What internalised misandry means

Internalised misandry describes contempt, fear or shame about being male that a boy or man has absorbed from the culture around him and turned against himself. It is the male mirror image of internalised misogyny. The core belief is usually some version of "men are bad": dangerous, gross, crude, predatory, emotionally stunted. If that is what men are, then growing into a man feels like turning into something shameful.

It is not a clinical diagnosis, and no study we know of has measured it directly in people who transition. Some commenters call it androphobia instead. In detransition accounts it comes up again and again as one of the forces behind a male transition, sometimes as the main one. It is easy to miss because it rarely sounds like self-hatred. It can sound like moral seriousness, feminism, or simply "I was never like other boys."

After years of unpacking it all post detransition I feel that my main drive was wanting to be not-a-man and didn't have any understanding of how to channel that feeling besides through wanting to be a woman. —cagedbunny83, detrans male

The phrase "not-a-man" is the key to this page. Many of these accounts describe running away from manhood, not being drawn towards womanhood. In a world that offers two categories, the escape route out of one points to the other.

How it develops

Detransitioned and desisted men (those who stopped identifying as trans without medically transitioning) describe several routes into this way of thinking. Most accounts combine more than one.

Cultural narratives about men

The first route is ordinary cultural messaging, taken literally and personally by a sensitive child. Slogans like "all men are trash", the constant framing of men as the problem, and media in which male characters are either villains or jokes are heard by most boys. Most of them shrug it off. A boy who is already anxious, conscientious or unsure of where he fits may instead conclude that his future self is a monster.

Hearing stuff like "men only want one thing" and "all men are pigs" and "men only think with their penis" and other such stuff really made me hate being a man. Made me feel like others saw me like some kind of rutting animal rather than a human. —EricKeldrev, questioning (formerly non-binary)

A detrans woman made a sharp point about who these messages actually hurt. She argued that blanket hostility towards men barely touches confident, well-placed young men, while landing hardest on the boys who are already on the margins:

It hurts young men who are vulnerable, while having less effect on young men in a strong social position due to health, wealth, stable family backgrounds, other advantages. So I think it's an effective way of kicking down at trans, gay, feminine, autistic, poor, mentally ill, or racially marginalized boys. —Takeshold, detrans female

Family and early environment

Many accounts trace these feelings back to childhood: an absent, cold or abusive father, a household of women who talked about men with contempt, or adults who treated boys as a nuisance and girls as treasures. One detrans man listed what fed his own internalised misandry:

Men are seen as the oppressor class, which helped make me feel ashamed of being male. … My dad, for example, treated women like objects and was all around not a great person. … I used to go to a daycare run by women. They treated me like a disgusting little creature for being a boy, while girls were treated like darling little angels who could do no wrong. —Shiro_L, detrans male

When the only men a child knows up close are frightening or disappointing, "men" can become a category he wants nothing to do with. In some accounts there is also direct abuse by a man. The boy is then left with the confusing knowledge that he belongs to the same sex as his abuser, which is the territory of trauma. cagedbunny83 describes this confusion as "associating the male sex with both victim and perpetrator."

Failing at the masculine hierarchy

The second big route is not hatred of men but the sense of being a failed man. Boys are ranked early on strength, sport, toughness and emotional control. Feminine, small, gentle or late-maturing boys are often bullied with exactly the insult that later becomes an identity: "what are you, a girl?"

My dysphoria was not spawned from a genuine want to be a woman, but from a desperation to escape the confides of 'masculinity' that I felt I had failed at. In my mind I was everything a man shouldn't be; I was sensitive, small, delicate, 'pretty' rather than handsome, uninterested in sport and fond of more 'feminine' fashions. … I'd found refuge in transition because as a 'woman' all of the traits that made me a 'failure' of a man in my mind were all typical for women. —MythicalDawn, detrans male

A detrans woman summed up the logic in one line: "It's easier to be the 'right' version of something else, than to be the 'wrong' version of what you are" (chubblift, detrans female).

Social psychology has a name for the pressure behind this. Precarious manhood research by Vandello, Bosson and colleagues found that people widely see manhood, unlike womanhood, as a status that must be earned and can be lost, and as defined more by social proof than by biology (Vandello et al. 2008). A boy who believes manhood is something he keeps failing a test for, not something he simply is, has a reason to want out of the test altogether.

The bullying is not imagined. In a US cohort of more than 10,000 young people followed from age 12 to 30, childhood gender nonconformity was linked to more bullying and abuse and to higher depressive symptoms, and the victimisation partly explained the depression (Roberts et al. 2013).

Guilt, privilege and politics

A newer route runs through progressive politics. Some young men learn about sexism and male violence and turn that knowledge into personal guilt for having been born male. Transition can then feel like a moral act: leaving the oppressor class.

As shameful as it is to admit, a part of it for me was that i wanted very badly not to be an oppressor and wanted to share in the sisterhood of feminism, without realizing the shallowness and consequences of my idealization. —peacock_00, desisted male

A desisted woman put the pattern bluntly: "They can't stop being white so they seek to stop being men" (SmileRevolutionary82, desisted female). Several detrans women in these threads gently point out the flaw. Recognising that men as a group have caused harm is not the same as being personally guilty of it, and transition does not discharge a moral debt. One desisted woman's advice to a self-hating young man was to "Seperate acknowledging bad things from personal guilt", adding: "You are one fish in a eight billion fish shoal, not Jesus" (spare_eye, desisted female).

Envy of women

Shame about being male often comes with an idealised picture of being female: women seem softer, more loved, more beautiful, more emotionally free, more connected to each other. Commenters call this gender envy or "female envy." One detrans man said plainly that "Envy of women is a common factor in MtF transitions" (UniquelyDefined, detrans male).

I didn't have a positive impression of men in general. I felt like they were ugly, mean, violent, and uncaring. I was a very lonely kid, and I wanted to be loved. It seemed like women could easily be loved, but men were mostly feared or hated. —QueenlyFlux, detrans male

Psychologically, envy works by comparing the best parts of someone else's life with the worst parts of your own. The pattern is the same as the "grass is greener" thinking described on the internalised misogyny page, pointed the other way. Detrans women and detrans men often envied each other's lot for opposite reasons. Women envied men for not being sexualised or dismissed. Men envied women for being allowed softness, beauty and care.

I've always wished I got the attention from men that my close female friends do and they wish the opposite. I think we often only see the good sides of other people's lives and the bad sides of our own. —kornly, detrans male

Envy also shows something about self-worth. One detrans man wrote that "A big part of my dysphoria came from having a very strong feeling of love towards women and a lack of love for myself. Loving myself when I was a woman was easier for me than when I was a man" (verytiredcatto, detrans male). Transition promised a version of himself he was allowed to love.

Transition as an escape

Seen together, these accounts describe transition as a way out of a role more than a move into an identity. What male detransitioners say they were escaping includes:

• Being seen as a threat. Not wanting to be the man a woman crosses the street to avoid, or to be assumed predatory.
• Masculine expectations. Being the provider, the protector, the stoic one; never crying; always competing.
• Male sexuality itself. Feeling that male desire is inherently "gross" or aggressive.
• Adulthood. Some men describe the same fear of growing up that many women describe about becoming adult women.

For me it didn't start right away with a desire to be female, but more a desire to avoid what I saw as masculinity. … I often hear FTMTF folks here saying that a big part of it for them was a desire to "not be an adult woman". For me it was basically that, but just male. I felt really distressed and uncomfortable about what was basically just being a normal adult male. —MyGripingAccount, desisted male

It felt like my only options were to be shamed and stigmatized by nearly everyone my whole life, to pretend to be "manly" (which I couldn't convincingly do for prolonged periods), or to live as a girl in stealth. —HeForeverBleeds, desisted male

The trap is that each option on that list assumes the stereotype is real. If men must be manly, a feminine male must either fake it or leave. The option missing from the list, being a feminine or gentle man openly, is the one many of these men eventually took. It is the theme of gender nonconformity without labels and the critique of gender stereotypes.

Some men describe real relief on estrogen: bullying stopped, people were warmer, they were praised for their looks. A detrans man offered a sober reading of that relief: "If you hated your former self (or your former reflection in the mirror), this acts as a coping mechanism of sorts. This is why many feel better on hrt. Without fixing the original source of hatred/anxiety, the coping provided by hrt will probably be appealing to many of those who try it" (Your_socks, detrans male). Feeling better after a change does not prove the change addressed the cause.

Overlaps with other factors

Internalised misandry rarely shows up alone. Telling it apart from related factors matters, because each calls for a different kind of self-understanding.

Internalised homophobia

This is probably the most common overlap. Same-sex attracted boys are often the most gender-nonconforming and the most bullied. For them, being a man has been made to feel impossible, and being a gay man shameful.

I thought I was trans because I was a feminine gay man, and being a straight woman would be a more desirable existence than being a feminine gay man. To a degree, I still think this, but I now realize that I was running away from something and not truly gender dysphoric. —Mountain-Bug-4865, desisted male

The largest follow-up of gender-referred boys (139 boys assessed around age 7 and followed to about age 20) found that 87.8% no longer had gender dysphoria at follow-up, and most were same-sex or bisexually attracted (Singh, Bradley & Zucker 2021). In Littman's 2021 survey of 100 detransitioners, 23% said difficulty accepting their same-sex attraction was part of why they had transitioned.

Autogynephilia: related but distinct

Discussions of male transition often jump straight to autogynephilia (AGP). Some detrans men do identify AGP as their main driver. Others firmly reject it and describe a non-sexual drive rooted in shame and escape. One desisted man argued that internalised misandry gets overlooked in these discussions:

From what I've seen, internalized misandry is an underrecognized contributing factor for many MtF's. There are numerous things that may influence a male's desire to transition; autogynephilia, watching too much porn, and fetishizing women are commonly brought up. … Though I rarely see internalized misandry being addressed. —HeForeverBleeds, desisted male

For some men the two are tangled together: "I was a abused child who developed a hate for men and was raised with a worldview based in self hate. Combine with autogynephilic and male emasculation fetish" (ccnnvaweueurf, desisted male). Another wrote that his AGP was "built around a core of internal shame of emasculation" (will-I-ever-Be-me, detrans). Separating the two matters in practice. A man who assumes every male transition is a fetish may never look at the shame underneath. A man who denies an obvious erotic component may stay stuck as well.

Depression, autism and social difficulty

Generalised self-hatred tends to attach itself to the most obvious feature of the self. For a depressed boy, "I hate myself" can become "I hate being a boy" without anything being specifically wrong with his sex. One detrans man wrote: "I hated myself so much, I wanted to become someone who was the opposite of me in every way. Obviously, life doesn't work that way" (QueenlyFlux, detrans male).

Autistic boys face a particular problem. Male peer culture runs on unspoken rules about status, banter and toughness, and these can be very hard to decode. A detrans woman observed that "if you're on the spectrum or socially awkward by any means, being socially awkward as a male is really rough" (drink-fast, detrans female). Struggling with male social life can easily be misread as evidence of not "really" being male. One desisted man, now trying to live as male, describes himself as "an autistic and non-straight man who does not fit within hegemonic masculinity" (peacock_00), which names a fit problem with a role, not with a sex.

What the research says, and doesn't

The honest answer is that male detransition is badly under-researched, and internalised misandry has not been studied directly.

• Most detransition samples are overwhelmingly female: 69% in Littman 2021, 92% in Vandenbussche 2022, 91% in Littman et al. 2024, and 78.8% in a 2025 latent class analysis (a statistical method that sorts people into subgroups) of 957 people (MacKinnon et al. 2025). With so few men, any male-specific pattern is hard to see.
• In Littman's 2021 sample (both sexes together), 70% endorsed "not wanting to be associated with their natal sex" as a reason they had wanted to transition, and 38% came to believe their dysphoria was caused by something specific such as trauma or a mental health condition (Littman 2021). Not wanting to be associated with one's sex is close to what this page describes, but the survey did not separate men's answers or ask why.
• In the 78-person sample of Littman et al. 2024, only 7 participants were male, and none of them was exclusively homosexual (compared with 43% of the women). The most common reason given for first identifying as trans was confusing mental health problems or trauma for gender dysphoria.
• Vandenbussche 2022 found that detransitioners reported needing psychological support for internalised homophobia or sexism, among other issues.
• Expósito-Campos 2021 distinguishes core detransition (re-identifying with one's sex) from non-core detransition (stopping for external reasons while still identifying as trans). Men who detransition after recognising self-hatred would typically fall in the first group.

These studies share the usual limitations. They use self-selected online samples, rely on retrospective self-report, and have no comparison groups. Together they suggest that underlying psychological factors are common in detransition. They cannot say how often male self-hatred specifically drives transition. Researchers have repeatedly asked for better, longer-term studies (MacKinnon et al. 2023), and male detransitioners are among the groups those studies most need to reach. See /studies for the full archive.

Trans perspectives

Trans women's views on this are mixed, and they should be stated fairly. Some reject the idea outright that misandry could drive a transition that sticks:

Literally no one would medically transition and be happier as a woman because of misandry or because "life is too hard as a man" , literally not a single soul. —Forsakened_Bia, trans woman (MTF)

Others in the same thread were more open to it. Answering someone worried that the misandry around them was driving their wish to transition, one trans woman suggested stepping away from that environment and trying "to see if your hatred of yourself comes from internalized misandry or from gender dysphoria (it may be both)" (purplebshit, trans woman (MTF)).

Many trans women describe the same experiences detransitioners do, only interpreted differently. They describe being mocked as boys for not being "a successful man", and feeling relief at no longer having to perform masculinity. One wrote: "Not being manly enough, absolutely. Used to be something shameful, now it's a relief" (DPVaughan, trans woman (MTF)). The experience is shared; what differs is the conclusion drawn from it. Detransitioned men describe coming to see that same relief as a sign the problem was the masculine script, not their sex.

Both trans and detrans commenters also note that contempt for masculinity is common in some queer spaces. One non-binary commenter said that "masculinity in these kinds of spaces is treated with disgust and, like, it's something to be avoided" (StarSage69, non-binary). For a boy already ashamed of being male, an online community with that attitude can deepen the shame (see echo chambers and online communities).

Reconciling with being male

Detransitioned and desisted men describe several shifts that helped. None of them is a quick fix; several men describe it as years of work.

Separating sex from stereotype

The most common turning point is realising that being male is a biological fact, while "masculinity" is a set of cultural expectations that can be taken or left.

The problem for me wasn't I'm not a man it's that societies version of what a man is is wrong. —Kooky-Dip, detrans male

Detransitioning for me has involved working through what it is i learned to be a man from my childhood and realizing that as an adult, I could decide what being a man meant to me. That I could still be sensitive, kind, understanding, emotional, and have a feminine side as a man. —EntryRevolutionary37, detrans male

Being a feminine man, openly

Many men found that the traits they had tried to leave behind by transitioning (softness, care about appearance, "feminine" interests) could simply stay. Long hair, painted nails and a gentle manner do not change anyone's sex.

Back when I was trying to force myself to be "100% man", my GD was unbearable … But ever since being like "you know, it's fine that I'm more feminine-leaning and male, those things don't have to be incompatible", I've felt so much lighter. —SuperIsaiah, desisted male

When I first detransed I went right back to being a trad male. then slowly I realized that gender norms are all bullshit. … Now I am a fem man. Not because I want to be feminine, but because the things I happen to like are considered feminine by society (nails, hair, jewelry, etc). —Safe_Direction3512, detrans male

The swing in that second quote is worth noticing: from transition to "trad male" and then to something more natural. Swapping one script for its opposite is a common stage. Several men warn that forcing hyper-masculinity can be as painful as forcing womanhood.

Unlearning "men are monsters"

Accepting that you are male is not the same as accepting that maleness is acceptable. Men who managed the second step describe re-examining their view of men in general:

That feeling for me stemmed from not seeing value in myself as a male and I projected that onto other men. I see the beauty in men as people now in a way I couldn't before. —Sparkling_gourami, detrans male

Practical strategies people describe include:

• Finding male role models who don't fit the stereotype. Gentle, artistic, nurturing or gender-nonconforming men show that the "monster" picture is not the whole picture.
• Taking a break from online spaces that feed the shame. One detrans man advised a struggling peer to "avoid online trans and feminist spaces. Not because they are bad spaces - far from it - but they are bad for you and your mental wellbeing at this moment in time" (cagedbunny83, detrans male).
• Journaling the thoughts directly. Writing out what you like and dislike about men, what you believe being a man requires, and whether it is acceptable to be a feminine man.
• Behaving the way you admire, as a man. A desisted commenter put it this way: "instead of saying 'i have to look like a girl to be treated softly or kindly', just start being a soft and kind man, and people will pick that up" (portaux, desisted).
• Therapy that explores causes instead of affirming conclusions. See gender-exploratory therapy and the support directory.

Since detransitioning I have learned that being a male does not automatically mean you will be an abuser, and it is not something I should apologize for. —5nine8, detrans male

When it doesn't fully resolve

This should not be made to sound easy. Some men detransition, accept their sex, and still struggle years later to see it as anything good.

I've detransitioned and accepted I am my sex but I've never managed to accept my sex as anything positive. … I've spent my entire adult life making conscious efforts to present myself in such a way that I can be perceived on sight to be non-masculine and non-threatening. —cagedbunny83, detrans male

The same man described what helped him partway. He kept "boy" as his main self-description well into adulthood, because "man" carried so much negative weight, while still accepting the label "male." His experience is a reminder that detransition is not automatically a cure. The shame that drove the transition is still there afterwards and still needs care, as covered on healing and recovery and mental health. Physical recovery after stopping hormones is covered on estrogen cessation.

Questions worth asking

For a young man who is questioning, these questions come up repeatedly in the accounts above. They are prompts for reflection, not a diagnostic test:

• Is the wish mostly towards being a woman, or mostly away from being a man?
• If the bullying, the expectations and the "men are bad" messages disappeared, would the wish remain?
• Which specific things about women do you envy, and could you have them as a man (softness, beauty, close friendships, being cared for)?
• Do you feel ashamed of being attracted to men, or of being a feminine man? (See internalised homophobia.)
• Is there a sexual element that you have been avoiding looking at? (See autogynephilia.)

Personal accounts from male detransitioners are also available in the video archive, and desistance covers men who resolved these feelings without medical transition.

References

• Expósito-Campos, P. (2021). A Typology of Gender Detransition and Its Implications for Healthcare Providers. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. study page, source.
• Littman, L. (2021). Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners. Archives of Sexual Behavior. study page, source.
• Littman, L., O'Malley, S., Kerschner, H. & Bailey, J. M. (2024). Detransition and Desistance Among Previously Trans-Identified Young Adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 53(1), 57–76. study page, source.
• MacKinnon, K. R., Expósito-Campos, P. & Gould, W. A. (2023). Detransition needs further understanding, not controversy. BMJ. study page, source.
• MacKinnon, K. R., Khan, N., Newman, K., Expósito-Campos, P., Gould, W. A., Pullen Sansfaçon, A., Rudd, S. & Lam, J. S. H. (2025). A Latent Class Analysis of Interrupted Gender Transitions and Detransitions in the USA and Canada. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 54, 4077–4100. source.
• Roberts, A. L. et al. (2013). Childhood gender nonconformity, bullying victimization, and depressive symptoms across adolescence and early adulthood: an 11-year longitudinal study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. source.
• Singh, D., Bradley, S. J. & Zucker, K. J. (2021). A Follow-Up Study of Boys With Gender Identity Disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry. study page, source.
• Vandello, J. A., Bosson, J. K., Cohen, D., Burnaford, R. M. & Weaver, J. R. (2008). Precarious Manhood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. source.
• Vandenbussche, E. (2022). Detransition-Related Needs and Support: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey. Journal of Homosexuality. study page, source.