Lately I have been noticing that when I remember certain events from my youth these things have, in retrospect, started falling into place in terms of my transsexuality. Kind of like a sudden realization of "Well, DOH! Of course such-and-such"; As if the instinctive knowledge that I was actually a girl was always there and coming through in unexpected ways. Only at the time I didn't always realize it. The unconscious brain knows, or perhaps "the organism knows what it is", even if the conscious brain doesn't.

Sometimes even things that I don't remember but that my Dad remembers (my Mom passed away before I came out; she knew something was wrong but didn't know what).

For example, a while ago my Dad said that as a young child I was a happy kid. Then around age 7 the sparkle in my eyes went out (his description). He never told me about that before, but well, it was right around that age that I realized something was wrong.

Anybody else have that experience that years later you can suddenly explain things about your past in terms of being transgender that at the time either didn't make sense or didn't get more than a shrug?

I've always known I was born the wrong gender. I thought for years in my youth that I was just screwed and learned to accept that fact. I do recall the first time around the age of 10-11 reading in a magazine a short blurb about ->-bleeped-<-s and was like "wow I'm not the only person on the planet like this" I really envy young people today that have information that just wasn't around when I was young.

But no, I don't share this " past falling into place" because I knew at the time why these things happened.

my post from a few days ago
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,116253.0.html

I have that experience too: Going shopping for clothes (wanted the "girl" stuff, hated the "boy" stuff, ended up with the neural plain stuff). Why talking to girl was so much easier then talking to boys. My preference in movies, tv shows, music, books, games, etc and why men tended to react the way they did when they went over my collection. Why I sometimes, when I was alone, tried on my mother/sisters skirts, until I grew out of them. Why people often thought I was gay. Why I knew the names of all the fashion designers and many of their collections (long before I knew anything about trans*, GID, etc.) How I tended to be very precise with colors: like aubergine, pine, turquoise, etc.  How I love (watching) ballet, figure skating, etc and wished I could be like that girl... Why I always stole all the girly things from my (12 year older) sister. The mild dysphoria every time I saw "mr. MyLastName", to the point where I asked if they could just use MyGivenName MyLastName, they couldn't and their reaction made it clear that one does not make such a request. Even why my bedroom never look to belong to a boy and always tended to look slightly feminine...

Some how my life makes sense now, something it never did before.

As soon as I have the realisation I am trans, a lot of things suddenly made sense. Lots of little moments, things & behaviour that can now be put together and explained as caused by being born in the wrong gender, even if none of them individuallly jumped out to me at the time as it's because I'm transgender.

My father once claimed that, before a certain time, I would have been about 7 years, I was always tough. (Because we would move house almost yearly, we tended to refer to different periods by where we were living at the time).

I recalled that it was shortly after that they started beating me to make me a man. But when I thought some more I remembered that they started beating me because they thought I was acting girly.

I can't really say why I changed in that way to be honest. I knew when I was 4 years that I am a girl, though, of course, it didn't make that much sense then.

Now that I think about it, not a very helpful contribution. But it has come into my mind.

What I discovered after much introspection into my long life as a "normal" male, many to most of the total "disasters" that occurred had a root cause of me being trans. Some directly attributable, some by extension since I was faking things, felt I never deserved anything good that happened, and... finally got what I really deserved for being a phoney. I can look back and think if only I was more of this or less of that, the situation would have turned out better. Now I figure I might as well give just being "me" a shot, whatever or whoever that ultimately turns out to be, rather than "Normal". It sure can't end any worse than things have been. So far, things are actually going far better then prayed for. Hopefully the day will soon come I stop expecting my world to come crashing down around me, yet again.

This exact thing recently came up in a therapy session.  The point I was making was that when looking back, a lot of behaviors that are generally not panicked about are viewed as "things kids do" or "curiosity phases."  When a boy child gets into Mom's clothes or makeup or a girl child becomes fascinated with Dad's tools, whatever the expression, they are more likely to be perceived and categorized as individual things and mostly written off as the harmless curiosity of children.  If that is the end of it, nothing more is ever made of these childhood explorations.

When I look back, I can see a very distinct pattern emerge around these explorations.  They did not phase out, and while I was uncertain "what it all meant" at the time I was engaging in them, they never felt wrong, or bad, or out of place growing up.  With both the cliche 20/20 vision of hindsight, and a more mature, introspective look back at some of the silly things I did as a child, I can see where I was trying to explore, express and surround myself with things that made me felt comfortable in my own skin.  I feel pretty strongly that they represent a cumulative path of experiences that's brought me comfortably to where I am now.

It's actually a tricky thing now to recall those childhood times and not have a "Oh, well, yeah, that totally makes sense now." and not have them fall completely in line with where I am now.

Not a bad thing, just a fascinating shift in perspective for me.

It is kind of nice to learn that those "well, duh!" moments are fairly common for others as well!

-Miki

Yep. I never did the play with dolls thing or dressed in girls clothes, but the markers were always there and like the OP the memories have been slowly coming back to me, and my past makes a lot more sense now when looked at thru a transgender lens. Some of those memories i'd really prefer not to remember because they were not pleasant.

Sometimes it's the little things... Like how the wear a belt (the whole left over right/right over left) or choosing a smaller, thinner watch. When I read/heard about the idea of nanotechnology and nanities some "obvious" applications poped into my mind >;-> Or applications of bio-hacking (something fungus that makes e.g. estradiol?).

Or clothes... I always wore t-shirts and sweaters that where too long, I intentionally stretched them... Or the quiet joy whenever I was accidentally "mis"gendered and the quiet discomfort when some adult corrected them. Or hating swimming because then I would have to go without a top? I really wanting to have something like a bathing suit but I did not dare say so. Or how I love shopping? But feeling excluded because all the stuff I liked was for girls only.

Or how I was always drawn towards wedding dresses and feeling melancholic (which I did not understand at the time) because of it. Or how confused I was because I could not imagine being married and wanting it at the same time too? Now, looking back it's obvious:  I can/could not imagine being a husband, but I would love to become someones wife.

How I loved the books by Jane Austin... Or how I always identified with the female characters in books, on tv, in movies. I was Lois Lane, never Clark Kent; Nikita, not Michael; Catherine, not Vincent; etc...

I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and yeah, I've had quite a few "haha, how come I never noticed that before?!" moments. Especially simple things, like wanting to be Aladdin all the time when I was little. Running around the backyard swinging an imaginary sword around like a flippin' mini king of thieves. It's the little things like that, that make me go hmm... And then when I hit puberty I just naturally started binding. I didn't know what a trans was, I didn't know about the lgbt community, I just thought, 'huh, well what are these odd things on my chest? This isn't right, they've gotta go.' Made my mother furious, but I just knew it was wrong, and I didn't know I could fix it until now.

The trigger for me starting transition was a fairly severe personal crisis, and total loss of personal identity , that triggered a lot of repressed or just plain forgotten memories coming to the fore.
I could almost hear the sound of things falling into place from about 8 years of age and peaking at about 14 or 15.  From that I was able to rebuild my true self.
So many things are clear when you have 20-20 hindsight. 

Karen.

Realizing I was trans explained SO MUCH of my life and childhood.

One of my most distinct memories was the day my mum told me I'd have to wear a shirt from now on cause I was starting to 'develop'. My parents had raised me and my brother the same - with no gender bias - so it wasn't until then that i became aware that boy and girls were different... and it was really upsetting, so the memory stuck.

And I've been told that, when people explained to me that babies came from mummies, they'd ask me how many children I wanted and I'd just reply "2! or 3. But I can't have babies."

It's kinda a scary but joyful sensation to see things suddenly starting to make sense


side note: I did play with barbies - but we were poor growing up and i think i was just happy to have a toy of any kind and no one had ever explained that there was a gender bias between them. I LOVED Batman and Ninja Turtles though!

Quote from: Artemis on March 15, 2012, 11:53:57 AM
... Or hating swimming because then I would have to go without a top? I really wanting to have something like a bathing suit but I did not dare say so. Or how I love shopping? But feeling excluded because all the stuff I liked was for girls only.

My word, I can totally relate to this one in high school. I had a friend with a pool... and I'm not saying I was fat, I was pretty thin, but my chest always seemed to be 'fatter' than the rest... without really knowing why, I would never take my shirt off because I just didn't feel right exposing myself like that' it was weird. Kept trying to lie to myself and say it was because I was overweight, but I wasn't...  and omg did I ever love to shop with my female friends and help them pick out their outfits.

Quote from: Ashazti on March 19, 2012, 10:08:57 PM
My word, I can totally relate to this one in high school. I had a friend with a pool... and I'm not saying I was fat, I was pretty thin, but my chest always seemed to be 'fatter' than the rest... without really knowing why, I would never take my shirt off because I just didn't feel right exposing myself like that' it was weird. Kept trying to lie to myself and say it was because I was overweight, but I wasn't...  and omg did I ever love to shop with my female friends and help them pick out their outfits.

Oh yeah i forgot about this - i NEVER took my shirt off when i was a kid - it made me VERY uncomfortable. Now i understand why i was like that.