By the time I was 5, I knew something was off about me.  Most of my friends were girls, but I didn't connect anything.  I remember playing Wonder Woman with my friends and I always had to be Steve Trevor.  I wanted to be WW, but they said I couldn't because I was a boy.  That hurt!

I remember watching the TV show "Soap" at age 7 (my older brother was there), and Billy Crystal's character was going to have a sex change operation.  My eyes lit up.  I couldn't believe you could do that.  So I decided that's what I wanted.  I told my cousins who I was close to, and they laughed and laughed.  I pretty much hid it after that feeling ashamed.

Quote from: androgynouspainter26 on January 12, 2015, 02:20:09 AM

Personally, though I can't say I actually knew how to describe what I was feeling, I showed all the signs in the book: I was always very feminine, preferred the company of girls, cross-dressed whenever I had the chance, played with dolls, and I did have some vague signs of physical dysphoria too.  I would imagine myself as a queen on her throne (not a princess-I was and will always be an assertive gal!) and would sometimes even tie a cloth around my head pretending that I had long flowing hair-in retrospect, it's pretty insane that I didn't know what was going on.  My family was never overt about trying to suppress it, but I didn't feel welcome to be myself around them or anyone else.  After a while, I just sort of shut that part of myself away and my life went through a rough patch. 

I have dealt with my gender dysphoria all throughout my childhood as soon as I figured out that there was a difference between boys and girls. At first it was all cutesy but then it turned ugly as soon as my parents realized that it wasn't just a dress up game anymore. I honestly didn't know the physical differences between boys and girls at that age, I just knew that I would prefer to be treated like a girl and not a boy. The crazy thing is, I never knew what the physical differences between boys and girls downstairs, but I still insisted on sitting down to pee for whatever reason. They literally had to beat it out of me to get me to stand up to pee, it was that ingrained in me.

I seriously tried to be the son they wanted it just wasn't in the cards. I couldn't make myself into something I wasn't. I cross dressed a lot more when I hit my teenage years and subsequently took a lot of heat for it both from school and at home. When I was finally able to get my own clothes when I hit 16 and started my own secret stash of female clothing that I could wear. At first it was under the boy clothes but that just didn't work. I needed people to see me for who I was, so I started dressing up more and going out.

If a shrink had asked me in my childhood if I had gender problems I am pretty sure I would have clammed up and said nothing to avoid a beating back home. When I was a teen I figured I was a pervert or a ->-bleeped-<-got and honestly I didn't know why or what I was doing wrong. Was wearing a pair of panties or jeans that much of a sacrilege that I earned the name calling that was doled out to me? I didn't think so. I couldn't stop either. I would swear off the girl clothes and be back at it the next day. It only changed for the next 12 hours, that's it.

I did have a brief period in my 20's when I was able to totally shut down my gender dysphoria for a while by becoming a crazy workaholic. As long as I worked crazy hours and kept myself busy I was okay. It still surfaced from time to time but I managed to cope. Until the coping mechanisms began to fail and the only way I could put it is I froze. I can still remember that day when I realized that I had to do something about my situation I just had no clue how to do it.

I'm not sure about others, but I can say this about myself. There has to be some truth to this male-female brain business even if we don't understand it. How could I have known from an earliest age to want to be treated one way, when I couldn't even know what it is was I was trying to say? I couldn't have even formed the words I was trying to think of. There were no words I knew that explained how I was. I wanted to be a certain way and it was okay for a while, got worse and finally got ugly. But I am still here, and finally fixed the mistake that was thrust upon me for no reason.

It sounds like a lot of us knew to some degree. When I was four, I remember seeing an episode of Sesame Street, where there was a mom and her daughter swimming. There were a lot of underwater shots. I remember thinking -- not really in these words -- but thinking that's who I wanted to be. (I just remembered I think I had a dream about this last night, but I don't remember...)

ANYWAY, at four, I also went swimming at my cousin's house. I wanted to wear one of her bathing suits. The grown-ups tried to talk me out of it. I was very insistent, and I got my way. Très heureux.

At seven, I think, I learned that there was such a thing as a medical procedure to become female. Back then, it was called a "sex-change operation." (I feel like I'm explaining this to children in the 2020s.) Immediately, I got a wave of "oh, wow!" And desperately wanted that. One night I sat in the bathtub, singing "Goodbye penis, hello vagina," to this tune:


I never told anyone, though. Not until I was in my late 20's, and some female friends helped bring it out.

My earliest memories from 3 or 4 are of taking my sisters clothes to put them on. I remember watching all those classic disney movies like Cinderella and Snow White and wishing I could be the female characters in them. I don't ever remember not knowing that I wasn't supposed to feel that way. I always did it all and felt it all in secret. I remember the total shame I felt at 5 years old when I coloured my nails in red pen and then couldn't scrub it off before my Mum saw it. The fact  this stuff is so repressed has really messed me up. I was good at being a guy at school and as a teenager but I always had so much shame about who I was. I always thought that I'd just inherited insecurity and lack of confidence from my parents or something because outwardly I didn't have anything to be ashamed about in my life. I know now it was the shame of knowing deep down that I wasn't quite a 'normal' guy. But outwardly I would say there was no signs at all. My friends were boys and I was obsessed with sports. My interests allowed me to repress this feeling even further.  I was so excited and interested when I read about a transgender girl in one of my sisters magazine at 13 but I didn't really know why. I was a happy guy going to school during the day  then lying in bed at night and wishing I'd wake up a girl and I still didn't make the connection that I might be transgender myself until the last few years. It's amazing what you can hide from yourself.

Oh and I've dreamt I was a girl for as long as I can remember. Suppose that's a sign too.

Quote from: androgynouspainter26 on January 12, 2015, 02:20:09 AM
... why for some people it's obvious in retrospect that they were trans as kids, and for others it seems to come right out of the blue.  What was your experience like?  Why do you think it was what it was?  What are your thoughts on this whole issue of showing signs, and why only some of us do?  I thought it would be an interesting discussion to start. 

Maybe because some of us were just different.  Maybe there was no "retrospect".  Maybe there were no "signs".  Maybe we just knew.

Quote from: ChiGirl on January 12, 2015, 04:09:43 PM
By the time I was 5, I knew something was off about me.  Most of my friends were girls, but I didn't connect anything.  I remember playing Wonder Woman with my friends and I always had to be Steve Trevor.  I wanted to be WW, but they said I couldn't because I was a boy.  That hurt!

Funny I used to pray to my Wonder Woman doll that I slept with to make me a girl and to take me to Paradise Island to learn and to live. That was when I was 9 or 10. Ironic

Just many of you, at my 5 or 6 I remember myself wearing once my mom's pantyhose. I didnt know at that time why I did it, I could say it was by instict, like saying doing something appropriate but the strange thing is that I got caught by my dad and tried to hide my legs under a table (I was laid down on the floor of our house) looking at him embarassed like I was doing something that I shouldnt, strange isnt it?

After that, I was a typical boy, playing boyish games, being on "war" with the girls at school etc etc, but still seeing my moms clothes was a big tickle for me, with any change I was wearing them and the sensation was something which I cant compare with something else (except the sex itself).

At the age of 13-14 that I realized that that little thing between my legs isnt just for peeing, the combination of wearing female clothes and using my genitals was the ultimate pleasure. I couldnt stay only to that, almost again instinctively was feeling the urge to look sexier and sexier as a female, I was digging in my dad's pockets for few bucks to buy things which my mom didnt have in her wardrobe. My private sessions got so stimulating with that, plus I started fantasizing having sex with men. But this is so weird, I never looked back at a another boy at the streets, I never felt attraction for any male, but just in my fantasy. Girls were always a locked target for me, not because I had to as a male but because I WANTED them all.

But in my fantasy the idea of me being a woman and having sex with males was always a majority.
In my 38s now, whenever I have the chance to feel like a woman, I grab it from the hair, but always privately as my wife is fanaticaly female, if I will ever caught up, you all with feel the earthquake under your feet, no matter where you live lol

Well to summarize all these, for the last 20 years Im trying to explain to myself the big "why", but I cant find the answer, its so hard to step your feet on 2 boats, things would be so nice if this urge could vanish at once and fit my life with my male body OR things would be different and get the decision earlier to be transformed before setting my life as it is now.

Now someone could say "hey, things are just in your mind, a game of your mind, you just need to dress up occasionally and thats all). Well, as I said above, I havent find the answer, but I did find out something else that I keep telling to myself always:
I was to drunk before getting to this world, too drunk that the pink and blue buttons were blurred in my eyes, pushed the blue one, I made a terrible mistake!

I got caught with a bowtie I put in my hair at age 7.  I was pretending to be smurfette in my little imaginary world.  I already knew it was "bad" somehow, so I made my dad promise not to tell anybody.  I hid it all pretty well and kept the turmoil mostly in my head till I was I think 14 and got caught w girls stuff agn.  All I wanted was just to grow up to be a girl and it wasn't working!  But it turned out in the end that I did afterall .

I showed so many signs between the ages of 4 and 12 that it was ridiculous. It still makes me shake my head when my mom brings up my childhood and I rattle off everything and she says: "we thought it was just a phase". Sure, everything's cool now. But, it just blows my mind that she would think that. Even though she does remember the conversation that she and I had when she busted me on having her clothes in my room for the 1000th time. She asked me point blank if I wanted to live as a girl. I wanted to scream, "YES!", so friggin' bad. But I knew that my dad never would go along with it. He still has issues with using the correct pronouns. Oh well...maybe someday he will get a clue. I will just continue to live my life until then.

My dad asked me a very similar question when I was 16ish, but there was succh fire in his eyes, saying yes just was not an option .  Ofc years later when I came out for reals he was like, but there were no signs! I was like.. Uh what?  Don't you remember those terrifying "talk"s you gave me through the years?  Selective memory is pretty cool.

 

Quote from: Zumbagirl on January 12, 2015, 04:50:45 PM
I honestly didn't know the physical differences between boys and girls at that age, I just knew that I would prefer to be treated like a girl and not a boy.

Yes, and this is a significant point.  Lots and lots of children don't know the physical differences between boys and girls until they get a bit older.  But that makes no difference as regards their gender identity.  A (cis) boy knows he's a boy, and a (cis) girl knows she's a girl, even if they know nothing about what makes them a boy or a girl.  And we transkids would know that we were trans if people didn't work so hard to convince us that we were the boys or girls that they wanted us to be.

This answers a point that so many trans opponents make: that transkids cannot possibly identify as trans at a young age because they don't know anything about sexuality, i.e., their private parts.  You don't have to know anything about the genitalia in order to know what gender you are.

Quote from: Zumbagirl on January 12, 2015, 04:50:45 PM
I'm not sure about others, but I can say this about myself. There has to be some truth to this male-female brain business even if we don't understand it. How could I have known from an earliest age to want to be treated one way, when I couldn't even know what it is was I was trying to say?

Exactly.  It's in the brain.  Another point that trans opponents don't want to acknowledge.

My mom told me she had no clue even though as a child she caught me dressing many times. Oh well she accepts now, don't really care about the past.

I'd known I was meant to be agirl from about age 5. Rather than playing with cars and boy stuff I preferred to play with dolls, house, and EZ Bake ovens.  I wanted so bad to know why I couldn't have dresses and learn to put on makeup.   I've always been a girl.

I personally did not associate with stereotypical girl activities. In fact I had girl and boy friends with whom I enjoyed playing anything from dolls to GI Joes. But I definitely remember asking my mom why we couldn't choose the sex we are born in because I would have chosen otherwise ! As I grew up, I knew I was different and felt like I had to act out being a boy especially as I reached my teenage years. I started dreaming I was a girl and when I heard of people crossing the bridge, I couldn't but wish I could. From then on I tried to repress that idea and keep to my intellectual endeavours until recently, when it became clear I would not win the battle this way.

I my (very) humble opinion, if one's association with a given gender identity is topped with a strong inclination for associated stereotypical behaviours, chances are the feeling of oddness will be amplified. This might explain some of the differences in our testimonies. Gender identity and gender expression are certainly correlated but this does not imply causality.

Ok gotta stop being such a science geek...


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I thought I was a little girl until my first grade teacher told me to move to the other side of the room with the boys. She said you a pretty little thing but you are a boy. I was so upset not to be with the other little girls. I cried to my mother later that day & asked her what was wrong?

As others have mentioned, one of my earliest memories is of crossdressing in my sisters clothes. I must have been 4 or 5. My mom caught me at one point when I was around that age and her reaction was extremely negative. So that's when the shame started. I never had overly feminine characteristics when I was young, but had I not been taught from early on that that kind of thing should be suppressed who knows. As a child I always preferred the company of women, men just freaked me out kinda. My dad would always make me help him do "guy" things around the house and yard and all I ever wanted was to be inside helping my mom cook or just getting lost in my imagination. Still, I never had a strong desire to do stereotypical things like play with dolls or anything, but as I said I knew from so early on that that was just not ok according to my parents. So I showed very few outward signs. I mean one thing I remember is always wanting to be the princess when I played Super Mario ...I continued to crossdress as I grew up but I think I was probably 12 the first time I knew that trans* people existed. It was when I saw a Donahue or Geraldo on trans* people, so of course the guests were caricatures and behaving badly, but that show was definitely enlightening for me.

I had my "epiphany" at 23, I always wondered why I didn't know before.

When I was really young (like 3 or 4) I would do this thing where I would refer to my brain in the 3rd person, and it would always be a 'he'.  My mom asked me why one day and I said, "I'm a girl but my brain is a boy!" 
I've heard of trans folks (and it seems there are plenty here) who went through their childhoods believing they were truly the gender they identified as, and only realized they weren't a girl/boy when puberty hit, or something like that.  I never had the luxury of believing I was a boy.  My mother from an early age forced girly clothes and activities upon me.  I was pretty when I was living as a girl, and I think she wanted to live vicariously through me since she hadn't been as pretty as me.  To me it was hollow, but I tried to please her because to do otherwise would have been inviting trouble.
I used to love dressing up as a pirate and painting a mustache on my face.  I did it every chance I got.  To me that was my outlet.  I always identified with male characters in books and movies.  I liked the fact that I took after my dad because I secretly hoped I might grow up to look just like him.
Once puberty started, I was shocked and miserable.  I withdrew into myself.  I tried to wear the baggiest clothes I could find, trying to conceal myself even while my mother insisted I wear tailored clothes because I looked better in them.
When I was 13 I discovered there was such a thing as 'transsexualism'.  I tried to tell my mother, I said "I want to be a boy."  Right away she said "you're just going through a phase."  Looking back on the expression on her face, it was almost like she was prepared for it.  I knew better than to bring it up again.  Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Rocky Horror Picture Show were about 'perverts' according to her. 
My teenage years were a mess.  I thought I was lesbian.  I would fluctuate between wearing tight, ultra-feminine clothes trying to fake it till I made it, and taking my dads old jeans and sweaters which I could relax in and often wore till they fell apart.  I hated my body, I missed the way it used to look before puberty and tried starving myself (it didn't work, I'm not really cut out for an eating disorder).  My face looked wrong to me, I used to cover it in tons of makeup until I didn't even look like myself (drag queen style, really) and somehow that made me feel better.  Sometimes, when I was alone, I would go in the bathroom and draw a beard on myself.  It made me feel better and I'd look at my reflection until I had to regretfully wash it off.  I started living vicariously through movies and the male characters I admired in them...as long as I was watching a movie I could forget about how wrong everything else felt.
Halloween continued to be my outlet after puberty.  I always jumped at the chance to cross-dress because it was the one day when it wouldn't be weird.  One year I was at a school Halloween party hanging out with my male friend dressed as Eddie Vedder with a fake beard and someone thought I was my friend's brother.  That was a really awesome feeling.  I experimented with chest binding, but I never let myself consider that I might really be trans again because it was too scary.  Intimacy issues forced me to deal with it later on when I was 23, and I realized that even though I'd been stuffing my feelings down they weren't going to go away.  It was terrifying.
Funny thing is, after I came out to my family nobody seemed that surprised.  My brother was very blasé, he said "I've always thought of you as a dude anyway."  And even my mom (!!) said it didn't come as a huge surprise because I'd been doing things that hinted at it since I was little.  She really did a 180...I wish she'd said that when I was 13. 

I never really "knew" for sure what exactly was going on, but I always knew there was SOMETHING not quite fitting right. From being huge into dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, getting dirty and almost exclusively having male friends as a child, I suppose I just thought I was a tomboy, and my parents did, too. I very much liked dressing up in feminine Halloween costumes (Belle, Buttercup, Mulan) so it was hard to understand why I couldn't stand wearing dresses or skirts or ever take bags/purses with me.

In middle school, I started to realize that I'm not quite the norm, and through high school, I finally figured out that it was my gender, and not my sexuality(went back and forth from gay to straight to pansexual to asexual, trying to find out what fit me). In hindsight, I was always a bit too masculine to really be a girl lol, I should have known! I guess my love for hyperfeminine things really threw me off all that time. Always so much anxiety as a tween about it, too.

I wish I had known earlier.

I did not 'know' either until a few weeks back, and one part of me is still waiting to see if it is a phase which just passes by, but the rest of me just believes that at least some signs were always there which I never really put together.

Never liked stereotypical boy or girl activities, but was always fond of books. And in that, I found it easier to relate to female protagonists like Nancy Drew instead of male ones like the Hardy Boys. Never been good at any sports. Was not too much into any household activities, but I liked taking care of infants and other such things which wouldn't alarm my parents too much. Never gathered the courage to wear anyone else's clothes, but started getting my own and CDing recently. Mostly been around boys since school and never fit in, but I always attributed it to simply being a geek. Did not know much about physical differences between genders almost until puberty, and have always been attracted to girls since then. I'd seen effeminate boys being bullied and called 'gay', which I knew meant guys who like guys, and I knew that was not me. So all in all, there was almost no way of knowing until very recently how gender identity and sexuality were different and what it could mean for me.