Like most here, I knew at 4 years old. My mom tried to stop me then, tried at the age of 12, then at 16, then 19, etc etc. Every minute of every day since then, my thinking has not changed.

If only I told my parents my plans at an early age instead of suppressing it, having my Mom find her clothes in my room... I dunno. It eats away at me when I sit down and ponder. I think of all the time I wasted.

Reading these responses is always odd, an eye opener. What is a horror to some, would be a Godsend to others. I would cut 10 years off my life if I could have breasts in my teens, not have hair growing on my face, have a small frame... sigh 

Was a closet-cd from age 6 to about maybe 10-12... When puberty hit I became disgusted at what was happening down there so I stopped and started to live a life with a big questionmark hanging all over it. Unfortunately the pillars holding the mark have collapsed and the damn thing hit me on the head real hard

g

When I was 4.  I wanted to be Vanna White.  I was fascinated by the women and girls clothing aisle.  I knew I was different than the boys and dreamed of some machine that would change my body.  I always tried to play with girls toys.  When I was 11 and wanted to be a girl in my class.  I was sooo jealous of her.  Looks, friends etc.  So yes, I knew when I was young.  I may have forgotten or really triend to forget at times but I have always known.

I didn't even pay attention to my body until about 11 or 12, to be completely honest. When my chest started growing, I didn't understand why my mom made me stop wearing the tank tops I liked to wear. I didn't understand what was going on. Then, one Halloween, my mom was fixing my witch dress and she cried, "You're getting cleavage!" and I burst into tears, screaming that I didn't want boobs.

Yes.... acutely!

I always new something was different about me, but from around the same time I knew it was a bad idea to say anything, I can't say I knew what was wrong, but I feel like i'm on the right track now, finally, so its a yes and a no or is it a maybe - if I knew there was something I could have done at a younger age, i'd have done it in a heartbeat, but you can't live in the past, you can only move forward.
~Tali

I did not pay much attention to sex/gender when I was a child. I envied boys in many ways, from the toys they got to play with to the cooler clothes they got to wear, even their names sounded better in general compared to mine. My family and friends regarded me as a tomboy because of my preferences and despite my envy I did not come to the conclusion that I may have been the "incorrect sex". My jealousy was just something that was there. It was when I became older that this intensified and I learned about the transgender community.

Not quite sure when I knew - but others must have. I was dressed in girls clothes - by an older sister/aunt - till about five. I slept with her - always - when I was five - she was 12. I some how assumed even then my body would be like hers - a girl. From about 5 to 10 or so - I would be able to dress as a girl only for Halloween. The first time was not my choice - my mothers. I recall people saying "Oh what a pretty girl" - it was not really a costume. Every other year after - it was my choice. I would try to watch my mum putting on makeup. Taking every thing in. I would secretly get into her stuff. I would put on my sisters panties and bras. I had an older cousin - let me dress - used me as a girlfriend. I think every one else could sense I was a girl inside - I have spent years trying to figure it all out. Some time early - I knew it was wrong. That it was wrong for me - a boy to be a girl.
I also did not like taking my shirt off - with boys. I swear to god - at puberty I started growing breasts. The boys teased me calling me - nickname - tits. I walked like a girl - I didn't notice - but my step-dad sure did. Constant criticism - I had to work hard to walk like a boy. Often if I didn't pay constant attention - girl me slipped out. Hips would sway.
I guess the bottom line is - I began knowing - when I realized - gender. Until I became conscious of gender - I just was. My first choice was girl - the rest of the world made it wrong - not me. The simple rules are - penis=boy. So I did it most of my life - worked hard at being a boy. But I have never been able to forget - my childhood was as a girl - trying to be a boy was un-natural.

I knew. I knew hard, I just didn't know what to make of it for years. I thought maybe I was being anti-feminist or that patriarchy and the portrayal of women was what was chafing me so hard that I wanted to be a man. I never really admit to myself that I wanted to be a man because I am a man until just a few years ago. Still don't know what to do about it. Oh well, since this thread happened and I've been thinking about it for a few days, time to talk about it I guess.


When I was really small, and I mean very small it's one of my earliest memories, I remember it occurred to me while watching Power Rangers that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of me being a girl, everyone must be kidding me. I decided this after noticing that guys could be super cool and big and strong and loud-mouthed and fun, but saw that all women had to stay within the boundaries of something I couldn't put my finger on at that age.  Retrospectively I recognize the quality I couldn't place at the time to be sexiness; all women had to be sexy all the time and it cost them all of those things. This set me up, later, to believe I felt the way I did because I was a bigot. I realize in adulthood that I wasn't being a bigot, and it'll clear up as I continue my "riveting" tale which is really memories where I retroactively spot that I lied to myself or tried to assert myself or there was some kind of clash all smashed together haphazardly. With socially conservative parents who's approach to sex-ed was "never ever say anything", I didn't even know the difference between a boy and a girl, so I was confident I'd grow up to be a big strong super cool punk-ass teenager one day. No, really, that was what I thought was "the best", punk-ass teenagers, with their skateboards and their crazy hair and their silly clothes. I wanted to be one of those punkass teenagers SO BAD even though I knew that couldn't be my job, I'd also have to be a dinosaur wrangler or an astronaut cowboy or something. Mostly though I wanted to be a punk-ass teenager and I totally couldn't wait.

When my cousin Jess, who was like my sister, and I pretended to be ponies after watching "My little pony tales" together, she asked me to play the boy pony. I protested slightly on the grounds that he existed solely to be a jerk to the girl ponies, but then rather enjoyed it. From that point on I don't think I ever pretended to play someone in a female role during pretend games again. Everyone always wanted to get me to play "the mom" when it was time to play house, but I started getting really angry with them and insisting I should instead play the cool teenager. This almost always ended in me climbing a tree and pretending to be at a concert or watching MTV. I didn't really know what those things were but teenagers loved them and it got me out of pretending to be a mom, which I didn't understand why I hated so much. The idea of playing a mom made me incredibly angry at the time and I couldn't even identify why. Everyone was telling me I'd grow up to be one and I guess on some level I registered that meant they totally thought I was a girl and that they wanted me to want to grow up and do girl stuff and play with babies instead of like, riding dinosaurs on the moon or whatever boys got to do when they grew up. I didn't understand what adults did but I was informed that men and women did different stuff and I felt like I should be doing the man stuff. I know lots of Cis girls felt that way too.

So when I got slightly older, around the time my little brother was born, I guess the adults around me er... noticed. And started trying to convince me that I was a girl and I should totally own it and be super proud. There's tapes of me trying to do that, I remember wanting to make them happy with me. I was acting like a four year old drag queen; not like a little girl, but like an over-embellished impersonation of one. Around this time I was molested by the neighbor boy, but I didn't tell anybody because I didn't understand what was happening or how it would effect me later. At my kindergarten birthday party I was very happy because I was allowed to invite the whole class, but I was absolutely crushed when I was told I was allowed only to invite girls to my first grade birthday party. All my friends were boys. At some point I accepted the arbitrary separation since boys were supposed to date girls and I figured they just wanted to make it easy for me to get a girlfriend and that was what this was all about. The girls seemed to like eachother more than they liked the boys, in fact they hated the boys who they claimed "drooled" while they apparently "ruled", so obviously my parents were awesome spies and were teaching me to be a really good spy too and get a girlfriend and be awesome. I didn't really want a girlfriend yet, but it seemed like that was the thing to do, all the cool punkass teenagers were obsessed with the idea so it must be awesome. Spy was a really cool job to have once I was too old to be a professional punk-ass teenager, too! This is the alternate reality my five year old brain created. I sortof want to give my five year old self a high-five when I remember stuff like this, he was really cool for a little kid.

The lesson I'd been getting at home that I had to go above and beyond the call of duty to inform people I was a girl was re-enforced when a little girl at the school (maybe a young Transboy, maybe not) started dressing according to the boy's uniform requirements and cutting her/his/zir hair but still had to use the girl's bathroom, and all the girls at the school were incredibly cruel to this person and called him/her/zir "the baheeshee" and referred to him/her/zir as an "it". I remember around this time I felt I had to inform everyone that they must address me as "Samantha" because "Sammy" (yes I spelled with a y, it upset my kindergarten and first grade teachers and they tried to correct me a lot) was a boy's name and I also remember around this time I had a phase where I refused to wear pants and would only put on skirts.

I remember starting to have severe dysphoria for the first time after I started presenting as a super fem girl full time, not for my body as I wasn't near puberty yet and didn't really understand and my overactive child imagination combined with ignorance had me convinced I'd still grow up to be a man, but for the clothes I was putting on it and for my long hair. I soon learned that boys peed standing up. I was sent home later that day because I wet my skirt trying to do it. My grandmother didn't even have to ask when she picked me up- she knew. She knew I wet my skirt trying to pee standing up like a boy. I remember I cried a lot when I knew nobody was looking because it was starting to sink in that something was terribly wrong about this whole situation and I began to get the idea that I was going to have to pretend to be a girl forever. Around this time I told my mom to stop pestering me about having grandchildren for her and told her she would have grandkittens or nothing and like it. I told her I didn't want to be a mom or be pregnant. All the women in the family insisted that God would call me to motherhood one day. I was seven.

Around this same time I was also in the Brownies. I heard the name "Alexander" somewhere and I wanted it to be my name. I knew it was a boy's name, and I wanted it. When myself and another brownie were headed for the bathrooms, I remember telling her that if a stranger showed up we should use fake names, I'd call her Luceille because that was the name she wished she had, and I told her she'd call me Alexander. The woman escorting us curtly informed me that was a boy's name and I was a girl. I was incredibly embarrassed. To cover for it I started telling outrageous lies so the other brownies would assume I was just crazy and not ostracize me for being "a baheeshee". I shortened it to Alex since girls were allowed to be called that without becoming a "baheeshee" and being beaten up and having their lunch stolen, and I became obsessed with it and named everything Alex, including my kitten. Some of the girls told me I couldn't play with them because my hair was too long; I always have and still do like long hair; but I took this as an excuse to cut it almost as short as a boy to see what it'd feel like. I picked a bob cut, afterall, I didn't want to become a "baheeshee" and get my lunch stolen or have someone stick my head in the toilet. I looked incredibly stupid and nobody was afraid to tell me so. Natalie and Patricia didn't look stupid with theirs, so I was kindof mad at them for having inadvertently given me the idea. I didn't tell them though because I knew it wasn't their faults.

I transferred to a public school and aside from continuing to embarrass myself, started to hit puberty around the age of nine. I had already developed a habit I have to this very day of NEVER LOOK DOWN from having to wear a girl's uniform all the time, so I actually didn't notice until a girl named Beth told me that not wearing a bra made me look tacky and proceeded to get her little entourage to trash me every chance she got. I looked down for the first time in a long while and realized that there were, in fact, little bumps there. I was... not excited. When I went home and explained to my mom what happened she got all excited about taking me shopping for training bras. I was... more not excited. This was also around the time the teachers started to stop me from playing soccer with the boys. I didn't understand why.  Title nine passed a little while later and teachers weren't allowed to stop me from playing with the boys anymore, but that was OK for them because the boys soon informed me that girls were rubbish at sports and since I was a girl nobody wanted me on their team because they'd lose. I became a loner and examined plants and bugs at recess around this time. I had no interest in talking about makeup and nail paint with the "other girls" and that was all the rage at the time, so I just felt alienated and tried to stay away. I ended up friends with the two Muslim girls in my grade because I guess they were outcasts too and they felt bad for me or were lonely or both. Their parents didn't much care for me and always seemed to be chasing me out of the house, though, so the friendships didn't last long. In retrospect I figure they wanted me out so they could pray in private but at the time I didn't understand why I always had to leave and interpreted it as them disliking me. Nickelodeon started to run commercials telling kids to have safe sex so they wouldn't get pregnant or catch diseases. I didn't understand very well and I panicked and thought those things might happen to me, because the neighbor boy had called one of the things he made me do sex. I told my parents. I hope I had a nightmare later that my dad called me a slut, because if I didn't that means it happened for real. 

After puberty started to kick into full swing and I realized my training bras no longer fit and I'd need regular bras, I also noticed I was crying a lot about completely retarded things. In retrospect, this was estrogen and dysphoria and being full of hate and misery because I felt like I had to pretend I was a girl forever and ever and now I was going to have to pretend to like being a girlfriend and a mommy while all the boys who people knew were boys would get to be punkass teenagers and I wouldn't. I was upset at the idea that I wasn't going to get to be a punkass teenager. And then came the next big stupid fiasco- developing crushes. I knew on some level what a crush was, I didn't realize I was following Charisma, a girl in my class, around like a lost puppy. Charisma thought it was hilarious when I asked her how she was so cool and stuff and gave me wrong advice on purpose. Then... people started using "lesbian" as an insult. I didn't have any idea what a lesbian was, but they got their hair pulled and their lunches stolen so I really didn't want to be one! I figured out that lesbians, whatever they were, had something to do with having crushes on girls, so I left Charisma alone and went back to being by myself all the time. At this point I started getting terrible grades.

As for the pretending front, now in my last gasp of passing if I wore the right shirt I INSISTED that teenage girls had mistaken me for one of the Hansen brothers, since they were currently all the rage. I was super excited that the imaginary teenage girls liked me. This got me called a lesbian. OOPS. The harassment began. I had to move schools. I learned to ignore girls and women and never act like I cared about them in order to avoid being called a lesbian and having that happen again. Instead, I was now a bitch. I hated it more than any person had any right to and didn't know why, but people were afraid of bitches and didn't harass them, so it was sortof better I guessed. I realized later I hated being called a bitch more than any person should because it's for the most part a female-only term or is used on men to imply they're feminine. This was the beginning of middle school.

At this point the boys started to hit puberty and I started to get crushes on them. I was inordinately loud about them because I didn't want anyone to think I was one of those lesbian things again and have to change schools. This made those boys dislike me. Eventually it trickled down what those "lesbian" and "gay" things meant and Instead of being afraid someone would call me one I felt really bad for them. My dad started to say bad things about them, and both parents started telling me that it was terrible and wrong etc. I repeated the things they and the kids at school said because I thought everyone felt that way and I was a dirty little coward. It was a bad thing to do and I felt bad about it. At some point I publicly declared myself "goth" since most of my clothes were black anyway and goths didn't do those things to gay people. I expected other people to start becoming "goths" soon, too, so I figured that it was only a matter of time before reinforcements rode in to save my punk ass. I was... ahead of the curve. There were no reinforcements for two more years, and there were no goths besides me in the entire class of '06. As the only goth I was in a similar position to the time I was a "lesbian". It was no fun, but by that point I had stopped giving enough of a ->-bleeped-<- about what other people thought about me to try to backpedal. Whatever, I was a goth now. I liked black clothes anyway and goths were kindof like punkass teenagers. They did a lot of the same things but listened to cooler music.

By the end of middle school there had been sex ed, and there was a bit more in highschool covereing STDs and Birth control. Nothing related to the B or T portions of the rainbow was covered, so I assumed I was a special snowflake, but I kept it to myself- well sortof. Keeping it to myself implies admitting it to myself, which I still hadn't done. I guess I was still holding out childish hope that maybe I would wake up a cool punkass teenage boy because at this point I entered my lady-hatin' phase. I developed mild misogyny and regurgitated the area's highly popular gender-complementarian attitude without acting like it at all applied to me. This period was short.

I soon realized I was a complete and total waste of space and oxygen by acting and thinking in these ways and rebelled from the monster I thought I would become if I continued down that road by becoming a feminist, which turned out to be the best and most true-to-myself knee-jerk reaction I ever made. Feminists in my area were GLBT friendly. I learned about transgendered people and learned that it was OK my body was playing this silly joke on me because I could fix it with science. Science is badass and I liked it even before I learned that. Also, I realized I could still be a punkass teenager whether or not I had to stay disguised as a girl while I did it. I was excited about it again. And let me tell you what- I did it. I was the punk-ass-est teenager. Not one teenager in my town was a bigger punkass than me. I lurked around in all the cool places and made adults uncomfortable. >:3 It then occurred to me that maybe I only felt like I wanted to transition to male because I was being bigoted toward women. Women are perfectly good people, afterall, why would I have such a problem with being one? I figured the problem was other people hating on women and I went on a campaign to fix the things I thought had warped my brain to make me hate that I was a woman. I went on a crusade to make as many words unisex as I could. The swearwords caught on at my school and women were now called ->-bleeped-<-s and bastards instead of just the three stock female swears, slut, bitch and whore. I even stopped ignoring girls and had one of those lesbian relationships- at one point I bound for my girlfriend and she *loved it*. That was as far as I got though. Even with the highschoolers who disliked me describing me more accurately now that they weren't limited to words that indicated the presence of breasts, I still disliked that I was a woman. I figured I would feel better in college.

So I went to college. And didn't feel better, and met more GLBT people. And then I admitted to myself that I wasn't a woman, I was just dressed up like one because I felt like I had to be. Honestly I still do but it might be a very strong force of habit and could have to do with all those times I got rejected over knowing I wasn't a girl and trying to act like it.

And now I feel better. Sorry everyone. ^^

I can't say I've had the same experience as the 'classic' case of 'I knew when I was 3 and I told my mother that I was a girl'. I never felt any gender confusion growing up and I was happy being me. I don't think I ever saw myself as being a boy per se but I never told myself I wanted to be a girl and I never played with girl's toys or showed much interest in dressing. My problems all started between the ages of 10 and 12 when I was  finishing primary school. It was then that I started to 'feel different'. These feelings got worse and worse until I was aged 13 and 14 and I started slumping into a big big depression. Very moody, very antisocial, wouldn't talk, wouldn't play, stayed to myself. It was at this age that I started to wish I had been born a girl but I never in my wildest imagination thought that I would ever be wanted and planning towards changing my gender role and my sex. I always just felt like a boy who wished he'd been born a girl. I was so envious of my younger sister who hung out with and played with the girls that were my age. I just sat in the corner and kept to myself but looked on....Then as I got more into puberty and teenagehood I started to dress, pay more interest in girls clothes when I was at the shops, envy the girls and their school uniforms and dream of going to school with them, playing female characters in computer games. However, it still always until I was in my early twenties that I actually started to think that transition was a viable option. It was a gradual progression from the age of 11 or so but I am fairly sure I didn't feel anything before that.

Yup, I definitely knew as a child. Earliest memory is me at 5 telling my mom that I was wished I was a boy. When I was 7 I started being a tomboy and thought that was as good as it could get. My friends were mostly guys and I was having the time of my life (minus the constant teasing). Even though I liked boy stuff the only girl toy I did like was Barbie haha, probably because I spent most of the time pretending to be Ken and living the good life.

My mom let me get away with my boyish behavior for a couple years because apparently she was a tomboy as a child too. But then puberty reared its hideous face and shattered my self-image. I always saw myself as a guy but suddenly I was growing moobs and getting monthly visits from a certain curse. No longer was I as strong as the guys and I had to go on an all girls basketball team which really sucked hard.

Then I started getting crushes on girls but ignored it and assumed I was just being shy. When I was 13 I came to the conclusion that I was a lesbian, it was the closest thing I could relate to because at the time I knew very little about transgenders. At 15 I got outed as a lesbian, the only good thing about it was that I basically had a free pass to be as boyish as I wanted.

A few years ago when I was 17 I was watching the L word and was intrigued by Max. I looked into FTM's and found that there was a distinct possibility that I was trans. This just confused me a lot and for the longest time I wasn't sure what I was. I feel like a guy and I like girls but I'm a girl. Am I gay or trans? That was pretty much all I could think about and I couldn't make a straight decision. Some days I really hated my body other days I thought I could just stay female and put up with it.

Now it seems so simple that I'm really just a dude with the wrong body. Every time I thought I could live life as a lesbian it was always "I can put up with having this body." or "I can ignore/tolerate the disgust I feel about my moobs and just go really butch." Why torture myself? I'm a guy, not a lesbian. I shouldn't have to 'put up' with being disgusted about myself and now I feel so at peace with myself after I came to terms with it.

bye

Good to know I wasn't the only one who at the age of 3 started to pray for a change. You wonder what goes through a kids mind at the age.

Some probably assume kids that age are exposed to porn and all that other junk to know, yet I wasn't. I know what I wasn't exposed to, so I'll lean to believe other that knew something needed to change (or something wasn't right) at age 3-4.

It was the final year of primary school and thus at the start of puberty and I realised that I was going to the wrong school, I should have been going with all the other girls to the school across from mine. I shouldn't have been with the boys. As puberty progressed I got more and more depressed and wished more and more that I had been born a girl until the age of 19 when I realised that transition was on the table for me. So yah, I knew as a child but only from the age of 11 or so not before.

Niamh;
Not everyone knows at a very young age. I didnt figure it out until I was 9 and I had to have it put in my face to figure it out.

I knew something was off as a child, but I didn't really understand what was wrong with me.  If I didn't have an older brother to model my expected behaviors after, I am not sure what would have happened.    It was only in college I learned about transgender, and people transitioning successfully.  Before that I had just seen the awful stuff portrayed on television, which led me to suppress my feelings, or, at least make an attempt to.

As a child, yes. I always considered myself one of the boys. I knew I was different though. Everyone called me a tomboy though and I remember always saying 'No, it's more than that.' I didn't know what trans was though until I hit my teens.

I have always known.

My earliest memory was stood in my friends kitchen he was in the living room hes dad came in and said hi are you our Garys new girlfriend i nodded then craped myself but the feeling of been acknowlaged as a girl was fantastic I was 8.

Only by way of retrospection can I honestly say, "Yes, I knew."  For years, decades, I was in intensely strong denial.  While undergoing gender therapy a year or so ago, I read Brown & Rounsley's "True Selves" and then totally understood that I am, and had been, transsexual since early childhood ... age 3 or so.  It's been a lifelong thing I've only fully acknowledged in the last few years.  Please understand that in my day, time and place in my youth, being trans and out was a darned-near death sentence.  Thankfully, things have changed a lot since then.