Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hey. Is there anyone here who is a "late onset" ftm (aka realized it in his twenties as opposed to knowing since childhood)? If so, would you mind sharing your experiences especially when you first realized you were male?

Hey :)

This pretty much sums up my experience of realisation:

I've only realised in the past year and a half that I'm male. I was previously so immersed in the 'lesbian culture' that I really couldn't see past my own nose. So, when I eventually came across the ftm term, I was shocked because I jsut genuinely didn't realise that there were female to male transgendered individuals, and this will sound stupid, but all I was exposed to when I was growing up was seeing men transitioning to females, so hell, I didn't even think ftms existed! Ha, how silly is that?!

So yeah, when I came across the ftm term, everything clicked. Everything just fell into place and I knew. I just knew that, it applied to me. When I look back over my childhood, there are so many tell tale signs! I played as a boy, I hated my body growing up, heck, I even thought I was biologically a boy for a while, until I found out that I was missing parts.

I feel as if, when people immerse themselves into fitting into a category, you pretty much put everything into it because, in all honesty, it's great to feel like you're part of a group, but when you get stuck in trying to be like everyone else, you lose sight of yourself. You've become a mass produced individual and it's hard to see out with that. So, when I did realise, I remember feeling very shocked, like, omg, why didn't I realise this before!? lol.

I didn't realize and transition until 25. Way past the age of some here. Some are completely done with transitioning by that age. I think for me, I didn't know transition was an option for me until then. I thought only transwomen could transition. Like others, I came out as a lesbian first and realized that label didn't quite fit me. Since transitioning (or starting the process with HRT) I've realized that I'm much happier and more confident. Sometimes for people it is a process rather than a realization as a child. I used to struggle with the whole "trans* enough" thing, but I realized that it really doesn't matter WHEN I realized I was trans*. The important thing is, I did and I'm much happier now. Better late then never!

Late onset 20s?  LOL, try late 40s.

It's not that I didn't know, I always felt male.  It's just that I didn't know what I'd always felt meant I was trans and that I could actually do something about it until my late 40s.

Now just a regular guy and happy, for once.


Jay

I've always known.


I am not speaking to anyone specifically here, but I don't understand how you could not know.
I don't see how discovering that transition is possible, or that there are others, should have any impact on how you identify.

I always had a very strong sense that there was a gender mismatch. That I had a males brain with a females body. For awhile I thought I was the only FTM since all I heard about were MTFs. It wasn't until I was 13 that I found out there were other FTMs and transition was possible. I certainly did not discover that I was male then, I was just relived that some day I could transition.

I am with Jay ... around my mid 30's

Jesse -- -keep in mind we grew up in a different era --- I didn't even know what transgender was until my mid 20's when I moved to California -- I was brought up in Kansas.

My parents were very liberal in a lot of ways.  I was allowed to dress and act how I wanted.  Once I was old enough to speak my mind I never wore a dress again except to prom.  I played with boys -- went camping -- had a boys bike.  In a sense my parents didn't really treat me any differently than my brothers.  I had cars to play with and my younger brother had dolls.  In other ways though they were gender conforming - I wasn't allowed to pump gas or run around without a t-shirt on. 

Since I was allowed to be myself I was just a masculine female.

Quote from: Jesse7 on July 05, 2012, 10:47:14 AM
I am not speaking to anyone specifically here, but I don't understand how you could not know.
I don't see how discovering that transition is possible, or that there are others, should have any impact on how you identify.

I always had a very strong sense that there was a gender mismatch. That I had a males brain with a females body. For awhile I thought I was the only FTM since all I heard about were MTFs. It wasn't until I was 13 that I found out there were other FTMs and transition was possible. I certainly did not discover that I was male then, I was just relived that some day I could transition.

I'm not "late onset" or anything (I discovered FTMs properly just before my 15th birthday) but I can kind of see why people don't realise until they find about FTMs and transition being possible.  Until I found out about it I didn't really understand how I was feeling, or how different it was to how girls feel.  I just thought that I was weird, had absolutely no fashion sense and it was just because I didn't fit in with any of the girls.  It was only when I discovered FTMs properly that it all clicked and I realised that this was what I really wanted, the reason I used to stand in front of a mirror stretching my arms out so I could kid myself that I wasn't developing breasts, why I always did "boy things" and why I was always jealous of guys haircuts and bodies although I didn't find them sexually attractive.

Quote from: Robert Scott on July 05, 2012, 10:52:27 AM
I am with Jay ... around my mid 30's

Jesse -- -keep in mind we grew up in a different era --- I didn't even know what transgender was until my mid 20's when I moved to California -- I was brought up in Kansas.

My parents were very liberal in a lot of ways.  I was allowed to dress and act how I wanted.  Once I was old enough to speak my mind I never wore a dress again except to prom.  I played with boys -- went camping -- had a boys bike.  In a sense my parents didn't really treat me any differently than my brothers.  I had cars to play with and my younger brother had dolls.  In other ways though they were gender conforming - I wasn't allowed to pump gas or run around without a t-shirt on. 

Since I was allowed to be myself I was just a masculine female.

I think being raised in an earlier decade would have made my feelings stronger, since it would be harder for me to express my masculinity.
I was raised by my grandparents and while things have changed over the years, my grandmother and even my mother act like feminism never happened.
As a child when they decided that I couldn't do anything unless they decided it was feminine enough, it made my feelings stronger. When they ignored my existence my dysphoria lessened.

Quote from: AlecSky on July 05, 2012, 11:03:20 AM
I'm not "late onset" or anything (I discovered FTMs properly just before my 15th birthday) but I can kind of see why people don't realise until they find about FTMs and transition being possible.  Until I found out about it I didn't really understand how I was feeling, or how different it was to how girls feel.  I just thought that I was weird, had absolutely no fashion sense and it was just because I didn't fit in with any of the girls.  It was only when I discovered FTMs properly that it all clicked and I realised that this was what I really wanted, the reason I used to stand in front of a mirror stretching my arms out so I could kid myself that I wasn't developing breasts, why I always did "boy things" and why I was always jealous of guys haircuts and bodies although I didn't find them sexually attractive.

I always assumed I was different, that no one else experienced what I was going though. I did read another FTMs post on livejournal years ago that when he was a kid he thought all women hated being women and that this was normal, it wasn't until he realized that isn't normal that he discovered he was trans. I can understand that.

Quote from: Jesse7 on July 05, 2012, 10:47:14 AM
I've always known.


I am not speaking to anyone specifically here, but I don't understand how you could not know.
I don't see how discovering that transition is possible, or that there are others, should have any impact on how you identify.

I always had a very strong sense that there was a gender mismatch. That I had a males brain with a females body. For awhile I thought I was the only FTM since all I heard about were MTFs. It wasn't until I was 13 that I found out there were other FTMs and transition was possible. I certainly did not discover that I was male then, I was just relived that some day I could transition.

What I don' like about comments like this is it perpetuates that EVERYONE should always know at all times and in my opinion, enforces the typical trans story of "I was born in the wrong body and I've always known that" which is fine in and of itself, but dangerous as well because it erases people like me. Not everyone feels that way 100% of the time. That's ok that you feel/felt that way growing up and now and is 100% valid, but please be aware that my story is too and there is more than 1 way to be trans* and more than 1 way to come to that conclusion.

Something I want to mention.

Over the years I've heard a lot of FTMs say things like...
'I've always known I was a boy because I hate pink, love video games, love dinosaurs, like short hair, refused to wear a dress, hated puberty.....'

Things like clothes, colors, hair, are completely cultural and shouldn't be used to affirm gender.
While there are brain differences in men and women that seem to influence what is masculine and feminine across cultures and time periods, I don't think likes and dislikes affirm gender either.
It is common for cis people to be unhappy with the changes puberty brings and even spur dysphoria. Many cis men and cis women are never comfortable with their bodies.
I remember in elementary school informing a boy that girls rooms don't have urinals because girls don't have penises and have to sit to pee. This was news to him. Everyone had to use the girls room because of pluming issues.

People want some sort of proof to validate their gender identity, but I don't think you can find it somewhere besides in yourself.

Quote from: Darrin Scott on July 05, 2012, 11:50:06 AM
What I don' like about comments like this is it perpetuates that EVERYONE should always know at all times and in my opinion, enforces the typical trans story of "I was born in the wrong body and I've always known that" which is fine in and of itself, but dangerous as well because it erases people like me. Not everyone feels that way 100% of the time. That's ok that you feel/felt that way growing up and now and is 100% valid, but please be aware that my story is too and there is more than 1 way to be trans* and more than 1 way to come to that conclusion.

Trans is a broad term and includes those who identify outside of male or female.
With infinite ways to identify, there would be infinite ways to be trans.
If you are somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum I can see how there would be a ton of confusion.

Quote from: Jesse7 on July 05, 2012, 12:16:55 PM
Trans is a broad term and includes those who identify outside of male or female.
With infinite ways to identify, there would be infinite ways to be trans.
If you are somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum I can see how there would be a ton of confusion.

But I'm not confused and I'm not in the middle. I'm male....

Quote from: Darrin Scott on July 05, 2012, 12:21:40 PM
But I'm not confused and I'm not in the middle. I'm male....

I thought you were saying that you didn't feel that way 100% of the time.  ???

Bear in mind too --- when I was growing up there was no internet -- that didn't everyday useage for folks until I was out of college.  My knowlwedge of the world and difference was found in schools, tv and newspapers.   I didn't meet or know about transgender until I was out of college and living in college.  I was 27 by then. 

Quote from: Jesse7 on July 05, 2012, 01:05:51 PM
I thought you were saying that you didn't feel that way 100% of the time.  ???

No, no. I do feel that way 100% of the time. I just didn't realize anything until I was 25. But I identify as male 100% of the time.

Let's just say I'm the oldest one here. Anyway, I wouldn't say I never knew something was up, as I told my parents at 7 that I was a boy (and so on). But I started having this gender issue about 3-4 months ago. It's strange having an identity crisis at my age.

The director at the trans center said he knew someone who was mtf and was 72.
I guess there is no age limit for this.

--Jay Jay

Quote from: Jesse7 on July 05, 2012, 10:47:14 AM
I've always known.


I am not speaking to anyone specifically here, but I don't understand how you could not know.
I don't see how discovering that transition is possible, or that there are others, should have any impact on how you identify.

I always had a very strong sense that there was a gender mismatch. That I had a males brain with a females body. For awhile I thought I was the only FTM since all I heard about were MTFs. It wasn't until I was 13 that I found out there were other FTMs and transition was possible. I certainly did not discover that I was male then, I was just relived that some day I could transition.

Back in the 60s when I was a kid, if you were a girl (assigned female at birth) and liked sports or cars or frogs or other traditional boy things, and were happy to be dirty with skinned knees, let puppies kiss you, etc, you were called a tomboy.  So even though I felt male, physically I knew my body was female, my family called me a tomboy, my sister was a tomboy (though she was not trans, nor gay).

Transgender, the term, or trans people were not something you saw, heard about, nor read about. And if you did, it was male-to-female and they were made out to be creepy perverts and terrible crossdressers.  Not someone you could identify with, nor did you want the stigma associated with that.  I admire those that transitioned in the 60s.  Not that it is easy to transition now, but it definitely was much more difficult then.

Jay

Quote from: Darrin Scott on July 05, 2012, 11:50:06 AM
What I don' like about comments like this is it perpetuates that EVERYONE should always know at all times and in my opinion, enforces the typical trans story of "I was born in the wrong body and I've always known that" which is fine in and of itself, but dangerous as well because it erases people like me. Not everyone feels that way 100% of the time. That's ok that you feel/felt that way growing up and now and is 100% valid, but please be aware that my story is too and there is more than 1 way to be trans* and more than 1 way to come to that conclusion.

This is how I feel. I didn't think as a child that I was a girl. I liked girly things and boyish things (which, it warrants repeating, doesn't necesarrily indicate gender), but I never really thought of myself as anything. I mean, I've always hated things about me that were masculine- especiallly the stuff that happens after puberty- but It's not until after my 23rd birthday that I started to consider that I might be trans. That's when I started piecing together all these things that made me feel like I shouldn't be male.

Of course, no one can understand how another person with different experiences can be affected exactly, but some people choose to be open to learning and some people don't. The people who don't are not worth anyone's time.

I have no idea why this is happening. Maybe it's because I'm fluid (but I am still male and, if anyone says differently, they can *self censored for potty mouth*). Maybe it's because I feel disconnected from my body and felt/feel uncomfortable with it for other reasons. It may be because I've been told I'm a girl the past twenty four years, been sneered at for being "girly," raised without gender roles (has caused me to think I'm stupid for wanting to be male since I was taught there is no difference), look like a girl, it's a well known fact to me and everyone I grew up with that I am very weird and I wrote it off as just me being weird again, and I struggle with believing the validity of feelings since I've been conditioned to think my feelings are stupid.

In life everyone has a little male and female, but the main reason for transition is the way our brains process information.

Our minds were set from birth, our personalities were not. Besides generation and parenting, I think personality plays a huge role in the onset.

Since most of us in our gender don't meet the stereotypical subset of manly man(FtM), or Girly lady(MtF)

To some extent, even sexuality could play a role in onset.

To that, I believe in binary brains.  But the non binary comes from who we are. 

---- I see myself as a Binary, not a non-binary. Not because its a bad thing of course~

I sorta fit into that category.  I've known that my body and mind weren't aligned since I was a kid.  I found out about transitioning when I was a teen, but was too afraid to ever act on it until I hit my twenties.

Definitely, transitioning was never a 1 night epiphany  ;D  Took me years as well to prepare myself mentally.

Does it count if you were in denial as a kid by trying to "bury" your feelings but now as an adult in their 20s the feelings are harder than ever?

I certainly recall feelings that I was a boy in childhood and so on. But I don't know I had no language or something for this until now. I saw my first transman when a few months ago. I didn't know that you could actually do this. Maybe people on TV who had zillions of dollars.  I am certainly extremely late transitioning-- but not exactly adult onset. Though it might seem so.

--Jay J

Quote from: Snowman77 on October 26, 2012, 09:31:21 PM
Does it count if you were in denial as a kid by trying to "bury" your feelings but now as an adult in their 20s the feelings are harder than ever?

I don't know if it counts, but same here. I tried to live as female for years and pretending I'm ok but now I started transition I'm happier than ever, even if I'm at the very beginning.

i had no idea until about 19 1/2 months ago. i don't remember most of my childhood but it has a mix of masculine/feminine moments. the only thing i do know about being a kid is that the masculine moments were my favorite. i couldn't stand when my parents told me to be more like a girl. anyways i turn 24 in a couple months and my feelings have only grown stronger if anything. i desperately want to save up for top surgery because i won't really have to involve my parents for that. i wish i could start T but i don't want my parents to disown me. they still financially support me, i've seriously struggled to get my life together.

I'm not sure what OP means, but I didn't have a word for it or a clear understanding of it until I was about 20. I did have feelings of wrongness and actually wished I could be my real self when I was a child, but I tried dismissing it and pretending it wasn't real. I just don't think I fit the early certainty (standard) narrative either, to be completely blunt. It's not that I'd call it "late onset" but I'd say I didn't know anything much about it until recently and it took me a while to "get" that I could do something about it.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I mean either. Also since writing the last post I made on this thread, I have come to conclusion that I am definitely male. I do still have some days where I'm confused, but I think that's to be expected.

Quote from: juliangreen on October 03, 2012, 09:15:28 AM
I can pinpoint signs through my life (especially since puberty) indicating that I didn't really feel at home with my body and with operating in society as a girl-then-woman (never called myself a "woman" though). But at the same time, I was never really masculine in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. I'm artsy and was into makeup/fashion design for a while around early adolescence. I never liked sports, never had issues as a child being dressed in gender-conforming ways. Retrospectively, I know these things really don't matter, and that plenty of non-trans guys are and were gender-nonconforming as children. I just didn't get this back then, but oh...I wish I did.

Same with me. I've felt something was off, but I wasn't able to grasp the concept of why when I was younger or if I did, I thought I was just being a freak again.

i first started to realize something was wrong the year when i started school, i think. suddenly my parents wouldn't let me go to the men's sauna at the public bath, and i pretty much thought there was something wrong with my parents since they couldn't understand that i should be allowed to be there since i liked it better than the women's sauna.

the feeling got stronger when i started to notice my body changing from childish androgyny to a more feminine shape, and i understood i could never become a true shounen hero (or indian chief or medicine man or whatever really) if my development continued in this direction. i had some kind of awareness that i wasn't suited to be a girl, despite my body and parents insisted on me being a very feminine specimen of this kind.

my feelings of otherness were confirmed by a documentary about transsexualism that i happened to watch in early puberty. but i didn't see the point in transitioning into a gay transsexual with a dysfunctional penis. stigma x 3, nothing i wanted. so i decided right then that since i could live my life as a straight female, i'd just do that and stay on the good side of my parents and society. did the same with my attraction to women, dismissed it as something else since there was no point in being bisexual...

so i lived my teens as a straight cis girl. didn't help me fit in though. and not until i was over 20 did i again start considering the possibility that i might be trans. fell to the yaoi trap when i was 21, and ended up accepting homosexuality as something that might not be all that sinful after all. it didn't take long after that before i also had to accept my own bisexuality (which i found out later was actually pansexuality).

but the feeling of something not being right with me gender wise didn't hit again until i joined the bara community when i was 24, nearly three years ago. sure, yaoi soon had me see myself as a man in fantasies i'd earlier denied myself from indulging in. but it was too easy to dismiss as just a thing/phase/something that fujoshi go through. but it wasn't that easy with the bara community. i found that i fit in right there with fanboys, in a way i never did with fujoshi, and also noticed that the only female bodied members who were active on the forums where i was a member, were me and an ftm.

i still didn't know i was ftm, i don't even know that now. but the suspicion led me to find the androgyne forums here, and i suddenly had a place where there was space for my own weirdness and insecurity. i'm definitely trans, but where i'm going is still totally undecided. hopefully i'll find a way to be me. all i am sure of atm is that "cis woman" was never the right answer, and i somewhat realize that i knew deep down all along. just didn't realize how it could never be denied away completely

I can hardly all myself as "late onset" as I realised when a couple of days before my 15th birthday, but it still feels fairly late compared to some guys who told their parents that they were boys when they were tiny. Actually I could of done that, but I can't remember anything from that age so... There were times when I look back make sense, such as constantly writing stories where the main female character was demanding to be treated like a boy and allowed to go to boys only army camps and things, or where the main character was a boy (and like most kids stories the main character was always me I'm some forms or another). I remember convincing myself that I had breast cancer and was going to die when I started getting breasts because the idea of that was so alien to me, but it want until I saw a trans man on tv that the really worked out who and what I was.

Before then I just thought all butch lesbians were the same, and of course I knew I was a bit of a freak anyway. I can't imagine how fake I'd feel if I only realised when I was in my twenties or older, and although I know the signs have always been there and I just didn't put them together until I knew the word and saw how other people felt the same. Not saying that it makes you any less of a man/woman/androgyne to work it won't later, the just how I personally feel about myself.

The moment I first bound my chest it just clicked and I saw who I was in the mirror for the first time - Cliché, but true - although i

I'm to scatterbrained to read other responses but anywhoo, here's mine.

It went something like this: It was back in 2005, I was 29 at the time, and I was reading some guy's profile on OKCupid, it said he was trans and I thought "Heh, me too. Wait.. what??"

After that it took about 4 years before I sat in my doc's office and asked for a referral to the gender clinic.

As for being a late bloomer, having that wee epiphany explained a lot. Like how I had been jealous of trans women when I found out they existed as a young teen. I was jealous that they could DO that. Years later I found out there were trans men, and spent a fair amount of time searching for info online, looking at top surgery pics, thinking "If only that were possible here" (For some reason I didn't think that could be done in my neck of the woods, I thought people had to pay up and travel to the States for it.. Color me stoopid) At that point I STILL hadn't realised I was actually trans myself. Until that day in 2005. After that I found more accurate info on the process, but put it out of my head since I had a kid, health issues I thought would get in the way etc etc. Then I decided I'd go for it when he had turned 18. Well I didn't wait quite that long, fortunately. I was already passing and full time when he was 18 last year.

---
Ok waiting for a video to buffer so I can add some "when I was a kid"-stuff.

I never had a conscious thought that I was really a boy when I was a kid. Still, there might have been small clues, such as beaming on the inside when a kid said "Hey, you boy" to me, and the disappointment when my friend said "She's a GIRL!!" all offended on my behalf. As for toys and whatnot, I liked boy-stuff and girl-stuff alike. I had this lovely pink slik-like dressI used when I was 9-10. Mind you, it didn't come with the manners and grace a parent would hope for. XD I would roll around in the dirt with toy cars and sew doll clothes by hand. I grew up with two older brothers who were quite the influence on me, and parents who didn't really care what I was up to, as long as I didn't go drown or get myself run over. As a teen I was more about not standing out than anything else, so I was the anonymous grey mouse in the background. I tried being all girly and stuff, like my best friend, but blimey, what a sad effort. :P  But all in all , I guess I lived a somewhat gender neutral childhood.

I have wondered what it would have been like, if I had been forced to be more girly by my parents. Maybe that would have led me to realise at a younger age.. or maybe I would just have been really miserable without knowing why.

Quote from: Snowman77 on October 26, 2012, 09:31:21 PM
Does it count if you were in denial as a kid by trying to "bury" your feelings but now as an adult in their 20s the feelings are harder than ever?

Y'know, I can pinpoint the moment I slipped into that as a kid (as I had been well on my way to sorting it out, otherwise).  I remember reading some psychology book and coming across the term "penis envy."  It was described as something that girls have.  That, of course, was unacceptable.  I didn't want something that girls have.  So I blocked that entire train of thought for years, though it didn't change the rest of how I felt or acted.

I didn't realize my gender issues before the year 2011, being 22 back then. Before that I just felt I was an outsider to both male and female groups. I remember staring at my shadow as a pre-teen and feeling totally totally detached from it - that moment was the first I noticed I'm going to become a woman, some day. When I went to my first lesbian club evening with my girlfriend, I remember how hard it was to pick clothes that would make me feel like I belonged, that I'm not faking being a girl since it was an all girl's party. :P I've always been so stressed out when I am with people, because they thought me a girl and when I didn't fit, I got bullied by peers and parents alike.

I've had depression and something that doctors to this day are not sure if it's autism or psychosis, for at least the past 13 years. I got out of the fog about a year ago with a medication, but after my head got cleared, all these gender things started popping up for real. The one thing that started them for me was one FtA person I know who one day posted pics of them and their change. I felt totally empty inside, all these feelings rushing through me and for a while, I just felt so much hate for them because I wasn't in their shoes. Funny how the mind works, and how much self-pity a few pictures can unleash ::)

To sum up, even if I got the words for these feelings such a short while ago, I know I've always been really insecure and awkward about being in the body I am. I know I have some nice feminine features in this vehicle of flesh I carry around, but I can't use them, they are not me, they make me feel anxious. Even if I still don't look like I feel inside, binding and exercising and forcing myself to be more me when in public have certainly helped.

OK, I'm not late onset (I've known since I was 5, my mother saw the first clues when I was 18 months) - but something in this thread really resonated with me:

Quote from: John Smith on October 29, 2012, 01:21:03 PM
I have wondered what it would have been like, if I had been forced to be more girly by my parents. Maybe that would have led me to realise at a younger age.. or maybe I would just have been really miserable without knowing why.

I've often suspected that childhood can be easier for FtMs than for MtFs, simply because there are more opportunities for us to express typically masculine behaviour and be thought of as a 'tomboy', than for male-bodied children expressing typically feminine behaviour. That having been said, my childhood took place in the 1970s which was a very gender-segregated decade.

From age 5 I played with boys' toys, engaged in typically male pursuits and refused to wear dresses. I told my family that I'm a boy and I would introduce myself as such to other boys in the neighbourhood so that I could play with them. But my mother saw me as her 'pretty little girl' so she treated me like I was 'wrong' or 'confused' and she tried her damndest to force me to behave and dress like a girl. We used get into major arguments when we'd go clothes shopping because I'd refuse the dresses she wanted to buy me and she'd refuse to buy me the androgynous or male clothes I wanted - so I'd wind up getting no new clothes at all. For many years I had no choice but to wear my brother's worn-out old hand-me-downs. I guess she figured that if she stuck to her guns I'd eventually come round and start wearing dresses again - but I never did.

My mother used blackmail to try to get me to wear dresses: she would refuse to let me attend my friends' birthday parties in anything other than a dress. This led to major upsets because I was hugely uncomfortable with dresses, and I even missed out on some birthday parties because I simply couldn't deal with my dysphoria. That was the 1970s for you. :(

Luckily I had my brother and our male friends to play with, because my parents would insist on buying me girly toys too. I'd stuff them in my wardrobe and go play with my brother's Scalextric instead. I don't know how on Earth I would've coped if I'd only had sisters.

I don't know how you might've felt, John - but I can tell you that the constant pressure to conform to 'girly' norms made me feel utterly miserable without having the words to explain why.

I think being easier to be a tomboy than feminine boy is both a blessing and a curse for FTMs. It makes it easier for FTMs to be comfortable as kids, but I feel it makes it harder for us to realise that were trans and for our families to accept it. Personally I was allowed to do pretty much all of the "boy" things, and there wasn't much argument about gender which made me not realise that I was a boy until much later -- id never had to consider what I was, I was just me.

Then of course I moved into a bigger school and got older and gender came into play. Boys didn't want to hang around with me and girls thought I was weird for not being excited about having to wear a bra or makeup or whatever else they're into. And of course parents are always going to just say "why don't you just be a tomboy/butch lesbian" and rarely do they say "just be a femme man" to MTFs.

Quote from: John Smith on October 29, 2012, 01:21:03 PM
It went something like this: It was back in 2005, I was 29 at the time, and I was reading some guy's profile on OKCupid, it said he was trans and I thought "Heh, me too. Wait.. what??"

that's just lol. i've had so many moments like that, without realizing what it actually meant. i thought i was being delusional, in the same way as how i'd always identify very strongly with any main character in a book, especially if it was a really cool guy. i even once at a rather gay forum came out as a "girl", but insisted that they should just treat me like a dude. of course, only after another guy came out as ftm. and it still took nearly a year after that to realize that i'm probably trans too.

I probably don't qualify as a "late onset" ftm, since I am only 24, but I can completely understand how some people don't realize it until later in life.

I think I knew I was masculine as a child - even though I actually enjoyed wearing dresses, sewing (I taught myself by watching the birds sew on the movie Cinderella), and playing Barbie with my sister (though, I was always Ken) - due to a lot of stereotypical male/tomboy traits about myself. In middle school, once I was allowed to pick out my own clothes, I always bought male clothing and passed as a boy with my hair bobbed. I eventually took scissors and a razor and shaved my head.

Still, I wasn't entirely sure if I was trans or just a butch lesbian. I didn't have the internet, cable/satellite TV, and have fairly conservative parents, so I had little to no means to learn anything about the trans community.

I ended up getting completely confused later on (from about age 19 to my early 20s), because I started just thinking that I was crazy for ever thinking that it was possible to be male, so my mind started mixing up who I was attracted to sexually to who it thought that I should look like and who I wanted to look like with who I was attracted to. I hear this is somewhat common with trans people, so I know that I am not the only one who this has happened to. Now, I am living as female and married to a straight male (who has figured out that I am trans, though I have yet to confirm it with him).

For those of you who always knew you were trans, good for you! :) For me though, I think I needed to take a bit of a journey to figure things out; it wasn't until this past May that my husband confronted me about this, which prompted me to do research that I realized all that was possible and how I really felt about my gender.

I totally understand this as well. I had experiences all my life of "trans", but I didn't have the vocabulary or understanding of it. I had heard more of mtfs. I must have thought that either ftms didn't exist or were exceedingly rare or something. At first I thought I was androgyne. I even talked to another ftm here who told me he now considered himself ftm and I thought this didn't apply. I don't know if it was just too new a concept to me that I couldn't consider it or what. I didn't have one epiphany, I probably had ten. Just gradually I started seeing myself as more male and so on.
I think younger people are exposed to this all the time, but I suppose right now there are ftms (and mtfs) who just have no idea. I think there are levels of this experience so there may be people who are hurting more directly so they may figure out sooner, I don't know what it is at all.
Otoh, I went thru a period of severe depression in my 20s. One of the therapists I saw (competent woman she was-- NOT), made a big point to talk about how I didn't dress like a woman or present like one and so on. Perhaps there should be sirens or something. :}

Even during my androgyne period, I feel there were signs that I was ftm. It just didn't quite click for me. Funnily I don't think it has much to do with intelligence or insight or anything you might think.

--Jay J

I'm currently 26 (27 next month) and it wasn't until about 5 or 6 months ago that I came out of denial (really not just a river in Egypt). Anyways, I guess I just am late on everything. I didn't come out as a lesbian until I was 20. Although, I feel, it was mostly because I wasn't really in contact with anyone that wasn't a straight baptist or catholic. I thought being a lesbian would cure all my "issues" but obviously it did not. Now I don't deal with a lot of depression or anything of the sort, I'm very good at pushing any thoughts that I feel might be controversial out of my mind. I've always been rather "tomboy" ish and I remember the day when my mom would no longer let me play outside without a shirt on (when I was 3, just to clarify). I always wanted to be someone's prince charming and would look in the mirror wondering what I would look like as male and wishing I was born that way. But I would think it and then forget it. As a lesbian, I felt I now had a reason to dress and look more masculine and in the beginning that was enough for me.
I now have a financee (been together for 3 years) and when we would discuss things on a certain topic she would kind of hint at and sometimes ask if I ever thought of transistioning. At first I would quickly shake my head no and declare that I was given this body for a reason and I should learn to live with it as that's how I was meant to be. I mean I never really heard of transgender or anything really but knew that it happened (how hasn't heard of the pregnant man) I just didn't realize how common it actually can be and how possible it really is. But then, one day, I admitted to often thinking about being male and again she asked me if I have ever thought about it and I just said no. Then googled it when I went to work the next day. It was like a light went on inside of me and when I went home that day I talked about it with her and from the beginning I knew I wanted to get everything done. I want T, top surgery, and bottom. It has taken some adjusting on her part but she loves me and has joined a few support groups so she can talk to people who understand her side (as a side note: she apparently always had a feeling I would one day admit being FTM to her because of the look on my face when someone called me "sir" or "him", how happy I would get). Because quite honestly, when we try to discuss it sometimes, it just makes me feel selfish and like crap and that's definitely not how she intends it. It's just the way I hear it and the way my brain works. So we have learned how to communicate our feelings better. Now I haven't started therapy or anything yet but i'm calling this week to get the ball rolling (would have been sooner but life happens, plus I don't like rushing into anything).
I definitely think the younger kids have more exposure to it. I told my soon-to-be younger sister-in-law who is only 14, that I was going to transition and to call me Evan and she already knew someone who was transistioning and I believe he is 14 as well. Blows my mind.

I'm 23 and I already feel so behind.

I was never all that much of a tomboy growing up.  Loved princesses and tea parties and oh my god...dolls. I didn't stop playing with dolls until I was 12.  I always wanted to be a mom, be pregnant, set up a "nice" home and wear the frilliest wedding dress.  Still do, actually. 

It wasn't until I was in my early teens that I started being more interested in (and identifying more with) guys.  Maybe because I finally found a type of guy I'd actually like to be? That's not easy when you grow up in a fairly closed community.  And it's only been a year since I've considered that maybe my social anxiety, depression and general malaise might be gender-related; that maybe I'm not "just obsessed" with queer rock and roll skater boys...maybe I am one. Or should be one.

But I don't think that makes me "confused".  If anything confuses me, it's interacting with people who are so set on a specific and exclusive trans experience and then knowing I didn't have that and feeling like I don't belong.