Susan's Place Transgender Resources

This question has arisin because there is a perception that most MtF people tended to realise something was wrong, earlier than most FtM people.

Please answer carefully and in the appropriate section.

This is the section for people born with female parts but feel male.

If you haven't transisioned, or don't plan to, please still try to answer. The question is about when we realised something was wrong.

When I was being potty trained I constantly tried to pee standing up and even packed with tissue paper at a very young age. So I realized something was wrong, but I didn't realize what it was until a later age.

As I posted in the other thread:

I was 4 when I discovered my lack of penis....and was very pissed off.  Took me 49 years to get it back !!


Jay

P.S. I will also say that I did pack starting around age 8-9, and also used the men's room around that age if I could get away with it (ie mother far away in another part of the store), and used the boy's room during class when it likely would be empty.  Hated dresses and recall a bad tantrum at age 3 over wearing one, as well as wanting toy cars at that young age.  Didn't find out it had a name until I was 47.  I'm a bit slow...  LOL

In preschool I honestly thought I was a boy and only played with the other boys.  I didn't understand girls and their dolls in the least bit.  The most natural thing in the world was being on the floor wrestling with the boys. 

It was during a arousing play of doctor did I realize that my parts were different.  My friends didn't understand that any more than I did.  It's a surreal moment looking back on it.  I examined my parts in a mirror wondering wtf.  I asked my Mom what was wrong with me and got slapped for my troubles.  Told I was a girl and she wouldn't listen to another word about it.   

We can't see the poll results unless we vote.  Will FTMs please keep us MTFs up to date on the poll results here?

So far we have

4 guys saying that they know something was up under 6

Plus 1 saying that he realized between 7 - 12

And another guy who knew between 13 - 18

I'm not really sure what to pick...I have a specific memory of being 5 and planning to somehow grow up to be a man (but the logistics of this apparently didn't concern me). I didn't really think something was wrong, though; I just assumed everything would turn out fine. Around age 11/puberty is when I started seriously panicking about the idea of spending my life as a woman.

Spacial. If you add in the category "MTF. just voting to see poll results" you can easily discount those results and we could see the results ourselves.

So far, you guys are exhibiting a younger age of cognizance than us gals, which is what I would expect.  I long ago noticed that MTFs significantly outnumber FTMs, and that FTMs tend to have manifested strong feelings at a very young age more consistently than MTFs.  The general impresion I've gotten is that a lot of FTMs with less strong feelings don't transition, and I think that is largely because society is more tolerant of tom boys than it is of sissy boys.

I think even as a very young child I knew on some level that I wasn't a girl. I just recently found a set of pictures taken when I was probably only a year or so old. In most of the pictures I was wearing a frilly pink dress, and the look on my face kinda showed that I was confused about wearing a dress. In the last picture, I was naked in a metal wash bin, and looked all happy and smiley.
I voted 7 - 12 because before people started going through puberty, boys and girls were pretty much the same to me. When everyone I knew started changing, I knew that my placement as a girl was just not right. Didn't even know that ->-bleeped-<- existed until high school, so I kept the idea of feeling like a boy to myself.

Well, depends what you mean by wrong.

I used to stuff toilet paper in my underwear when I was like, five, because I felt like something was missing, but soon that feeling waned off. It was later in my life, about thirteen, that I started to get it.

I realized around age 4 or 5 that something was wrong.  I hated that I was different from my friends, who were boys, and I hated that I couldn't pee standing up.  I used toilet paper to pack with too, I'd wet it down a little and shape it like a penis.  I got in a lot of trouble for it when my mom found out, it freaked her out quite a bit.  I also got in trouble for taking my shirt off to swim, even though all my friends (who were boys) did it.  I was very much a tomboy at that age, though as I got older I hung out with girls more and tried to be more feminine.  In fourth grade, my mom made me start carrying a purse and wearing a bra and I hated it.  I never felt comfortable with having boobs and at least during high school would fantasize about having a totally androgynous body...I developed really bad posture trying to minimize the chest.  When I was 24, I saw a show called Role Reversal or something like that, I think on A&E, about two girls who tried to pass as guys and two guys who tried to pass as girls and it kind of stuck with me.  Fast forward another year, I was at college again.  That's when I realized I like girls as well as guys.  I also looked up about passing as male and wanting to be a boy and BAM!  Saw an FTM website and said "That's me!"

I cant say I realized something was wrong til 8 or 9, however before then, gender differences were obvious like at the age of 4 my mother telling me that I needed to pretend to be thankful for the doll I'd be getting from my grandma the next day.

Edited. Hope it works.

These results will be really intersting.

Quote from: Yakshini on December 15, 2010, 09:44:36 PM
I voted 7 - 12 because before people started going through puberty, boys and girls were pretty much the same to me. When everyone I knew started changing, I knew that my placement as a girl was just not right.

Yeah, I was the same way.  I honestly thought that the only difference between girls and boys was that boys could pee standing, and while I would have preferred that, it wasn't so big a deal that I couldn't live with sitting to pee.  I didn't like dresses because I wasn't allowed any horseplay when I wore them, and I refused to wear tights entirely, but I played with boy and girl toys and had boy and girl friends.  When I hit puberty, I knew something was wrong, though, independent of what was happening to everyone else (but observing others didn't help either).  I assumed it was normal to feel that way and that it would go away on its own over time, but, after waiting a decade, I wasn't able to make any sort of lasting peace with it and more recently realized that most people don't have this problem.

This is definitely an interesting question... In my case, I certainly agree that if I'd been MTF, things would've been a lot different for me. I've been dressing and largely acting male for years, I never considered myself a "normal girl." It's hard to say for me when I really "realized." I've really been extremely uncomfortable with my bio gender, and particularly with my body since puberty, and spent a long time trying to figure out what exactly was wrong, but it never really occurred to me "oh hey I'm a boy" until I started reading up on FTM websites. (Which I first ran across about a year ago while researching good binding methods, since bandages didn't do much for me. Bit of a tip off, maybe?)
Yeah, I don't know. It was never really a completely certain thing for me, I guess, it was more of a "this makes sense," and then realizing just how much it makes other things make sense in retrospect. One of the big things is how I've always identified way, way more with male characters in books, movies, etc. All the characters I wanted to be just like when I got older: All guys.
Right, that was long and rambling. I'll shut up now.

I recognized something was wrong when I was about...4. However, I didn't really think much of it for a couple of years after that because I thought, "Well, a girl can't be a boy." So, basically, I gave up and repressed my feelings, but my "wanting to be a boy" feelings came back when I was 10-11.

I have only 3 or 4 memories from when I was younger than 6, so I might have known, but I can't remember at all. How do you people remember being 3? I feel defective.  ??? Oh, and I didn't know boys could pee standing up until I was about 10, so that was never a problem. I started to realise things were wrong when I was developing, and I started menstruating just before turning 11.... argh. Definitely realised it then. Plus, I always wanted to go to boy's cabins in summer camp, have people think I was a boy, play with boys, etc, from the time I was around 8. But I don't think I realised there was a difference at all between the genders other than boys yelling when you hit their crotches, until I was 9 or 10.

Quote from: Nikolai_S on December 16, 2010, 06:52:07 PM
I have only 3 or 4 memories from when I was younger than 6, so I might have known, but I can't remember at all. How do you people remember being 3? I feel defective.  ??? Oh, and I didn't know boys could pee standing up until I was about 10, so that was never a problem. I started to realise things were wrong when I was developing, and I started menstruating just before turning 11.... argh. Definitely realised it then. Plus, I always wanted to go to boy's cabins in summer camp, have people think I was a boy, play with boys, etc, from the time I was around 8. But I don't think I realised there was a difference at all between the genders other than boys yelling when you hit their crotches, until I was 9 or 10.

I actually have horrible memory. XD Some things just stick with me.

I remember being in day care and during those emergency drills when I was like...5. My entire class would go into the bathrooms and once, we went into the boys' bathroom and I liked it a lot better and felt better being in there. I remember going into the boys' bathroom a couple of times because I didn't like being in the girls'. XD I didn't feel right being in the girls' bathroom. I think I was caught though because I only recall doing that a couple of times.

About the boys being hit in their crotch thing, when I was in 4th grade, I was at daycare and my friend and I were on the seesaw and she got off. From the way I was sitting, my crotch smashed right into the bar. It wasn't like, the handles, but the thing going down to connect it with the seesaw, you know? It. Hurt. So. Bad.

Actually, bad doesn't even describe that pain. I remember it like it was yesterday. It hurt. I fell off the seesaw, could hardly walk, and managed to crawl to a bench without being able to see because my eyes were so blurry. My eyes weren't watering, but I felt like I was going to pass out. And my friend was comforting me and was apologizing every second.

And the teachers saw and didn't come to see if I was okay.

I remember holding my crotch like a guy would when he is hit in the crotch. XD It hurt so damn bad. One of the worst pains in my life.

But now I'm rambling. I'll shut up now. I have a bad habit of not being able to shut up after I start talking. I need to do something about that. XDD

@Devyn: I find your "rambling" and anecdotes very interesting. By all means, ramble. That's how we all learn.

Quote from: Samson on December 16, 2010, 07:34:58 PM
@Devyn: I find your "rambling" and anecdotes very interesting. By all means, ramble. That's how we all learn.

Well, I'm glad you find it interesting because I get embarrassed when I feel like I'm talking too much. lol.

I just picked over 18. Maybe that's because of  the phrasing of the question. I didn't know what trans or FTM was when I was growing up, because it wasn't something people knew about or talked about, and I had no internet.

I didn't feel like a girl, but I just thought I was a weird geeky tomboy. And since people accepted me (for the most part), it wasn't like something was WRONG.

Did I have problems with aspects of my gender or puberty? Hell, yeah. I just didn't view it as "wrong" or get that this was a trans thing.

Also, while this poll is interesting in a casual way, I dont think it demonstrates the validity of the idea that MTFs or FTMs "knew earlier." We are skewed by the fact that younger FTMs are more likely to hang around message boards and forums compared to older FTMs, while MTFs of all ages seem to participate in these kinds of forums.

Quote from: Sean on December 16, 2010, 09:37:27 PM
I didn't feel like a girl, but I just thought I was a weird geeky tomboy. And since people accepted me (for the most part), it wasn't like something was WRONG.

Did I have problems with aspects of my gender or puberty? Hell, yeah. I just didn't view it as "wrong" or get that this was a trans thing.

I second this, completely.

Quote from: Sean on December 16, 2010, 09:37:27 PM
I just picked over 18. Maybe that's because of  the phrasing of the question. I didn't know what trans or FTM was when I was growing up, because it wasn't something people knew about or talked about, and I had no internet.

Apologies for the wording.

I wanted to ask people when they first thought there was any problem with their assigned gender or the way they were expected to behave as a result.

I first had a problem when I was four. I recall many of the details quite clearly. But I didn't know anything of the physical differences between boys and girls, much less, the reasons. I just didn't feel comfortable with boys and did with girls.

I'm sure that experience, as a first indication, is similar for many. Deciding that we needed to do something about it, generally, comes later. many will have spent years trying to deal with it, fighting it, ignoring it.

Many seek and have had, full surgical reassignment. many don't seek this. Many simply prefer to express their preferred gender with their appearance.

When these problem first became apparent to each of us.

I do hope this exercise and the results will be helpful to many of us. The more we understand ourselves and each other the better, I believe, we can manage our own lives and deal with others.

When I was 4-5 years old I was already in denial.
I "Knew" something was wrong, but my solution became stomping my feet and proclaiming I was "a girl".
Cause I'd seen myself, and my sisters, naked and I looked like them, so I "must" be a girl. (We were born in 82, 84 and 86 and we were often bathed together, as that was easier for everyone.)

Yes, I've always been a very logical person.

Hm, I must be an odd one. I am currently 18 ..post puberty...and have just now found out. I think thats because I am not very masculine at all...more of a fem boy.

Though I did have some small signs in childhood...like severe penis envy [so bad I asked my mom if God would turn me into a boy] ...and I did like to stuff my underwear.


But...to say I was never really a "girl" would be a lie. But I dont let that stop me from identifying as a guy now.

Yeah Alex, it took me a while to figure out as well-  I too was really quite girly as a kid, especially before puberty. I mean, I was pretty rough-and-tumble, played outside, climbed trees like a monkey, (still do) loved running around shirtless, and had as much fun digging holes and playing with toy trucks as my little brother, but I also went through the "everything pink is awesome" phase when I was 7-ish (shudder!) and was obsessed with horses for years, and did ballet for a couple years around 5-7. I liked wearing skirts for ages, until around puberty, which was really when I started rejecting everything feminine. I suppose looking back, that's really when I realized something was wrong, it's just that I had no way of understanding what.
So yeah, I definitely strayed into both areas of stereotypical gender roles as a kid, which was for a while why I kinda doubted myself for a while. But I've ditched that point of view- hell, I know cisboys who did ballet, loved pink, and even wore skirts as young kids.
Wow, rambling again. This is a very ramble-inducing topic. :D

Well, I don't remember if it dates back to my childhood, I have absolutely no memory if so.

I discovered it when I was 26.

Bummer.

Interesting poll and thread :) I picked 7 to 12. Truth is I remember at 6 or 7 I remember playing ball with my dad while being forced to wear a dress and hating it. Then around 7 I remember watching my dad and his friend playing games and I didn't understand why they didn't realize I was one of the guys and let me play video games with them. When the next door neighbor mowed the lawn with his shirt off I didn't understand why I couldn't do that too.

Worst of all, when I realized that people thought that penis=man I was pissed that I didn't have one. I don't remember exactly when that was but I was really young, like during something "sex ed" in 3rd grade, which was really just an explanation of puberty. 

I pondered this for a while. Something always felt "wrong" but I honestly had no clue whatsoever what it was about. I just thought I was awkward, shy, uncomfortable, it didn't click that it was because of my body. Well I always hated my body, but I thought if I was thinner, prettier, had nicer hair, nicer teeth, blah blah blah....everything would magically be ok. The wanting to be a boy was more of a passing fancy. I didn't start seriously questioning my gender identity until around 17/18.

It wasn't until I was 16 or 17 that I started to piece together my weirdness and unhappy thoughts, and started to figure out who I was. Late bloomer here. Heh.

Quote from: spacial on December 17, 2010, 08:32:50 AM
Apologies for the wording.

I wanted to ask people when they first thought there was any problem with their assigned gender or the way they were expected to behave as a result.

I first had a problem when I was four. I recall many of the details quite clearly. But I didn't know anything of the physical differences between boys and girls, much less, the reasons. I just didn't feel comfortable with boys and did with girls.

I'm sure that experience, as a first indication, is similar for many. Deciding that we needed to do something about it, generally, comes later. many will have spent years trying to deal with it, fighting it, ignoring it.

Many seek and have had, full surgical reassignment. many don't seek this. Many simply prefer to express their preferred gender with their appearance.

When these problem first became apparent to each of us.

I do hope this exercise and the results will be helpful to many of us. The more we understand ourselves and each other the better, I believe, we can manage our own lives and deal with others.

Oh well in that case, I too was about 4 (actually I think a little earlier). I remember trying to explain to my mom that I was like Charlie Brown and not Lucy. My only comfort was in pretending to be a boy character and insisting I was dressed as and called as the character. As long as I was in character I was good. When I had to break out of character to wear a dress on Sunday, things fell apart. I spent my whole childhood like that, as various male TV and cartoon characters. I had an excuse to be male. Also at this time around 4, I saw my friend urinating in my backyard for the first time (I had no brothers or male cousins at this time). He was just like me, doing something I couldn't with something I didn't have. I was very disturbed all day, knowing that something was horribly wrong.

So pretty early on. About 4 or earlier according to my mom. I had to pretend to be a boy and insist everyone play along with a male name and persona or my whole world fell apart. Something I'd probably never have gotten away with if I wasn't insisting I was playing a character. The 'real' me with the girl name did not exist and I couldn't so much as eat or sleep as her until puberty.

Quote from: Yakshini on December 15, 2010, 09:44:36 PM
I voted 7 - 12 because before people started going through puberty, boys and girls were pretty much the same to me. When everyone I knew started changing, I knew that my placement as a girl was just not right. Didn't even know that ->-bleeped-<- existed until high school, so I kept the idea of feeling like a boy to myself.

Same here. I only realized the differences between me and my male friends when i had 10 years old, when my mom didn't allow me to sleep in their houses anymore and people started to press me to wear female clothing and act like a little girl  .-.

I absolutely knew before 6 - 3 or 4, definitely. That was when I had my first big gender-related argument with my mom where I declared that pink was for girls, she said I was a girl, and I said I was not. It's also when I started insisting on shopping in the boys' department except for dress-up, and on getting everything in blue.

And I packed with tampon applicators (and tried to use them to STP because my junk was too small...thus discovering that my pee wasn't coming out of the expected place).

I was already quite solidly identified as a boy before puberty. If anything, puberty sort of sent it to the background for a while, because I discovered my newfound unwanted "attributes" happened to be quite good at getting male attention.

Between 13-18 I actually realized something was wrong without a shadow of doubt, had felt out of place before then but mostly put it out of my mind for fear of punishment, but there was no trying to deny if later.

I was in junior school when I knew for the very first time that I was different. Up until then, I was just me. When I got to school, I just felt so out of place without even knowing why, just knew something was up. The other kids noticed too. Thus junior school right up until I escaped from college became a living hell >_<

Not surprisingly, it soon got buried and I didn't start thinking about it again until several years ago. Only found both the will and means to do something about it early this year.

I don't remember not knowing. I always felt it was something I had to keep to myself, that if anyone found out then I would be sent to a mental hospital or something.

I thought something was quite different at a very young age. But I did not think it was "wrong" as I just supposed that many guys of my nationality were physically girls first and later just became guys. As that's what happened to me, I thought.

I'm not really sure where I belong, I voted ' over 18' because this year (25) It became all to clear what was cousing my life to be a miserable hellhole.

But I do have a classic trans past, I really don't understand why nobody here noticed anything, I even told them I was a boy! I didn't even understand why I was suddenly shoved into the girls locker room ... yeez.

Then again I have my suspicion my mother might be andro in some way, perhaps even bigender. But she's sure not a cis ... And my dad runs away from problems, in his head, I am a problem.

For sure under 6.

Somewhere in the region of 7 - 12. Can't really remember anything before age 7 and by age 11, I was already going by my male name online so.. somewhere in there!

Quote from: Zacharias on January 03, 2011, 07:34:05 PM
Somewhere in the region of 7 - 12. Can't really remember anything before age 7 and by age 11, I was already going by my male name online so.. somewhere in there!

Yeah, I was also going my a male name online around that age, even though it was long before I actually realized I identified as male.

Age thirteen.

Up until then, I had a very neutral view on gender. I never really thought about it or cared for it.

I've never had the "typical" feelings that a lot of transgendered people feel. I was just awkward around girls, but then again so are a lot of girls.

I identified strictly as a girl until I was eleven or so when I subconsciously began identifying as androgynous. I had a few signs of being transsexual in my childhood, but I thought I was a boyish girl or bigender.

Quote from: Flam on December 19, 2010, 08:12:56 PM
Same here. I only realized the differences between me and my male friends when i had 10 years old, when my mom didn't allow me to sleep in their houses anymore and people started to press me to wear female clothing and act like a little girl  .-.

Wow, that's pretty much exactly how it went for me.  I'm glad to see some others on here answering in the 7-12 range or older, 'cause I think I've had a bit of insecurity about feeling like I should have noticed something earlier (that whole feeling like I'm not a "real boy" thing).  I was a rough-and-tumble kid, but I also had My Little Ponys and Care Bears and Barbies along with my G.I. Joes, Voltron, and He-Man figures.  If someone had introduced me to the concept of fluid gender, I would have called myself a tomboy.  As it was, I identified as a girl as long as the only difference between me and any boy was purely genital in nature.  I played on a boys' soccer team, skated with the boy down the street, and nothing was really wrong.

Then there came this seemingly arbitrary point in time when being a tomboy was no longer okay with either my mom or the larger world, and people (actually, women) kept trying to get me to change.  I never understood why it was around 10 or 11 that I had to start "acting like a girl."  Then puberty hit, and I was completely shocked.  I had managed to have this amazing cognitive dissonance, where I believed that I was a girl, but that I would grow up to be a male, even though I was a pretty smart kid and had a reasonable understanding of biology!  :O   Cool to know that it wasn't just me.  My therapist did mention that it's not uncommon for the FtMs she works with to report similar things, but I think it's different to actually read people's accounts firsthand; glad I found this message board.

On that note, I couldn't see the buttons on the poll to vote.  I also can't do many other things, so I assume that's due to my newbie status?  So to the OP, you might want to manually enter a 7-12 vote for me because I couldn't. 

Eli

I'm really sorry, I answered wrong :/ I thought about it, clicked, hit submit, and just as I was about to make a post suporting my choice I realized I used to wish I'd one day wake up as a boy when I was 7-9, and once I put this plastic Mr. Potato Head hat over my *down there* area and tried peeing out the hole at the top like a boy. And I remember trying to stand while peeing when I was like, 5 or 6 and my mom was in the bathroom for whatever reason and told me to sit, and I got all upset told her I wanted to stand.

So while I may not have consciously realized something was wrong, I've always had these strange curiosities and tendencies similar to boys and often actually wanted to be a boy.

I told my mom when I was 4 years old that I wanted to be a boy... She freaked out... So I pushed the idea from my mind.... The next thing I remember is having a sexual dream around the age of like 11 or 12 where I was a guy. I just remember wanting to keep having more dreams like that. It continued on with with I was on vacation with my family we'd go boating and while I relaxed in the from of the boat I'd day dream about moving away and being a guy or being born male.

Quote from: Ryan D on February 03, 2011, 09:50:55 PM
I'm really sorry, I answered wrong :/ I thought about it, clicked, hit submit, and just as I was about to make a post suporting my choice I realized I used to wish I'd one day wake up as a boy when I was 7-9, and once I put this plastic Mr. Potato Head hat over my *down there* area and tried peeing out the hole at the top like a boy. And I remember trying to stand while peeing when I was like, 5 or 6 and my mom was in the bathroom for whatever reason and told me to sit, and I got all upset told her I wanted to stand.

So while I may not have consciously realized something was wrong, I've always had these strange curiosities and tendencies similar to boys and often actually wanted to be a boy.

This.  I did the peeing standing up thing too. I even tried to use a urinal once lol.

I put 18+ because I thought the question was supposed to be answered like "when did you know you were trans."

But in reality, as long as I can remember, I've wished I could just one day wake up and be male. As a child I saw no point in dolls or the like. I was more of a toy car kind of kid. I've also always preferred male-styled clothing. I remember being something like 6 or 7 and my ma took me shopping for clothes, and I found something I liked. She said I couldn't have those clothes, because they were boy's clothes.

At 6 I'd cry myself to sleep and beg God to please wake up right, to wake up as a boy.

You know, it's funny how I didn't know anything was wrong as a little kid. When a girl wants boys' toys and boys' clothes then you're just a tomboy and you're allowed to have the boys' stuff. It must be harder for MtF's as little kids because most parents won't let their little boys have the girls' stuff.  :-\

6 and below I would say :o

Quote from: Alex201 on February 04, 2011, 11:25:52 AM
This.  I did the peeing standing up thing too. I even tried to use a urinal once lol.

How did you manage to use the urinal?

I knew before I was 6. After watching my older brother pee I started trying to pee standing up. I got spanked a couple of times for that cause I ended up peeing on the floor and on myself. I hated my clothes and would wear my brothers whenever I could. I'd play with his toys too. I never played with my girl stuff except for breaking the heads off the Barbie dolls. I also got in trouble for sticking hot dogs in my underwear. And this is kind of nasty but remember I was only like 7 years old. I would try to stick a hot dog in my private area and pretend it was a Dick. When I was 10 I remember having some of my mom's friends going on about what beautiful hair I had. So I gave myself a haircut. Man did my mom spank me for that! When I was 16 I tried suicide. That got me a nice stay in the nuthouse. My whole life was full of crap like that until I transitioned.

Quote from: Sean on December 16, 2010, 09:37:27 PM
I just picked over 18. Maybe that's because of  the phrasing of the question. I didn't know what trans or FTM was when I was growing up, because it wasn't something people knew about or talked about, and I had no internet.

I didn't feel like a girl, but I just thought I was a weird geeky tomboy. And since people accepted me (for the most part), it wasn't like something was WRONG.

Did I have problems with aspects of my gender or puberty? Hell, yeah. I just didn't view it as "wrong" or get that this was a trans thing.

Also, while this poll is interesting in a casual way, I dont think it demonstrates the validity of the idea that MTFs or FTMs "knew earlier." We are skewed by the fact that younger FTMs are more likely to hang around message boards and forums compared to older FTMs, while MTFs of all ages seem to participate in these kinds of forums.

Thirded.

Though growing up in the 90s with the whole AOL internet stuff I was all over the internet. Even saw an article once in TIME or some other magazine in middle school that had a piece on transgender individuals with pictures and little blurbs about each. It didn't click with me until I was 18 in my first semester at college and I really looked into the feelings I was having.

For a bit I thought maybe I could just have breast removal and be happy as a butch lesbian, but I fell deeper into the information hole and saw that this was not what I was seeking. I wanted to be a man.

I voted Over 18 because I'm only just realizing there is a HELL of a lot more to what I'm feeling than just being a tomboy.

Growing up, I tried to be a girl, but there were some things that made me REALLY uncomfortable and just wouldn't do.  Or I'd do things to MAKE SURE I was seen as a girl, because hey, that is how I grew up. I've felt stuck in between the binary for some time, more on the masculine side, but until I got married, it really didn't make me uncomfortable.  I was okay with being this ... whatever... But when my periods started going on strike, and when I couldn't easily get pregnant, then I just wanted to be 'normal'... Some days it was, 'I want to be a normal girl,' but most of the time it was, 'Why the bloody hell am I not a guy.'

Didn't realize there was a name for it though... or rather, didn't really comprehend the meaning of trans, or even that there was a term 'non-binary' until the past couple years.

I'm on my phone so I can't see polls...
I would have to say under 6. The biggest clue was that I hated being called a "girl" and loved being called a "boy". I hated being asked to do any tasks that were generally considered feminine. I never wanted to be seen as girly.

I realized as a teen that I wasn't a straight girl but since I knew nothing of transitioning and a lot about homophobia, I figured I was better off taking the secret of being a gay guy to the grave... I just didn't expect to live this long. I avoided thinking about gender most of the time but then I had a daughter... who loves being a girl. It blew my mind and forced me to deal with myself...
So I knew before 6 but didn't do anything about it until over 35.

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I knew by the time I was about 4.   I used to beg my mom to pretend I was a boy and use a male name and pronouns for me, which she actually did, bless her.  I loved being mistaken for a boy by strangers, and was sad as I got older and that happened less often.   All of my TV and movie heroes were male, and my make-believe personas were pretty much always male too.  I was one of those kids who thought I was somehow going to end up with a male body "later."  I was embarrassingly old when it finally hit me that my female body was forever.  I was not happy when reality hit.   

This is a hard question for me, officially I didn't decide something was "wrong" and that I was transgender until about 18 or 19, when I actually started to learn what that was (I was very sheltered from "bad" things in my childhood). I had to look back into my youth and find those signs to determine whether I was truly validated in being transgender or not.

That said the reason I questioned to begin with was very obvious, I was never comfortable as a female or in any female roles. The earliest memories I have is when I started to form some semblance of individuality, I didnt play with dolls and girl toys (even though my parents got them for me), I instead played with stuffed animals. I stopped wearing dresses when I was an older child, I hated them. I liked videogames and action movies and "boys" cartoons, when I learned girls likes shopping, makeup,  shoes, and were all pretty and dolled up like in movies I disliked it very much, I liked bugs and lizards and snakes and fantasy movies, I liked scientists and warriors and smart people in the media who were most often guys, and was really annoyed when girls were grossed by those things when I wasn't. I had a younger brother I grew up with, so I knew the whole time I was obviously a girl physically, but I rejected all things girly, when I earned the title "tomboy" I was very happy with that because it fit me. I was always very boyish for a girl and didnt fit in with girls much.

Puberty was when the discomfort phase started to get worse. I don't think I ever thought of growing up, it hadnt crossed my mind. I was just a kid. The idea of being a "woman" someday filled me with dismay and I knew I would never grow up to be a woman.I hit puberty late, but when my breasts first started coming in, I felt miserable, I remember looking in thr mirror being confused and unhappy realizing my life is going to change forever and there's nothing I can do about it. In middle school for a female I always had tiny breasts, I was never a "normal" girl, and I had a phase where I wanted them to be bigger because it was weird to not be a girl, I even started to worry that I should get my period because normal girls do that. Eventually I had to get over it and move on, though. When I finally started bleeding, I actually immediately despised it, but it was another thing I had to get used to. Bras, leg shaving, makeup, etc. were all girl things I didnt particularly like but had to do anyways because it was "normal". I still wore a lot of t-shirts and jeans and flannel at this time because I honestly hated to wear frilly girly clothes and the older I got the more types of girl clothes I rejected. My adolescent years were filled with apathy and indifference of my physical appearance, I didnt feel good looking, I was just there, a person. On top of that my mother would force me to be feminine most my younger years and it sucked.


My high school and teen years were filled with me trying to find a style of femininity that suited me because I hated being female so much; went through dark clothes, band shirts, the idea of being scene crossed my mind but never happened. eventually the length of my hair started to bother me, I thought long hair was awful for some reason, I cut it midlength for the longest time because it was the shortest I could get.

Around high school on the internet I learned about a comic (called twokinds) which featured a male character who was actually a female, and that clicked with me so damn much. I was like "Yes!!! This is like me!", I didnt learn until later that it was an allusion to being transgender. I learned about genderbending, which is taking the gender of a character and making the character as if it were the other gender. That was really interesting and I decided to do it with my persona character. I eventually decided I preferred the male persona, in a way changing my persona eventually changed myself.

The idea that I may be transgender started to sink in the more research I did, the most defining moment being when I repeated the phrase "x makes the man" in my head, I was going to change it then paused, realizing why should I? It actually felt good using that gender pronoun for myself. Since then I mentally realized I was male.

I was raised fairly gender neutral with very 'boyish' cis (afaik) female friends and a lot of brothers (read: a tiny dirty kid with really long matted hair climbing hills in a skirt pretending to be Robin Hood ;) ) so it wasn't until i was a teen & facing spending the rest of my life as an adult ~female that i really realised

i imagine it would have been different had i not been very ambivalent about clothing in general (when i was 7/8 no clothing was the best choice lol) and if i'd had different parents or friends

Quote from: Peep on May 31, 2017, 12:48:30 PM
I was raised fairly gender neutral with very 'boyish' cis (afaik) female friends and a lot of brothers (read: a tiny dirty kid with really long matted hair climbing hills in a skirt pretending to be Robin Hood ;) ) so it wasn't until i was a teen & facing spending the rest of my life as an adult ~female that i really realised

i imagine it would have been different had i not been very ambivalent about clothing in general (when i was 7/8 no clothing was the best choice lol) and if i'd had different parents or friends

My early childhood memories are quite pleasant because my family very much let me be a tiny dirty child who played with other tiny dirty children whose gender was not of any great importance...

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Quote from: arice on June 02, 2017, 08:47:58 AM
My early childhood memories are quite pleasant because my family very much let me be a tiny dirty child who played with other tiny dirty children whose gender was not of any great importance...

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yeah i think with the way that society is progressing the idea of knowing early because of gender roles is going to be increasingly variable depending on how old you are and where you live

Around 6-7 but I'll go 7-12 because "knowing" has been an ongoing process until about 4 or 5 years ago and early on I'm not sure I can separate the earliest dysphoria from other issues.

But the worst of it was early teens for sure. And then again during puberty which only reinforced my disgust.

From the age of three I went around telling people that I was a boy and getting mad when they insisted I was a girl.
I'm going to go with 7-12 though, because only when puberty started and genders became more segregated did I truly have an issue with feeling different. As far as I'm aware, I knew I was a boy, but I didn't view it as something being wrong.
I don't remember much from 6 and under, because of some stuff that happened around those ages that caused me to lack some memory. But as far as I've been told and from what I remember, my insecurity and frustration with my body only truly started when everyone else's started changing, too. 

The first time I remember being punished for wrong gendered behavior was about six - writing about myself as a he instead of a she. I knew that I clearly would have prefered to be a boy by second grade - roughly seven or eight. I came from a southern baptist family, and this was pre-Internet, so I had no access to anything that could possibly have given me the vocabulary needed to understand my experience until I went away to college. I hammer it into friends and colleagues all the time that just having the words to describe how one experiences the world can alleviate so much suffering.

When I was about 8 or so, I remember two of my brothers running naked around the house  before their bathtime, and my being angry because they had "things" and I didn't.  I distinctly remember yelling at my Mom, "where's mine?!"

As a teen, I "out-boyed the boys" in my neighborhood.  I was the fastest runner, the quickest at climbing trees, the one that was the best at fixing popped bike chains and the best at kickball.  To my family I was "a tomboy," which was the term used back then.

For decades, I dressed mostly androgynously.  Jeans, graphic t-shirts and tennis shoes were and still are, my clothes of choice.  Whenever my family had fancy get togethers like weddings, they'd beg me to wear dresses, which I did reluctantly.  I hated it.

I was at an anime convention three years ago and in the women's room talking with other cosplayers when I first heard the term "transgender" during a discussion about binding.  It was like a lightbulb went on in my brain!  I was like, "so THAT'S what I'm called!"

Three years later, and I'm 7 months into transitioning into the man I should be.  Its been a confusing, happy, frustrating, thrilling journey so far, and I wouldn't change a second of it.

Ryuichi

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I was happily a boy until puberty hit.  :icon_blah:

I didn't realize I was trans until I was 18. I was playing an online game with a male avatar and people addressed me with a male name and pronouns. After a week or so I "admitted" to my in-game friends I was a girl, but that I wanted to continue to role play as a guy. When they didn't cooperate and made fun of me (enter slurs and other transphobic harassments), I broke down and realized it mattered a lot more to me than I thought it did.

I waited six months before I went to a sex therapist to address it further, but during that time there wasn't a fraction of a second where I doubted I was trans. It put a lot of things in perspective for me: I had a big aversion to 'girly' things as a child, I mistook dysphoria in my teenage years for a lack of self-esteem and I was diagnosed with inexplicable chronic depression.

A part of me is still, in some way, thankful to those in-game "friends" for responding as transphobically as they did. I don't know how long it would've taken me to realize it otherwise.

Kind of confused about this one, to be honest. First of all I'm still not sure if I'm 'completely' a guy, but I know I have a stronger connection to masculinity, hence the demiguy label for myself (right now).

Anyway, I picked 7-13 because that's when I first became consciously aware of it. I was about 10, 11, when I started thinking it through and realised I did not at all 'feel' like a girl. It wasn't just a casual passing thought, either; it was one I had fairly often. I also strongly remember when my boobs started to grow and I'd literally just push them down because I absolutely didn't want them.

However I also remember being very attracted to 'boy' things at a young age (even though I did like to play with dolls a lot too), and being mad I had to go for the 'pink girl' options when I'd much rather go for the tough, blue 'boy' options for presents etc. I've definitely tried to stand up to pee as a kid too (and failing horribly naturally).

Gotta admit, though, I never did MUCH thinking about it until my teens, but that's just not when I first became aware of something not being right consciously. It's just a question I don't have a very specific answer to, because it kind of happened in stages.

I answered "between 7 and 12 years."

Started noticing at age 6 or 7 when I got my first rather clear sign of dysphoria for not being allowed to be shirtless in public like the boys, and then again at age 10 when my tits started growing which freaked me out cause I wanted to stay flat so badly.

At 12 years old I had found out about the existence of transsexualism and randomly thought about that I "wanted a sex change" as I phrased it back then, even though I didn't think it was possible to be FtM at that age yet. That was back in 2001, btw, so it wasn't much to find out about trans people existing back then.

I was highly ambivalent about my puberty, cause I hated the changes of my body, but I wished to grow up and become an adult. Envied the boys' puberties.

I didn't actually know I'm trans, like for sure, until I was 15. It took a while to connect all those pieces and solve that puzzle. Then I went back into the closet again and didn't come out until I was 19.

So with that said, I hope I understood the poll question correctly.

I knew something was "wrong" when I was 19 or 20 and had a pregnancy scare. A few years later I learned that what I experienced was dysphoria. I never felt like anything, so I figured that's the way most people were. Didn't really understand that while I thought a lot about it and felt nothing about my assigned gender, cis people usually think nothing of it and feel a lot... or at least feel ambivalent.

Thought I was nonbinary from around 23ish to 26ish. Got a hysterectomy for medical reasons and tried to stop figuring out why I was so happy about it. Few more years went by and I stopped actively considering myself NB even though cis didn't fit either. Then last fall I realized I was a guy thanks to a text roleplay. The case was blown wide open again lol.

I've always been that tomboy kinda kid.  Like I have so many memories of my parents telling me to dress like a girl and buy less clothes from the mens/boys section.  I feel like they conditioned me into dressing and acting more like a girl.  I turned to makeup to make me feel more like a girl. 

Only when I discovered this community did I realise that I wasn't the only person to feel uncomfortable in my skin as a female and would prefer to be a male.  (I'm 17 so a little late on the train).  I haven't come out to people (excluding my counsellor and best friend) but I want to.  So yeah, I am a little late I guess when it comes to discovering that I am Trans.

*it also doesn't help that I attend an all girls school - and always have -*