This question probably comes up a lot.

[ConfusedMichelle]

How did you know you were transgendered? How old were you and how did you tell everyone? Their reactions?


I know I say it a lot, but really, THANK you guys. I look forward to reading your replies and I feel like I have a new family, even though I have only been on Susan's for a day.

[cindianna_jones]

I didn't know the term.  But I always wanted to be a girl.  Those were my earliest memories. I didn't tell anyone.  My spouse found out and told everyone else.  The reaction in my staunch religious community was not in my favor.  It was devastating for everyone.

Cindi

[HelenW]

I always knew I was different when I was small and I never could put my finger on why.  I was 21 or 22 when I finally realized that, as I put it then, was a female soul in a male body.  Before that I just thought I was a pervert or something.  I spent the next 29 years trying to live with that.  I failed.

Hugs & Smiles,
helen

[Julie Marie]

This isn't something that requires definition.  You just know it.  Doubt is part of buying into the myopic view that there's only male and female.  We all know.  Who needs an 'expert'?

[ConfusedMichelle]

Now that I think about it, I agree, there is no definition. All I know is that I am a boy and that's that! 

[Joseph]

This isn't something that requires definition.  You just know it.  Doubt is part of buying into the myopic view that there's only male and female.  We all know.  Who needs an 'expert'?

Great point Julie Marie.  From the time that I realized the differences between boys and girls (about age 3) I knew I was a boy.  Being treated as a girl by some and having to wear dresses occasionally felt like abuse.  As a teenager i "conformed" to survive, but by my early 20s there was no more denying it.  My close friends and family know about my GID.  I don't think it was really a surprise for any of them even though none of them had really thought about GID before.  I would never be mistaken for "feminine" by those who know me. I think those that know accept it as reality.

btw Brady - the current top-rated quarterback in the NFL wouldn't have anything to do with your name, would it?  regardless, I like it. (and I do like the Patriots, too.)

Joseph

[ConfusedMichelle]

Haha Joseph. No, it doesn't have to do with it. I have just always loved the name Brady.

[nonie]

I knew when I was really young, like 3 or 4.  I knew I was a boy and that I liked other boys a long time before other kids started having crushes.  But I didn't know I could change my body how I wanted to until very recently...  I thought female to male was either impossible or not very satisfactory, mostly because I forbade myself from investigating it.

[Christopher]

Hi Brady,
   Welcome to Susan's. It's nice to have you here. I am new too. This "new family" is a whole BIG new world for me. I NEVER imagined there were so many other people out there with similar challenges that are willing to share and help others. It has been great!
      First off, I am not sure of  the definition "transgendered". From my earliest memories of life I just knew who I was. I don't think I ever had to "tell" anyone. To me, I wasn't just a "TOM BOY", I  was just a BOY. Of course being an only child of a gay mother who wanted me to "be like her", really put a kink in being molded for "manhood". But there has never really been a time when I felt I was "female".
   As far as people's reactions....as I said, my mother told me that I didn't really feel that way and that she felt the same way when she was younger and I would just have to realize that I was a dike just like her. My grandparents and other family accepted me because nothing about me changed just the pronouns they had to use. My freinds...that's a whole other crazy story but the short of it is that nothing really changed.Going through junior high school the girls actually created all kinds of stories as to why I was really a boy so that they could date me.They laid the ground work in telling people. It wasn't until highschool that people started reacting crazy. I left and just started my life....anyone that came in to my life from that point on never knew me from earlier years. From time to time I will run into people from the younger school years who knew me with a girl's name, they never say anything or ask questions.
    Of course there were those "reactions" from the high school genetic males but we will talk about that on another topic.
                                                                                         Christopher
   

[jaded]

hi brady and welcome to susans yeah i agree with the rest .
i knew i was a boy as soon as i knew their was a differance at about the age of 3 i always told everyone that im a  boy ppl thought id get over oh well.
i have told most of my direct family and everyone i told siad they alreadt knew  so it wasnt much of a shocker.
as for acceptance that a whole nother ballgeme oh well
p.s i thought you took the name brady for the same reason:)
take care
jaded

[Luc]

I have always been a boy. That's pretty much it. I didn't know what it was to be a transsexual until I was probably 18, but even then I was in denial... I was raised in a conservative Christian home and taught that anything outside the norm was sinful. It took me until now, at age 24, to finally assert myself as the man I always was.

Rafe