Childhood memories related to being born in the wrong body?

[insideontheoutside]

Ok this might turn into a really long post!

I have plenty of memories that people who fit either/or (male or female) mold wouldn't quite understand. I understand that all children get concepts about male and female from an early age from adults and just living in the world. They also get it from experimentation with other children (the typical "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" thing). I remember participating in something like that with another boy and I think we were probably 7 or so because it was during pre-school. We went into the bathroom and into a stall and he dropped his pants and I dropped mine and then he said, "you ARE a boy!" But after a few seconds of staring at me I remember the puzzled look on his face when he said something like "you don't have all the parts" or that I looked different. I think he was thoroughly confused about me after that. We both agreed to keep what we'd done a secret though so the adults didn't find out my own secret either.

As for me thinking early on I was actually in the wrong body - that isn't how I'd put it exactly. I just had the feeling my body wasn't "right" (I know right is the opposite of wrong to most but ...) That I missed out on the parts department and was deformed or whatever. I definitely always knew that I was not a girl - no matter what the other people thought. I felt so out of place being involved with girl anything. I had a short stint in girl scouts thanks to my mother - that was a disaster. Seriously, imagine a 9 year old boy infiltrating girl scouts and you pretty much have how that went down! There was also softball (I couldn't play baseball like I wanted because they wouldn't let "girls" on the team) and soccer. Both of those I was very good at, but played it rough too and every other girl on either of those teams knew I was "different", but they ran with it because I was a good player. I had one disastrous week at a camp when I was around 11. I even told my parents I didn't want to go but they urged me to saying that it would be a "good experience". Honestly I don't know how they could have thought that. The first thing they did of course was separate the boys and girls. So I had to spend an entire week couped up with like 30 squealing, annoying 11-13 year old girls. That was one of the most miserable weeks of my life. Worst part? They made all the kids take showers nightly of course and of course it was the big cattle call shower with like 8 faucets just jutting out of the wall and they expected everyone to just strip down and get in it. Most did of course. The first night I was about to go into a panic over it. I tried telling one of the counselor ladies that I could not take a shower with these girls. She actually kind of laughed at me and basically told me to get over my "shyness" that they all had the "same parts" (whoops, wrong!) I tried hiding out in my bunk but the same lady came by and basically told me I had to get in there and there were no other options. So holding back tears I got undressed under a towel that I had wrapped around myself and went in the shower wearing the towel. No one was going to take it off me either. All the girls laughed at me (except for one - who was also having a problem with the whole communal shower thing - and from that day until the end of the wretched camp also wore a towel into the shower). I overheard a few of the girls say, "she's really a HE that's why!" while giggling to their friends.

It was just the next year after that when my mom carted me off to her doctor and unbeknownst to me at the time had him give me some sort of estrogen precursor (it was a series of shots and to this day I don't know exactly what they gave me and all I could get out of my mother later on was that they were concerned I would not end up looking female if I went through a natural puberty - gotta love ->-bleeped-<- doctors and parents with misplaced "concerns"). That went on for a number of months until I basically just had a nervous breakdown and told my mom I hated what was happening to me (enter "the moobs") and I didn't even want to live. From there on out, I was left alone by that doctor but my mom continued now and then to try to get me to do girl things like wear make up or wear my hair a certain way or wear skirts or dresses. By the way, I was so uncomfortable with the "moobs" that I developed permanent hunched shoulders and also went through a whole phase of baggy clothing in an attempt to hide the awful things. My mom dragging me off to have a "bra fitting" goes down as one of the more humiliating experiences of my life that didn't involve doctors. My mom did take me to a therapist a couple times. That was a disaster as well.

Puberty was exponentially awful. The entire time I kept thinking in my head, oh my god I'm a "chick with a dick" - that is how I'm going to have to live the rest of my life. I was pretty depressed. I still looked male (remember I went out of my way to hide the "moobs") but my high school wasn't all that big so everyone in my classes knew I was "female". I did get picked on by some people because I did not look like a girl. Probably around this time I did entertain thoughts that I had been born into the wrong body but I had no idea what transsexualism was either at that time.

[AprilAero]

I was in 10th or 11th grade , and I was there after school, I liked to hang out there after school, well one day I was there and this guy came up to me and said if you ever had a sex change that I would need to do something about my adams apple.

I really did not think much of it at the time but looking back on it now, and the fact I have transitioned from male to female, but its just makes you think did this person know something about me that I did not at that time.

[Farm Boy]

Worst part? They made all the kids take showers nightly of course and of course it was the big cattle call shower with like 8 faucets just jutting out of the wall and they expected everyone to just strip down and get in it.

Wow, that's horrifying.  That reminds me of this time in 4th grade when all us kids were supposed to get changed into our Halloween costumes in the classroom together.  (I refused.)  I can't imagine being forced to use a communal shower.  Being naked in front of other people has always been the stuff of nightmares for me.

There's a story my mom told me about when I was really little.  Like, 1-2 years?  Whenever she'd put a dress on me, I would scream until I threw up on it.  If the offending dress was replaced with another clean dress, I'd do the same thing again.  Eventually she gave up trying to put dresses on me.  Apparently my hatred of dresses goes back to before I can remember.

Not exactly a childhood memory, but in 9th grade a casual friend stared at me for a moment, then said, "You'd look funny with a beard.  Don't ever grow one."  He was serious.  An odd experience indeed.

[nogoodnik]

I don't reeeeaaally have any stories that fit in this thread, as when I was a kid I felt less like I was born in the wrong body, and more that people were exaggerating the differences between boys and girls and should just get over it. Which tbh I still think, but I also think I'm trans, so.

Most of the stories I do have are more frustrating than funny, as well. I remember my mother talking about tomboys, and since I'd always known I got on better with boys, preferred my male friends, and thought more like a boy (though I wasn't able to put this latter one into words then, but I knew it all the same), I told her I was a tomboy. She replied quite rudely that I wasn't, and she made it sound like I'd just said something really awful that I was totally stupid for saying and should feel ashamed for.

She also said that all tomboys liked sports, and that I could never be a tomboy because the only sports I liked were running races and because I liked drawing and reading... and those were exclusively girl's activities apparently. All the other boyish things I was into were completely invalidated by the fact that I drew. Meanwhile one of my friends was a boy who also drew a lot, and that didn't mean he wasn't a boy. I was so, so pissed off. Still kind of am, really...

[nogoodnik]

Not exactly a childhood memory, but in 9th grade a casual friend stared at me for a moment, then said, "You'd look funny with a beard.  Don't ever grow one."  He was serious.  An odd experience indeed.

Haha, this just reminded me of last year when I was walking around town, not passing at all probably, and this old man suddenly turned to me in the street and said "Grow a beard! Very distinguished! Everyone should grow a beard." He didn't even have a beard...

[pllx]

Nothing really funny for me.

I remember wanting to be like my dad all the time, and that followed with other adult men I met. I'd prefer them over women and imitate their mannerisms.

Once I sat at church in a dress with my legs spread wide open, and my mom scolded me for not being lady-like. I obeyed then, but I always sneaked that posture whenever I could.

And I remember being the leader of my girl friends when I was young. I took care to look out for them and protect them from even little things. I found it amusing, but I was also trying to impress them sometimes. My friends and I took showers together as kids, and I remember being sexually attracted to and wholly curious about their bodies at a very young age.

Funny how signs of this born in the wrong body stuff shows up pretty young sometimes.