What made you realize you are a woman?

[Keaira]

About the best way I can describe how I knew I was transgender is like this.

Imagine leaving your home one day and having this nagging feeling like something was wrong. A little voice in the back of your mind constantly reminding you that something is wrong. Did you leave the oven on? did you remember to set the VCR to record your favorite show? Did you leave a light on? Imagine it if you will, that this feeling is always there, telling you are a girl. No matter what you do, no matter what anyone else says or does to get you to believe otherwise, it is there, like an itch you can never scratch.

[pretty]

I like rainy days. A lot of people don't, but they are just wonderful to me. I can't tell ya why, just always liked 'em. Also I feel like a woman, not a man. Okay, welp, there's that.

[jamie nicole]

About the best way I can describe how I knew I was transgender is like this.

Imagine leaving your home one day and having this nagging feeling like something was wrong. A little voice in the back of your mind constantly reminding you that something is wrong. Did you leave the oven on? did you remember to set the VCR to record your favorite show? Did you leave a light on? Imagine it if you will, that this feeling is always there, telling you are a girl. No matter what you do, no matter what anyone else says or does to get you to believe otherwise, it is there, like an itch you can never scratch.

not wrong.....never ever wrong!!!   different would be a better adjective

[Lee]

I hope you don't mind me popping in from the other side of things. 

I didn't grow up identifying as a boy.  However, I have felt wrong since the age of about 12-13.  I thought it was just my imagination or something everyone deals with, but the more steps I take towards transitioning the less wrong I feel.

[Lisbeth]

I have heard people say they "were" a transsexual and now they are a woman.  They do not deny their past.  They will tell me they lived as a man and now they feel more comfortable living as a woman.  They are no longer a transsexual but a woman.

This way of thinking makes no sense to me. Either words have meaning or they don't. Such people are stripping away all meaning from the word.

trans·sex·u·al: (noun /tran(s)ˈsekSHo͞oəl/ transexuals, plural; transsexuals, plural)
1.    A person born with the physical characteristics of one sex who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex
2.    A person who has undergone surgery and hormone treatment in order to acquire the physical characteristics of the opposite sex
adjective /tran(s)ˈsekSHo͞oəl/ 
Of or relating to such a person

This term has evolved and because of its sexual connotation has been largely replaced with more user friendly and all encompassing transgender which directly explains within its makeup the gender issue.

Nevertheless, there are people who wave the transsexual flag and want to put up a wall rejecting "transgender."

[Maga Girl]

I know in the same way that I know anything else:  because all evidence to the contrary has been disproven.

I tried to be male:  FAIL

I tried to be androgyne:  Mostly FAIL

I tried to bury dysphoria and forget about it:  Complete and Total FAIL

I tried to be male again:  FAIL

I accepted the fact that my desire to be female will never go away:  WIN

This is my life

I am a transsexual. There is no way to deny it. I fit all of the criteria of the medical definition. And I don't agree with people who say, "I'm a woman, not a trans-anything." I say you're wrong because you are trying to deny and erase the past. That way lies neurosis, like your life before came out. Get over it; you have to live with your past. Can't do that by hiding from it.
You ask the same thing my son asked me when I came out to him (he was 12 at the time): "How do you know you want to be a girl, and aren't just a boy who likes girl things?"

I agree.

me too

I want to "pounded"

I don't understand this in spanish 

[Cindy]

I'm not, I am a woman.

Hate these threads
Cindy

[LilKittyCatZoey]

I'm not, I am a woman.

Hate these threads
Cindy

I completely agree with you Cindy

[kate durcal]

I don't understand this "punded" in spanish 

"Pounded" Having sex in wild way, being penetrated hard and long. Los mejicanos diran "darle una chingada monumental", los venzolanos dirian "cogerla duro", los ecuatorianos dirian "darle una culetisa,"  de donde eres?

Kate D

[Eleanor]

Why do I know I'm a girl despite the body that I was born into? I could cite dozens of reasons. The sense of kinship I've felt with female characters and other girls since before I was even old enough to know the differences between girls and boys. The strange, sickening feeling I've had in the pit of my stomach my whole life when anyone refers to me as a boy and when I have to tick 'male' as my gender on forms. The absolute horror and revulsion I felt as my own body seemed to turn against my during puberty, and my longing when I looked at my increasingly beautiful, feminine female friends not to be with them, but to be them. My secret joy when people frequently likened parts of my character and habits to those of a girl...

More than all of that, though, I need only look to my own heart to know that what I am doing is right for me. I was morbid and melancholy as a child, and suicidally depressed as a teen. I bounced in and out of various psychiatric facilities, saw a half dozen school counselors and psychiatrists, tried god knows how many different medications... And nothing helped. Not one thing made me feel even a little bit better. In time, I learned to tune out my suicidal feelings and to live with my crushing depression. There were even moments where I could manage a smile, largely due to my being extremely fortuitous and meeting some utterly wonderful people. Still, I was always one step away from complete meltdown, and nothing took away the black cloud hanging over my head. Nothing, at least, until I came out to my best friend one rainy morning this January. As I sat sobbing on her sofa and telling her things I had never told anyone before, I felt twenty-five years worth of fear, doubt and anxiety lift off my shoulders. And when I came out of the doctor's office that afternoon having put the first stages of my transition into motion, the smile I showed to that same friend felt like the first time I had really smiled in my whole life. Though the next few weeks were filled with a series of mad adventures through female clothing, makeup, name changes, coming out to everyone under the sun, going to classes in a skirt, and all sorts of terrifying inbetweens, that smile...sort of never left my face. Actually, it's still there as I'm writing this.

How do I know I'm a girl, and that the difficult road I'm embarking upon is the right one? Because setting off down it has made me happy for the first time in my life.

[Keaira]

not wrong.....never ever wrong!!!   different would be a better adjective

I suppose so, lol. But I think that depends on the person and situation. I mean do you feel trapped in the wrong body or a different body?
All I know is that I am starting to feel right. :p

[AbraCadabra]

I do actually feel (at present?) with Lisbeth,

AND more so, when I KNOW I AM/BEEN/WAS CLOCKED.

Moving about in such situation, just maintaining  I AM A WOMAN = GG, becomes a very insecure place for me to be. It tastes of denial... to me. YMMV

I know I'm a woman, been growing up some? I hope! Yet I also know I AM A TRANSSEXUAL woman, a trans-woman.
To push this aside is going into denial (for me) and that spells neurosis, plus more back into hiding as I did all my life in boy-guise.

Going out of one prison cell - marching straight into another?! Not really. PLEASE!

I can not say NOW, how I'll change once I had SRS. Time will tell.
But as still being pre-op? I have to concede to be transsexual, and I do not need a mirror for that either.

So, I'd love, LOVE, LOOOOOOOOVE having been born a natural, genetic female, alas I AM NOT.
ALL other notions to trick my self-knowing will lead into problems. Self-denial, neurosis here I come.
It does not even have to do with ANY dictionary definitions, neither my understanding nor my actual looks. Even AFTER SRS I shall have the scars to tell...
What is, IS.

Yet..... "It is a woman's prerogative to change her mind"... time will tell, won't it?
And in the end --- it is all the mind :-)

Axelle

[drkiara]

ok I might be wrong on this but after reading everyones post on this I think alot of you mis understood what she was trying to ask I think it would be better to put it is as "What made you relize you were transsexual?" Was it something major in your life that made you relize it or was it a bunch of little things that built up and made you relize or have you always relized it and just hid it form yourself?  I also noticed she is spanish and it probly got mixed up in translation. 

Now it might just be but with some of the post made here it seems this ? made a few ppl angry and if i was the one asking the ? and got some of these replys personally i would feel attacked (keep in mind this is my personally option not saying anyone is attacking her it just seems that way to me)

[LilKittyCatZoey]

ok I might be wrong on this but after reading everyones post on this I think alot of you mis understood what she was trying to ask I think it would be better to put it is as "What made you relize you were transsexual?" Was it something major in your life that made you relize it or was it a bunch of little things that built up and made you relize or have you always relized it and just hid it form yourself?  I also noticed she is spanish and it probly got mixed up in translation. 

Now it might just be but with some of the post made here it seems this ? made a few ppl angry and if i was the one asking the ? and got some of these replys personally i would feel attacked (keep in mind this is my personally option not saying anyone is attacking her it just seems that way to me)

exactly and i said i dont think of myself as transsexual, just a girl in fact i never once said in person i am a transsexual its always been i am a girl.

[AbraCadabra]

OK, what made me realize it?

I had a major breakdown one early morning 26. Feb. 2010 (in shrink talk: an epiphany), and I realized I am woman! Whaaat?
It was an absolutely a crazy experience and my mind started to argue with myself. Like, can't be! Yes you are! Nuts! No that's it. etc etc. But once that happened THAT WAS IT.
All other explanations followed that initial "earthquake", like house of cards collapsing, endless crying fits, the only alternative now, to be who I actually am, was to end my life, etc. etc.

At that stage I did not even know the words transsexual, or transgender, nothing --- that came later when trying to put a suitable label to my situation.

Axelle

[drkiara]

OK, what made me realize it?

I had a major breakdown one early morning 26. Feb. 2010 (in shrink talk: an epiphany), and I realized I am woman! Whaaat?
It was an absolutely a crazy experience and my mind started to argue with myself. Like, can't be! Yes you are! Nuts! No that's it. etc etc. But once that happened THAT WAS IT.
All other explanations followed that initial "earthquake", like house of cards collapsing, endless crying fits, the only alternative now, to be who I actually am, was to end my life, etc. etc.

At that stage I did not even know the words transsexual, or transgender, nothing --- that came later when trying to put a suitable label to my situation.

Axelle

looks like you started a war inside yourself that day but its seems you have ended the war and came to peace with it and i am gald you didnt end your life
my story started when i was young i used to always have dreams where in the whole dream i was a girl they started back when i would say around 7 years old at first i didnt think anything of it cuz i always had crazy weird dreams but years later the dreams were happening more and more often then around the age of 13 i was at party and were playing truth or dare and i got dared by this girl to switch cloths with her for the rest of the night (fully all cloths panties bra everything) i took the dare (sucker for a dare i just cant back down form them) but anyways after being in her cloths for awhile they really seemed comfortable well more comfortable then what i was wearing that day (black baggy metallica shirt with a pair of tripps) after we all got bored with the game the girls desided they wanted to have fun and give me a make over seems how i was still wearing her cloths and most of the other guys had already took off so they went all out on it nails(both finger and toe) make-up my hair by time they were all done they took me to the mirror and i was like damn i am hot i really didnt believe i was looking at myslef in the mirror it didnt look like me at all at this moment i really liked how i looked the night ended up being a girls night i was the only guy there and i just went with it did girlie things and i enjoyed it after that night the dreams were happening all the time and i started wearing girl jeans and shirts and what not now at this time i also didnt know the words transsexual or transgender so i was really confused i didnt even know it was possible for a guy to become a girl i didnt fully relieze i was transgender till i was about 20 but even then i denied it i was still confused i tried hidding it but my mind subconsially started picking up on female trait with out me even noticing them and this past year i finally gave in and told my mother and sister they both told me that they kind of already knew and saw it coming they were just waiting for me to come out to them over the past year they both have been very supportive and have even gone shopping with me for cloths and make-up stuff like that (i really own about three times as many female cloths as male cloths) and i dont even go into girl mode that much i try to as often as i can i would do it more but my mothers husband does not accept it and has given me ->-bleeped-<- about it he says ->-bleeped-<- like i am confused and i dont really dont know what i want in life i am to young to know what i really want in my life but i have been going into girl mode alot more and have even a few times gone out in girl mode fully dressed up and have desided if i can pass without hrt i will have no prob doing it after being on hrt so really i reliezed i was around the age of 16 but hid and didnt come out till age 21 wish i would have came out alot sooner tho


sorry for the long post and all the bad grammer and all that i am half asleep and should probly go to bed lol

[wendy]

OK, what made me realize it?

I had a major breakdown one early morning 26. Feb. 2010 (in shrink talk: an epiphany), and I realized I am woman! Whaaat?
It was an absolutely a crazy experience and my mind started to argue with myself. Like, can't be! Yes you are! Nuts! No that's it. etc etc. But once that happened THAT WAS IT.
All other explanations followed that initial "earthquake", like house of cards collapsing, endless crying fits, the only alternative now, to be who I actually am, was to end my life, etc. etc.

At that stage I did not even know the words transsexual, or transgender, nothing --- that came later when trying to put a suitable label to my situation.

Axelle

I never tried to end my life or I would not be here but freaking arguing in my head never stops!  I have become very unproductive!

This way of thinking makes no sense to me. Either words have meaning or they don't. Such people are stripping away all meaning from the word.

trans·sex·u·al: (noun /tran(s)ˈsekSHo͞oəl/ transexuals, plural; transsexuals, plural)
1.    A person born with the physical characteristics of one sex who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex
2.    A person who has undergone surgery and hormone treatment in order to acquire the physical characteristics of the opposite sex
adjective /tran(s)ˈsekSHo͞oəl/ 
Of or relating to such a person
Nevertheless, there are people who wave the transsexual flag and want to put up a wall rejecting "transgender."

Actually I can see reasoning from either point of view.  If a person gets to point of being treated as a woman through transition and are legally a woman then they "used to be a transsexual". 

Now if a person does surgeries and hormone treatment they are by definition a transsexual. 

Problem surrounds word "transsexual".  It has very negative connotations by society.  Actually it is neither good or bad.  It just is a fact of nature.  It is not even logical.  Nature love diversity and society hates diversity.

Recently I started doing things that express myself in society.  I live in a liberal part of country and people noticed me and tended to start whispering to their friends; however, when I engage other humans they refer to me as a male.

It is totally fine if you transitioned from male to female and considered yourself transsexual only in between genders.  I prefer to not be a transsexual at any time.  Condition bothered me when I started public school.

[latingrl]

When I was in my crossdressing phase and going out I had more in common with my T friends than my crossdressing friends and realized this is who I am.

[Ann Onymous]

Nevertheless, there are people who wave the transsexual flag and want to put up a wall rejecting "transgender."

And I dare say that for those of us who had our medical condition resolved, we damned well earned the right to reject certain labels that don't apply to us...

[ravij]

I knew something wasn't right when I started puberty. I knew of the word, but I didn't actually know what a transsexual was until a few years ago.