when did you realize you were a transsexual?

[Ms Bev]

Me?

I wanted to be a girl when I was 4.  But that was back in the 50's, and boys were, well....just boys.  You got what nature dealt you.  So, I was a boy, and when puberty kicked in with testosterone, I was a boy all the time.......except once in a while when I thought it was wrong, and wanted a shape, breasts, soft skin, and a different way of seeing, and thinking.  But then, soon enough, I was all guy again, except that I was slight of build, and didn't really like sports, or getting dirty, or, you know.....boy stuff.

Some of us take longer than others, sometimes much longer, to get to the point of not being able to handle it any longer.  Some solve it by taking flight from a very high place.  Such a tragedy.  I stopped it by being what I must be. 
Do I wish I had started earlier in life?  No, not really.  If I had, I would not now have my life partner...my wife, or my children, or my lovely grandchildren.  All happy, and me.......at peace, just the same.

Bev

[Christine Eryn]

Age of 4 also. It's all coming together now.

[Lisbeth]

Rogue: Is it true?  Have they found a cure?
Professor X: Yes Rogue, it's true.
Storm: no, no it's not true, wanna know why?  Cuz there's nothing to cure, there's nothing wrong with us.

Exactly so.

[kalt]

Rogue: Is it true?  Have they found a cure?
Professor X: Yes Rogue, it's true.
Storm: no, no it's not true, wanna know why?  Cuz there's nothing to cure, there's nothing wrong with us.

Exactly so.

I know.
That plot line is symbolic of so many things.
I wouldn't expected it to be so, it seems just like any other action plot, it's not like Narnia or LOTR or Billy Jack.
I still think that transsexualism is a disorder in some ways, but I do not see the harm in allowing transition and I do see the harm in not allowing it, which is why I think insurance companies should support it to the point of HRT and GRS, but anything beyond that I don't know yet... politics, I wish I was still a minor>.>

[Lisbeth]

That plot line is symbolic of so many things.
I wouldn't expected it to be so, it seems just like any other action plot, it's not like Narnia or LOTR or Billy Jack.

I would.  It seems like everything about X-Men has been about being different and accepting or rejecting differences.

[kalt]

That plot line is symbolic of so many things.
I wouldn't expected it to be so, it seems just like any other action plot, it's not like Narnia or LOTR or Billy Jack.

I would.  It seems like everything about X-Men has been about being different and accepting or rejecting differences.

I should be magneto.
DEATH TO ALL um... -is trying to figure out who to not like-
Phooey.

Some help here?

[Stormy]

I kinda came at this thing backwards, as I never thought of things I DID as being clues or anything... the need to be a girl was just ALWAYS there, at *least* from ages 3 or 4 as I clearly remember much of my life before kindergarten. And even then, this knowing of "what the heck happened? I need to be a girl, not a boy!" tortured me 24/7.

But I never thought about or envied clothes or anything like that. I'd play with the neighborhood girls and just wish I was more like them, and desperately wanted to be accepted as ONE of them. I didn't do girly things and think, "hmmmm, maybe I like doing these things because I'm really a girl!" Instead, the need or feeling of needing to be a girl existed FIRST, without any obvious reasons or "clues" to explain it.

And I didn't articulate it back then as "I AM a girl!" because... well that made no sense to me. All the Big People told me I was a boy, and I trusted their judgement. My angst was simple: I was born a boy. I should have been and need to be a girl. Now what am I supposed to do?

Wow, you stole my answer.  That is my story as well, except that age 13, I was driven find out why I felt the
way I did and discovered transsexualism.  I knew in an instant that was me.  I just waited another 37 years to
do something about it.

Stormy

[Kate]

Wow, you stole my answer.  That is my story as well, except that age 13, I was driven find out why I felt the
way I did and discovered transsexualism.

Sure, I mean I heard of Christine Jorgeson at one point as a child, though I ONLY knew she had "changed her sex." I knew no details, nothing about the process. And for whatever naive reason, I didn't then think, "Oh! There must be thousands of people like me then out there with a conditon called transsexualism!" No, I instead thought, "Well... that makes two insane people on the planet who feel this bizarre need."

Kinda stupid of me, looking back on it all now. But there was no internet, and I sure as heck wasn't going to risk being caught in a library looking this "dirty" sex stuff up. Plus I didn't even know where to begin. I kept my ears open from then on, but didn't really hear anything more than shows about drag queens and crossdressers... and I knew I wasn't like that. I needed to BE female, not play with looking like one.

Younger transitioners don't always realize how swept-under-the-rug this topic was Way Back When. Today you can hardly turn on the TV without Oprah or Dateline doing a show on TSism. That just did NOT happen when I was growing up. You heard... rumours... whispers about a few crazy people flying to foreign countries to have this crazy operation. That's it. The idea of being able to transition through a doctor's care was just totally unknown to me.

~Kate~

[kalt]

Dear Kate,

You're an insane lady with a bizaare need.

<3

I mean jeez, everyone else on these forums is NORMAL.  But not you.

^_^

[Kate]

You're an insane lady with a bizaare need.

I mean jeez, everyone else on these forums is NORMAL.  But not you.

LOL, I just meant that's how *I* thought of myself at the time

Well OK, I still think I'm nuts, but the TSism has nothing to do with it, lol...

~Kate~

[MichelleA]

As far as I can remember, probably ages 5-6 I've always wanted to be a girl.. then I had that strange dream. With only this knowledge I got pushed away from the whole thought seeing myself as a freak due to "Jerry Springer" which my sisters would always watch when I was younger. I'd say probably at age 12 I realized I was trans, but had no courage.. Age 14 I came out to my parents as a gay youth, then after that I came out as trans.. However, my story is only in its beginning chapters, being I'm only 16 and finally looking into some help. But really, that feeling has "ALWAYS" been there, as long as I can remember.

Michelle

[Lisbeth]

Sure, I mean I heard of Christine Jorgeson at one point as a child, though I ONLY knew she had "changed her sex." I knew no details, nothing about the process. And for whatever naive reason, I didn't then think, "Oh! There must be thousands of people like me then out there with a conditon called transsexualism!" No, I instead thought, "Well... that makes two insane people on the planet who feel this bizarre need."

I kind of supressed those thoughts about 2 seconds after my mother greeted the news report with the words, "Whatever is the world coming to?  We must surely be living in the end times!"

You heard... rumours... whispers about a few crazy people flying to foreign countries to have this crazy operation.

Rumours of people who went to Europe or Mexico.  That's all I ever heard.  And that alot of them died.

[kalt]

As far as I can remember, probably ages 5-6 I've always wanted to be a girl.. then I had that strange dream. With only this knowledge I got pushed away from the whole thought seeing myself as a freak due to "Jerry Springer" which my sisters would always watch when I was younger. I'd say probably at age 12 I realized I was trans, but had no courage.. Age 14 I came out to my parents as a gay youth, then after that I came out as trans.. However, my story is only in its beginning chapters, being I'm only 16 and finally looking into some help. But really, that feeling has "ALWAYS" been there, as long as I can remember.

Michelle

Best of luck.

[Dorothy]

I displayed a very feminine behaviour at a very early age.  The first time I can remember has to have been around age six.  I informed my parents I was a girl when I was 14.

[Wing Walker]

It depends on how you look at it. I was raised as a Catholic and I knew by praying every night I would wake up and be a girl. I was 10 or 12. I don't remember much before that. I didn't learn anything about gender dysphoria until I was in my 30's. Even then, I resisted. Then one day I read an article about someone who'd made the change. I thought OMG that's me! After that I ready everything I could find about it. I came out in '97. I started hrt in December, changed my name in Jan '98 and was full time by March.

I don't know if it answers the question, but that's my story.

Sounds like a page from my life.

When I was five I recall dressing in the hand-me-downs that my older sister had worn and feeling good that I did.

When I was eight I was in Catholic school.  I was standing in-line behind a girl named Marlene.  She was wearing a white, half-sleeve blouse with a dark green jumper, hemmed just above the knee, with socks and slip-on shoes.  I almost swooned over her because it was at that second that I knew that I should have been like her.

I came to love and prize the company of girls but not having the "right" appearance made that difficult for me.

I had to try on my sister's clothes to feel them, stuffing her bra and seeing myself in the mirror, putting her panty girdle on and learning how to wear nylons without putting a runner in them.  When the rest of the family went out, I came out, so to speak.

And I prayed and prayed and cried and prayed myself to sleep to wake up a girl.  The Almighty can do all things and surely to change my gender overnight wasn't impossible.  It just wasn't what the Ultimate had in mind for me at the time.

Fast forward to 1995, age 44, and my first computer.  I became an infomaniac looking for sites that dealt with transsexuality in a proper light, not porn. 

Forty-six years after first knowing that there was a disconnect between my inner gender and my outer appearance I began to transition and I have not regretted one picosecond of it.

Wing Walker

[Ms Bev]

I heard of Christine Jorgeson at one point as a child, though I ONLY knew she had "changed her sex." I knew no details, nothing about the process.

"Well... that makes two insane people on the planet who feel this bizarre need."

there was no internet, and I sure as heck wasn't going to risk being caught in a library looking this "dirty" sex stuff up. Plus I didn't even know where to begin.

I knew I wasn't like that. I needed to BE female, not play with looking like one.

Younger transitioners don't always realize how swept-under-the-rug this topic was Way Back When.

~Kate~

Yep.....I agree with all these.  When I first heard of Jorgenson in my early teens, the only thing I can remember is being very, very jealous, and knew ordinary people like me had no chance of this blessing.
And no, you didn't want to be caught in the library, tho I started looking anyway in the mid 80's.  Didn't help.
You just did not talk about such a thing....NOBODY understood.  We're talking about times when we were treated in mental health institutions, sometimes with ect treatments.


So.....now, late in life, here I am.

Born Beverly

[Julie Marie]

Realizing one is TS vs. accepting one is TS can be separated by years, even decades.  If I knew what a transsexual was when I was five I would have said I was transsexual then.  When I finally accepted I was TS I was 53.  I took the COGIATI test online, knowing full well no single test was going to determine if you were TS or not.  Even though I skewed the test so I would score higher (I thought) I was very shaken when the result was "Probable Transsexual".  I was sitting on my laptop in the basement crying when my daughter came down and asked me what was the matter.  I couldn't tell her her dad would one day transition to a woman.  It just broke my heart even thinking about it.  When I later took the test and answered everything totally honestly I scored even higher.

That test didn't make me believe I was TS, it made me admit I was.  I've known this all my life but I just could never face it.

Today I have all but completed my mental transition.  My physical transition begins in June '08.  There's no doubt this is the path I need to take if I ever want real happiness and inner peace.

Knowing you're transsexual is one thing but admitting it and accepting it is quite another.

Julie

[Butterfly]

I knew I was a girl with the wrong parts when I was very little.  Maybe three or four.  My transition began decades later of course.  I won't say how many... ~winks~

[kalt]

I think all of us used to pray to become a girl when we went to bed.
I didn't ask for morning though.
I was like, "make me a girl RIGHT NOW."
It always made me even sadder:-(

[Yvonne]

I knew I was a girl when I was five.  I wish the clinicians and my parents had realized that before deciding to assign me as boy due to my IS condition.  I'm still quite enraged about it.