My mother's assessment of me as a child...

[Ms Grace]

In discussion about various issues with my mother the other day she let slip this little gem...

Apparently, when I was a kid, she perceived that my lack of interest in rough and tumble boys activities, preference for quieter pursuits (such as drawing and playing with action figures, stuffed toys and animal "dolls" that I had drawn and cut out) meant that she suspected that I was probably gay.

Le sigh.

But it was the times (1970s), it's not like transgender was really a "thing" back then.

I just said to her that "no I wasn't, I just wasn't interested in being a boy or hanging out with boys so I made my own entertainment". I did have some male friends, they all tended to be less rough in play in our one on ones.

At least I could escape from the "reality" of being treated as a boy through my imagination, it would have been a harder emotional stretch had my curiosity about what it would be like to be a girl and desire to have girls as friends been more solid to me. In those days boys and girls "couldn't" be friends anyway (germs/cooties, you know).

Given my parents conservative streak and general lack of understanding in those days I'm glad that my trans identification as a child was nameless... mostly limited to not wanting to be a boy, rather than specifically wanting to be a girl... I suspect things would have been much harder for me had the latter been the case.

[stephaniec]

I'm glad my parents went the route of not involving professional help

[Deborah]

Mine threatened me with a psychiatrist after telling me I was sick and wrong.  Instead they sent me to Military School when I was 13.  I never broached the subject with them again.  I tried to hint towards it with my mother a few years ago but dropped it when I began sending a deep hostility.  Now they're both dead and gone.

[Lady Sarah]

I always preferred to play with the girls. The boys didn't want to play with me anyways, and I didn't mind. There came a time when my adoptive parents tried to put me in an institution for developementaly disabled people. They put me in a room with toys, and watched me. After 30 minutes, the bad news was delivered. I was not retarded, and they could not get rid of me that easily.

Then, the abuse and neglect happened. By the time I was 14, my adoptive mom started trying to kill me. Needless to say, foster care was wonderful, as compared to what I had gone through. The 3rd (and final) foster home only took in girls. I was never allowed to present myself as female, but at least they knew how to handle foster children with female minds.

[big kim]

I was constantly told why can't you be like your sister? So I did! My sister got glowing school reports,never got drunk (she did but I covered up for her,) never got into fights unlike me

[Seshatneferw]

Apparently, when I was a kid, she perceived that my lack of interest in rough and tumble boys activities, preference for quieter pursuits (such as drawing and playing with action figures, stuffed toys and animal "dolls" that I had drawn and cut out) meant that she suspected that I was probably gay.

This seems to be a common misconception. A couple of years ago, my mum confessed that for a long time – until I started dating the woman with whom I'm still married – she thought I was gay. I pointed out that it turns out she was right: I am, only in the other direction. And on this, we shared a laugh.

[SadieBlake]

Grace, you have my sympathies (sigh)

Indeed, there was no language in the '60-70s for transgender and anything but unabashed masculinity could only be taken for gay and that of course was hardly accepted.

So yes, my mother took any signs that I wasn't 'normal' to mean there must be risk I was a ->-bleeped-<-.

She took steps. I went to a private school where the fall sport was soccer - something I was actually good at and she threatened once to send me to public school where I would be made a man by having to play American football. One summer she enrolled me in a hockey camp -- something I really had zero skill for.

Any disappointment I engendered resulted in a slight on my masculinity - of course her taste in men ran to alcoholics who tended to be abusive, at least after she divorced my father parent she didn't have any of them live with us.
   
At 87 she's changed little and I have no intention of ever coming out with her.

To be clear, I hadn't the vaguest idea I was trans. I preferred early on to play with girls - it didn't take long to learn that that wasn't ok. Rather read or work with my hands than anything else. Eventually after a school experience of being bullied I found my love of science could make a career and I became an acceptably masculine workaholic with a barely-explored tendency to cross dress (my ex-wife was also quite conventional in her notions of gender and sexuality). It wasn't until after divorce  that I allowed myself to explore.

[alex82]

My mothers assessment of me was/is that something was off, but that gay didn't seem to fit. She is the type of woman who'd be over the moon if it did, with all her gay friends now becoming too old for heavy nights out, I should just about be taking up the slack there and bringing her along to clubs and what not. When I explained, finally it all slotted into place for her why that hadn't been happening over the last ten to fifteen years. Calmly resigned I'd say. Certainly not happy - and how could you be? To be very blunt about it, despite my own history and status, even I would be pretty devastated to discover that a child of mine, or even an adopted one, was transgender.

We had a neighbour who was a well known trans woman, and a very glamorous one at that, and suddenly like a lightbulb, my mother remembered all the times I'd excused myself from her company in the communal garden, walked past her on the stairs with barely a hello - I didn't want to look this woman in the eye or get too friendly with her, because she'd know. While all the gay people around us at the same time, I never had any problem with - because it wasn't a mirror of me, there was nothing to feel affinity for or horror about.

There's an interview with Cher I watched years ago - the trouble she had had with Chastity coming out as a lesbian, and saying her concerns were twofold - first, while that was great for anyone else, she didn't want it for her daughter because it wasn't the easiest path and you want your child to have as few problems as possible (fair enough I think), and second, a vague sense that the 'lesbian' label just actually wasn't quite right for the child that she knew, and she didn't know what was really right until Chas was standing in front of her.

I'm surprised by some of this - not allowed to have 'cross' gender friendships? Was Australia in the 70's really so different from England in the 80's? I was allowed to play with who I wanted. I've never been to Australia, but I didn't think the people were all that different. I suppose I shouldn't have spent my childhood watching 'Neighbours' and thinking how nice it'd be to live next door to Helen Daniels and her watercolour paints. It's obviously warped my mind about Australian lifestyles.

[Michelle_P]

Grace, I think I understand.  I'm so glad things have changed so much for the better for the youth of today.

I predate you by a decade or so.   I've written about my happy fun childhood here:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,207126.msg1837151.html#msg1837151

Unfortunately, my folks did seek help for me.  The Standards of Care back then called for different treatment than they do today.  I think, thanks to Mom, I didn't get the Conversion package, just the testosterone shots. :p  That's how I know I'm not compatible with that stuff.  (Goooooo spiro!)

[nicolef]

My mom assumed I was happy as a little boy and realized she was wrong when I did come out when I was 24.

[Miss Clara]

When I came out to my mother a few years ago, she said that she had no idea that I was anything but a normal boy.  She told me that I was a gentle boy who loved to draw, write, and make things.  I helped around the house and never gave her any reason to worry about me. 

I, too, didn't like to play with most other boys.  I had one best friend who was a lot like me, but whenever a third boy joined us in play, the two of them would usually get into harmless rough and tumble fighting which I was not inclined to do.  I loved to get involved with games and activities that included girls, but would never let on that I felt drawn to them over boys, although I was. 

When I got into elementary school I didn't relate to other boys very well.  I hated recess because it meant having to do the things boys like to do which didn't appeal to me very much. It usually involved demonstration of physical strength, athletic ability, rule breaking, gross humor, or aggressive behavior.  There were boys who I had to steer clear of to avoid becoming the target of bullying. 

In the classroom, I was an attentive, diligent student like many of the girls I went to school with.  I never understood why 90% of the other boys hated school and did so poorly.  Though I would have loved to have joined in with the girls, it was not a good idea. 

There were other boys who I got along with.  They tended to also be the better students, typically involved in music, art, and literature.  In high school I joined the swimming team and participated in track and field.  I was not athletically inept, but I shied away from sports that involved body-to-body contact or feats of strength. 

I dated girls in high school because it was a way to be around them.  Sex was not the main motivation.  I never understood the obsession of other boys' interest in sex.  I was sexually attracted to girls, not boys, but didn't have that drive to get girls to "put out" the way other boys did.  To this day, I have no real sense of what it's like to experience sex the way a man does.  Thankfully, I no longer have to fret about that.

[Ms Grace]

I'm surprised by some of this - not allowed to have 'cross' gender friendships? Was Australia in the 70's really so different from England in the 80's? I was allowed to play with who I wanted. I've never been to Australia, but I didn't think the people were all that different. I suppose I shouldn't have spent my childhood watching 'Neighbours'

When I was 5 (1971) my best friend was the girl across the road, so it wasn't a thing you couldn't do. But as you got older it was made harder - for example in my mixed sex primary school the boys and girls were in the same classes but separated in the play yard, and of course once you get into sports everything is definitely gender segregated. Just made it hard to get to know a girl or spend time with her if she didn't live next door or something. In about 1975 there was another girl a few years older than me across the road I never played with her and yet my 18 month younger sister was over there all the time. Girls were friends with girls, boys were friends with boys and that was just the attitude. And then, joy of joys, I went to a male high school.

As for Neighbours, that came about in the late '70s or early '80s...sorry to break it to you but I don't think it painted a very realistic picture of Australian society!!

[V]

Up until the age of 7, my best friend was a girl. Then we moved house and I never saw her again.
When I told my mother I was trans back in 2001, I was 28 yrs old.
She (and my father) both said afterwards that they thought I was going to tell them I was gay, nope, surprise!
My father got his head around it in about 30 mins (I was always very close to my dad), my mother did not!
She got really upset with me, and cried "I could have understood if it had been your brother, but not you!!??"
See, my brother was arty, like my mom, he was great with children, good at cooking, outgoing and confident, and he worked as a primary school teacher. He always got on really well with my mom, whereas I did not.
I was shy, introvert, unhappy, severely depressed (multiple suicide attempts by that point), not good socially or with people, mechanically minded, and ended up as an engineer. So in her eyes, my brother 'should' have been the girl, and I should be the boy.
Sigh, if only it was that easy mom...
It took her 6 months to finally come to terms with it, and agree to meet me again.
Through all of this, I was still in contact a lot with my dad, and he was always telling me to just be patient and give her time, so I did.
When I finally met my mother again 6 months later (this time I was dressed as female), she told me that actually there had been some very subtle things that I had done as a child that she had dismissed, but now she though about it, she could see why. Things like how I always wanted to grow my nails long and shape them in a feminine style, which she always forbid me from doing, to the point of forcibly cutting them. Also she was forever picking me up on how I walked, and saying that it was 'wrong' and that I should walk 'properly', i.e. in a more masculine and less feminine way.
She also confessed that some reasons why she had struggled so much once I told her was that she blamed herself for "causing" my gender dysphoria because she might have done something wrong while she was carrying me, or been too stressed and caused the hormones in her baby to get mixed up. I told her that it was not her fault, and she couldn't have caused it, but I could see it really bothered her. Also, she said she had had to grieve over the loss of her eldest son (me) as she felt like 'he' had 'died' and been replaced by a woman. She said she had to do this to come to terms with it, and be able to "swap" her son for her daughter.
She is absolutely fine about it now, and only treats me as her daughter, we go shopping, and are much closer now than before I transitioned.
I am actually really impressed with how my dad coped with it all. He just seemed to flick a switch as suddenly he had a daughter, and that was that. No fuss, no bother, he just got on with it. I'm very lucky as I have heard so many trans people say how their fathers have not accepted it at all.

[Heather14]

As a child I found that I just naturally orientated towards more feminine things vs male endeavors. I played baseball but that was the only sport that I enjoyed. I always wondered why I felt different, then one day my mom asked me to take in the laundry from the line and when I touched her panties and bras it was like a bolt of electricity had entered me. The feel of the material was breathtaking. Over time when I was home alone I would put on her things and when I looked at myself in the mirror I knew I was supposed to be a girl. I did take a few of her things and had them in my drawers. She did find them but never removed them. She on occasions would wash them and put them back plus add a few items over time. My mother taught me how to cook, clean, sew and other things related to what at that time was not taught to boys. My parents never pushed me to do boy stuff. My mother never discussed what she found with my dad that I knew of. I am sure she knew I was different and I regret not discussing how I felt with her. It is too late now but I remember my Mother as a caring parent and accepting of me.

What I find very interesting about my life was that my Dad was a Baptist Minister and you would think he would be condemning of anything not bible related. But he was kind and understanding. He taught me and my brother tolerance and acceptance of others no matter who they were or their situation. Even though I was a guy I did have a wonderful childhood, I just wished I had been a girl. My Mom was very fashionable and I could only imagine the dresses I would have had.

Heather

[AnonyMs]

My mother thought I was gay for quite a while. If only.

I can't look back on it and say there was any sign I was trans though.

[Dee Marshall]

I think my mother may have thought I was gay. She certainly knew something was up. She taught me to cook and clean. She tried to teach me knitting. She told me she thought I would never get married. Oh, and I had gynecomastia at puberty. I'm glad we didn't go for the "cut them off" option. My father likely would have been livid but he passed when I was 11.

[Marissa_K]

Well parents can definitely say weird stuff. My step mother worries what I'm going through is her fault because apparently when I was 6, I asked her for a toy car in a store which she didn't get for whatever reasons, "made me trans". I really don't understand some people's obsessions with heteronormative toys. My cousin drives a tuned up A3 audio lowered to the ground..... She is all woman.....

[tgirlamg]

HI Ms Grace!!!

We are of the same era!!!... I knew from a young age that something was up with how I felt but there weren't even terms to attach to it... The closest was ->-bleeped-<- which was a heavy label... Especially for a kid and it brought on a lot of shame... I knew instinctively that you don't talk about this stuff to anyone and maybe it goes away lol!!!

I wish my mom was here to see me now... I think she'd be proud of her daughter ....as her sister, my aunt is!!!....But, I always. wondered if she noticed that her closet and makeup drawer were not exactly how she had left them....

Take Care
Ashley

[V]

... I knew from a young age that something was up with how I felt but there weren't even terms to attach to it... The closest was ->-bleeped-<- which was a heavy label... Especially for a kid and it brought on a lot of shame... I knew instinctively that you don't talk about this stuff to anyone and maybe it goes away

Take Care
Ashley

Yes, that bolded area was very much me as a child. Sneaking the odd chance to try on my Mom's clothes when no one was about. Feeling a mixture of positive and negative emotions when (and after) doing so.
So so confusing to 9yr old me.

[Daria67]

...when I was 6, I asked her for a toy car in a store which she didn't get for whatever reasons, "made me trans". I really don't understand some people's obsessions with heteronormative toys.

OMG, that is soooo much what I had to deal with as a child. My mother became absolutely fanatical about keeping me away from girl things. Things I asked for and wanted included Nancy Drew books, an Easy Bake Oven, Barbie dolls, skipping ropes...  all of which were denied me. Even as a teenager; One year I received (from my mom!) a 'James Dean' coat which went down past my knees. I LOVED it. Not long afterwards I came home from school only to discover my mother had taken it to get it altered and it was now a good foot shorter than it had been. I was livid,

Flash forward to current day. My mother pretty much refuses to talk about my childhood, which sucks because I'd love to hear about her impressions of me when I was small. In my mind I can see like a thousand 'hints' that I was not really a boy and I think as a parent it must have been obvious to her?