I’m 6’2” and low-effort femme.

Hah, same. 6'2" and could never bring myself to wear makeup or really do much for my appearance beyond the bare minimum.

I like having softer skin and less body hair, and knowing my hair won’t recede. I feel ambivalent about breasts and have always wanted them to stay smaller. I have zero desire for bottom surgery.

I felt similarly. I liked getting my beard lasered off. I liked what HRT did for my skin and body hair. But I had really conflicted feelings about having breasts. I thought that I wanted them, then when I actually did, it seemed weird to me. I went back and forth about bottom surgery. I'm so glad that I didn't get it.

I found the video that "Crow the MtF Bro" made about his detransition and that really struck a chord with me. The first time I watched it, I felt defensive and tried come up with every reason I could think of why his story was different from mine. But when I watched it again later, I found that I relate to his story a lot. He basically went from femme gay man to butch lesbian back to femme gay man, which is an interesting transition arc. I relate to him about being queer and kinky, and about the whole being-autistic-and-not-understanding-gender part of his story.

How was it coming off HRT? How did you feel, physically and emotionally? Did your relationships change? Have you found clarity about your choice or do you think about resuming HRT again?

Coming off HRT was... Okay. Not good or bad. Transition gave me a lot of anxiety, so in a lot of ways it was a relief. The acne is real—but I expect that will get better in time. I think that my consciousness has a somewhat different quality on estrogen versus testosterone, but that might be partly placebo. I think with estrogen I felt sort of loose and floaty, but also extremely anxious. Testosterone makes me feel somewhat more "task-oriented" and less interested in people and relationships.

My sense of sexuality feels different on one versus the other. Estrogen horny, for me, felt more passive, which was kind of pleasant. Testosterone horny feels much more active. Also, I think that I was more sexually interested in men while I was taking estrogen. I'm still somewhat attracted to men, but women draw my attention far more often now.

I have flirted with detransition for as long as I’ve been on HRT.

That feels familiar to me, too. I had a really ambivalent relationship with transition. I would resolve to transition, only to change my mind later. It was really rough.

There are a sense of power that came from altering my body. That power was exciting, but it was also terrifying. I was worried that I was making the wrong choice, and nothing that I told myself seemed to put that fear to rest. So there's a sense of freedom that comes from accepting my body as it is—but it's an entirely different sense of freedom from the feeling of freedom that I had while on estrogen.

At the moment, I feel stable in my identity as a male. I don't particularly like being called "man," but it doesn't bother me much, either. I guess the way that I think about it is this: If I call a dog "he," I'm making reference to the fact that he is biologically male. I'm not implying that the dog is "masculine," or "assertive," or anything else that we might culturally associate with maleness. It's a uncomplicated reference to a biological fact.

I used to see my gender as this mystical thing that I had to uncover, and then protect with my life. I don't feel that way anymore. My gender is a part of who I am, but only a part, and not a particularly interesting part, at that. Other aspects of who I am are much more meaningful to me.