When did you begin to realise/come to terms with being transexual

[Zoe Louise Taylor]

Hi Girls

I hear that a lot of trans people felt that they knew that they were born in the wrong body for as long as they can remember,

However i feel that for me this wasn't the case. Although iv'e always had a sneaking suspicion that i may not be in the right body, i always believed that i would be able to live as a man. For example during my teen years i would occasionally cross dress and then after a few months throw all the clothes away, i was happy doing this at the time.

I have gradually found it harder and harder to throw the clothes away and ditch my feminine side, and i feel that for the past six or seven years my "male" side is being overthrown by my female persona (i'm 25 by the way). I am coming to the dawning realisation that i am in fact a transexual. I feel the pressure of the situation is beginning to overwhelm me, i have always been quiet and shy and i dream of being a confident woman. I look at everyone confident and happy in there own bodies, and i feel jealous and saddened that i am not. I slowly am coming to the conclusion that the     only way i am going to happy is if i start addressing my need to be female, see a therapist and start transitioning.

I suppose what i would like to know is whether my story rings true with any of you ladies.
When did you start realising you were in the wrong body? was it a gradual thing or did you know for certain from a young age?

Lots of love
Zoe
xx

[XchristineX]

I I did a recovery program in January.....
Wasn't just for drugs or alcohol in my case...

I had a lot to deal with  ..was am abused spouse....
Very very poor judgement in men...

I wanted to know why I subconsciously pick men who
Mistreat me ....for that I had to go I to intensive therapy groups
And tell my life line to everyone. .all guys.

I laid it out ..what I am ...and the day it happened.  I no longer took
Shame in being transexual...

I still suck at picking boyfriends though

[Shantel]

There are a lot of assumptions made by the transgender community and many will say "I knew when I was three" and in some cases it has a lot to do with self validation and justification. I had some twinges and episodes as a kid but it never really struck me between the eyes until I was twenty and I stuffed it until I was fifty. I am seventy as of this August and have been out and on HRT for almost nineteen years. I know there are many more like myself that for various reasons suppressed their obsessive desire to realize their female side for far too long, some like me who will never experience the fullness of it in this life.

[ashley_thomas]

at age 37 I can look back from today through my years back to about 11 and one constant is my feminine view and traits.  My response to them has varied but their presence in my life has not.  That alone is my evidence which has led to my acceptance.  What remains is how I respond to have the highest quality of life going forward.  I have to consider me, those I love and the broader world in response to my decisions, but whatever I decide, my status as a woman will remain as unchanged as it has been for all of my life to this point.

I urge all of us to look at ourselves in a similar manner, not dissecting a moment or a response but considering our whole life experience.  I have no hang ups on the fact that I didn't know from age 3, or that I enjoyed playing baseball and basketball as a kid, or anything else for that matter.  I don't get bent out of shape that I thought I was a cross dresser for years.  That also allows me to view my future without a predetermined outcome that fits in a "trans normal" category if you will.

Peace and serenity to you...

[Tristan]

i realized it at i think my parents said age 8 and started to come to terms with it in the long term psychiatric clinic at 13

[Ltl89]

This is sort of hard to answer.

I would describe my childhood as somewhat bigender.  I did normal boy things, but also did girly things.  When I was 6, my sister and I would dress up and pretend to be female celebrities.  We were like twins and would always do girly things together.  At school, I remember at times feeling jealous of the other girls and wanting to play with them.  Still, I never questioned my gender and had a boy side to me.  I never really would have describe myself as a girl and would say I didn't have a childhood that different from that of a normal male.

My revelation that something was different came around the age of 11.  By that time, I started to see the effects of puberty.  It really made me go crazy.  I did not like it.  I remember feeling intensely jealous of the other girls. By then, I was no longer dressing or playing with my sister.  So, I started to secretly dress and it would make me feel better about myself.  I wouldn't of said I was a girl or transsexual though because I didn't understand what that meant.  At that point, I would have said I was a male who REALLY wanted to be a girl.  And I hated myself for it and went through years of depression and isolation because of it.

By the age of 18, I had learned what being transsexual/transgender meant and knew that this applied to me.  It was difficult, but I couldn't deny that this described me to a t.  So, even though I would say I discovered everything by 11, I would say that I didn't come to terms with being trans until I was 18. 

Don't let the trans narrative get to you.  It applies to some of us and not others.  That doesn't invalidate your feelings or experiences. 

[muuu]

.

[Anna++]

I started having transgendery thoughts when I was 12 (or maybe 13?).  I never did anything about it because I had myself convinced that if I ignored it long enough it would go away and nobody would ever have to know.  I moved away from home for college, and that gave me enough freedom to ask questions without risking anybody walking in on me.

I finally came to terms with myself last August (at 24) when I realized that fighting against being trans was severely affecting my life.  Even then, I wasn't able to fully accept myself until last February.  It's been an interesting journey!

I agree with learningtolive, don't let the "I knew when I was 3" narrative scare you.  It may make for a good TV sympathy story, but I'm guessing most people know when they're a bit older.

[suzifrommd]

The first trans feeling I remember was when I was 14 with my first girlfriend, wishing I was the one with the vagina. I spent my adult life thinking it would be much better if I had been born female.

But it didn't occur to me I might be Trans until last year at age 50 when I started putting all the puzzle pieces together.

[FrancisAnn]

Childhood, first grade. I always knew that I was meant to become a physical girl/woman. I've always been one on the inside/mentally. Like Suzi I've always wanted a vagina & a normal woman's body to enjoy good active sex with boys/men.

[ZoeM]

Well, I first actively thought about it at the beginning of puberty. However, I had a long prior history of make-believe involving female characters. At that time, I was convinced the actual transgender process was a far inferior substitute for the real thing, and not worth the effort.
It still took me twelve-thirteen years to come to terms with it, though. Including a strong try at a normal life by way of a girlfriend. Eventually, though, I had to face it and, facing it, gave in. One year later, I've never been happier to give in to anything in my life - although that might be the hormones talking.

[Sadie]

I never really thought about it until puberty. As a child though I was very feminine acting but was oblivious to it. My parents never really tried to force the whole "men act like this" crap on me and I was an only child so I remained blissfully ignorant.  Once puberty struck though and the girls began changing into women I started to feel something was wrong with me.  I started to get depressed and angry about it from 12 to 13.  I began to flunk out of school.  At 14 I told my mother that I wished I had been born female and that year I also failed the 8th grade.  My mother pretty much thought I was being silly at the time and was more concerned about me failing the 8th grade. Plus this was the 80's taking your child to the therapist for gender issues wasn't done.

So I left public school and went to a new private school in 9th grade, this was to avoid me repeating the 8th grade. I passed all their entrance tests so I guess I was as smart as a 9th grader should be.  At this point I decided to shape up and get my academic life in order.  I became a A/B student and shoved any misgendered feelings to the back of my mind.

It took me a long time after that to come to terms with being transgender.  I honestly did not know about transsexuals until I was around 20 years old. Had no idea it was even possible to actually change your gender.  Once I learned though I started to think about it, I still didn't know anything about it or how it was done, but a seed was planted. I also began wondering about my sexuality since I was attracted to men or at least penises as well as women. I thought I might be gay. But in my mid-twenties I pretty much went back into denial and tried to be "normal." I purged my small stash of female clothes and porn and started dating women for the first time. I did everything that a good little heterosexual white male should, which led to me to getting married. Also remember until I was around 25 years old there really was not much of an internet so for the most part I was still in the dark about the process of transitioning, but as my denial began to wane I started using it more and more in my late 20's and really started to learn about being transgender. Finally at the age of 31, I came out to my wife that I wanted to transition to a woman.  That did not go so well, and since her reaction was not very good it kept me from telling anyone else, like my parents, and I went back into the closet for a few more years.  Finally, after we separated when I was 38, I came out and told everyone that I was going to transition.  So I guess it took me half my life to come to terms with it.

Sometimes I wonder what path my life would have taken if there had been good easily accessible information out there in my youth like there is today.  It sucks really, I would like to have my youth back.

[Shantel]

Sometimes I wonder what path my life would have taken if there had been good easily accessible information out there in my youth like there is today.  It sucks really, I would like to have my youth back.

This is the six million dollar question that many of us share in common! I hadn't considered moving on my own feelings until one of the perverts at work showed me a page in his porn magazine and there was a photo of an attractive blonde woman standing in a doorway leaning against the door jamb and OMG she had a penis! Not that any completed woman would really want to have a penis, but it set my mind racing about the possibilities that I had previously been ignorant about.

[Joanna Dark]

I pretty much knew I didn't want to be a boy at age 6 and at age 10 I convinced myself I was intersexed after reading a medical dictionary. I certainly knew for a fact at age 15. And age 20, I actively wanted to transition. And I have been pursuing congruency in one form or another since then.

Puberty didn't have a great effect on me other then convincing me there was something srsly wrong with me. I had a lot of girlfriend though despite this fact. I never pursued them they pursued me. And I liked that I won't lie but that could be that I like the validation. But also when I was 16 me and my friend had a foot race and then he tackled me and straddled me at the end and I really liked that too. I liked it alot. But that's more sexuality then being trans aware. He also thought I was trans because he said stuff to me all the time, and especially brought up that a high suicide rate exists after getting a sex change.

Sometimes I don't think I am trans and I have just convinced myself of it because I'm pretty androgynous, I have very delicate features, and look like every female member of my family and nothing like any male members and I am reminded of that alot. I guess I won't know until I fully transition but I am pretty happy right now and am enjoying some of the recent attention I have been getting from men.

[Carrie Liz]

I began identifying with the female gender, and identifying more with girls, pretty much as early as about 2nd grade. Although I was NOT consciously aware of this at the time. I had no reason at the time to doubt that I was anything but a normal boy, and it's only by looking back that I can really realize "oh yeah, so that's why I was acting this way."

I first became consciously aware that I was identifying more with the female gender, and was actually kind of jealous of them, around age 13.

Official gender dysphoria, where I actually started hating my body and consciously wishing that I could be a girl, started around age 14-15, at about the same time as my voice started changing, I started growing body hair everywhere, and a certain lower member started getting bigger.

The first time I really realized that it was possible that the label "transsexual" was what I was feeling, that also came around age 15 or so. Although at the time, despite how strong my feelings of dysphoria were, and despite how much I wished I could be female, I refused to apply that label to myself due to misinformation about what being transsexual meant.

After two years of gender dysphoria nearly completely consuming me, and interfering with just about every single facet of my very livelihood, I converted to Christianity at age 17. At that point, I started viewing my gender-related desires as sinful, and something that I had to just get over, and started to try just being happy as a guy. For the next 10 years, I suppressed it with varying degrees of success. It was easier to ignore during the happier periods of my life, specifically when I fell in love for the first time, but the feelings of gender dysphoria, and that identification that I had with the female gender, NEVER went away, despite how many times I tried to "rebuke Satan" to make them stop, and despite how much I told myself "just be happy as a guy. It's what God gave you. Embrace it!"

At age 26, after an entire college career of never living up to my full potential, I decided "all right, fine, if I want to express these feminine desires, who says that I can't? Let's go back to wearing short shorts, and shaving my legs, and doing all of the things that I've always wished I could do. Who says that I have to be a girl in order to do those things?" So I started dressing again, and started doing the feminine things I always wished I could do, like shaving my legs and acting more effeminate. And, well, even then, it still didn't work. I still felt like someone that I wasn't... a guy trying to act like a girl. It wasn't enough. I still wanted to actually be a girl. And I was still jealous every single time I saw a woman.

At age 27, I officially accepted that I was transsexual. I realized that nothing I was ever going to be able to do as a guy was ever going to cure my dysphoria, and that the only solution was to transition. I started HRT almost immediately, and I seriously could not be happier with my decision. The only thing left that's bothering me is how damned long HRT is taking. But at the same time, for the first time in my entire life, the dysphoria is easing. For the first time, I'm actually starting to feel comfortable with who I am, and feeling able to truly express myself, and feel like my mind is actually working in the way it should be.

I don't think the reality of it, and the true "coming to terms with it," though, started until I got my official lab results back about 3 months into HRT which said that I really was 100% hormonally female... that my T levels and E levels were now no different from that of a genetic female. That moment just blew my mind, and really made me start realizing that I was a woman... not just a guy who wanted to be a girl anymore, but really, truly, female. And it's an ongoing process as I explore this new self and truly do come to terms with the fact that my future is now as a woman, and I really am going to grow up to have boobs and hips and wearing dresses, not just in some mental fantasy-land, but actually in real life! I love it!

This is just one girl's experience of course, but yeah, that's what it was like for me.

[Renee]

I was sure I wanted to be a girl before I was in kindergarten. But actually come to terms with being trans? I don't think I'm there yet and I've lived fulltime for 7 years.

[JoW]

I wasn't aware of anything being wrong until puberty began. Then when I was 12 I read an article about someone who'd transitioned (though it wasn't called that then). I remember going cold and thinking 'God... I'll have to do that.'

Then till I was about 20 I was able to convince myself that I was just trying to 'understand women better' so that I'd be more attractive to them. It didn't work 

After that I spent twenty years alternating between trying to make being a man work, and identifying as a  cross-dresser but ruling out transition because I'd never be able to cope with it.

But last summer it felt like my head was going to explode if I kept it up any longer, so I said to myself 'Right, I'm going to turn round and entertain the idea of transitioning because that's the one thing I've never tried in all this time. If it doesn't work I can always come back here and try and think of something else.'

Er... and here I am now with a new ambiguous name and a stylish wardrobe of androgynous clothes.

[Renee]

Renee, by the pics I've seen of you, I would have no idea you weren't female.  And to think you haven't done much in the way of medical assistance to make changes makes me jealous.

Aww, thank you. Now how much did Shan and Jamie pay you to post that?    

[Jenna Marie]

It pretty much hit me like a bolt of lightning when I was 32 that I would be much happier as a woman. Looking back, I can see hints and clues... but I don't know how much of that is that it IS in hindsight, now. At the time, I had no clue, and I still feel that I lived contentedly as a boy and a man for years.  Finally I decided to try the first steps of transition and see if that worked to "test" whether I really am trans. I loved it and couldn't imagine stopping, so I guess the answer's yes.

(I also don't think I wasin the wrong body; this is my body, it just had some features I eventually didn't like. With the exception of GRS, all those were corrected simply by hormones inducing a female puberty and giving me the more feminine version of myself that's encoded in my DNA - I like to think of it that way, that this is the "alternate me" now rather than that my previous body was wrong. I love that I see bits of my mom and sister in the mirror now, for example, and I wouldn't want to be in a totally different body.)

[delyth ann]

I've been doing a lot of thinking the past few days. I remember when I was may be around 7 or 8 and playing with my sisters dolls. I never liked playing rough physical games and preferred the company of girls.
When I was around 11 I remember reading in one of my mothers womens magazines about someone who became a woman and wishing I could have the treatment.
Around 13 or 14 my parents trusted me enough to be left at home on my own during the school holidays. When on my own I would try on my mothers clothes. I would do this right up until I moved out of my parents home.
We got internet at home when I was around 19 and I started reading about transsexualism.
I was scared of the reaction of my family if I came out so tried extra hard to be man. I joined the army reserve as an infantryman had a few girlfriends and eventually met my now wife and emigrated and got married 4 years ago.
However the feelings have never gone away, and I still dress in secret. I've reached a point where I can't go on as I am. I family had what could be termed as a breakdown and was referred to a therapist.. I had my first session last week and talked about lots of things, but ran out of time before I could get to my gender issues. However I am determined to do so and have my next appointment on Wednesday.  I am very scared and lonely but can't keep going as I am.