How many of us "knew" as kids? Who showed signs?

[dahliasimone1981]

I always knew....I didnt always know there was a term for it, as I lived a VERY sheltered, Pentecostal childhood....but one of my earliest memories is fantasizing of being this model in one of my mom's JC Penny's Holiday Catalogs....I tore that picture out and just knew, even then, that THAT is what I was.

[adumava]

There are signs of me "not being like other boys" but I'm not sure if and how they could correlate seeing as how I still haven't figured out my gender questions. I have had mostly female friends as far back as I can remember throughout life, I can easily recall wanting to play with dolls and with my female friends' toys. I used to wear my mom's purple slippers around the house when I was very little. I liked the Care Bears well into middle school and even had some little stuffed bears in my room of them. I felt out of place in baseball/basketball/soccer when I played them throughout my childhood but I put on a good face and at times it could be fun. Really though, I just never felt manly enough to boys my age. I felt like there was something different with me. Like I said, I still have questions about my gender that haven't begun to be figured out but it's just a couple things I remember as a child.XR

[Asche]

I wouldn't say I knew when I was a kid since the concept of being able to transition to another gender was unheard of for me. I wouldn't say I went around wishing I was girl, just that I really hated being a boy and being treated by one and expected to do the things boys do. When I was 12 I was told that I was going to a boy's high school and, for reasons that made no sense to me at the time but which are fairly evident now, I suddenly burst into tears - there was no way I wanted to do that. How horrific (and it was).

Sort of describes me, except that the all-boys school for me was in 5th and 6th grade (age 10-11), which is the age at which the private school I was sent to split the boys and girls and started whipping the boys into the proper boy-shape.  I didn't burst into tears at the time because I had no clue as to what was going to hit me, and besides, I already knew that "boys don't cry," and if they do anyway, they can count on being scolded and taunted and humiliated for it by everyone around them.   I don't know how much of my wrongness at the time was gender-based, how much was me being kind of a ditzy space cadet (like my own sons at that age) and how much was my just generally not fitting in, but I can't think of a single respect in which I was able to be the right kind of boy for them.  I've mostly repressed the details, but I'm fairly sure I didn't do anything bad, I just couldn't do anything right, and that was enough to catch hell from the principal, the teachers, and the other boys.  It seemed like I could get into trouble just walking down the hall.

I didn't fantasize about being a girl -- in fact, the idea of becoming a girl terrified me -- but I was fascinated by girls' clothes and everything about being a girl; I guess I could have been described as a cross-dresser in my heart.  It's only very recently -- like in the last year or two -- that I ran across the idea that maybe my fascination with girls and women is wanting to be one (which dudes aren't supposed to want), rather than wanting to have one (which is what dudes are supposed to want.)

[AlB]

I don't think I knew I was a boy. But I knew that I didn't feel comfortable being a girl. Often I felt awkward doing "girls things" and I felt insecure throughout school, and I never really understood why any girls liked doing their makeup, hair etc. But I didn't know about the possibility of transitioning. So I guess I kinda always "knew" in some way, but I just didn't have the information of what was possible I guess.