At what age did it dawn on you transgender to use the term for expediance

[stephaniec]

I realize some prefer not to lable themselves , but just for the purpose of this question when did you realize you were trans. I know it difficult to put a number on something like this , but approximately when do you think you could identify your unique character .I started at 4 years old , but I really only started to grasp it in high school and beyond,

[cheryl reeves]

I was 13 and it was my weird puberty that made me research this topic,jve used ->-bleeped-<-,crossdresser,but those labels never fit like transsexualism doesn't fit either. I'm just me.

[stephaniec]

yea, it's pretty weird, It had so much power over me , but I didn't know what the heck was going on. It totally affected everything in my life even at being so young. I don't know if it was somewhat denial at what was happening because I was so embarrassed by it or what . It really wasn't until high school  that I could put any kind of label  on it , but I still didn't know what the hell was going on, except that it was awfully powerful .

[Wild Flower]

I realize I was different at 5 or 6. I realized I could identify with transgender at 15 or 16.

[josie76]

My first feeling of it was around 4. Then it got strong in early puberty. Sometimes when I was at my grandparents and alone I'd go through the old clothes in the upstairs closets. One time I put on my grandmothers and moms wedding gown. For a moment I thought I'd wear it to my wedding, but then reality set in and I remembered I wasn't a girl. 

[TonyaW]

4 or 5 wondering why I couldn't wear some of the clothes that my sisters wore and even as early as that inventing in my head the machine that would turn me into a girl.  Took another 50 years before I realized that I am a transwoman and not just playing dress up sometimes.

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[KathyLauren]

Define "aware".  I have always known that I didn't fit in.  I have always felt attracted to being feminine and repelled by being masculine.  It was in my 30s that I started to have fantasies about having a "sex change".  Assuming that I was a pervert, I managed to suppress it until my 60s.  It was the combination of the Caitlyn Jenner effect and hearing a trans scientist deliver a lecture on astrophysics (i.e. appearing "normal") that un-blocked me.

[Deborah]

Age 15, the first time I learned of the concept it explained me.


It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
André Gide, Autumn Leaves

[Amanda_Combs]

I realized something was odd at about 11 or 12 when all of the girls around me started puberty and suddenly were less willing to be friends with me because they considered me to be different from them.  And then at 18, I realized that transgender people are not drag queens or intersex.  I found out that it was just a person who wants and needs to be the gender opposite to their physical sex... so it's like me.


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[stephaniec]

Define "aware".  I have always known that I didn't fit in.  I have always felt attracted to being feminine and repelled by being masculine.  It was in my 30s that I started to have fantasies about having a "sex change".  Assuming that I was a pervert, I managed to suppress it until my 60s.  It was the combination of the Caitlyn Jenner effect and hearing a trans scientist deliver a lecture on astrophysics (i.e. appearing "normal") that un-blocked me.

I think it would take a PHD thesis to define aware. I just used the term for expediency .

[Randi]

I felt like a girl from an early age.  In the second grade I won the school's halloween contest by wearing a witch costume with a wig, full face mask, black full length dress with full petticoat.

By the fifth grade, I discovered l really liked girls, and became more accepting of the male role.  By age 16 a girlfriend convinced me to have sex with her.  I really liked that, although it was a bit of an out of body experience.  I had to mentally step outside my male body and let it do what it wanted to do.

I had the life of a normal hetrosexual male for around 40 years.  In my mid-fifties my doctor declared me hypogonadic.  I started testosterone injections.  Paradoxically that sent me over the edge back into womanhood.

My body is not very sensitive to testosterone and converts T to E2 through the enzyme aromatase.  I'm definitely shaped like a woman now.

[Michelle_P]

I knew I was different,feminine, as a child. I realized what "transgender" and "transsexual " meant when I was 32, and immediately identified as such. I kept it buried until I was 62, when it came out as a complete suicidal meltdown.

I arguably waited too long.


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[Anne Blake]

My response is a bit different than those posted so far. I first accepted and owned the term transgender just within the past couple of months (at 68 years old). Yes, like most of you, I realized early on that I was different and didn't fit in but I never associated it with gender identity discrepancies (please forgive the radical oversimplification of that statement, it would take too many paragraphs to fully describe its truth). Many of you have noticed my identity struggles over the past couple of months, thank you so much for the outpouring of support from so many of you on this site. Much of struggle was due to me holding onto the illusion that I still possessed control of who I am, you know, deep inside. My primary coping mechanism through out my life has been centered on being in control. If I remain in control, then I am not truly transgender but just get to enjoy parts of it and would still be able to dodge some of the guilt associated with it. It was during a significant (another understatement) meltdown last week that I had to accept that I am in no way in control of who and what I am was fully able to accept that I am Anne, a transgender woman and am able to OWN this truth with head held high and full of pride. Yes, there were a couple of tears that came along with that realization and yes, I believe that many, if not most of those here appreciate just how freeing this recognition has been. Hello, I am Anne, a joy filled transgender woman! Now for the very fun task of continuing the journey.

Anne

[DawnOday]

Last February when I decided to be honest with my therapist. No I was not suffering from stress. I was suffering from a lingering question. Why would I allow the one person on earth that was my sole mate to leave. That was 37 years ago and I still could not answer the question. I thought I was a crossdresser or even a ->-bleeped-<- but not transgender. After a couple sessions unloading the baggage we came to a conclusion that I am transgender. It was my confused persona  that ruined my marriage. By the third session Kristi was ready to write my letter. Today I am a day or two short of my third month of HRT and doing quite wonderfully. The difference in this wife is 1. Not 23 years old 2. a nympho with unreasonable sexual demands (by this time I was feeling the effects of my heart deformities), and I was getting weaker and weaker often not having the strength to initiate anything. 3. Wife number two is aware of my condition as heart disease would not be diagnosed until I was 42 years old, and we lived through it together. So she has lived with it for 25 years and has always been on my side.  I have always had questions about my genitals. short and only one testicle until I was 18.

Until I saw a 60 minutes program that featured Trinidad Co. and Dr Marci Bowers did I have an inkling of what could be done. Marci is gone now and the surgeries seem to have gone offshore. I think this was around 2000 I saw this story. If the surgeries were available in the 70's and there were as much information online as now I would have converted years ago when FFS and other cosmetic surgeries would have made a difference. But I didn't have the perseverance that Dena had to pursue it.

[stephaniec]

I felt like a girl from an early age.  In the second grade I won the school's halloween contest by wearing a witch costume with a wig, full face mask, black full length dress with full petticoat.

By the fifth grade, I discovered l really liked girls, and became more accepting of the male role.  By age 16 a girlfriend convinced me to have sex with her.  I really liked that, although it was a bit of an out of body experience.  I had to mentally step outside my male body and let it do what it wanted to do.

I had the life of a normal hetrosexual male for around 40 years.  In my mid-fifties my doctor declared me hypogonadic.  I started testosterone injections.  Paradoxically that sent me over the edge back into womanhood.

My body is not very sensitive to testosterone and converts T to E2 through the enzyme aromatase.  I'm definitely shaped like a woman now.

some day I'm going to get my DNA tested , I'm pretty suspicious, I look so my like my mother.

[Naomi71]

That was at the age of three, when my sister was born. Before that I didn't have any awareness of gender. I just felt disgusted with that thing below, was constantly looking in the mirror pushing it between my legs so I looked just like a girl and dreamt about being one myself. After that came my social gender dysphoria. So when I was seven, eight years old I only had girlfriends, joined ballet class, played with dolls and my mother's makeup etc.

I didn't know I was trans, didn't even know that word, but did consider myself to be a girl

[stephaniec]

I didn't play with dolls and I only had one friend a boy from down the street , he was kind of my boy friend.I Just had an insane compulsion to wear my sisters dresses.

[Randi]

Marci Bowers is still active and performing surgery in Burlingame California.  There are a goodly number of GRS surgeons in the US, including Christine McGinn and Toby Meltzer.  An increasing number of US surgeons have been trained in the past few years.

Marci is gone now and the surgeries seem to have gone offshore.

[stephaniec]

If and when I do GCS it will probably be from a surgeon in Chicago. He's part of the hospital network I've been going to for 15 years

[archlord]

Genital dysphoria at 5 year old,  gender dysphoria started only at puberty however(11-12) .