This might not resonate with some folks since they might probably have had those experiences when they were younger about lnowing they were the opposite gender,

That wasnt the case for me, when I first started learning about what a transgender person was three or four years ago I soon started to wonder whther I "fit", all I knew is the idea of this concept clicked, but I was worried it was an idea put into my head and I didnt need to transition. I tried to look back into the past to find signs of it, my signs were always that I was very masculine presenting, but never once in my childhood did I say I was a boy, maybe moreover a tomboy, a title I took on because it wasnt a typical kind of girl, which I at the least was not. Most my childhood was gravitating away from female social norms as I got older, and I took these themselves as signs that I "fit", but not once did I call myself a guy, because I knew physically thats not what I was, so I didnt attribute myself that way.

Its a little bit eye opening to come to this realization and look back at your youth and see signs here and there, I think I was sheepishly worried why I hadnt figured this out before and that I needed someone to give a name and explanation to my feelings to understand what was going on with me.


What are your experiences with this?

My experience had some of those  but it was mostly a dissonance of wondering why people couldn't see me. Why they called me a girl when I wasn't. Learning it was a physical thing and still having that dissonance. It is really hard to describe.

Oh there is nothing like using the make believe retrospectascope to reconsider our lives with the information we now have available.  But is that validation and why do we want or need it?  Does it prove anything really?  It was important for me to review history thru the lens of acceptance when first coming out.  My life made better sense that way.

For me it is no validation however, as I was able to cope with not knowing or understanding myself or having the tools to do so.  After learning the language I still denied myself and kept my thoughts secret.  I did not want to admit the truth and face the fears that had magnified in isolation.  My dozen brothers and sisters did not see what I felt too frequently and my anatomy contributed to the lie about who i was.  My childhood gave way to cynicism and worse.

Years later I have accepted myself and have a far better sense of understanding what animated my thinking and behavior.   I sometimes find that trying to explain our lives to others is where the total picture with the consistent and persistent gender messages can help illuminate what we experienced.

I still want to understand myself and others better but validation is no longer needed to just live my life the way I know myself best.  There are no real diplomas from this school of hard knocks.  Maybe we should invent one   I survived!

I never called myself a boy, man, etc. outright back then, but I refused to think of myself as female. I could see the physical disparity between myself and what they called boys or men, but I dealt with the she and the her like one does a despised nickname. I would always take the male roles in kids' games, I would prefer playing as male characters in video games, and if I ever tried to write my own stuff I could NEVER seem to connect directly with a female character. I did not know what to write for them, or their motivations. All the signs were there but it's like calling an apple an orange at that stage and trying to believe it.

It unnerved me in the same way because typically I've been sharp realizing most things before most people do. Why didn't I realize the issue the way I know it now, back then? Having thought about it I go with the apples and oranges. A person may be pretty sharp, but if they're not much of a lateral thinker they might never figure out the apple is actually an apple-orange cross, or related to oranges in some way. It wasn't until the last ten years or so I tried to think more laterally and less literally about problems in the real world. And I think that's why I never saw the wood for the trees, despite all the signs/feelings. I was too literal, busy defining the world by what I saw and by absolutes. I had an "all or nothing" mindset back then.

When I left home and studied biology I realized nature isn't perfect and there are no hard and fast lines to be drawn with a topic like this, even just from a purely dispassionate scientific viewpoint it is not a line you fall on either side of. With that and with the wisdom of time and experience I finally get it.

However for something to be validated for me it wasn't what other people said that validated something. It was whether or not it was a fact. It was a fact I was dysphoric, so I knew there was something up. I just didn't know this was something other people suffer from - there were no clues to that. Since there was no evidence around me it was a thing, I pushed it to the back of my mind onto the pile of other "flaws" I resolved to deal with.

Quote from: Kylo on December 27, 2016, 03:00:41 PM


When I left home and studied biology I realized nature isn't perfect and there are no hard and fast lines to be drawn with a topic like this, even just from a purely dispassionate scientific viewpoint it is not a line you fall on either side of. With that and with the wisdom of time and experience I finally get it.

Oh definitely, studying biology which is my favorite subject helped me understand the core and foundation of sex and genetics and the varying levels of disparity between different kinds of people, if it wasnt for the realizations Ive had through those studies I would have never come to terms or learned anything about myself, because knowing that there were real factors to my feelings and not just me wanting to be something silly in my head that I am not like a fairy certainly helped quite a lot.

I pretty much always lived in the boy as a child, I just went with the flow.  It was in my dreams, fantasies, and wishes that I tried to become a girl.  I thought it was normal, so never talked about it.   I got yelled at for putting on my mothers High heels when I was very young, even though my sister never did for putting on dads shoes.  I always liked looking at women's clothing, but never really talked about it.  I had more female friends than male, and spent a lot of time playing female video game characters.  Never really had much interest in typical "male" activities.  Still digging into things with my therapist, and I remember more since starting hormones, it's amazing how much we hide from ourselves when trying to fit in and match what is expected.

I did not identify as male when i was younger, but did have a sense of disassociation with the physical body. It was not until about 4 years ago, when I became exposed to trans individuals and the overall concept that I began to undersstand myself.

I think it's normal for most people, in general, to have a selective memory, and to tailor what they tell about and how they tell their history because it feels more genuine to who they are in the present. People are complicated and messy, and not everything they experience or feel lines up neatly or makes for a story that feels satisfying or comforting to tell in retrospect. Especially for trans people, where I think there is a social pressure or expectation or even just convention of having the since-early-childhood narrative, originally as a way of getting psychologists to believe that we weren't crazy and of reassuring ourselves that even when everyone else (including psychologists...) did think that we were crazy, that there would be something to hold on to and reassure ourselves that this isn't just a passing fancy, I think having the childhood narrative for validation is a powerful incentive or way that our community communicates and bonds.

So I get that it can feel frustrating or alienating or delegitimizing to feel like the signs that everyone else seems to talk about just weren't there. And I can definitely put together two different stories from my childhood by turning a blind eye to some things and spotlighting other things. One story has me engaging in gender non-conforming behaviour from ten years old, my clothing and my interest in my sister's toys serving as the canary in the coal mine that all was not well in the pre-pubertal gender utopia; the other marks me a normal rough-and-tumble guy who gets the bright idea of becoming a lesbian in high school because girl on girl is hot. Neither of these stories is right, and neither is wrong: they're willful reanalysis on a past that is altogether too easy to manipulate with unreliable memory and the benefit of hindsight.

Sure, there's always a part of me that wonders how I didn't put it all together sooner. But there's an equally large part of me wondering how I could have possibly come to the conclusion that I was trans when nothing in society would have led me to believe it was even possible for anyone, let alone me. Like a lot of people, it wasn't until I was exposed to the fact that trans people existed that I began to consider any of my inner thoughts as lining up with that. But I don't put too much stock into my childhood as a tool for validation, mostly because I know I could use it to tell whatever story I like, and I'd much rather tell the story of me, now, happy in the decisions I've made regardless of what my ten- or twelve- or sixteen-year-old self would have thought. Those people weren't me-as-I-am-now, and I am. So what they thought about their own identity isn't really germane.

Of course it can feel reassuring and helpful for other people to use their memories and their past as a way of validating who they are now. My own feeling, though, is that it doesn't sit too well with me personally.

I don't specifically remember seeking validation for gender.

Which seems to be abnormal. Most people talk about doing it at some point. I did seek intellectual validation, and validation from my parents, but if they ever brought anything gendered into the discussion I would brush it to one side.

I still have no idea why that was. Did anyone else do this or am I alone?

It seems in order to feel better most people do attempt to fit in, but I decided never to feel better and seethe about it instead. Until eventually gender was a dead topic to me. Everyone around me saw it but I didn't; it obviously factored into their interactions but not mine. The result was I basically saw all people as the same, didn't care about their genders, just whether they were going to bother me or become a threat.

I feel like I now have to learn all this stuff over.

Or maybe I won't bother... maybe I should just continue the way I've always gone and not give a crap.