So glad to finally be able to post here!

I just recently realized I might be trans so I have so many questions.

I think my major question is how did you feel when you knew you were trans or even before that? I ask because I don't really feel any different. I don't feel like I'm a guy trapped in a girls body or anything like that but I do have a view of myself that is male. When I think about growing up (only 21 still growing, though I'll still be growing at 51 lol) I see myself as a guy with a wife and kids which is honestly the only time I can see myself married and with kids. Looking back on my childhood I've always wanted to play the guy (like in Sims) if I could but I didn't want anyone else to know so I reluctantly went with the female. So I guess I always felt like a boy just never really realized it, but now that I do realize it or at least think I realize it why don't I feel anything? I don't feel any type of urgency to transition besides top surgery. Did anyone else have the same type of feeling? am I just not deep enough in or something?
I feel like this is something I need to do to achieve the future I see for myself (and I see it even more now that I know about the trans life) I just don't know if it's me being trans if someone could give me more info on what it means to be trans that would be so helpful!

I want to delve further into this to try and awaken that urgency or whatever so I was thinking about getting a packer but I won't use it much right now. I'll just use it at home alone so I was wondering if I needed a harness or if I can just put it in my boxer briefs?

Also how did you find a therapist? did you have to go to different ones? the one I go to on campus is suppose to send me the name of a therapist since she doesn't specialize in this area but she hasn't contacted me back yet due to the holidays

thanks for any help anyone can give!

Having a strong identification with the opposite gender to the one you were assigned at birth is a general indication of being transgender. Once you find that therapist, working through your identity will be the best way to determine for sure.

You might have a look here:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,188309.msg1674885.html#msg1674885

Well imo many transgender people are likely to kind of read others expectations... and some try to adapt to it, until they find out its not them...
so you might simply think about how things make you feel... if they give you a feeling of joy... regardless of expectations...

and you might see a good gender therapist...
the gender therapist to help you along, maybe with easy reversible steps first, to help you find out how they make you feel...
so that you have someone to guide you and help you along, and no rash but appropriate steps are made.... appropriate also in your favour, so that it moves along...
you might ask at plannedparenthood of a lgbt place for counseling...
or look here:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,162888.msg1400316.html#msg1400316

and you might have a look at this thread, there are other young trans people there:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,195129.msg1775606.html#msg1775606


hugs

You don't have to be "trans"
enough, or have the same kinds of surgeries other trans people have to BE trans. I mean, I had crushes on boys before I transitioned, I saw myself as female before I had to come to the fact that I'm a dude. Being trans is new, but you settle. I recommend finding informed consent clinics FROM your therapist and doing lots of research online In case your therapist isn't educated. For most packers you want a harness, unless you want it falling down your pants all the time. Tight briefs might work. Good luck!

It's different for everybody. There were a lot of the traditional indicators when I was a kid, to the point that my parents were not surprised at all when I came out to them at 25. It took me a long time to get to the point where I felt like I needed to transition. It was largely driven by the fact that I had reached a point in my life where I felt like I couldn't go up any further. I didn't want to have an adult life as a woman. That wasn't who I was, and I didn't want to keep letting people think it was.

Re: packer question - I just put mine in my boxer briefs at first, but it was just a packer. If you get one of the multi-function ones that you can pee/play with, you will want something more secure. Even with just a regular packer now, I wouldn't wear it without a harness. The positioning is better and it feels more secure.

Re: therapist question - I only wanted to see an online therapist. I didn't have time to go to sessions in person and I didn't feel as though it would be a huge benefit to me. I started with one therapist, didn't feel like it was a beneficial relationship, and switched to another. He wrote my referral for top surgery in about two weeks. I had already started T via informed consent at that point. I am seeing a new one for bottom surgery referrals in 2 weeks. I didn't have to see a new one, but it is free if I go through the clinic that does my HRT whereas I'd have to pay if I went elsewhere.

I want to thank you all for the help! I now see that finding a therapist is even more important than I thought.

Quote from: FTMax on November 27, 2015, 03:26:05 PM
It's different for everybody. There were a lot of the traditional indicators when I was a kid, to the point that my parents were not surprised at all when I came out to them at 25. It took me a long time to get to the point where I felt like I needed to transition. It was largely driven by the fact that I had reached a point in my life where I felt like I couldn't go up any further. I didn't want to have an adult life as a woman. That wasn't who I was, and I didn't want to keep letting people think it was.

Re: packer question - I just put mine in my boxer briefs at first, but it was just a packer. If you get one of the multi-function ones that you can pee/play with, you will want something more secure. Even with just a regular packer now, I wouldn't wear it without a harness. The positioning is better and it feels more secure.

Re: therapist question - I only wanted to see an online therapist. I didn't have time to go to sessions in person and I didn't feel as though it would be a huge benefit to me. I started with one therapist, didn't feel like it was a beneficial relationship, and switched to another. He wrote my referral for top surgery in about two weeks. I had already started T via informed consent at that point. I am seeing a new one for bottom surgery referrals in 2 weeks. I didn't have to see a new one, but it is free if I go through the clinic that does my HRT whereas I'd have to pay if I went elsewhere.

what were the traditional indicators? and thanks for the info on packing I guess my boxer briefs will be enough for now thanks!

Quote from: Laura_7 on November 27, 2015, 02:22:49 PM
so you might simply think about how things make you feel... if they give you a feeling of joy... regardless of expectations...

hugs

I mean wearing the binder definitely makes me feel more comfortable in my body and being called by male pronouns or being referred to as a guy (my friends have referred to me as a guy before) does bring me some joy. Having a more male appearance has always been my aim so taking T to achieve that appeals to me and having top surgery is a must.

Quote from: jlaframboise on November 27, 2015, 03:21:31 PM
You don't have to be "trans"
enough, or have the same kinds of surgeries other trans people have to BE trans. I mean, I had crushes on boys before I transitioned, I saw myself as female before I had to come to the fact that I'm a dude.

Yeah I confuse people all the time because I talk about guys in a sexual way just like I do girls but I know I could never date a guy. Gender is just so dang vast and fluid there's just so many things someone can be I just want one that fits me you know.

Quote from: haeden on November 27, 2015, 04:08:11 PM
what were the traditional indicators? and thanks for the info on packing I guess my boxer briefs will be enough for now thanks!

I was born a girl, always knew I was a boy and identified/acted that way until puberty, didn't have words for how I felt, had massive issues at puberty onset, etc. It's become such a common sequence of events that people jokingly refer to it as the "trans narrative". But it isn't like that for everyone. Some people don't realize until later in life, or it takes certain life events to make them realize that they've always felt a certain way.

hmm I should talk to my mom about my childhood I probably had some indicators too. I know I was very tomboyish as a kid and never grew out of it and wore the Mary Kate and Ashley boy shorts because they looked like boxers lol

Quote from: haeden on November 27, 2015, 04:08:11 PM
Yeah I confuse people all the time because I talk about guys in a sexual way just like I do girls but I know I could never date a guy. Gender is just so dang vast and fluid there's just so many things someone can be I just want one that fits me you know.

Whether or not you're attracted to men isn't really a sign of whether or not you are trans.  Though I consider myself bisexual, I have a strong preference for men and usually refer to myself as a gay man since that is primarily what I feel like (while I find some women attractive and COULD have a relationship with a woman, it is not what I seek out nor what I fantasize about).  Before I transitioned I called myself a straight woman (though I had the same bisexual preferences).  Once upon a time people acted as if you had to like women to be a trans man, but that is no longer the general belief of therapists.  So I wouldn't worry too much about who you are or aren't attracted to sexually and romantically.

As for not feeling like a man before a certain point, I was the same way.  I never thought to myself "oh, I feel like a guy".  Instead I would lament to everyone about how I felt so "dude-ish", which is the term I used for thinking in a very masculine way and not understanding (or wanting to understand) how to act feminine.  But at the same time, I dressed feminine and enjoyed "feminine" pursuits like making crafts and riding horses.  I think I probably would have figured out what I was earlier if I had been more "traditional" like Max was saying, aka dressing like a boy, hating dresses, playing sports, whatever.  Instead I was extremely confused because I LOOKED female and felt male.  It made friendships and relationships confusing and caused me a lot of angst, but it took me a LONG time to figure out what was going on. 

In fact, it wasn't until I saw videos of FTMs' transitions that I realized that was what I wanted.  Why was that the tipping point?  I think because before that, I didn't realize it was even an OPTION.  I knew about trans men in a vague sense and trans women more specifically, but it hadn't actually sunk in that these men I saw (completely transitioned) actually started out like me until I saw before and after type videos.  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks and everything fell into place, though I wasn't exactly thrilled about it (I was hoping for an easier answer, LOL).  But suddenly I understood my depression and wanted BADLY to transition.  In fact, once I realized it was possible to be the person I felt like I was, I couldn't wait to look that way, too. 

So don't worry too much about what signs you are "supposed" to have and just do some inner searching.  I found that, despite looking so feminine, most of my close friends and relatives were not surprised in the least.  Being a tomboy is not a requirement, and is not necessarily even what makes people consider you masculine.  I am not sure that many people actually feel like they are literally a man trapped in a woman's body (what does that even mean, anyway, that you have two bodies in one?), as I hear TONS of people wondering if they are really trans because they don't identify with that particular phrase. I think it is more that people feel like they are a certain kind of person and their body doesn't portray that and they wish it would magically morph to what they feel like, rather than that they are something inside another something that needs to escape.  After all, there is no way to physically escape your body except death, so how can you feel trapped inside it?  It's just a simplistic way to describe a complex feeling that varies from person to person in a way where the general idea of wanting to be something different than what you are is easily understood.

EDIT: Oh, and as someone who has seen many therapists and psychiatrists over the years, DEFINITELY keep trying different ones until you find one you really click with.  To get important psychological work done, you really need someone you trust and connect with.  If you don't have that, you'll just leave the sessions feeling like you wasted your money.  Some people get lucky and find one on the first go.  Others, like me, are pickier about their shrinks.  I just searched the internet for "transgender therapists (my city)" and found a bunch.  Since I knew I wanted to start T, I first went to one who doesn't believe in gatekeeping to get my letter written in one session.  Then since we didn't click, I tried another one.  I have been going to him for several weeks, but he is honestly too much of a sweetheart for me-I don't click with overly sweet, gentle people.  So I am trying a third one now, one I met through my transgender support group and really liked on first meeting.  Since I have been to so many shrinks trying to figure out my depression over the years, I know that every single one is different in how they mesh with you and that it is worth it to find someone you really match up with.  Otherwise you really will end up wasting your time and money because you won't open up as much and the insights you receive won't be as good.  A therapist is not your friend, but they're not just your doctor, either.  You have a unique relationship, and it is SUPER important that it is a good one.  So absolutely find someone else if your first therapist doesn't work for you--it's not something wrong with either of you if you don't click, it's just that unlike a normal doctor, therapy involves people's personalities meshing.

Quote from: FtMitch on November 28, 2015, 12:03:35 PM
Whether or not you're attracted to men isn't really a sign of whether or not you are trans.  Though I consider myself bisexual, I have a strong preference for men and usually refer to myself as a gay man since that is primarily what I feel like (while I find some women attractive and COULD have a relationship with a woman, it is not what I seek out nor what I fantasize about).  Before I transitioned I called myself a straight woman (though I had the same bisexual preferences).  Once upon a time people acted as if you had to like women to be a trans man, but that is no longer the general belief of therapists.  So I wouldn't worry too much about who you are or aren't attracted to sexually and romantically.

see I never considered myself bi or straight. It was just me being me up until I started going by gay. I would say I was straight because people needed a label but I knew that was utterly wrong since I was attracted to girls but thought guys were attractive too just not enough to date.

Quote from: FtMitch on November 28, 2015, 12:03:35 PM
As for not feeling like a man before a certain point, I was the same way.  I never thought to myself "oh, I feel like a guy".  Instead I would lament to everyone about how I felt so "dude-ish", which is the term I used for thinking in a very masculine way and not understanding (or wanting to understand) how to act feminine.

Yeah I would say this is more how I feel. I feel dude-ish but not really like a man. I want a more male appearance and have dysphoria about my chest and hips so there are definitely things about being trans that I can relate to but I didn't have that feeling that you got I didn't feel a ton of bricks hit me or anything like that. It was more of a "oh wow is that me? no that can't be!...->-bleeped-<- I think it is me. Oh well time for a nap"

i always know i'm different than other kids. not just because i only play with boy toys, back when i was 2 or 3 yo, my family recall that i cried a lot being put in girl clothes. if they put me in overalls or some neutral gender clothes, i would stop crying. i meant that was obvious but i was too young to know anything. 

i feel like we're twins being separated at birth :O lol. i hate when someone talks about marriage. because the only time i think about marriage for myself is between a man and a woman and me in the man role. then reality hits me hard in the face and i'm like screw marriage, you know.
i also only play the sims in male. it feels so weird if i have to play any female character in a game. it just feels like it's not right. i tried.
when i play some online chat game, at first i made a female character. then people accused me of lying and thinking i'm a man behind the computer screen. that was when i was confused the most. i thought it was them, but it couldn't be, it has to be me. i started to research about trans and realized i have a lot of the same feelings. i can't live in denial anymore.

when it comes to feeling, i mean it's not clearly 100% all the time. i wanted hormones and top surgery like asap when i read about FTM. then i'm like i don't feel the need to do that in any urgent way. so i go with the flow and do what make me feel comfortable the most. right now i'm with a good therapist in the area. i mean to talk to her about hormones and will start T next year. i guess sometimes it's hard to let go of something, especially something that is a part of you.

i googled my therapist. lol. well, i was born and lived in a different country for all my life. now that i'm in the U.S., it seems like there's no better source than the internet. i wouldn't wait and asked somebody to recommend. because the majority of people have little knowledge about LGBTQ, it's hard to ask them to recommend you one, you may end up with the clueless one. if you have any LGBTQ friend, they may prefer their therapist to you or someone who is reputable.
i kid you not. i never go to a therapy in my entire life. heck, my hometown we don't even have therapies at all :[ i was scared and just overall confused. but it went pretty well and it helped me a lot during last visits.
i heard a lot of people complained their therapists know nothing about trans or much about LGBTQ. so it's better to do some research about the person. i know my therapist studied in this area, so she has lots of experiences.
i know a lot of people skip therapies as well, they try to get T as fast as they can. i just feel like this is a life tutorial and i love playing tutorials a lot. lol. i won't skip it.

sorry for the long post. i happen to ramble a lot. and because English is not my first language, i feel the need to practice! :O 

I started figuring stuff out about a year ago, when I had my "realization." Before that, it was a lot of just going along with the flow. Don't like girl clothes, parents wouldn't let me wear masculine things (funny, because now my mom blames herself for my situation because she dressed me in "boy clothes" when I was very young), so I just wore whatever my mom decided to buy me. Stuff like that. And I never quite understood my disinterest in looking good/dressing up. I always knew something was off, I just had no idea what, and I spent so much time as a kid doing every bogus psych test I could find online and reading about every mental disorder.

But then one day last year, things suddenly clicked and all these small things that never made sense to me suddenly came together. But still, all I could come up with at that time was, "I'm not me." A couple of weeks later I mustered up the courage to go to one of the meetings the LGBT group on our campus held, and we went through everyone's pronouns (I'd never done something like that before), when my turn came up I blundered, surprised myself, and said "anything goes." Everything suddenly came crashing down on me the next morning.

From then on it's been just constantly thinking through everything. Some days it seemed like I could live fine the way I am, others I wanted to be on T that very moment. I didn't feel like I had nearly as much dysphoria as others around here did, and sometimes I couldn't justify things to myself. Took me a while to be able to say that I felt like a guy. Anyways, a year later and things have more or less solidified in my head and I know what I want to do now. Getting there is a separate issue.

Quote from: haeden on November 27, 2015, 01:47:56 PM
When I think about growing up (only 21 still growing, though I'll still be growing at 51 lol) I see myself as a guy with a wife and kids which is honestly the only time I can see myself married and with kids. Looking back on my childhood I've always wanted to play the guy (like in Sims) if I could but I didn't want anyone else to know so I reluctantly went with the female.

Same with me (and I'm also 21). Marriage was always out of the question in my head, so was having kids. Wasn't something I even though of. Until I started thinking, what if I was the guy? And suddenly I really want to get married in the future and have kids. I remember the first time I had a crush on a girl, not sure whether this means anything but I used to cry myself to sleep wishing that I was a guy so I could marry her (...I was 14). Also with video games, I used to play runescape when I was in middle school, and my character was a guy. My aunts introduced me to the game and I remember justifying my male character to them by saying that I though the female outfit looked ugly.

Quote from: FtMitch on November 28, 2015, 12:03:35 PM
As for not feeling like a man before a certain point, I was the same way.  I never thought to myself "oh, I feel like a guy".  Instead I would lament to everyone about how I felt so "dude-ish", which is the term I used for thinking in a very masculine way and not understanding (or wanting to understand) how to act feminine.

I always have a hard time trying to describe this feeling, but I always felt/feel this way. I used to always joke that my body really wants me to be a guy (I'm a lot hairier than the average female).  I'm always amazed by the fact that I spent all my life around girls (segregated society, all-girls schools, that stuff) and yet I cannot figure out how to fit in with them and fail miserably every time I've tried. While coming out to one of my friends I was trying to explain how I felt and I said "..and it makes sense, because.." before I could say anything else, she just said "it does."
Funny they kinda knew before I did.

whereto and darkblade you two seem to have similar things as me. I think I just don't fully understand what this means to me or accept it or something and that's why I don't see a need to transition but when I get mistaken for a guy and treated like one it does make me happy so Im sure this means I'm trans I just have to really accept it and understand it.

Quote from: darkblade on November 30, 2015, 02:04:22 AM
Same with me (and I'm also 21). Marriage was always out of the question in my head, so was having kids. Wasn't something I even though of. Until I started thinking, what if I was the guy? And suddenly I really want to get married in the future and have kids. I remember the first time I had a crush on a girl, not sure whether this means anything but I used to cry myself to sleep wishing that I was a guy so I could marry her (...I was 14). Also with video games, I used to play runescape when I was in middle school, and my character was a guy. My aunts introduced me to the game and I remember justifying my male character to them by saying that I though the female outfit looked ugly.

Yeah I did that too lol. I would say the guys looked better or I would make two accounts and say the male one was just to troll

Quote from: whereto on November 29, 2015, 11:55:27 AM
i googled my therapist. lol. well, i was born and lived in a different country for all my life. now that i'm in the U.S., it seems like there's no better source than the internet. i wouldn't wait and asked somebody to recommend. because the majority of people have little knowledge about LGBTQ, it's hard to ask them to recommend you one, you may end up with the clueless one. if you have any LGBTQ friend, they may prefer their therapist to you or someone who is reputable.
sorry for the long post. i happen to ramble a lot. and because English is not my first language, i feel the need to practice! :O 

The one she's recommending is a gender therapist. They specialize in this area and it's okay your post wasn't any longer than anyone else's and I could understand it perfectly fine

It was difficult for me to figure it out because my family was small, I was isolated from other kids until age 7, and they didn't impress gender roles on me at all. It took a long time to realize I was different because the individualism and independent-type thinking I developed in this environment had no other frame of reference. It didn't require approval from others and didn't look for it.

It was only later in life when people seemed to be intimidated by me, and later the perpetual hearing of the phrase "you're kinda weird" that it dawned on me that I had a problem with what the society outside my family was seeing me as. And of course the moment puberty hit and I lost my boy-like chest that it REALLY hit. I had no desire to be anybody's 'girlfriend' or experience sex as a girl; pregnancy disgusted and terrified me and I was not interested in having children. I ignored references to my gender as best I could; I gravitated toward male pursuits, never identified myself as a female (I rather identified myself as a unique "thing", maybe a new kind of gender or species when I was a child)... I rejected relationships completely until much later when I became close to one or two very close friends, which was a less judgmental environment in which I could develop affection without hearing pronouns and expectations and whatever else. The result of an upbringing in which I was free to develop my own personality and then to go out into a world full of gendered expectations was not to try to conform much at all, but to accept my strangeness, embrace it and eventually become proud of the fact I am different, which kinda leads to the necessity of being independent and self-sufficient. It was very difficult to "figure out" the true nature of my problem... and it took many years because I am so very much in my own personal bubble in this world and not all that responsive to what other people think or what they expect. Life has been so difficult just to get to this point and keep going and find reasons to keep going, I consider it my reward. That was problematic too because identifying myself as "different" meant I just accepted the inevitable hardship of it for years instead of wondering if there was something I could do to ease the feelings of disgust. I think if I'd grown up surrounded by conservative family members pushing me to conform to a female role I'd have figured out I was trans very quickly.   

I knew, from some of my earliest philosophical or self-aware moments that I was different and alone and that would never change. We are ALL different and alone in our minds, but somehow I knew this was a very different type of "aloneness" and disconnection. I knew there had to be a real basis for the misery I felt. I was correct. I'm not a reclusive introvert by nature at all, I'm not sex-phobic, I'm not standoffish, or depressive, I'm not "quiet" nor unassertive ... but the nature and difficulty of being trans had forced these things onto me and twisted my personality into something quite pathetic. Now it all has to be undone.

How does it feel exactly? I feel less than I used to because I heavily disregard my physical form. If I hadn't been able to do that I guess it would be unbearable. I am disconnected from my body, but very connected to my mind. Happy with who I am upstairs, not happy with much else. I don't look at my body in the mirror except when it's necessary. I sleep with something covering my skin at all times, so I don't have to feel my body touching the covers as I absolutely hate the feel of it touching certain parts. It's as if I've blanked my body out of mind for years. At first I just accepted I would be miserable for life. But slowly it's all dawned on me and now I must do something about it. I don't want to just blank everything out anymore if there is hope to change it. This mindset seems to be accelerating daily. I didn't feel urgency to do anything at first because of decades of despair, I suppose. I must have despaired regards my gender at quite an early age, thinking there was nothing to be done about it. I wasn't in a rush to undergo surgery because I have a phobia of surgery. But eventually, I started to think of it like this. There are two roads in front of me, I know now where one will lead and how it will feel for the rest of my life and it will always be not what I really I feel I am. And there's this other road, with uncertainty, possible adventure, danger etc. and the possibility I might be able to be who I really am, maybe even look like it, too. Is there any contest? No. Is there a rush? Well, yeah, I think there is in the UK given the healthcare system is kind of under threat. I should try to get myself fixed while I still can because I don't have a ton of money for private care if trans care suddenly becomes low priority. The waiting lists are long enough as is. 

But figuring it all out takes time. Lots of time, lots of thinking and analyzing one's feelings. You can't know something before you know it, and it's a process of accretion of feelings and knowledge and surety and re-analysis to come to the realization you truly are A or B when the only person in the universe who can tell you if you are trans is yourself. And trangenderism/transsexualism is a problem of how you feel, and can only ever be examined through perception and feelings. 

Thanks T.K.G.W that really put things into perspective! It helped a lot