How old were you when you realized that you were a man/woman, and descided to do something about it.

For me, I guess "realized" it a few times but i didn't descide to take action untill now that I'm 22....I wish I had the courage earlier.

I "knew" I wasn't "a girl" when I was a kid, but I didn't understand the whole of the thing properly and I didn't know how I could know this and yet, my parents, who are still some of the most intelligent people I know, could "know" the opposite.. so I didn't say or do or decide to do anything about it then..

Then I had years of denial, compensation, overcompensation, etc, etc, etc, etc...

and then when I was 20-22 years old (somewhere around that time it sank in proper), I knew I "would" do something about it, just a matter of when,.... and started being known as "he" and "miniar" amongs friends.

I knew I should be a girl when I was 3 or 4, but at that time there was nothing I could do about it.  No "sex-change" operations had ever been performed anywhere in the world.  The word "transsexual" didn't exist.  The very idea that some of us have bodies that don't match our gender didn't exist in our culture.  To my naïve mind, it was perfectly reasonable that my body would just correct itself.  It didn't, of course.

I was 9 when news of Chistine Jorgensen hit the papers, but I still thought my body would just grow into being a girl's, since that was what I was.  After puberty I gave up on that idea.

With no internet and very little information available, I was 40 when I finally seriously looked into actually transitioning, but I didn't think I could handle the difficulties at that time.

I was 65 when I finally tried again, this time with no turning back. 

Part of the delay was me growing up.  Part of it was the world changing enough so that I could do it.  Part of it was my life getting to a place where I could handle it.  If I was 20 now, as the world is now, I might try to transition, but there is no way to know that.

- Kate

Quote from: K8 on December 03, 2009, 06:48:33 PM
I knew I should be a girl when I was 3 or 4, but at that time there was nothing I could do about it.  No "sex-change" operations had ever been performed anywhere in the world.  The word "transsexual" didn't exist.  The very idea that some of us have bodies that don't match our gender didn't exist in our culture.  To my naïve mind, it was perfectly reasonable that my body would just correct itself.  It didn't, of course.

I was 9 when news of Chistine Jorgensen hit the papers, but I still thought my body would just grow into being a girl's, since that was what I was.  After puberty I gave up on that idea.

With no internet and very little information available, I was 40 when I finally seriously looked into actually transitioning, but I didn't think I could handle the difficulties at that time.

I was 65 when I finally tried again, this time with no turning back. 

Part of the delay was me growing up.  Part of it was the world changing enough so that I could do it.  Part of it was my life getting to a place where I could handle it.  If I was 20 now, as the world is now, I might try to transition, but there is no way to know that.

- Kate

People believe in souls and yet they can't look past the shell it fell too. Thank god this is changing, i would have probably killed myself if I had lived back then. Your a strong woman to have lasted so long in an anatomicly male body.

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Post Merge: December 03, 2009, 05:09:34 PM

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Quote from: Miniar on December 03, 2009, 06:37:58 PM
I "knew" I wasn't "a girl" when I was a kid, but I didn't understand the whole of the thing properly and I didn't know how I could know this and yet, my parents, who are still some of the most intelligent people I know, could "know" the opposite.. so I didn't say or do or decide to do anything about it then..

Then I had years of denial, compensation, overcompensation, etc, etc, etc, etc...

and then when I was 20-22 years old (somewhere around that time it sank in proper), I knew I "would" do something about it, just a matter of when,.... and started being known as "he" and "miniar" amongs friends.

Its been much the same for me. i'm just on the otherside of the lake.
I don't know that i would wish to have been born in the appropriate body though. I learned alot having to suffer. Having to hide.  ....and plus i got to see the behind the scenes life of men  ... But most of all, I don't think I would have asked my self that question, "Why am I me, as I am, in this body, in this place?"  Its that question, I think, that has made me more "conscious" in a way...more conscious of the self at least....


p.s. I think think your sexy  and i like your mind, from what posts I've seen.

Like most I knew something was not right when I was about 5 or 6.  I hated puberty, I wasn't become a girl but a damn boy.  Most of my friends were girls and I could not understand why I was not like them.  When I was about 20 or so I heard of a clinic in SF, so I left my home, with my folks, and left for Cali.  My Aunt lived there and I have family I could live with.  I went to the clinic, but I was turned away.  No job, not really any support.  So I went to school and learned a very masculine trade, Automotive Repair.  I had a flair for it and loved working on cars.  That was were I met Mike.  I fell in love with him as we spent almost all of our time together.  But he never knew and being Italian I doubt he would have been respective.  But I will never know.

It wasn't until I was about 30, I found myself in a position to do something about it.  I found a support group, a therapist, even a doctor for HRT.  But things have a way of changing.  I had support, HRT and was understanding me at last.  But I was cast out of my home, again with parents, I went into trucking.  I could buy a position with Mayflower and I need the work.  I eventually married my third wife, who know that I was Transgendered.  For 20 years I lived as the man I was born into, but the demon would not leave me alone.  Near the end and at the end I had the ability to pay for SRS, BA and even FFS if I wanted, but my ex would not hear of it.

We separated and I wound up on my own, again.  But this time I would not hold back.  I found my therapist and a doctor.  Began again, I had some funds and I build my wardrobe.  I live part time as a woman, only being male for work.  I changed my name and went full time.  I then lost my job, but got my 401K to remove part of that which screamed male, my Orchie.  I still pray every single night to wake up with the right parts and cry every morning when it has not happened.  But it is better now.  I know that I might just get there one day, but I also know that I may be stuck here for the rest of my life, between Heaven and Hell.  But I am still a woman, and evn the SSA agrees with me.



Hugs and Love
Janet

I'm not sure when I first knew things "weren't right" - I have flashes of memories from 5 or 6 of events which in hindsight I can see as indicative of GID but I didn't really realize precisely what was going on until I was about 9.

that would have been '72, '73 and at that age I couldn't conceive that there was anything for it. I'd never heard of Jorgensen at that point. I DID hear about Renee Richards when she came forward. It was right around that time - I honestly can't remember which came first - that I tried to run away from home with a suitcase full of my mom's clothes, intending to never be a boy again.

that didn't work out and when i got home I told my folks it was a costume to keep from being found.

For the next decade i struggled with doubt on what to do about it, mostly a battle against suicide....in 1986 i "got religion" (I had already been a Christian and still am but that summer I bought into the concept that if I was 'good enough' God would "heal" me) and for the next 20 years I worked hard at earning my healing.

Eventually I realized the illogic of a lot of what I was trying to believe and that led me to where I am today.

I know that it's not healthy to look back in regret but how I SO wish I could have done all the "girl things" that a 46 year old broad will never get to do.

  wELL FOR ME.... i was about 3 when i realized something was wrong... i started growing and people were trying to mode me into this boy who i never was!!! but it was till 2 years ago, when i knewi  could do something about it!

I was about 11 when I really, truly realized that what I wanted to be, more than anything, was a boy. I suppose I had always known, but it wasn't until around then that I started to understand the idea behind the feeling. I denied it for years, and then last June it hit me like a ton of bricks and I knew I had to do something. Anything. I am just starting to explore the me I suffocated.

Other than childhood, I was about 18 when it really hit me that I was a man. However I believed I was the only guy in the world born like this. Even when I first heard about transsexuals, it didn't resonate because I was ignorant about the effects of testosterone and believed I'd look like a girl the rest of my life. I had no desire to have a penis sewn on and that was what I believed transsexual meant. I dressed in male clothing, went by a male name, and tried to find some comfort in that for many years. I was 27 before I saw a therapist for gender issues and began this long journey with many roadblocks ahead. In some ways I wish I had started earlier, but I did the best I could with the information I had at the time. In other ways, I don't think I would have been up for it in my younger days. I was a vastly different person then.

I have to add, as a 27 year old bloke, I can not be 100% certain that my memories of my inner thoughts as a 5 year old are "correct". I believe they are, but human memory isn't built to help us know the past, but to help us tell where the future is headed. I acknowledge and accept that these memories may be false, or at least, exaggerated by my current mind.
I choose to believe they're not, but I accept the very valid possibility that they are.

I was in 4th grade so about 9 or 10 years old. I told a girl at school that I wanted to be a girl.

I remember that vividly but I didn't know what it meant and just tried to forget about it my whole life and be the man everyone expected me to be.

Wasn't till March of 2009, 18 years later that something snapped inside me and I started this journey.

I'm young now, and I have known my true gender for about two years. Like many others, it was male puberty that really alerted me to it.

That said, I was gender-confused for long before then, and never felt male at all.





^{Age modified}

I felt different all my life but I didn't know why. It wsn't until I was 56 that I discovered that I was transgender.

Gennee

when i was 4 and a half and we came from Cuba my sister pointed it out to me that i was not a girl and i was just like um.. no i am

At five years of age I knew I was different. It took me another forty years to fully accept myself as female.

I have always fit in better with girls than guys.
But it was until I turned 54 years old, but have been cross dressing on and off from age 17 on.
Jillieann

For me it started at about the age of three, when at that stage I didn't know there was a difference between me and my sister! It wasn't till I started to go to school that I felt wrong, but I didn't know why. Looking back in hindsight it is now quite obvious why I had such trauma and was persecuted by the boys all through my schooling days. I effectively withdrew from society by working with the family business, living at home and rarely going out. I have still never really had a girlfriend! It wasn't (for some peculiar reason) until recently that I finally realised why my life has been unfulfilled.

To precis the answer: My GID goes back to 3 years old but I didn't realise until in my 40's.

I might add that in all the time in between I've been constantly switching on and off my desire to see and accept my very strong female self. It saddens me greatly to se that I've wasted most of my life in limbo.

Alexie

I knew I was differen to other kids when I was six or seven but I realised what was wron at the nset of puberty.   Nearly thirty years later and I am acting.

I hear a lot of transgender people say they felt they were in the wrong sex at the age of three or four.  I suspect they felt different at that age and it was three or four years later that the dysphoria kicked in.   When I was three or four boys and girls were no different to me than one another.

I was four when I first realized that I wanted to be a boy.
In 8th grade, I read a book called 'Magical Thinking' by Augusten Burroughs. There's a chapter in the book called 'Transfixed by Transsexuals' where he talks about how he had been thinking about transitioning from male to female for a while, but eventually decided against it. That was my first exposure to transsexuals. I didn't think much of it and didn't apply it to myself. Perhaps if he had mention FTMs in the chapter I would have.
In health class my Freshman year of high school, the first thing we talked about was transgendered people. We watched a movie called 'Transgeneration' about four college students, two MTFs and two FTMs. Finally, I realized it was possible to go from female to male and started thinking about it. I didn't admit it until my teacher put some questions on the board that we had to write about. The writing would be showed to no one. One of the questions I picked to answer was "The realization about your gender and sexual identity - when does this usually happen?" I wrote my answer from personal experience, which was the first time I actually admitted to myself that I was trans.

Quote from: Pippa on December 04, 2009, 05:24:15 PM
I hear a lot of transgender people say they felt they were in the wrong sex at the age of three or four.  I suspect they felt different at that age and it was three or four years later that the dysphoria kicked in.   When I was three or four boys and girls were no different to me than one another.

You may be right, Pippa.  I remember knowing that I should be a girl before starting kindergarten at age 5.  I think it was probably when I realized that boys and girls were treated differently.  I also remember playing "doctor" with the girl across the street and envying her the tidier stuff she had.  (Little did I know what problems could lurk in there. )  I don't remember how old I was when we did that, but I was pretty small.

I don't remember dysphoria as such until much later.  I was a reasonably happy boy who just figured I should be a girl and, if I was lucky, would be one some day.

I know I was 9 when I started cross-dressing because my friend Albert, who introduced me to the pleasures, was only there in fourth grade.

I was the only boy in sixth grade (age 11) who had a regular girlfriend, so I was certainly able to play the role at that point even though I was nothing like the other boys. 

I dunno.  It was a confusing time.    I've managed to block a lot of it out and, as Miniar said, the memories may not be perfectly accurate.

- Kate