How do you guys feel about any childhood photos of yourself as a "girl" that were taken? When I say childhood photos, I mean about from around elementary school to middle school Do you feel any emotional attachment to them, and if so, what type of emotions? What do you see when (or if) you were to look at them now? Have/would you ever show them to your S/O?
I was searching for my birth certificate and stumbled upon some childhood photos of mine. I was really interested to look at them, especially photos taken in the 90's because I love and miss the 90's. Aside from that, there was a picture of me in kindergarden and I had a crown on my head with the word "Queen" on it. That definately should have said "King"! When I saw photos of myself I thought "awwww that was a cute little boy"....with long hair and a flower shirt, lol. I guess I enjoyed looking at those photos and I definately won't hesitate to show my future S/O my childhood photos as I've done it before and enjoyed doing so since it was a part of my past as a boy, hehe. I think part of the reason I also enjoy it is because I can get a bit egotistical and conceited at times and enjoy talking about myself. Plus, when I look back at them, I get slight joy because seeing the "girl" then makes me think about the man I will become. It's quite motivating to me actually. I still live with my mom so she has those photos, but if I ever move out, I don't think I'm going to carry them with me.....not beause of any emotional reason, but simply because they would end up severely damaged in my hands and I don't want them damaged!
I know I have rambled on long enough, lol, so what about you guys?
I have some of my childhood photos but they are all put up. In most of them I do look like a boy anyways. Though I have some from when I was a baby and I was wearing a dress. I didn't look like a girl there either, just a boy in a dress. Of course they also made me look like I had no arms cause they had to hold my arms behind me.
I guess I got lucky on most of my childhood photos and looking like a boy. I have to say that I hate my senior photo for high school. You can tell I'm a girl and it pisses me off.
Some i don't like looking at it, but sometimes i see it as if it was my sister. And no i don't think i would like to show it to anyone.
My mother was big on photo's, she had a large photo album, but there is no one left to look at them. I think my sister took the album when my mother died.
I can't deny they are there, but luckily I don't have to look at them.
I actually think they are weirdly affirming to me. I was always (when I had any control of what I wore) androgynous or boyish. I think it's kind of fun to see that. I also had a penchant for wearing costumes and so on. Now I see why I would have liked these to be some other character.
--Jay
I like mine because they're pretty telling. I was always so sad looking in dresses. But fine in boyish clothes. My first communion was just miserable face until after I was allowed to change into a "Hawaiian" button up and jeans, lol.
Edit - but I wouldn't share them with anyone, tbh.
Quote from: Malachite on April 11, 2014, 10:26:14 AM
Aside from that, there was a picture of me in kindergarden and I had a crown on my head with the word "Queen" on it.
For some reason this makes me smile. Lol. I'd love to see that photo (PM? I'll send you a picture of little me in return ;))
As for how I feel when I see pictures of myself as female...at this point I'm so disconnected from it that it doesn't matter. I don't see myself, it's like looking at a long lost sister.
It's a little weird looking at pictures of me when I was younger. I wish I could see a boy, but I really don't. I see a goofy kid with questionable fashion sense. Some of them are fine, but some of them I was overly girly in and I wonder if I was overcompensating or if I really was like that.
I would show them to someone if they were interested, but chances of anyone being interested are slim to none.
In most (well maybe half) childhood photos I look like a boy. In ~another 30% I look androgenous. The rest I don't look too girly. I don't really care. In general I like them. I was a really happy kid, and had a super happy childhood. My past is my past, and whatever.
My mom asked me if I wanted her to take down old photos of me in the house. I said no.
I have a couple photos up, but they are sort of me doing stuff (they are not childhood). The make me happy and I don't want them down (I have a couple swimming with a dolphin and another of me as commander of the space shuttle at Space Camp).
--Jay
I don't think my childhood photos are affirming of my gender at all. I was also quite an ugly child with no fashion sense. . . But, I do like looking at them, the '90s were great times. :D
I like looking at my pictures from when I was young. I have no negative emotions about it whatsoever. I don't have a problem showing people my childhood photos either. I was a goofy kid and I think it's funny to see that I was always like that. The only embarrassment is the usual kind; bad hair cuts, ugly clothes, big ol' buck teeth, etc
I don't like to see them. Some of them are ok, where I look male and you can't see any female features.
I was young and its a past thing, I accept my childhood photos, I would only show them to someone I trusted a lot like a S.O, but that's about it
There are 2 of me around 12 years old that I look like a boy, when I was allowed to have my hair short. I may scan those in. I don't like the ones where I have long hair and mom MADE me wear dresses. Ugh.
I hate them, they only bring back bad and embarrassing memories of living a fake life. Besides, I looked so ugly as a girl after puberty that I consider it an insult to myself. Too bad my mom still has the things plastered over our walls.
All of my childhood photos, save a few, are still with my grandparents back in my native country - so I don't really have access to them anymore.
But every time I used to look at them - I realised that I could pretty much show them to anyone now and still "pass". I was allowed to dress as a boy since I was about 5, so more than half of them are me with short hair in camouflage.
The ones that are "girly" are...well - I honestly feel upset when I see them. They make me angry thinking of what I could have looked like were I allowed to take hormones before the oestrogen took over my body.
This is something which stresses me because I have no childhood photos where I look even androgynous. I was born with quite long and thick hair and my parents got my ears pierced at a very young age and always put me in dresses.
I find it distressing that I will never be able to comfortably show childhood photos to children or a significant other. I have no choice but to dismiss my childhood or awkwardly reclaim it and it blows.
I'm ok with my childhood pics, everyone thought I'm a boy who didn't know me. From high school to college years I wouldn't show pictures, I was also depressed and underweight so I don't have many pics from those years.
I haven't really transitioned yet, so from that point of view I am still living as a 'girl' and so, the pictures still look and feel a lot like it's me. I actually like looking at them, though, because I had a good childhood. I always hated myself, but I didn't hate my life, I had so many good things going on. As opposed to now, where my life is pretty empty and consists of nothing. So I enjoy looking back on happier times and I can still see myself. But at the same time, I don't feel a real connection to them. I know it's me, I just feel like it was a century ago or something, or from a parallel universe. Because my life now, and how I see myself now, is just so different to back then.
My teenage pictures are the most painful. I had long ago realised I was never going to have a proper penis and would be stuck as a girl forever, so in spite of presenting as a heterosexual tomboy, I was desperate to be seen as good looking even as my Poly-cystic ovary syndrome made me pack on the pounds and I experimented with more feminine goth looks.
In spite of it, I will never hide the childhood, teen and infancy photos. Any gay, pansexual or bisexual man that I marry will have already known about my past long before the relationship starts. Also, if I want my future kids to learn honesty, then they will know their daddy's whole story. Edited to age-appropriate of course :P
Lots of interesting answers!
Looking back, I do wish I was lucky enough to be able to have a less feminate appearance and clothes, but despite all of that, I still see a boy. Now when it comes to middle/high school photos, with the exception of NJROTC photos, I hated the rest because I was so miserable. In my later photos, I didn't even smile because I hated life so much, and I had a slightly more masculine appearance then too.
It's sort of a curse and a blessing, but I don't have many childhood pictures. I was always too self-conscious of my body and avoided the camera all my life. There's only a handful of pictures of me growing up, but a ton of baby pictures. The ones that do float around though, I can't look at. Same with old home videos, I can't watch it. It's just too hard for me, although even back then, I presented in a masculine manner. :-\
I remember going through all of them that I could find, putting them in chronological order, and then throwing them out without a thought. I don't really regret it. There are still some floating around, but I don't look at them or think about them. I doubt they'll ever be around when I'm older, my family don't really do photos except of our animals.
Quote from: lxndr on April 23, 2014, 04:08:54 PM...my family don't really do photos except of our animals.
Well that's unfortunate. ???
I was lucky in that my middle school/high school years were in the 1980's. The androgynous look was in then, so it was unisex/male rugby shirts and button down oxford shirts for the women. I was never feminine, but with the style of dress being more unisex than female, I didn't stand out in high school either.
Church was different, however. Until high school, I was expected to wear a dress or shirt. Thank God my mother let me wear pants to church by high school, but for the annual church photos, I had to wear a dress.
A couple of weeks ago I was over at my mom's house. She still goes to that same church and she said that a guy who knew back then thought he saw me at a restaurant (he would have seen me 4 years ago at my father's funeral where I was dressed in my usual male clothing). She pulled out the annual church photo books for us to go through because I wasn't certain of the name of the person and I was wondering who she was referring to. I couldn't help but look at the photos of our family in these church photo books. I didn't want my girlfriend to see them though! My mother was like, "why don't you want her to see them?" We have been together for 5 years, but I don't want an image of me in a dress burned into her brain!!
Quote from: Kreuzfidel on April 23, 2014, 08:13:58 PM
Well that's unfortunate. ???
Ha, it doesn't really bother me, its just something that isn't done. I can't understand families where there's photos everywhere.
Uhu yes, I have photos of myself in pink stuff and pigtails, very girly. But also pics where I just outright look like a boy (I had a few 'girl phases' throughout my life). Even one in a dress which I'd rather not dig up. I thought I might 'want' to be a boy because I had simply never tried being a girl and didn't know what it was like, and because my masculine never-dress-wearing female friends also went in dress I just was like *shrug* 'Eh, okay, why not. You only live once, right' it was nice to be complemented on my looks the first time (no one has ever though I was 'pretty' and I always dressed very andro/masculine in way too big clothes), and it was a nice "try before you die" kind of thing, lol, but wouldn't want to repeat it.
My nan did a thing a while back where she filled an album of me when i was a kid. Her way, i believe of hanging onto her little grandaughter and trying to remind me thats what i am/was?? ??? Anywho - i flicked through it very briefly and tossed it to one side never to be looked at ever again. Thinking about it now (since i've moved house twice since) i wouldnt be able to tell you where it is if you asked :-/
But funnily enough i did happen by chance of a photo of me at around 13/14 while my mum was looking at some photos of my great anties old house. It was quite amusing to see. I never dressed girly when i was a kid when i had the choice. I looked very much like a girl - but more of a country get muddy kinda girl! lol
I do also have a pic of me on FB that an old family member tagged me in a while ago. I didnt mind because i'm about 2 in the pic and you cant really tell what gender I am ;)
I actually have a lot of childhood photos like very young and all of them I am in dresses and my parents had my ears pierced when I was very young. When I look at highschool photos I really hate them, only some more recent photos I like (I am pre-everything)
In most pics other than my insanely uncomfortable looking prom photo, I actually look more like a boy. I went to an all girls school but in school photos I was always in the back as I was moderately tall, and I always wore a shirt, tie and blazer even though we were allowed blouses and polos, and the blazer wasn't mandatory. It was my suit...with a kilt! Lol.
When I came out to my family my father confessed that whenever colleagues see photos of the family they always think I'm his son. And whenever I've been at his work place they thought I was my brother (he's a fair bit younger than me so they saw me as a younger boy and knowing what year of school my brother was in, they just figured I must be him and not the much older girl lol). His issue now is that he can't understand why that's not enough and why I couldn't just be a butch lesbian but that's another story :-P.
My avatar is actually a pic of me before I even came to know and accept that I was trans. I just love it because at that convention that guy (Nathan Fillion) thought I was a guy along with the rest of the attendees and that smile is so genuine, and the experience so great for me that it's something I look back on to realise how important it was for me to transition. The comfort and content I felt that weekend was like a short hit of the path I'm permanently on now.
I don't like the pictures of me in a dress. My dad had this thing of lining us up at the front door every year and taking a picture. There are hundreds of these.
--Jay
Quote from: aleon515 on April 26, 2014, 11:57:26 AM
I don't like the pictures of me in a dress. My dad had this thing of lining us up at the front door every year and taking a picture. There are hundreds of these.
--Jay
Wow Jay, I knew you were older but you certainly don't look like you're in your hundreds! ;D
Quote from: lxndr on April 26, 2014, 12:23:21 PM
Wow Jay, I knew you were older but you certainly don't look like you're in your hundreds! ;D
Haha, funny funny. Had a good laugh over a dangling something or other. (Haha yet another double entendre for you.)
--Jay