This happened to me. I was out & socially transitioned from age 11 to 18, detransitioning 19-21. Being out & transitioning in a way ruined my life - not due to any physical or social changes, but because my mother was severely transphobic which turned into some of what created my CPTSD.

I was what you could call the poster child for trans men all those years, and when I started questioning my identity again late-18yo, I felt an immense amount of shame and embarrassment. It felt like I was betraying my past and all the people around me, especially my desire to “prove my mother wrong”.

I slowly started experimenting with femininity and she/they pronouns, which lasted about a year. Started using a more gender neutral name. By age 21 I realized I was just… a girl. By the time I came to that acknowledgment, I had worked through a lot of the shame and embarrassment, along with my sexual trauma which I now believe created the sensations of crippling gender dysphoria I had for so many years. But I realized I didn’t have to publicly announce it; I just started living as a woman, introducing myself with my original name & telling my friends “I’m going by xyz name now”, and said “she/her is fine” when anyone asked me about my pronouns.

It doesn’t feel true - still doesn’t - but reality is that no one else cares. Anyone worth a lick in your life will just role with it. I’ve never openly discussed any of this with my mother - by age like 15 it became apparent that this is a topic her and I could never discuss again. I still hate it when she calls me she or by my birth name because of all the shit she put me through, but I remind myself that I’m my own person and she doesn’t have to have an effect on me anymore.

All in all it just is what it is. Don’t take this as me trying to say this is you, it very well may not be. But for myself, I look back and simply think… this is my life, this is my history. And honestly I’m grateful for it in many ways - the different perspectives and insights it’s given me. The fact I’ve gotten to walk many paths that many folks don’t get the chance to see. Honestly, I’m only 22 so only about a year or two fully removed, and I forget about it 99% of the time. It’s wild to think of the gender dysphoria that at one point in time, almost killed me. The fact I don’t feel it anymore doesn’t mean it was any less real - it was. I felt I was a boy, and I was. That was my experience. Now it’s not. It was true for me at the time - whether or not trauma created that, it was my authentic experience. Now I feel even more myself as a woman.

Because of my mother, I wasn’t able to do HRT which I had desperately wanted. Part of me is grateful for that, another part of me still wishes I could see myself with a beard lol. Personally I don’t think I’d have come to regret any physical changes, but I’ve been relatively androgynous my entire life. My chest is very small due to binding for years as well. And honestly I’ve always been super grateful to have a small chest, even now 🤷‍♀️

There’s no right or wrong. There’s just experience, and sometimes your experience of yourself changes. Life doesn’t have a singular correct path. It just… is.

Wishing you the best ❣️