How and when did you realize you were transgender?

[LucyNewport]

I see so much of myself in these posts - it's uncanny. So here is my deal:

I came to the realization that I am trans (and transitioning) slowly over the course of many years. I've always had a strong aversion to anything masculine like sports or male-coded clothing. I identified with the girls way more than the boys. I have an older sister so I would steal her clothes to see how I looked in them. I also just knew that this was something shameful and that I could never tell anyone.

My urge to crossdress - that's all I though it was - would come and go, sometimes for a year or more. When I went off to college it came back with a vengeance. I started to read up on what my condition was. I pulled every book on it off the stacks at the school library. For the first time I considered living my life as a woman. The idea terrified me. It was like looking up at an enormous mountain, one that would take forever to climb, and then seeing that there were even taller peaks beyond it and more beyond them. I decided that I could never pull it off.

I did the opposite. I settled down with my girlfriend. We moved to the big city. Got married, had kids. I really thought this would cure me, and it did! (ha ha) I would tell myself that there were 1000 reasons not to do it. "Only a small percentage of trans folk transition" I would say, or "Nothing is more feminine than self sacrifice, so at least there is that".

I started going out to TG nights as Lucy back in '04. This worked for a long time, until it didn't anymore. I tried on a few identities like genderqueer along the way. It was early spring 2015 when I finally realized that I couldn't fight my dysphoria anymore. It was never going away. It was in fact getting worse. I admitted to myself what I am, again, and decided to do something about it this time.

And here I am.

[jill610]

I have known since before I can remember. Long before I started kindergarten. I grew up in a traditional family in central Ohio, my mom stayed home and took care of us kids, while dad was traveling most of the time to pay for that. I wish I had the courage to say something. So many times throughout life I had the opportunity to do something, to make that change and instead have taken the 'easy' road. So here I am at 38 having another crisis because I should have said something when I was small and did not. Family acceptance was everything as I was very, very ill as a child and petrified of my parents shunning or abandoning me. Absolutely a baseless fear, but as a kid that acceptance is super important.

How exactly did I know? Because really everything that I identified with was wrong. At day camp, I hung out with the girls and wore their lipstick, I preferred to play with their toys, and I even snuck one of my girl friends dresses home with me - first time wearing girls clothes was around 5 or 6, right before kindergarten. I once made a call to 911 at the age of maybe 6 or 7, right when 911 was new and every other ad on tv was telling you about it, and asked how to become a girl (somehow my parents never found out, which is shocking in retrospect!). I had absolutely no interest in the normal 'boy' things, which made me 'weird' and a target at school so I learned to cope and survive by fitting in with the norm. Video games are boring so I learned to cross stitch at 8 or so. I got involved in sports that are unisex like soccer and actually got really good in short track speed skating... which I initially was attracted to because of the spandex uniforms! I took home ec in middle school as an 'elective'. All the signs were there but I was not strong enough to stand up for myself and my parents looked the wrong way. Almost got caught once as a teenager which was really funny. I worked at a boy scout camp and we had a costume party and guess what I went as! yep even got an award lol.

I have been diagnosed by several therapists over the years, and told that I will have a very hard time surviving without doing something about it and it seems they were right!

As an adult this has shaped self preservation behavior and now I have a child and am so hyper sensitive to when my son talks about girls and the way he acts, the fact that he sometimes wants a toy that would be considered a girl toy, and that one time when he said he wished he was a girl was a total hoot trying to understand - is he just jealous or is that how he really feels.

[Tanya62]

I was being dressed up by my sisters when I was knee high to a grasshopper, and then dressing myself up in my sisters' clothes around the age of 8 or 9, it was so long ago I don't really remember. Any ways, in the late 60's, after I had heard of Rene Richards and Christine Jorgenson, I realized that could be me. Sure enough, here I am now!

[naa]

I'm one of the least self aware people on the planet.

I crossdressed on and off as a kid, but the fact I was "borrowing" family members clothes, the fear of being found out and the fact that by my late teens I was quite a bit bigger than any women I knew, put an end to it.

In my mid thirties, I don't quite know what started it, but I started thinking about crossdressing again, how much I'd liked it when I was younger.  Only now I could buy my own things!  I started thinking about what I could get, how I could get it.   Then I did something I'd never done before, I started thinking about WHY I wanted to crossdress.  Started thinking about various events through my life, and how I'd felt about them, how puberty affected me, etc.  I remembered all the events scattered through my life where I felt more comfortable or identified more as female.

Over the course of a few months, things started clicking together and I started to realise I might be trans.

I went online, started finding information, communities, Susan's, etc.   I started taking HRT about 11 weeks ago, and here I am.  No regrets so far.

[NordicSofia]

I think realizing being a trans-something has been a (life)long process as it is for many of our kind.

I remember when I was about five, I wanted to wear some of my grandma's skirts that I saw around her house. I was also interested in playing with dolls and doll's houses in kindergarten. Of course that kind of behaviour wasn't very appropriate for boys, at least in the early 80's (yes, girly boys will be gay when they grow up).

In my late childhood and through my whole youth and adulthood I occasionally had ideas and fantasies about being a girl and dressing like one. Sometimes I even modified some cheap boy t-shirts and other old clothes into some kind of girl's clothes and wore them during my secret moments.

Nearly ten years ago I entered some more serious level in my identity, and I ordered real women's clothes online, and in 2008 I even had an idea of living as woman inside my apartment and presenting male when in outside world (got married soon after that, so I'm still closeted now).

Couple of years ago I admitted to myself: "Ok then, I'm a crossdresser and that's it for life", but my trans-identity has been growing clearer all the time, and these thoughts and feelings have been quite serious for last 2-3 years. Internet has been an enormous help and source of information during these times. In some way I'm towards transitioning now, still don't know how and when, but I'm on the way.

[Wild Flower]

Full comfirmation was when I was 16 watching Dont say goodbye by Paulina Rubio

[RobynD]

I knew of my affinity for other women/girls from a very early age. I really did not understand it. There was very little information at anyone's fingertips on the subject back then. You had to be committed to doing the research at the library, consulting professionals etc.

As a young athlete, i was surrounded by boys. I excelled in sports but few of them were my friends. I started dating at a pretty early age in part, so i could hang out with girls. I spent summers in high school hanging out with my girlfriend and her friends and cousins.

I loved presenting as feminine guy in dress and mannerisms but i did not understand why i felt more comfortable doing that. I often left sports practices to hang out with the "Dungeons and Dragons" crowd because they felt more accepting, more alternative and less mainstream.

I don't remember when i even saw the term gender dysphoria. Like many people of the time, i thought that ->-bleeped-<-, transexual folks, etc were doing it for sexual preference reasons, or because they wanted to stand out, or because they had interests in entertainment etc. To me, there did not even seem like an option for me to transition.

Then came the internet and chat rooms and i somewhat suddenly realized there was a whole world out there that i had no idea about. Soon i was identifying as a crossdresser at least, and i was getting therapy and understanding myself more and more. What i thought was a character flaw in myself turned out to be the real me struggling to come to the surface. I married a young lady that was fine with my feminine self and even liked those aspects of me.

Finally sometime in the early 2010s i began to believe that i had gender dysphoria and that the course of action i should take was to transition. Multiple therapists agreed with me, but still i dragged my feet for a number of reasons. As GD continued to get worse and simply crossdressing in my normal "tomboy" clothes had less of an alleviation factor, i began to make plans for HRT, throwing out all my guy clothes etc.

My transition has meant the world to me, i feel like a real person and a healthy one.

[Wednesday]

I've been feminine since ever. I desired to be a girl and got really jealous of them almost as early as I can remember (5-6 yo). Felt somewhat ashamed about it, by the way.

In my early teens I started feeling sexually attracted to boys, also felt really ashamed and tried to not dwell on it. I hoped it was just temporary because teens are told their sex orientation can be tricky (big lie). At this time I began to learn about sex change procedures but saw it as an almost undoable thing for me. Also felt really ashamed again (what a surprise).

I thought and waited for years and after not seeing changes in my sexual orientation and dysphoria I concluded my feelings were never going to change and that i was going to take the step. Also thought it was better to first get a nice career to fund easily my transition and have good result. I had kind of a soft and late puberty development, so I started noticing significant changes about 18-19 years old. Then I started to panick, and decided to begin the change asap (when I was 20).

Rest is history.

[Aethersong]

For me it was the slow accumulation of knowledge and self analysis that finally explained why I felt so wrong most of my life.  I'd say the feelings of being "off or wrong" started in grade school and they only got worse through puberty.  A sense of jealously and envy grew as the girls around me matured and in turn my own level of discomfort and disgust as my own body matured.

I admit I was fascinated by anything girly, and less interested in anything in the more extreme of manly. However I was never particularly drawn to anything definitely stereotypical girl or boy clothing or toy wise.  Things are just things, however I do admit I longed for the social ramifications such things, to be treated how I felt.

It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I even heard of anything under the transgender umbrella.  Of course as soon as I realized how I felt I almost immediately buried those feelings as I felt I couldn't transition and would never pass.  Plus it was very expensive, and so I deemed it hopeless and resigned myself to "reality" as I felt it then.

Took another 10+ years  before I was forced to admit and come to terms with myself and finally start transitioning at 34.  I'm now a year along since starting HRT and it's the best decision I've ever made, for once I feel "right" and a lot more comfortable mentally.  Best decision I should of made over a decade ago, and it was a hard lesson to learn that "I'll never pass" is completely meaningless as far as barriers go to transitioning.

[stephaniec]

I've thought about it since I was 4 years old, but wasn't able to get to transitioning until 3 years ago

[Mohini]

I knew since I was 11 since that was what was in my mind.  I discovered the name for it and that I wasn't the only one at age 15 when I was looking in a Hustler magazine. :-(. Information was not plentiful in those days.

Whoa!  The same thing happened to me, only I was 13 and realized right then and there what it was!  Do you recall which issue of that magazine it was?  I believe it dated no later than 1979.  I saw the photos and wondered what this was about, so I read the article.  The light went on halfway through the article.  I was shocked and surprised that I could understand this right away.  Years later, I recalled that when I was in the school for the deaf at almost 8 years old, the first spark of awareness on an unconscious level might have happened here, where I was dressed as an angel and made up to look feminine for that role - the interesting thing was, I only started to learn to talk and read and write formally that August or September at the school for the deaf in San Antonio - I had already gone through kindergarten and what would have been first grade with NO IDEA what was going on and why I couldn't just stay home and play).  I felt something like, "I see this stuff on me, which makes me visualize a girl in my mind's eye, then my Dad, and I immediately get scared because I don't want Dad to see me like this, because I'm afraid he would not like me anymore or not be pleased with my appearance, which never happened before."  I felt very self-conscious, vulnerable, even.

Understand, I didn't know how to communicate my feelings, except by acting on them.  I could only feel what I felt and act on them.  I would show my anger, I would hide somewhere out of fear, I would hang onto something out of greed and would yell myself blue-black after it was taken from me, I would be sad and cry myself to sleep, or I would be happy in fascination with something new in front of me.  I lived by my senses and emotions during the Deaf Years (up to seven and a half years old).  The other thing was, and I wish I had acted on it when I learned about it as a teenager, Dad had told me in his story telling (he was 48 when I was born, one of the Great Generation or the GI Generation of WWII) about a friend he had, who was a ->-bleeped-<-, and he told me what such a person was like, and this man was a really, really good friend of Dad's.  This should have told me that it was okay to tell Dad right then and there, "F!@#$, Dad!  I need help!  Something doesn't feel right!  I'm sorta like that friend you're telling me about.  What do I do, what do I do??"  But I was too scared.  Later, when I finally decided to go through with transition at almost 32, Dad got to see me change right in front of him physiologically, though I was not allowed to tell him because of the frailty of his health (he was 80 when I started and died just after turning 82).  The second clue was that he said one time during the previous life, "Son, you know I love you.  I'll always love you.  I'll support you in whatever you want to do.  You don't have to worry.  I'll always love you."  It didn't occur to me that he may have been trying to tell me something after Mom may have gone to him to tell him after I came out to her about 10-11 years prior to my decision to come out.  Mom didn't get to see that I decided to go through with this, as she passed just under two years prior to his passing.

[Michelle G]

Around 10 for me, my sister is just a big over a year younger than me and I wanted to be her so bad while we were growing up, at 10 I asked my mother to call me Michelle instead of the boy version they gave me...she just called me silly and said no. This was in the mid 60's and there was zero awareness or even a hint of an answer in our small town to what I was feeling.
  My sis and I were best of friends and quite close and in our years of school I mostly hung around with her and her friends instead of the boys in the neighborhood as I felt I understood them better. The girls didn't mind much at all and just thought I was the cool "older brother", it was pretty tough though to be "in hiding" inside and that feeling stayed for many more years.

[Deborah]

Whoa!  The same thing happened to me, only I was 13 and realized right then and there what it was!  Do you recall which issue of that magazine it was?  I believe it dated no later than 1979.  I saw the photos and wondered what this was about, so I read the article.  The light went on halfway through the article. 

LOL.  I remember it vividly.  It was probably 1975, maybe 1976.  The pictures and article was about a trans woman that was on a softball team.  She was in a softball uniform.  I think she stayed dressed but I'm not sure of that.  It was just a very good feeling to know I wasn't the only one in the world.  That's what made the impression on me.

[Rhonda Lynn]

So many great posts! I read a lot that is familiar from my own life.

It's hard to pin-point when I knew that I was "transgender" because that wasn't a word in my vocabulary.

One of my earliest memories was that my first friend, before I even started Kindergarten was a girl named Rhonda across the street and my mother called me Ronnie. Our mothers thought that was so cute. I wondered why she was Rhonda and I was Ronnie and not the other way around or why I shouldn't be called Rhonda too. I was being told that Ronnie was a boy's name, but I didn't really understand. We liked to do all the same things, play with dolls and play house, etc. Of course, I'm putting all this into words that my 4-year-old brain couldn't express at that age.

Later we moved and I entered school. In school, I would pick out one girl in class, and not the prettiest one, one that was average (didn't want to ask too much of God or my fairy godmother, or something, who knows), and look at her very closely. "Could I please just change places with that girl?" Sometimes, the girl would catch me looking and this was embarrassing, of course. .

At home, I was about 6 or 7 years old by now, I would often think, that next time we moved, I would enroll in the new school as a girl with long hair and girl's clothes and that would solve everything. I thought about this quite a lot.

At recess at about 8 years old, there was a line dividing the boy's and girl's part of the playground. I used to stand there and look over the line wishing and wondering what it would be like to cross over that line.

I really did make a great effort to conform as I grew and be the person that my family and the world expected me to be in every way. Just like everyone, I wanted approval and that meant being masculine and strong. On the inside, there was misery and struggle.

As an early teen, I heard the story about Renee Richards and it changed my entire worldview. Suddenly I knew that becoming female was possible and that there were others (at least one other) out there in the world. I believe that a switch went off in my brain at that point in my life. For the world, Renee Richards was a freak, but to me she was a heroine. I knew that on some level we were alike. That she was willing to go out there as a woman in a world that mostly would not accept her as one, showed a level of courage that amazed me. I couldn't get it out of my head. However, I thought, that I would never do it, because the social price was simply too high. Also, as I got older, I had doubts. Maybe I was gay, a cross-dress or like a drag-queen?

I think that I was 29 when I read one TS biography and there was a great quote. "It's not about the clothes. If women wore gunny sacks, that is what I would want to wear because I'm a woman." Somehow that is when I finally understood the difference and could figure out for certain what I was. That clicked with me. It was about identity, not dressing up or even sex. It was about knowing who I am and going out in the world as that person.

Hugs to you all,
Rhonda

[cheryl reeves]

LOL.  I remember it vividly.  It was probably 1975, maybe 1976.  The pictures and article was about a trans woman that was on a softball team.  She was in a softball uniform.  I think she stayed dressed but I'm not sure of that.  It was just a very good feeling to know I wasn't the only one in the world.  That's what made the impression on me.

Yep that was the issue and the article was spell binding. I came across other article's in other magazines later on,but hustler was already ahead of em. I also came across trans magazines that helped my education in this.

[Micki]

I was born like this as an intersex person, so from my earliest memories I've always considered myself a transgender female.

[JoJo87]

Reading some of your stories here has definitely been interesting. I hope this may be an appropriate place to mention that I'm still very uncertain with myself; however, for many years I've had issues with not quite feeling "masculine" and thinking that I may be transgender. I've always felt fairly effeminate for a male throughout my life. I'm hoping to start seeing a therapist in Spring to help get some confirmation as well as help resolve a few other issues that I have been keeping bottled up since my childhood. I guess I just feel uneasy about claiming myself as one without any sort of confirmation from a professional. Plus, wouldn't that have to be done before being able to get started on HRT? I've done some reading on the process, especially in regards to health care, and I recall reading in my health insurance plan that I would need to be declared as female for 3 months before the insurance could be considered to cover any cost for it.

[j-unique]

With about 25 years. Before, I didn't feel really good with being identified as "male", but nobody could have the idea that I could be transgender (I was socialized very masculine and there were no unambiguous signs of feminity or gender-queerness, as far as I know). It was really difficult to realize how trapped and limited I was because I thought one must know that since earliest childhood to be "true".

[noleen111]

I dont have a wow moment.. I think I always knew deep down... I always loved looking what the girls wore, at 13 was the first time I wished I was a girl, more for the outfit. I was forced to go with my parents for their friends party and it was very hot. I was forced to wear long pants with a shirt.. There was this girl, she was 2 years older than me and she wore this lovely army green strapless dress with white sandals.. I was so jealous as she got wear comfortable clothing and was sweaty and hot. (Today I actually own a dress like that).. Then about 1 year later, I was curious about pantyhose. and that lead to me starting experiment with pantyhose.. In high school was very jealous of the girls, i so wanted to be able wear the outfits, grow breasts and to shave my legs.. I also really was jealous that they could wear earrings (My father was very anti boys having getting piercing). Then at the age of 19 I dressed fully for the first time. I wore a lovely blue dress, with heels. (my first time). I shaved my legs for the first time then. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking wow this feels so right and natural.

I started to dress regularly after that and began to explore whether I was a girl. Cross dressing allowed the real me to come out, and it was a very girl young woman. I even had a friend pierce my ears. ( I was too afraid to go to the piercing shop). I now have 3 holes in each ear, a navel ring and my have a small stud in my nose. my left ear cartilage is also pierced.

somewhere along that story, I realized I was a woman. I was so excited to start HRT, was super excited when my breasts started to grow, I could not believe I actually was getting breasts. I loved the idea I was "required" to wear a bra. I am very happy that the hormone fairy gave my D cup breasts.

now around 9 years later, I am a well adjusted young woman. I am still very girly, love makeup, wearing lingerie, clothes, shoes, nail polish etc.. who still loves having to wear bra every day and I love female clothes, especially dresses. I wear a lot of dresses. I am also 3 years post op and cant even imagine a time when I was a boy. I feels like I always had a vagina

[Michelle G]

Oh, another thing that gave me some hope,

In 4th grade (1964) some older teen girls dressed up their 2 6th grade brothers as perfectly beautiful girls with cute dresses, makeup and wigs for a school Halloween dress up day, I couldn't stop staring at them in serious envy!
At that point something really clicked with me and gave me lots of hope. Thats about when I asked my mother if she would call me Michelle instead of the "boy version", that didnt go ever well and I just went back into hiding for another 45 years.