I didn't really know when I was child, but it was definitely there. I actually had a pretty strange view of gender as a child. My view of gender was that there were not two, but four main genders: man, woman, boy, and girl. I saw boys and girls as being separate genders from men and women, because the gender roles for children are quite different than those for adults. I was in fact very happy with being a "boy". Ever since I was little I was very intellectual and interested in science, and since interest in science is deemed as being "boyish", I fit very well into the "boy" gender role. Even though I fit very well into the "boy" gender role, whenever I saw my mother doing her hair and make-up, I always thought about how nice it would be if I could grow up to be a beautiful woman like her. I never really felt comfortable with the thought of me growing up into a man. But since I was a child and it felt like I was never going to grow up, I didn't really think about it all too much. I remember once asking my mother why it is that she can grow out her hair and nails long but I couldn't. She said, "It's because you're a boy, and boys don't do that." I thought it was extremely unfair that I should be limited in expressing myself just because of the fact that I was a "boy". As I approached adolescence, what was expected of me in terms of gender roles changed. I was no longer seen as a sweet, imaginative, intellectually curious boy, but as an aggressive, id-ridden, insensitive, horny teenage male. Needless to say, that did not sit well with me. I kept it repressed and I actually over-compensated in some ways by trying to appear macho. I thought that my desire to want to grow up into a beautiful woman was a result of my attraction to women. Eventually I found out that being attracted to women does not produce the desire to adopt a woman's gender role, and that I am in fact transgendered.
