Time gap between realizing you are trans and actually transitioning?

[PurpleWolf]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning?

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1. I always knew I was somewhat different and didn't belong with either boys or girls. My earliest memory about this is when I hadn't turned 2 yet. I think before the age of 3 I might have actually more consciously identified as a boy in my mind. But after that the realities of life hit and during my childhood I just knew I was a 'girl' in the society's eyes. I was drawn towards boy things but was shamed for it, and tried desperately to fit in with the girls. But I many times felt I was something "in-between" and just didn't belong. The boys bullied me, and the girls did too. I was a very timid, unhappy child...

2. I was very strongly drawn towards any "transgender" thing: in books, play, etc... I couldn't name it but somehow I always knew there were people who could switch or weren't strictly boys or girls, and I was fascinated by the idea, though I didn't know the term transgender or anything. I just knew something like that existed. Once I tried to bring this up with my mom in the car (was around 12) and timidly asked what she thought about "people who have done a sex change". She was working in mental health herself, so she answered me that she has seen "those" in work and they were miserable beings who regretted everything. End of discussion. At 13 I found out that everyone had thought I was a boy in my new school (my absolute secret childhood fantasy) without me trying to be one at all and I was so thrilled that I immediately felt my dream just came through - and pretty much "transitioned" at the spot, and started presenting as a boy. I found out about the terms and read some material (not much was available back then).

3. See point 2. I.e. immediately socially transitioned at 13 after discovering I was trans. Or more like transitioned first ("right, I can be a boy, then") and then found out the term transsexual... !

4. Still not there yet :/! Tried to get treatment at 16 - but was denied access... Transphobic system, you know! Now I'm contemplating whether I wanna start that process again or... I'd have to do various psychological tests and inkblot tests and whatnot which I feel are humiliating and derogatory. Option 2: Make a lot of money and get the hell out of here and do some informed consent or something!

[extraaction]

1- age 2 or 3

2- I learned the terms young, but didnt actively identity with the concept until age 19 due to repression and denial

3- within the same week as the last answer.

4- I lived full time except for rare occasions from age 19 to 21.   At age 21 I decided I wanted to take hormones for transition, and started them within a month of that.

[Charlie Nicki]

1. I always felt different. Can't really tell you a specific age because it was always there, I just didn't know what it was.

2. I knew about transgender people since I was probably 16 and started frequenting gay clubs. But I never thought *I* was trans until I was 25.

3. First time I tried doing something about it I was 25. Second time (now), was a few months before I turned 29.

4. Started therapy in March of this year and hormones in June.


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[Roll]

1) Around 10. Dreams of waking up a girl were prevalent.
2) Didn't admit it until a few months ago, end of July/beginning of August, at 35.
3) Pretty much started doing something about it right when I admitted it.
4) Haven't started HRT yet, hoping to in the next few days as soon as my doctor gets my final labs back, assuming the holiday doesn't mess me up and kick me back another week.

[Sno]

More quizzes...? Yay!

1 I've always been different, and became aware before I can remember, it was aided and abetted by my folk moving around the country at that time, and in the process making me a novelty in the playground.

2 my first encounter with a trans woman was on the tube in London, she was minding her business, and dressed conservatively yet the bile that was spilled around was hideous - I couldn't understand why, and yes in the era of conform, it repressed my thinking for a very long time. I've suspected recently that my gender wasn't straightforward, I've 'known' for about 4 years, and slowly slid downhill until recently, when things were bad enough to need medical support. Where this will finish up as my journey, I've no idea.

3 secretly I dressed as opportunity presented as a teen, and tried (failed) to put it behind me when I went to uni, I'm now in a place where I have no choice, and am in therapy.

4 yeah, therapy. Ongoing, state sponsored, 'for my own good' and to minimise the risk to myself. What path the therapy will take, I've no idea. I'm just going to roll with it, I need to move past spending dissociative hours staring out of the window, or just wanting for it all to end. Medication is helping to stop the anxiety around the here and now - that's why the lovely Laurie yells at me to dig me out of a rut. She's such a sweetie.

Rowan

[LadyGreen]

I realised that the reason i felt different was because I'm trans at 26 then started seeing a gender therapist after two weeks and started HRT after about two months.

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[Elis]

1. I'd say the time i felt there was somehow a difference between boys and girls; was either the instance I got a barbie scooter for xmas or the time i was in prescool and we had to do a photo shoot in which we dressed up in Victorian clothing. No idea why. Ofc the girls had to wear a dress and the boys got to wear trousers, a shirt and a cloth cap. After a huge tantrum the staff let me wear the boys clothes. I remember feeling incredibly happy and in the photo you can definitely tell that.

2.i grew up in a place where LGBT anything was never mentioned. It wasn't so long about ago but there was nothing really LGBT related on TV like there is now. I wasn't even sure what gay was. I saw the odd MtF mentioned but didn't understand it. Then when I thought I was gay and went out with a woman I felt I wasn't her gf. Then after an Internet search found the term trans and it started making sense. This was at 19.

3. It took 3 miserable years due to internalised transphobia and being scared what others would think.

4. At 21 I had a ft job so could just about afford to go private to see a gender therapist in order to be approved HRT. Only took me 6 months to be approved and then at 23 decided to go private to get top surgery. All in all pretty quick process

[Denise]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?
- I asked my mother when I was 4 "was a mistake made?  Was I supposed to be a girl."

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?
- Well put question.  I was always curious but thought "I don't hate being a guy, therefore I can't be trans."  BOY WAS I WRONG.  I figured it out when I was about to turn 54.

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?
- Two months.  I took a trip to Florida by myself with 50:50 guy:girl clothes.  That was to see if it was for me. Wow - what a lesson.  Once I got over the terror I actually enjoyed myself.

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning?
- Figured it out October 16, 2015, started Spiro March 2016, started E May 26, 2016 (BUT took 3 months off figuring I can fight it...HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.  I've never been more wrong about anything in my life.)

[Sarah_P]

1) Hmm.. definitely by age 12 or so, but there were signs as early as 7.
2) I realized I was trans around the age of 30 or so. Wasn't aware of much about it until a few years later.
3/4) I didn't do anything about it until 42. Immediately started seeing a therapist & 2 months later was on HRT.

[Allison S]

I was always so awkward I think because I'm trans and it's not openly acknowledged. I think i had fo deal with other things and I did for 27 years. It became to exhausting and finally clicked I was focusing on fixing the wrong issue in my life... I started hrt about a month after moving out on my own.

Now 2 months I'm with family and they noticed I look different. My sister said it looks like I had botox done on my cheeks lol. I really haven't noticed this and it's so nice to hear!!

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[Kylo]

Between realizing wasn't comfortable as born gender and transition = 26 yrs

Between realizing transsexualism applied to me and transition = 2 yrs

[Sawney1000000]

1. 8-10, when i started getting really social with other kids at school


2. 13, cant tell ya how relieved I was

3. Im finally starting to transition at 20 years old!! Before that i would just do my best to appear as a boy without hormones to help

4. I will be starting next month

[EvaMarie]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning?

1. I was 5-6 when I realized for sure I something different. I constantly was constantly dreaming I was a girl. I convinced the boy in my class to pretend we were girls at recess. They went along with it and we had a great time. I didn't want to stop. The teachers told me I was wrong and that I needed to stop and eventually after many tears I tried to suppress it. "Without any reason you just changed. You used to be so loving and sweet. Now you're a completely different person." This was essentially the mantra my mother chanted every time I got in trouble as a kid or teenager. She now understands what happened.

2. When I was 10 or 11 I snuck out of my room to watch TV really late. I was flipping through the channels and I stopped on a medical show. My mom was studying to be a nurse so I was interested in watching stuff about it and seeing if I could understand it (never ended up getting into it and didn't pursue medical). The person on the TV was talking about "the change." Being that it was the nineties it was still widely referred to as a "sex change." I watched intently as the explained how to change a penis into a vagina and could only think to myself, "This is an option? Why didn't anyone tell me this was an option?" I knew this was what I wanted and who I was but I could never find the courage to say the words out loud. I became very bitter and within a year from this event I began harming myself and attempted suicide at 12 for the first time of several.

3. I spent my life until I was 26 just "dealing," getting worse with each year. Crossdressing in private, taking my anger out on everything and everyone. I was expelled from 2 schools and sent to a 'bad kids school." As an adult, I married a woman I hated (I'm not even attracted to women at all) and had a son. We got divorced and I've been living a private hell since then. At 26 I found it impossible to carry on any longer. I told my current girlfriend and I sought out help last November. I started dressing full time immediately since I have a "don't give a damn" attitude.

4. By March of 2017 I had HRT. It was the earliest I could get in to see the only local doctor. I have to travel 2 hours to get to him. I have my name changed in September and I'm what you would call "full time" but I don't pass very often. I am what I am; a trans woman. Nobody can take that away from me whether I pass or not, whether I've had the surgeries I desperately want or not. For now this is all I cling to and I hope it will be enough.

(I tend to write novels. Sorry.)

[Julia1996]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning?

----
1. I always knew I was somewhat different and didn't belong with either boys or girls. My earliest memory about this is when I hadn't turned 2 yet. I think before the age of 3 I might have actually more consciously identified as a boy in my mind. But after that the realities of life hit and during my childhood I just knew I was a 'girl' in the society's eyes. I was drawn towards boy things but was shamed for it, and tried desperately to fit in with the girls. But I many times felt I was something "in-between" and just didn't belong. The boys bullied me, and the girls did too. I was a very timid, unhappy child...

2. I was very strongly drawn towards any "transgender" thing: in books, play, etc... I couldn't name it but somehow I always knew there were people who could switch or weren't strictly boys or girls, and I was fascinated by the idea, though I didn't know the term transgender or anything. I just knew something like that existed. Once I tried to bring this up with my mom in the car (was around 12) and timidly asked what she thought about "people who have done a sex change". She was working in mental health herself, so she answered me that she has seen "those" in work and they were miserable beings who regretted everything. End of discussion. At 13 I found out that everyone had thought I was a boy in my new school (my absolute secret childhood fantasy) without me trying to be one at all and I was so thrilled that I immediately felt my dream just came through - and pretty much "transitioned" at the spot, and started presenting as a boy. I found out about the terms and read some material (not much was available back then).

3. See point 2. I.e. immediately socially transitioned at 13 after discovering I was trans. Or more like transitioned first ("right, I can be a boy, then") and then found out the term transsexual... !

4. Still not there yet :/! Tried to get treatment at 16 - but was denied access... Transphobic system, you know! Now I'm contemplating whether I wanna start that process again or... I'd have to do various psychological tests and inkblot tests and whatnot which I feel are humiliating and derogatory. Option 2: Make a lot of money and get the hell out of here and do some informed consent or something!

I was 2-3 when I realized I had been born wrong. I realized I had the same boy parts as my brother and I realized those parts made someone a boy and I wasn't a boy so I didn't want them.

I found out what transgender meant when I was 10 and saw a trans person on TV. I was very happy when I realized they could do SRS on someone to fix them and I planned on having it done when I grew up. My mom called the trans woman on TV a pathetic freak but even so I still wanted to do it.

I didn't actually transition and start hrt until I was 17. But I was very androgynous way before that. I wore gender neutral clothes and had long hair. When I was 14 I started wearing eye makeup and nail polish. I was already being gendered female most of the time by strangers. I might have come out earlier but once when I was 16 my mom asked me if I was getting hormones or birth control pills from someone. I told her I wasn't and she told me if I ever did my dad and brother would disown me and my dad would throw me out. I should have known better but she said my  my dad had told her that so I didn't know for sure. The possibility of losing my dad and brother really stressed me out a lot.

I started HRT when I was 17 and SRS is scheduled for 2018.

[Lisa_K]

My story is very similar to Julia's above except it took place in the 1960's and early 1970's and I had no idea at all what was going on - "transitioning" sort of just happened well before I understood it or anyone had a name for it. I too was androgynous,  had long hair and was girlish and when I was able to get my ears pierced and started shaving my legs, etc. at 15, it clearly pushed me over the line. It's just the way I grew up. Strangers also routinely gendered me as a girl and had been for quite some time but it wasn't until I was 17 when I started HRT that my folks had found a doctor that understood what was going on for me and gave it a proper name. We were all pretty clueless up until then.

I completed social transition the second I got out of high school in 1973 at 18 by getting my ID changed. There wasn't a whole lot more to it than that and I began my life as just a normal young woman blended into the woodwork as we used to say. I had SRS at 22 in 1977 which was also somewhat of a non-event and changed very little in my life other than enabling me to have normal sexual relationships. I've lived "in stealth" up until very recently and have had just an average and regular cisnormative happy life. I'm still only out within the anonymity of the online world and will be 63 in January.

[Lucy Ross]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?

Started crossdressing at 12.  Only persisted for a few years - grew too big.

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?

I learned about transsexuals around the same time from that wonderful 1980 educational film, Dressed to Kill.     Actually I just remembered another film that came out a few years later, The World According to Garp, which was about the most thoughtful depiction of a TS in a mainstream movie ever, until the mid 90s.  John Lithgow's character in Garp really put across what people go through.

I only realized my TSness a few years ago, at 46.  I'd always had daydreams and fantasies about being a woman, and many character traits.  But I also pretty much paid no attention whatsoever to my personal appearance or body, and lived a hermetic existence, so was just blissfully oblivious as to who I was.

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?

Started crossdressing about a year ago, thought that was what I was; began to wonder if I wasn't really TS about 6 months later; started really transitioning about 4 months ago.

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning

4 months ago I started HRT.  I'd been dressing in women's clothes full time at home for about 6 months before that though.

Even with all the hardships you kids are going through, I envy you your youth, and how much easier it is now to find out who you are, and to connect with others like yourself. 

[AnamethatstartswithE]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?

While I always felt different, I wasn't consciously aware of wanting to be female until I was 10

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?

I was questioning all through Junior High and High school, (this was mid to late '90s) I went deeply into denial in college, and didn't "come out to myself? until a little bit before I turned 33.

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?

I immediately started growing my hair out and shaving my body hair (that helped A LOT). I also started experimenting with Women's clothes.

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning?

Almost exactly two years for HRT, a little less for laser hair removal. For me part of the issue had to do with how I felt after finally admitting it to myself. If you think about a number system for stress and anxiety in a given day, if when it hits 10 you start to have trouble working and concentrating etc. When I was in denial I was always waking up at a 7. When I finally admitted it to myself it went down to a 4. So I felt better than I ever had in my memory, that made it hard to move forward for a while. Eventually though it wasn't enough, so I decided to try HRT and I will never go back. I'm 3 months as of last week, and it's truly changed my life. I'm starting to get a bit worried, because the day I have to go public is coming, sooner rather than later.

[Dani]

I first realized that I was different at age 12 or 13, possibly earlier. I did not transition until 50 years later for several reasons. Way back in the 1960's, psychologists thought that transsexual desires were learned behavior caused by cruel or absent fathers. They thought that sons of such men just did not identify or look up to their fathers. OK, if this is learned behavior, then I can unlearn it and change to normal desires. Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

Today we have come to understand that our condition is internal and has some physical aspects associated with our condition that have little to do with our upbringing.

Just think of this, 50 years. That is half a century. Better late than never.

[DeniseGrace]

Like Dani, years and years. Too many years. As said, better late than never

[dissipate]

1. When did you first realize or become aware that you were different? Or felt like a girl/boy/something inside?

Kindergarten.

2. When did you realize or become terms with being trans/transgender/transsexual? When did you discover that word or identified with it or became aware of it?

Heard the word as a teenager but didn't really know what it meant. I didn't think at all that I might be transgender till I saw The Danish Girl and a couple of episodes of Caitlyn Jenner's TV show, her describing her feelings. At first I thought I might be a lesbian, but over so many years it didn't fit or feel accurate.

3. How long did it take before you actually started transitioning or doing consciously something about it?

I haven't really done anything concrete about it except to visit a psychiatrist and a counsellor for confirmation. Am planning to get top surgery next year.

4. How long did it take to start hormones and/or surgeries or other type of physical transitioning?

I haven't started, but it's been too long........... sadly. I'm in my mid-30s and feel like the better part of my life has been wasted on trying to be "normal", to fit in, to feel comfortable in my own skin.