This question has arisin because there is a perception that most MtF people tended to realise something was wrong, earlier than most FtM people.

Please answer carefully and in the appropriate section.

This is the section for people born with female parts but feel male.

If you haven't transisioned, or don't plan to, please still try to answer. The question is about when we realised something was wrong.

When I was being potty trained I constantly tried to pee standing up and even packed with tissue paper at a very young age. So I realized something was wrong, but I didn't realize what it was until a later age.

As I posted in the other thread:

I was 4 when I discovered my lack of penis....and was very pissed off.  Took me 49 years to get it back !!


Jay

P.S. I will also say that I did pack starting around age 8-9, and also used the men's room around that age if I could get away with it (ie mother far away in another part of the store), and used the boy's room during class when it likely would be empty.  Hated dresses and recall a bad tantrum at age 3 over wearing one, as well as wanting toy cars at that young age.  Didn't find out it had a name until I was 47.  I'm a bit slow...  LOL

In preschool I honestly thought I was a boy and only played with the other boys.  I didn't understand girls and their dolls in the least bit.  The most natural thing in the world was being on the floor wrestling with the boys. 

It was during a arousing play of doctor did I realize that my parts were different.  My friends didn't understand that any more than I did.  It's a surreal moment looking back on it.  I examined my parts in a mirror wondering wtf.  I asked my Mom what was wrong with me and got slapped for my troubles.  Told I was a girl and she wouldn't listen to another word about it.   

We can't see the poll results unless we vote.  Will FTMs please keep us MTFs up to date on the poll results here?

So far we have

4 guys saying that they know something was up under 6

Plus 1 saying that he realized between 7 - 12

And another guy who knew between 13 - 18

I'm not really sure what to pick...I have a specific memory of being 5 and planning to somehow grow up to be a man (but the logistics of this apparently didn't concern me). I didn't really think something was wrong, though; I just assumed everything would turn out fine. Around age 11/puberty is when I started seriously panicking about the idea of spending my life as a woman.

Spacial. If you add in the category "MTF. just voting to see poll results" you can easily discount those results and we could see the results ourselves.

So far, you guys are exhibiting a younger age of cognizance than us gals, which is what I would expect.  I long ago noticed that MTFs significantly outnumber FTMs, and that FTMs tend to have manifested strong feelings at a very young age more consistently than MTFs.  The general impresion I've gotten is that a lot of FTMs with less strong feelings don't transition, and I think that is largely because society is more tolerant of tom boys than it is of sissy boys.

I think even as a very young child I knew on some level that I wasn't a girl. I just recently found a set of pictures taken when I was probably only a year or so old. In most of the pictures I was wearing a frilly pink dress, and the look on my face kinda showed that I was confused about wearing a dress. In the last picture, I was naked in a metal wash bin, and looked all happy and smiley.
I voted 7 - 12 because before people started going through puberty, boys and girls were pretty much the same to me. When everyone I knew started changing, I knew that my placement as a girl was just not right. Didn't even know that ->-bleeped-<- existed until high school, so I kept the idea of feeling like a boy to myself.

Well, depends what you mean by wrong.

I used to stuff toilet paper in my underwear when I was like, five, because I felt like something was missing, but soon that feeling waned off. It was later in my life, about thirteen, that I started to get it.

I realized around age 4 or 5 that something was wrong.  I hated that I was different from my friends, who were boys, and I hated that I couldn't pee standing up.  I used toilet paper to pack with too, I'd wet it down a little and shape it like a penis.  I got in a lot of trouble for it when my mom found out, it freaked her out quite a bit.  I also got in trouble for taking my shirt off to swim, even though all my friends (who were boys) did it.  I was very much a tomboy at that age, though as I got older I hung out with girls more and tried to be more feminine.  In fourth grade, my mom made me start carrying a purse and wearing a bra and I hated it.  I never felt comfortable with having boobs and at least during high school would fantasize about having a totally androgynous body...I developed really bad posture trying to minimize the chest.  When I was 24, I saw a show called Role Reversal or something like that, I think on A&E, about two girls who tried to pass as guys and two guys who tried to pass as girls and it kind of stuck with me.  Fast forward another year, I was at college again.  That's when I realized I like girls as well as guys.  I also looked up about passing as male and wanting to be a boy and BAM!  Saw an FTM website and said "That's me!"

I cant say I realized something was wrong til 8 or 9, however before then, gender differences were obvious like at the age of 4 my mother telling me that I needed to pretend to be thankful for the doll I'd be getting from my grandma the next day.

Edited. Hope it works.

These results will be really intersting.

Quote from: Yakshini on December 15, 2010, 09:44:36 PM
I voted 7 - 12 because before people started going through puberty, boys and girls were pretty much the same to me. When everyone I knew started changing, I knew that my placement as a girl was just not right.

Yeah, I was the same way.  I honestly thought that the only difference between girls and boys was that boys could pee standing, and while I would have preferred that, it wasn't so big a deal that I couldn't live with sitting to pee.  I didn't like dresses because I wasn't allowed any horseplay when I wore them, and I refused to wear tights entirely, but I played with boy and girl toys and had boy and girl friends.  When I hit puberty, I knew something was wrong, though, independent of what was happening to everyone else (but observing others didn't help either).  I assumed it was normal to feel that way and that it would go away on its own over time, but, after waiting a decade, I wasn't able to make any sort of lasting peace with it and more recently realized that most people don't have this problem.

This is definitely an interesting question... In my case, I certainly agree that if I'd been MTF, things would've been a lot different for me. I've been dressing and largely acting male for years, I never considered myself a "normal girl." It's hard to say for me when I really "realized." I've really been extremely uncomfortable with my bio gender, and particularly with my body since puberty, and spent a long time trying to figure out what exactly was wrong, but it never really occurred to me "oh hey I'm a boy" until I started reading up on FTM websites. (Which I first ran across about a year ago while researching good binding methods, since bandages didn't do much for me. Bit of a tip off, maybe?)
Yeah, I don't know. It was never really a completely certain thing for me, I guess, it was more of a "this makes sense," and then realizing just how much it makes other things make sense in retrospect. One of the big things is how I've always identified way, way more with male characters in books, movies, etc. All the characters I wanted to be just like when I got older: All guys.
Right, that was long and rambling. I'll shut up now.

I recognized something was wrong when I was about...4. However, I didn't really think much of it for a couple of years after that because I thought, "Well, a girl can't be a boy." So, basically, I gave up and repressed my feelings, but my "wanting to be a boy" feelings came back when I was 10-11.

I have only 3 or 4 memories from when I was younger than 6, so I might have known, but I can't remember at all. How do you people remember being 3? I feel defective.  Oh, and I didn't know boys could pee standing up until I was about 10, so that was never a problem. I started to realise things were wrong when I was developing, and I started menstruating just before turning 11.... argh. Definitely realised it then. Plus, I always wanted to go to boy's cabins in summer camp, have people think I was a boy, play with boys, etc, from the time I was around 8. But I don't think I realised there was a difference at all between the genders other than boys yelling when you hit their crotches, until I was 9 or 10.

Quote from: Nikolai_S on December 16, 2010, 06:52:07 PM
I have only 3 or 4 memories from when I was younger than 6, so I might have known, but I can't remember at all. How do you people remember being 3? I feel defective.  Oh, and I didn't know boys could pee standing up until I was about 10, so that was never a problem. I started to realise things were wrong when I was developing, and I started menstruating just before turning 11.... argh. Definitely realised it then. Plus, I always wanted to go to boy's cabins in summer camp, have people think I was a boy, play with boys, etc, from the time I was around 8. But I don't think I realised there was a difference at all between the genders other than boys yelling when you hit their crotches, until I was 9 or 10.

I actually have horrible memory. XD Some things just stick with me.

I remember being in day care and during those emergency drills when I was like...5. My entire class would go into the bathrooms and once, we went into the boys' bathroom and I liked it a lot better and felt better being in there. I remember going into the boys' bathroom a couple of times because I didn't like being in the girls'. XD I didn't feel right being in the girls' bathroom. I think I was caught though because I only recall doing that a couple of times.

About the boys being hit in their crotch thing, when I was in 4th grade, I was at daycare and my friend and I were on the seesaw and she got off. From the way I was sitting, my crotch smashed right into the bar. It wasn't like, the handles, but the thing going down to connect it with the seesaw, you know? It. Hurt. So. Bad.

Actually, bad doesn't even describe that pain. I remember it like it was yesterday. It hurt. I fell off the seesaw, could hardly walk, and managed to crawl to a bench without being able to see because my eyes were so blurry. My eyes weren't watering, but I felt like I was going to pass out. And my friend was comforting me and was apologizing every second.

And the teachers saw and didn't come to see if I was okay.

I remember holding my crotch like a guy would when he is hit in the crotch. XD It hurt so damn bad. One of the worst pains in my life.

But now I'm rambling. I'll shut up now. I have a bad habit of not being able to shut up after I start talking. I need to do something about that. XDD