-Rejecting female clothing and wearing guy's clothes. Same for hair.
-An overall sense of 'wrongness' about my body since puberty.
-Hating chick flicks/chick lit. Making me sit through a romantic comedy would be a great way to pry information from me,  I swear.
-Very linear 'male' way of thinking. So I've been told.
-Can't really relate to girls at all. Fit in and relate to guys easily though.
-Looking at guys and having 'I want him' shift over time into 'I want to BE him'.
-Love of technology/mechanical stuff.
-Wanting to be the guy in the relationship.

Quote from: Ms Grace on December 28, 2013, 04:15:45 PM
Some of my female university friends clearly saw it well before I did. Years ago, out of the blue, I was told I wasn't like other guys and declared to be an honorary woman. Made me feel great.

Oh Grace, you just trigger a memory... several decades ago, when I was in college, I was with a group of my females college classmates in a very female-oriented conversation on the beach, talking about boys, sex, clothing, and other bitches-affairs, when a less familiar female joined the group, she paused, looked at me, and made an inquiring face. Well, the "queen bee" of the group shrugged and said: "do not worry she is one of us," and with out missing a bit the conversation went on until the wee hours of the night. I slept in the girls tent that night...and I thought I had die and went to heaven...so happy

as afar as hints I would think there were two kind of hints: the ones left unconsciously, and the conscious ones

unconsciously: I walked, sit, talked (mannerism and topics), and behaved like a female (innately draw to the other women and women activities)

consciously: perfume, make up, wearing female clothing (jeans, slacks, blouses, shoes), earrings, nail polish, and more importantly I will often said: "Oh, well you know truly I am a girl at heart," or "I am not really a boy," etc.

I liked wearing silk stockings or tights since my age 3 or 4. Still I enjoy it.
Also, physically, people commented I look like a woman, and even some little kids did.
Some adults and class mates used to praise my feminine beauty.
I was very emotional, and liked to cry at least once everyday at my teens.
Not good at running or throwing, but excellent at any activity involving my waist.

I first wore skirt at my age of 40. When I wore it at my work place, everybody clearly recognized who I am.

barbie~~

Quote from: peky on December 29, 2013, 10:28:50 AM
Oh Grace, you just trigger a memory... several decades ago, when I was in college, I was with a group of my females college classmates in a very female-oriented conversation on the beach, talking about boys, sex, clothing, and other bitches-affairs, when a less familiar female joined the group, she paused, looked at me, and made an inquiring face. Well, the "queen bee" of the group shrugged and said: "do not worry she is one of us," and with out missing a bit the conversation went on until the wee hours of the night. I slept in the girls tent that night...and I thought I had die and went to heaven...so happy

Me too! I had a college "harem" the other guys said. No... I just hung out with the girls and talked to them. I'd spend an hour and a half in the dining hall going from table to table!

How many of us, as guys, were taunted with;  "You throw, act or look like a girl" and secretly liked it?  I'm reminded of the drill sergeants of basic army training somehow thinking they inspire manliness by calling the assembled recruits "girls, girlymen or ladies"   Sure didn't work for me

How many Transmen heard the terms "so butch, acts like a guy" and liked it?

I was apparently the last person in my family to realize I was transmasculine.  As a child I dressed up as male characters for Halloween, starting at age 4.  In second grade I tried (unsuccessfully) to get my teacher to call me by my more masculine-sounding middle name.  As a teenager I wore my dad's old Army dress jacket and smoked a pipe.  Even when I had long hair, women would tell me I was in the wrong bathroom.  When I had a mental breakdown I thought I was a male comic book character for a few days.  The really funny bit was that I'm a psychology major and I was writing papers about transgender issues.

I always *wanted* to be male, even as a child, but even though I knew transgender was a thing I never put two and two together.  And then my mom and sister (my only adult blood relatives that I'm close to) weren't even slightly surprised when the lightbulb finally went off in my head and I told them!

My mother told me when I came out to her that she had no idea. She had assumed my sister - massive tomboy - might be a lesbian or transgendered. Apparently she doesn't remember that I used to play pretend games always as the girl.

During adolescence until late twenties I hid everything and it is only in the last ten years that I have slowly started to express myself in a way people might notice. And every relatively minor change had me severely panicked at the thought of outing myself. Only now is that subsiding a little.

I thought I was a boy when I was small. A few things off the top of my head:

I had my first kiss (with a girl) at 3 in preschool.

I was spanked repeatedly for being caught trying to stand to pee (when I had never seen a cis male do it).

I would cry when forced to wear a skirt to church. I would wear shorts under them.

From the time I developed breasts I would wear a jacket year around to hide them.

My parents would make me have long hair and multiple times I was spanked for attempting to cut it off and making a mess of it. I would go as far as to use my mom's razors when there were no scissors in the house. They settled on letting me have a mullet, lol.

I was shocked and saddened when I had the puberty talk when I was 9.

It was apparent and if I had grown up twenty years later than I did I think my mom would have seen it. She says she would tell herself that I was a tomboy and grow out of it. If it's there I think it's always there with people. It might not be as apparent with everyone when they're kids as it was with me, but I think if it is meant to be then it will be. You can't make yourself trans and you'll never be happy unless you face it head on.

I grew my hair out and pierced my ears as soon as I got out of my parents' house.

I got a nostril piercing in 1991 when like the only guys who did that were Lenny Kravitz and Slash.

Quote from: barbie on December 29, 2013, 11:01:13 AM

Not good at running or throwing

I thought that I would try to make my Dad proud in the ninth grade and try out for the baseball team.  My Dad was all about baseball.  I went out to field and tried warming up with the rest of the fella's, but I realized I couldn't throw the ball 5' in front of me.  I don't know what I was thinking.  No one would let that die, and I heard a lot of girl comments. I was so embarrassed about that, but it's pretty funny now I suppose.   

not really hints to myself, but from people i've known over the years.  First was joking with my (now) ex wife(totally completely unrelated  to any gender stuff, as i didn't really allow myself to explore that part of myself until well after we split) and saying it would be fun to switch bodies for a day and she was like no way to which i asked why and she said  because i wouldn't give hers back.  Another maybe slight clue was a friend in an online chat room i used to frequent for several years, for the entire first year, one of the members(with whom I had spoken many many many times) thought i was a girl, and was really embarrassed that she never knew i wasn't really a girl, but when she said she thought i was a girl for that whole first year i was in chat, i was kinda happy she thought that.

I don't think I ever dropped many hints that others could pick up on.  I did have one sorta "friend" in college who like to call me "dickless", but I'm certain it was intended more as an insult than something he was picking up on!

I could think of thousands of little events that went unnoticed by my conscious self.  I heard a perfect phrase for what I did sooooo much of, the phrase is "under dressing", which I did almost constantly without being openly cognizant of them.  I usually had some article or two of clothing that was rarely obvious but it gave me a sense of comfort.  A pair of shoes with a side zipper, often manicured finger nails, sometimes longish hair.  In high school I wore flashy clothes, male cut but still more than the typical amount of fashion.  And so many other little things, too many to mention in a post.  Of course, there was occasionally pantyhose under my pants and similar under dressing items.

I did manage to throw, run, etc, in adequate male fashion, but i was uncomfortable with it, I only did what I had to do.  Didn't do much sports once I hit puberty.

One that stands out, I always liked dress making, I made my wife a skirt, and even if I say so it looked great. She wore it to work the next day and was asked where she had got it. She said my husband made it for me. Her female colleagues loved it, her male colleagues said I needed to be toughened up

The big one apparently happened when I was 5. I somehow had gotten the idea that at some point as they grew up boys became girls and girls became boys. I asked my mom how old I would be when I got to be a girl and I was apparently really sad when I was told "never". I don't remember any of that, it was recounted to me later in life. I also apparently repeatedly asked to be a fairy princess on Halloween (never got to be one) and asked for Barbies (also never got them, tho to be fair I was never forced to play with "boys toys" either, and somehow at some point I at least got a my little pony).

After that tho I never really gave any hints to anyone else, with one exception, until a month ago (I'm 33 now). The whole time I knew it myself, but was scared ->-bleeped-<-less to tell anyone, so lived in outward denial. I started cross dressing in secret probably around age 10, tho that came in waves - I'd dress for a while, then stop and tell myself I was wrong to do it, then started again, then stop, etc. Sometimes I'd shave my legs, but I was usually afraid of getting caught, so most of the time I didn't. I did keep my hair about halfway down my back from age 13 to this past july (I cut it because I was interviewing for a job that would've tripled the pay I was making at that time and wanted to do everything possible to try and get the job. Sadly I didn't get it, so now I have to grow my hair out again.) But I never got it styled in the feminine way I wanted to.

I did flat out tell my ex at the beginning of our relationship that I wanted a vagina. She just assumed it was a sexual kink and dismissed it. Jokes on her. When she eventually dumped me and moved out she left a bunch of clothing behind. Mine now, and it looks waaay better on me that it did on her :-) Which, brings up the most recent "hint" I gave to another person. Having recently relocated to another state and having made new friends, I recently went to hang out with one of them dressed in my ex's clothes. She told me "you look very metrosexual chic today. You probably don't want to hear this, but with a little makeup and a hair styling you'd make a hot woman." I wanted to tell her "No no. Please. Continue." Didn't tho. Not yet. But, I think she's figured it out, because ever since then she's been dropping a lot of hints, to the point of asking me about it without really asking me about it. I'll be starting HRT in a week and a half, and at that point I think I'll tell her.

Haven't quite figured out how and when to come out to anyone else though. I'm the last living member of my family, so I don't need to worry about coming out to them. And pretty much everyone I knew before september is 2600 miles away, and I probably wont see them again for years if ever. So, I guess for me coming out really wont be a big deal.

Hints?

Sooooo many and all of the above.  I simply had no way of connecting it all to being transgender as there was no info.

Rather than do a case history, just the little hints...

I taped 'go fish' as a little 'boy' and fell head over heels for Max.  I watched every season of 'L' word in one, long sitting.  I voted 'Team Alice' on twilight because clearly she is waaaaaaay better for Bella.

Became fascinated with theatre makeup and monster makeup- which was obviously the only way I could access makeup without criticism.  I worked in theatre for years.

In highschool I drew a naked female faerie with butterfly wings bursting out the head of a contorted blue male face like an egg.  The brief was 'good from bad'.  Seriously- how did I not know.

All girl friends, no alpha males... hated sport (loved watching womens basketball and gymnastics)... all female video game avatars... read Anne Mcaffrey books but hated all without female protagonists...  the works.

Oh, I also throw like a girl (my arms angle out as in the supposed transgender womens marker).

-  I was physically small and short with a femme shaped face. I was very shy and I never fit in with the boys. I would have rather played with the girls and I did have girl friends until they reached the "boys are icky" age and I was cast aside.

- I played catcher in little league and I could never make the throw from home to 2nd base with any accuracy. Later I discovered that I have the female elbow.

- I got told by a couple of girls that they noticed that I was "different" than other guys. I had no way of knowing what that meant at the time.

- I never knew quite what to do with girls. My testosterone would tell me one thing and my head told me other things which left me conflicted.

- Because of the above when I would date a girl she would quickly find out that I was not like the other boys; I would either get dumped or re-slotted into the friend bucket.

- I had shoulder length hair until I was about 20 when I went to work in a professional office environment. I had to get it cut and now I wish I had it back again

- Like Suzi I was confused about my role in the bedroom and looking back I acted like a girl. At the risk of TMI I could ring (and ring!) the other person's bell easily because I instinctively knew what to do and when to do it. I had to have a romantic setting to even perform, quickies rarely worked for me.

- I was never comfortable removing my shirt in public.

I think I'm kind of a late developer, though there were some subtle hints while I was growing up. When I was a teenager, I wore lots of T-shirts, baggy jeans, sneakers and chains. I also tended to keep to myself because I couldn't quite relate to my female classmates. I got along with the guys better but I didn't dare to specifically hang out with them in case people started thinking I was a flirt or anything. I also related better to male characters, coming up with stories about them in my head, and it was kind of like being male through them.

I think I was definitely the last to know about myself, but there were hints.

1. I love my long hair and have always done it in a feminine style.
2. My first real sexual partner was a boy and after a while, he wanted me to wear girl's clothes and knickers and I happily went along with it.
3. My mother and sister did my makeup as a kid and put me their smaller stuff.
4. I did quilting and cross-stitching since i can remember.
5. My therapist said I probably won't need voice training as I seem to have already trained myself to speak in the female tones with female phrasing and such.
6. I basically already walk and act female, just need the right physiology to go along with it.

-when I was a child, my mom would have to have my two brothers restrain me to cut my fingernails.  When I got big enough to do real damage, they stopped trying, and I never used nail clippers again, only a file.....clippers still make me shudder to this day

-I used to ask my mom to paint my nails when she was doing hers.....she only painted my toesf and only once, and thought it was strange

-I used to beg my sister to let me play barbies with her

-when I was 18 I started painting my nails and wearing eyeliner and lip gloss constantly

-I always insisted that I was pretty not handsome

-I wore tons of jewelry

-I did everything in a feminine manor, from walking to body language to smoking

and even with all those hints, it even took ME years to come to terms with being trans