Did you embrace your femininity when you hit puberty?

[wolfduality]

Ok, so I guess this might be an unusual question but it's sort of a "spin off" of the "tomboys" thread.

At the age you hit puberty or at least when your body began to noticeably change, did you initially embrace the changes? Or was it an "oh god why?" kind of thing? Were you sort of passive about this since, for some, it was an unavoidable consequence of being born "wrong"? Maybe for awhile you accepted it even if your mind was telling you it was horribly wrong?

How did you feel when your body started changing?

[nikkie]

Ok, so I guess this might be an unusual question but it's sort of a "spin off" of the "tomboys" thread.

At the age you hit puberty or at least when your body began to noticeably change, did you initially embrace the changes? Or was it an "oh god why?" kind of thing? Were you sort of passive about this since, for some, it was an unavoidable consequence of being born "wrong"? Maybe for awhile you accepted it even if your mind was telling you it was horribly wrong?

How did you feel when your body started changing?

Once puberty hit my brain and body did not connect at all. Things were very confusing for me. I did not want the changes to occur but had no way to stop them from happening. I remember getting in trouble for sitting with my legs open, burping, farting, not shaving, wearing my pants/shorts too low, etc. I kept telling myself that I was a boy even though my body was female. I knew that I couldn't tell anyone how I was feeling because no one would understand. I remember getting mad at people when they told me how beautiful I was becoming. It would make me sick to my stomach. I would look in the mirror and say to myself that the person that I was looking at wasn't me. The only thing that I could look at is my eyes, I think my eyes are very nice. When parents/relatives would show me pictures of me I could only look at my eyes, never at anything else.  Now that I look more male, its easier for me to look in the mirror.

[AeroZeppelin92]

I hit puberty around age 13. I basically cried myself to sleep every night for about three years straight and used to bind my chest with duct tape. It used to give me huge skin blisters and raw skin patches but back then I'd rather deal with the pain than wear a bra. Once I was about 17-18 my body had basically settled into what it was going to be, and thankfully I never developed large breasts. I'm 22 now and i measured my chest once a few weeks back (I've never bought anything besides small sport bras) and I am a 34A apparently. I basically at this point just lost all association to my body and I disconnected from it mentally.
At 18 I thought well maybe I'm just an androgynous lesbian and really tried to adopt that identity for a few years. But every so often the dysphoria would come back and I would hit depressions and try to ignore the fact that it was the dysphoria and not something else.

[wolfduality]

I should add, for myself, it was "unique". Initially, I started to panic and feel the frustration growing inside me. I began to develop about a year before my first period but it was slow. My family noticed and pointed things out but I could just shrug it off as nonsense. Then, at 13, I had my first period at school. Not only was I traumatized by events at school, I was now BLEEDING. I knew what was happening because of my mother's very open dialogue about puberty but I was still mortified.

I went to a teacher trying to fight tears because I didn't know what to do since I was at school unprepared. The "talk" with the nurse was horrible but not because it was "private" but I didn't want to acknowledge what was going on. Many teachers took sympathy on me and explained "all girls get their periods" which made me disgusted with myself. I even found out that my mom told all her coworkers about my dang first period! The shopping for hygiene supplies was uncomfortable especially since my mom just shoved me down the aisle with a simple "hurry up and pick up something you like".

Every month reminded me of my body not matching my brain. It seemed like my body was all too happy with this as I'd get agonizing cramps and sometimes get vomiting fits during my periods. Of course, everything else changed and I tried to be positive. If I had to be a woman, I better look like an average woman. That didn't happen. I didn't get pronounced hips/waist, my breast barely grew (despite genetics leaning toward melon size instead of "cherries" I now have), my voice didn't drastically heighten, my figure didn't get soft (though my face is marshmallowy:/), and so on.

Pretty much I got enough changes to mentally disturb me but not enough to be "womanly". It really messed with me but I should count my blessings as, given the fact I could pass with the right gear and presentation.

[SWNID]

That was the darkest time of my life.
Before I started puberty, I read a book about what kind of changes will happen during puberty was so shocked and scared.
I thought I could be a boy forever and nobody would know, so physically developing into a woman was the most scary and painful thing I have experienced in my life.

[Frank]

My upbringing was a little different in that I lived with two sets of family. One allowed me to dress the way I wanted and even present as male to the public. The other tried to force me to be a girl by making me wear certain clothes, nagging me about wearing boots, walking like a man, ect. By the time puberty hit, I had moved back with the accepting family for obvious reasons and was able to more or less ignore those...effects. So I would say puberty never even really bothered me as much as most, just because I was able to ignore it more or less.

By the time 18 and so on rolled around, I was really starting to feel it though, because obviously that's when most boys have good beards rolling in along with the muscle and voices. That's when I started really feeling desperate and finally got on T. I don't know what would have happened if I'd had to wait much longer than I did. Rhetorical question actually, most of us have thought it at least once if not a thousand times.

[Charliedogist]

I can honestly say I gave being a "girl" a shot. I went to the Military Ball in a very "old fashioned/southern belle" type dress, hair, makeup, ect, done and it sucked. I also ended up getting my period at that ball. Not a great time. I hid my period for a long time (I got it when I was around 16) before my mom figured it out and started leaving tampons and pads in the bathroom discreetly. Thank god for that. The puberty/sex talk after I got my first serious boyfriend (that I ended up marrying and am still living with) was humiliating enough, but even just wearing girl clothes came with a sense of WRONG WRONG WRONG. I would put up with it until I couldn't take it anymore and I'd go home and tear all those clothes off.

I'd seen shows about transmen, but they were all with women, so I brushed it off as "that can't be me, I'm not attracted to women" (this was before there was any light on gay transmen)

I hit on just being andro for the longest time. I'd grow my hair out, then cut it off, grow it out, cut it off. I finally ended up saying screw it, and just started keeping it short after I'd moved out of my parents house.

They just thought I was a tomboy and didn't like "girly" stuff, but I couldn't explain to them that that sort of the physically repulsed me, and the only reason I wore it/put up with any of it was because I was/am attracted to guys. It took a long time (and therapy) to realize that I was totally not a girl, and could play the game, but it wasn't me. Andro was looking better and better, and so I did that for a while, no HRT, just dressing more male than I already was, but everyone assumed I was just a butch lesbian, which, no offense, but I have no interest in females. It wasn't until I had some sort of breakthrough at like 3am in the morning researching androgyny that I realized transmen COULD LIKE GUYS and STILL BE TRANS.

That was a holy crap moment for me. I didn't look back after that. How could I? Going back to the farce of pretending to be a girl at this point, I think it would kill me. I couldn't do it. Nearly a year and a name change later, I'm finally close to being able to afford top surgery and I couldn't be more excited than if you'd gift wrapped me a 4x4 Jeep Rubicon and put it in my driveway.

But of course, as a young kid, I was interested in horses and dogs, and being slightly horse crazy probably didn't help the "not a girl thing" :p My mother is still in denial, because I never said anything to her about wanting to be a boy, or not being a girl, but I knew when I realized it that that was a taboo thing, and you didn't talk about it. Ignoring it in the hopes that it would go away was the route I chose.

[Kreuzfidel]

I knew what was going to happen long before it actually did as my mother had "the talk" with us when I was very young.  So when it did happen, I was horrified and it was the beginning of my spiral downwards.

[FTMDiaries]

My experiences may be a bit different from most people's, because I had a precocious puberty: I started showing the first signs of puberty when I was about 6 years old. By the time I was 7 I was growing breasts, and by the time I was 9 my hips had spread. I started periods when I was 12.

So that thing you call 'puberty'? For most of you, it probably started around your early teens, when everyone was starting to get (or want) boyfriends or girlfriends. For me, puberty was a long, slow, drawn-out car crash that screwed up my childhood from age 7. It happened way too early for me, so my physical development happened long before my brain was ready to cope with any of it. As a result I only had a year or two of carefree childhood that I can remember before my body started messing me around, and men started paying the wrong kind of attention to me. As you can probably understand, I don't associate puberty with teenagehood for that reason.

Anyway... when I hit my teens head-on with all of puberty's delights already in place, I was the most miserable scrap of humanity you could imagine. I used to wear big, baggy clothes to hide my body as much as possible, and the only reason why I always wore black was because they hadn't invented a darker colour... or better yet, clothes that could make me completely invisible.

My experiences were similar to Charlie's in that when my sexuality started to awaken I realised I was very attracted to boys and desperately wanted a boyfriend... and of course, we all know that the easiest way to get a boyfriend is to be a pretty girl, right? So I went through a phase of trying out girls' clothing (and feeling wretched whilst doing so), and trying out make-up and high heels. That sort of stuff got me a few boyfriends, but the problem was that they were focussed on the wrong parts of my body; the parts I was ashamed of and didn't want anybody to know about. They were the wrong sort of guys for me.

So like Charlie, I had an epiphany in which I realised that just because I like guys, that doesn't mean I'm 'really a girl'. It's entirely possible to be both gay and trans, so those gay longings I've felt since I was a teenager are finally starting to become a reality for me. Thank goodness.

[Tossu-sama]

I don't really remember reacting much to the changes, I think I kinda tried to block them from my mind but if I spared a thought to it, it was the "OH GOD NO" kind.

[Ayden]

I was really young. I started my period at 9, and I remember thinking I had hurt myself. I didnt know a thing about puberty and I didnt really understand it enough to be bothered. There were several points until I was 23 that I was hyper feminine but only three of those spurts were 'purging' events where I knew about myself. I was pretty confused about myself until I was 19, so I just sort of existed in a strange haze of grey. Of course, I had a lot of things I was contending with (addict parent and abusive parent, raising three younger brothers who called me mom, school, running a house) that I really didnt have much spare time to think about me as a whole. It probably saved me a lot of anguish in that department, though I had a lot of stress in others. I knew about trans people from a book and I had thought that was me, but I never had the time or resources to learn about it. When I was just starting to learn about LBGT stuff, I was 16 and I ended up running away from home.

All that being said, I was a pretty happy kid. I didnt really dwell on things that made me sad (my own discomfort about myself being a big one) and invested a ton of energy in things that made me happy. It's worked out well for me. I'm an incredibly happy person and if I had had no choice, I could have lived a full life as female. If not for any other reason than I only get one life and honestly, it's sh*t wall to wall, so I might as well get all the happiness I can.

So I guess I accept that I'm female bodied genetically and by birth. I accept my socialization and I accept that I have a lot of feminine traits. I haven't forgotten living as a woman and I doubt I ever will. I don't like it per se, but I have accepted it.

But I am VERY happy I have transitioned.

[Sir Real]

I started noticing changes in my thighs first.  My initial reaction - what the heck is going on! I need to stop eating so much! Even though I was skinny enough to disappear when I turned sideways. I didn't understand much about the secondary sex characteristics so I had no idea what was happening. I developed depression very suddenly around this time which I attribute to my brain malfunctioning on the sudden estrogen running through me. It just wasn't wired for this and I've been depressed ever since which meds haven't been able to touch even slightly.  Th'other thing was I hopped that shark week would never happen - I hoped that somehow I had contracted something horrible that would mean I never had to endure it.  But on the morning of my brother's wedding, and I had to also be a bride's maid, nature finally ran its course and I just balled my eyes out in the bathroom.  I felt dead. I can't really say I embraced it at all.  Eventually I gave up on medical transition because I didn't know much about it and thought people would kinda be stuck in the middle and stuff and I just said, "Well, if I can never be a man, I guess I should just get used to being a wom- a gir- a *gag* female" and started wearing makeup and stuff.  Funny, even though I felt incredibly exposed and ashamed and disgusted with myself, I didn't clue in that I didn't have to dress that way.  Ah well, at least things are better now 

[Blue Senpai]

I don't remember much about my puberty other than my first period and when breasts started to come in. I remember even when they were coming in, I hated wearing bras and I always got irrationally angry when I heard someone call me beautiful. I hated that word. I knew I always wanted to be a boy but it didn't seem normal to be thinking that way so I gave being a girl a couple of years, thinking it might just be a phase. How wrong I was.

I did acquire a slight feminine side which I can't deny that it was from trying to be female.

[Edge]

A bit of both. On the one hand, I hoped I would somehow end up at least part boy somehow and was uncomfortable about the changes, but I pushed them so far out of my mind that I was more numb to it than anything. I was just kind of disconnected from my body and my reflection and it felt more surreal than upsetting. I chalk that up to deep denial.
On the other, I was a pretty weird kid and wanted to be normal and fit in. It was normal for girls to want boobs and stuff, so that's how I acted and tried to be. Obviously, trying to be normal didn't work since I ended up with extreme anger issues and other psychiatric problems anyway.

I did acquire a slight feminine side which I can't deny that it was from trying to be female.

Same.

[Elis]

I don't really remember my exact feelings as it happened when I was around 13 or 14. But I always hated shark week, it was just a mess every month and I never felt comfortable. I also hated my breasts so I never just wore a t shirt and nothing else as I hated them showing. My dad's gf taking me clothes shopping didn't make me feel happier either. I just remember constantly feeling uncomfortable in my body. I guess I made a sort of effort when I started buying clothes myself, but never knew what to buy (girl's clothes look all the same to me) and made sure they completely covered myself up. I did buy foundation but never used it and a girl's magazine to try and fit in, but only looked at the real life story section., not the girly bits.

[victoria n]

no trans person is born wrong. the  problem is not physical unless born intersex.

[Edge]

no trans person is born wrong. the  problem is not physical unless born intersex.

1. What does that have to do with the topic?
2. Actually, studies indicate that being trans is physical seeing as brains are physical organs.

[FTMDiaries]

no trans person is born wrong. the  problem is not physical unless born intersex.

I dunno; I'm in two minds about this. It all comes down to the old trope about 'being born in the wrong body'.

See, I wasn't born in the wrong body. I was born in the only body I could possibly have. Unfortunately, that body came with chromosomes and genitalia that were at odds with my brain structure - and since I was labelled and raised according to a midwife's cursory glance at my genitalia rather than the structure of my brain, that's definitely a physical problem for me.

[OreSama]

I embraced my femininity but I never embraced being female.  I wore makeup, women's clothes, read girly romance manga and so on but I always wanted to do that stuff as a guy.

[devention]

I had my first period at nine or ten after saying I couldn't wait for it, because I thought that getting your period meant you were going to grow a penis. I started upstairs development shortly thereafter and cried myself to sleep a few times because I knew it meant I'd never be able to go outside shirtless again (although my mom had curtailed that behavior when I was seven, I still had hope for it that she was wrong and once this puberty nonsense was sorted out, everything would be better). I think I was eleven when it hit me that things were not going right, because an older gentleman at my aunt's church said I was a polite young man, and my mother took umbrage to it. I of course was like "mom he thinks I'm a boy!"
I resigned myself to my fate around fourteen, and then people around me started dying, so I had more important things to focus on. I did fight with my mom about wearing a dress to my grandmother's funeral. The conversation went something like "I hate wearing dresses!" "I hate that my mother is dead, put it on!" So I did. I didn't even fight about it when my dad died. I hated it, but I didn't fight with her.
I tried the "being a girl" thing for a couple months, but it never sat right. I remember trying my mom's makeup one night while she was working and crying in the bathroom because it was so wrong, but everyone expected me to wear it.
I wish I had figured out what the T in LGBT meant in high school, because it would've saved me a lot of heartache as I got older. For someone who was very into LGB rights (I have a paper about gay marriage from every year of high school), I sure managed to do that "ignoring the T" thing pretty well.
Puberty was the worst time of my life, for a lot of reasons, not all of them gender related.
Tl;dr: I fought it, tried to embrace it, and then said screw it and did my own thing.