"There were no signs."

[Padma]

Mischief managed!

[RyGuy]

i have the same problems. growing up, my best friend was also ftm. he used to get yelled at for using the girls bathroom at age 7 (how many of us would die for that now). black grey and green clothes only. pants, dinosaurs, you name it. used to physically beat people for using female pronouns or his then-legal name.

i guess since my parents always saw this they have this idea that THAT is what being trans really. i grew up as much of a princess as any little girl could ever hope. i hate white ruffled sheets and a canopy bed and dolls (i was never the mom though, always the big sibling). i was a ballet dancer and i went to an all-girls school. i still am very good at dressing and doing hair and make-up. i still enjoy most of these things, and in a sick way, feel that it might have been a blessing to grow up as a female because of the teasing i would have gotten as a little boy. (though i hate the stereotype, i am not gay, if that suppressed any questions). i just grew up in a family that was very "you-are-a-girl-and-this-is-what-you-do". i just realized that it was a lot easier to go along and wear what they wanted me to than to kick and scream. i was afraid!

it's hard to convince people like your parents who never saw you complain. they might not have known that all your birthday wishes were to turn into a boy or that you prayed for it every night, or that you bound before you even had breasts or peed through a toilet tissue roll at age 5 or played "dad" when everyone was doing house at kindergarten. that doesn't make you any less of who you are. it's very difficult to explain and some of the very trans-supportive websites don't help us either. they offer many "clues" to a child being transgender as liking contact sports vs dolls, or pink vs green.. what a damaging stereotype

[asher]

one reason I love my parents.  I came out.... they said "finally!"

Hah! That's great XD My sister said something similar lol.

I haven't come out to my parents yet, but for a while I was really afraid they would say that. I have a really terrible memory, like REALLY terrible XD The few memories I have of childhood were immense amounts of confusion about my gender, but I never expressed it directly so far as I can remember. So I don't have 'examples' to give them should they say the same, except for always playing with boys and boy toys and such.

But the fact of the matter is comparing to 'standards' and to other people will never be 100% clear cut and telling, everyone is different XD

Still, when I came out to others and got so many responses like 'OH that makes sense' and 'Oh yea I knew already pretty much' it is really nice to hear, and I know when I came out to a close friend and he didn't believe me, like he would know, it was ridiculously annoying.
And I'm sure explaining to them why comparing you to other people is not going to tell them anything either way, probably won't work. Which is STUPID.
But hopefully they will come around, like others said, denial!

Until then just remember YOU know, and you don't need 'examples' from childhood to tell you how you feel. And that's what's important right?

[ty.to.the.man]

i had all of the same signs plus:
when i was a toddler i tried to pee standing up and got pee all over my pants and the floor lol!
i always took my shirt off and hated girls swimsuits
i havent worn a dress since i was 3 (my parents didnt wanna fight with me)
luckily i was a late bloomer and have a small chest anyways
and for every single birthday wish i would wish to be a boy.

[Lee]

when i was a toddler i tried to pee standing up and got pee all over my pants and the floor lol!

I'm glad I'm not the only one. 

[Battle_On]

when i was a toddler i tried to pee standing up and got pee all over my pants and the floor lol!

Idk why, but this reminds me of a picture in one of my baby books of me standing in the toilet.

[Radar]

"Yeah, but you also played with Star Wars figures."

"Mom...those are dolls."

No they're not! They're action figures.

[ty.to.the.man]

i agree action figures

[PandaValentine]

I've been told the same thing because of my childhood. However they are basing it all on what THEY remember! Of course they will remember the part of me being in a dress, but they won't remember how I'd run outside after and get covered in mud. They will remember how I came home after learning about puberty and claiming to not be able to wait, but they won't remember my obsession with blood, I used to try and give myself nose bleeds. (Admittedly it's just because blood was freaking cool, but when 'it' did happen, I was freaking horrified!) They also remember me playing with dolls, but they don't remember that the dolls used to go over the bed into imaginary volcanos. I may have collected fairy figurines, but I also collected dragons. This can all be stuff both boys and girls do, I don't get why I had to be all typical girl or all typical boy, all the time to be trans. With them now watching my nephew grow up they have this idea that I was too far away from being a boy as a child. I mean seriously, gender doesn't follow any guidelines. I always thought people encouraged you to be unique and yet when you come out as trans you all have to have been the same in childhood and the same now. I mean to them I'm even less because I like guys, though I'm bi which they do not know.

[marte]

honestly does it even matter what toys we played with as kids? as "girls", we get pushed into dolls and babies and play kitchens and whatever. Give a boy nothing but dolls growing up, he'll play with them too. I think when we're kids we do stuff in the way we learn to do it. My mum told me it was healthy to play sports instead of just sitting around all day with dolls, so I played football with the boys. But whenever she wanted me out of the way she told me to go play with my dolls, and I would do that too.
I dont even know what I'm saying now but our behaviours we learn as we grow up (as boys or girls) so unless a person is acting out of their gender young, I don't think it can be taken as a sign of cisgenderness. Hope that makes sense.

[Padma]

Yeah, I got an Action Man but I just wanted to dress him up in rubber ("frogman" - riiight...). And I had a box of marbles (aggies?) and instead of playing with them, I just used to spend hours looking at the colours...

[justmeinoz]

"Of course not, I was good at pretending!"

[zombiesarepeaceful]

Oh, I duno. Maybe getting the crap beat out of me when my mom found me carrying boy's clothes to school and changing before class in 3rd grade, yet continuing to do it.

Maybe having no friends whatsoever in school cause neither boys nor girls accept you.

Maybe cutting the living daylights out of my arms when I was a teen in order to make my body unrecognizable as any gender at all.

Or begging to play football like the other boys.

Or refusing to answer to my birth name.

Or wondering why it didn't hurt like it should have when I hit my crotch on the teeter-totter in kindergarten, not understanding why it didn't drop me to my knees like the other boys.

Or sneaking around and getting haircuts to look more like how I felt inside.

Or telling grandma she could have my...yeah..when she had a mastectomy. I was only 8 at the time.

People can be in denial all they want. But in the end, I know why I wake up half wanting to die everyday because I'm still living a nightmare that is only solvable by thousands of dollars for surgery.

[Sorin]

I'm pre-everything (and by that, I mean everything) so this is really something I am more dreading than have experienced.  Though I've experienced a bit of it already.  It's compounded by me being a very effeminate guy, which in someone who others perceive as a 'girl' it just seems perfectly normal and like I think I'm a girl you know?  I can look back to signs in my life, and I see they go back quite a ways, but it's so easy for the signs in my past to be indicative of things having nothing to do with me being a guy.  I just understand them differently now, though it sure makes a hell of a lot of sense.

In my experience though with many topics it's just that some people have this picture in their head of how you are, how the world works, and other things outside of themselves that they only think they know everything about.  And even if you keep throwing up proof they treat it as 'proof' because obviously, in light of what they 'know,' that proof must be fake or misread or an anomaly that doesn't mean anything.

[JohnAlex]

I'm pre-everything (and by that, I mean everything) so this is really something I am more dreading than have experienced.  Though I've experienced a bit of it already.  It's compounded by me being a very effeminate guy, which in someone who others perceive as a 'girl' it just seems perfectly normal and like I think I'm a girl you know?  I can look back to signs in my life, and I see they go back quite a ways, but it's so easy for the signs in my past to be indicative of things having nothing to do with me being a guy.  I just understand them differently now, though it sure makes a hell of a lot of sense.

In my experience though with many topics it's just that some people have this picture in their head of how you are, how the world works, and other things outside of themselves that they only think they know everything about.  And even if you keep throwing up proof they treat it as 'proof' because obviously, in light of what they 'know,' that proof must be fake or misread or an anomaly that doesn't mean anything.

This is exactly me as well.   I'm pre-everything.  and I'm slowly coming out to people (just friends so far), and they all try to point of things about me that are effeminate  and be like, "See, you are a girl."   I don't know how to respond to that.   It doesn't bother me that I may have things about about me that are effeminate.  but it's exactly like you said, some people have this picture in their head of how you are and how the world works, and they can't see it another a way. 

[Leek]

Oh, and when I was in daycare, my teacher read us this book, I don't remember what it was called, but it was about this boy who fell out of his bed one morning, accidentally licked his elbow, and that turned him into a girl. So, by my own logic, I thought: "Hey, if I licked my own elbow, I'll turn into a boy!" Too bad I could never actually manage to lick my elbow.

<irrelevant>

I think this is from one of the Wayside School books.

Just thought I'd mention it...

</irrelevant>

[Arch]

This is weird. The last few days have been ultra-stressful for me, and I had a really weird and disturbing dream last night, probably because I'm not in a good place at the moment. One key feature of the dream: my father, whom I haven't seen in a quarter century, is right there in front of me, saying, "There were no signs."

It's all your fault, Devyn!

[Devyn]

This is weird. The last few days have been ultra-stressful for me, and I had a really weird and disturbing dream last night, probably because I'm not in a good place at the moment. One key feature of the dream: my father, whom I haven't seen in a quarter century, is right there in front of me, saying, "There were no signs."

It's all your fault, Devyn!

I always have weird and disturbing dreams too. Lol
Also, I'm not responsible for any of the dreams you may or may not have. XD

[Arch]

Also, I'm not responsible for any of the dreams you may or may not have. XD

That's it, pass the buck. How can you not take responsibility for this???!!!

P.S. Now I'm filled with dread as I anticipate your next thread...

[Devyn]

That's it, pass the buck. How can you not take responsibility for this???!!!

P.S. Now I'm filled with dread as I anticipate your next thread...

XD It's not my problem.

I'll have to think of something that gets three pages of replies. Hm. You may regret having said that. Haha.