I think it's important you look into why you keep thinking about detransition before pursuing it. As in for example if it's because you're simply disappointed with your transition but still identify as a gender different from your birth sex? If so, try to adapt a more realistic view of it and see if that could be something you could work with. Or if it's because of your environment being unaccepting/unhealthy? Then there might be other solutions than detransition, such as moving or finding support. Or if it's you thinking you might actually want to live as your birth sex again and/or your identity is changing? If so, then looking more deeply into those feelings would be good.
These are controversal opinions but they come from actual people's real experiences that I have heard about and I say them with all good intentions to help you:
- Sometimes transitioning is not enough to treat someone's dysphoria. Some who experienced that decided to detransition, others did not. Additional therapy while continuing to transition could be helpful and something you might wanna look into.
- Some people who detransition still have dysphoria but still prefer to live as their birth sex and not continue transition, they prefer to try to treat it in other ways. Like regular therapy, meditation, etc. I know it is said that transition is the only treatment for dysphoria, but there are lots of people out there who find other ways. That is (as far as I know) usually not a very happy route but it works better than transition for some people.
- It could also be that your dysphoria is actually something else and that's why you feel like transitioning isn't helping. As in you mind need a different kind of treatment if you have a different kind of medical condition that disguises itself as dysphoria. Then I'd suggest you look into if your body-mind disconnect could be due to something else. Listen to your unwanted thoughts and feelings, listen to your gut, and hear them out, what are they trying to tell you?
- Not as controversal but you could also be struggling with other things additionally to gender dysphoria. Things such as ptsd, depression, anxiety, etc often need to be treated seperately even if they're related to your dysphoria and/or being trans.
I will also say this, that even though detransition might seem like an "easier option" it actually really is not. Although it of course highly depends on things like how accepted/supported you are, how far you've gone in your transition, if you have regrets about transition changes you've made or not, if you can still pass as your birth sex or not, and so on. But in my particular case, detransitioning is a nightmare like no other and living as a trans man was a rosegarden in comparison to living as a detrans woman. But I can't go back to transitioning, cause I'm not a man, I was never transgender and I love being a woman now. Sometimes our options just suck.
"Going back" is not the same as being pre-transition at all. And it never can be the same. You are forever changed. Some things may not be reversible, whether you'd want to reverse them or not, you'd have to reconcile with them. You'll likely still be faced with transphobia because of looking different and people are judgemental. People will call you broken, a failure, and try to use you as an example of why "trans people are crazy, mentally ill, are making a mistake" etc. You may very likely grieve. There is no community or known support for detrans people, especially if you're amab (for afab the radical feminist community, aka "terfs" are supportive and welcoming) however some parts of the trans community may still welcome you. If you think you can detransition without support: you can't. Doctors are incredibly bad at properly treating detrans people, both medically and communication-wise, caus they're very ignorant on that point. There is very little information to find. It's very lonely. Dating is a nightmare. So please keep that in mind and don't kid yourself that detransition would somehow be better, cause it can actually be worse, much worse. I'm not saying that to scare you, I just want for you to be realistic about it. Of course even that can be overcome and you can absolutely find happiness as a detransitioned person too, but for many that is a very harsh road and not at all easier than finding happiness as a transitioning person.
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I know my story is not applicable to everyone with doubts, but somewtimes it helps people to hear it cause it's one detrans perspective that can give you ideas about your own situation no matter how different or similar it may be.
I went the female-to-male route, am afab. During my transition it felt very right, I had a lot of dysphoria about my female body traits/parts and envisioned I'd be more at peace with my body if it was male or at least closer to male. However I had too high expectations of hrt (testosterone) and got disappointed by it. Being on hrt reduced some of my dysphoria (and gave me some euphoria) but much of it remained.
I got recurring fears of detransition and I wondered always somewhere in the back of my mind if maybe my dysphoria was not the gender kind but all due to my past traumas, i.e. body dysmorphia. But it felt so much like actual GD, I had been properly diagnosed with GID and I thought I had already sorted out which of it was trauma related and which of it was not, and that I had figured out long ago that I simply had both.
I felt good being and looking like a man, it felt comforting and empowering, relieving. It felt very "me" and I could not imagine myself as a woman at all. But I was unknowingly running away. The more time I was on hrt and the more permanent changes I got from it, the more scared of detransition I got, and kept brushing my doubts under the carpet, basically.
Years went. I had top surgery, thinking that was the best decision cause I felt horrible about having breasts and couldn't manage without my binder. There was no reason to think I would regret it, but I did. I bottled those feelings and tried my best to just "get used to it", thought it was some kind of "post-op dysphoria" going on that would go away with time. To some degree I did manage to convince myself that I liked my chest being flat and that it was gender affirming. The result itself was good, in my eyes, but I couldn't get away from the feeling that it simply wasn't right. Some abstract feeling just chafed.
Another 4 years went on like that until I started to notice my "dysphoria" was healing in ways that were unrelated to my transitioning. I was unknowingly healing it, and connecting to my still remaining female parts, by looking into my past traumas. I spent one evening writing it all down, every doubt, and then read it through. It all clicked with me and I knew from then on I never had actual dysphoria, and that the treatment I should have gotten was therapy... not hrt and surgery. I started detransitioning pretty much right away after I had discovered that.
My pseudo-dysphoria kept healing away. Now at almost 5 months into my detransition I love most of my body just the way it it, except I feel terrible about my chest and am looking into getting breast reconstruction. I stopped taking testosterone, changed my name again and am looking into getting my legal gender marker changed back to female, but don't wish to reverse any of the permanent changes I got from the hrt. I've connected to being female and embraced being a woman, something I never thought would or ever could happen. But I'm still struggling a lot, socially and with my body. I had lived as a trans man for 9 years prior.
Just to give you some thoughts and my perspective on it. Take from it what you wish. I'm having one of my "worse" days so if I sound very bitter and sad that's probably why. I'm not always quite this whiny/harsh but what I brought up is still very real and part of my life.
