This is to those who only came to the conclusion they were trans later in life.

What signs (if any) did you miss or ignore?

Was there ever a period completely free of dysphoria? As in, you felt it, but didn't understand it?

Thank you,

Trying to compare experiences

I ignored dysphoria for some time because I just accepted that life "sucked", blamed awkwardness on myself and lack of interest in doing what everyone else was doing as also some personality issue.

Dysphoria became so routine it became background noise. The body was disconnected from my mind so I could easily ignore it.

I thought it was all some defect of my own making that could somehow be resolved by being ambitious in other ways. It wasn't.

T.K.G.W basically nailed it. My dad thought I was 'weird' and had 'mental problems' which didn't help my self esteem and made me think it was this reason that I couldn't fit in and was very awkward. Plus nothing LGBT was taught in school so I was very ignorant.

Pretty much everything TK said.

I missed a lot of little signs over the years, but really the big thing that I missed was an entire aspect of my personality that I was too afraid to look at or acknowledge.

And I decided that happiness wasn't actually a real thing. It was a thing written about in fairy-tales, but was ultimately a manufactured concept like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny; nobody really felt happy, it was just a life of drudging misery and pointlessness.

Sorry, I'm interested.

What were the little signs and how did the unknown dysphoria manifest itself?

What signs (if any) did you miss or ignore?

During my early childhood and tween years there was nothing but signs. Puberty was a nightmare. But seeing as this was in the early and mid 1970s there was pretty much nothing I could do about it, nor did I have any real awareness that I could be anything but the boy I was born as.
        Flash forward to my very recent decision to transition. I have realized that throughout my adulthood there was soooo much I did (or didn't do) to try to express my femaleness as much as possible within socially acceptable boundaries.

Was there ever a period completely free of dysphoria? As in, you felt it, but didn't understand it?

No. And I now realize WHY I never felt like my body was 'right'. Example: I have never felt comfortable being naked (as in the YMCA pool change room) in front of men. (this was a total panic-inducing nightmare in high school)
Body hair gives the weebies, thank goodness I have always had very little.

Dear Mikeffd,

I always struggled with the cycle of dysphoria coming and going. It never went away for long. For years I wished I was transgender so I could find some type of satisfying direction in my life. I was so psyched out by fear and shame that these emotions kept a transgender person, me, under lock and key for over 50 years. When I finally couldn't take it any longer, I realized that the giant lie was saying that I couldn't be trans. The thing I would say is that it is easy for all the guilt, denial, and fear to appear more real than what really is in your heart and mind about your true self. For me, there were so many things about contemplating being trans that I said, "I could never do that." As I have transitioned, I now do things I never dreamed I could. I get more joy out of things I thought I would be terrified of. I would suggest actual experiences out in the world as your preferred gender and see how it feels. Two people can have similar things making them think they might be trans, but there might be two very different paths that this leads to.
Moni

I unknowingly (maybe subconsciously) managed my dysphoria for decades by avoiding typically male gender roles.  It led to a very sad and very lonely life.  Looking back, I see all kinds of signs that I was trans at every stage of my life: from my childhood, to my teens, to my 20's, and well into my 30's.  But I ignored those signs, thinking they were just a weird quirk of my personality.  Or if I couldn't explain it, I just buried it.  I grew up in a conservative Asian Christian family, and I knew even at a very early age that those thoughts were not socially acceptable.

I was going to write a reply, but others have done a much better job than I could of describing my life.  I can relate to everything that has been written above! 

Dysphoria was the constant background noise of my life.  I always felt I was not masculine enough to suit other people's expectations, but it never occurred to me that that was because I was feminine.  That has been a revelation.

I cross-dressed for quite a few years, but I never occurred to me that that was significant.  I always just assumed I was some kind of pervert.  We too easily assume the worst about ourselves.

In hindsight, I cannot believe that I missed all the clues: they seem so obvious now.  Such is denial.

Well I guess one of the main ones, for me, was needing to police myself from having any feminine mannerisms - having to try so incredibly hard to be a guy. People were forever asking me stuff like "Why do you run like a girl?", "are you going to cry?", etc. One I just remembered recently was, years ago I was singing and the person I was with asked why I was singing the girl's part. It hadn't even occurred to me to sing the other.

None of this stuff really means anything on its own, but it's a bit of circumstantial evidence I guess. I kind of hate to list things because a lot of them fall into stereotypes and cliches. But anyways, you asked, so...

being very particular and having strong opinions about clothes and shoes
despite the former, I did NOT dress well...baggy, ill-fitting clothes
really digging women's clothing
not liking sports
not being the aggressive one in a relationship
not befriending any guys that weren't kind of feminine in personality
always dreaming of having long hair
being kind of uncomfortable, emotionally and physically, regarding my primary sex characteristics
really liking nail polish
hating looking in the mirror
not fitting in to any particular peer group

There are probably others, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head. As for how the unknown dysphoria manifested, I suppose I should mention some or all of this stuff was augmented by other factors.

a sort of "iron-man suit" style of dissociation from my body
the bleak view of life I mentioned in my previous post
the pervasive feeling of a wasted life - that for some reason I got dealt a bad hand and was waiting for it to finish playing out, although I couldn't put my finger on WHY I felt like that except for some obscure personal failing. See TK's post.


I have to go, though there are probably more ways the dysphoria manifested were I to think about it longer. Feel free to PM me or ask more questions. I hope you find whatever answer you're looking for.

None of this should be taken as a comprehensive list of what it is to be trans. You could fit none of this and be trans, or fit all of it and not be. This is my personal, subjective experience.

Wow... I can't believe it. IdontEven and TK, you've both expressed my life story perfectly. It's been a long road to get to a month ago, when I felt started questioning things for the first time. I really must be transgendered...

We had some fun a little while ago, with this thread:

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,209108.msg1853287.html#msg1853287

It's always fun to look back from a new perspective.

Trying to think back the months since I was in the fog, I was generally uneasy about myself, I loathed my body (in many ways), and was brutal on myself for allowing emotion, or forgetting the rules of man-land, (mannerisms, interests, activities etc). When the meltdowns came, they were ugly, they generally were when I felt the most separated from society, and I have felt completely isolated and alienated. This was to the extent that I truely believed that no one would notice me gone, and it would be easier for those I love, rather than living with me as a hot mess.

I always felt 'fake' - not helped by imposter syndrome, one of the many consequences of my childhood, in fact a lot of what I now understand as an intrinsic part of dysphoria, I had wrongly ascribed to that.

I liken the moment of realisation to an awakening. It's like one of those mornings when you wake up, look back, and it *all* makes sense, and you can never go back.

Sno

I spent much of my life cross dressing and when dressed I wanted to be a woman, but when I took the womens clothes off, my male self reared its ugly head and over compensated. There are still times when I find I cannot do something a man should be able to do and I get angry and feel like less of a man. I guess because that kind of crap is drilled into our heads from the time we are toddlers. I hate it. I feel like crap when my male self becomes dominant and I want it to go away. Thats one reason I want to transition. To get rid of the testosterone and the male me.

Quote from: T.K.G.W. on August 08, 2016, 11:55:49 AM
I ignored dysphoria for some time because I just accepted that life "sucked", blamed awkwardness on myself and lack of interest in doing what everyone else was doing as also some personality issue.

Dysphoria became so routine it became background noise. The body was disconnected from my mind so I could easily ignore it.

I thought it was all some defect of my own making that could somehow be resolved by being ambitious in other ways. It wasn't.

This sounds like me exactly, I realised when I was 14-15 but after I finished school I tried to just live an ordinary life which ended up with me feeling the same way. I ended up just pushing my self away from my friends and not even caring until I became a shut in for a few years. Only after dealing with the problem I actually realised I don't really have these social problems that I blamed everything on for years.

Quote from: Sno on August 08, 2016, 04:14:50 PM

I liken the moment of realisation to an awakening. It's like one of those mornings when you wake up, look back, and it *all* makes sense, and you can never go back.

Sno

So much this. I had my day of awakening this past spring, and there really is no going back, now that I know. All my life I've been called eccentric, weird, etc. I was definitely a gender non-conforming female and now, late in the game, I've realised that I'm a male. Signs were there all my life, going back. But I had no words for this, no frame of reference. But I know I'm far more male than female, but I'm sure I'll be gender non-conforming too, and I'm not into stereotypes.

And each of us have different desires how to express this, what it means to us to be male, female, non-binary, etc. Different circumstances. A big realisation for me is that I can do whatever changes I want, on my schedule and no one else's (aside from medical wait times). But if I'm not quite ready yet to start T, go through legal changes, etc., that's cool. There's a lot to figure out and come to terms with, but it such a huge relief.

I understand at last what the issue is, and that I can do something about it.

Great topic! As you can see I'm a noob here and this is exactly the question I am trying to work out now!

For me in my 30's, it was making very conscious choice to remain a family while advancing my career. The compromise my partner and I made was that I would crossdress and be able to get out and about as needed. She has been wonderfully supportive over the years. I've no regrets as I have some wonderful adult children, an equal marriage, and have had a great career. But their is a lot of sacrifice in putting others first. The dysphoria has never abated and the constant perseveration on my gender issues takes a psychological toll.

However, I'm now in a position to retire at a fairly young age. Many of my friend are asking me what I am going to do when I retire. To them I say, "mentor others, focus on my artistic pursuits, and travel". What I am struggling with is how I present my gender.  It's part of the reason I joined the forum as it seems to be very active with folks who are in various stages of transition (or not).

Joanna

I did many of the same things others have already mentioned in this thread. I basically denied it, covered it up, suppressed it. I have dressed since I was 10. I always felt like I didn't want to undress but knew I had to when the time came. I over compensated by trying to be "all male". I played football, hung out with the guys (even though I always preferred friends that were girls). I really liked women but felt that is was degrading to them to have sex with them. I never felt aggressive, even when young. I would stop dressing but always had to come back to it, could never stop. I guess that was the biggest sign. Really when I was young there was no such thing as transgender. That made it hard to "be" that way when you had no idea of what it was.

As my memories come back I realize I was basically living life like a little girl until I was about 11. My mother was very progressive and let me grow my hair and pick my own clothes, tight pants and pastel shirts with bugs and cuddly animals. I was then thrust into the state's care and was bounced around group homes, foster homes, mental institutions and prison. Not a good places to be out in the 70's. During that time I began drinking and buried me under that and a heavy dose of southern baptist. It took getting sober and finding a new loving tolerant God to come out at 54.

I also love this question. Being older and new to realizing the strength of my female self, thinking through this question is allowing me to identify many of the roots in my life. Like many, I always felt different than those around me in my younger years, actually in all of my years. I did not realize any gender identity disconnect, I was just different but could not realize how or why and it was very lonely. I found that being a loner allowed me to cope. I had some friends but always a small number being uncomfortable in larger groups. I built an emotional suit of armor to protect myself. I also developed my natural analytical/technical/scientific skill sets to a level that provided good opportunities for employment and enjoyable paths of success that worked well for a loner. This nature of coping also had me strengthen my endurance and pain tolerance so that I could work really hard in distant places successfully doing things that others could not do. This allowed me a lot of satisfaction in my accomplishments which, while a bit hollow, did a great job of masking the dysphoria that drove me to being a loner in the first place. My journey into my female identity started just a couple of years ago, a whimsical time of my wife and I breaking down barriers. Trying on one of her skirts just felt so right, we were totally blind sided by the strength of that experience. I had never realized just how dysphoric I had been all of my life and how stressful and painful all of my protection mechanisms were, I just realized how really really good life could feel. The old suit of armor that I had created so many years ago worked very well but it was so cold and harsh to put on each morning. Finding Anne in my life is beyond belief and the thought of returning to that very successful and fulfilling yet painfully isolated incongruent falseness is abhorrent, just the thought of it almost makes me nauseous (yes I have recently begun hrt and the emotions are running rampant right now). It may be that I have merely traded my cold steel armor for fun colorful lace and silk armor but life has never felt so right and real before. And the road continues onward.

Anne

Seeing as we're doing lists <3
Everything that *might* have something to do with it (not necessarily, I don't feel comfortable saying this was all due to identity issues, seems a little exculpatory to label unknown at the time dysphoria as the source of everything bad that ever happened). Apologies for any overlap in this list.
Also, I'm 19 so to some of you that might not seem late, but to me it is late.
1: My name never felt right - spent years, literally years bouncing names around, never thought to ever try a ladies name.
2: Always thought my genitals looked wrong/odd - I generally like my body, except for the presence, and lack, of certain features.
3: Shy - lots of people who aren't trans are shy, but still, this was sort of excessive
4: Never felt like I fitted in - once again, lots of people, but once again excessive
5: No interest in "manly" pursuits - hate sports, still do, I liked the long socks though, would always pull them up even when people said it was girly
6: Disliked my face as I got older - used to get "mistaken" for a girl, never got offended at that at all, upon aging I took a real disliking to my features, always felt something wrong about it
7: Dressed in my mother's clothes from time to time when parents were out - from wobbling around in her heels to trying on her clothes
8: Always tired, fatigued, no reason to get up in the morning - would wake up several times each morning, say ".... it" and go back to sleep, never enough sleep. I now go to sleep at 2-3 am and wake up at 7 am, fresh as a daisy even after tonnes of nightly research ever since coming to terms with myself, not even an alarm. Yay for motivation.
9: Puberty it was one of those things I always felt would happen to other people - Nope, it got me too, and it was the wrong one. I resent testosterone for every single thing it has ever done to me
10: Feel more comfortable dressing as a woman - generally more happy
11: Always preferred emotional to physical connections - did not understand guy's obsessions with sex, preferred friendships
12: Despised muscle - on myself anyway
13: Envious of women - wanted to be them, not even the successful or beautiful ones sometimes
14: Felt generally bad for a long time - took it to be a universal experience
15: Used to cry so much - Not a tear anymore unless I force it, feel emotionally amputated (starting to get a little back)
16: No enjoyment out of social interactions - I went to uni after years of all boys schools, just realized I love being around people, if they're girls anyway, can relate/empathize with them so much more readily
17: Would choose female characters in games - when parents wouldnt find out
18: Empathized with female characters more in books and movies - Twilight, awful piece of writing that it was, gave a protagonist so devoid of personality that you inserted yourself in her place, was my favourite book for a long time because of it
19: Enjoyed cooking and art - deliberately stopped it to seem more masculine
20: Hated team sports - it was always so competitive and unpleasant, never fitted in because of it
21: Shaved my body hair - never stopped from the day I started, now realize how much I despise it and how much better I feel without it
22: Never once felt like "a guy" or put any stock in being one - despite that it was a long time before I asked myself if I would rather be a woman
23: Hate my facial hair - so glad I only have wisps on my upper lip and about 3 slow growing straggly hairs on my chin, even those annoy me incommensurately to their actual presence
24: Hated shopping for boy clothes - disguised it with disinterest
25: Loved looking at girl clothes - disguised it with disinterest
26: No interest in my male clothes whatsoever - routinely just pick up the first thing I see, what does it matter, I hate them all
27: Always wanted to tick "Female" in censuses and questionnaires. Same thing for female restrooms (no I'm not a pervert)
28: Hate my voice - used to love to sing before puberty, I could go so high, I still have a "good voice", I just don't like it anymore
29: When I learnt about intersex conditions I wish I had one to have an excuse to transition - it didn't even click for me then (I am so blind)
30: I find it easier to make friends with women
31: Felt parts of my body were empty - hips, legs, cheeks, chest
32: Emotionally numb - my emotions just faded away into some vast unknowable emptiness (starting to get a few back)
33: Always preferred emotional solidarity rather than solutions to problems - although solutions *cough*HRT*cough* are also nice
34: Envious of other peoples timelines
35: Felt like I was just going through life out of a sense of duty - no real motivation or enjoyment for/of anything, just waiting for it all to end, or to end it myself
36: Always hated erections - particularly in the morning, beautiful day, sun is shining, horrible thing in between my legs making its presence known, probably why I disliked waking up, put it off for a few hours more before you notice it
37: Flinch away from views of my genitalia when I am not intending to look at it - I can look at it if I intend to, but even then I tend to limit it, closing eyes when washing for example
38: Good at hiding visible distress - generally all I do is close my eyes, people always asked me why I closed my eyes while talking
39: Masturbate rarely - once a month
40: Agonize over male features
41: Try focusing on female features - love when I find them
42: Considered suicide frequently since about 9 years old - would rarely get very far as I always thought it was too messy emotionally for family to deal with
43: Could never imagine where I would be in 10 days, much less, 10 years time
44: Feel calmer in female clothes
45: Disliked my father - always worried I would end up like him (he's a perfectly likable person by the way)
46: Never liked people saying I looked like my father
47: Liked when people said I looked like my mother
48: Terrified of further changes in my body, terrified of darkening hair
49: Disliked being referred to as he. Would always squirm uncomfortably when referenced as such
50: Never liked the moral attributions and role pigeon-holing of religion
51: Felt like the only person who ever fully understood the meaning of Sartre's quote "Hell is other people" (hell is the recognition of how other people view us)
52: Felt distanced and disinterested in my own life - never really cared enough to remember it even though I have a good memory
53: Would always find a way to distract myself from my own undirected thought process - whether by reading, video games, movies, directed thought/philosophizing
54: Always knew things could get worse at some level, just could never create a realistic scenario of it - if you understand what I mean, imagining your socks were made of snakes is hardly realistic, though it's relieving that they aren't
55: Recognized at about 9 years old that I would never be happy - talk about a kick in the face at a young age, forgot about that for so long, and a monochrome world was just something I got used to
56: Learnt even younger that laughter made you feel better - tried laughing as much as possible, subconscious recognition of unhappiness I suppose
57: I would prefer to be alone, that way I wouldn't have to see them seeing me (back to Sartre)
58: Life felt a little bit like a primary school play - stammer out the lines you were expected to say as quickly as possible until it was over
59: Absolutely mortified of rejection
60: I wasted time and now doth time waste me

There's other stuff as I started to realize and explore myself, but the above is just what I went through, completely oblivious to it all.

Edit: 61: Always wanted long hair   62: Traumatized by haircuts    63: Liked nail polish (have painted my nails once now, loved it so much)