For me it took until I was 12 when I realized something felt all wrong.
Same age for me. And you know how guys talk about the moment they "became a man"? I used to think that was the moment you accept your sex you were born with. And for years, I waited for that to happen. That's why I started to think I'm trans* at 18/19. I was clearly an adult and had never "become a man".
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Four
Life went downhill after that for a good 50 years
I asked my mother if I was supposed to be a girl somewhere in the range of 4 or 5. That is one of my earliest memories - it left an impression.
I was celebrated for being the first girl in my family, so knew I was a girl, but strangely, both my family and I also assumed I was a default boy.
I had my wake-up call at puberty..my beautiful, thin legs grew ugly lumps of fat, and my chest started hurting. I was mortified and prayed desperately my body would return to normal. Instead, my chest grew, was soon interfering with my throwing arm and making it painful to run.
I struggled on, trying to cope, wondering why God had abandoned me.
Then..an even worse evil..my childhood male friends suddenly started looking at me differently, formerly harmless adult men in my life became uncomfortably friendly.
The world had gone crazy.
Eventually I noticed all the other girls "liked" boys, but I missed the point. I was happy if a boy liked me only because I would be allowed to run around with that boy and his friends
When my periods started they were so painful I had to go to bed and/or take powerful drugs. The drugs, however, were uppers and made me forget my misery, so were sort of a plus.
I think it was 5 or 6 when I first thought something was wrong. It was 30 yes later when it fully it me
Preteens. Or whenever it was masculinity started being shoved down my throat and I was aware of it.
I was a late bloomer at 15 :)
I a MTF girl.
There was an age for me that, as Raell said, I started to miss "the point" about a lot of things my (male) mates talked about all the time. I think the first time was between 3 and 6.
And:
Quote from: Amanda_Combs on November 20, 2016, 08:19:27 PM
you know how guys talk about the moment they "became a man"? I used to think that was the moment you accept your sex you were born with. And for years, I waited for that to happen. (...) I was clearly an adult and had never "become a man".
Yep, I thought that too, until I opened that door I felt to have towards "femaleness". I was 32. And today (34) I am still trying to check if I have still to become a man, which is something I feel so far away, as it was another universe.
Historical fact: In my city, Naples, South of Italy, transgender women always existed, but they were a kind of "very very homosexual males": they were called "femmenielli". They were "so wrong men" that everyone made jokes about them, and they were the lowest step in society, together with prostitutes, until some decades ago (and they could mainly prostitute to live - even if some exceptions existed).
To discover to be a "femmeniello" was as hard as to be the one ALL the people, even your "friends" make jokes about.
I am still in the acceptance phase, I guess. Thanks god, things are rapidly changing during the last years.
P.S.: btw, studying some history about the Reign of Naples, which existed until 1850s, it seems that homosexuality and similar topics were tolerated and even accepted. Then, the unification of Italy destroyed this micro-environment: it seems that the Reign of Sardinia, which invaded the rest of Italy with the help of Garibaldi (who said, lately, that did the biggest mistake he could do), cancelled the culture of the South, and installed their, plus the bigotry from the "allied" Vatican State. Since than, the societal values changed towards bigotry, and... that's it...
Kisses!
At 4 I told my mom I wished I was a girl. I have that memory burned in. I told my mom yesterday about me and asked if she remembered. She didn't but did remember me crossdressing near puberty. My mom was awesome about it. We sat around and talked over several cups of coffee. We haven't talked like that in ages. Happy and kinda sad missing it for so long.
Around 11 when puberty first gives signs of being near I started having very disphoric feelings about my body and being a boy. Eventually I sucked it all up and kept burying the feelings every time they arose untill now.
About 25 years. Guess that makes me "not real"? ;D
Hmm,
i remember the strongest feelings around 7-10 and again around the early teens.
And then on/off since i turned 18 ,
For me it was 3 (Guess I started early but didn't start fixing things
until I was in my fifties).
A few years ago I remember reading a post asking if you are MtF did you identify with mermaids when you were a child? It reminded me of how much I did as long as I could remember! Now they know that many trans children do!
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About 7, I often thought of going to a different school as a girl & living as a woman when I grew up. It would take another 14 years to join all the dots when I looked back at all the other signs.
I went to an all boys junior school & remember the fear other boys had of being made to act the girl in the school play & wondering what the fuss was about! Miss Bennett was a teacher who'd be kicked out of boot camp for being too strict! If she told you you were playing the girl you were playing her. Sadly it never happened to me. I had little interest in sport unlike most boys & hated boy's haircuts.
We had a French exchange kid & I wished Iwas French so I could be called Jean like the boy.
When I was 13 I was given a bag of Mum & my sister's old clothes to take to church for a jumble sale, I took out the ones I liked for myself.
In the early 70s 1 of the older boys at school rode past me & a friend on his BSA motorcycle with his girlfriend on the back. My friend wished he was the boy on the bike, I wished I was the girl with long blonde hair streaming behind,arms round his waist.
*
I know that I was at least as young as age three. I was always 'out' to family from that age - causing trouble with what were called 'feminine protesting' tantrums: 'I'm a GIRL, Mom!', 'I'm gonna get an operation!' (even if I had no idea whether it was possible when I was a child during the 1950s and 1960s).
Josie, we share a similar experience. My mother and I were talking while she cooked breakfast one Saturday morning. I told her my name is now Sharon. That began another row between us. I asked her about that event 20-some years later; she denied any memory of it - an event quite critical to me was less than nonchalant to her.
Ive, thank you for your discourse of Italian culture and history. I am not familiar with details but I understand that Thai culture is quite open about transsexualism - I heard of the term 'lady boy' is used there.
*
Sharon Anne mentioned lady boys in Thailand.
The kathoeys are common in Thailand, but the people foreigners call "lady boys" are mostly gay men who like to cross-dress, rather than what the US calls transsexuals.
The term kathoey used to mean intersex people, but has a looser meaning now which includes men heavy in feminine traits, but kathoey consider themselves male.
Most transgender women in Thailand refer to themselves as women, women of a second kind, or third gender, as is allowed in Thai Buddhism.
Most transgender people I see here dress as they please, often with mixed gender presentations, without hormones or operations.
For me I believe 3 or 4 years old and I started transitioning on my own against all odds at 11/12 years old....felt like me against the world but it gets better...i am happy now :)
don't know how true it was but I just was watching a movie about transgender people claimimg most transgender people know they are trans at 5-7 and 40% are suicidal or have suicidal thoughts concerning this. I've never had a thought in this direction. And I surely had no clue about any thing about really being a boy at 5-7. I did start to think something wasn't right with me at 7 because of the puberty but not as far as me being a girl. I didn't even know I was a tomboy I just was and my mom said I was but I didn't know the word for it or that I was different from anyone else. I rthought I was different from other girls at 7 due to the puberty but nothing else.
It was an earlier age, before 9 years old. By the time puberty hit, I was feeling it full impact. I actually took a razor to my chest, because I literally thought I existed underneath my skin, that my body was absolutely wrong. I know that sounds insane, but that is how sure I was that everything was wrong. I remember those nights, praying, pleading, begging with God to fix me. I also remember being 9, playing dungeons and dragons, and always making a girl character, it was my escape.
Those were really tough times, I was absolutely ashamed of my body.. I could not even change in the boys locker rooms, I remember getting in trouble often, because I would skip out of gym all of the time. Even out of gym, I would wear a long thick coat, even in the summer, because of how horrible and out of place I felt.
Before 9, my memory becomes a little more fuzzy, the concept of gender was confused, I remember admiring my teachers that were women, and wanting to be more like them, I remember wanting to join the brownies, I also remember my best friends were girls, but actually coming to the concept that I was a girl I do not recall, as far as I knew, gender did not exist. Such topics were not often talked about.
Age 6-7. I was in the second grade. The teacher had the class (parochial school) pray silently for something, then went around the class asking what each student had prayed for.
"I want to be a girl."
*WHACK* A yardstick across the wrist, for asking God to do something sinful.
I learned to hide it, got caught dressing at age 15, was "cured' by testosterone injections and the parish priest, and stayed 'cured', successfully repressing my 'sinful perversions', while I went to college, military service, and got married. The cure started coming undone in my late 20s.
At age 32, while interviewing persons for my engineering team, I interviewed a woman obviously in transition. By the end of our day-long interview process her 5 o'clock shadow was showing. At one point, I thought "She's so brave. I wish I could do that." Wait. What?!?? My subconscious had outed me to myself. I managed to keep it hidden and repressed, for another 30 years for the sake of my wife and small children, now grown. Then I had my meltdown, came out, and find myself here.
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Quote from: Michelle_P on December 16, 2016, 11:01:04 PM
*WHACK* A yardstick across the wrist, for asking God to do something sinful.
It is pretty sad, I just came back from a rather miserable site, with rather miserable people who seem intent on insisting that TG people are forcing TG on people, when it is quite the opposite. I tried to explain that, but of course, it fell on deaf ears.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, if only these people had known what sort of impact this would have had on our lives.
Quote from: zamber74 on December 16, 2016, 11:07:20 PM
I'm sorry you had to go through that, if only these people had known what sort of impact this would have had on our lives.
I wish they were alive now, so I could show them in detail what miserable failures they were. Debate format, nice and public, or something more... intimate... would be fine.
We all have our little fantasies.
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By the age of 13, I knew that I didn't fit. It took 30 years to work out why...
Sno
between the age of 4/5, I have memory's of asking my mum why I cant be a girl and wear a skirt to school like the other girls and look at the catalogue and ask for females clothes and toys, I also remember being in the Doctors and her asking about this as she was getting worried, the Doctor told her it was a phase that a lot of boys go through, what he did not say its a phase that would last all of my life.
Most of my childhood was completely carefree, just being a child, playing outside with my older brother, or with our toys and legos and home made castles/houses for our action figures/dolls. It wasn't really until I was about 5 or 6 years old when I was sexually assaulted and learned firsthand there was a physical difference between boys and girls, that it all started to spiral out. We started learning about sexuality and gender in school and it only got worse. Suddenly there was this awful realization that I was 'flawed.' I was a mistake. That extra hardware down there shouldn't be there. At the onset of puberty, I began to have nervous breakdowns where I'd either harm myself or shave EVERYTHING. Arms, legs, face, eyebrows, head. (My brother and I were never allowed to have our hair longer than a quarter inch. We'd be shaven like sheep if ever it grew longer than this. I spent most of my life looking like Eleven from 'Stranger Things.')
Gender really didn't matter to me but my older sister named me Tessa at age 3 and we played together as sisters. My original family consisted of 13 children and I did not make other friends till well along in school. I liked being with my sisters, baking cookies and treats and reading books. I simply had a deeply secretive and unwavering feeling that I would some day be a mom. Catholic school was the start of segregation and the rigidly enforced gender roles. I wanted to be with and play with other girls. A punishable offense that was not allowed and the boys were also able to see me as a sissy in a culture where sports and jocks were king. I was actually afraid of those stupid footballs (obviously not designed to catch) and anything thrown at me made me duck. Hilarious to the boys ;D I hated school and finally left at age 16, preferring to be homeless and joining the army at 17 yo. I once believed puberty would be when the magical but undetailed "change" would happen. Not hilarious any more and with no knowledge or language for how I felt I did what I assumed everyone did. Live by coping with self loathing and shame and make the best of it. Like so many of us, I made that work until I was depressed enough that life no longer really mattered. I was not actively suicidal and seemingly successful in life. My shadow girl was so deeply submerged I might have drowned completely.
Oh yes, life is better now and there is no better time to recognize ourselves. If we look at some of the legal victories for transgender people we can see that many of them were recently won by children with supportive parents. Don't we wish we could of all had that early recognition and loving support?? My parents never really knew me.
There is one good thing about suppressing one's "real" gender, though...the person can experience, for a while, acceptance, live a "conventional" life, and have children. People who transition at puberty seldom reproduce. But hard to make the call. The suffering may not be worth it.
Even as a partial transmale I suffered depression and bewilderment, wondering why I wasn't behaving in an accepted manner. And because females are allowed to be "tomboys" in US society, I didn't suffer the rejection a transwoman would.
I suppose one reason parents choose to ignore it when children declare themselves trans or gay..they subconsciously fear losing the possibility of grandchildren.
I knew I was different in the first grade, but I was 9 years old and in the third grade when it REALLY started to hit, and I learned about the changes that females go through.
At the age I am now, 29.
I've never felt 'right'. Every single memory I have of me being younger has a sort of footnote to it, saying "Obviously this would have went differently if Mark was a 'normal' child". However, it has only been this year that I was able to understand WHY that was. I have suffered from debilitating OCD for my entire adult life, so any genuine emotions/feelings/identifying thoughts were either suppressed or lumped in with the 'intrusive' thoughts. This year we changed my medication and, while I'm still affected by other forms of anxiety, the intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours completely stopped. I could think clearly for the first time in... Well, in my memory.
And one thought kept coming back to me. Like, I'd wondered before how my life would have turned out if I was a woman, but had always just skipped on to the something else before really considering it. With no distractions or 'noise', though it started to all make sense. Looking back at me, looking back at 'Mark's life, everything just became clear. I wasn't 'Mark' at all. It's almost amusing looking back how obvious it all seems now, but also a bit sad that I've lost so much time to not really connecting with myself... That's why I don't want to wait any more.
TL;DR - 29. And not a moment too soon.
for me, it was maybe when i was 5... i knew that i had something between my legs that shouldnt be there... i didnt know much about boys or girls at that age... i just knew that what i had did not belong there.. even i my youth, i would try on whatever female clothes i could find when my parents werent at home...
Erm lets see now, wishing i was a girl around age 4ish or 5 i have my earilest memories, mild dysporia here and there at age 13 and big dysporia that kills me at age 19 :3
I was 32. I was finished with transition within 11 months, and I've been grateful ever since. :) Not everyone knows when they're a kid (I do believe the people who say they did!), and so I like to tell my story so that someone else like me might not have to wonder if they were faking it because they *didn't* realize as a kid.
I must have been around 5 or 6 when I first felt that something was wrong. However, I must have been about 8 or 9 when I first saw and examined girl parts (my sister). After that, I had frequent revelations of me having girl parts.
SRS is probably not a possibility for me but I would at least like to have a beautiful smooth crotch with a proper urethra relocation. I would then seek to find clothing that fits properly. I would even look forward to being comfortable using the female restrooms and other facilities in spite of having an "M" on my legal identification.
I started feeling weird around 6, then accepted who I was internally when I was 17. It wasn't until this year (26 years old) that the dysphoria got so bad I felt like transition was "do or die."
Around 6-7 I guess, and it hit me proper around puberty when my body began doing things I'd hoped it never would
It wasn't until I was 22 years old
The earliest i can remeber i was about 6 or 7. i didnt find out but transgender was untill i was 11 though.