Internalized transphobia.

[Nero]

Speaking for myself only, I turn not feeling transgender enough into actual transphobia.  Sometimes, honestly, I feel the standard, "Oh I've always known..."  is often justification after the fact.  When my roommates make transphobic comments, I have regretfully joined in to let them know I wasn't going to be super sensitive like it seems some other trans people are sometimes.

Additionally, sometimes I will turn feeling not trans enough into something that is actually beneficial for transphobic reasons.

I am aware all this happens and the reasons for it though, and none of this my actual, reasoned out opinion - it is just the thought process I work through as justification for how I feel sometimes

I suspect everyone has their own definition of what 'always known' means. Does that mean they always knew they were trans? They always felt like a boy? I bet the percentage of people who were able to suspend all logic and evidence enough to always have been certain they were in fact a boy in a girl's body is miniscule. Children don't have filters and believe what they are told for the most part. Why would this be any different?

Plus they would have no reference for it. I mean I thought I was a boy until about kindergarten. I saw my little friend piss in my backyard and was forced into dresses - how could I continue to think something with so much evidence to the contrary? I didn't. I went into denial until about my late teens. And even then, I had no idea this was an actual condition. I just thought I had somehow ended up with a male mind.

Of course, I'm in my 30s. For someone younger, there may be enough trans awareness nowadays for them to realize as a child.

[spacerace]

I suspect everyone has their own definition of what 'always known' means. Does that mean they always knew they were trans? They always felt like a boy? I bet the percentage of people who were able to suspend all logic and evidence enough to always have been certain they were in fact a boy in a girl's body is miniscule. Children don't have filters and believe what they are told for the most part. Why would this be any different?

I agree with you completely.  Like someone else in this thread mentioned, it is very encouraging to see a lot of people telling their non typical reasons and situations.

However, there are plenty times when I read some trans person spinning their biography to meet the typical standard narrative. Every single time I read one of those, I think 'this is some regurgitated nonsense'.  I think that it is transphobic to react that way, and it is connected to how I feel outside the normal trans experience.

I think there are probably some trans people who are reading this thread and thinking "these people feel this way because they're aren't actually transsexuals" which doesn't help the way I think about this stuff.

[Arch]

As Admin notes, "always knew" has many interpretations. I always knew I wanted to be a boy, I thought I should have been a boy, I thought I felt like a boy, I had a male identification...but I did not know about trans people until I was older, and I didn't know about FTM trans people until well after that. Am I less trans because I didn't say, "OMG, I'm trans" until I was twenty-six? Or because I didn't say, "I AM a man" until I was nearly forty-six? I'm the only one with authority to answer these questions.

The old rules have changed. We don't need to spout the party line to get hormones and surgery. A lot of people don't absolutely fit the old narrative. There's no reason to lie anymore.