It you knew as a child you were Trans, what were your first actions/thoughts?

[pamelatransuk]

Some of us know when we are infants and some of us only realise later.

So a simple question for those of us like me that "always knew".

Perhaps not unexpectedly, I told someone I wished to be a girl - I chose my grandmother as I was really close to her.

I prayed to God that I would be turned into a girl.

Thirdly I believed perhaps from age 4 to age 12 that there must be four groups: boys who wished to boys, girls who wished to be girls, boys who wished to be girls and girls who wished to be boys. I was right but I truly also believed there must be around a quarter of all people in each group! I am not joking. Could anyone really be so naïve? Could anyone really be so pessimistic?

What were your first thoughts/actions if you "always knew" please?

Thanking you

Pamela

[MollyPants]

Well I knew I didn't ever fit with boys and certainly didn't want to be one but I don't think I twigged that I was meant to be a girl until I was 11 and it sort of clicked that I had boy parts. My first reaction was to panic and then to squash the feeling down as far as I could and pretend it wasn't happening. In hindsight not such a good idea. I spent most of my teenage years praying and hoping I would turn into a pretty young girl and then I could join into the world how I'm meant to be. I think this basically caused me to disconnect from the world and spend my life living in my head.

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[Allison S]

I just always knew something was very wrong with me. I didn't have long hair but it was around puberty that I started to feel like I wanted to be a girl. I didn't know what it meant or what being transgender was. I just thought I'm gay with feminine needs. I hated the idea of looking and being masculine. I didn't want muscles and I wasn't happy with the squareness of my body. I thought I was just different and like @Mollypants I was living in my head. Oh another big thing is in movies or games I always imagined being the female. I thought I was weird and shouldn't tell anyone.

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[Gertrude]

Well, after trying on moms shoes, I was told boys don't do that. Then the secret dressing began.


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[amydane]

My earliest memories I knew I should have been s girl. I also somehow knew that I shouldn't tell anyone about it, but my actions couldn't have been missed. Looking back at pictures, two stick out to me. The first one I am holding a baby doll in my arms at age three with this loving look on my face. The second is at age five. My sister is holding a new present, a Barbie, and I look longingly with excitement. I snuck into her room more than once to play with her Barbies. I remember around five locking myself in the bathroom to try on my sister's panties, wishing my underwear was just as cute.

I wished and prayed with a child's faith and innocence to become a girl, that led me to around age 12 or 13 when I put a knife up to my penis on multiple occasions wishing that I could have the courage to let it slip, but I never did, thank goodness!

The turmoil and dysphoria was awful! I wish I had the courage at the time to tell my Mom, but my Dad scarred the crap out of me. He held very rigid and traditional views on gender roles. I had four sister's, and each Valentine's day he would get my sister's something, but I would get nothing, because I was a boy. One year my Mom finally started getting me something. I could list other examples, but don't want to bore you.

I thought that I was the only person who was born with the wrong body until my late teens. If I had just been born 5 to ten years later, the internet would have been a great help to me figuring out that I wasn't alone.


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[Roll]

What I actively remember was from around the age of 10, praying I'd wake up as a girl, which eventually led into weird OCD superstitious rituals (if I do such and such totally nonsensical thing, maybe it will turn me into a girl). And when I say weird, I mean really, really weird to the point I am never going to type them out or speak them aloud even in therapy.

[softbutchharley]

When I was about 7-8 or so. I remember trying to hide my boy parts from myself in the shower.
And shortly thereafter I got busted by my aunt trying on her clothes at my grandmas house.
After that, my mom divorced (not about me) and she and my new step dad tried to beat and pray the girl out of me (still have physical scars) . It worked. For a while till I ran away from home. Then it all started (the search) at about 16 .
wow...dug up some memories....
TY for posting this one !
J

[steph2.0]

I vividly remember, sometime when walking home from elementary school, throwing myself face-down on the lawn in some stranger's front yard, and praying and praying for God to make me a girl. Back when my mom made me say bedtime prayers, they always ended with that silent wish. And any time there was an opportunity to make a wish - blowing out birthday cake candles, wishing wells, coins in a fountain, first star of the night, falling stars, anything - that was always, always my wish. I'd wake up with a vivid dream in my head that it'd come true, then realize nothing had changed. The sadness colored my entire world for 50 years.

I was forced to wear a buzz-cut while I watched my mom brush out my sister's long dark hair. Realize that this was the sixties, when everyone had long hair. I was the freak then for so many reasons, and never fit in with anyone.

I'm bringing myself down now, so I'll stop. At least I'm finally addressing it. Better late than never.


- Stephanie

[cartowheel]

It's funny that the experiences I had as a young child relating to wanting to be a boy were ones I didn't realize were that until I was much older and questioning my gender, and I just thought 'that explains a lot!'

I did grow up with two younger brothers, but these instances happened before my younger brother was born.  I remember distinctly, when I was around 4-5, stuffing socks in my underwear to create a bulge in private, thinking that I shouldn't be doing it, but it felt right.  I also was obsessed with trying to urinate standing up, and was more interested in 'boy' things than 'girl'.  Although I remember playing with Barbies a lot when I was younger, in a conversation with my mom yesterday, she recalls that whenever I would get a Barbie or a doll, I would play with it when I first got it, and then never touch it again, opting for stuffed animals, computer games, and my brothers' toys.

Funny how these things aren't usually thought much of until they become significant.

[DawnOday]

Thinking I was trans was not a consideration when I was growing up. We were either perverts or mental cases. Transgender was not even a term until the late 80's. I knew there was a reason I liked to play with the girls as I related more to their idea of fun than the boys. I began crossdressing at seven. Asking my Mom to dress me in my sisters costumes. Thus would begin the lie that has dominated my life. The secret that has caused depression, doubt, guilt,  I've always known but did not find out until two years ago, when I finally sought insight from a therapist. I had been in a breakdown and was treating everyone with contempt. I promised to seek help and for twenty months have been on HRT.  Coming out was the most important and freeing experience in my life. All the pent up self hatred, mistrust, fear have dissipated. My goal now is to see that future  generations do not have to suffer the pain I have endured. I am so happy for you all and I have to admit I admire your courage, commitment and enthusiasm. The kids are alright.

[Karen]

Very young....but did not know how boys or girls were supposed to feel.  I had 2 sisters and was closer to my mom. 

Played with dolls, and some boy things...fishing, driving and buildings things.  Drawn to my mom and sisters clothes, make up, etc.  Did not like playing boy sports or how aggressive they were.  Liked hanging out with the girls better.   Kept wondering what was wrong with me, was I gay...not that I knew what that was.

But, grew up in a white, rural and homophobic time....and learned to get attention by acting more masculine....and learning to hide my deeply sensitive and feminine side.   Learned to live vicariously through girls I liked.

[Kylo]

To despise Nature and turn away from the world and other people.

Life just seems to be the ever-extending road away from that state. Unlearning all the twisted habits. Although sometimes I wonder if I'm moving away at all.

[Lady Sarah]

Due to the constant shaming, I had to overcompensate for my feminine ways. Any time I had to be around humans, I had to act like a boy. As soon as possible, I would get away from all the humans, and go off by myself, just so I could be myself.
I think my godparents knew. When I was 3, I got a pink kittycat stuffed toy for my birthday. One morning, it was just gone. I can guess who got rid of it.

[FinallyMichelle]

I don't know first, there are not a bunch of memories under the age of eleven. I don't remember this at all but I found a lots of school paperwork mixed in with report cards, one was a letter from my teacher concerned because when she asked what we want to be when we grow up I said that I wanted to be a girl, and could they come in and discuss this with her.

I started puberty close to 13 I guess. Okay, so this is embarrassing. I knew, knew by then, not about trans, I didn't know anything about that in the early 80s, but that I was supposed to be a girl. Now this is NOT what made me the way that I am, from what I have been told I have always been this way, BUT... By that age I had been used by many boys and two men as a girl, when the boys were talking about masturbating I didn't understand why they did it the way they did. It wasn't for me at all, so I found a way that felt more right. That was probably my first conscious thing that I have done that I remember. I know gross right? Sorry.

Anyway, that was responsible for me telling my grandma what she already knew. She caught me and I expected her to be mad because I was masturbating, she was furious at HOW I was masturbating. The whole thing did not go over very well. I never understood how it was worse than finding the neighbor boy on top of me or what uncles had done to me, it was the same thing but I was doing it to myself. Sodomy is a sin, gay people go to hell. It's okay I am not gay, I am a girl. Not an argument she wanted to hear. So off to the loony bin they sent the little sinner.

Probably tmi, sorry. You did ask though.

[Tessa James]

Trans or transgender were not part of the language when I was a child in the early 50s.  My earliest recollection was of not understanding why gender was a big deal.  I had a clear sense that i would grow up to be a mom until that concept was disabused from my thinking by brutal realities we all know too much about.

My older and sister and brother seemed more concerned about "which side" i was on and we fed each other mimicked nonsense from the adult world we were best to be silent in.  Some of the more traditional nurturing roles such as cooking and child care were part of my early life as was a preference to read rather than play sports or wrestle with boys.  More than the roles was the sense of self as a girl that no one else could see until that part of me became a mere shadow and almost died. 

Now I am free and loving every minute of this reality.  Too many of us would do well to understand trauma informed care as our lives were so often a repressive and hurtful mess.  We can heal and we can live fully and truly as ourselves now.

[Claire Grey]

As a very small child (3 to 5) I liked typically femme stuff (mermaid tails, blue on white porcelain tea sets, tea parties).
I also was confused by my body. I literally thought my junk would be absorbed back into my body at some point because that seemed most natural. What a disappointment. Data for trans being in the brain at birth? YES!

[Forest Spirit]

Namaste,

As early as six years old I knew something about me was different. I'm not really sure if I could be considered transgender or not. I know I'm intersexed. Yet growing up in the sixties transgender was unheard of and intersex was limited to issue's with genitals. I easily fit in being a boy when I was with boys. I also easily fit in when I was with girls. It was like there were two of me, the girl and the boy. In a blink of an eye I could switch genders and liked both. As I got older it became really confusing. I had a female body with male genitals. In my teens and early twenties I was bisexual. In my early thirties I began to take on more of a male appearance and started to get some facial hair. I was truly much happier living as my female self and when I started estrogen injections I started having monthly periods[emoji13]. Anyway, I truly believe that knowing we are different at such young ages is due to being in touch with our inner being, the essence of who we truly are.

Peace,
Jalene

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[alisons]

I have know I wanted to be a girl from a very young age and remember being around 5 years old watching my sister paint her nails and asking her to do mine as well which made me so excited. That was until my older brother came in the house and started calling me names and said boys don't do that (boy was he wrong).

Over the following years I remember thinking that maybe tomorrow would be the day I woke up as a girl, but that obviously never happened. During puberty I remember being extremely jealous of my female friends as they got to wear pretty dresses, heels and develop into women while I had to wear the same boring clothes and started to become hairy in all the wrong places.

The biggest thing to happen to me which I totally regret is while in my teems I started to secretly dress in my mums clothes while no one was around. I would take her makeup and keep it in my room not even thinking that she would miss it. Then one day I came home and she confronted me with the makeup she found it in my room. She straight out asked me if I like it and felt that I was a girl. I remember being so scared of getting in trouble that I said no and was just playing around and wouldn't do it again. If only I had said yes that day, maybe I would be a totally different person today.

[Nicole70]

From a very early age about 3 or 4 I used to tuck my male bits out the way because I didn't want it to be there.

I tried on my sister's clothes for the first time at about the age of 7, and I can still see myself in the mirror, I remember seeing the girl me, I was naturally fairly feminine, it triggered something profound in my mind, that was the start of a lifetime of cross dressing, at about the same time I would pray at bedtime to wake up a girl.

I hid all of this, it was the 1970's, I "knew" it was wrong and was unable to tell anyone how I felt, I think it was the start of becoming more withdrawn and shy.

[Michelle_P]

My FIRST actions?  I think that may have been happily cooperating with the two slightly older girls (10-12 years old, perhaps) who wanted to dress me in their old things and do my makeup.   I was about 5-6, I think.  I have a strong memory of this event.

At age 6-7. I was in the second grade.  The teacher had the class (parochial school) pray silently for something, then went around the class asking what each student had prayed for.

"I want to be a girl."

*WHACK*  A yardstick across the wrist, for asking God to do something sinful.

That was when I learned to hide.