@Devyn: I find your "rambling" and anecdotes very interesting. By all means, ramble. That's how we all learn.

Quote from: Samson on December 16, 2010, 07:34:58 PM
@Devyn: I find your "rambling" and anecdotes very interesting. By all means, ramble. That's how we all learn.

Well, I'm glad you find it interesting because I get embarrassed when I feel like I'm talking too much. lol.

I just picked over 18. Maybe that's because of  the phrasing of the question. I didn't know what trans or FTM was when I was growing up, because it wasn't something people knew about or talked about, and I had no internet.

I didn't feel like a girl, but I just thought I was a weird geeky tomboy. And since people accepted me (for the most part), it wasn't like something was WRONG.

Did I have problems with aspects of my gender or puberty? Hell, yeah. I just didn't view it as "wrong" or get that this was a trans thing.

Also, while this poll is interesting in a casual way, I dont think it demonstrates the validity of the idea that MTFs or FTMs "knew earlier." We are skewed by the fact that younger FTMs are more likely to hang around message boards and forums compared to older FTMs, while MTFs of all ages seem to participate in these kinds of forums.

Quote from: Sean on December 16, 2010, 09:37:27 PM
I didn't feel like a girl, but I just thought I was a weird geeky tomboy. And since people accepted me (for the most part), it wasn't like something was WRONG.

Did I have problems with aspects of my gender or puberty? Hell, yeah. I just didn't view it as "wrong" or get that this was a trans thing.

I second this, completely.

Quote from: Sean on December 16, 2010, 09:37:27 PM
I just picked over 18. Maybe that's because of  the phrasing of the question. I didn't know what trans or FTM was when I was growing up, because it wasn't something people knew about or talked about, and I had no internet.

Apologies for the wording.

I wanted to ask people when they first thought there was any problem with their assigned gender or the way they were expected to behave as a result.

I first had a problem when I was four. I recall many of the details quite clearly. But I didn't know anything of the physical differences between boys and girls, much less, the reasons. I just didn't feel comfortable with boys and did with girls.

I'm sure that experience, as a first indication, is similar for many. Deciding that we needed to do something about it, generally, comes later. many will have spent years trying to deal with it, fighting it, ignoring it.

Many seek and have had, full surgical reassignment. many don't seek this. Many simply prefer to express their preferred gender with their appearance.

When these problem first became apparent to each of us.

I do hope this exercise and the results will be helpful to many of us. The more we understand ourselves and each other the better, I believe, we can manage our own lives and deal with others.

When I was 4-5 years old I was already in denial.
I "Knew" something was wrong, but my solution became stomping my feet and proclaiming I was "a girl".
Cause I'd seen myself, and my sisters, naked and I looked like them, so I "must" be a girl. (We were born in 82, 84 and 86 and we were often bathed together, as that was easier for everyone.)

Yes, I've always been a very logical person.

Hm, I must be an odd one. I am currently 18 ..post puberty...and have just now found out. I think thats because I am not very masculine at all...more of a fem boy.

Though I did have some small signs in childhood...like severe penis envy [so bad I asked my mom if God would turn me into a boy] ...and I did like to stuff my underwear.


But...to say I was never really a "girl" would be a lie. But I dont let that stop me from identifying as a guy now.

Yeah Alex, it took me a while to figure out as well-  I too was really quite girly as a kid, especially before puberty. I mean, I was pretty rough-and-tumble, played outside, climbed trees like a monkey, (still do) loved running around shirtless, and had as much fun digging holes and playing with toy trucks as my little brother, but I also went through the "everything pink is awesome" phase when I was 7-ish (shudder!) and was obsessed with horses for years, and did ballet for a couple years around 5-7. I liked wearing skirts for ages, until around puberty, which was really when I started rejecting everything feminine. I suppose looking back, that's really when I realized something was wrong, it's just that I had no way of understanding what.
So yeah, I definitely strayed into both areas of stereotypical gender roles as a kid, which was for a while why I kinda doubted myself for a while. But I've ditched that point of view- hell, I know cisboys who did ballet, loved pink, and even wore skirts as young kids.
Wow, rambling again. This is a very ramble-inducing topic. 😀

Well, I don't remember if it dates back to my childhood, I have absolutely no memory if so.

I discovered it when I was 26.

Bummer.

Interesting poll and thread 🙂 I picked 7 to 12. Truth is I remember at 6 or 7 I remember playing ball with my dad while being forced to wear a dress and hating it. Then around 7 I remember watching my dad and his friend playing games and I didn't understand why they didn't realize I was one of the guys and let me play video games with them. When the next door neighbor mowed the lawn with his shirt off I didn't understand why I couldn't do that too.

Worst of all, when I realized that people thought that penis=man I was pissed that I didn't have one. I don't remember exactly when that was but I was really young, like during something "sex ed" in 3rd grade, which was really just an explanation of puberty. 

I pondered this for a while. Something always felt "wrong" but I honestly had no clue whatsoever what it was about. I just thought I was awkward, shy, uncomfortable, it didn't click that it was because of my body. Well I always hated my body, but I thought if I was thinner, prettier, had nicer hair, nicer teeth, blah blah blah....everything would magically be ok. The wanting to be a boy was more of a passing fancy. I didn't start seriously questioning my gender identity until around 17/18.

It wasn't until I was 16 or 17 that I started to piece together my weirdness and unhappy thoughts, and started to figure out who I was. Late bloomer here. Heh.

Quote from: spacial on December 17, 2010, 08:32:50 AM
Apologies for the wording.

I wanted to ask people when they first thought there was any problem with their assigned gender or the way they were expected to behave as a result.

I first had a problem when I was four. I recall many of the details quite clearly. But I didn't know anything of the physical differences between boys and girls, much less, the reasons. I just didn't feel comfortable with boys and did with girls.

I'm sure that experience, as a first indication, is similar for many. Deciding that we needed to do something about it, generally, comes later. many will have spent years trying to deal with it, fighting it, ignoring it.

Many seek and have had, full surgical reassignment. many don't seek this. Many simply prefer to express their preferred gender with their appearance.

When these problem first became apparent to each of us.

I do hope this exercise and the results will be helpful to many of us. The more we understand ourselves and each other the better, I believe, we can manage our own lives and deal with others.

Oh well in that case, I too was about 4 (actually I think a little earlier). I remember trying to explain to my mom that I was like Charlie Brown and not Lucy. My only comfort was in pretending to be a boy character and insisting I was dressed as and called as the character. As long as I was in character I was good. When I had to break out of character to wear a dress on Sunday, things fell apart. I spent my whole childhood like that, as various male TV and cartoon characters. I had an excuse to be male. Also at this time around 4, I saw my friend urinating in my backyard for the first time (I had no brothers or male cousins at this time). He was just like me, doing something I couldn't with something I didn't have. I was very disturbed all day, knowing that something was horribly wrong.

So pretty early on. About 4 or earlier according to my mom. I had to pretend to be a boy and insist everyone play along with a male name and persona or my whole world fell apart. Something I'd probably never have gotten away with if I wasn't insisting I was playing a character. The 'real' me with the girl name did not exist and I couldn't so much as eat or sleep as her until puberty.

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. Didn't even know that ->-bleeped-<- existed until high school, so I kept the idea of feeling like a boy to myself.

Same here. I only realized the differences between me and my male friends when i had 10 years old, when my mom didn't allow me to sleep in their houses anymore and people started to press me to wear female clothing and act like a little girl  .-.

I absolutely knew before 6 - 3 or 4, definitely. That was when I had my first big gender-related argument with my mom where I declared that pink was for girls, she said I was a girl, and I said I was not. It's also when I started insisting on shopping in the boys' department except for dress-up, and on getting everything in blue.

And I packed with tampon applicators (and tried to use them to STP because my junk was too small...thus discovering that my pee wasn't coming out of the expected place).

I was already quite solidly identified as a boy before puberty. If anything, puberty sort of sent it to the background for a while, because I discovered my newfound unwanted "attributes" happened to be quite good at getting male attention.

Between 13-18 I actually realized something was wrong without a shadow of doubt, had felt out of place before then but mostly put it out of my mind for fear of punishment, but there was no trying to deny if later.

I was in junior school when I knew for the very first time that I was different. Up until then, I was just me. When I got to school, I just felt so out of place without even knowing why, just knew something was up. The other kids noticed too. Thus junior school right up until I escaped from college became a living hell >_<

Not surprisingly, it soon got buried and I didn't start thinking about it again until several years ago. Only found both the will and means to do something about it early this year.

I don't remember not knowing. I always felt it was something I had to keep to myself, that if anyone found out then I would be sent to a mental hospital or something.

I thought something was quite different at a very young age. But I did not think it was "wrong" as I just supposed that many guys of my nationality were physically girls first and later just became guys. As that's what happened to me, I thought.

I'm not really sure where I belong, I voted ' over 18' because this year (25) It became all to clear what was cousing my life to be a miserable hellhole.

But I do have a classic trans past, I really don't understand why nobody here noticed anything, I even told them I was a boy! I didn't even understand why I was suddenly shoved into the girls locker room ... yeez.

Then again I have my suspicion my mother might be andro in some way, perhaps even bigender. But she's sure not a cis ... And my dad runs away from problems, in his head, I am a problem.