I didn't always know I was a transsexual but I've known the  feeling of being trans* for most of life, but didn't  really know what it was or  how to express it. I would describe the feeling as feeling like an alien to this world until you start transitioning, and then you start to feel human again once transition begins.

Rachel,

Know what you mean. As I stated a number of times, I did not know I was a girl when I was little. It has just been adding up for 42 years after all the clues and weirdness. I love the feeling alien description. I have said this before too but I feel like I have been controlling this huge puppet. There always seems to be a step away from reality or a disconnection.

Having just revealed what I consider to be a recent realization (who knew, you're not really a sick pervert, you're just a lonely girl who you didn't know was there the whole time). After just that coming out to my spouse, I feel much less angry, and frustrated. I just feel more calm. Still a little disconnected but better. I can only imagine it gets better as one progresses.

Sincerely,
Joanna

I think I felt something similar, Rachel. I wouldn't say I felt alien, but I would say that I felt like everyone else know stuff that I didn't.

I still feel that way, but much less so.

I remember that when I was a kid, I was obsessed with the idea of suddenly becoming a girl. There was this time when i got a toy wich you could mix parts of a picture to create a character, but there was not a female character. But there was a lizard guy, and i always mixed the lower half of the lizard with the rest of the human character, because it was "flat" down there!

Yeah I didn't know there was a word for it. I tried living as male a few times in childhood and as a teenager, but if I thought about it at all I thought I was just not good at being human. I thought maybe if I studied people I might learn how to be a person. I also grew up super poor and we never went to doctors, so I had the vague idea for awhile that if I just went to the doctor they would fix me. I thought yankees and other smart people understood the world in a way I didn't and that I would eventually be told some detail that would make everything right.

Without being given the language for it or any role models I think a lot of trans people kind of fumble toward what they need without understanding much more to begin with than that things aren't the way they should be.

Yes!  Exactly!  I feel I would have seriously considered transition years and years ago if I'd had the vocabulary for it.  I knew I liked being feminine, and at one point knew I wished I had been born a girl, but I didn't know what it meant or how to express it without feeling ashamed.  I wasn't gay, I was attracted to certain men's faces, but not sexually attracted to men.  Though I have had my fair share of guy on guy encounters, it usually involved lots and lots of alcohol, lol.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one. I literally wondered if I was an alien for much of my childhood. For years I didn't have the vocabulary, then the definitions were derogatory. I'm sure I would have realized sooner if we didn't think trans meant drag queen years ago. In a way it reminds me of "1984". You can't think about things if the language doesn't have the concepts. I think having the words is the greatest advancement we've made as a group in the last 100 years. Now we just have to convince people that being trans isn't double-plus-ungood.

Only trans word I did know what ->-bleeped-<-, from Rocky Horror, which wasn't much better, lol. I really wanted to be Columbia for Halloween sooooo bad.

Ditto! For the longest time, I had no idea what was going on up in the noggin. I just knew that I felt "off" or "wrong" somehow. It wasn't until late high school that I discovered the word transsexual. Back then though, it was more of a "Huh, wonder if that's what it is" kinda thing and I went right back to ignoring myself.

Fast forward a few more years, it really started digging away at me so I started looking online. The more I read, the more convinced I became and more time I spent examining myself (being an introvert is great sometimes!). Now I'm here. ^^ I wanna transition but can't because of Reasons but I will when I have the chance.

Quote"I think I felt something similar, Rachel. I wouldn't say I felt alien, but I would say that I felt like everyone else know stuff that I didn't."

like when people call you "gay", "queer", " ->-bleeped-<-got" on a regular basis and you have no idea why until you realize your trans*?  Like when you're sad and you know you would be happier if you were a cis-female (for no obvious reason), and people kind of noticeveryone how sad you are, but you cannot express to them whats really going on inside?

For me it's something like that, yes.  I didn't get the derogative terms for sexual preference but have always felt like people around me are much more sure how they fit into whatever it is the group is doing.  Though, intellectually, I know this is unlikely to be true.  It was in second grade I realized I wasn't going to get to be friends with the girls I wanted to spend time with and was expected to hang with boys.  Not until a couple decades later had I grown up enough and learned enough psychology to understand what was going on with gender roles and social expectations.

I'm getting into a fourth decade of knowing I'd be happier as a cis female.  And, even with the abundance of transgender information now available, honestly I still can't really explain it.  In one sense the science isn't there yet.  In another, how did I as a young child and pre-teen in the 1980s with no knowledge of trans anything end up with an unshakeable faith I'd be happier if I was a girl?  Sure, I can talk around the point for hours.  But, in the end, it just is.

Quote from: the 6th century sage Laozi, in the Tao Te ChingThe Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name

I completely understand the Alien idea, I get these times in my life that I feel like i need to just tear my skin off like the outer layer is hiding the actual me. It gets to points of claustrophobia and i have to get to the most open aired area that i can find and just breathe.

I think you might be right as soon as transition actually starts i hope that I will feel like a person/human again. I have to wait another two and a half years but i hope and have to know that things will be/get better at that point.