Were you made to conform as a child?

[Lisa_K]

Reading through everyone's story of growing up in the 50's, 60's and early 70's and how conformity was the do-or-die law of the land really gives me a weird feeling and a lot to think about. Were any of you aware of or know what happened to the kids that didn't conform? If you were able to play the game to fit in at school and such, how were the different kids treated or were any even visible?

The closest I ever came to knowing anyone at all remotely like me was in the 4th grade. The family that lived next door to us had a son my age that could only be described as stereotypically, flamingly and outrageously effeminate down to an exaggerated "swishy" walk, limp-wristed mannerisms and gestures and the archetypal gay lisp. I guess you could say he was faaabulous, if you catch my drift? I was not like that at all but yet still obvious in my own ways but I played Barbies with him because neither of us had any friends.

I don't know what his deal was but he did not go to my school even though we both lived directly across the street from it. This would have been like 1964-ish and I don't think the concept of homeschooling had even been thought of let alone possible or legal back then? Did his folks just hide him away so he didn't have to go through the same crap I did in public school? Where were the kids that didn't conform and what happened to them? It is simply wrong to say they didn't exist because I and my neighbor friend certainly did even though not quite in the same way.

I was involved in an "incident" shortly before the end of 4th grade and my family packed up and moved to a different state and I never saw him again. I never knew anybody else gender atypical (I don't like to use the phrase gender non-conforming because it implies there are standards to conform to) and I never met anyone else that was considered as such until I was in high school and they were just gay boys that I had nothing in common with and they didn't like me because I was just girl-like rather than queer so I was pretty much reviled and hated all around.

School and doctors and such was rather nightmare inducing for me and it's a wonder I did survive it without being completely screwed up but I just didn't know how to boy or to be different or how to hide and thank Dog my parents recognized this during a time they probably took more crap letting me just be me than I did? My point in following up with was for those close to my generation that didn't break the mold and conformed. Those like me may have been rare, few and far between but we were there and I can't help but think we always had been even if nobody knew about it.

Incidentally, I never met another "trans" person until I was 22 and checked into the hospital  to have SRS. I'd never encountered anyone that outwardly dealt with being trans as a child and adolescent like I did until about two years ago and it was eye-opening. Like our sweet Julia here, whose life and timeline parallels my own, she is very young. I've never met anyone from my generation that shares my experience because like many have said, everyone conformed. Why I didn't or how I didn't escapes me? According to some, I am impossible. That IS weird.

[josie76]

Lisa, somehow you were just honestly you. I could not have been so openly me. My school age was the 80's.

Finding a way to copy conforming behavior was the only way I knew how to survive. I was always the weak kid, the glasses in 1st grade kid. Terrible in PE. Laughed at by the PE teacher on the field playing softball. I searched for social protection.

I found a way to be just guy enough. Not enough not to be made fun of for pretty much anything they could make fun of me for, but enough to not be called a girl or fag. I learned in first grade that you don't play with the girls and you copy, copy, copy boys.

We had a long rock driveway from the bus drop off at the main road. I remember sometime in grade school realizing I didn't walk like boys do. I'm not sure how this was brought to my attention. Anyway, every day walking home I practiced walking more toe out to force my gait to be more manly. Turns out this worked. At least until I had to run. Appearently you can't force a unnatural gait when running. When I tried I would trip every time. So running my feet have to fall much more in the same line.

In Jr high I found a group who were a bit rough. I became friends with one of them and so were accepted into the group as a whole. These were the kind to constantly punch each other in the shoulder to see who could take the pain. I learned to take a shoulder punch like any of them but my attempts to give them one never had any result. Again I was the weak kid. This social group protected me from being picked on and they never meant anything negative toward me. I was able to exist between them and the outer circle of the more popular (wealthy family) kids who I had a lot of classes with. The weird thing was, none of the safety circle searching was conscious. I just settled to where I felt less in harms way.

This was a small town so in high school it didn't change much. I did find a different social group to find safety in. Again they were rough around the edges but afforded social protection.

So weird thinking about things more "observational" today as opposed to living it back then.

Lisa to your question, there were no openly "different" kids in my school life back then. This was small town Midwest. Religion wise it was mostly German decent so Lutheran, Catholic, along with Methodist, Prespeterian, and one Baptist church in town. My older brother is gay, but he didn't come out openly until after college. I would say some would have suspected him back in school but he was in social groups of the "nerds" and was friends with a lot of the girls in his class. For me I think it was easier to hide amount the guys trying to be all manly because I wasn't attracted to guys. In the midst of puberty being friends with girls was hard for me as my attraction to them was really confusing. From my high school years, I know of a couple of girls who later came out as gay and my older brother. If there are any others I just don't know where their adult life took them. But nobody was out or very open with themselves in those years for certain.

[Julia1996]

Only three TV channels?  We had seven when I was a kid.  But I remember the test patterns if you switched the TV on too early in the morning.

Only three channels? Why didn't you switch providers?  That's ridiculous.

[Deborah]

Only three channels? Why didn't you switch providers?  That's ridiculous.

LOL.  ABC, NBC, & CBS were all there were and the only way to get them was by antenna.  Cable wasn't invented yet nor was satellite TV.  The only option that existed was on or off.

We didn't even have a color TV until I was around 10.  I still remember seeing my first one in wonderment at someone else's house.


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[steph2.0]

Only three channels? Why didn't you switch providers?  That's ridiculous.

Oh gosh. Julia, I know you're a practical joker. Are you messing with us? 🤣

[Julia1996]

Oh gosh. Julia, I know you're a practical joker. Are you messing with us? 🤣

Yes actually I was. Lol. I know there was no cable back then. My grandpa told me all about the dark ages of TV. When you had to keep getting up to change channels.  What a pain that would be.

[Julia1996]

LOL.  ABC, NBC, & CBS were all there were and the only way to get them was by antenna.  Cable wasn't invented yet nor was satellite TV.  The only option that existed was on or off.

We didn't even have a color TV until I was around 10.  I still remember seeing my first one in wonderment at someone else's house.


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I heard what a big deal color TV was back then. And I heard a color TV was very expensive.

[Julia1996]

Ok, I'll come clean. When I first wrote that I did mean it. But after I posted it I realized there was no cable providers back then.  I had a blonde moment. Lol

[Deborah]

Yes actually I was. Lol. I know there was no cable back then. My grandpa told me all about the dark ages of TV. When you had to keep getting up to change channels.  What a pain that would be.

We really didn't watch TV much anyway.  Sat morning cartoons were the week's highlight and then maybe an hour or so each weeknight (Batman is what I remember).  Most of the rest of the time we had to entertain ourselves so I was usually either reading books or outside running around.


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[Paige]

Why I didn't or how I didn't escapes me? According to some, I am impossible. That IS weird.

Hi Lisa,

I believe you said in a previous thread that your father, who was very negative towards your femininity, left when you were 5 and that your mother and step-father were very supporting.  This was truly weird back then.  I have no doubt you suffered severe harassment outside of the home, like many others, but you had one thing 99.9999% of transgender people of that time didn't have, family support.  Now try to imagine your life growing up being raised by your father and you might understand others.

Have a nice day,
Paige

[FreyasRedemption]

I guess I was kinda made to conform. As a kid, I really preferred the company of other girls, and in kindergarten people took notice of it. The other girls made me a kind of "honorary girl", welcome to the "secret" girls-only place and to play with them. We mostly played board games, since the other girls weren't super into the stereotypical girly stuff. Sure, all of them had their dolls and princess stuff and the rest, but only a couple of them actually had any interest in playing with those. Now that I've come to think about it, it seems like they only owned all the super-girly stuff because they were expected to. And I remember never really joining in on playing house. In part because of shyness as well as because I never could decide what role I would play.
With the boys, the ones who cared at all about my existence....didn't really think much of me. I wasn't interested in the mainstream boys' toys and cartoons (at the time, they were Pokemon, Bionicle and the 2002 He-Man reboot) and I spent all my time in the girls' company. To them, I might as well have been a girl myself.

But the teachers were an entirely different matter. They weren't exactly aggressive about it, but I do remember that some of them often tried to get me to go play with the boys. "I'd bet the other boys would be really happy if you joined in", indeed. When they inevitably managed to convince me into talking to the boys, they were definitely not happy. It took most of them a while to get used to me, but it was kindergarten. No such thing as enemies or grudges. Bullying, yes, but the teachers didn't tolerate that in the slightest. I made a couple friends among the boys, but also had many more friends among the girls.

Then school became a thing, and I ended up in a class that was nothing but boys all the way to the fifth grade. Then a girl transferred in, and becoming friends with her was pretty much the catalyst for discovering that I was trans.

Of course, I ended up denying it at first, but after a couple years of trying to convince myself that being a boy would be OK (it obviously wasn't). Then I had a massive dysphoria meltdown and ended up digging up information about being transgender.

[big kim]

It was 1973 before we got a colour TV, there were 3 channels til 1982 then we got channel 4!

[Lisa_K]

Hi Lisa,

I believe you said in a previous thread that your father, who was very negative towards your femininity, left when you were 5 and that your mother and step-father were very supporting.  This was truly weird back then.

Yeah, I don't get it either. All I can think of was my mother was an artist and free spirit and my (2nd) step-dad was a retired Lutheran pastor working as a psychologist but in a totally different field (occupational rehabilitation). Probably of greater influence, at least for my mom was my first step-dad that she was only married to for a few years that I never got to know that well. He was in the theater. She told me before she died when I was 25 he was bi and the reason they broke up was that he left her for another man so she had obviously always been pretty open-minded about things.

Before anyone tries to make connections, no, my mother did not make me trans. She just didn't stand in my way.

I have no doubt you suffered severe harassment outside of the home, like many others, but you had one thing 99.9999% of transgender people of that time didn't have, family support.

I realize this but you and others have to realize that even without family support, I would have not been any different because I did not know how to be. Being and acting like a boy wasn't something that could be punished or beaten into me and no amount of any kind of external pressure or coaching would have or did make any difference in who I was. I could have easily been abandoned or put in a home or foster care or become completely emotionally shut down or dissociative. It still wouldn't have changed me.

Now try to imagine your life growing up being raised by your father and you might understand others.

I simply would not have survived in that environment. Of that, I have no question. It's not that I don't understand others and have great sympathy for those that were suppressed, repressed and made to conform but all I'm saying is that was impossible for me and it wouldn't have mattered who my parents were. Why I was so stubborn or strong willed, I honestly don't know?

Just to close the chapter on my biological father, it's not like I never saw him after my folks divorced but he couldn't hide his disappointment I wasn't a rough and tumble little boy. His nickname for me was "sugar tits" if that tells you anything and he did his best to tease and embarrass me at every chance. It was him buzzing off all my hair after the 2nd grade and the emotional trauma it caused was why I was able to start growing it out afterwards in the first place. Around the 5th or 6th grade, with a promise to my mother he wouldn't cut my hair again, I was supposed to spend my whole summer vacation with him. I lasted less than a week. The last time I saw him as a kid  was when I was 14. By then I had long hair and was completely androgynous and he was a total mean a-hole jerk I never wanted to be around again.

I did see him again though when I was 24. This was my mom's great doing before she died and not a contact I would have initiated otherwise. By then it had been six years since I finished social transition and two years after having SRS. His mind was pretty blown but he treated me with respect and dignity and we stayed in touch for several years. He even met and got along well with my husband. We eventually lost touch again and last I heard about 15 years ago was that he had died. Pretty cold and heartless of me but I didn't really care.

[Dee Marshall]

Yes actually I was. Lol. I know there was no cable back then. My grandpa told me all about the dark ages of TV. When you had to keep getting up to change channels.  What a pain that would be.

I remember there being cable in the late 60's. It was in a very rural northern Michigan area. Still just the same there or four channels, though.

:

April 22, 2015, the day of my first face to face pass in gender neutral clothes and no makeup. It may be months to the next one, but I'm good with that!

Being transgender is just a phase. It hardly ever starts before conception and always ends promptly at death.

They say the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. I say, climb aboard!

Think outside the voice box!

[Complete]

So where does/did l, Complete,  fit into all this. As l said earlier, l pretty much chose, (if you can call it that), to conform order to avoid all  the harassment and abuse that appeared to be the obvious result of being openly trans or gay or just generally non-conforming in my younger years when I had no control over my life.
I did not see myself as a victim and the one time that there was an attempt to bully and beat me, 5th grade, l put my attackers and myself in the hospital with an assortment of broken bones, shredded ears, black eyes and broken noses. We were all expelled and when the other parents sued my parents for emergency room costs,  the judge laughed them out of court. I guess surviving 3 against one, says something.
Despite our great differences, LisaK and l ended up in essentially the same place, getting our lives in good order by our mid-twenties.
Did I have "parental support"? Only to the extent that they provided me with the best education available. It was up to me to figure things out after that l paid for and I did what l needed to finish college, got a good job and proceeded to pay for my own immediate needs which included primarily SRS.Once I recovered from that,  (not easy ), life became a relatively normal struggle to find love, security and happiness.

[Ryuichi13]

When I was a kid, being a "tomboy" was acceptable.  So I ran around in t-shirts, jeans and tennis shoes, even if I had to wear low top tennis shoes, which were considered "girl shoes" back then.  I also remember arguing with my Mom over having to wear dresses.  Sometimes she won, and sometimes I did. 

I played baseball, kickball, had a pair of those old metal street roller skates that fit onto your shoes and jumped ramps on my bike.  Most of my friends were boys as well.   Man, the '70s were a great time to be a kid!  Maybe my experiences were different, being African-American in Ohio and not forced to conform.  Idunno.

My Mom still tried to buy me dolls, but I usually asked for plushies instead.  I had a bit of a zoo growing up, the dolls mostly went to my younger sister or were ignored. 

When I hit 12, my moobs started growing.  I went for as long as I could without wearing a bra, but when I was accosted in the 9th grade by other girls for "bouncing and being distracting to their boyfriends," I aquiesed and wore them for a few years.

So I suppose you can say I was able to be my true self for the most part while growing up. 

I haven't read anyone else's posts yet since I wanted to post my memories first.  I hope others were as lucky as me growing up.

Ryuichi

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[Kylo]

No, I was never made to conform. I also doubt, given my personality as a young child, it would have been possible to force me to conform without literal force.
My parents were the intellectual but distant sort. I think they figured they were doing the right thing by impressing nothing regards gender roles on me and allowing me to choose the sort of things I wanted to wear, play with and aspire to. I had a neutral upbringing. Even at a young age though, and in this environment, the problems were apparent to all. I was born in 1979 so I suppose it wasn't a big deal for a female child to behave boyishly during the early 80s-90s.

My biological father I didn't see all that often, but to his credit he also never impressed any sort of role or expectation on me gender-wise. His mother was a different matter. Although I enjoyed spending time with my grandparents, especially my grandfather, my grandmother had always wanted a daughter instead of a son, and I think she expected me to fill the void. She wanted to dress me up in dresses and teach me to be lady-like. You can imagine her horror when I turned out to be not only a mischief-maker but to have almost no regard for my appearance, to spend all my time digging holes in the garden, reading comics and teaching myself to whistle and spit. Yeah, safe to say she was disappointed and would probably be even more so if I actually told her I was a guy now.

I wouldn't have conformed as a child. It wasn't in my nature to pay attention to other people or respect authority "just because". In that sense I'm grateful I had the parents I did. Perhaps they shaped me into that or perhaps I was more that way and they were just rolling with it. I don't know. 

When puberty hit I still didn't conform and went my own way and dressed and acted the way I wanted to. It seemed I was aware of my awkwardness everyone's perceptions of me as the odd one out, but I was practically incapable of joining them even if I wanted to. I felt more awkward pretending to be one of them as I did just being myself, so I continued to be myself.