u/detransmtf

Transitioning has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but detransitioning has been a completely different kind of challenge.

I socially transitioned in 2020 and started medical transition in 2021. After being on hormones for several years, I eventually decided to stop. Coming to that decision wasn’t easy, especially after investing so much time, emotion, and hope into my transition.

One of the hardest parts of detransitioning is realizing that some changes may be reversible while others may not be. You also have to adjust to changes in your body, appearance, emotions, and the way people perceive you. There are moments when you question yourself and wonder whether you made the right decisions.

But I’ve learned that changing direction doesn’t mean I failed. My transition was part of my life, and detransition is also part of my journey. I don’t have to hate who I was before, and I don’t have to pretend those years never happened.

The biggest thing that has kept me going is learning not to live my life based on what other people think of me. People will have opinions regardless of what you do. At the end of the day, I have to live in my own body and be honest with myself.

Detransitioning is not easy, especially after medical transition, but I’m slowly learning to accept myself where I am now. I’m still figuring things out, and I don’t have all the answers but I’m giving myself permission to move forward without shame.

I’m looking for advice from people who may have gone through something similar.

I lived as a trans woman for about six years. However, even before transitioning, I always hated wearing men’s clothes and felt extremely uncomfortable in them since childhood. I came off hormones in December 2024, although I’ve been on and off estrogen since then. I completely stopped my blocker last October. More recently, I’ve been using estrogen patches, changing them every four days, but I haven’t been consistent with them.

I had blood work done in May, and my doctor told me that my testosterone level was actually above the typical cis male range. He asked if I was still taking hormones, and I explained that I had stopped my blocker and wasn’t consistent with estrogen. He asked whether I wanted to switch to injections and increase my estrogen dose, but I said no for now.

A few weeks ago, I started noticing facial hair coming back. It looks like I’m getting some facial hair lines, although I don’t think it will become very full because I had laser hair removal for about three years.

Recently, I’ve also started experiencing something that has been making me very uncomfortable. Last week, two customers called me “sir” and used he/him pronouns. Also when i was walking on the street some young guys were discussing among themselves whether I was a guy or a girl. Later that same day, a group of young girls looked at me and started laughing. That experience really affected me.

I asked one of my coworkers whether they had noticed that my appearance had changed because more people seem to be perceiving me as male now. I honestly don’t care that much about which pronouns people use.

I still go out dressed as a woman every day, but I’m starting to feel like I need to learn how to become comfortable wearing men’s clothes again. The problem is that I genuinely hated men’s clothing even before I transitioned, so I don’t know how to build the courage to start.

I’m also thinking about stopping the estrogen patches completely this month.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation after living as a different gender for several years? How did you get comfortable with changing your clothing and presentation again? How did you deal with the emotional discomfort of suddenly being perceived differently by other people?