’t think that’s the right move (isolation made me go loopy in the first place). I think I’m compelled to do that though because I’ve lost trust in other people in general. I used to be super social and rely a lot on my close friendships but in retrospect after all that’s happened, I just feel betrayed by them. I know it’s not strictly their fault but they really encouraged me accept myself as trans, without considering that it wasn’t their place to do so as non experts.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want the rest of my days to slip by as I sit alone on my computer for hours on end not seeing anyone. But I feel like I’ve lost trust in people and I can’t imagine any type of relationship, closeness, or intimacy without feeling sick at the thought of being perceived, both in terms of my body and my mental state. I’m going to talk to my psych about it on Monday but I would like to hear if anyone has any advice.

I’m curious to know if anyone had any thinning after stopping HRT. I stopped a few months ago and at first everything was fine. Then a decent amount of hair loss and now it seems stable at least afaik. I also started losing the color in my hair. Vibrant red to a duller auburn. White hair popping up everywhere.

Maybe it’s just life catching up to me but the timing and way it’s thinning out makes me think it’s related.

I have an appointment scheduled with the doctor to get labs done for things I’m prone to like anemia as well as checking my hormone levels but figured I’d see if anyone else had a similar experience.

I have my final breast reconstruction surgery scheduled for Tuesday. I’ll be having my expanders removed, fat grafting (harvested from abdomen), and motiva implants. Is there anyone else who’s had this done with any ideas on what to expect? Obviously Ive asked my dr this but real human responses are good to hear :) also if anyone else has motive lmk what you think of them!

Ive been on testo for one year and half. I recently stopped and I tried to put on women’s clothes and makeup to see how much I recognize my old self. Im feeling like a man in a woman’s cosplay. Im thin and not that tall. My curves are still visible but less than before t. My hips look different too. I put my hair back, it’s very short, longer on top but completely short on the sides, average male haircut. When I put it all back and wear makeup and right clothes I think I COULD pass but I wouldn’t be able to talk. I feel pretty but not feminine enough. I guess it’s normal since I’ve just detransitioned.

Does it get better? If yes how fast? Im sure it depends on the person. But I’m not confident enough yet to go out as a woman cause I think I still look pretty masculine overall and people could confuse me for a trans woman and I’m scared of transphobia. We have a lot of right winged people in Germany I’m scared they think I’m just playing dress up as man

Just sharing in case any of you relate: I was always different as a young girl, quiet, shy, introspective, constantly analyzing. I had brothers and did tomboy things and couldn't understand why I didn't fit in with the girls (or boys for that matter). Hated barbies/dolls etc. I dreamt of being a son/boy, and wrote in the male POV. Hated dresses/skirts but loved reading philosophy and running. Luckily, my dad never treated me worse and we did house work, yard work, and weightlifting regularly. I was not sexually abused or subjected to super sexist treatment, but something innate in me felt I should've been a man (even before sexuality or puberty was on my mind at all).

Puberty was traumatic, watching my thin/active body begin to grow fat and change. Luckily, I am naturally thin, but even the small changes seemed huge to me, and periods felt like such a damper, but I was insistent on minimizing the changes. I neurotically kept clean/hygienic as I didn't want my biology to be messy and dysphoria-inducing. To this day, I am neurotic about hiding the "messy" incidents of being female (do not want anyone to ever see evidence of my biology, like a pad in the trash can or anything). Even though my periods aren't heavy, I'm thin and not extra curvy, and what others would probably call attractive, I always felt dysphoria toward my body. In fact, I covered up more and wanted to avoid being seen as pretty/beautiful. I wanted to be seen as intelligent and competent, which I was. I excelled in school, skipped a grade and graduated from a top university 2 years early. I then continued more education after that, basically excelling throughout.

I never masturbated throughout childhood, and made it to college/adulthood with zero interest in any of it, thinking perhaps I was asexual, though somewhat heteroromantic. (I'm not asexual, but was a very late bloomer and had a hard time developing a healthy sexuality). Still, I had no push to be a wife, to get married, and definitely not to have children (decades later, still no kids or desire to go through the massively dysphoric process of gestating and birthing a child, the most female-affirming thing I could imagine, which is just triggering to me). My first bf as an adult was a bi/gay man who said he liked me because I had "masculine" energy (first clue others saw me as masculine even before I understood trans stuff or thought of myself in those terms). But it failed. We never had sex, he cheated and mistreated me, and it hurt a ton.

Dating continued to be trauma after trauma of not knowing why it wasn't working. Straight men frequently said I was intimidating, intense, or "too much." I did not feel the sweet flirtiness and could tell I was not inspiring the tenderness I see other women so naturally draw out of straight men. I can't perform for the male gaze. I don't feel feminine. I was disgusted by the male gaze and their obsession with prn and seeing women as objects. If anything, I wanted to sit under the stars like one of the guys, and just be seen as I am... as basically a man trapped in a woman's body, but one who came to terms with her sex and body as the shared reality. I wanted a man somehow to want that type of woman, me, a self-hating woman, the most (even though that's basically an oximoron, wanting a man to love what even I don't love). By age 30, after relationship struggles, I still had not had sex. Every man I pursued (and usually I was pursuing/dominant/paying for dates) could not handle me. I felt respected and admired, often as if in competition with these men, but not loved.

I ride a motorcycle, I go shooting, I love running/hiking, I am neurotic about philosophy/theory of mind, and I do not dress sexy. I lived on my own since age 17, and a few years ago bought my first little home. At around 30, I felt like things were hopeless dating-wise, and began to accept I really am "not like the other girls" as much as I didn't have the words to know why I was so different, and as much as I wanted companionship. I got so lonely I began to hang out at the cemetery. It seems pathetic, but I felt even the company of the dead was better than nothing. I'd go alone and brush off the dirty graves with a soft toothbrush, wondering if their consciousness still existed there.

But through all the struggles, it was around then that I finally met my match-- a bisexual man who was very similar to me in mindset: neurotically analytical, bipolar, and likely with autism or some other anti-social behavior like me. We immediately hit it off and talked through the whole night. We had pretty huge differences, but he genuinely seemed intrigued by my capacity for logic, intelligibility, and curiosity to learn. He too was obsessed with the deepest existential questions I've been obsessed with for years. We argued a ton, almost for two years straight, toe to toe, until we began to find balance.

Ultimately, we ended up married. He respects that I want no kids and find the process absolutely dysphoric. He does not watch prn (anymore). We both ride motorcycles together, and we go to the shooting range (we're liberals btw). I can dress like a man or woman and we've planned an interstate motorcycle trip where he'd let me live my fantasy: dressed as a rural man, clasping on a wheat straw, sharpening my pocket knife, hat tipped down, feet kicked up, sitting next to a river, silent with my man as we stop on our motorcycles to set up camp. We'd check into a hotel with two twin beds and pretend for a moment we are two guys, he much bigger and masculine, me the dweeby side-kick, but the cosplay so affirming.

It may sound silly but I feel like I made it after all these decades, and not just because of my partner: because despite the struggles, I've been able to live life on my terms as a desisting female "trans" person. I know deep in my heart this orientation is fixed/strong and likely never to change. It IS different than other females and that's OK. We are a small, distinct subset within each of our sexes. But we all deserve happiness and to be seen as we really are.

I pray you all get to experience it. Don't give up, please. The road is long and windy but it will ennoble you.

I’m off T for around 3 weeks now.. the acne won’t stop and I’m frustrated, I’m 20 years old and I look ridiculous. I only had occasional acne. I want clear skin again. Is there anything I can do?

I was on testosterone gel 2 pumps daily for about 3 months. The effects for me were very strong, I got very rapid bottom growth, a deeper voice and my neck and throat now feel very hard to the touch.

I stopped taking testosterone about 2 months ago now, and I have been having the occasional soreness in the throat when I move or lie down a certain way, nothing too severe. But in the past few days it’s suddenly ramped up, it was intermittently aching a couple days ago, constantly aching yesterday, and today it’s constantly aching with a more intense pain than it was. It’s incredibly difficult to keep myself calm when there’s a voice in my head telling me I might feel this pain forever.

Will this go away? I need to know this will go away because I’ve been freaking out and having so many panic attacks I’ve barely been able to feed myself. Oddly I haven’t been speaking at all really, so it’s not pain from talking, it just feels like a constant pressure. I’m hoping that the pain is coming from the fact that I’m crying all the time and the stress is making me tense my throat. Has anyone else experienced that? Please try not to scare me further with your responses because I’m in a very fragile state right now, I just need some hope.

Edit: It’s been a day and the pain has gotten even worse :(

First time ever posting on Reddit haha

Any insight on getting implants removed? I’ve had my breasts done for almost 3 years now. 650cc and a Double D cup. I’m really scared about getting them removed and how it’ll look after when i decide to detransition back to male. Has anyone had this surgery done that has had implants? I’m 10 years transitioning, 7 years on HRT, and 3 years with implants.

I just realized it recently and I’ve been feeling so down the past couple of days. It just got worse with every new day. Does anyone have tips how to cope with this constant feeling of helplessness, sadness, disappointment, regret, anxiety and especially loneliness. No one I know relates

I talk to my best friends they’re also girls and it helps a little but still.. I feel so alone and I can’t stop overthinking about my situation. All I can do is to wait what stopping testosterone does for me, there’s nothing I can do, nothing at all and I feel like a little more depressed with each day. I recovered from depression I’m sure It won’t happen that fast again since my identity is my only issue right now.

I have hobbies, stuff that makes me happy but I’m just so unmotivated I can barley take care of myself

Likely someone lurking in this sub sent this.

Im actually so worried I can’t be myself because of my voice. I never had any surgery so my body looks pretty feminine, thin and curvy. My only insecurity is my voice now, it doesn’t sound super deep but not feminine at all, more like a gay man, I hate it sm. One and a half year on t.

Tell me your experiences with the dating life

I stopped t just recently I’m technically at the start of recovering with this deep voice after being on t for 1 1/2 years. I haven’t tried voice training yet. I’m scared my „real“ voice is already too deep cause im having a hard time forcing this „feminine“ voice

So I have a really hard leaving the house, I'm just too scared because I wanna pass as male but I'm scared ppl will make fun of me for being a girl that wants to be a male and yes ppl have openly in pubic made fun of me and said that.

Today I forced myself out, bought some stuff and I needed some leafs for a project so I was picking leaves and flowers and these 3 men in their 30s pointed at me, laught and one of them told the other dude that I'm mantally ill and left, the weird thing is if they were laughing at me because they thought I was a male picking flowers and thats girly then that give gender euphoria and I feel nice about but if they were laughing at me cause I'm a woman dresses as a male picking flowers then thats painful.

I don't know why in the last few months my gender dysphoria has gotten so bad! I was fine for almost 5 years just being a tomboy before then I had bad dysphoria, I didn't leave my home for 6 months once and I'm feeling that way again

Ftm back to Female. Dec 2022 my doctor told my father in Spanish that I would off myself if I didn’t take testosterone. It scared the shit out of him and he signed the papers immediately to allow it. I was 18 years old. I had every “sign” that all trans people claim that they had growing up that led me to this decision. However I was also misled by a psychiatrist when I was 14 years old (when I first came out as transgender). She gave me a lot of misinformation about testosterone when I look back, and she was also too comfortable talking about body parts when my mother wasn’t in the room with me.

Skipping to Dec 2023. Seasonal depression came and I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. Both of my thighs were bruising from my shots and it’s just a whole load that I can drop about what was on my mind during the time. This isn’t even 1% of my story but I stopped my shots.

My voice was significantly deeper but a lot of it reversed and I know this because my bank verification could no longer recognize my voice after stopping testosterone shots and they locked my cards over it. I had to go to the branch.

Appearance wise I look like a woman again. However I’m so insecure of my voice. People recognize me as a female completely but sometimes my voice throws people off. I hear “I didn’t expect to hear your voice that deep.” Or “are you a singer?” (Because my voice sounds deep, which idk how that makes sense.) “your voice is very unique”. I overtime realized that a lot of men like it for some reason but I’m not into it.

I used to be a soprano when I sang but obviously I’m not anymore. And I was wondering if there’s some kind of minor surgery or something I could do to make my voice raise again. Not too much since it’s not severe but to a more feminine level. I absolutely do not want to do voice training because I will be dissatisfied. Has anyone done this? Thanks.

TLDR; is there something I can do, like Wendler glottoplasty that can raise my voice again? Has any detrans ftm done this? Please exclude voice training in your responses. Thanks.

It's been about 8 months since I (FTMTF) realised my transition was not an act of embracing my true self, but one of running away.

I'm working towards self acceptance. I still grieve changes to my body (top surgery + T) but I have started accepting what's done is done. When I first realised I was catatonic + suicidal for a month, but now I'm functional enough to not think about it at least 50% of the time.

I'm now off T for 6 months and have started getting she/her'd about 20% of the time (used to be never) which is nice. I'm confident I'll be able to pass as female again by this time next year even without breast recon.

The stuff that makes me sad now is that I do just feel botched and ugly and freakish. Even when I transitioned I didn't feel great about my body (in retrospect, a red flag). But since my realisation my entire perception of binary gender got remapped. It's like my brain now forces the category of AFAB or AMAB onto people, much more than before. This probably happens to a lot of detransitioners, which is why some of us start hating on all trans/nb people or calling them delusional - our brain is fixating on sex perception after a long period of trying to see "gender".

It's a cruel irony that I felt weird and freakish as a woman when I was younger and transitioned to escape that... and thereby doomed myself to forever being a freakish woman. Ah well. What can you do.

I think the worst part is my mum hasn't been able to look at me properly since I had top surgery. I saw her for the first time in ages last week and gave me a hug at arm's length. I can see her disgust for my body and it crushes me because I agree with her...

But I haven't told my parents about detransitioning yet... I only managed to come to terms with being a woman when I accepted I was attracted to women. If I get into their good books for detransing and then I end up in a wlw relationship, I don't wanna risk getting soft disowned again. Plus, their misogyny and homophobia and general emotional neglect and home environment were big factors in messing me up in the first place...

I guess the thought of coming out publicly in any way really scares me. I know two other detransitioners IRL, one made a big post about it and the other one just slowly started posting pics where they present more fem. When I think about the people whose reactions will scare me the most, it'll be people from school and straight people I know... I don't want them to look at me with pity and use me as a case against others who are genuinely happier post-transition. This is the biggest hurdle I've yet to cross.

At the same time, this situation has made me withdraw from a lot of my trans/queer friends, who were supportive of me being trans but could not help me explore whether I could have dysphoria or trauma for other reasons. I guess I feel betrayed by their willingness to affirm gender issues as if they had the same knowledge as medical professionals - sadly common. I'm not sure if I'm going to drop them completely or just fade out slightly. It's tough when they are/were my support network, and I still don't want to talk to straight people TBH. I guess since I live in a liberal area I will try making new friends (just gotta avoid people who accept trans stuff without nuance).

Anyway just sharing my thoughts, any advice or commiseration is appreciated. To anyone else who is reaching the half year mark, the one thing that has helped me is setting small goals for myself. I recently started a skincare routine and it's nice being able to take care of my body in some small way, after what I've put it through.

I noticed this a little while ago but its become very apparent recently. I used to find myself very attractive. Long black curly hair, clear skin, sharp facial features... I would take pictures a lot even though I never shared them anywhere. I just liked having evidence of looking good, I guess. For days where I felt ugly. But these were the days where I *really* wanted to detransition.

A few months ago, I got a SUPER botched haircut and my long hair was cut to above my jawline when all I asked for was layers. It was also extremely uneven and the layers were choppy. I ended up having to shave it. I cried for weeks and have felt ugly ever since. And I noticed all the detransition thoughts are gone. I got back on T, I'm back to wanting to build a ton of muscle, I'm back to wanting facial hair and more body hair. But I am growing my head hair again, I'm hoping for it to be at least to my jaw by year's end. But I'm also anticipating the detrans thoughts coming back once my hair is long enough for me to feel attractive again.

The thing is, I dont know why me feeling attractive or not changes how I feel about gender. In my head, that makes no sense. My only thought is that maybe when I feel ugly or undesirable, that I subconsciously go "well, no point in trying to present any singular way if Im ugly regardless." Or maybe I just find it more comfortable to be an average-looking or ugly man than to be an ugly woman? I dont know. Maybe I just don't want to doll up if I feel everything above the collarbones is ugly anyway.

If the detrans thoughts come back once I feel and look like myself again, what am I supposed to do? If how I feel about gender and how I want to present and be perceived can change by the day based on something so arbitrary, how am I supposed to pick anything and stick with it?

Heya everyone, Ive put out a voice training question before, but I've got an update/struggle I'm trying to get over.

I have found that, by the end of the day or if Ive been speaking a lot, my voice sorta 'disappears' in a way. kinda like how your voice sounds when you lose it when you're sick, just without the sore throat or anything. this tends to make voice training difficult since it strains it more.

thankfully, Ive found that dry throat/mouth sprays are helping a lot, but only for like an hour.

I'm just wondering whether 1. anyone has dealt with similar and 2. what you did to help it? I assume it's inflammation or thickening of my vocal cords, but it's definitely making me worried I won't be able to achieve the voice I want.

I'm not particularly planning to do any surgeries (at least for like another 10 years), and really hoping I can reach the voice I'm happy with thru voice training.

I feel torn between both genders, I’m 26m, I was transitioning a few months ago but stopped and I stopped because I felt like a part of me was dying.

It’s hard for me to measure how large of a part that was, I guess you’d call it my masculine side. That was the side I felt was dying, it was agony. I felt like I was betraying myself to the fullest degree. It was like I had put full stop to any perceived goals & ambitions I had, it was painful. This experience was like a tornado, it happened june 1 2026, in the morning when I took mushrooms on an empty stomach. Now mind you, I was new to estrogen and it had reached the point of affecting emotional scale, that and other life events, recent breakup, moving. Anyway that experience was probably similar to ego death. If anyone can provide clarity about this that’d be great.

I wanna talk more about the perceived goals & ambitions I mentioned. But first I wanna share some of what I feel is feminine about me, and to mention that I feel happy when I can express myself so I really do enjoy it. I just feel I was born with some obstacles and as I got older, with puberty and life experiences, ive adopted more obstacles.

I’m gonna stop and do this as a pt 1, please touch on anything I mentioned. I’m not sure if I should go back on hormones or not. Im not at all keen on either choice, both feel miserable, but through explaining my experience maybe I can come to a no brainer decision.

Transitioning just feels unnatural in a way, but I suppose humans are natural and we naturally learned how to do this lol

After experiencing what life is as a trans man, mostly viewed as cis man since I tried to fit into the masculine stereotypes, it feels like I will never be sure to make the right decision because I don’t know if it will be right to be female again. It feels like I’m so deep in this trans man feeling I can’t get out of it anymore. Not because of my transition, I don’t have surgeries only deep voice and I’m not tall so I’m sure I could pass. But living differently for so many years makes me feel like I won’t fit into this female life either but I’m 100% sure I’m not non binary. Either female or trans man. I wish I could find the right answer but since I don’t want surgery and feel like something’s off I guess the only last option will be to detransition. It scares me a lot to worry about what if I don’t feel comfortable living as a cis woman either and I won’t fit in anywhere and just end up depressed

(19F) stopped T almost 2 years ago now, but i’m still yet to properly detransition. My family and friends know, but i’m yet to go by another name or pronouns - purely because of my voice. I let my hair grow out and everywhere I go I am referred to as a woman, I physically pass easily without any effort makeup or clothing wise.

My voice however is inherently male, i’ve started voice therapy with a speech pathologist which hasn’t yielded much results, though i’m sticking to it. I’m heavily considering surgery however I know training is needed for that to have good results anyway.

I’m demotivated with speech pathology as i’m afraid of sounding like a trans woman, they treat me as if i’m a trans woman and im given the same vocal training, so I just worry I will end up with a voice that could potentially have me clocked as a trans woman.

I guess my question is, for both men and women reading this - if you see someone that looks unmistakably female, from their face, to their body to their hair etc - but the voice that comes out is unexpectedly deep - not burly man voice deep, but not quite a woman’s voice deep, what does your brain go to?