My Detransition: How it happened
Two years as “Tina” left me broke, jobless, and terrified of mirrors. Detransition wasn’t betrayal—it was survival. Transition isn’t always liberation; sometimes it’s a trap we need the courage to leave.
Overview
Martin Rei recounts how a single 2015 encounter with a transitioned classmate launched him into two years living as “Tina,” first online then in daily life. After mounting anxiety about never passing, job loss, and financial barriers to hormones, he detransitioned in early 2018, finding relief in the simple freedom of being male again.
Full Video Summary
Martin Rei begins his story by recalling the moment that first sparked his transgender identification: on 13 November 2015 he unexpectedly met a former male classmate who had transitioned into a woman. Until that encounter, Martin admits he had only encountered “trans” as a distant, almost exotic concept on American reality TV or in pornography, and the real-life example upended his assumptions. Almost immediately, he created the female persona “Tina” and began living as her first on the internet, where he found quick affirmation—“They saw me as a girl, like all the other ones.” Encouraged by this online acceptance, he moved to real-world experimentation: thigh-high stockings, skirts, dresses, and makeup. The initial rush felt “like falling in love all over again, but with myself,” a dramatic reversal from the self-hatred and depression he had felt before. The first eighteen months as Tina were largely positive. Strangers and friends mostly accepted him, and although his father ignored him, the overall social climate buoyed his confidence. Yet by 2017 the emotional tide turned. Martin noticed he no longer saw “that beautiful girl” in the mirror; instead he became increasingly paranoid about being read as male, felt he “never really passed well,” and grew insecure when strangers called him a boy. Financial and logistical barriers compounded the distress: he lost his janitorial job because the work felt “too masculine,” could not afford required medical appointments or sperm-bank prerequisites, and spiraled into unemployment and isolation. Attempts to rekindle early euphoria—applying to jobs as “the last cutie,” forcing hyper-feminine presentation in interviews—only deepened his depression and convinced him he lacked the motivation to keep performing womanhood. The decisive shift came during a temporary stay in his brother’s apartment in January 2018. With time alone to reflect, Martin cut his hair short and stepped outside as a man again. The mundane act of spontaneously buying a drink without the hour-long preparation once demanded by “Tina” crystallized how much anxiety had controlled his life. He emphasizes that life as a boy now feels “normal,” free of the paranoia that had become routine. Although he remains open to the possibility of future transition—“maybe it was just something I had to do”—he expresses no regret and insists he is not prescribing detransition for anyone else; his current girlfriend is trans and he respects the courage transition requires. At the time of recording, most friends and family still believe he is Tina, so Martin faces the new challenge of re-introducing himself to the world, yet he concludes that, whatever name or gender he inhabits, “I’m still myself.”