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Summarized ReasonAmended notes
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I watched a video of someone talking about being gender fluid after identifying as that for a week I started identifying as nonbinary. Later I started identifying as a man somewhat for employment reasons. I’m also a lesbian which I believed definitely contributed to it because even during transition I was running away from being attracted to women exclusively.None needed
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this is an oversimplification for space, but i was always uncomfortable with my sex as a child. i moved schools at 13 and met a bunch of trans people in high school. my tumblr dash gradually shifted from tv shows to sjw posts. i slowly developed a strong obsession/fixation with social justice. i thought i had finally found my people, and i felt validated and like i had a purpose. i was terminally online and stopped caring about anything else (school, family, etc). i cast away old friends that didn't agree with me. i was caught in an echo chamber and didn't question what i was doing for a long time.
basically an ROGD/social contagion case, except i had body dysphoria before that so i felt like i was *truly* trans.
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I had been socially identifying as trans for about 8 years, beginning when I was 15. I was led to believe this way through being a young and awkward person who spent a lot of time on Tumblr and watching anime.
Due to having PCOS, I naturally have what I deem to be, a more masculinized body, also one which makes it hard to lose weight which I have been ridiculed for all my life. I didn’t feel like I was suited to be a girl, because other girls were smaller, daintier, and socialized in ways I didn’t know how. They had boyfriends while I read self-insert fanfiction featuring my favorite anime characters. Which eventually became self-insert gay fanfiction, I was inserting myself into a male role; which I had done before as I child when we would play pretend, but this time it was in a ‘romantic’ context. Eventually I felt that maybe I would be more likely to be desired, or even just liked, if I were to be a boy. As if that suited me better. I started wishing that I could be a man, that I could be reborn as one. Tumblr told me I could; that these thoughts, and the discomfort, and the hatred of my body were because I was a man all along. I began to believe that in assuming the role of a man I didn’t have to worry so much about my looks, or about my body being what it is. That with the eventual cross-sex hormones maybe it would fix itself and I’ll be what I was meant to be this whole time.
Of course there are a lot more details to be said, about depression, anxiety, suicidality, and gender dysphoria, but that about summarizes it.
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I hated being female since young due to the expectations surrounding it but I only started questioning my gender after learning of how many there were from my left-wing friends. Before meeting them, I was a loner because I simply couldn't connect with other girls and boys wouldn't interact with me much because I was a girl. That's where my hatred of gender came from. I was very insecure about how people saw me and I didn't want any assumptions made about me just because I was female. I wished people would just see me as me without the "female" part. I spoke to a friend about this and she told me I could be agender(non-binary) and since that label fit how I wanted to be seen, just a person(hence no pressure from male or female standards), I started to believe that was what I was. It was a way for me to escape the rigid unreasonable gender stereotypes without actually doing anything about it. I switched my pronouns to they/them and changed my name which sounded gender neutral enough for me although I only told a few friends about it.Removal of transgender name for safety.
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Never called myself trans bc I didn't knew that was a thing, only thought I would be cooler/better as a dude, and binded my chest, and all that stuff. It mainly was due to slash/yaio online community, I didn't knew what men are. I also never told anyone aka parents or adults about that, but I didn't have a link between me irl with parents and my personality on the internet. Though standing in front of the mirror imagining real Tm boy Tm me was a thing for like 2 or smth yearsNone needed
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I'm shit at summaries, please bear with me: I believe it started rather early around 1st grade or so, maybe even earlier since I did know that a tie I chose because I liked it was considered to be a men's garment and felt happy about it. I was extremely passionate about learning and decently popular in grade school, but the latter was mainly due to socializing with males because it was easier for me as a female who has a lot of autistic traits and similar interests. That in itself was fine, but my resentment over being born female started to set in due to social expectations, both being seen as a person incapable of having feminine interests and others incapable of looking past my sex. That plus a traumatic event around 1st-2nd grade when my mom forced me to compete in a pageant for National American Miss [The reward was a scholarship] and had to go through painful months of practicing with a stupid fucking hula hoop and pretending that I belonged on that stage in a dingy green dress being watched by hundreds of eyes. I was also in a club around 4th grade because one of my favorite activities used to be running, but it was a girls only club which made my resentment worse. At around the same time there was a domestic dispute in my house where the women of my family were passive and refused to find a quick soIution, furthering my distaste for traditionally feminine traits like being polite and indirect. I was teased because my name was exactly the same as a character from one of the popular disney princess shows around then, and other small incidents which I can't remember either out of fatigue or forgetfulness. I associate nearly all of that trauma and the years of discomfort people have put me through to my sex.

I was disconnected [still am] from my body and my spirit and became passively suicidal at the same time I was discovering my attraction to girls in middle school. My stress and disdain for everything that had previously restrained me from living like womanhood and the suffocating ordeal of socializing in this flesh. My puberty was a year or so earlier than middle school, but it was in middle school when reading about puberty for the other sex that it set in, I would never be considered by a majority of the public as anything beyond a sex-confused butch woman crossdressing.

This manifesting with my growing desire to kill myself physically gave way to me instead trying to kill any trace of womanhood in me to kill my image. That was the driving force for me to withdraw entirely from social interaction to a point where people where too scared to give a shit about my gender, and partially why I gave up on turning in schoolwork despite me being more than capable of being an honor student. The mortifying ordeal of being known, of being perceived, watched, it made me paranoid to no end. To embrace womanhood would have jeopardized my independence and "peace" of mind. Anything I deemed to be even remotely like a woman was suppressed, painful memories forgotten and hazy even now. To be frank, my sense of self has never truly been stable. I have always felt to be more of a concept in faulty flesh than a woman dealing with the repurcussions of stereotypical socialization. I saw transitioning not as my truth but a way to end this suffering, and for that, it was endlessly appealing. High school was a blur because I did absolutely nothing in it, didn't talk to anybody, the people there were all shit, I didn't care at all about trying or living. I either skipped school or walked out of the building between periods to sometimes escape from my stress and profound negative feelings, which were the best days ever. Dropped out senior year because my anxiety and stress being in a room with strangers plus the pre-existing complications led me to a passive suicide attempt and two separate incidents of self harm which have left scars on my arms. Now I am alone in my house all day, away from everyone, horribly lonely but feeling better relatively. One mental breakdown immediately followed by a euphoric high later and my name has become Seth.

It's not like I ever really felt to be a woman at all and socially transitioned per se disregarding my failed attempts to ask for a different chosen name in three of my classes, it is more like I embraced my boying ambiguity and then leaned into presenting as a male and a man as a way to cope with my mental issues. To say that I am a man to this world would be more honest than clinging to something I've never identified with, but a better lie is still a lie. I don't want to lie to myself anymore.
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I learned about trans people on tumblr in communities full of mentally ill teenagers, many if which had anorexia. As a mentally ill teen girl, I related to these people's posts heavily and my dysphoria worsened over time and I came out to my parents as trans when I was 14 or 15. I socially transitioned and presented as male for a few years before being institutionalized for mental illness. When I was discharged, I did't wanna be a trans guy anymore and I identified as nonbinary and continued planning to take hormones and get a mastectomy and remained in trans communities and being out as trans/nonbinary for years more. Dysphoria and generally thinking about gender all the time really negatively impacted my life and exasperated anxiety and depression. I finally desisted at age 23 when I realized just how much it was affecting me negatively and that I did not believe hormones or surgery would fix the issues and I would be dysphoric and crazy forever if I continued down the path.None Needed
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social media.None Needed
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This is a good question... How was i lead to believe I was trans? I think it was the propaganda, the ideology. At age 11-12 I was already being exposed to LGB and a bit later T.

I came to date an adult who groomed me. He was FtM. During this time, I was still "identifying" as a woman. I tried to be there for him. First he was genderfluid, then simply a trans man. He would scream at me because we "didn't discuss trans stuff enough." His friends, including him, mocked "cis people" and labeled us as people who didn't understand while they were far above.

After leaving the relationship, I started to question everything. Who I was. I hated that girl. That girl who growing into puberty "looked like a man" and was sexualized and thrown away, the girl "meant to end up like her mother." The propaganda made sense. Right, I "was a man." I started linking all my childhood behavior to how I had definitely been "innately trans."

At first I used any pronouns, then as everyone called me him I settled. It was right. "I am a guy." From there, it was like a rock rolling down a hill...

My experience... I felt better. Finally, I was "no longer a girl." Not again, never again. I wouldn't deal with people not taking me seriously, I wouldn't deal with people sexualizing me.. there was so much. But with it came the dysphoria too. I hated my breasts. My genitals. I wanted to cut them off. I was going to.

I fully intended to get on HRT. I thought that's what was meant for me. I was stopped because of my trauma surrounding my psychiatrist, as she would have needed to assess me back then.

..I'm grateful I was stopped.

For those 6 years... I did end up separating myself a bit from the T community. I didn't always agree with them, especially when MOGAI rolled in. And the transition for minors.. at first I thought it was fine. How could I have thought that? I don't know. But soon the wool was being peeled from my eyes. Things would feel wrong sometimes, I'd more and more clash with the trans community. But I thought I was being myself. I thought I was the guy I was meant to be.

Until I met my husband.
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Internalized mysogyny, being groomed by the LGBTQ+ communities.None Needed
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I've had dysphoria since about 10 years old. At around 17.5 years, I found out more about the online trans community and realized my experiences aligned, such as hating my body and idealizing being the opposite sex. I went by a different name and pronouns among friends exclusively because my parents weren't supportive. In college, I joined the LGBT dorm and met some trans people but most importantly, I met a detrans person who applied to the dorm when she was trans. Talking to her, I slowly changed my mind about a lot of stuff regarding transition and worked through my internalized misogyny. I secretly desisted in the dormitory about 4 months after meeting her and have been desisted since.None Needed
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From early childhood, I related more to “boy” things and preferred boy toys and clothes. When kids would split up to play as girls and boys, I always went with the boys. However, I didn’t really start to feel dysphoric about my physical body until puberty. When I was around 11, I began developing physically, and my father would make comments about my developing body such as that I needed to wear a bra so that others wouldn’t think I was a “slut.” I also hated the fact that as a girl/woman, I was considered vulnerable to rape or attack and it wasn’t even safe (according to my parents) to go outside alone. I didn’t relate to being a girl at all, and so I wished I was a boy. At this time, I also developed an eating disorder and my therapist insisted it was because I had played with Barbie’s (I hadn’t) and wanted to look like the female thin ideal (I didn’t). Because I didn’t relate to these ideas and hated them being forced on me, I started to feel even more distant from being a girl. I developed severe physical dysphoria and would go weeks at a time without showering because it was so painful to see my developing female body. I also wore a binder constantly, even to the point it would get smelly and dirty, because I didn’t want to see my breasts and I hoped the binder would stop them from growing. I tried to pass as a boy in public and my parents would make rude comments when I did so, like “why do you want to have a penis grafted on yourself?” And said others were staring at me like I was a freak. But I so desperately did not want to be a girl, it almost didn’t matter. I remember looking online for information about surgeries (this was in the early-mid 2000s, so there was less information readily available) and even emailed a crisis chat line (the Samaritan’s) because I was panicked I would not be able to pass as an adult because I would be too short. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria as part of a psychological evaluation for ASD (which I was also diagnosed with) but at that time, transitioning for youth was not common, so I never medically transitioned in any way. When I went to college is when I started to question transitioning. I was predominantly attracted to other women, and I lived in a more conservative Southern state as an adolescent where people were not accepting of same-sex attraction and gender non conformity. However, I went to college in California where there was a much wider variety of gender expression and acceptance of LGBTQ individuals, which made me feel more comfortable being a queer woman. Presenting as male (or in a way where people could not tell my sex) was also very stressful at times, as I would worry about being yelled at in bathrooms or being attacked by someone who was confused and/or angry. Because of this, I decided to try to present as female and seek out more female role models. I literally had to plan in advance and get all my courage up to wear a skirt, and when I did it felt like cross dressing. But gradually, as I found more women I related to and looked up to, my gender dysphoria became less insistent. My “gender conforming” phase ended up being relatively short lived - today I have short hair, wear stereotypically male clothes, and don’t shave my legs or any other body hair (shaving does not go well with my sensory sensitivities). I love science, building things, playing rock music on my electric guitar, and sports. I do still experience some gender dysphoria, particularly in relation to my breasts, which has gotten somewhat worse with the intensification of attention on trans topics in recent years. However, at this point (age 30) my priority is my health and I have grown to more or less accept my body the way it is and that I can be who I am without having to change it. I have also found excellent therapists (general therapists, not gender focused) who have helped me accept myself for me, including my quirks related to ASD and anxiety, which in an indirect way has helped me accept my body as just another part of myself.None Needed
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Through friends.None Needed
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I have always been "weird" and could never fit in. as a child I didn't like wearing certain feminine clothing such as dresses, skirts and tights. now I got an autism diagnosis at 22 and I know both of these things are linked to being autistic. during puberty I never liked any things considered as girly - that also ties back to my autistic hyperfixations and special interests which were never "girly".None Needed
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Started at a women’s college and had friends around me start to transition. It made me realize my gender issues I had in my childhood and teen years. A lot of my identity came from reddit communities like r/eggirl or whatever, and it was a bit of a snowball effect. Basically, I was told again and again online that if you’re dysphoric you must be trans.None Needed
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I was a tomboy growing up and was a teen the same time I Am Jazz came out. Because I liked boy things I was groomed by TRA's to be trans as a child.None Needed
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I socially transitioned FTM as a teenager in 2004-2005, and was considering medical transition. I lived full time and passed as male for nearly 2 years. Medical transition was not covered by insurance at the time and would have been prohibitively expensive and for that and other reasons I desisted. Main reasons I transitioned were being in a relationship with a girl, misogyny, not fitting gender / sex roles in broader society, autoandrophilia, and reading a trans webcomic. I was also naïve about the medical realities of transition until I researched it and experienced it more.None Needed
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I am autistic and had no positive female influences.None Needed
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I started believing I was trans after I was groomed online by people that assures me any type of doubt about my gender was a sign I was trans. And after that, my own ocd made matters worse.None Needed
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No one told me I was trans directly. I had dysphoria starting as far back as memory goes (2 or 3 years old). I had a very strong, seemingly "innate" urge to be male that I'll never fully understand. I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I was born female. There was no social media when I was young in the late 90s, but I found a blog by a transman when I was maybe 13. I had never heard of female to male transition before that and discovering that blog felt huge. I felt like FTM transition was my path and the answer to my lifelong dysphoria and transition became my fixation.None Needed
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I just hated myself, my body, my feelings. Hated how I was treated in society. I hated being female. This is when I stumbled on the t-community and their sweet fairytales about transitioning liberating them, making them feel better and accepted, how it's everything you need... I socially transitioned and posed as a trans man for almost 5 years. At first it was nice, I did "feel better", and the T-community was really accepting, but that hatred of myself never really went away and it was chipping away at me. I started looking deeper into myself, self-reflecting, (my best friend also helped me a lot, god bless her). T-community's goody-two-shoes behaviour started looking more and more agressive and toxic in their "positivity", almost cult-ish in a way, sorry not sorry. I realized transitioning is not a solution to my problem, as I was just running away from and burying my real identity instead of trying to come to peace with and love it. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side.None Needed
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So for a long time, I never thought that I counted as desisted until I saw a few posts on here from women who had similar experiences; I was essentially a young woman who developed a full “womanly” body far before I should’ve and I was harassed and assaulted for it. Surrounded by the Kardashian fashion/makeup styles thrust upon teenage girls at the time, I hated being a woman and I hated my body and Tumblr told me that this meant that I was probably a boy. It seemed freeing, I liked wearing baggy clothes that hid my figure and I had a lot of intense childhood trauma that caused an identity disturbance so it was an excuse for me to attempt to morph into someone else. I dreamed of getting rid of my breasts more than I desired taking HRT (I had been groped at the age of 12 or so and that stuck with me). I was supported blindly by friends online (the only people I came out to). Looking back it was a surreal experience that lasted for close to a year. I snapped out of it through trauma work and meeting radical feminists online who made me proud to be a woman. I also limited my social media activity as well, that helped a lot.None Needed
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It was lots of little things that chipped away over a long period of time. I was a tomboyish child and I was told that I should’ve been born a boy. Not in a malicious way and not in a way to get me to transition because it was the 80s just as a lighthearted observation. My tomboyishness was possibly exacerbated by CSA and meeting other gnc girls before age six (one transitioned at 18). I had a psychologist tell me I was a boy in a girls body in 1989/1990 (it was a long time ago so I can’t quite remember the exact time but before puberty).None Needed, though a bit uncomfortable with reveal on CSA.. but it's important.
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Around 13 years old, was heavily involved in trans friend group, all told me questioning my identity was good and led me to believe if I was masculine at all that I must be transgender. Led me living my teenage life questioning my gender and majority of it convinced I was male and wanting to change my gender. I went by multiple different names and pronouns at different times throughout age 13-16None Needed
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Trans friend group, I guess--my first thought was "well, we didn't have this shit when I was a kid," even though I know you did and it was out there for the truly distressed--but it wasn't any pressure on their part, even in the loose sense of having a predefined framework and asking people to think about how their gender fits into it. I had AAP, but also AGP, so it was just, like, sometimes attraction is tied into what's attainable, you know? They're pretty interchangeable for me, but the AGP is just as unpleasant or "itchy," it's very demi/focused on individuals, and r/detrans is the thing that helps most either way.None Needed
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Not sure what else to say except it felt right. At the time, that identity felt right. It made a lot of things in the past make sense. It made me at the time feel less uncomfortable in my skin because I thought I finally I had something to explain why I was so uncomfortable. With that there seemed to be a solution and remedy to my discomfort.None Needed
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Many of the students around me (at least those who I socialized with) were coming out as non-binary, transgender, etc. This fact drove me to believe this dysphoria was normal, and if you had it, you were transfender of some form.

On top of this, I have been exposed to sexual content since a very, very young age, not because it was shown to me, but because I grew abnormally curious about it. I got out of it for a couple of years, until a group of girls, in late elementary, started talking about it, which, again, roped me back into the idea. Since then, I've exposed myself to gay, sexual content, and smutt bl fanfictions, none of which I am proud of. This sexual content made me often day dream about being a man in a relationship with another man. I told a close friend about this day dream, and all they told me was: "...I think you might be a gay transman..." And that was when it really began. People referring to me as "she" became uncomfortable to listen to, but so did "he." Pronouns became a place of discomfort.
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I decided I was trans after I discovered the concept on tumblr in the mid 2010s. I had always been a tomboy and disliked my gender even as far back as being a toddler, so people there and on similar social media sites immediately praised my obvious transgendered soul. It sucked me in right away.None Needed
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I thought that if I was non binary I would not feel so objectified after being raped as a teenagerNone needed
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i got bullied for being gnc and basically being called a d*ke, and then later forgot about half of it but only remembered that i hated being a woman.none needed
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This was back in the 80s: I hated other girls (who I didn’t get on with) hated girls clothes and haircuts (which gave me sensory problems) and wasn’t girly in the slightest (loved football and boys games). So I decided I was a boy, adopted a boys name, clothes, haircut between 8-12ish. It took growing up and being part of a girls high school to tackle my sexism, and probably till my mid 20s to really overcome the feelings.

Even now I don’t think I’m “girly”, I’m just a person who is female. I have also been diagnosed with autism and sensory processing disorder which I think explains a lot.

If I’d grown up now, I’d have been medicalised and transitioned, and this identity crisis would have permanently medically damaged me and defined me. Actually I just needed to grow up and live in a less stereotypical world.
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I realised that picturing myself as the opposite sex when I fantasized was all I ever did. Couple that with being very gender non conforming and people told me that this was dysphoria. In reality I'd have liked to be a he/him but I got as far as changing to identify as non binary for a year or so.None needed
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I'm a lesbian and probably autistic. I had a lot of anxiety over my lack of ability or interest in looking like "normal" girls my age. When I found out about non-binary identities I thought that's what I had to be. I still knew on some level I was a woman biologically and politically, but I thought the non-binary identity would absolve me of some of my gender transgressions.None needed
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Felt insecure in my femininity as I was always told i wasn’t much like a girl and I didn’t see myself similar to any girls I knew (I went to a single sex secondary school) and I felt disconnected to everyone around me. I had/ have a lot of internalised homophobia and am still struggling to accept my own attraction to women. I look more androgynous/ even masculine than I ever have feminine and it made me feel less like a woman. All these things (plus long term abuse + anorexia) made me think I wasn’t a girl and at the age of 12/13 I had learnt what being trans was and based on what I was feeling thought I had gender dysphoria. Now im 17 and am in therapy and can acknowledge that I have other problems that don’t really link to being trans at all and being the kind of girl I am is okay.None Needed
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Definitely social contagionNone Needed
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Always wanted to be a boy or like a boy, identified with male characters, would only wear boys' or unisex clothing from age 6-7, became acutely dysphoric about my sex when puberty struck, when I found out at 16 that there was such a thing as 'transgender' people thought "ah, that is the word for what I am", began investigating medical transition when I became a legal adult but ultimately did not go through with itNone Needed
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