What where the big signs for you as a adult that you where transgender?

[j-unique]

1. Big dysphoria with my male body appearance (it just didn't feel right anymore; I imagined and hoped that I could get a more female body so much) – it came with ~ 25 years (although there were earlier "signs" if you want to see these things as such, but I guess that would be overexplaining)
2. Depression/dysphoria about my assigned gender role as "man" – occured a bit earlier than the body dysphoria; I just wanted to do things women are "allowed" to do, regarding clothing, make up etc., and not only for special events like when cross-dressing, but whenever I wanted, in everyday life

... Now it feels so good to be free, finally Even if little people understand it.

[popa910]

I was always hyper-aware of my alleged manhood when I was near any man...worse when there was a group of men. In the back of my mind there was always that terrible whispering voice, "What the hell are we doing here? We don't belong here!" I always chalked it up to me just not being "man enough" (the voices of abusers in my history) but no matter how hard I tried to BE manly, I always got sideways glances and the occasional suppressed giggle from guys.

At least in the past several years, I've found I really just don't fit in well with guys, particularly groups of them, although 2 of my 3 best friends are guys.  Unfortunately, I'm in the process of accepting a job offer in a workplace with about 8 male employees and 0 female ones. :/ I'm not looking forward to that part of it, but the job itself and the location (at the foot of the Rocky Mountains; the stargazing is supposed to be fantastic there!) excite me, so I'm willing to put up with that in exchange for the financial independence and the ability to move into my own place and experiment (clothing and other gender expression stuff) to see what feels right to me.  Thankfully, the people are intellectually-minded, like me, rather than the hypermasculine sort, so it'll not be too bad.

Here are a few other reasons, in no particular order:

• I've almost always felt like I didn't really belong, no matter where I was or whom I was with (although at my science and engineering dorm at college, this was greatly reduced).  However, I don't think this is entirely attributable to gender identity issues
• Also, at this fantastic dorm, there were "slumber party" events where the many of the residents (guys and girls) painted their nails and put on those weird peel-off facemask cremes creams.  I got my nails painted, and I liked it more than I thought a normal guy would enjoy it.  It just made me smile every time I looked down and saw it.
• My dad has asked me several times as I was growing up if I was gay.  I knew I was attracted to girls, so I said I wasn't, and thought that that was the end of it, not knowing about the gender half of the equation
• I've found that, when playing video games with female main characters, I "felt" like I had a better "connection" with them and the story.  And after I started questioning my gender, in games where you can choose your character, I've found that I slightly prefer playing as a female character, although this could be attributed to a sort of placebo effect or something of the like

[Nuuni]

So many. The only reason I didn't figure it out earlier is because the only things I ever found were transphobic TV crossdresser characters and bad MtF genderflip fiction with a lot of cross dressing themes.
Being depressed, and my only release was playing video games.. completely unproductively, often doing nothing meaningful in the game.. with female characters.
Spending a lot of time (fruitlessly) searching online for genderflip fiction with female characters put into a male body, since that seemed like something I NEEDED to read. For I don't know why.
Ended up sexting with a gay guy somehow and ended up basically fleeing because I went straight to she pronouns and couldn't get myself to switch back, and of course he wasn't into that.
Tried writing fiction with a mix of male and female characters. The male characters I couldn't figure out though, they seemed hollow.
Getting in trouble in English classes oh so many times because I kept using "They" for everyone. Because when I was young, I got it in my head that using "He" and "She" was obviously insulting to people, so I couldn't imagine inflicting that rudeness on people.
Did roleplaying online, using a male character. In the early 90's. Someone accused me of being a girl playing a boy character badly. Soon after, I gave up playing male characters mostly. I had a few but they felt much more like caricatures.
I went for dancing lessons. The instructor demanded I ease off on the waist movements and dance like a guy. I basically stormed off and couldn't go back.
Decided to study martial arts, because well.. guys are terrifying! Being around them is a bit like walking into a pop test in a subject I didn't have any study materials for, proctored by thugs with baseball bats ready to beat anyone who fails. Was horribly repulsed by all of the arts based around physical strength and direct force, I could only make myself study very 'feminine' ones. Spent a huge amount of time and effort working how to do every technique with as little physical strength as possible because it felt so very wrong to be able to do things with strength and mass and I was sure it would go away. Eventually, more or less stopped practicing because I got a look at some of my muscle development and freaked out, then had an anxiety attack at the idea of building up my shoulders, with "not enough shoulder strength" being the number one thing holding me back in advancement.
Feeling like a fake, all the time. Feeling constantly like a pilot of a huge meat mecha like a huge animatronic Godzilla incapable of showing emotion. Being constantly upset because things would make me cry, but my body... wouldn't. I would have to spend a huge amount of energy trying to force tears, and I could never get enough out to be cathartic.
Realizing that when I would fantasize to myself, that my vantage point wasn't from the side looking at the girl, it was from the other side.
Taking dream logs down for a counselor and having a casual note for no particular reason that had any effect on the dream "I am a girl" on more than half of them. The counselors would comment on it a lot but refuse to say why they found it interesting.
Sports talks? Terrifying.
Last straw right before the dam exploded? Trying to fill out a form at the IRS office, reaching to check the "M" box and freezing up for a full five minutes at the wrongness of it, unable to mark the box. It happened again at school the following week. I ended up filling in "Other" and not knowing what to put in the blank.

And I am glad that dam exploded, because I was really worried about my partner being reduced to rage and crying whenever he would go clothes shopping in the women's section, or get a haircut that was yet again just not short enough, or his rages about his chest.

[SonadoraXVX]

What culture said I should be.
what my emotions said I should be.
Following the cultural path, then regretting it, depression, and finally acceptance.

I fought the good fight.

[JoanneB]

Plenty of signs
Plenty of pushing down the corks
Plenty of trying to do something about it
Plenty of good reasons why it is a loss cause to

I ascribe to the principle of "If you think you are trans, you are". Pretty simple. The hard part is sorting out where you reside in the spectrum between cis-female and cis-male. That can also be moving target over time as what you need to do today to manage the GD may change over time as you either get scared and go into back into fighting it or denial, or with some small measure of self acceptance leads to addressing the GD more aggressively.

Doubts are common. Questioning is good.

[SammyGirl]

When I was little and I played house with my cousins and I wondered why I always had to be the daddy.  As I was undergoing puberty I remember feeling disgusted by all the changes my body was undergoing with one exception.  At one point my nipples started to become very sensitive and puffy (there was even a hard knot like object under it).  I never told anyone but I was ecstatic but sadly they eventually they for the most part returned to normal.

In junior high I always played a female character when i played RPGs and when confronted by the other players I would lie and say that I liked the role play challenge.   Video games are no different (Mass Effect  fem Shep)