Early signs you gave yourself that you were trans, but failed to recognize

[Ishtar]

hey,

i cant say, ah i was going for dolls, wishing that i will awake as a girl(as a horse maybe, but girl, no) in my childhood. I know i was different and i was used to boys and girls. boys at home, there were no girls at my age, and girls at all other places. so nothing useful for me there:S

Every time that I played "house" with my cousins, I always refused to play the "dad". I would always say, "Why can't I be the sister or something?" That always threw them for a loop.

it is called mother-father-child here and i wasnt allowed to play the mother. for my cousin it was clear: "you are a boy", but i cant understand that.

and puberty...i cant say i wish for being a girl. alien feelings started and i really dont want the voice break, getting afraid of being gay maybe. it is all really subtil. most could be explained as trans-signs but other reasons would be valid, too. low self-esteem for the inconfidence in behaviour. just no party, womanizer or rambo boy. alien feelings caused by puberty. many cis hate their secondary sex characteristics when they develop without being trans, so... today i dont hate anything of it, too.
ok why i really want to ask the "maybe gay or trans" guy what was wrong with him and how he found out because i know inside that iam not so different to him, or why i want to get hair-growth-pills for breasts before i saw that man breast dont look like female breasts, and some other things are not so easy explainable by other reasons.
and i do many things, really many things that no one could think i am gay. that was really a matter for me. even if i always know that i am probably not gay because i always look so longingly to girls.

it is not so easy, it is a great picture without any clear signs like crossdressing, praying(ok i never pray this age), girl stereotypical interests, etc. i was always realistic and so i it is no wonder, that i dont think about things, i dont know that those exist.

That's exactly what my gender therapist said- verbatim. It was one of those things early in transition that helped me out of the days where I wondered if I was "indeed trans" or just chasing some kind of fantasy.

there i am now. from 20 upward i have everything a good trans need, but that i wasnt aware of anything in my childhood is bad. childs are so honest about those things... :S

greetings

[Sarah84]

To be honest I didn't remember any major gender problems from my childhood. It started during puberty. I started crossdressing and and was envying girls rather than being sexually interested. But I have many blocks that prevented me from accepting that I am transgender. I have never felt like female trapped in male body. It was obvious that I have male body thus I must be male and I didn't try to think about it any deeper. But I wanted to have female body so much. I think that this "you must feel like a woman"  prevented me from any progress. But after joining susans and other tg communities I recognized who I am and started transition and it is the best decision I did. I don't regret it and am happier now and love everything about it.

[Jill F]

This thread really helped me to look back and remember all those little signs that I either ignored, denied or suppressed. 

It was like free therapy for sure.   I'd like to thank everyone who has chimed in.  I feel much more "normal" now.  Well, for around these parts anyway.

[Daydreamer]

1. Always got fussy about being forced to wear dresses, skirts and bathing suits.
2. Always got to play male roles in games, like house--and I'd be mad if I couldn't. When I'd play power rangers with my friends, I'd always get annoyed that I was forced to be the pink or yellow ranger because I "was a girl" when I wanted to be blue or green.
3. I felt really comfortable and casually going around the house shirtless and in my basketball shorts when I was a kid, always got trouble for it later.
4. The traditional wishing on stars and birthday candles to be a real boy when I woke up. That went on from as far back as my memory goes to when I was about 12 (as far as birthdays go).
5. I unintentionally discovered what packing was when I was about 7 or 8; and made it a point to do it in secret. I think that sparked around the time I accidentally caught a glimpse of my friend Kyle at a slumber party...which was when I realized why I felt incomplete.
6. Upon seeing a mention of SRS in the 2002 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, I instantly knew that's what I wanted. I had to have been 9 at the time.
7. In daycare, I always got mad about gender assigned crafts (blue is for boys and pink is for girls). I think I threw a tantrum over one because of being confined to the wrong box.
8. I made countless attempts at standing to pee when I was about 10 and I tried making my own STP before I knew that was a thing...it failed horribly.
9. I was incredibly hostile when I got confronted by family members about how I was a "boy in a girl's body" for years. I don't know how much of it was not liking their tone, phrasing or me trying to bury my feelings.

[HoneyStrums]

This thread really helped me to look back and remember all those little signs that I either ignored, denied or suppressed. 

It was like free therapy for sure.   I'd like to thank everyone who has chimed in.  I feel much more "normal" now.  Well, for around these parts anyway.

We are normal.
Im pretty sure if regular cis person was born in the wrong body they would be behaving like us. vice versa too of course.

We are human behaving like humans :p

[Tysilio]

1. Always got fussy about being forced to wear dresses, skirts and bathing suits.

Yep. This is me at about four years old... one scared little dude.

[Jess42]

This thread really helped me to look back and remember all those little signs that I either ignored, denied or suppressed. 

It was like free therapy for sure.   I'd like to thank everyone who has chimed in.  I feel much more "normal" now.  Well, for around these parts anyway.

Honestly Jill I think that we are way more normal than "normal" people.

I have to agree with Butterfly, we are all just humans being human. WOW just Human being s. Wasn't tha an old Van Hagar song?

[LivingTheDream]

Ok this turned out to be super duper long, way longer then intended lol, sorry bout that...

Though I never had that "I'm a woman in a man's body" feeling or moment, I showed signs in my early childhood that I might be trans but never connected the dots because I never knew anything about this subject. I had a total male upbringing and everyone who lived near me were males so I only had male friends growing up; never was good at being social so I barely made any friends at school. I grew up playing sports and video games, once they became popular, and I can't complain, I love both still, but other than that, I don't feel like I ever really fit in.

Sometime in elementary school is when I began to "mess" around with my mom's clothes and even makeup sometimes; whenever I was alone so that I wouldn't be caught. After school I would play hockey and other sports almost everyday until it got too dark to see and also played video games with the same peeps.

In middle school and high school, my social situation started to change. People we used to play hockey with stopped or moved away, some of the people were older and either graduated or got caught up in other things. Occasionally we would get together and play and video games where still big for me. My brother, who is a year younger, started hanging with other people; once in awhile I would tag along as well, but they were "his" friends if that makes sense, not mine, and I didn't really fit. Later on I would learn about some of the things they would do that I wasn't aware of or invited to do. Some of them started dating and stuff around here but I had no interest really in doing so; the idea of sex and pregnancy was terrifying to me.

Another interesting thing about this time is that I waited a long time before I started to shave my face. By 8th-9th grade I had a lil moustache, beard and uni-brow lol. I waited a long time to shave because my parents told me that once I did it would grow in faster and thicker and I didn't want that.

I continued cross-dressing as well, even though my brother semi caught me wearing a bra; he felt the straps and asked me, I denyed it ofc  , played it off well I think, well at least nothing was ever said about it so who knows. I continued to wear my mom's stuff and had a secret stash in the only bathroom in the house and I would spend hours in it lol. I started getting "bored" with her stuff, I guess you could say, and started stealing stuff. A nearby thrift store would sometimes have bundles of clothing outside their store and I would dig through it looking for stuff to wear. I also started going out and shopping for stuff, which of course is scary as hell.

Things stayed like this for quite some time. I definitely got caught once; my mom had died and my brother had moved out with his g/f at the time, now his current wife, so it was just me and my dad now. One day I was washing my clothes and I forgot about them in the dryer, when I woke up I found them stacked on top of it and I was like %()$*)#()#($ (insert expletives). When questioned by my dad, I said I was washing them for a friend lol (so lame that one right?!?). He was like ya right, I see your mom's stuff in there, throw them away, which I did (only temporary tho, retrieved later from trash), but thankfully nothing else was said about that.

Up till this time I was still basically clueless about things. Never would've thought I might be trans, never thought I was a woman, never even thought I was a cross-dresser, I just thought I like to wear women's clothing. Still never had a gf, never had sex, nor did I really try or seek it out; I just felt undeserving of it and uncomfortable with all that.

Around 24 or so I met a girl online while playing a lame game and that's where things started to change again with me. Never met her irl though I wanted to nor ever really "spoke" to her, just messaged each other and played together. I called her my gf but she would say I was just a friend, if even that really, if asked about it, but anyways, I ended up falling head over heels for her. Somewhere/time in our relationship my thoughts switched from damn, I wanna be with her and bang her to, damn, I wish I was her. Started imagining have sex with her but I was her and she was me if that makes sense. I think this is because sex as a woman is more appealing to me than as a guy, possibly part of the reason why I never tried to get with anyone before.

Things continued to move forward from there. Randomly messing around on the 'net one day I discovered a "drag shop" for lack of a better word and realized I had to go there. I ended up getting breastforms and some other feminine clothing and planned on going on vacation dressed as a female. I did go on the trip but couldn't muster the courage to go out dressed. I knew I would be seen as a man in drag and a poorly dressed, half assed one at that, and hated the thought of that.

Shortly after I got back I learned that there are ways to feminize yourself and grow boobs and such, and I was like WTF, NO WAY! Here I am, a 20 something year old, who I consider to be quite smart, taking all kinds of science and other classes, in college and pre-nursing, and I am just now learning about this!!?!?!?!.....Needless to say, it did not take me long to realize that hell ya I wanna do this, even though I wasn't a believer and thought I was just gonna get scammed, and I started like the next day.

It wasn't until I found Susan's, I'd say around 6 months or so ago, and started reading everyone's intro and like 1000s of post that I started to realize that, hey, a lot of this sounds familiar o.o, maybe I'm trans lol. For me, reading and learning about everything and seeing the changes that people have made made me realize that hey, maybe I could actually do it and not be seen as a man dressing as a woman. If I would've had access to the internet earlier I might have realized this long ago but I wasn't allowed to have it until I was like 22 because my parents thought I'd get id thefted and all the other horror stories that the internet can bring.

[Eva Marie]

I never had a clue until I was in my early 40s, and then I started to put 2 + 2 together. Now I see the obvious clues that were there all along that I didn't know to look for - after all, I grew up in the 60's and 70's in the southern region of the U.S., and that area wasn't exactly a bastion of trans activity, and trans knowledge was absolutely non-existent.

The main sign that I had was not fitting in. I never wanted to dress as a girl or play with girl toys. As a kid I got along well with girls until they reached that "boys are icky" stage and then I found myself rejected by them. I was a physically small, femme looking boy and I never made any male friends because of that, and because I didn't know how to relate to boys and I really didn't share interests in typical male activities like fishing or deer hunting. Instead I found myself a target for abuse so I had to manufacture a fake male persona to protect myself and try to at least have the appearance of being male. The fake persona took on some stereotypically young male behaviors to boost his male cred like drinking and racing cars, and he managed to get himself married and had kids.

I lived that fake persona for 40 years because I thought that it was the real me. Now I know different.

[big kim]

Plenty signs but I was too dim or too stubborn to recognise them without hindsight.
Age 7 I would wish to start another school as a girl.I would also daydream about living as a woman when I grew up
Age 9 at an all boys school wondering why other boys were terrified of being told to play a girl in a play.Around the same age we had a French boy visit our schooland I wished I was French so i could be called Jean.
Age 13 dressing upin some clothes I was supposed to take to a Church jumble sale and keeping the ones I liked and fit.This was the early 1970s and having hated boys haircuts I grew my hair out to a long DA and got away with it.
Age 14 Bobby one of the older boy's at school(by now a mixed school thank goodness) rode past one of my few friends and me on his BSA motorcycle with his girlfriend on the back with her arms round his waist,long blonde hair streaming out behind.My friend wished he was Bobby,I wished i was the girl
Age 15 seeing a short film of a beautiful blonde lady with her racing car and being amazed she was once a Spitfire pilot in the war.
Age 21 reading a piece in a seedy newspaper about a transexual and realising I was one and it wasn't going to go away and one day I would have to sort myself out

[Shodan]

So I've had some time to really compile a list of all the signs. Like a  lot of people here, I never thought I could be trans, because I didn't fit the traditional trans narrative, in that I felt like I was a woman trapped in the wrong body. I felt male, and to add confusion onto the whole thing, I was primarily attracted to women, so it never occurred to me that you could be trans AND gay, so I spent years and years and years hating myself.

For me, growing up, not only was I interested in boy toys (especially Transformers) but I also was interested in some girl toys. I remember, clearly, wanting to get some Strawberry Shortcake dolls, but I knew that it was wrong, because I was a boy. My mom also, at one point, painted my nails, and would occasionally let me try on her clothes. I don't know why I ever stopped, since I was around 4 or 5 at the time, but I suspect it was more of the "boys don't do this" thing. Growing up, in Middle and High School, I was far more comfortable hanging out with the girls, outside of my small clique of geek/D&D friends.

Then there's the whole thing of thinking that my life would have been far better if I were a girl than a boy.  No definite reason why. I just knew. And I wished every night that I could just wake up a girl.

Like they say: Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

[Sir Real]

I always knew I was trans, I just didn't have language for it until a year ago.  When I was 5 is when I first noticed that I fit in better with the boys, and had my first major dysphoric event being forced to pretend to be a bride instead of a groom. That's where it all began, and I could go on from there but I won't. It wasn't long until I said to myself that I believed with all the advances in medicine and technology, by the time I was old enough to, things would be advanced enough to allow me to be a man.  I was 5-6 years old when I started thinking that.  When I was ~14 years old, I heard from a conversation I had that medicine HADN'T advanced enough (namely bottom surgery) and I was absolutely devastated.  A few years later I convinced myself that since it was impossible, I might as well give being a girl a shot.  I don't know why I kept trying, I was just hammering the proverbial square peg into a round hole.  When I finally came across YouTube videos of FTMs and their timelines I had almost forgotten my childhood dream to grow up and be a man.  It came back all at once and I knew this was what I had to do.  I don't beat myself up over it. I'm sad I couldn't start sooner, but it is what it is.  I can't change it.  All I can do is keep moving forward. 

[Polo]

I didn't always know I was trans, but I've felt kind of like an alien my whole life, like I missed some crucial memo of how most women naturally feel and see the world.

When I was little I mainly played with boys, and for some reason (thankfully) they never treated me "like a girl". When there were girls around and games of house were organized, I always wanted to be the family dog, because I didn't want to be mother or daughter or sister, and I knew even then that I wasn't allowed to be brother or son or father. This and a hundred other things, looking back.

[Umiko]

when i first started entering puberty, i started popping pills just to kill off my hormones becuz i didnt want to grow up as a male, but they never worked so i become cold and lifeless as i had to accept the fact i wasnt female

[Christinetobe]

Ok I have to admit it I never would use a urinal.  I never really gave it much thought but I suppose this is why.  It used to drive my family crazy.  They thought I had a stomach problem.  I think the problem was slightly lower than that.

[Jill F]

Ok I have to admit it I never would use a urinal.  I never really gave it much thought but I suppose this is why.  It used to drive my family crazy.  They thought I had a stomach problem.  I think the problem was slightly lower than that.

Always HATED those.  I had men's room anxieties since forever.  It's not like my junk didn't measure up, but I had problems putting it on display. 

On a side note, another reason that I despise urinals is the design.  It seemed that no matter what angle you hit it at, the damned things are so parabolic that it always splashes back on you. EWWW!  Sitting is so much more hygenic anyway.

[YBtheOutlaw]

signs were everywhere after i was few months into puberty. but what actually tipped me off that i do have an issue, was that i liked girls. i was attracted to my friends and i was having difficult time holding myself in proper sense when this young teacher who wore quite revealing blouses was in the class. i'm embarrassed about this but i couldn't get my eyes off her chest and i was 13 by then. there was this role play family thing in our class we did for fun- it started with father, mother and daughter but soon half the class was adopted to the family as some relative. pretty dumb but it actually showed me what i needed in life. i was one of the earliest to be adopted, and when they were picking a character for me i was silently praying to get a male character. though i had long hair then luckily i was adopted as elder son. i took that chance to flirt around girls and i even got married to one, though i never stopped flirting with other girls. one girl even told me she was starting to see me as a real guy.

[kelly_aus]

Way to many to mention.. But 1 in particular stands out..

When I was 12, the fog of my genderless childhood cleared, I went out and bought myself a complete girls outfit..

[Jill F]

Ahh yes, the last thing I wrote reminded me. 

When I was a kid I asked my mom what my name would have been if had I been a girl. 

Oh crap, I was a girl!!!

[Ms Grace]

As a kid I used to wrap a towel around my head like an Arabian scarf and pout at the mirror because I thought it made me look like an exotic beauty...