Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I see people posting that a lot of transgenders  had no clue until their 30's,40'sand 50's.I was just curious if your willing to say how did you start thinking you were transgender. I've dealt with this all my  life at a non-stop pace culminating in my recent transition. I've had two lives growing up ,my inner self and my public self the female vs. the male. I was just wondering if you woke up one morning and started thinking different than you always had or did you have minor unconscious clues all along that just weren't recognized as such until recently. I'm only asking because it seems curious that some know in childhood where others don't  know until much later. this is not intended to be any thing more than trying to understand things better.

Quote from: stephaniec on February 09, 2014, 03:43:05 PM
I see people posting that a lot of transgenders  had no clue until their 30's,40'sand 50's.I was just curious if your willing to say how did you start thinking you were transgender.

Sure.

I didn't really understand transgender, despite a lot of reading and interest. Based on what I heard, I assumed that ALL transgender women were absolutely sure they were female. I couldn't imagine what that would feel like, but I knew it wasn't me.

So I didn't recognize that my deep, irrational, unshakable desire to become a woman could be a symptom of transgender. I accepted that we all want things we're not going to get, and I accepted this about myself and lived a pretty happy life.

I've always had trouble making friends. I was never interested in male friends. I didn't know why, but was far more comfortable in the company of females. The older I got, the lonelier I got, since it's really hard for a married guy to make friends with women.

Finally I'd had it with the loneliness. I decided I needed to figure out why I can't make friends with men. I did a lot of thinking and exploring, and my explorations led me to Susan's and to a transgender support group. There was a particular thread in the Polls forum, titled "In essence....were you born female or..is it that you just want to be female" (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,9156.0.html (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,9156.0.html)). It really opened my eyes. A quarter of the women posting there reported they weren't born female, just wanted to be female. I began realizing that I could really be transgender.

Quote from: stephaniec on February 09, 2014, 03:43:05 PM
I was just wondering if you woke up one morning and started thinking different than you always had or did you have minor unconscious clues all along that just weren't recognized as such until recently.

Neither. I've thought and felt the same way I always did. Not about me being transgender, but being... well, me. I guess the leap was finding out there was a term and an avenue of exploration for the way I felt that went beyond "I must be abnormal/a freak, and for god's sake don't ever say anything if you don't want to be beaten to within an inch of your life."

The universe is not without a sense of irony, in my case. But nevertheless, I wouldn't say it was an sudden awareness of who I am, but an awareness of being able to quantify it beyond "I don't know how to explain myself to you in a way you would understand."

Good question.

And one that I feel may have a continuously evolving answer for many. So all I can say is how I feel now, I may totally contradict myself this time next year, or perhaps even feel more strongly.

The experience of being transgender for me has unfolded very slowly, and subtly, alot like subsidence with a house. For many years, the erosion of my male identity and and reveal of who I am inside was so slow and imperceptible that it was easy to just not notice. However, soon as I started surveying my identity, addressing my issues (such as loving to crossdress and daydreaming I was a girl), and contemplating my future, cracks started to appear in my male identity. Those cracks then turned into serious structural problems. What tipped me over the edge was the realisation that being male doesn't suit my identity, or how I want to interact with the world. The onset of male pattern baldness and experimenting with male partners with myself as the girl just made the switch-flip and I had to ask myself "Why are we male, still?" 

I'm teetering on the edge of a total collapse of my male identity, but its still hanging on in there superficially due to fear, my attraction for women, the fact I look male in the mirror, expectations on me, etc etc. Plus I still on testosterone, so I won't know for sure whether I need to ditch this identity until I try the very power-source that makes a woman.


So all in all, since ten years old, its been a very slow, protracted undermining and then collapse of my male identity for various personal and external reasons. The collapse was hastened by my stunted growth as a child (so I looked androgynous for many years) and by the fact I've always felt inferior to women. Therefore, I never had a rock-solid male identity to begin with.

Ultimately, I'd say that my being transgender is the result of a whole load of disparate factors, all just happening to coincide, and this was the result. A result which suits me, but yet I may not have gone through had life panned out differently. Thoguh, who knows? Perhaps my identity was transgender all along? :p

I do believe that some transexuals are born and therefore are clear from the outset, but for some its a development over time that relies on various factors to determine the  realisation and subsequent outcome for the individual.

Does which what I wrote make any sense?  ???

Interesting reading everyone's answers.

I myself had feelings that I should have been a girl as my earliest memories around 3/4. I always knew I was different and that society looked down upon those types of people. I loved hair and makeup and my little ponies was an obsession of mine. I wanted to grow up to be my mom and be a housewife with kids or a successful business man like my dad although I always had awkward thoughts about that, probably because I hated suits and ties. I too ONLY had girlfriends like Suzi said, and still do. It's not that I don't like men I just feel out of sorts with their social cues and always felt like at any second I'd be laughed at. I rather enjoyed mens company around lots of girls/women because then their cues would change and I felt more comfortable being one of the girls and the few guys that were there would soften up their usual ways.

This being said though, I did come out as gay and that was a nice buffer. I also felt like another poster mentioned that you don't always get what you want in life. I had moved away from my small conservative beach town to a bigger city that was very gay/trans friendly. I didn't plan on it, but started doing drag early on and that led to researching transition. I started HRT when I left Portland and moved to LA for school I came out to my mom and 4-5 friends. I just felt overwhelmed with transition and all it's uncertainties and the money involved with electroliysis and possible surgeries. I also felt that my family especially my brothers would never understand so I stopped HRT.

I then started to feel that I should enjoy being a guy, and that I was confused and that it was just a phase. I did enjoy "guy mode" for about a year, even grew out facial hair for the first time ever! Than I slowly became more and more reclusive stopped caring about clothes and I was in fashion school?!?!

Fast forward 12 or so years and it all came rushing back after being in therapy for anxiety for only 6 months. Here I am now and am so much happier!

In short I remember all the classic signs that TG's feel in their earliest memories and throughout their lives. At that point when I tried HRT and then stopped is when hardcore denial kicked in and then I lived as though those memories didn't exist and that I was truly just a gay guy who is feminine. But I always felt like the "awkward gay guy" in the room .Never did I feel comfortable in my skin like I do now. So in some ways I was a classic case with childhood memories that I was born in the wrong body, but I also was in such denial the last 12 years that I can also identify with those that didn't know or figure it out till later in life.

Even the first few months of coming to terms with being TG and even after starting HRT I still didn't consider myself a trans woman I considered myself genderqueer. Then after a few months it HIT me, whoah you ARE a TG woman. I guess it took me awhile to warm up to, and to be honest I grew up so conservative I felt being accepted as gay was the biggest "win" I'd ever get. I was so scared that I was TG it was too big for me to take on, but now that I'm in my 30's I have the strength to take it on and I just wished I'd had the courage and strength years ago but living in hind site is not a way to live. I just am so happy to still be young and transitioning and now I'm proud of being TG I never thought that possible  :D

yea, I was in denial trying to be that guy, it didn't work though and I guess it's why I've been so depressed my life. what ever I made it and I 'm very glad I did

I knew "something" when I was around 4. I became aware of the differences between men and women and started to relate more to the women. Around that time after catching me with lipstick on, my father made it very clear where I sat on the gender boundaries and that isolated incident affected the way I projected myself. By the time I was 9, I started to look at my grade 4 teacher as someone I wanted to be like when I grew up. Started to notice her clothes and demeanor and wanted to be just like her. I think she knew something, she asked me to play the female lead in a play. I still didn't know that I was trans* though, other than I wanted to be a woman. By the time I was a teenager, I wanted to be normal but still wondered what I was. For a period of time I thought I must be gay, but then it was around 19 when I finally admitted to myself I was transgender. I was dressed, freshly shaved, wearing makeup and looking in the mirror and I saw the woman I wanted to be and that told me everything I needed to know. I tried to look for a therapist because I was committed to transitioning, I had planned it all out,  and I was elated to finally come to terms with that. Unfortunately, we didn't have internet 20 years ago and no support groups, so I had to use a phone book. I found a therapist with no transgender experience, which understandably didn't end well. I was petrified on the first visit, but after the uncomfortable experience I had, I never went back. I felt like I had no social network to help me, ultimately I learned to cope while denying my true nature and resenting my life. So here I am now just days from my 40th, with a new Therapist specializing in trans* issues, a social network for support, and a more enlightened city about Trans* issues.   

Quote from: ana on February 09, 2014, 08:19:49 PM
I knew "something" when I was around 4. I became aware of the differences between men and women and started to relate more to the women. Around that time after catching me with lipstick on, my father made it very clear where I sat on the gender boundaries and that isolated incident affected the way I projected myself. By the time I was 9, I started to look at my grade 4 teacher as someone I wanted to be like when I grew up. Started to notice her clothes and demeanor and wanted to be just like her. I think she knew something, she asked me to play the female lead in a play. I still didn't know that I was trans* though, other than I wanted to be a woman. By the time I was a teenager, I wanted to be normal but still wondered what I was. For a period of time I thought I must be gay, but then it was around 19 when I finally admitted to myself I was transgender. I was dressed, freshly shaved, wearing makeup and looking in the mirror and I saw the woman I wanted to be and that told me everything I needed to know. I tried to look for a therapist because I was committed to transitioning, I had planned it all out,  and I was elated to finally come to terms with that. Unfortunately, we didn't have internet 20 years ago and no support groups, so I had to use a phone book. I found a therapist with no transgender experience, which understandably didn't end well. I was petrified on the first visit, but after the uncomfortable experience I had, I never went back. I felt like I had no social network to help me, ultimately I learned to cope while denying my true nature and resenting my life. So here I am now just days from my 40th, with a new Therapist specializing in trans* issues, a social network for support, and a more enlightened city about Trans* issues.

well this is definitely a good support network., it's helped me as I transition. good luck on your new therapist it helps when they have experience.

I really don't remember. In my own mind, my thoughts were one continuous stream. I didn't really have a moment where the gender dysphoria concretely began, nor do I really remember anything specific that made me start realizing it. All I know is that I didn't really start actively recognizing that it was thoughts that I was wishing that I was a girl until about 6th grade, which is the first time I remember consciously being jealous of girls and wishing that I could be one. And then a few years later I found it at the forefront of my mind, and that was the first time that I genuinely looked at myself and said "wait a minute, where the hell did these thoughts come from?" Before then, I was unaware that it was going on. It's only in retrospect that I can really look back and say "oh yeah, that really was dysphoria." So I think it's like that for a lot of people... we know that something is wrong, but we don't always actively recognize this something as actually being gender dysphoria until many years later. Especially for those of us who didn't have stereotypically-feminine interests as kids, and therefore really had no reason to actively question our social gender assignment.

For me it was like kind of ever since I remember (3 yo onwards) I had plenty of dreams where I'd be a girl instead of a boy and the dream would proceed on, then I'd always want to try the girl stuff, an 14YO I started cross dressing and was passable.. but I always thought all of this was me being wrong somehow, and I sort of repressed it until I could not longer hold it. Please do not do this to yourself...

OK, this may be long. I have been thinking about this a lot in the last week since I've accepted.
It's late and I am tired, but feel compelled to put this down for you and myself.
Some of this is just facts of my life, some will be speculation.

My parents divorced when I was young and I was raised by my grandparents. There were no girls near me in age in my family, and the closest to where I lived were two Amish girls almost 3 miles away. The Amish girls parents did not let them have anything to do with my brother and I.
My youngest aunt still lived at home till I was 4 or 5. I played with her dolls till one day they were gone and Six Million Dollar Man and Incredible Hulk action figures had taken their place. I was "sensitive", or so I had overheard over and over again, (God, I am crying! I hate this.) So I though this was just more of the boy things they thought I should do. I still don't understand that, I did everything my older brother did and they never insisted he do boy things. When I was seven they pulled me out of summer camp when my cousins and older brother put me in a dress to get into the girls dorm to give a girl a note. They got into trouble but I was the one my grandparents took home. I never thought I was a girl though just different or "sensitive".
This is a fact, watching your mother drive away with your younger brother and sister, you KNOW without a doubt it's your fault. I knew it wasn't my older brothers fault, he wasn't the one the adults talked about. Nothing shaped my life more than that. The the need to be someone parents wanted to keep consumed me. I excelled at being a boy, always the first to be picked. Dodgeball, kickball or baseball it didn't matter, I was good if not the best in my school. My older brother told me years later he stopped playing sports because of me. It never changed how my family looked at me though.
I kept playing for the approval of the other kids but stopped caring if it changed how my family felt about me. Became an all-star football and baseball player in high school, but still hung out with the outcasts. I knew, if no one else did, that I did not fit in with the jocks, I wasn't good enough to be with normal people.
I never thought I was a girl, just different. I hid my whole life from the "how" I was different.
There was no point in the next twenty years,(not even when I would weld steel 20 stories up wearing flowery panties under my clothes) that I thought I was a girl. I had other issues to deal with.
I did deal with them and finally thought I was able to join the human race.
Then 2 to 3 years ago my sex life started to change. Finally I came to the realization that I didn't want to be the doer I wanted to be the doee, and the assumption that I was gay. After my divorce I tried being with a guy and it didn't work out. It wasn't necessarily being with a guy I wanted but being the girl.
Not sexually, or not primarily sexually, but I wanted to be a girl. I didn't want to have sex with anyone male or female with this "thing". Still I didn't think of becoming a girl, just being single the rest of my life.

It wasn't till a week ago when I made my first effort at trying to be a girl that everything came crashing down.  It doesn't matter now what the rest of my life is, I just know that it will be a girl doing it. I've tried, I really have, to imagine a future as a man. It's not there. There is nothing left but the girl.

I still don't know when it happened or what caused it or if it was always there. Maybe therapy will help me figure it out.

Truth is I am tired of thinking about it, tired of talking about it and tired of pouring my heart out to people who may, or may not care. Sorry, everyone has been great, I am just tired. Really I'm just emotionally raw right now, and feeling like that little girl again after talking about it.

I became aware of Danielle in the fourth grade Stef (the earliest I can remember her). I told a classmate, a little girl, that I wanted to be a girl too. That's a long time (I'm fifty years old now).

I wish I could post a picture of me when I was in elementary school. I was such a happy kid. Skinny body, beautiful blond hair, long eyelashes and a big smile. Every picture after that the smile began to slowly slip away.

When I hit middle school I began to hear "faggot" coming my way and it was at that point that I made the biggest mistake of my life, I chose fear and started wrestling. It was from that initial mug of testosterone, and my wholesale rejection of who I really was, that my life began to fall apart. Don't get me wrong, I had friends, and girlfriends, plenty of girlfriends. I became quite popular. The friends I had, the girls I dated never would have suspected that I craved sex with men. Not gay sex, straight sex, but in reverse. Every sexual encounter I've ever had over the past thirty years has been quasi-masturbatory and therefore a lie: I fantasized all those times, as I was giving, that I was receiving.

It's a crying shame really, I would've been a beautiful young woman, a great wife and a great mommy. All was lost when I chose fear. After forty years of being stuck in a dark closet, watching "the guy" screw-up the life that was hers, Danielle is pissed .. and coming out with a vengeance. The two months that she's been out, and taken control, have been the most fun two months of my life. My hair is growing out (I've been shaving my head for over a decade), weight is plummeting, legs are shaved, mascara is on. Ironically, I'm a far better looking man now, but I know Danielle won't stop there and I have no desire to stop her. If she wants new panties, she gets them. If she wants a new sweater, she gets it. I've abused and ignored her so much over the years that now she's my first priority. Danielle can't possibly do worse than "the guy." I'm actually lucky I'm not in jail.

Steph, you said you were so happy the day you could fill out a bra .. I'm totally there with you sister. Two breasts coming soon (as soon as possible anyway).

I really can't remember too much when I was 2-5.  My step father was apparently abusive, so maybe my brain blocked out that part.
Anyways, I was the oldest of two brothers.  I was always the good kid.  I was always the calm quit sensitive kid.  Now having Albinism, I always knew I was different but I guess I didn't know about that part of me until I was 10-11. 
I had these feelings of wanting to wear girls clothes.  We were in a church where these kinds of things where never talked about.  So I had no one to help me understand these feelings.  I also use to tuck my thing between my legs when I went to the bathroom.

By 14, I saw a Sally show, about Transsexuals.  My life kinda made since.  I wanted to transition asap but ended up waiting 20 years out of fear.  My one big regret.

I got depressed after high school, and didn't take care of myself.

Quote from: Sephirah on February 09, 2014, 04:05:07 PM
Neither. I've thought and felt the same way I always did. Not about me being transgender, but being... well, me. I guess the leap was finding out there was a term and an avenue of exploration for the way I felt that went beyond "I must be abnormal/a freak, and for god's sake don't ever say anything if you don't want to be beaten to within an inch of your life."

The universe is not without a sense of irony, in my case. But nevertheless, I wouldn't say it was an sudden awareness of who I am, but an awareness of being able to quantify it beyond "I don't know how to explain myself to you in a way you would understand."

I guess this is how it happened to me as far as knowing I was transgender. I knew since 4 I was far more comfortable in the female role. Growing up I was always aware I was different from the guys around me. I liked to dress up in my sisters dresses. This continued all my life, but I could never see or admit to being transgender. I knew of the famous  transgenders,  but I thought the hurdle was too high for me to attempt. I wasn't aware of the process. I just kind of fell into it recently and its moved very fast. So I've known since 4 , but I didn't accept it until recently.

I knew at three or four. I just hid it in fear of being socially outcast. At around seven or eight I would try to get my little sister to put makeup on me then pretend to not like it. I would take any chance alone to put somthing girly on. I would steel my sisters socks or panties. I thought if I took my moms, woman's daily vitamins, somehow it would make me more feminine.  At fifteen I came out to my sister, but then quickly denied it after my sis ratted me out to my mom.

  I always knew I was trans, at least once I found out what trans was. But I still tried to be a guy. I wanted to be a good guy. I am a very happy go lucky person. So though I didn't feel like I was in the right body. I was fine or at least I thought I was fine just being me. People always said I was a bit girly. I loved it when they would say so. Right before I got married to my daughters mom. I told her about myself in a way that made her think it was all a past issue. Right after we got married we found out she was pregnant. The first year was all about the pregnancy. After my daughter was born things got stressful. I started to come out again. All that I suppressed came back with a vengeance. My wife told me I need to figur myself out and left to Arizona for a couple weeks. I was 23 at the time. I call my sister and we went to the local gay club. I ended up hanging out with a guy that I met and his friend that was mtf trans. I thought she was so gorgeous! The guy really liked me. We hung out a ton for the couple weeks. I ended up making out with him one night. The next day guilt flooded through me. I called my wife and told her everything. She was super pissed. She let me know if I transition she didn't was my daughter in my life. I freaked out.. I stopped dressing up and tried church. I worked my way back into my wife's favor. We were together another year. It just didn't work. After our divorce I went from relationship to relationship trying to not be myself. I became engaged to a great girl at 34. As the wedding got closer I would get more panicked. I got to where if she even mentioned the wedding I would become grumpy. I was only mad at myself. So we split and I came out as trans. It is wonderful to be my true self. I love not hiding.

I tried to make it short I left a ton out. Lol. But this is why it took me so long. I am now 35 and five months hrt.

Quote from: Nicolet J. on February 10, 2014, 11:12:45 AM
I knew at three or four. I just hid it in fear of being socially outcast. At around seven or eight I would try to get my little sister to put makeup on me then pretend to not like it. I would take any chance alone to put somthing girly on. I would steel my sisters socks or panties. I thought if I took my moms, woman's daily vitamins, somehow it would make me more feminine.  At fifteen I came out to my sister, but then quickly denied it after my sis ratted me out to my mom.

  I always knew I was trans, at least once I found out what trans was. But I still tried to be a guy. I wanted to be a good guy. I am a very happy go lucky person. So though I didn't feel like I was in the right body. I was fine or at least I thought I was fine just being me. People always said I was a bit girly. I loved it when they would say so. Right before I got married to my daughters mom. I told her about myself in a way that made her think it was all a past issue. Right after we got married we found out she was pregnant. The first year was all about the pregnancy. After my daughter was born things got stressful. I started to come out again. All that I suppressed came back with a vengeance. My wife told me I need to figur myself out and left to Arizona for a couple weeks. I was 23 at the time. I call my sister and we went to the local gay club. I ended up hanging out with a guy that I met and his friend that was mtf trans. I thought she was so gorgeous! The guy really liked me. We hung out a ton for the couple weeks. I ended up making out with him one night. The next day guilt flooded through me. I called my wife and told her everything. She was super pissed. She let me know if I transition she didn't was my daughter in my life. I freaked out.. I stopped dressing up and tried church. I worked my way back into my wife's favor. We were together another year. It just didn't work. After our divorce I went from relationship to relationship trying to not be myself. I became engaged to a great girl at 34. As the wedding got closer I would get more panicked. I got to where if she even mentioned the wedding I would become grumpy. I was only mad at myself. So we split and I came out as trans. It is wonderful to be my true self. I love not hiding.

I tried to make it short I left a ton out. Lol. But this is why it took me so long. I am now 35 and five months hrt.

I hid for a long time , it's not fun. A girl friend of mine a long time ago told me I'd be better off being a girl. I realize now she saw right through me

With me it was much later in life that I have realized I am transgender.

Althought I had no idea when I was a child, I have collected a lot of "clues" that I had some feminine and crossdressing tendencies since I was around 7-8 years old. With 18-19 years old I started playing SecondLife and being a woman there and being treated as a woman helped me to relieve all my feminine desires, but even at that time I had not realized the problem at all. After this date I realized I was always envious of woman and I felt each time more that I would like to be a woman. When I was thinking about sex, I could not feel attracted for the girls, but I wanted to be the girl. This desire could not leave my mind anymore...but as I was trying to be a man and I was too afraid of anything...I tried to forget about it and I kept living my lie.

It was only with 26 years old that I stopped fighting and I started researching on the internet. I had no idea that HRT could help in such a degree and I had some wrong concepts about transgenderism...but when I learned about it I felt like "wow, this is me! I found it!"

Since then I could find a therapist and started HRT. I am extremely happy with myself and with all the changes (besides not being accepted very well in my family).

Quote from: Natalia on February 10, 2014, 11:44:29 AM
With me it was much later in life that I have realized I am transgender.

Althought I had no idea when I was a child, I have collected a lot of "clues" that I had some feminine and crossdressing tendencies since I was around 7-8 years old. With 18-19 years old I started playing SecondLife and being a woman there and being treated as a woman helped me to relieve all my feminine desires, but even at that time I had not realized the problem at all. After this date I realized I was always envious of woman and I felt each time more that I would like to be a woman. When I was thinking about sex, I could not feel attracted for the girls, but I wanted to be the girl. This desire could not leave my mind anymore...but as I was trying to be a man and I was too afraid of anything...I tried to forget about it and I kept living my lie.

It was only with 26 years old that I stopped fighting and I started researching on the internet. I had no idea that HRT could help in such a degree and I had some wrong concepts about transgenderism...but when I learned about it I felt like "wow, this is me! I found it!"

Since then I could find a therapist and started HRT. I am extremely happy with myself and with all the changes (besides not being accepted very well in my family).

It seems there's quite a few that have problems with family. you always have Susan's though

I knew for a long time that I was different from other boys my age. Perhaps from the age of four or perhaps a few years later, but honestly I can't recall exactly when I noticed. All I know is that it was from a very early age.

I repressed a lot of my feelings when I get to about the age of eleven or twelve and didn't really explore who I was until about twenty years of age. I began to become comfortable with the label of gay man. I was (and am) attracted to members of the same sex, but I also identified with members of the opposite sex. I figured that it was just something all gay men go through.

It has always been in the back of my mind to transition to being female, but I thought it was only a coping method for my sexual orientation. Was I thinking that somehow all of my problems would go away if I was a straight female instead of a gay man? Frankly, I still struggle with that question and I haven't found an answer yet. I just figured at this point in my life why not just do it and see what happens.

Quote from: Pinkkatie on February 11, 2014, 08:10:58 AM
I knew for a long time that I was different from other boys my age. Perhaps from the age of four or perhaps a few years later, but honestly I can't recall exactly when I noticed. All I know is that it was from a very early age.

I repressed a lot of my feelings when I get to about the age of eleven or twelve and didn't really explore who I was until about twenty years of age. I began to become comfortable with the label of gay man. I was (and am) attracted to members of the same sex, but I also identified with members of the opposite sex. I figured that it was just something all gay men go through.

It has always been in the back of my mind to transition to being female, but I thought it was only a coping method for my sexual orientation. Was I thinking that somehow all of my problems would go away if I was a straight female instead of a gay man? Frankly, I still struggle with that question and I haven't found an answer yet. I just figured at this point in my life why not just do it and see what happens.

yea, it took me a long time to come to that point , but that's how I feel , just do it,  it can't get worse.

I've always known I wanted to be a girl. Its the one most important thing I've always associated with myself and ever since my earliest memory it's made me feel really invisible. The worst is it's never stopped, all these years I've probably thought about it everyday.

QuoteJustMoi wrote:
The worst is it's never stopped, all these years I've probably thought about it everyday.

Every single day for me too !!!!  umm let's see I am turning 40 so that is 365 days x 36 years (4 years old earliest time I can recall) = 13,140 (approx.) days of thinking about it.

I knew I wanted to be a girl when I was 5.  I remember the day quite vividly.

I'm not too sure how I knew I had to hide that desire very, very well; but somehow I did.  While the thoughts & desires would resurface often over the years, I was always able to push them back down out of my conscious mind up until January of last year.  That was when I realised that all the "fantasies" were not just idle dreams, but something real that was not about to go away.

Quote from: TessaMarie on February 11, 2014, 04:47:58 PM
I knew I wanted to be a girl when I was 5.  I remember the day quite vividly.

I'm not too sure how I knew I had to hide that desire very, very well; but somehow I did.  While the thoughts & desires would resurface often over the years, I was always able to push them back down out of my conscious mind up until January of last year.  That was when I realised that all the "fantasies" were not just idle dreams, but something real that was not about to go away.

I always tried to push it away and it never failed to come back stronger then before. I finally gave up trying to push it away.

Quote from: stephaniec on February 11, 2014, 06:42:52 PM
I always tried to push it away and it never failed to come back stronger then before. I finally gave up trying to push it away.

I was a little bit more stubborn than that.  I kept trying to ignore the 'push' until it snuck up on me & got me into an ER. 
My wake-up call was realising, while lying on a gurney in an ER hallway, that I had just caused my own visit to the ER. 
That was the point when I knew I had to face what had been hidden deep inside my head for 38 years.