It seems like so many people knew that they were trans when they were really young, that they have stores about how things felt wrong, and how they would always tell their parents, "I'm a boy, not a girl" etc.

When I was a kid, I was just a kid.. I wasn't really a girl or a boy, and when I was a teen I liked wearing dresses to dances and stuff. Maybe its because I'm gay?

I didn't realize that I was a guy until last summer.. does that make me.. not really trans?

I started really enjoying crossdressing in my junior year of HS though.

Naaaaaah, you don't need to know very early to be trans.

We all have different stories, doesn't make us any less genuine.

A lot of people come up with coping mechanisms or just plain deny it until later on in life. Definitely doesn't make how you feel any less real. I didn't actually know I was a boy when I was 4. I got mad that I couldn't do boy things (like go outside with my shirt off) and didn't understand it. Then people started calling me a tomboy and I sort of used that to define it. Then as you get older you're no longer a tomboy, so what did that make me? I really struggled with that for many years trying to figure out what I was. Suddenly I realized I wasn't a girl and wow did that make sense (for the first time!).

When I was a kid I was also "just a kid."  My parents didn't really enforce a lot of gender roles on us children, so I don't have any stories of me telling my parents, "No!  I'm not a girl!  I'm a boy!"  All I can remember is hating Sundays, when my mom would make me put on a dress to go to church.  Other than that, if I wanted to wear shorts and t-shirts and run around with the boys, my parents weren't going to stop me.

But I don't think that not being a stereotypical trans-person means you aren't trans.  Being trans doesn't mean you have to fit into the "Transgender Box of All Transgenderness."  Just by being trans you are stating that you don't belong in a box.  All people are different, whether they are gay, straight, trans, cis, or anything else.

Quote from: LucienOctopus on January 31, 2010, 03:58:19 PM
But I don't think that not being a stereotypical trans-person means you aren't trans.  Being trans doesn't mean you have to fit into the "Transgender Box of All Transgenderness."  Just by being trans you are stating that you don't belong in a box.  All people are different, whether they are gay, straight, trans, cis, or anything else.

Most definitely agreed.

when I was 5 my mom knew something was up, but I didn't.

when I was 18 I knew something was wrong, but didn't think I was trans.

not everyone had the internet, or the resources of today, as a guide to feelings of being different, for that matter not everyone had supportive parents who were by their side through the eventual transition process.

just as people figure themselves out at different times, knowing what to do with those feelings varies by person to person.

Quote from: Elijah on January 31, 2010, 03:24:37 PM
I didn't realize that I was a guy until last summer.. does that make me.. not really trans?

nah

Quote from: LucienOctopus on January 31, 2010, 03:58:19 PMI can remember is hating Sundays, when my mom would make me put on a dress to go to church.

Me too. I would make such a fuss she finally gave in and let me wear dress pants.

Quote from: Elijah on January 31, 2010, 03:24:37 PM
It seems like so many people knew that they were trans when they were really young, that they have stores about how things felt wrong, and how they would always tell their parents, "I'm a boy, not a girl" etc.

When I was a kid, I was just a kid.. I wasn't really a girl or a boy, and when I was a teen I liked wearing dresses to dances and stuff. Maybe its because I'm gay?

I didn't realize that I was a guy until last summer.. does that make me.. not really trans?

I started really enjoying crossdressing in my junior year of HS though.

All dysphoria presents differently because we're different people. Think of it like magma under the earth stewing... Most people around you are for the most part just mountains. Do we know where exactly we're going to erupt? Sometimes no. Sometimes we don't know we're a real volcano because most may erupt in a certain way, but some also just ooze it out, or it comes out differently.

Weird analogy. But I did not know what I really was at 4-10 years of age. I may repress some things, but that doesn't make me less legitimate. The feelings came out of NOWHERE the second puberty was starting up.

I knew when I was 4. I know that this is not uncommon among people born male.

But the awareness for people born female seems to emerge differently.

Or am I wrong here.

Quote from: spacial on January 31, 2010, 04:52:25 PM
I knew when I was 4. I know that this is not uncommon among people born male.

But the awareness for people born female seems to emerge differently.

Or am I wrong here.

Well, I don't know about that. I mean in what way is it different do you think?

I didn't know that I was a boy when I was 4 either. I knew that I didn't like wearing dresses about then though! It wasn't until I was 10-11 that I told people that I wanted to be a boy (as I saw it, I had a girls body and everyone told me I was a girl, therefore I was. But I did know I wanted to be just like all the boys!), got my hair cut short and got my friends to call me by a boys name. I even had dreams where it turned out that I was actually a boy. That only lasted about a year though, until I realised it was never going to happen. It wasn't until just over a year ago that I became really uncomfortable being a girl (I had always subconsciously known I'd rather have  been like all the other guys). I remember typing 'girls who want to be boys' into google (again, I saw it as I was a girl as that was what my body was). That was when I came across Ftms and finally realised.

Quote from: Lachlann on January 31, 2010, 04:54:28 PM
Well, I don't know about that. I mean in what way is it different do you think?

In that, there seems to be a significant number of people born male who become aware at about 4 years, while many people born as female don't seem quite so certain.

Quote from: spacial on January 31, 2010, 04:59:24 PM
In that, there seems to be a significant number of people born male who become aware at about 4 years, while many people born as female don't seem quite so certain.

Well I knew when I was 4 and there's been quite a few FTMs on here that feel that way too. It might have to do more with how we're socialized than anything.

This has made me wonder if I was deluded or just a touch strange! I knew very young I wasn't a 'normal' girl. Family called me she but friends and strangers called me he... I even remember realizing I was different from the other boys and asking for a sex change for Xmas or waiting for my penis to grow... Now as I said at the beginning does this make me deluded!?? People were calling me she and female birth name and here I am at first thinking I'm a boy and then thinking I should have been born a boy. Looking at my boy mates and wondering how they were born male and I wasn't-we were no different. Is this my 'female' self not being aware of sex and gender etc as a child as spacial says? Or is it my male side saying hang on a sec, I'm missing something...
But I agree whether you knew young or not-it doesn't make u any less genuine. Just different to those of us who did

Quote from: Lachlann on January 31, 2010, 05:31:33 PM
Well I knew when I was 4 and there's been quite a few FTMs on here that feel that way too. It might have to do more with how we're socialized than anything.

To be honest, I think a better explaination is the rigidity of the male role.

Girls can wear many different types of clothes, including trousers. Tomboy behaviour tends to be much more tolerated, even encouraged.

Boys tend to be pushed, at an early age into male orientation. Sports, male clothing, not showing emotion and being tough. Even the word Cissy, as an opposite of tomboy, has negative conotations.

But its conjecture of course.

I knew in head start at 3 yrs. Being raised as a guy for the most part just enhanced that tho.

I didn't either.  I struggled with this a few months back before making my decision to transition.  I didn't know I was trans until I started having relationships.  That was the awakening for me, realising that they didn't see me how I saw me.  Then it spread from there to 'no wait, I see myself as a man...oh crap!'   

As Osiris said, a lot of people have coping mechanisms.  Mine was/is this constant escapism in any way possible to avoid having to think of myself as a girl. 

I've heard just as many stories of people who came to realise they were trans later in life as I've heard about those who felt trans from an early age.

I'm in the same boat. And sometimes that makes me think I'm just making it up. But just because I didn't know until puberty hit me, doesn't mean I'm not trans. When I was little, I didn't really care if I wore dresses or not, like I wouldn't wear one on purpose, but if you put one on me, I wouldn't object. I was a bit of a tomboy, since I didn't really want to wear makeup and stuff, and I didn't like playing house, but I really didn't know I hated being a girl until much later. Now those years beforehand haunt my memories, but if I ever doubt myself, I just remember that I've felt this way for quite awhile now, and if it was a phase I would have gotten over it a long time ago.

Anyways, long story short, it doesn't make you any less trans or male than if you had known since you were 4.

Quote from: Elijah on January 31, 2010, 03:24:37 PMI didn't realize that I was a guy until last summer.. does that make me.. not really trans?

I don't know. Does it? That's really your own business to figure out. Maybe you're asking because you really don't think you are trans after all; or maybe you are trans and you're are uncomfortable being different, so you're looking for another box to fit into, a "normal" way of being trans. Either way, I think it's a good idea to get over it. Comparing your experience with others is only worth anything in order to give you a broader sense of what is possible. If you transition, you shouldn't care whether you are more or less "->-bleeped-<-" than anyone else; you should be certain that you're making the right decision, and everyone else be damned. If you have doubts, proceed very cautiously.