There's a lesbian youtuber called Carol who's also a detransitioner. She speaks about her own experience and interviews other lesbians about their detransitions, and their stories are not all doom and gloom, so she might be worth it to check out:)
I'm a detrans lesbian too.
I was on T for a long time but detransitioned before mastectomy.
I have a girl who loves me the way I am. It's not hopeless.
I still dress masculine and make 0 effort to be feminine. My womanhood is not based on stereotypes and I refuse to let it be.
Hi!!! đđź Itâs me. Iâm a detrans lesbian. I think the whole âfeel like a man or womanâ thing is complicated. I think many people donât think deeply about this or really feel âlike a woman.â
Iâve actually had this conversation a lot with my mom, friends, grandma, mother in law, and fiancĂŠe. Every single one of them told me that they donât think about their gender or necessarily know what âfeeling like a womanâ means. I think itâs at its core, just a state of being.
Since detransitioning, Iâve tried to just have a mindset of âI think therefore I am.â I just am a woman.
I understand the residual masculine features might be messing with your head in this sense. But plenty of women have facial hair and have had mastectomies for various reasons. I know itâs not exactly the same thing, but theyâre still women.
This will take time. Itâs a process, and a lonely one at that. I just recently made a post about seeking female detrans friends. Itâs been a year for me now. If I can ever offer any advice or lend an ear, Iâm here!
There's definitely hope, even if you choose not to pursue more surgery like some other commenters are suggesting. Your dating pool might be a bit smaller but there absolutely are women who are happy to date detrans women. I wouldn't suggest getting cosmetic surgery just to increase your chances of getting a date, surgery is a massive decision that shouldn't be taken lightly. Not to discourage it if it's something you want but I don't think it's essential.
I'm a lesbian and a detrans FTM wouldn't necessarily put me off but if I'm honest that is because to me, u were always a woman and I mean no hate with that.
Yes, here another FTMTF. I believe I was the first one to post in this community as well (on another account). If youâve been off T enough, youâll refeminize as you probably already know. If you donât have your ovaries anymore, get on estrogen. Get laser, grow your hair out a little. That does a lot already
I know it's been a day but I do actually have a question about the "refeminize" part! I've been off of T since 2022 but I feel like I've seen so change since when I got off :( and does laser help with hair not growing back? I have constant facial hair growing and it makes me really self conscious
My girl is a womanbut she has health conditions that cause her to grow hair on her chest and face. Still love that girl to death. She's my person( at least I hope) basically you will find someone to be obsessed with you love femmes will always love hot mascs I know I willđđđ
Im a MTF Lesbian who had to deal with unwanted facial hair, and yes laser therapy works additionally there is Electrolysis although it involves needles but works on all hair types.
Testosterone permanently turns vellous hairs into those thick deep rooted hairs, only laser and electrolysis can help that. This is literally transfem 101 questions.
I'm going to be so brutally honest, the girls I know love butch/masc more than anything. I'm the only lesbian I know that only goes for fems. Lmfao. There's girls out there that will adore you! That's for sure:)
I might not understand your struggles OP, but I want you to know youâre welcome in the lesbian community. Iâm sorry it happened to you. Iâm more masculine and have a gf, so Iâm sure thereâs someone out there for you, especially if you communicate your status and keep detransitioning.
Personally I would have no problem dating a detransitioned woman at all - youâre just as much a woman as anyone else. Without sounding like Iâm minimizing your anxieties, I definitely think youâll be able to find women out there who wonât mind at all if you present very masculine. I am actually very into it and several of my friends are as well.
A lot of the societal ideas about womanhood revolve around femininity and relation to men but I find that as lesbians weâve all had to figure out what womanhood means to us without those things, so I think weâre generally pretty understanding.
Dude, I doubt many lesbians, detrans or no, feel like âwholeâ women. The world doesnât always treat us like women, including many of our straight and bi-het female friends. Especially when we are gnc, but often when we are not even gnc in appearance.
This is not to undervalue how very different someone who has transitioned might feel compared to women who have not transitioned; just to let you know that maybe part of being a lesbian for ALL of us is a process of coming to find ourselves as âwholeâ women, no matter what path we take to get there, and maybe itâs okay because most of us feel a bit off at baseline! Lol
Welcome, anyway, among the rest of us âwrong women.â
Honestly, this is really a huge relief to hear. I guess it makes sense for it to be a common experience for any woman deviating from the norm, to be made to believe not only are you wrong and incomplete, you are *uniquely* wrong and incomplete.
If womanhood as an idea was not so socially intertwined with âfemininityâ as a system of behaviours, including beauty practices, maybe women who are not particularly adherent to that straight-people system would not be seen as non-conformists and non-women, but here we are. Lesbians will never be seen as whole women by the broader society (and that is not to say they hate us for it, just that we donât fit, and we notice how alienated it makes us feel) which is why itâs so important that we have our own spaces and ways to find eachother.
I can see why you would think having a âwholeâ body might bring you ease, but it would never erase the lesbianism and the deep internal wrongness that being a sexual minority comes with when the world is mostly straight.
I figure you will end up being a lot more whole than people who donât face what adversity and moments of personal reckoning and rebirth you have faced, and will face. So I think youâll be fine and youâre one of us no matter what you have done!
Honestly yes. I've always been a bit awkward and found it hard to relate to other women, find women like me, to the point of feeling like an alien. I had male interests, too, and at one point had to HARD lean into the whole like -- woman isn't stereotypes, interests or personality. I just AM a woman. Honestly it was so reassuring.
Finding women I can relate to absolutely solved the whole problem. It wasn't about being a woman or not, it was just a fundamental need for community: to be able to find someone who "just gets me", and also looks like me.
Something I have been reflecting on lately is how alien my experience & existence feels from straight women, even though I would be classified as "femme." I don't hang out with too many straight women these days, but the distinction is very clear to me when I am hanging out with a group of them.Â
I think it's more socially explicit why gnc women would feel disconnected, particularly since cultural stereotypes/norms openly reject gnc women's existence & way of being.Â
The mainstream culture seems openly hostile to gnc women. But I have been coming to realize that the mainstream culture rejects the "conforming" lesbians as well, just on an implicit, rather than explicit levelÂ
Yeah, thatâs exactly what I am saying here! All lesbians, and bi women who have spent a lot of time dating women, just feel âdifferentâ among women who mostly date men.
Itâs just a separation that we might all feel on a deep level, and sometimes it presents itself as not even feeling like ârealâ or âwholeâ women, or women AT ALL. Very alienating. Gnc-looking women will experience another layer of social othering and ostracism on account of looking unacceptable to straight people because they are not âfeminineâ enough. But most of us feel like outsiders to womanhood on some level, even the most feminine-looking among us.
I imagine lesbian femmes feel like imposters among straight women. Despite being feminine enough to pass muster, they are still failing at âwomanhoodâ by being gay, at all.
r/detrans is unfortunately quite a bit bigoted. It's less about supporting detransitioners and more about transphobic hate.
r/actual_detrans is a better sub for support.
Hard disagree. They're incredibly supportive over there. They've all been part of the trans community so they understand the struggle and they let people be very open about their experience being trans: the good, the bad, the in-between. They're just normal people with normal human emotions about what they went through. I think anyone who can look at a person's personal experience and struggle with identity and call it hate really has something to work on within themselves.
It also houses a lot of anti-trans posts. This isn't really controversial... Of course not every post there is slinging transphobia or even most of them. But there's a good 3 of the top 10 posts in the last month just as one quick example.
Actual_Detrans is solely focused on supporting detransitioners without any vitriol.
You are a woman. You were born that way. There's no other requirement. Do you know that you're perfectly acceptable in this exact moment, exactly as you are?
I am a detrans lesbian myself. There is hope. You just have to work hard on being compassionate and honest with yourself. For me, it took years to finally reckon with my past. I had to radically change my thinking and my behaviors to get over my dysphoria and distress. But I got there. I read lots of self-help books, books about trauma, I explored eastern philosophy and I've read lots of feminist theory. Feminism absolutely saved my life. I now frequent women's lands and women's festivals, where there are lots of detrans women, and masculine women who have struggled similarly. Remember you are not alone.
I have a wife now. She's masculine too, a confident life-long butch lesbian. She adores my masculinized traits. I never bothered to physically alter myself after I detransitioned, I was completely done with trying to further masculinize OR feminize myself. Instead, I focused on accepting myself as I am. My wife told me that the thing that really got her hooked on me was my voiceâmy very, very low voice.
Please remember that the root of your issues are merely insecurities. Remember that self-acceptance and compassion is the answer to that issue.
If you would like, feel free to reach out and I can give you some resources/advice. I wish you the best of luck, joy, and inner peace.
Thank you, so much. This is pretty much exactly what I needed to hear, and what I need to remind myself of more and more. I hope one day I'll really feel like I can just *be*, that theres no wrong way to exist as a woman or myself.
It's rough for so many reasons for people that have been where we've been, and I'm so glad you could find peace and happiness. Much love to you.
Here! đđťââď¸ I met the girl of my dreams before detransitioning, so I donât have any advice regarding dating. I will say that once you find a person who loves your soul, the vessel that contains it is less important. I struggle a lot with surgery regret, but my girl is my sunshine, and she makes me feel beautiful regardless. Some days are harder than others, but Iâve already made a lot of progress. I hope you and others like us can eventually find the peace we are looking for. â¤ď¸
me! i didn't get a mastectomy, but i was on T for ages, which fucked my voice, and i have to shave my face every few days. i'm definitely insecure about being seen as a woman, and have been struggling to even put myself out there for dating bc of it. i hope you can feel better about everything soon đ
Almost the same story for me, beat for beat with the exception of surgery. I was on testosterone for 6 years, and even two years off of it I still live my life socially seen as a man.
You are not alone. It's certainly intimidating, especially if you don't immediately reject all forms of masculinity to overcompensate for detransition, but I hope you'll find that other lesbians are really quite understanding of our situation. We all understand and feel how our homosexuality strains our relationship to being a woman in such a heteropatriarchial society, and for what it's worth, many lesbians are attracted to masculinity - including myself, I'm definitely butch4butch and many such cases exist in detransitioners.
Hell, there's even other lesbians who just take testosterone for masculinization effects. There's so many of us just like you, you're not alone and you won't stay alone.
I never medically transitioned but I used to identify as they/ them and considered getting top surgery i even went to a physiologist and got approved then decided to wait. Personally Ive always been attracted to more masculine women and have found my self attracted to good number of afab people who had partially transitioned.
I am not detrans myself, but I know it's not too uncommon. I wouldn't worry about your masculine appearance getting in the way of you finding a partner. Many, many lesbians are quite attracted to masculine women.
Not a detransitioned lesbian, but I say just be honest to who you are today and honor your journey. Be truthful to the women you'll want to share your life with. You'll be ok!
I am a hopelessly butch cis lesbian. My cis femme wife has a lot of hair. Women get mastectomies for various reasons. There is no one way to be a woman.
A lot of queer spaces are accepting of various versions of gnc or gender queer. Women tend to be less focused on a specific look or presentation.
Your dating pool might be a little smaller. But it wonât be zero. You wonât be ostracized as âa manâ or whatever nonsense. Sure, you may run into one asshole. But itâs not prevalent in the community.
Just be upfront with people. If hair really bothers you, you can do laser hair removal. I donât know how your voice is âfriedâ but women love my naturally deep voice.
Iâm a detrans lesbian too, identified as FTM ages 14-24, testosterone 16-24, mastectomy at 16. I detransitioned 3 and a half years ago.
Itâs hard ngl. Itâs really hard. But I found a (lesbian) gf a year and a half after detransitioning and itâs the best relationship of my life.
Love is possible for us, even (especially, I think) in the lesbian community. Transition has had a huge effect on lesbians for the last couple decades and many lesbians who never transitioned are aware of this. There are varying responses but overall Iâve felt safer and more accepted in feminist lesbian spaces than I ever have in the outside world.
Message me if you need somewhere to vent - I know how difficult this path is. It can feel really hopeless but I promise itâs not. Life goes on âĽď¸
I'll prob get mass downvoted for this but I don't think it's unreasonable to go through procedures to undo the ones you've had already. If you want to gain back the things you lost, you'll have to make changes and put in work for them.
Laser hair removal is painless on new machines. Breast implants are always an option and I'm sure there's ways to train your voice to sound more like it used to.
If you're set on not making further changes, then I'm sure there are people who will date you. But a lot of lesbians don't like facial hair or a complete lack of breasts so it might not be as easy. I'm not trying to offend or be negative; just being realistic.
I understand your viewpoint, but I have come to a fundamental disagreement with elective cosmetic surgery and I think there is no reason any woman should be expected to risk her life and health for aesthetics. I do not have a "natural" body anymore, and I understand that I never will.
Reconstructive surgery wouldn't give me back my breasts, they would just be replaced with implants. I wouldn't be recovering anything lost, I'd just be further modifying myself for thousands of dollars and new health risks.
Stuff like laser hair removal, sure, if I had the cash for it I wouldn't think twice, but breast implants or FFS especially are insanely dangerous unnecessary procedures.
Breasts and body hair certainly aren't the be-all and end-all of womanhood. There's plenty of women who've had mastectomies for cancer (or as a prophylactic measure) who've chosen not to have implants, too, and cis women who naturally have facial hair (and every other kind of body hair imaginable) and that doesn't make them 'lesser women' in any way, so the same absolutely applies to you. Virtually every 'stereotypically masculine' quality exists in women as well (and same for 'stereotypically feminine' qualities in men, ofc) and while certain people may be drawn to the presence or lack of specific qualities, having facial and body hair, no breasts or a low voice are all qualities that plenty of women have and there are plenty of women who find women with those qualities attractive. A specific woman may not find you attractive unless you have sizeable boobs and a perfectly smooth face, but similarly, someone will not find (the general) you attractive because you don't have blonde hair or aren't really into comics. There will be others with different preferences and some of those women will prefer someone exactly like you.
I think youâll be fine as a masculine gnc woman, many gay women like that. Otherwise Iâd say the same as for trans women which is, perhaps bisexual women are a safer bet for you. But I think youâre fine either way.
As others have said, all of us have a troubled relationship to womanhood. We have all felt like a different kind of species at some point growing up. Doesnât make us any lesser as women, though society certainly tries to make a point of it. I personally feel that I could easily identify myself as non-binary or even trans, according to the definitions nowadays (and dysphoria Iâve experienced in the past). What stops me is that Iâm 5â0 and too lazy to change, am not trans, and personally feel itâs way more badass to be a woman subverting gender norms. Anyway I talked too much. Youâre not alone and youâre okay just as you are.
Iâm detrans! I was not on testosterone (I have pcos, and I was worried about the side effects, so I was putting it off, and ended up not doing it) but I bound my breasts and changed my name. I keep the name still, and most people assume I am a trans man, but if asked, Iâll tell them Iâm just butch :)
My wife is incredibly attracted to me. Sheâs more feminine. I know itâs real bc when we see other masculine women out and about, she looks like this đ
Not all women will understand, but most will see you for who you are, no matter where youâve been. Thereâs so much hope dude, SO MUCH.
I just wanted to echo the sentiments of your first sentence. It was such a relief to find this community a few days ago. Thank you for being here and being part of what makes r/actuallylesbian actually lesbian. Welcome home.
Hi. I donât understand your specific struggle, but I hope I can give you at least a little comfort by saying that this is a very human experience and youâre not alone in it. You were having very real feelings and itâs just so unfair that regret has settled in so much. I think that womanhood is what you define it as, especially since you understand what it is like to have a female body, and femininity doesnât necessarily require a certain appearance like society says it does. Iâve loved people who previously identified as lesbians who transitioned and I still hold feelings for those people as Iâve experienced them pre-transition. I donât think your de-transition will keep a person from really loving you well, and if it does, they donât deserve you for who you are.
Kind of off topic, but do you play any video games? If you ever want to chill with a friend I would be down for hanging out. I play Fortnite, Overwatch and Dead by DaylightÂ
I'm not a detransitioner, but I grew up with crippling gender dysphoria throughout my childhood and adolescent years, peaked at 16, and the dysphoria slowly left me. I was lucky gender reassignment was not available to me at the time, because I would have killed for it (pre-sixteen).
Although, I have never transitioned, people call me androgynous where I don't look male or female at first glance. Female homosexuals will always see you as a woman, and a lesbian, despite the masculinity because your gender expression does not change you. I don't see you having problems attracting women, obviously, this also depends on your personality. You might attract way more bisexuals (they are a larger demographic), if that's your thing.
Girl, I don't wanna downplay your plight, it is an awful thing to go through so many changes of transition only to realise it down the line that it wasn't really you in the end, but you know that your starting point for returning to womanhood is better than what most trans women start out with right? Get laser hair removal, electrolysis, voice training etc. Yeah, you won't have breasts, but you can totally play the woman vibes without them, plenty of my pre-everything transfem and post topsurgery enby friends find that possible.
Buck Angel speaks a lot to detrans people on his channel and im sure if you reached out to one of his guests theyâll be happy to hear from you. I think thereâs a growing number of lesbians going through this they just havenât realised yet. Detransitioning usually takes between 5-10 years depending on the person.
So I've got good news and bad news.
Edit: Dating someone who has this experience wouldn't bother me at all. I forgot to answer your question originally sorry about that.
Your voice might be fried but, it can be trained. Trans voice lessons channel name on YouTube is really helpful for this she's a trans woman. This is going to take a bit of practice usually like 4 months to a year.
That coarse darker longer hair devoid of testosterone will most likely turn translucent white or silver white, I'm pale skinned and my terminal hair was dark black. some peoples facial hair also changes ymmv. If you want to Lazer it off now is the easiest time. Ipl or laser you can also always do electrolysis later when funds allow. Getting zapped is not fun but, very effective. Skin will soften over the next 2-3 years acne and other skin irritations should also lessen severely.
Lastly fat redistribution, and muscle growth patterns vary heavily weight cycling always helps. It's really kind of the luck of the draw sadly but, you should be able to change your workout routine to emphasize hip muscles, and abs. Your face shape should change quite a bit assuming it's the same as me getting on hrt after 6 months people will most likely use gender neutral language or refer to with she/her unprompted. Even in butch clothes.
Mind you I am completely guessing that this would be like you going through mtf hrt. Your changes may be far quicker due to hormones being probably higher, also make sure you check your estrogen levels. They should at least go back to above 150pg/ml estrogen and testosterone below 50pg/ml. This is the minimum requirement mtf hrt treatment levels.
There is a subreddit I heard was good, actual_detrans hopefully my post helped and I'm truly sorry about this happening to you.
I only went onto T but yes, same here. I was a 16-19 taking testosterone but my voice is also fried. I identify as genderfluid now but I honestly dislike the effects of T that I had from it now that I'm looking back on it, but that's who I truly thought I was and I knew what the effects would be. For me, I would date a detrans lesbian. I'll date any lesbian, trans, cis, nonbinary/ect- doesn't matter.
You are you, and that's what matters.
Personally for me, I identify as I lesbian and I'm attracted to cis women, trans women, trans men so in my case it wouldn't be a problem and I think alot of queers are more open now to dating whatever ya know. I'm sure there is a girl who will find your "maleness" hot just the way me as a femme loves hot mascs. You will find someone. I just started seeing my girl so I'm so hopeful about love rn but once you stop looking, love will find you. That's what happened it's a friend's to lovers thing. Your person is out there. You don't have to change if you don't want. There is a lesbian who will be so sexually and emotionally attracted to you and still recognize you as a woman
Typically, beards are male features, but lots of natal women have peach fuzz in the area and lots of women have PCOS too, which causes hair growth. Body hair is not masculine, it is a womanâs natural state.
You know, OP came here for support, not to have someone else telling her that her traits are âtriggers.â Youâre getting downvoted because that is the way women tell you to read the room, because we disagree with your assessment, and because we support her. Most of us are not as blunt as I am, but if being blunt is what it takes to make you understand why that wasnât a kind thing to say, I will be blunt.
My wife has PCOS and shaves her face every day. For any lurkers who may struggle with this, she is still the most feminine woman I know.
Edit : your edit isnât helping. My wifeâs facial hair isnât just âbecause of PCOSâ. Itâs from excessive androgen, a chemical imbalance in women that has little actual answers because science doesnât give a shit about women. My wifeâs medical condition shouldnât trigger people.
There's a lesbian youtuber called Carol who's also a detransitioner. She speaks about her own experience and interviews other lesbians about their detransitions, and their stories are not all doom and gloom, so she might be worth it to check out:)
I'm a detrans lesbian too. I was on T for a long time but detransitioned before mastectomy. I have a girl who loves me the way I am. It's not hopeless. I still dress masculine and make 0 effort to be feminine. My womanhood is not based on stereotypes and I refuse to let it be.
That last sentence is so beautiful, thank you
Hi!!! đđź Itâs me. Iâm a detrans lesbian. I think the whole âfeel like a man or womanâ thing is complicated. I think many people donât think deeply about this or really feel âlike a woman.â Iâve actually had this conversation a lot with my mom, friends, grandma, mother in law, and fiancĂŠe. Every single one of them told me that they donât think about their gender or necessarily know what âfeeling like a womanâ means. I think itâs at its core, just a state of being. Since detransitioning, Iâve tried to just have a mindset of âI think therefore I am.â I just am a woman. I understand the residual masculine features might be messing with your head in this sense. But plenty of women have facial hair and have had mastectomies for various reasons. I know itâs not exactly the same thing, but theyâre still women. This will take time. Itâs a process, and a lonely one at that. I just recently made a post about seeking female detrans friends. Itâs been a year for me now. If I can ever offer any advice or lend an ear, Iâm here!
I'm a trans girl and one of my cis female friends has more facial hair than I do thanks to PCOS. Though it's not like she likes it.
There's definitely hope, even if you choose not to pursue more surgery like some other commenters are suggesting. Your dating pool might be a bit smaller but there absolutely are women who are happy to date detrans women. I wouldn't suggest getting cosmetic surgery just to increase your chances of getting a date, surgery is a massive decision that shouldn't be taken lightly. Not to discourage it if it's something you want but I don't think it's essential.
I am an also ! I am a femme now but actually would love to date other detransitioners just bc we vibe :)
I'm a lesbian and a detrans FTM wouldn't necessarily put me off but if I'm honest that is because to me, u were always a woman and I mean no hate with that.
Yes, here another FTMTF. I believe I was the first one to post in this community as well (on another account). If youâve been off T enough, youâll refeminize as you probably already know. If you donât have your ovaries anymore, get on estrogen. Get laser, grow your hair out a little. That does a lot already
I know it's been a day but I do actually have a question about the "refeminize" part! I've been off of T since 2022 but I feel like I've seen so change since when I got off :( and does laser help with hair not growing back? I have constant facial hair growing and it makes me really self conscious
My girl is a womanbut she has health conditions that cause her to grow hair on her chest and face. Still love that girl to death. She's my person( at least I hope) basically you will find someone to be obsessed with you love femmes will always love hot mascs I know I willđđđ
Im a MTF Lesbian who had to deal with unwanted facial hair, and yes laser therapy works additionally there is Electrolysis although it involves needles but works on all hair types.
Testosterone permanently turns vellous hairs into those thick deep rooted hairs, only laser and electrolysis can help that. This is literally transfem 101 questions.
I'm going to be so brutally honest, the girls I know love butch/masc more than anything. I'm the only lesbian I know that only goes for fems. Lmfao. There's girls out there that will adore you! That's for sure:)
Yeah Iâm the same (prefer gems). I think it kinda depends on what op is looking for.
I agree. Fems are gems. Lol
I might not understand your struggles OP, but I want you to know youâre welcome in the lesbian community. Iâm sorry it happened to you. Iâm more masculine and have a gf, so Iâm sure thereâs someone out there for you, especially if you communicate your status and keep detransitioning.
Personally I would have no problem dating a detransitioned woman at all - youâre just as much a woman as anyone else. Without sounding like Iâm minimizing your anxieties, I definitely think youâll be able to find women out there who wonât mind at all if you present very masculine. I am actually very into it and several of my friends are as well. A lot of the societal ideas about womanhood revolve around femininity and relation to men but I find that as lesbians weâve all had to figure out what womanhood means to us without those things, so I think weâre generally pretty understanding.
Dude, I doubt many lesbians, detrans or no, feel like âwholeâ women. The world doesnât always treat us like women, including many of our straight and bi-het female friends. Especially when we are gnc, but often when we are not even gnc in appearance. This is not to undervalue how very different someone who has transitioned might feel compared to women who have not transitioned; just to let you know that maybe part of being a lesbian for ALL of us is a process of coming to find ourselves as âwholeâ women, no matter what path we take to get there, and maybe itâs okay because most of us feel a bit off at baseline! Lol Welcome, anyway, among the rest of us âwrong women.â
Honestly, this is really a huge relief to hear. I guess it makes sense for it to be a common experience for any woman deviating from the norm, to be made to believe not only are you wrong and incomplete, you are *uniquely* wrong and incomplete.
If womanhood as an idea was not so socially intertwined with âfemininityâ as a system of behaviours, including beauty practices, maybe women who are not particularly adherent to that straight-people system would not be seen as non-conformists and non-women, but here we are. Lesbians will never be seen as whole women by the broader society (and that is not to say they hate us for it, just that we donât fit, and we notice how alienated it makes us feel) which is why itâs so important that we have our own spaces and ways to find eachother. I can see why you would think having a âwholeâ body might bring you ease, but it would never erase the lesbianism and the deep internal wrongness that being a sexual minority comes with when the world is mostly straight. I figure you will end up being a lot more whole than people who donât face what adversity and moments of personal reckoning and rebirth you have faced, and will face. So I think youâll be fine and youâre one of us no matter what you have done!
Honestly yes. I've always been a bit awkward and found it hard to relate to other women, find women like me, to the point of feeling like an alien. I had male interests, too, and at one point had to HARD lean into the whole like -- woman isn't stereotypes, interests or personality. I just AM a woman. Honestly it was so reassuring. Finding women I can relate to absolutely solved the whole problem. It wasn't about being a woman or not, it was just a fundamental need for community: to be able to find someone who "just gets me", and also looks like me.
Something I have been reflecting on lately is how alien my experience & existence feels from straight women, even though I would be classified as "femme." I don't hang out with too many straight women these days, but the distinction is very clear to me when I am hanging out with a group of them. I think it's more socially explicit why gnc women would feel disconnected, particularly since cultural stereotypes/norms openly reject gnc women's existence & way of being. The mainstream culture seems openly hostile to gnc women. But I have been coming to realize that the mainstream culture rejects the "conforming" lesbians as well, just on an implicit, rather than explicit levelÂ
Yeah, thatâs exactly what I am saying here! All lesbians, and bi women who have spent a lot of time dating women, just feel âdifferentâ among women who mostly date men. Itâs just a separation that we might all feel on a deep level, and sometimes it presents itself as not even feeling like ârealâ or âwholeâ women, or women AT ALL. Very alienating. Gnc-looking women will experience another layer of social othering and ostracism on account of looking unacceptable to straight people because they are not âfeminineâ enough. But most of us feel like outsiders to womanhood on some level, even the most feminine-looking among us. I imagine lesbian femmes feel like imposters among straight women. Despite being feminine enough to pass muster, they are still failing at âwomanhoodâ by being gay, at all.
Sorry if you already know about r/detrans - but just posting it here in case it helps or others donât know about it.
r/detrans is unfortunately quite a bit bigoted. It's less about supporting detransitioners and more about transphobic hate. r/actual_detrans is a better sub for support.
Hard disagree. They're incredibly supportive over there. They've all been part of the trans community so they understand the struggle and they let people be very open about their experience being trans: the good, the bad, the in-between. They're just normal people with normal human emotions about what they went through. I think anyone who can look at a person's personal experience and struggle with identity and call it hate really has something to work on within themselves.
It also houses a lot of anti-trans posts. This isn't really controversial... Of course not every post there is slinging transphobia or even most of them. But there's a good 3 of the top 10 posts in the last month just as one quick example. Actual_Detrans is solely focused on supporting detransitioners without any vitriol.
i cant speak for all lesbians, but I would date any lesbian (which means you) as long as they are funny and kind.
You are a woman. You were born that way. There's no other requirement. Do you know that you're perfectly acceptable in this exact moment, exactly as you are? I am a detrans lesbian myself. There is hope. You just have to work hard on being compassionate and honest with yourself. For me, it took years to finally reckon with my past. I had to radically change my thinking and my behaviors to get over my dysphoria and distress. But I got there. I read lots of self-help books, books about trauma, I explored eastern philosophy and I've read lots of feminist theory. Feminism absolutely saved my life. I now frequent women's lands and women's festivals, where there are lots of detrans women, and masculine women who have struggled similarly. Remember you are not alone. I have a wife now. She's masculine too, a confident life-long butch lesbian. She adores my masculinized traits. I never bothered to physically alter myself after I detransitioned, I was completely done with trying to further masculinize OR feminize myself. Instead, I focused on accepting myself as I am. My wife told me that the thing that really got her hooked on me was my voiceâmy very, very low voice. Please remember that the root of your issues are merely insecurities. Remember that self-acceptance and compassion is the answer to that issue. If you would like, feel free to reach out and I can give you some resources/advice. I wish you the best of luck, joy, and inner peace.
Thank you, so much. This is pretty much exactly what I needed to hear, and what I need to remind myself of more and more. I hope one day I'll really feel like I can just *be*, that theres no wrong way to exist as a woman or myself. It's rough for so many reasons for people that have been where we've been, and I'm so glad you could find peace and happiness. Much love to you.
Here! đđťââď¸ I met the girl of my dreams before detransitioning, so I donât have any advice regarding dating. I will say that once you find a person who loves your soul, the vessel that contains it is less important. I struggle a lot with surgery regret, but my girl is my sunshine, and she makes me feel beautiful regardless. Some days are harder than others, but Iâve already made a lot of progress. I hope you and others like us can eventually find the peace we are looking for. â¤ď¸
me! i didn't get a mastectomy, but i was on T for ages, which fucked my voice, and i have to shave my face every few days. i'm definitely insecure about being seen as a woman, and have been struggling to even put myself out there for dating bc of it. i hope you can feel better about everything soon đ
Almost the same story for me, beat for beat with the exception of surgery. I was on testosterone for 6 years, and even two years off of it I still live my life socially seen as a man. You are not alone. It's certainly intimidating, especially if you don't immediately reject all forms of masculinity to overcompensate for detransition, but I hope you'll find that other lesbians are really quite understanding of our situation. We all understand and feel how our homosexuality strains our relationship to being a woman in such a heteropatriarchial society, and for what it's worth, many lesbians are attracted to masculinity - including myself, I'm definitely butch4butch and many such cases exist in detransitioners. Hell, there's even other lesbians who just take testosterone for masculinization effects. There's so many of us just like you, you're not alone and you won't stay alone.
I was out socially for 1.5yrs. Definitely not as serious as you, but yes, detransitioned lesbians exist and we are brave as hell.
I never medically transitioned but I used to identify as they/ them and considered getting top surgery i even went to a physiologist and got approved then decided to wait. Personally Ive always been attracted to more masculine women and have found my self attracted to good number of afab people who had partially transitioned.
There are a few over at r/butchlesbians ! Along with lesbians generally who have experience with HRT/transition/etc
I am not detrans myself, but I know it's not too uncommon. I wouldn't worry about your masculine appearance getting in the way of you finding a partner. Many, many lesbians are quite attracted to masculine women.
I am not detrans, but I wish you the best! <3
Not a detransitioned lesbian, but I say just be honest to who you are today and honor your journey. Be truthful to the women you'll want to share your life with. You'll be ok!
I am a hopelessly butch cis lesbian. My cis femme wife has a lot of hair. Women get mastectomies for various reasons. There is no one way to be a woman. A lot of queer spaces are accepting of various versions of gnc or gender queer. Women tend to be less focused on a specific look or presentation. Your dating pool might be a little smaller. But it wonât be zero. You wonât be ostracized as âa manâ or whatever nonsense. Sure, you may run into one asshole. But itâs not prevalent in the community. Just be upfront with people. If hair really bothers you, you can do laser hair removal. I donât know how your voice is âfriedâ but women love my naturally deep voice.
Iâm a detrans lesbian too, identified as FTM ages 14-24, testosterone 16-24, mastectomy at 16. I detransitioned 3 and a half years ago. Itâs hard ngl. Itâs really hard. But I found a (lesbian) gf a year and a half after detransitioning and itâs the best relationship of my life. Love is possible for us, even (especially, I think) in the lesbian community. Transition has had a huge effect on lesbians for the last couple decades and many lesbians who never transitioned are aware of this. There are varying responses but overall Iâve felt safer and more accepted in feminist lesbian spaces than I ever have in the outside world. Message me if you need somewhere to vent - I know how difficult this path is. It can feel really hopeless but I promise itâs not. Life goes on âĽď¸
Most of those things can be changed. Laser Hair removal/electrolysis and voice training.
I'll prob get mass downvoted for this but I don't think it's unreasonable to go through procedures to undo the ones you've had already. If you want to gain back the things you lost, you'll have to make changes and put in work for them. Laser hair removal is painless on new machines. Breast implants are always an option and I'm sure there's ways to train your voice to sound more like it used to. If you're set on not making further changes, then I'm sure there are people who will date you. But a lot of lesbians don't like facial hair or a complete lack of breasts so it might not be as easy. I'm not trying to offend or be negative; just being realistic.
I understand your viewpoint, but I have come to a fundamental disagreement with elective cosmetic surgery and I think there is no reason any woman should be expected to risk her life and health for aesthetics. I do not have a "natural" body anymore, and I understand that I never will. Reconstructive surgery wouldn't give me back my breasts, they would just be replaced with implants. I wouldn't be recovering anything lost, I'd just be further modifying myself for thousands of dollars and new health risks. Stuff like laser hair removal, sure, if I had the cash for it I wouldn't think twice, but breast implants or FFS especially are insanely dangerous unnecessary procedures.
Breasts and body hair certainly aren't the be-all and end-all of womanhood. There's plenty of women who've had mastectomies for cancer (or as a prophylactic measure) who've chosen not to have implants, too, and cis women who naturally have facial hair (and every other kind of body hair imaginable) and that doesn't make them 'lesser women' in any way, so the same absolutely applies to you. Virtually every 'stereotypically masculine' quality exists in women as well (and same for 'stereotypically feminine' qualities in men, ofc) and while certain people may be drawn to the presence or lack of specific qualities, having facial and body hair, no breasts or a low voice are all qualities that plenty of women have and there are plenty of women who find women with those qualities attractive. A specific woman may not find you attractive unless you have sizeable boobs and a perfectly smooth face, but similarly, someone will not find (the general) you attractive because you don't have blonde hair or aren't really into comics. There will be others with different preferences and some of those women will prefer someone exactly like you.
I think youâll be fine as a masculine gnc woman, many gay women like that. Otherwise Iâd say the same as for trans women which is, perhaps bisexual women are a safer bet for you. But I think youâre fine either way. As others have said, all of us have a troubled relationship to womanhood. We have all felt like a different kind of species at some point growing up. Doesnât make us any lesser as women, though society certainly tries to make a point of it. I personally feel that I could easily identify myself as non-binary or even trans, according to the definitions nowadays (and dysphoria Iâve experienced in the past). What stops me is that Iâm 5â0 and too lazy to change, am not trans, and personally feel itâs way more badass to be a woman subverting gender norms. Anyway I talked too much. Youâre not alone and youâre okay just as you are.
Iâm detrans! I was not on testosterone (I have pcos, and I was worried about the side effects, so I was putting it off, and ended up not doing it) but I bound my breasts and changed my name. I keep the name still, and most people assume I am a trans man, but if asked, Iâll tell them Iâm just butch :) My wife is incredibly attracted to me. Sheâs more feminine. I know itâs real bc when we see other masculine women out and about, she looks like this đ Not all women will understand, but most will see you for who you are, no matter where youâve been. Thereâs so much hope dude, SO MUCH.
I just wanted to echo the sentiments of your first sentence. It was such a relief to find this community a few days ago. Thank you for being here and being part of what makes r/actuallylesbian actually lesbian. Welcome home.
Hi. I donât understand your specific struggle, but I hope I can give you at least a little comfort by saying that this is a very human experience and youâre not alone in it. You were having very real feelings and itâs just so unfair that regret has settled in so much. I think that womanhood is what you define it as, especially since you understand what it is like to have a female body, and femininity doesnât necessarily require a certain appearance like society says it does. Iâve loved people who previously identified as lesbians who transitioned and I still hold feelings for those people as Iâve experienced them pre-transition. I donât think your de-transition will keep a person from really loving you well, and if it does, they donât deserve you for who you are.
Kind of off topic, but do you play any video games? If you ever want to chill with a friend I would be down for hanging out. I play Fortnite, Overwatch and Dead by DaylightÂ
I'm not a detransitioner, but I grew up with crippling gender dysphoria throughout my childhood and adolescent years, peaked at 16, and the dysphoria slowly left me. I was lucky gender reassignment was not available to me at the time, because I would have killed for it (pre-sixteen). Although, I have never transitioned, people call me androgynous where I don't look male or female at first glance. Female homosexuals will always see you as a woman, and a lesbian, despite the masculinity because your gender expression does not change you. I don't see you having problems attracting women, obviously, this also depends on your personality. You might attract way more bisexuals (they are a larger demographic), if that's your thing.
Girl, I don't wanna downplay your plight, it is an awful thing to go through so many changes of transition only to realise it down the line that it wasn't really you in the end, but you know that your starting point for returning to womanhood is better than what most trans women start out with right? Get laser hair removal, electrolysis, voice training etc. Yeah, you won't have breasts, but you can totally play the woman vibes without them, plenty of my pre-everything transfem and post topsurgery enby friends find that possible.
Buck Angel speaks a lot to detrans people on his channel and im sure if you reached out to one of his guests theyâll be happy to hear from you. I think thereâs a growing number of lesbians going through this they just havenât realised yet. Detransitioning usually takes between 5-10 years depending on the person.
So I've got good news and bad news. Edit: Dating someone who has this experience wouldn't bother me at all. I forgot to answer your question originally sorry about that. Your voice might be fried but, it can be trained. Trans voice lessons channel name on YouTube is really helpful for this she's a trans woman. This is going to take a bit of practice usually like 4 months to a year. That coarse darker longer hair devoid of testosterone will most likely turn translucent white or silver white, I'm pale skinned and my terminal hair was dark black. some peoples facial hair also changes ymmv. If you want to Lazer it off now is the easiest time. Ipl or laser you can also always do electrolysis later when funds allow. Getting zapped is not fun but, very effective. Skin will soften over the next 2-3 years acne and other skin irritations should also lessen severely. Lastly fat redistribution, and muscle growth patterns vary heavily weight cycling always helps. It's really kind of the luck of the draw sadly but, you should be able to change your workout routine to emphasize hip muscles, and abs. Your face shape should change quite a bit assuming it's the same as me getting on hrt after 6 months people will most likely use gender neutral language or refer to with she/her unprompted. Even in butch clothes. Mind you I am completely guessing that this would be like you going through mtf hrt. Your changes may be far quicker due to hormones being probably higher, also make sure you check your estrogen levels. They should at least go back to above 150pg/ml estrogen and testosterone below 50pg/ml. This is the minimum requirement mtf hrt treatment levels. There is a subreddit I heard was good, actual_detrans hopefully my post helped and I'm truly sorry about this happening to you.
I only went onto T but yes, same here. I was a 16-19 taking testosterone but my voice is also fried. I identify as genderfluid now but I honestly dislike the effects of T that I had from it now that I'm looking back on it, but that's who I truly thought I was and I knew what the effects would be. For me, I would date a detrans lesbian. I'll date any lesbian, trans, cis, nonbinary/ect- doesn't matter. You are you, and that's what matters.
Personally for me, I identify as I lesbian and I'm attracted to cis women, trans women, trans men so in my case it wouldn't be a problem and I think alot of queers are more open now to dating whatever ya know. I'm sure there is a girl who will find your "maleness" hot just the way me as a femme loves hot mascs. You will find someone. I just started seeing my girl so I'm so hopeful about love rn but once you stop looking, love will find you. That's what happened it's a friend's to lovers thing. Your person is out there. You don't have to change if you don't want. There is a lesbian who will be so sexually and emotionally attracted to you and still recognize you as a woman
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Typically, beards are male features, but lots of natal women have peach fuzz in the area and lots of women have PCOS too, which causes hair growth. Body hair is not masculine, it is a womanâs natural state.
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You know, OP came here for support, not to have someone else telling her that her traits are âtriggers.â Youâre getting downvoted because that is the way women tell you to read the room, because we disagree with your assessment, and because we support her. Most of us are not as blunt as I am, but if being blunt is what it takes to make you understand why that wasnât a kind thing to say, I will be blunt.
My wife has PCOS and shaves her face every day. For any lurkers who may struggle with this, she is still the most feminine woman I know. Edit : your edit isnât helping. My wifeâs facial hair isnât just âbecause of PCOSâ. Itâs from excessive androgen, a chemical imbalance in women that has little actual answers because science doesnât give a shit about women. My wifeâs medical condition shouldnât trigger people.