I have noticed that many trans-people (although, I am mostly talking about trans women) have obvious signs of their transgendered-ness as children, where they played with dolls and tried on girl's clothing if and when they could. My childhood was not really like that though. My personality as a child was highly introverted, quiet, shy, socially awkward/aloof, geeky (I could have an extremely vast knowledge on subjects that interested me that both people my age and people older than me lacked), sometimes unfocused on what did not interest me, had a sense of humor, and I had an explosive temper that would occasionally get into trouble at school and kept me in what seemed like constant trouble at home. My interests were stereotypically masculine (interests in science-y things and military things) and gender neutral (I read a lot of books, and thought it was weird that other children didn't have as many books or the same interest in reading as I did).  I didn't fit in well and felt a little out of place in hyper-masculine jock-type environments (hunting and playing on a football team were not part of my childhood in semi-rural Indiana) and faced some bullying. I have always felt "safer" around females, but I had both male and female friends, with both being very close friends at times. As far as stereo-typically feminine play goes, it was mostly in my earlier childhood, and was usually initiated by mysister or a friend who later turned out to be gay, but was still kind of fun at the time.I played sports like tae-kwon-do, cross-country, and track and field. The home i grew up was not that religious, especially by Indiana standards, but my parents in my childhood wouldn't be described as  extremely open-minded by 2014 standards.
I still feel i am a woman inside and that i should have a female body, speech, mannerisms, more feminine emotional expression, and a more feminine social role. I feel gross and unsexy about my male body in many ways. Seeing my facial hair in the mirror and hearing my own voice makes me feel horrible. when it comes to parts, not only do feel kind of gross when I look at or touch them, but often times I feel deprived of the "right parts" I also now feel like i was raised by wolves because i was raised as a boy and feel like I have to learn how to be "socially feminine" and feel deprived in this area too. When I go out (even if it's only to a gay bar) dressed in female clothing and some makeup i feel more comfortable with myself and i feel really good when people there refer to me as "Rachel, "she", "her", and sometimes "honey." Although I have what i now recognize as tg feelings in the past, it is happening very fast now and is a little scary, like something went suddenly went off in my mind. For me, the time I spend having to live in a male role has become soul-crushing. I still wonder if i am trans because i didn't really act like a girl  as a child, wear dresses, or initiate stereo-typically feminine play as a child. But straight people (referring to cis-hetero people with vanilla preferences) do not question their gender and obsess over it, sites like this hold little appeal for them even if they are tolerant of us or are allies,  the thought of taking cross-sex hormones and getting srs makes them cringe, and straight males really, really do not like being referred to as she.

I guess the answer is if you are questioning you gender more than just the occasional "hmm wonder what it would be like if..."

I never bothered questioning it when I was younger, tucked it back in my mind. Had the idea of "Dressing up" beaten out of me...

Now that I am older and living my life for me, I now question it... Why was I not allowed to like colors, paint on my nails, enjoy pretty thing... Why was showing emotion such a no no...

Like Stevie Nicks says..

I've been afraid of changing, cuz I built my life around you
but time makes you bolder, children get older , I'm getting older too.

(Landslide)

Love,
Jade

Well I'm one of those kids that loved wearing girls clothes yet my interests are primarily science, tech, outdoors, guns, martial arts, ham radio etc etc. I am not into crafts,knitting, drawing and sewing. I am into cooking. I love my kids and I'm not an absentee parent like some fathers are. I take somewhat equal share of child care duties.

In the end does that really matter? No it does not.

What really defines me and my gender identity is how I feel about myself and what I want to see in the mirror, and what I want to be.

Conforming is for some people but not for me.

i'm mostly worried that I might be insane or crazy. if I am not crazy it would be easier for my parents to understand I am transgendered if I had played with dolls and wore princess dresses as a child just like it made sense to them when one my childhood friends turned out to be gay.

Quote from: rachel89 on December 06, 2014, 04:25:27 PM
I have noticed that many trans-people (although, I am mostly talking about trans women) have obvious signs of their transgendered-ness as children, where they played with dolls and tried on girl's clothing if and when they could. My childhood was not really like that though.

I doubt it. My childhood wasn't like that either. Beware of fabricating memories like that, because I known a bunch who did just that to justify their feelings. Therapists are trained to see through this and they will say that it is okay if you haven't had "obvious signs" in childhood, because if you did you would already be transitioned, right? On the flip side, we can also have blocked out memories and signs, because they were too painful. I discovered that I did. When I transitioned, some memories came back and I accepted for example that I fancied guys, instead of girls. But there was this stigma that I would be seen as a gay then, so I fell in love with woman. We're quite the bundle of wires you know!

Inside we are just shattered, and one day all these repressed feelings might surface, like it has surfaced with you. So my advice would be: try to listen to your feelings, try to remember your past and browse through it... I found that when I did that, I noticed things that were strange... such as: I imagined to be a female when I was a child. I completely forgot about that. One time I remember I put on my sisters underwear. I completely forgot about that, because I was bullied for it in gym class, when the other boys saw my underwear, with RED ROSES on them! YES! I blocked memories, because I was bullied for them. It ruined my life. It is possible such memories will come back to you, now that you are in the phase of acceptance. Do not be afraid, and just let these things flow into your mind. All in all I have few memories, not that much. Small signs, but they do not matter. I never played with dolls. My sister also played with trucks. And she's as cis as cis can be. Oh, well... just listen to your heart.

Quote from: rachel89 on December 06, 2014, 06:35:21 PM
i'm mostly worried that I might be insane or crazy. if I am not crazy it would be easier for my parents to understand I am transgendered if I had played with dolls and wore princess dresses as a child just like it made sense to them when one my childhood friends turned out to be gay.

It is more complex than that.

No you are not crazy. It sounds more like you've kind of fallen into the same trap I did for a bit which is worry about whether you'd be accepted as transgender because of the whole stereotype of what it means to be this or that gender. But in the end I can tell you it's all just a pipe dream for marketers really. Gender has nothing really to do with hobbies or interests. Gender is really about your inner self, how you really see yourself, and I mean REALLY see yourself. To put an example on it my Mom hates dresses and make-up but has a closet of purses and does her nails every now and then. I would never question her gender, mainly because I like to eat, but besides that she doesn't fit all the stereotypes but that doesn't make her less a woman. Why should that be any different for transgender individuals?

I played with he-man figures, star wars figures and had an action man or two.  I liked spiderman cartoons and played violent video games, watched action movies and horror films.

I played with my sisters toys but got told off.

but I wanted to play female characters in childhood role playing games, which stopped after bullying, but was always there, but in a shameful way.

I moved onto reading fantasy books with female protagonists.  So internalized it.

If you were able to press a button and turn forever into a woman, would you?

If you were told you could never be a woman, not ever, how would you feel?

Your answers to these can help guide you. Most cis gender male bodied people would never want to press that button, would be glad to know they could never be one. For me it is the exact opposite. For the record I never wore dresses as a child, I had some action figures and plush toys but no dolls.

If you are struggling with your gender identity please consider seeing a counsellor who might be able to help you.

Welcome to Susan's

Being trans and being repressed is a living a very fragmented life full of turmoil.

Only you can ultimately know if you are trans. A gender therapist will help you to understand and guide you.

So here were some of the ways I played, my hobbies, and interests when I was a child.
When I was very young, i was obsessed with construction equipment and had an ungodly large collection of Tonka toys.
Later i became more interested interested in military themed toys and ended with a very large collection.
Construction toys like Legos and similar toys, which took up untold time during my childhood.
For a time, Star Wars (movies, books, toys, and video games) was a huge part of my childhood.
I loved action movies and violent video games and other video games.
Almost anything science related.
My science interests developed into an interest in rocketry with (it went a little beyond "toys" when I was able to start using ammonium perchlorate/aluminum powder propellant), which was a hobby I pursued for years.
I liked basketball, but was horrible at sports involving a ball. In the sports area, I was into martial arts and running.
Some of my favorite books were the Harry Potter books and the Series of Unfortunate Events, which were also favorites of my sister.
Going back to the "feminine" play when I was much younger. I do not remember if and how much (If I did) play with my sisters toys. The playing that was feminine involved my sister and my neighbor (the one who is gay) where we would engage in role playing type games, that according my parents were feminine (they didn't tell me at the time, and waited until he came out the closet when he was in college), they were probably right, the games occasionally took a slightly sexual turn and would occasionally involve kissing on the lips (for some reason he always chose me, and never my sister, and i did not really understand at the time) I didn't really think of it as "gay" or "girls play" at the  time, just play.
Going up to my teenage years I did a lot of running, did not fit in because I was percieved as socially awkard/nerdy/queer (and found out that using physical violence against bullies really does work), was involved with Amnesty International in High School, occasionally a class clown, and developed a deep interest in politics ( (libertarian, socialist, progressive, liberal, anarchist, but always strongly anti-authoritarian)and read Howard Zinn. I was also deeply angry at the time, took an interest in guns, passionately hated most people at my school, listened to plenty of Slipknot, Rammstein, and Marilyn Manson. That part of me mostly died after graduation, while the more gentler,kinder, open-minded, but opinionated part of me is still part of who I am now .

I do not necessarily regret the male things I have done or things i have done while living as a male (my personal flaws like being unfocused, being chronically late, and having a short temper with my family aside) because many of them were very fun at the time and are still in someway part of me as a woman. While not every "male thing" (except for the facial and body hair, masculine facial features, guy voice, guy manners, and the stuff downstairs ) has to go away and forever disappear, there also needs to be a lot more room for my feminine aspects because I am a woman and it feels good when i am being feminine.

Quote from: Ms Grace on December 06, 2014, 08:40:09 PM
If you were able to press a button and turn forever into a woman, would you?

If you were told you could never be a woman, not ever, how would you feel?

+1

I did not even read your last post ( I will after I write this)

There is nothing that is either male or female in our activities. it is only perceived as such. Pink is not a girl color, it was actually once a boy color back in the day. Sometimes I feel female because I am treated as a second class person, like my opinion is just cute or don't matter much... What is truly important is how you perceive yourself... how do you perceive yourself ?

*HINT*
woman is the life giving energy of the universe... not all woman can bring forth life but it is their energy that keeps us going!

If there was just a button I could push, I wouldn't be having this conversation right now and probably would have done it years earlier.
If someone told me I could never be a woman, not ever, I would feel invalidated and be either enraged or depressed. I feel that my response would be really bad though.

Quote from: rachel89 on December 06, 2014, 10:49:34 PM
If there was just a button I could push, I wouldn't be having this conversation right and probably would have done it years earlier.
If someone told me I could never be a woman, not ever, I would feel invalidated and be either enraged or depressed. I feel that my response would be really bad though.

I wish there was a button soooooo bad....

Quote from: rachel89 on December 06, 2014, 10:49:34 PM
If there was just a button I could push, I wouldn't be having this conversation right now and probably would have done it years earlier.
If someone told me I could never be a woman, not ever, I would feel invalidated and be either enraged or depressed. I feel that my response would be really bad though.

Well, I think you might have an answer to your question... 

Once you'll identified the problem, then you can start to fix it.

I could have started at the age of 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 but I didn't understand the problem, so I could not fix it. Only at the age of 32 I understood my problem, and started my journey to fix it.

So please don't beat yourself up on things you could not know. Rather, try to understand your current problem and then start looking for a solution. Your problem seems to be that you do not feel male, but feel female, you identify as a woman. So work from there. Or if you doubt, try therapy to figure out the problem.

If a little girl enjoyed playing with trucks, loved star wars, and action films, would that mean she wasn't a girl?  Nope.  just 'cause you aren't feminine doesn't mean you aren't female...and, not to be overbold here, but going by what you've said I'm virtually certain that you're trans.  If you want to be female, you're trans-feminine child or not.

so how i played as a child isn't as good of an indicator of transgender status as things like feeling depressed about my appearance (even when gay men think i look cute in a male body). It would be perfectly understandable for a woman to be horribly disgusted by facial hair on her, while a man would like his facial hair, and if he didn't he would feel sloppy, not  disgusted, but I am disgusted. Men usually do not want a higher voice unless they are singers, I do. Men usually want to be more muscular, not less, unless they are long distance runners or have some other specific reason. Men, except for drag queens and cross-dressers (which could arguably be on the transgender spectrum somewhere) wouldn't want to wear women's clothes, especially in public, I do. Men do not think about having a vagina outside of a thought experiment for laughs, I do. The thought getting srs would make them cringe, while it sounds liberating to me, even if there is pain. Men do not want boobs. Men do not feel "shut out" when they see other women laughing and talking because they do not have the skills to communicate as a female, this happens to me. Men do not like to be referred to as she, respond to perceived insults against their masculinity with extreme violence, it feels good when people refer to me with feminine pronouns. non CD/drag queen cisgender men have no desire to be here unless they have someone in their lives who is trans, are trying to cause problems, or are creepy ->-bleeped-<-s.  Cisgender people would not go near the "magic sex change button" and although they might feel empathy for a trans person, they do not feel personally injured when they are they are told they cannot live as the opposite sex.