u/Aggravating-Put4212

Hi, looking for some advice from people who’ve been through something similar hopefully.

I’m 22 AMAB and I’ve been on E for 5 years DIY on mono. For around 2 years now I’ve had pretty persistent thoughts about stopping and they’ve been getting harder to ignore lately.

A bit of backstory. I transitioned at 17 and looking back I think it came from quite a desperate place. I was being bullied, masculinity felt really unsafe to me, and I think E was at least partly an escape from a painful situation rather than something I was fully certain about. I’ve always been feminine though, wanted to try being a girl at 11 just out of curiosity, and through my teens I kind of had this split thing going on where I was being this boy everyone expected of me and a feminine person at the same time online and it messed me up.

I don’t regret everything. I’ve genuinely liked some of my changes and I like being a woman in its own way. I pass fine and everyone treats me fine. But for two years I’ve had this persistent feeling that I might be more of a femboy or gay man than a trans woman and it’s been nagging me. It was small at first. It comes up when I’m sober, when I’m trying to sleep, randomly sometimes, not just on bad days. I’ve even brought it up drunk a few times which felt telling.

Things pulling me toward stopping are mainly missing libido and morning wood and sensitivity, feeling like body hair and other masculine features would be less of a daily fight and hence less tiring in a male context, feeling sad imagining myself still on E and unsure at 40, and honestly just wanting to find out if T really is the right hormone for me and if just allowing myself to be feminine will do. I think E might have been partly escapism and I think I want to know who I am without it.

I’ve over the years sadly come to develop a hatred for men and the idea of being a man, because of the way I’ve been treated by men in the past and I realised recently I have always automatically disregarded the idea of just allowing myself to become a man because of them people. I feel like, if I am to become a man, I will somehow become less of a person worthy of respect. It’s like I just can’t do it mentally. It’s like I just cannot give myself permission to be just a regular man. I want to see what happens if I stop doing that and embrace being a man in my own way.

My real concerns are facial hair because that does cause me genuine dysphoria and I’ve had partial laser already, possible voice deepening, (however you can’t tell due to voice training) and losing a community I’ve felt part of for years. I’ve also been struggling with the idea that if I did detransition, that I’d be serving the terf narrative that trans women are just gay men and it makes me very sad.

My plan is to wean off gradually rather than stopping cold, maybe continue laser when I’m ready if facial hair is too much. Not planning any announcements, just quietly finding out who I am.

Has anyone navigated something similar? Especially around managing facial hair while letting natural T recover, and how you knew whether the changes felt like coming home or a mistake?

Any advice is appreciated 🖤

Hi, I’ve been lurking here for a while but finally felt like I needed to say something because I’m kind of at a loss. I’m real sick of dealing with this and need some advice.

I’m mtftm and lately I’ve been really struggling. I genuinely miss being a man lately. I don’t know what specifically prompted the feelings to come up and then become stronger over the years but it has definitely got worse.

I have felt lately like the estrogen I’ve been taking over the years just hasn’t really changed anything substantial. It sometimes feels like it’s changed a lot of what I wanted to keep and barely much on what I didn’t want.

Honestly I am starting to miss how it used to feel before I started taking E, the way things just worked a certain way, like libido, morning wood, i didn’t obsess as much over myself. I’ve been wondering how things could have been different had i embraced being male, or at least a feminine male. I’ve been sitting with this for a while trying to figure out if it’s just a rough patch or something more real, and I think it’s the latter. So I’ve been considering if maybe detransition is a real, valid option for me to keep my mental peace, or at least medical detransition only.

The thing is, when I think about going back on T and all the physical changes that would come with that… it’s complicated. Part of me wants it and part of me is scared of it, I guess? Like of the idea of getting more facial hair and deeper masculinisation…But the medical side is honestly what I care about most right now. Libido especially, that’s been a really significant loss for me and it’s affected my quality of life more than I expected even though initially I didn’t think it a big deal.

I’m just wondering if anyone here has been in a similar position and to offer a guiding hand. Did you go back? How did you navigate that process? Any DMs, advice or just shared experiences would mean a lot. Thank you.