What age did you start realizing you're different?

[Shawn Sunshine]

well also after watching Jem and the Holograms that really sent me headed in a womanly direction. You have to understand this was recent for me, I wonder why I never had any real desires to be a girl until after puberty, seems like all of you have felt this before that. I only briefly did, and its only now at age 40 that I want to transform...from Jerrica into Jem heheh

[EmmaS]

For me, I remember first having confusing thoughts about my gender identity at age 8/9. Throughout the next 11 or so years I fought and repressed these feelings for fight or flight reasoning. Eventually during my junior year of college(this year) I finally realized and fully accepted that I wanted to transition. I am extremely happy with the progress I have made already and looking back, my only regret is not figuring it out sooner and starting earlier.

[Nathine]

I was raised as a girl for 5 years, then my parent decided that a girl couldn't get into med school at that time. So she changed me to male. I knew what I was as soon as I was cognitive, age 4 - 5.

[Sly]

I was in daycare at around 3 and accidentally walked in on someone changing a boy's diaper.  And I was all, "Hey, that's what's missing!"

I wouldn't learn what trans was until I was about 16, but I played a lot of MMOs for several years and would always make my characters male, never wore bras my entire life because they made my boobs look bigger, and wore baggy clothes all the time to hide my figure.  At 16 when I started to figure out what being trans meant, I kind of freaked out and started wearing a bunch of makeup and frilly clothes to deny myself.  About a year later I decided that even if I was trans, I didn't need to transition, and I could just be a tomboy.  But the longer I thought about it the more it bugged me and at 18 I just gave in to it.

[Rita]

There is no surrender    @ Above poster

[Snowpaw]

When I was a kid I had severe behavioral problems so I drowned them out in video games
When I played video games I always chose female characters
When I chose female characters my dad would be a bit weirded out but didn't care too much.


It wasn't until I was 8 or 10 that I wanted to wear my moms clothes but I was deathly terrified, I only tried it a couple of times. Makeup the same way, I guess I was unlucky I didn't get caught earlier on because I didn't bother coming out under a few years ago. My mom has been super cool with it, my dad died back in 06' but when I was 13 he told me "if you are gay or anything else just let me know, I will love you regardless" i wish I would have told him sooner. Then again I didn't know much about it other than I wanted to be a girl. It seems silly now honestly. All that hiding I did.

[Jam]

When I was 13, I just assumed I was a very hard core tomboy up until then and that it was normal for a tomboy to want to actually be a boy.

When I was 13 there was a day when I wondered why I kept thinking about my female best friend so much. Then it hit me that I fancied her, but I couldn't understand why if I liked a girl I felt so strongly I was straight. I felt 'lesbian' and 'gay' didn't fit me at all but 'straight' did. That's when my brain just said 'because you're a boy, you're trans' and I nearly died lol.

[Shawn Sunshine]

Should I be concerned that my desire to live as female came later than some of you? Do you think that makes a difference?

Should I also be concerned that part of me thinks like a male and part of me thinks like a female when I compare myself againts other people?

[Rita]

Should I be concerned that my desire to live as female came later than some of you? Do you think that makes a difference?

Should I also be concerned that part of me thinks like a male and part of me thinks like a female when I compare myself againts other people?

Not at all, it doesn't come out all the time as bluntly.  I am sure hindsight has been 20/20 for you but there has not been any real CONNECTION until recently.

I think my generation has less of a hard time coming out younger.  Society has changed signifcantly.


@ above above
I always considered tomboy to be a lady, that was just interested in more boyish things but in ways still act and identify as a woman.  You can be girly tomboy, or boyish tomboy. 

To feel like a boy and want to be a boy in more ways than just simple feeling is what made you a boy    I do believe there can be femine FtM's that would fit the girly side of masculinity as much as there is the omg brutish manly man side as well.

Most of us start in the middle and slowly steer towards one direction without going too far.

My theory is there are actually 3 parts that make us who we are.

The first part is obviously the gender we identify with, the second part is our sexuality, and the third part is where we land in our gender identitys spectrum

For girls

|------------------------|------------------------|
Girly Girl                  Tomboy                   Butch


For guys

|------------------------|-------------------------|
Effeminate man      Todays geek             Manly Man

[Jam]

Not at all, it doesn't come out all the time as bluntly.  I am sure hindsight has been 20/20 for you but there has not been any real CONNECTION until recently.

I think my generation has less of a hard time coming out younger.  Society has changed signifcantly.

Plus its talked about a lot more. Had I not stubbled across it when I was 18, i'd most likely still be none the wiser today. Still drifting through life thinking I was a girl but it would have been better as a boy.

[Elsa]

it doesn't really matter whether you are effeminate/ girly or masculine/ Butch what matters is how you see yourself

you need to respect and love yourself when coming out and when realizing we are different even then things like age, ability, knowledge , money and other factors would always affect when we transition

I guess I must have been 15-17 when I came out and have no doubt in my mind that my life would be lot more different if I had the support , knowledge and the courage/ conviction to insist on who I was and how people should treat me

sometimes you really just need to believe in yourself and who you are - but that's probably the most important thing

[Laura Emily]

I must have been around 7 when I really started feeling like I was different. I never really understood it for a very very long time but I started experimenting with my moms clothing when I was around nine or ten. I tended to repress a lot of my childhood and so it's difficult for me to pin point exactly when it was. Finally managed to come to terms with it when I was 32. I've never looked back since I started living full time June 1st 2010.

[Snowpaw]

Should I be concerned that my desire to live as female came later than some of you? Do you think that makes a difference?

Should I also be concerned that part of me thinks like a male and part of me thinks like a female when I compare myself againts other people?

Nope, it's all circumstance. When I was a kid I had cable, it helped show me that there were trans out there, I also got sent to a alternative school where there was a trans girl there. Hell I still think like a male sometimes. It's not that I am, it's just that I've been there. Etc. comparing yourself against others is the quickest way to depression. I know that all too well *hugs*

[eli77]

I dunno. My memories are pretty fragmented in some ways and I don't trust them very much.

I know I spent my first day of kindergarten with everyone thinking I was a girl. But I don't actually remember the day anymore or how it happened or why. My mum just knows that happened because she corrected the teacher when she came to pick me up.

I remember discovering that most boys think it's better to be a boy and being really surprised by that when I was about 8. I'd always kind of thought it was better to be a girl, and being a boy was like taking black in chess. It sucked, but someone had to do it. I guess that's when I realized I was different.

I started getting picked on for being girly when I was 11. But I didn't really understand why. I was raised to believe that boys and girls were basically the same except for our physical forms. That our brains are the same and work the same. So the whole thing was super confusing.

The only time I ever really dressed up as a girl was for Halloween when I was 12, and nobody knew because I was dressing up as a girl who dressed like a boy.

And then of course the dysphoria hit when I started puberty at 13. That was the definitive "something is really not okay" moment.

I didn't find out about the option of transition till I was 21. Before then I'd thought trans people were basically just crossdressers and I didn't like dresses or skirts or makeup so it didn't seem to have anything to do with me. I just knew I was broken.

Should I be concerned that my desire to live as female came later than some of you? Do you think that makes a difference?

Should I also be concerned that part of me thinks like a male and part of me thinks like a female when I compare myself againts other people?

Well, my desire to live as female didn't really crystallize till I was 21. And I'm still not sure I really like it. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it isn't. It's sort of just a by-product of changing my body and legal status in society. I mean I'm happy I'm not lying to everyone anymore, but dealing with gender police is not super fun on either side of the barrier. Transition and dysphoria are much more physical things for me than social things. I'm super happy with what I've done with my body.

I'm not sure what thinking like a male or like a female is exactly. I think like a person.

I guess I have a weird relationship to this stuff. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of looking at transition as a monolithic whole. If you change your name, it should be because you really, really want to change your name because it will make you feel better about yourself or you want the social changes that will bring. If you go on hormones, it should be because you really, really want to go on hormones because of what the hormones are going to do for your body (and possibly your mind). Etc.

Making those decisions based on "am I female?" seems... odd, to me. You don't have to see yourself as female to go on hormones or to change your name (or have various surgeries or change your gender markers or...). I don't really see the relevance. Maybe it's because I think like a person and not like a female.

[Phoeniks]

For me this is really difficult to figure out, since I have only been having active thoughts about me as androgynous for 1-2 years.

Somewhere deep inside it feels like I've known about this as long as I can remember. I was really unsure before, but nowadays I get more and more realizations about this. The way I've always used my facial expressions really vividly trying to look more like a girl (well-trained facial muscles do miracles). Or how I once tried to by some teenage girl clothes and people started to comment about how I can't pull them off.

I know I've always gotten the feeling I don't fit into groups of boys or girls. My typical friendships have been with ladylike girls and me being protective over them. I always thought my friends were so feminine that it was no wonder I didn't feel like a female. Since the beginning of school (in my country from the age six) I've felt that girls are something different from me - but that boys are, too.

I don't feel trapped in this mostly female body of mine, but I would like to be much more fluid in my appearance. On the happy days this seems like a really rewarding process towards being more like the person I feel inside, but there are setbacks too, of course.

[Paul]

I remember when I was 4 years old wondering why my brother and I were both boys, but he had a p*n*s and I didn't.  I couldn't understand why we were treated differently (him as a boy and me as a girl).  Growing up I knew the female gender did NOT fit me, but I grew up in a very small town, not very gay/trans friendly (although they have gotten better) so I didn't know anything about Transgender until I was in college, but even then I still didn't come out for a couple of years after that.  Not many people were really all that surprised by my coming out. 

I should also add I was OBSESSED with Mulan and the song "Reflection"...and yet NOBODY figured it out hahaha

[Mosaic dude]

About 5 for me.  When I first went to school and started interacting with girls, I began to realise that I was really crap at being a girl.  I just didn't get it at all.  It was like they'd all got some kind of a manual and I hadn't.

Growing up, I was really clear in my own mind that I was a boy, but with the body of a girl, but in many ways it wasn't a big deal.  I'm an only child, and that meant my parents treated me as their default son.  Additionally, neither of my parents are very gender-conforming and they didn't expect me to be.  I knew the stories about Odin and Loki taking female forms at various times, but they were still themselves, so I was actually pretty comfortable with the concept of a male having a female form, and I've never felt like I had to have a male body to be male.  I've been pretty lucky in that respect.

[luna nyan]

Age 6 was when I realised I wished I was a girl.
Age 13 was when I realised that there was something that could be done about it, but it seemed way out there and too radical at the time.
Went through my teen years playing a male sock puppet.
Buried my GID for 10 years, had a bad therapy experience, put it away for another 3 years.
Age 26 had therapy, decided I was genderfluid.
Now in late 30s, on low dose HRT to keep the noise at bay.

If I had been more honest to myself and with my family, I would have possibly have started transition in my late teens.