How come our experiences are all so different?

[BunnyBee]

I still don't really understand how I could seemingly have no dysphoria as a kid, and then all of a sudden have my gender identity so abruptly shift to completely feminine in middle school, but it happened how it happened. Gender is a pretty confusing thing to understand sometimes.

Hope and despair are opposite sides of a seesaw.  Maybe subconsciously you did feel like a girl.  Maybe when puberty hit, reality set in for you.  With hope lost, despair (dysphoria) set in.  Maybe it was something like that?

This was my experience too, only I was conscious of how I felt to some degree.  I just was okay-ish with my own existence cuz reality hadn't set in fully.  Puberty changed that.  Whenever I had other big crashes downward in my life, it seemed to always coincide with an experience where I lost even more hope of ever being ok with living with my own existence.

[DanielleA]

Through out my early childhood I was quick to cry and prefered the less aggressive things . I had a twin brother (Jordan) and older brother (Joshua) who looked after me. I had no present father and an ineffectual mother all the men that were in my earlier life either hurt my twin and I in some way or took no notice of us. As we grew up Josh moved out leaving all the older brother things to Jordan. I didn't have words for what I was feeling or reasons to why I liked certain things and Jordan just assumed I was his feminine  twin.
When life at home began to be too stressful, I would get out of the house and head for my secret hiding spot near were I lived. My hiding spot had female clothes, money ect. Were I would change into them so I could go about the day as a girl. I never really thought about why I liked them but for some reason it destressed me.
By the time I entered foster care at 12yro I had little trust in many people and no trust in men so when anyone pryed into why I was doing what I do, I shut down and avoided conversation. Eventually my desperation to be female became too great and at 19yro I decided to transition. My foster mum was the first to find out and most family members showed disapproval  to the idea of me being female. Several years later my foster mum is my rock and most family members are on my side.

[Mikaela]

Different life experiences maybe. Different personalities.

I did not know when I was a child. Looking back there were definitely clues. Makeup, dresses, dolls I have been told that I tried them all. Those are girl things and not for you. Apparently I just moved on, I don't remember my early childhood well. I do remember my grandparents talking (was raised by them) and my grandfather say that my grandmother had to quit coddling me, that I was a sissy and that I would never be a man. Maybe it was just a different time, the 70's were very different.

Puberty was the most brutal time of my life. The changes in my body were not right. Being in a very religious family, I thought that I was evil. How else could I explain these thoughts. I still thought that I was a boy, just that I was sick.

I did all of the boy things, or in most cases, learned the lingo so no one knew that I was a freak. Hormones drove me to find girlfriends and have sex. Let me feel more normal. Then by my early twenties when I couldn't do that anymore, couldn't pretend that I was enjoying it, I pulled in on myself. I denied it for two decades until I couldn't anymore. This 'sickness' wasn't going away. Sure I had seen cross dressing, ok, like the idea but that didn't explain the body problems. I didn't know that it was possible to change the body.

Then when my 16 year relationship ended because I couldn't physically do man stuff anymore. Everything worked but, eww, eww, eww. I thought that if I was going to be alone the rest of my life, why not be me when I was at home? Oh boy! Then it came crashing down. This is who I am!!! Started looking online and found out that there were other people like me and that there was something that I could do about it. That was ten months ago. Now, one month after my 45th birthday, I have been on hrt for two weeks.

I feel, I don't know the word, right maybe, for the first time in my life. It's not a question of clothes or makeup or doing girly things, they come naturally and feel right, it's about feeling comfortable being me.

Why are no two snowflakes the same? Dunno and honestly, I am just happy that I am a snowflake.

[katrinaw]

I knew I should not have been born a boy from a very early age, certainly pre 6yo... However I had not heard of Transgender or Gender Dysphoria until mid life, so I just knew I had to keep it secret! Back then any male caught in girls clothes was ostracised and ridiculed... scary.

However when I played with my brothers I recall always wanting to play "damsel in distress" part, or a nurse or.... etc. During my teens I had lots of friends, mostly girls, I related best to girls (of course), used to help them with boyfriends and advice, it was so natural...

I also used to think of ways (accidents) to loose my manly parts, how can I make my breasts grow.... and sadly (never worked) tried everything to get my hair to grow (was balding from very early age) and in the last 15 or so years tried so many different products etc. to get it to grow... but then I found HRT... at least I am seeing some re-growth 

In any case I have never really subscribed to manly team sports, sticking to Ice Skating, Skiing etc. Always fighting my true desires and emotions till now.
To cut a long story short I hid and married (was expected and the done thing (21yo) and had kids etc... Had I have known then or been born later???

But certainly I have never doubted that I was born into the wrong genetic physical form

L Katy