Early Signs

[Silver]

I never really thought of myself as male specifically. I had seen different trans things, but never thought that I'd be in such a position. Does that make me strange? Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm a big phony, but I honestly believe that there is no other option. I am male. I cannot see myself continuing on in life as a woman in however a masculine role/appearance. It just doesn't click.

Like me. I don't think we're that strange.

Hmm, except for the masculinity. I've always had an inexplicable disdain for masculine women.

[Teknoir]

I've always had an inexplicable disdain for masculine women.

You and me both.

I think mine stems from (in the past) them assuming I am one of them, and me fighting not to be assumed female.

In the past they've tried to find some sort of "sisterhood" or understanding with me, or salute my "unconventional femininity". That sort of crap made me very uneasy (not being female and all  ).

Also, I've had some pretty psycho butch lesbian stalkers when I was a teenager.

[kyril]

You and me both.

Make that three of us.

For me, it's partly hating the "woman" identity (and the fact that I think butch lesbians have a particularly strong femaleness about them that's actually accented by the lack of femininity). But it's also partly that I'm not really all that masculine, and the assumption that I am because I might look a little like them is strange.

[Radar]

...(and the fact that I think butch lesbians have a particularly strong femaleness about them that's actually accented by the lack of femininity).

I've always thought that too even though I never said anything because most people would think it odd. Plus many lesbians (especially butch ones) seem to be man haters, which I've always despised (duh). Not meaning to stereotype but that's just my experience.

[Aussie Jay]

Most strangers always assumed I was a little boy growing up... Family and friends called me a tomboy.

I remember being 4/5 and asking Santa (like in my prayers/head etc) for a 'sex-change'...
I remember playing house or whatever with my cousins anywhere from 4-10 and always being the father or the brother...

I remember being about 8 and asking my family to call me Jonathan...
I remember all throughout school so like 5-13 not understanding why I couldn't just wear pants or shorts...

I had one girl friend until I was 13 - all the rest were boys and we always played footy, cricket, soccer etc - never played skippy or elastics or understood any of that stuff...

I remember being like 7 and refusing to wear my school dress and insisting on being able to wear shorts and a t shirt sports uniform...

I just always knew there was something not quite right about me. I always felt in the middle like neither label fit me... Whatever! All water under the bridge now huh!!

Jay

[Doveglion]

I remember growing up I absolutely hated keeping my shirt on espcially when I slept my dad taped a video of me when I was five or so dancing around in nothing, but a beanie and jeans to that song "Can't touch this" which by the way still totally makes me want to groove when I hear it, but I'd rather not break things while attempting to dance.

I also never actually saw myself at least in my head as a girl. I knew that's what people wanted me to be but all I wanted was to grow up and be a dad. I used to call myself Luke which made my family think I had some sort of imaginary friend and drew pictures of how I wanted to look when I grew up which I'm very glad I didn't grow to be or I'd have bright blue hair and be a stick man with some braces that look mysteriously like some sort of torture device.

I also was extremely guilty of stealing my older brother's clothes and random cologne samples that came in the mail for him when I was a kid. Really I didn't start acting even vaguely feminine until high school which eventually caused me to skip school all the time and drop out because it just felt wrong to me.

[Arch]

I never did the whole packing/peeing standing up thing.  I have three sisters, so I had no idea penises existed for the first decade or so of my life. 

I didn't really know about penises either, when my dad was teaching me how to pee standing up. I had contact with a penis when I was molested (I was just turning eight, I think), but I blocked out the experience and continued to be ignorant of male anatomy for another year or so, when I started reading a book about human reproduction. And then it was just line drawings--cutaway, to boot--so I didn't fully make the connection to real people.

I was pretty sheltered, but it was the late sixties/early seventies.

[emil]

i ran around shirtless all summer until the age of 10 when i couln't do that anymore. i refused to wear dresses from age 5. i considered myself a boy in all play situations, stole my older brother's clothes when i went out to play, i played cowboy or prince. from age six i had these imaginery alter egos which were always male (like for a while i would drift off in this dream world where i was a little boy i had seen in a western movie, then i turned into a young prince from a novel, then luke skywalker, etc)

when my mom said jokingly that raising me was like raising three boys, i took it as a compliment, and whenever someone old and short-sighted accidently said "young man", that made my day.

when at age 10 i heard there was something called "sex change operation", i had the same day dream for over a year - that i went to hospital and got surgery and when i woke up i was a boy

i cried my heart out in front of the mirror wanting to cut my hair (my mom wouldn't let me)

when my boobs started growing a little bit i tried to push them back in with a 2000 pages-roadmap-compendium. when that didnt work too well i started drooping my shoulders so much my mom took me to an orthopedist. when the orthopedist told me i should try to stand straight like a soldier, the only thing i liked about his comment was, that soldiers are boys.

[Al James]

[quote author=Nemo link=topic=75971.msg520003#msg520003 date=1271672

Also, I just got an email back from Dad. He actually said he feels more comfortable calling me Sam as a bloke than he ever did using my female name. Just goes to show, huh?
[/quote]

bending the topic slightly- nice one nemo

[Martin]

from age six i had these imaginery alter egos which were always male (like for a while i would drift off in this dream world where i was a little boy i had seen in a western movie, then i turned into a young prince from a novel, then luke skywalker, etc)

Yeah, I always did that... Hell, who am I kidding, I still do. 

[Farm Boy]

Let's see...  I have some similarities and some differences from everybody. 

I had three sisters, so I had no idea penises existed for the first decade or so of my life.

Same here, no knowledge of the male anatomy and yet I also tried to pee standing up.  When I was about 14 I tried my hand at packing too, but only in the privacy of my room.

I hated dresses and hated going to church for this reason.  I think I would have liked it better if I'd been able to wear what the boys did.

My first best friends were two boys.

I was a tomboy and wore loose T-shirts and home-made pants, actually.  I would pick out cool fabrics from Walmart and my mom would make me shorts.   I wore these until I got into high school and the other kids were especially mean about my pants and my hairy legs that I refused to shave.  Then I switched to men's jeans, because they fit better on my stick figure than women's jeans.  I also wanted to be the male heroes in movies, (Yay, Luke Skywalker! ) when my sister and I played pretend with movie or book characters I was always a boy, and although I wasn't allowed to dress up for Halloween, I never would have considered dressing as a girl character.

Puberty was terrible.  I didn't want what was happening and thought my body would eventually realize that and revert back, but it didn't.  I also couldn't understand how the other girls could be remotely happy about what was going on.  (It still seems impossible to me.)

I guess I'm different because I loved having long hair and I got very upset when my mom would cut it.  I'm also a prude and I never had the urge to run around without my shirt on.  I actually used to have nightmares about arriving at school without any clothes on, and even if I got top surgery (which I would LOVE) I think I would still feel too naked to go shirtless.

I've also been mistaken for a boy all my life; the most recent occurrence being last year.  I was 18, my hair was long enough to sit on, and I wasn't doing anything to hide my (admittedly small) chest other than a snug sports bra and loose T-shirt.  My mom gets indignant and corrects people, but I've always been secretly pleased. 

Also, since I've always been boyish my family likes to tease me about how I'm actually a boy and how my mom has two sons instead of one.  I don't think they have any idea...  I want to tell them because I think it would make perfect sense, but I'm not sure how they'd take it, so I just enjoy the "teasing."

[kyril]

So...I'm not weird because I wanted to be Luke Skywalker?
(I called myself Luke in my head from age ~ 6-10)

[Farm Boy]

If it makes you weird then I'm weird too, because I still want to be him. 
(My dad actually calls me Luke as a nickname...)

[colormyworld]

Looking back there were a few signs in my childhood, but I think overall I was a pretty normal little girl. My mom still loves to remind me that I used to like wearing dresses when i was little. I had dolls that I liked, and stuffed animals. My best friends growing up were all boys, so if we played anything that had a girl in it, I was always the girl, and I was okay with it. Two of my favorite things growing up was a pink bigwheel and my pink and white bike (which I was faster on my bike then all the boys, 'cause I'm cool like that!) so I think I had a pretty normal girl childhood. I had hotwheels and toy cars, racetracks, legos, toy tools and sports stuff, but I was never told that I couldn't play with a certain thing because it was only for boys. I wore a mix of boy's clothes and girl's clothes, pretty much whatever I wanted to wear as long as it was appropriate if I was going to school or something.

I did used to wish I could pee standing up, and there were times when I wanted to cut my hair into a boy's cut, but ended up with with a shortish girl's style, even after explaining what I wanted to the person cutting my hair. Other than that, I didn't ever feel out of place or anything, I was just me.

It wasn't until puberty that I realized that I was going to grow into a woman, and that was NOT what I wanted! I wished I had boy hormones to make my periods stop and make my boobs stop growing. I hid my boobs with tight sports bras under baggy clothes, and hoped if I kept my chest area tight enough they wouldn't be able to grow.

So I guess the earliest I ever realized I wasn't 'normal' wasn't until 11ish.

[Martin]

If it makes you weird then I'm weird too, because I still want to be him. 
(My dad actually calls me Luke as a nickname...)

ME TOO. (Well I don't get called that as a nickname, but I've always wanted to be Luke.) I find it pretty funny that we've all got this in common.   
Colormyworld- I'm right there with you, up 'til 11 it was all good. Loose shirts, tight sports bras. Never shaved my legs either...

[BoyDani]

Earliest sign: Hated wearing dresses and pink around five. Hated wearing shirts. when I hit puberty I hated guys and I became sadistic... now that've I've realized my physical problem I'm not nearly as volatile. I always hated I couldn't be friends with them when I was little and I had to be stuck with the girls. When I was little I'd be the knight in shining armor, too, haha.

[jimmymot]

I was a tom-boy who liked to cut up tree branches with my pocket-knife.
I'd try to make tomahawks by tying stones to sticks as a kid.

I played tag at recess with the boys all through elementary school.
I wore backwards hats and got made fun of for sitting with my legs open in 5th grade.
I got grass stains on my flower girls dress rolling down the hill with boys at my moms wedding.

Every picture of me below the age of 10 I am glaring because I hated dresses.

I realized I liked women at 8 and it didn't occur to me that this was different until I was 13, and was upset to put 2 and 2 together and consider myself a lesbian, as a "female" attracted to women.

I've been called "Jimmy" since age 13.

All through middle school I wanted a dick so badly for awhile I could "feel" one there when I got aroused.

I've always felt that women should be submissive, even though I am one and would hate to be, which is some weird form of misogyny or projected self-loathing. lol

Post Merge: April 30, 2010, 05:23:48 AM

I never really thought of myself as male specifically. I had seen different trans things, but never thought that I'd be in such a position. Does that make me strange? Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm a big phony, but I honestly believe that there is no other option. I am male. I cannot see myself continuing on in life as a woman in however a masculine role/appearance. It just doesn't click.

I don't think you're strange and I relate to that. I feel like a phony myself sometimes. Or I accuse myself of overreacting.

Sometimes I think that the reason why I reject myself as trans is because I feel cheated or I feel that I shouldn't have to make myself the way I feel. Like, I shouldn't have to justify it with the changes or the label: that I'm not a transsexual, I am a male; that its who I am.

Its frustrating because a lot of gender is a social construct, so its hard for me to get my head around about what really is "off" about me (needs changing) and what is just people misunderstanding me. Yet, again and again, it returns to the feeling of, "I wish I had been born male."  so I think that's mostly me being bitter. 

[Devin87]

So...I'm not weird because I wanted to be Luke Skywalker?
(I called myself Luke in my head from age ~ 6-10)

I'm weird, though.  I wanted to be Hawkeye Pierce in HIGH SCHOOL.  I was 14 years old and I bought a bunch of Korean War era army clothes and a bucket hat (like Hawkeye wore in the movie) and on Halloween I dressed all out like him and went around introducing myself as "Pierce comma Hawkeye".  I also put a sign on my bedroom door that said "The Swamp"...  Yeah. 

When I was REALLY little, according to my parents I stuck mostly with little girl things.  When I was three I thought I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and when my parents bought me a dog I named her Toto.  I can't remember that, though.  All the characters I can remember imagining myself as were male.  Or I was genderless in my fantasies-- I was female just because that's how I knew myself, but I did very male things and was all tough and strong and I was always in the male platoons in my Army fantasies...

[Al James]

i was always the baddie when we played Charlies Angels (the original series) cos it meant i got to run around with a gun acting tough

[LordKAT]

i was always the baddie when we played Charlies Angels (the original series) cos it meant i got to run around with a gun acting tough

I was Charlie