r/actual_detrans

i hate being trans. not because i hate my body on hormones or i feel like i made a mistake i just hate the lifestyle. i’m tired of the men i attract. i’m tired of the amount of effort i have to put in when i have zero energy. i feel ugly and depressed all of the time. my dysphoria was genuine and unbearable but i don’t know if this was the right decision.

I got nobody to really speak to about this shit in my life. T ruined me. I got life threateningly bad acne at the start of my transition which scarred my face to hell and back. And then it fucked my hair and scalp up, I developed non typical baldness (random patches of hairless+thinning) that isn't being fixed by anything and I ain't got the money to get a hair transplant. Not even talking about the rare as fuck complication and disease I got in my bones now; directly linked to me having been on T.

Im fat, disabled, balding, face scarred to shit, just thing attempting to exist and failing at it. I so desperately want to be seen as the butch lesbian I used to be but idk im very much realising that isnt possible anymore. Idk if I should just give up and go back on testosterone and take the L.

Is there anyone else that like. Realizes they arent ever going to be able to detrans? Or is there any other balding people here who are struggling with all this shit. I need to stop comparing myself to the younger, prettier people than me here, i know but 💀💀💀💀 i wish there was more from people who were actually profoundly affected by testosterone that i could relate to

Hi, this is my first post (MtF, age 25). It's been only 8 months since I realized I am trans. I have since started seeing a trans-friendly therapist and started HRT. How in the world do you get past the dysphoria? It got a little better when I started HRT, but it's back full force and is debilitating. I had to quit my job and barely leave the house. I feel like it's pointless because no matter what I do or how many surgeries I have, I'll never be fully female. I also have immense anger that I didn't realize this before hitting puberty. Can anyone give me some tips for how to handle the dysphoria spiraling?

Has anyone gone through detransition with a shaved head? I know its not ideal when trying to be seen as a woman, but Im so tired of my hair and my current haircut is major ass. The stylist botched it BAD when I told her to retain length. I just wanted some layers and bangs. I had thick shoulder-length hair and curls and she chopped it up to my jaw and thinned it heavily with shears, and added so many layers (that arent even symmetrical 🫩) that my hair no longer curls. It just doesnt have the length to do so anymore. She might as well have taken clippers with a long guard to my head. At least that would've looked better.

So I've genuinely been contemplating shaving my head. I've done it before and a buzzcut looks good on me, but I've never presented as a woman with a buzzcut before. My sister usually rocks one and most people tend to think she's sick or something (she's fine, she just has insanely thick hair and doesnt want to care for it).

My goal is to have healthy shoulder-length hair again. I've been oiling my scalp and doing scalp massages and stuff. I know shaving my head will make it take longer to get to my goal length, but just trying to fix my hair instead doesn't seem worth the effort. Like if I'm going to cut more, then I might a well cut it all? And just reset everything basically. Blank canvas. I've also been watching a lot of Avatar: The Last Airbender and I love the air nomads (who all have shaved heads at least to some extent) so that's probably not helping.

I'd probably only shave it twice before growing it again. And the second time would only be to get the hair dye out completely once my roots grow in more. Then it'd just be some maintainence here and there to make the awkward stages less awkward while I try to get it back to my shoulders.

Has anyone detransitioned while having a shaved head? Or even just lived life as a woman with one? Was it harder? Was it one less thing to worry about? Would you have chosen to have hair, even if it's a bad cut, instead?

my mtf journey started around age 15, socially. i was on hormones from age 17 to 19. age 20 was my "first" rodeo with detransition. it was met with what i assumed to be dysphoria, so the long hair stayed, but the hormones didn't.

​looking back, presenting as feminine wasn't a pursuit of true gender alignment, it was just a relief from anxiety. she/her landed with less discomfort than he/him, but nothing more. being trans gave my brain a tangible reason for why i felt so uncomfortable in my own skin, and acted as an escape from the daunting social expectations of how a guy is "supposed" to exist. it makes sense why i never had bottom dysphoria, and found the idea of surgery unpleasant. my body wasn't the issue, the crushing anxiety was.

​fast forward to now, age 22. i started escitalopram a couple months ago. did an ssri turn me cis? no, i believe i always was. but the med and getting older allowed me to realise what i couldn't see at 20.

​i have a lot of trauma to unpack, but essentially, being perceived as a woman felt safe. my long hair wasn't worn with empowerment; it was a shield to hide behind. so i finally went to a salon and got it cut short. looking in the mirror, with 12 inches left on the salon floor, i'm no longer afraid of what i see.

​it irks me, because transphobic people love the "you're just confused and traumatised" angle to further their harmful rhetoric. in my case, with actual nuance, yes that kind of does apply. but a broken clock is right twice a day, i suppose.

​i guess i'm sharing this to see if anyone else realised their transition was a survival strategy for anxiety/trauma rather than actual gender dysphoria? how did you navigate building a version of being a guy (or girl) that actually felt comfortable for you?

I am not a detransitioner, but for reasons I will not disclose, I have to get off my hormones for a while. Some anecdotal data will hopefully ease my stress, as there is not much research on this.

I think I posted about this a few months ago. I've been really struggling with my gender identity ever since my psychosis. I had mine in the middle of transition. I obviously never was completely sure about transition as no one is but I was pretty confident about the decision as I had sat with it for years. I've been confused because during my mental break, I experienced myself as many different genders and gender expressions and now I'm afraid transitioning to the other end of the spectrum might not make me happy. Its double hard because I'm still in that loss of self phase during recovery. I'm not really feeling connected to myself so it's hard to feel into what I truly want. Transition was something I felt into deeply before I took those steps. I sat with those feelings for a long ass time. I really felt like I was stepping into living with what felt courageous and true at the time. Like moments where it felt like I was discovering my own voice for the first time. Its scary now to make a decision when I don't feel nearly as embodied and open to my feelings as I did back then. My goal was to socially transition along with my medical transition but I'm scared that social transition will feel just as or more empty than the alternative.

Has anyone changed their gender expressions or stopped their transition after a psychosis? Did your base self of being trans and transition being a necessity for your selfhood come back or did you feel that you actually lost your desire to transition? I don't think I lost my trans identity, I just think maybe the way I relate to my identity has changed. I can't seem to make a decision about stopping or continuing. Every time I do stop hormones for an extended period, I think back to the journey I started and I get scared my dysphoria will get worse or not better once I really start remasculizing. I also feel some euphoria with the guy I could become but sometimes I feel the same about the woman I could become I really hope there are some trans people on this sub who have experienced psychosis that might have similar experiences. I am giving myself time but if this shift in how I feel about my gender actually stays over time, I can see my life taking a very different trajectory.

I miss my old voice. I transitioned because I was infantilized my whole life and felt like the only way to escape it was to become a man. Now it feels weird to speak because of the thickening vocal cords and my low voice feels artificial and monotone. Is there a way to make it sound like it did before the drop?

Dawg this is weird. I've been out as ftm to everyone for 5 years. The thing is, ever since starting t a year and a half ago I have developed a kink for misgendering. And the longer ive been on t the more ok ive gotten with my body even the aspects that stayed feminine. Socially in non nsfw contexts im a man, and i like to be seen that way. However, I have not gotten top surgery and I find myself being ok with people seeing my chest irl as long as theyre people I know will still see and treat me as a man, they kind of feel like an accessory more than part of my body. Ive also gotten okay with wearing more femme clothes in trans friendly spaces.

Ok so im a femme guy who might not go for top surgery?

but here's the thing, im also considering detranstioning medically *not socially* for the purposes of feminizing my body because I think it looks more conventionally attractive that way and I like being sexualized by it. I like my moustache and deep voice, but also, maybe I like my big chest and hips? oh my god why is this gender shit so hard. Its not entirely a kink thing tho, i also just genuinely like more feminine styles sometimes. but i like being referred to with he/him and by my masculine name

Am I maybe genderfluid? Yall ik the kink thing is weird but its gotten to the point im genuinely questioning stuff.

I’ve had breast forms for months but have only worn them like twice. I’m so anxious about having such a public display of regret. I’m non-binary and pretty androgynous so my gender expression being fluid is pretty on brand for me. My circle and the area I live in are super progressing and understanding so I don’t think anyone would be mean. However, I don’t know if I can field the “you have boobs again suddenly???” questions. I’m trying to think of it like a reverse binder bc I used to have intermittent boobs all the time. Any advice on getting over this mental block?

Is anyone else like 90-100% convinced they're trans, but you're still choosing to detransition? Its not out of safety or finacial problems or lack of support or even thinking you'd be happier living as cis. Its more just like... I wasn't happy before, and I'm still not happy now. So whats the point of making my life harder? I dream about being a cis woman (not even a cis man, but maybe thats because cis woman is technically possible and cis man is not), I dream about a husband and kids, I dream about not being so outwardly queer (Im not even worried about danger, I just dont want strangers knowing such personal stuff about me by a glance).

I can afford transition, I have an amazing support system, I've luckily never dealt with discrimination for being trans. Im just tired of constantly being at war with my body and trying to pass. I dont even hate my body. I didnt hate it before T and surgery, and I dont hate it now. I only changed it to make social transition easier. Social transition was always the most important, and it's really my only source of dysphoria.

Has anyone else detransitioned just because it's easier?

For the longest time, I would have described myself as feeling “like a man trapped in a woman’s body”. The disconnect was alienating and terrifying and made me feel like my brain and body were at war with each other.

What I didn’t realise when I was younger is that the feeling of being trapped felt so pessimistic because I wasn’t able to see anything beautiful about the female experience, both in terms of birth sex or gender, due to the very strict gender expectations I was raised with, that heavily counted on misogyny. Also not realising I was attracted to women and experiencing the way of viewing my own body as something that was terrifying.

Before, I thought that feeling “like a man trapped in a woman’s body” meant that I had to change my body to allow myself to connect to and express my masculinity. And who knows, perhaps living as a man for about 10 years is what I needed – I still think being able to move through the world is a man for 10 years provided me with a valuable perspective and to realise really what the difference is living as either gender.

But nowadays, I think I feel more like I’m just a masculine-aligned soul who has been blessed with getting to inhabit a female body. I still have some gender dysphoria, but I now feel like almost it’s part of who I am instead of a problem that needs to be fixed. I feel a a lot of regret that I got top surgery. It feels like I let down the woman that I was meant to protect. All I can do is move forward and start taking care of my body the best I can.

I took testosterone for 5 years, and I’m coming up on my 1 year anniversary for deciding to stop.

In short, I eventually had to come to the conclusion that transition wasn’t right for me/my bone structure. I only ever passed as a teen boy, never an adult man, and at some point I got old enough to not confuse for a teenager and stopped passing altogether. In the end, I just looked weird as hell, unfortunately close to those little pink satire drawings people make 😭

Well, I got some texts from a gym buddy I haven’t talked to in a while. Essentially “hey how you been, I was going through photos and found these, hope you’re well” and the first photo was of my face.

I was shocked at how well I passed as male if not kinda boyish, was even conventionally attractive. Had me thinking for a second that I was just full of brainworms and I should have never detransitioned.

…until I scrolled to the next next photo that showed my body and body proportions. Holy shit, it’s worse than I remember. So bad I got retroactive embarrassment just looking. Okay, I made the right choice.

I don’t know if this is relatable at all. I don’t think I regret transitioning or detransitioning. But I personally find some comfort in no longer chasing an unobtainable goal, and on a more shallow note, not having strange-looking proportions anymore.