i do

I don't remember much of my childhood. I usually just remember fragments from before I was a teen. But sometimes something will jog my memory into remembering something.

Yeah I do. I think I blocked out most of it because my mother was always on my case about everything and told me that wanting to be a boy was unnatural and bad. =\

But occasionally I do get a flash, a bit of a memory, and it brings me back to the good times when I didn't have to pay for everything =P

I feel like I've lost my whole teenage years.
Sure I've had some fun times, but most of the time I've always had these intense trans feelings that made me so depressed.
What really hit me is how stupid I felt when finally this year when I came out(17) my mom took it well and told me she had a feeling and would have accepted me sooner.

I also feel like I'm going to be one of those "mid-life crisis" cases where I try to re-live those times trying to makeup for what I didn't do because I was scared.
None of my friends get me, they all take their lives for granted. Maybe I'm just being bitter, but none of them really understand how bad my life sucks lol.

No.  I do not remember having a sense of being male or female as a child.  I was just me.  I played the daddy/father/husband in house.  I was a huge tomboy.  I wore what I wanted.  But I do not remember thinking of gender.  It's as if it was non-existent.  When I started puberty I felt as though my childhood was being ripped away but that's it. 

Andy I completely agree. But with my life it was like every time I did those things I was instantly shut down and scowled at and it just simply sucked. Mom always told me that she would love me no matter what though, but something makes me know that love and acceptance aren't the same things at all.

OMG Jasper.

QuoteYeah I do. I think I blocked out most of it because my mother was always on my case about everything and told me that wanting to be a boy was unnatural and bad. =\
But occasionally I do get a flash, a bit of a memory, and it brings me back to the good times when I didn't have to pay for everything =P

Same here but it was unnatural to want to be a girl and it was my dad who would say it.
He had to teach me how to be a boy and I do remember always feeling dumb because of it.
I have had more and more bits and pieces of my childhood memories coming back to me recently.

in a way i do.

if i lived this way earlier on i couldve gotten more out of life. but sometimes thinking about it maybe... it was jsut fair. id idnt always lived here in america after all. i came from some country where we realllly are treated badly and seen as clowns, and nothing higher than that. i couldve been a cutie hahaha but... my age is long gone and im not gonna waste whats left of it. ill get what i can now while i still can, out of life i mean

Sometimes when I think back to my old favorite cousin's room, and remember all his goofy-looking action figures and cars and guns, I kinda feel like I've missed out. But then I remember I thought those things were so ugly (preferred dolls, really), that my dad gave me a giant tub of trucks that I played with with said cousin, and that I always preferred stick guns.

So I both feel like I missed out and I didn't. On one hand, I didn't get to wear super awesome suits/kiddie jumpers  other little boys wore to church, but on the other hand, those dresses are one of my favorite things to look back on, being a somewhat feminine person. I didn't get all the action figures, but I did get to play barbies and dress up with my sister, and trucks and dolls were even fun with my male cousins.

I'm just pleased I can live out my teen years as male. My principal calls me "son" and makes sure my pants are tucked in XD

My teenage life was hell and I have the curse of having an impeccable memory, I remember every single day and detail of my life since the age of 3 like it was yesterday (I've always wanted to get tested to see if I'm one of those people who have that memory disorder where you can only remember things and can't forget them), and since almost every moment up until this very point has been filled with pain and trauma, I've really never experienced a childhood. I never had a boyfriend, never fell in love, I've had sex with only one person, I've never had a best friend, I've never had more than 3 friends at one time, it was just last year I attended my first party of any sort, most all my life I've been bullied and alone.

It's a bit why on top of being transsexual, that my acting career and staying youthful is a bit important to me; I'll willingly say that for every single thing I never did, my emotions compell me to want to preserve and experience life from here on out the best I can. Sadly, my body's still a cage, I'm no prettier or more womanly than Sellvester Stallone is! Really holds me back from every single thing I want to do, every single type of person I want to meet, every role I want to play, every career I want to try, ugh, the most ambitious and confident people are always cursed with such chains. I'm so ugly that every time I walk into the women's bathroom, the gals say "Ugh, this is the women'sroom!" and every time I walk into the men's room, the men say "Get out of here, this is the humans' room!" Haha.

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I feel cheated for not being able to date as a girl. I have supressed many memories, but if I decide, they are still there in the back of my mind. I've just sort of filed them away and don't dwell on them.

QuoteI feel cheated for not being able to date as a girl

I so understand Cindy. I missed the dresses and the flowers and ... 
Oh well doesn't do any good to dwell on what one missed.

Yeah, in a way. I often wonder what it would have been like and how my life would have been different if I had been born correctly, but at the same time, if I had been born as a cisgender male, then my personal experiences would have been very different. I wouldn't have met many people I became friends with, and my whole outlook on life would probably be different as well.

So yes, I sometimes wish that I could have had a true childhood, but I know that if I had, it wouldn't have been *me* having it.

Yeah all the time. Sure I have a few memories here and there that are actually worth remembering, but a few memories doesn't add up to a whole childhood. I guess some of it was because of my parents though. We lived in the middle of nowhere, didn't get to really do anything or have friends, and that I'm sure would have been the same regardless.

Yes i definitely feel that way. But for me its hard to tell if it is because of me being trans or because of the tons of crap i had to deal with apart from that. I would not have had a happy undamaging childhood if i had been cis.  For me the problem is not so much what i missed out on [perhaps thats simply an issue to deal with sometime later] but the things i had to learn to survive and now need to be unlearned because they are choking me slowly.
The only thing i am really jealous of is the lighthearteness i see in teens.

There are a few parts of my childhood that I wouldn't want to give up, but mostly I feel like I was cheated out of experiencing life as an adolescent girl and as a young woman. (Ah, to relive my highschool and college years on the other side of the gender divide...) I spent so much time on trying to be a guy while I was growing up, that I never really had a chance to be either a boy or a girl. Mostly, I just learned how to imitate what people expected me to be. In retrospect, I think I would have been most inclined to be a tomboy: a girl who, to quote Eddie Izzard, enjoys "running, jumping, climbing trees....putting on makeup while you're up there..." 

As an adult, it is most in my nature to be a T-shirt and jeans, outdoorsy, handywoman type who also understands the joy to be found in dressing up and primping for an elegant evening out with a beloved partner...although I find that my interest in the handywoman stuff seems to be fading with time; more and more I find myself willing to "just hire somebody to fix the darn thing."

But, couldawouldashoulda...I can only work with the past I've been dealt and the present I'm living to create the future I desire.

Before my teen years? Not so much. Before my teens we had a pretty nice house, I got a ton of videogames, a regular allowance of $5 a week. There were problems, of course, but I don't think being a girl as a kid would have really changed that much or made me much happier.

It was when I actually went into my teen years that I feel I've missed out on some of the more fun events. Prom, for one. I remember getting really jealous of all of the girls getting their dresses and shoes ready for prom, showing them to everyone on the school computers...And then there was just dating in general. I fantasized about a boy asking me out. I couldn't and still can't help but feel extreme jealousy when I see a pretty girl wearing a really pretty dress or cute shoes, talking about her boyfriend, etc., etc. Of course, I'm still in my teens, I'm just out of highschool now which is where I primarily saw such girls. Now I get all of jealousy out through videogames, but at least I can usually be a girl in those .

I feel cheated yes, but I have to say had I been born properly as a girl I would still feel cheated. When I was a young child my parents didn't have me in school and lived in a really rural area, then after a time we lived in an RV with no home of our own, then when that broke down, our family of 4 slept in a tiny hatchback, and then eventually in government provided housing, then the parents split, and it was stepparents and domestic violence, mixed with drugs and alcohol and adults who were very willing to abandon me.

I was really lucky, I got out when I was 14 and got my brother to get custody of me, and I had an almost enjoyable highschool, I started wearing eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, and foundation. I would freely mix some womens clothes in my outfits, and no one cared because they saw me as that goth kid (well people who didn't like goth people cared but, w/e I hung out with preppy girls more than fellow goth people). Even that time though, came crashing down though, as I lost the place I was staying in, had to stay at a friends house, so I  had to drop out and start working.

Then at 18 I met the woman who I eventually married, and we moved in together. Basically I never really got to just be a kid, I wish I would have been born a proper girl, but even if I had, assuming I still had the same worthless family I would still be missing out on my childhood.

My childhood? No, I had a wonderful childhood. It's teenage years that I feel cheated on.

I enjoyed my childhood but hated my teenage years too.  Now I feel like I have picked up from where things started to go downhill, and it's great. 15 is fantastic this time around.

Karen.