how early in life did you know that something was wrong or different

[speckyhailey]

I've felt 'different' for a long time, never quite as confirmed in myself like others, it was only about a year and a half ago that I really realised that something was wrong, and only now, after joining here today and being referred to as female and as Hailey, do I feel fully confirmed that I am a woman, and not a man.

[stephaniec]

I found Susan's a great harbor in a turbulent sea of dysphoria

[Kyra553]

I've felt 'different' for a long time, never quite as confirmed in myself like others, it was only about a year and a half ago that I really realized that something was wrong, and only now, after joining here today and being referred to as female and as Hailey, do I feel fully confirmed that I am a woman, and not a man.

Welcome to the forums. ^_^


I know exactly how you feel. Growing up I never felt attached or binded to my man role.  I often watched other girls and thought how fortunate they were to be born into the right life as I sat there as an out cast. I truly wonder how much better my life would of been if I had been born correctly... Thinking about that still depresses me immensely. 

[Lady_Oracle]

about 5 years old

[Alaia]

I can definitively remember knowing around 8 or 9... only because I can remember holding a knife to my chest and wanting to kill myself over it. I can also remember being envious of a girl friend in the 4th grade.

I'm sure I knew at an even earlier age, but most of my early childhood memories are just vague fragments. Like I can remember tucking my privates when taking a bath, or putting on my sister's swimsuit that had been left in the bathroom to dry. But I have no concept of how old I was when I started doing those things. Trying to even remember that far back is like grasping at faint wisps of cobwebs blowing in the wind.

This is a silly question anyway. It doesn't matter how old you were when you realized the truth. What matters is that you know now and that you are doing something about it.

[JulieM]

Apparently pre-first memories: according to my parents I was trying to dress in my mother's clothes and wearing her makeup when I was 3. Typical stuff until I was 6 or 7, then I got the message and went stealth. Did a few overt girlie things when I was 9 but stopped when I heard mom and dad talking about sending me to military school to deal with my tendencies. Somewhere during the summer between 5th and 6th grades I guess puberty hit and when I came back to school I felt totally alienated and started experiencing that intense yearning/sadness. Prayed every night to wake up as a girl from age 9 to about 14. Decided I was an atheist at 15. 

[Delsorou]

This is actually something I have been trying to figure out.  I can't remember vast chunks of my childhood mostly because that's how my memory works, and partly because I blocked some of it out.

I lived on the end of a relatively secluded road, where the only other kids were either way older than me or abusive/thuggish.  I was pulled out of public school halfway through 4th grade after a series of sociopathic teachers made it clear their priority was on playing power games with children rather than on education.  I remember having all of one friend - a boy in my neighborhood.  And I messed that up by having absolutely zero social skills.

So, from age 10ish I was homeschooled and alone.  My social role models after that were my parents, and TV.  Before that age I have very very few memories related to gender, all inconclusive... I remember being very angry when my parents made me cut my long hair for school photos, I remember sitting on my junk to make it go away, I remember riding in a car and thinking I smelled "like a girl" and being happy about it.  That's about it.  I did not attach any significance to those early memories, I didn't think anything was wrong - I was just a kid, and I was happy.

After I got pulled out of school and puberty simultaneously started raising its ugly head in earnest... I had no real frame of reference for what was wrong other than TV and the internet.  So my dysphoria expressed itself as ANGER and FRUSTRATION... which turned into a pointless grudge I harbored against my parents, which prevented me from telling them.  A fact which I will always regret because they would've helped me.

My parents wanted me to go to public high school for the experience... but I absolutely refused to allow them to register me as a boy - and I wouldn't give them that as a reason, so I just flew into a rage.  So I got a correspondence school for high school.  I remember being so sad when they signed me up for that, because it was still as a boy...

So, I would have to say somewhere between 10 and 12 I figured out something was wrong, and between 12 and 14 I figured out WHAT it was.

Sorry for the vent session, it takes a lot of effort to remember this stuff in order, helps to write it out. 

Now I want to go hug my mom, because I know she blames herself now for not "being there for me", and it wasn't her fault... she can't read minds.

[Crissie22]

I was 5 and my mum was making my sister a bridesmaid dress for an aunties wedding I was so jealous because I wanted one as well I knew it was wrong but I just wanted to wear a dress and look pretty I got the horrid trousers and shirt I didn't feel comfortable in them I remember that feeling as if it were yesterday

[Sosophia]

 i had somes feelings that girls were lucky to be girls , or dreams where i was one ant it was so nice , but it wasnt wrong it was the unfairness of life for me that somes are lucky somes less regarding wich body i m given , its only at 19 i realized others didnt feel at much that it could be unfair the body they are given that they even enjoy it , and even identify with it ,  thats where i felt that thinking girls are lucky to be born with that body was maybe something to investigate and that life could be a bit more fair even if it would never be completly .

[Foxglove]

Earlier in this thread someone remarked that a lot of people seemed to have at least some idea that they were different at the age of 3 or 4.  I can confirm this, having done a count of the answers in this thread that can be quantified.  Of 79 responses, 33 of them fall into the 3-4 age bracket.  Another 19 in the 5-6 age bracket.  Then a bit of a peak in the 10-12 age bracket: 16 people there.  This "late childhood/puberty peak" would make sense to me because it matches my experience.

I put on a dress for the first time when I was about 4.  It was made quite plain to me that that sort of thing wouldn't be permitted.  I can remember another incident when I was about 8 when a neighbour girl invited me to put on one of her dresses, and even though I very much wanted to, I declined because I knew it was wrong.  It would have been when I was about 11 or 12 that I got seriously into cross-dressing.  In other words, the way I interpret my experience, I would have known long before I did if I hadn't been so thoroughly repressed by a conservative, religious upbringing.

What I take away from this thread is this: a complete refutation of the notion that ->-bleeped-<- is caused by some sort of trauma or poor parental upbringing, that sort of thing, as is so often alleged by our enemies.  If you're trans, you're trans, and you become aware of that, whether more quickly or more gradually, depending on your experience, from a very early age.  There's no traumatic event that "corrupts or perverts" you.  You just are what you are, and you gain more and more awareness of that fact at your own pace.

Peace and love to all of you,
Foxglove

[Sephirah]

This is kind of hard to answer. For the longest time I didn't know anything. I thought I was messed up (I still do, lol). I thought I just couldn't relate to people, that there was something fundamentally screwed up in my mental wiring. I had no clue why. No idea where it came from. For most of the time in my early adolescence I felt like an alien. Like I'd just arrived on earth and felt like "what the hell is this?" I didn't feel any sort of association with anyone, didn't want to be anything. I just felt like a square peg in a round hole. I felt very much separated from myself (and still do a lot of the time). Like an observer, watching someone being treated a certain way and thinking "That's not me!". But having no frame of reference to go beyond that.

My childhood was screwed up in a lot of ways. And so was I. It's all a giant, dark, cloudy mess at times.

I think the earliest I knew who I was, and could put actual words to this feeling, was sometime in my 20's. When I was sufficiently free of all the emotional turmoil and hormonal confusion to be able to think somewhat clearly.

[eliza2014]

I believe my first memories were around 7-8. I remember I was in trouble for something and hiding under my parents bed. I found some lingerie and tried putting it on hoping it would transform me to a girl. I actually never figured out how to put it on, but I went stealth pretty much from then on. I hated getting in trouble, so I worked incredibly hard to hide my activities. My mom did find me with some of her clothes hiding under the bed, but in a way, I think they tried avoiding bringing up the subject than yelling at me.

Like so many others, I would wish, pray, hope for a genie just so I could be a girl. The worst times were when I started getting pubic hair. Then hair everywhere, and I mean everywhere else! the other worse part was watching all the other girls grow through puberty and for me to realize I wouldn't. It only took until this year (2014) to actually recognize all this as gender dysphoria, that I am not crazy and get treatment.

I was thrilled to death to start hormones and almost immediately felt an emotional difference. It was incredibly awesome! I even did a bit of an experiment and stopped taking HRT for a few days to see if it really made that much of a difference. It did! Anyway, 2-3 months into the process and I am now experiencing breast development and starting to notice softer skin and fat redistribution. I feel amazing, but at the same time nervous about all the changes.....

[desperateforchange]

I can remember praying to Santa as a three or four year old to wake up a girl and for him to bring me a girls' wardrobe of clothing for Christmas.

Ditto

[stephaniec]

This is kind of hard to answer. For the longest time I didn't know anything. I thought I was messed up (I still do, lol). I thought I just couldn't relate to people, that there was something fundamentally screwed up in my mental wiring. I had no clue why. No idea where it came from. For most of the time in my early adolescence I felt like an alien. Like I'd just arrived on earth and felt like "what the hell is this?" I didn't feel any sort of association with anyone, didn't want to be anything. I just felt like a square peg in a round hole. I felt very much separated from myself (and still do a lot of the time). Like an observer, watching someone being treated a certain way and thinking "That's not me!". But having no frame of reference to go beyond that.

My childhood was screwed up in a lot of ways. And so was I. It's all a giant, dark, cloudy mess at times.

I think the earliest I knew who I was, and could put actual words to this feeling, was sometime in my 20's. When I was sufficiently free of all the emotional turmoil and hormonal confusion to be able to think somewhat clearly.

this is pretty much me too.

[Monica Jean]

I have read this entire topic thread today and finished just now. 

And i bumped into Zinnia's post: "That was dysphoria?" 8 signs and symptoms of indirect gender dysphoria
http://freethoughtblogs.com/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-dysphoria-8-signs-and-symptoms-of-indirect-gender-dysphoria/
It was like reading a near-carbon-copy of my life.  Truly a soundtrack of what I endured.

With the help of all you who responded to this topic thread, I was finally able to answer one of my deeper questions of my past that has eluded me until this evening: "why did around 8th grade seem to start 'the pits' of my life?"

That's when the isolation started and I really gained more weight, even moreso from the age 7 through to that point in life. Was it that we moved a few blocks down to a bigger house?...change?  Was it that I lost a friend (who was a bit older than me) to a new friend group in high school?  After all, when I was 13, I stopped playing all sports that I did in grade school.  I always blamed it on those two factors. It's like life went flat emotionally even though I had my passionate hobbies, namely music.

The other question I have had was "did my depression start when I was 4 when I first started wearing mom's clothes or sometime later?  It seems odd that a 4yo would be depressed."

The answer: the onset of puberty.  It wasn't losing a friend or moving down the road, those are contributing factors, but it was that da** puberty when my dysphoria really kicked in. 

I knew I was different when I was about 4 years old, I raided mom's closet, makeup drawer and Jean Naté fragrances ad nauseum in those early days.  But it was always stealth.  Always.  God I loved that light-rose lipstick from Avon!!

But when the onset of puberty kicked-in is when the dysphoria and depression reared their extremely ugly heads.  Now I know what caused that 'flatness' when I was about 12 or 13.

I CAN'T THANK YOU GALS ENOUGH FOR OPENING MY EYES!

33 years of depression was removed my person last month starting HRT.  I'm not looking back. 

[Mary Anne]

First memory of being different was when I was nine.  I went to a friend's house to play.
On arriving, my Mom began talking to his mother about how his mother was feeling, "any
morning sickness", "no over it now".  Then I began to notice his mothers tummy and looser
clothes-then I realized-she was going to have a baby.  All that day I kept sneaking peeks
at her-full of envy and wonder.  Why couldn't I be like her?  She dressed up and took us
out shopping with her that afternoon.  I knew what I wanted to be, but could not be.  Ever since
I've still been dreaming and wishing.  But changing is something I can do.

[bv5913]

The earliest time I remember I was 11. It was when I had my first boyfriend I tried my sisters clothes and I would meet my boyfriend wearing them. My parents found out about us and me, and I was packed off to boarding school. And then forced to join the army so I could be a man. Life was tough for me back in my teens.