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

[Tysilio]

That's exactly how it was for me (except I'm FTM). I thought being trans was feeling like you're trapped in the wrong body, and I never felt like a boy. I often felt like I wanted to be a boy, but mainly I didn't focus on it. I 'knew' that being female means you're a girl, so I 'knew' that, because of the body I had, I was a girl, and I never questioned it. I didn't feel like a girl, but I didn't feel like a boy either. How could I when I've never been a boy before?

The biggest sign for me was that I hated myself. I hated everything about myself and I never had a reason why, I just did. I had a wonderful family, childhood, life...but I hated myself. That could've been general low self-esteem, but I know it's not because I don't hate myself anymore, now that I know who I am.

This. Exactly.

I knew when I was four or so, but by the time I was about  six or seven I'd learned that it was not an OK thing to think, much less say; and at that time there really wasn't any way to think about it, once you've had it (figuratively) beaten into you that you are in fact a girl. But I've always been gender-nonconforming, and it's hard to think of stuff I do that's not pretty much male-identified. Well, I cook, and I love to cook for others -- to the extent that I have any nurturing tendencies, that's where they come out.

[Jess42]

Wow Jason, that sounds so eerily recognisable!

For me one of the biggest things would be that I always identified with and choose male characters without second thought. I never sought anything behind it, I didn't think about it, it just FELT GOOD.
For the rest I was also a massive tomboy and I behaved more like a boy than a girl, but this could also be an early sign of lesbianism, or just disappear later on. (it wasn't, but anyway)
Also when I would write stories, or create characters (my own) it would always be males without a thought. I found it hard to interact with females, unless they were very tomboyish and behaved like boys.

I was just the total opposite of you Erik.

[Jennygirl]

Playing superstitious games with myself "if I land this game of hopscotch, I will wake up as a girl tomorrow"

The big one by far though... Padding my hips as a young boy and having it follow me into adulthood. Yeah that was awkward

[Jess42]

Playing superstitious games with myself "if I land this game of hopscotch, I will wake up as a girl tomorrow"

That's funny in kind of a weird way Jenny. You know when kids go to bed at night and say prayers? God, how many times I asked for that last part come true the next morning?

[Umiko]

That's funny in kind of a weird way Jenny. You know when kids go to bed at night and say prayers? God, how many times I asked for that last part come true the next morning?

even to this day i do that. i even cry until my eyes start bleed saying "god, plz, when i wake up, make this nightmare end" but nope, he doesnt listen which makes me feel even worse

[HoneyStrums]

Ive had a lot. (Dint know about dysphoria antil diagnosed)

Anyway I had physical dysphoria and didnt know that exsisted antill coming here.

Pushing my belly out and wondering what it would be like to be pregnant.
Id scrutinise my pelvis/abdomen id prod and poke this area and that and i know its silly but i hoped that maybe i had ovaries.
And the killer for me. It was pride in feminin features that helped me cope bieng in this body as long as i have. (this is the one i wish id noticed sooner)

And id alaws choose fem for games, And play that char as myself (do what i would do) even calling fem chars by my birth name antill i choose a fem name for myself.

Playing superstitious games with myself "if I land this game of hopscotch, I will wake up as a girl tomorrow"

I used to try mind over matter. Hopping that if i concentraited anough on hips and boobs id get them natrually

The big one by far though... Padding my hips as a young boy and having it follow me into adulthood. Yeah that was awkward

Cross Gender behaviour persisting at and through puberty is one of the primary sings of dysphoria.

[Jennygirl]

That's funny in kind of a weird way Jenny. You know when kids go to bed at night and say prayers? God, how many times I asked for that last part come true the next morning?

Haha yes!! I did that too!

even to this day i do that. i even cry until my eyes start bleed saying "god, plz, when i wake up, make this nightmare end" but nope, he doesnt listen which makes me feel even worse

Aww hon. You just have to do what you can and seek out the little things that bring you those nuggets of enjoyment. It is appeasing in a way, and it also teaches you things. For me I guess it was the hip padding

I used to try mind over matter. Hopping that if i concentraited anough on hips and boobs id get them natrually

Hahah, dang. That is almost exactly what I did! I was determined to find the next best solution that I could do then at that moment- which was to augment my body with anything I could find... socks, shirts, garments... I kind of lost track of all the things I tried.

Cross Gender behaviour persisting at and through puberty is one of the primary sings of dysphoria.

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.

[Jess42]

even to this day i do that. i even cry until my eyes start bleed saying "god, plz, when i wake up, make this nightmare end" but nope, he doesnt listen which makes me feel even worse

Me too, I just don't wake up too awfully dissapointed "cause it ain't happened yet.

Haha yes!! I did that too!

Aww hon. You just have to do what you can and seek out the little things that bring you those nuggets of enjoyment. It is appeasing in a way, and it also teaches you things. For me I guess it was the hip padding

Hahah, dang. That is almost exactly what I did! I was determined to find the next best solution that I could do then at that moment- which was to augment my body with anything I could find... socks, shirts, garments... I kind of lost track of all the things I tried.

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.

True words of wisdom. It is nice to know that I wasn't and am not the only one that has that particular prayer stuck in my head. There definately seems to be a trend in this thread.

[Jill F]

I was never religious, and never prayed for this, but OMG was I so jealous of my baby sister when I was 14 that I wished somehow I could start over and just BE her.  I'm really glad I'm not her, now that I see what her life is/was like and exactly who she has become.  In fact I would NOT trade places with her for anything in the world now, but back then I lost a lot sleep over it.

I now wonder if that I had access to women's clothing that would have fit me at the time if I would have worn them.  My mother was 5 feet tall and by then I was way too big to have fit into anything of hers.  That was a line that I really wanted to try crossing at some point, but I never could get myself to do it due to the shame, guilt and further confusion I feared it might cause me.  Then I feared that can of worms I'd be opening.  I never actually did it until I was 43, and yes, it made me feel much better and helped confirm what I had always suspected about myself.

[Jess42]

When I watch TV shows back the and still today, when I see a family and a brother and sister I can't help but think how the brother got so messed over by the universe and the girl got so lucky. Am I the only one that thinks this way. Of course F2Ms will feel totally opposite.

God I always felt so sorry for Bud Bundy and would have died to be Kelly Bundy, airhead and all.

[Umiko]

i'm a complete clutzoid xD i trip on air, i giggle when i talk and i walk with a very fem switch that not even gay people can mimic. i never understood what men though and i always though they were icky 

[Jill F]

For some reason I always had a thing for Katharine Hepburn.  I identified strongly with her and just thought I wanted to marry a woman like that.  Now I realize that she was someone I admired for a much different reason.

[Jess42]

i'm a complete clutzoid xD i trip on air, i giggle when i talk and i walk with a very fem switch that not even gay people can mimic. i never understood what men though and i always though they were icky 

I never thought men were icky, at least when they take a shower.

For some reason I always had a thing for Katharine Hepburn.  I identified strongly with her and just thought I wanted to marry a woman like that.  Now I realize that she was someone I admired for a much different reason.

I am trying to think of a woman that actually I admired or identified with and I am actually having a hard time just pinpointing it to one.

[Miss_Bungle1991]

There was so many and (almost) no one picked up on it. The only exception was one aunt on my Dad's side of the family. She didn't say anything at the time, since she saw how my family was about the whole thing.

1. Asked for a purse for my 5th birthday. (I was obviously turned down.) But it was my reaction that was a trip. My mom replied to me that: "But you're a boy. Boys don't have purses." I just gave her this blank look like, "what?". I knew that I was stuck in this boy body. But I never felt like a boy.

2. Asked the aforementioned aunt if she would buy me one instead. She said that she would if she could, but she knew that my parents would have tripped out over that so that was an obvious no-go.

3. 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.

4. Always walked and talked like a girl (I would even walk on my tip-toes to emulate my Mom in her high heels).

5. Began wearing my mom's clothes in secret around 10 to 12. Was busted a TON of times. I wore one of my cousins clothes a few times too when I was at her house. I got busted on that too.

Through all of this, everyone looks back on it and they thought that "it was just a phase". However, there WAS one instance where my mom and I had a talk one day after school when I came home and found out that I was busted yet again. She asked me if I wanted to live my life as a girl. I REALLY wanted to say 'YES!!', but I knew that my stupid, drunk of a dad would never have went for it, it would have caused a ton of problems, possibly their divorce. So, I chickened out and said 'no.' But if I were the parent and my child had exhibited that many signs, I would have found a competent therapist and done what I could to see that they would live the way that was right for them. But back in the late 80s, all that I saw was trash tv tabloid crap treating trans people like they were freaks. I also thought that if I did come out, I would be disowned and all crap. So, I stayed in the closest and gave up on the cross-dressing.

[ReubenIsTheName]

Not dense, angry. I think if I'd understood what transgender was, I would have figured it out easily decades ago.

Based on what I read in the media, I thought trans women felt like "a woman in a man's body." Since I never felt like a woman, I thought my intense desire to become female was just a weird fantasy.

This ^

I even talked to my MTF friend a while back and said that I had been thinking a LOT about SRS, and she replied "Well, I don't know, but if you FEEL like a guy and not a girl, then you should definitely look into it.

I'm not saying a DON'T feel like a guy (though I definitely identify as one, and prefer male pronouns), but I don't feel like a butch lesbian either, and that's what people saw in me.

I had always had more guy friends, identified less with the female drama and overdoing things and more with the guy way of being real and direct (I've been called blunt on many occasions), and I even played trading card games, video games, and liked females more than I ever had guys. Another giveaway that really helped me on my realization and acceptance of my true self was that I remember being just a little kid and thinking "I want to be a boy." I'd see things on TV of FTMs, and think "Man, I wish I could do that. I hate being a girl."

I HATE having a female's body; always have, and the dysphoria began when I began to truly choose my friends and the way I present myself. Both social and physical.

[Jenniferinutah]

HI Jill F
Your story Mimicks mine almost to the T. (no pun intended). Anyways we could be twinners!
Tear down the wall!
Jenn

[Lady_Oracle]

When I was around 7 or 8 I used to tuck my penis in the shower. I remember feeling comfort in not being able to see it. At the time I didn't know why I felt like I did. Whenever I would try to act feminine in elementary the teachers would tell me not to do that or this because it was girly. Combined with my experiences in school and my family's machismo culture, it was really tough to express myself.

So in my case I did feel like a girl. I just wasn't allowed to express that ever during my childhood.

[Shodan]

This thread is very heartening for me. Mostly because so many people felt the exact same way that I did. Not that was a "girl trapped in a boy's body," but that I knew, on  a deep level, that my life would have been so much better if I'd been a girl. I remember, years ago when my parents force me to go to a councilor, during a discussion I had thought to myself, "I should tell him what I really think so he can label me as crazy instead of depressed and then they'll ship me off to a mental institution so I don't have to worry about this crap."

[Jill F]

When I was around 7 or 8 I used to tuck my penis in the shower. I remember feeling comfort in not being able to see it. At the time I didn't know why I felt like I did. Whenever I would try to act feminine in elementary the teachers would tell me not to do that or this because it was girly. Combined with my experiences in school and my family's machismo culture, it was really tough to express myself.

So in my case I did feel like a girl. I just wasn't allowed to express that ever during my childhood.

OMG, I've been trying to shove that junk back up in there since as long as I can remember!  Never did have a use for it until high school.  When I was about 5 or 6, my brother had to have one removed due to cryptorchidism. (I later had part of one removed for similar reasons...) I asked my mother what they were for, and she told me that "Those parts are what you need to you grow up to me a man, grow a beard and be a daddy."  I remember thinking I could do without that.

Also, I could never take my shirt off.  I hated swimming, locker rooms, and god forbid I ever got chosen for the "skins" basketball team.  I never liked to be seen naked, and I still have some residual intimacy issues to this day.  Actually I'm relieved to never have to have sex in the male role ever again.  It's not like I actually had anything to be ashamed of and my junk is nothing out of the ordinary.  It's just not "me".

[Umiko]

i tried to remove it with a piece of string when i first became aware of it after the whole operation "cut off" failure. my adamantcy at 15 when told my mother i was a female and i wanted surgery for about 3 months straight. of course she thought it was a phase and my sister called me mentally ill. she even made a comment the other day since my vitamin D level is low so i got pills, she said those pills are also good for mental illnesses. it was like a huge punch in the gut