Describe your experience growing up.

[Stealthy]

I remember absolutely HATING dresses and hating wearing my hair up. (Some other people say I didn't hate dresses, though?)

I would read women's fashion magazines, and wish I could dress other people up like that, but not have to wear it, because it was women's clothes and I didn't want to wear those.

I was terrified of getting hips. I didn't give two s**ts about everything else, but hips were the stuff of nightmares.

I think I was also a bit of a misandrist at times...I was a weird kid.

Also, at one stage I identified as a lesbian despite being primarily attracted to guys, but refused to identify as anything else because I knew I was 100% queer-I just wasn't that attracted to girls. In retrospect, that should've been a MASSIVE clue, but despite slinging the term 'LGBT' around everywhere, I barely comprehended that trans people existed, let alone ones who didn't know from their earliest memories.

Oh, and apparently in the womb, I was originally 'mistaken' for a boy. Going by my finger-digit ratio, I was probably exposed to VERY high prenatal T levels.

[Keaira]

It's okay!  I was just surprised you missed cryan's "companion" thread on the MtF board.

I did miss it, But I like it here. You guys are are pretty cool. It's not that I don't like the company of other women, but for a lot of my life I've hung out with guys. I hate having been born with a male body, but I've always done what I enjoyed. I know I'm a little odd. I'm not pretty/beautiful, etc. I do worry about passing, looking good, etc. but life is too short to worry yourself sick over beauty. And with this legal figurative fist fight at work over where I go pee , I'm stressed enough that I throw up in the parking lot  after work. If we were all hanging out I'd probably grab most of you (Who are legally able to drink) go to a bar and hang out. That's the tomboy in me.

Besides, I enjoy seeing things from your perspective. It's a change from living though mine.

Oh and if I had to describe my teenage years, I'd say it was a red, angry, raging blur. I was always angry at the world. probably why I don't remember my childhood much lol.

[insideontheoutside]

Yeah, that story sounds like that of a lot of intersex people I've heard from/about.

I wish I could obtain actual records but it was over 35 years ago now. The only other thing I know for sure is that my mom had a form of PCOS. It was only through a surgery that basically removed a hard coating over her ovaries that she miraculously got pregnant with me. But her body was producing heavy amounts of testosterone, even during the pregnancy. So my theory is that is probably why I turned out like I did.

[cryan91]

Thanks so much, guys! This is all tremendously helpful! xo

[Traivs]

It seems like a lot of people dealt with bullies and denial. I know I did, got beat up for the first time in first grade for being different. I played tons of sports and read comics a lot when I was younger. Almost all my friends were guys except the occasional girl here and there( some of which was because I had a crush on them) I was always being told you sound just like a guy when you say that and stuff like that. Even still I lied to myself and my friends for years about who I was even though most of my friends saw right through me. I even tried dating guys, the first guy i ever dated the first time he kissed me I ended up freaking out making an excuse and running home crying because it just felt so wrong. even still I denied even liking women till I was almost 16 despite the fact none of my friends believed me when I told them I was straight. I had hated myself for years and only in the last year decided I was tired of letting my self hate and guilt rule my life and started to let my friends know who I really was and stop leading a double life, in which I even had separate groups of friends that didn't know about each other. For the most part though my childhood was pretty okay by 8th grade I befriended this one girl that the people who beat me up and stuff were scared of so i didn't have to deal with them much after that.

[smittyFTM]

Ah growing up!!
Typical tomboy--fishing, camping, playing with GI Joes. I stopped wearing dresses @ age 4 or 5. I knew at age 4 that I was supposed to have been born a boy and spent years crying myself to sleep, praying that I'd wake up a boy.  Keep in mind I'm an only child at this point and have nothing physical to sort of compare myself to. I just KNOW i'm supposed to be a boy.....

Fast forward--I'm 11--my name is Christine....everyone in my family has called me Tina my whole life. I make this huge announcement to family / teachers / friends / soccer coach that everyone needs to start calling me Chris.

I come out later as lesbian, then Bi, and viola i'm now a pansexual FTM. phew!

[Michael Joseph]

Just gotta say its so weird reading these stories because some of them were as if I was reading exactly what I had written.

At age 3 I knew i was a boy. At 5 my best friend who was a boy liked to play doctor and I realised I was different but it didn't click that I was "not" a boy. I threw tantrums whenever they tried to dress me as a girl until they gave up, but i could tell it hurt everyone. I tried to conform to what they wanted from 12 until about 15. At 16 I had a major crush on my best friend, but knew that I wasn't a lesbian. It killed be when she was with guys. At 17 I came across "transgender" and so much emotion came to me and I finally figured out what i felt was wrong with me. At 18 came out to everyone and am finally becoming comfortable in my own body and feeling like the right gender like I felt when i was a young child before i was exposed to my differences to bio males.

[Keaira]

Well, my Mom said I had been dressing as a girl since I was 11 yrs old. So i guess I've known for quite a while who I really was. lol.

[Frank]

Since two or three I always wanted to be my (very manly) granddad, there's even a picture of me in his work boots.

Then I got my own boots at six or seven and never stopped wearing them, which didn't go over well when I spent a few years with my mother. She insisted I dressed like a girl and if she saw a cute tomboy she would ask why I couldn't do that, or she'd tell me to stop walking like a man. By thirteen this had made me grumpy so I moved back with my granddad.

By fifteen or sixteen I was full blown using the men's restroom and tying my chest down. I should have been using the men's way earlier but it took me a while to figure out I wouldn't get in trouble. That happened after a man directed me into the men's room. Bye ladies!

Oh, and I still wear boots. Same brand since a kid.  I never really knew what it was until recently, I just always did that.

[Superrad]

When I was little, I didn't know I was trans and the thought never occurred to me. Regardless of the dissent between my body and mind I would not discover my discomfort with my physical body until later, as I spend my childhood a servant of my mother's whims. She was cruel, often beating and neglecting to feed me so I thought of myself mostly as an entity to serve and raise my three young siblings. After being freed from that in the midst of immense struggle, I was free to discover (at ten) that I was genuinely a person.
The realisation that I was trans was laboured  more because of this and while I'd always identified casually with men, I didn't think it was allowed for me to do so. Still, I came out in the midst of depression at 16, one year after I'd discovered the truth myself. I became more open, more comfortable, and attempted to live as male since then. I started hormones at 18 and it only increased my happiness. Now, as it stands, I am 19 and ten months on testosterone. I will be getting my legal name change on the 3rd of July. I've spoken too much about my life for your constraints, but 20 years is difficult to compress when it's all the material you have to draw on. I have friends, happiness, and hope now. That, I think, it what matters.

[dylpickles]

So, it was at sixteen I started really questioning my gender, when I met someone else who was trans. A trans woman. The thought occurred to me, 'oh, I'm the opposite' Hold the phone. The journey began. But to back track, I remember growing up being the last to wear a bra (my sister wore one in grammar school, I was begged and cajoled into doing it), stuffing my pants when I was really young with those doll baby bottles, and socks.. and hygiene was always a problem. I left my hair alone. Didn't touch it. Would hate showering and the like. I still hate showering (though not as much) and I do everything else with vigor. When I was little I was the adventurer, the explorer. I'd pretend and explore all the time. I remember too I would try to wear all of my dad's clothes. So back to sixteen. I struggled with it, came out to a therapist at eighteen, and to my parents at twenty. I'm twenty three now. It's getting okay with my parents, though they still have a tough time with it.

[Keaira]

How many of you were punished when you were growing up for being yourself?

When I was growing up I was always, and I mean always, perceived as being gay by other kids. I tried to not be seen that way but I failed, which was a big reason I was beat up a lot. Then when I was caught dressing in girl clothes my Dad teased me mercilessly. Even my Sister-in-law told my wife when she met me for the first time, "He's a bit feminine isn't he?"