How did you know?

[Frank]

  I have noticed a wide variety of thoughts and lifestyles in the transsexual community. Some MtF's have male oriented jobs and hobbies while others have female oriented ones.
  What I think I'm getting at is without jobs, hobbies or lifestyles to use as a judge of gender how do you know?
  For example, I don't judge gender by the above listed means, but by what comes naturally. By nature, or without thought, so to speak.
  If I had to use an example it would be my naturally soft spoken voice. Another example is my meek countenance. Other examples might be my small writing or involuntary body language I don't give any thought such as how I stand or how I sit. Things others may notice. Things I do not have to practice or perfect.
  While I can't put my finger on it, so to speak, the way some things just "feel" inside. The way I feel with doing things that were attributed to women in times past. Housework, sewing and such. Stuff that just comes natural I guess that agrees to the examples above about voice, writing and body language.
  Even when doing a male oriented job with male oriented hobbies some things just feel right inside even though they are attributed to women in times past.
  I would appreciate examples of how some others know in manners I described above.

  Frank
 

[shanetastic]

I truly don't think it has to do with any of that.  Sure societal influences can move people in one direction from peer pressure (Ie to not act feminine if born a guy), but overall I don't see any relevance.  Some people have feminine figures, or voices, or hobbies, or interests, or jobs, but that doesn't define someone.  Some of the most masculine people could be trans and have that deep subconscious feeling, and by those standards in which you define, they would have none of that I guess. 

Nature and nurture aren't mutually exclusive.  I can find them to be inseparable if anything.  Normally what drives people to find out is their feelings of knowing something just isn't right.  Sure, it might take some years to define what that is, and what to actually do about it, but I don't think mannerisms or any of that help someone define themselves as a trans person or not. 

As all end of the spectrum's of world, there is a ton of variance.  Because some man walks like a girl, sits like a girl, and has the mannerisms of a girl, doesn't mean that they are trans or even gay at that.  I think validation through stereotypical things of what's feminine and masculine is a bad way of trying to prove yourself as a trans person.  *that's a generalized statement and my view and opinion*  It's not directed at you or anyone else.  I'm just saying though.   

[Frank]

Thank you for the response. There are many things I am trying to sort out in both the physical, natural and spiritual aspects of my life. Thoughts and feelings are also areas of concern. That is why I am interested in seeing some of the ways in which others knew beyond a shadow of a doubt by themselves.
Thanks again.
Frank

[shanetastic]

Ultimately everyone on some sort of subconscious level knows what's best for them.  It's almost impossible to explain, well for me because explaining such a deep feeling is hard to do.  Ask someone to explain happiness, sadness, anxiety, sure no problem.  Ask someone to explain the feeling of GID  as an emotion itself, it's a little harder, and it is all personalized such as it with the other emotions stated above.  You're the only person that knows what's best for you.  If you look to seek validation for your actions, then maybe you should really look at yourself as to why you are trying to seek that (again generalized stated opinion on my side not directed at anyone). 

[Seshatneferw]

One thing to consider is that we are, in a sense, involuntary test subjects in just how much of gendered behaviour is learned. A lot of it is, and some of that has to be unlearned during transition. Some doesn't need to be, thanks largely to the feminists of the past century or so. Then again, some behavioral traits will change as the hormonal balance changes, and some were 'right' (or 'wrong', depending on the viewpoint) to start with.

Still, in my experience (limited to one person, of course ) knowing is not based on the visible gender traits: I just know I'd very much prefer to be the opposite sex to what I was born with. Then again, I'm quite baffled about many aspects of gender and only know about the physical sex, so I haven't paid that much attention to gender in figuring this out. Others would give different answers, but like Shane wrote this is getting very, er, individual. Your answer is as good as mine, or anyone else's. Stand by it.

  Nfr

[Carolyn]

I don't know if I fully understand the original thought in this but roughly to answer in my thought to the "How did you know?" question is for simple for me to answer and yet complex; okay here I go!
For the most part I would say, a feeling the was in my very being. The uneasyness of just being alive all those years as a child. But for the most part I didn't begin to understand it until my little sister was born, I am her elder by 3 years, and thus I knew something was differnt about me in the critical sense from a young age. I came across a page on transwomen when I was about 12 and discoved what it was exactly, when I reached the age of 13 my body and thoughts begin to go against my desires, and thus I surpassed my inner self. My inner self was released only in times in which I was completely alone. It wasn't until I reached the age of 18 and begin listening to the Bands Disturbed, and Linkin Park, that everything came rushing back, and thus though music I released my chains on my soul. But it was still two years before I found the will to begin my long road. I must truly thank music for helping me for the most part, I have always found stregth in music and certain songs; ex: Disturbed-Hell, Disturbed-The Night, Linkin Park-Numb, Linkin Park-Giving Up. Thier lyrics gave me the will I needed to become free. If I may quote Disturbed's Song Hell for it is the main song that allowed me to release the chains on my soul.
"Free me tonight, as the animal kings breathe their terror upon you
Caught in the moment, engaging in my
Bloodlust tonight, now I can't control my venom's flow
Get back from me demon, or be exorcised!
Now I can't stay behind
Save me, from wreaking my vengeance
Upon you, to killing more than I can tell
Burning now I bring you Hell!"

Thank you for reading my message, I know not if this helped but I hope it did.
Bye bye

[Northern Jane]

In the clarity of hindsight and 34+ years down the road, I did NOT know - I didn't know what I was, but I knew what I WASN'T!

For the first 8 years of my life I thought I was a girl, just a normal little girl. At age 8 I realized there was a problem - my "outie" wasn't going away. When it didn't go away at puberty, things got REALLY confusing.

Now this was all before the term transsexual had ever been coined so there was nothing to help sort it out.

I lived part time en femme through my teens and knew I still fit well with the girls and not at all with the boys but even up to SRS (1974, age 24) I really didn't KNOW, just "suspected".

After SRS I just slipped comfortably and completely into normal life and didn't give it a second thought - it was as easy and comfortable as an old slipper.

At some point, a few years after SRS, I looked around and realized how unremarkable and average I was for a young woman. There was just nothing out of place - everything was just natural and easy. Well damn! I was right all along! I just had to actually LIVE it to know it.

34 years down the road, I simply can't imagine how I (or anyone else) couldn't see it - it was so bloody obvious!

[Elwood]

For me, it had to do with my body identity. My hobbies/lifestyle is quite androgynous-- I both "girl" and "guy" things. My choices did not give me any hints at my identity. It had to do with how I responded to my body (see body dysphoria).

Physically, I do not have any male attributes. I have a fully female voice and body. That, in my opinion, has got nothing to do with gender. At the same time, I have a fairly masculine demeanor and vernacular.

[ZoeySD]

I always explain to people for my it's like how do you know your right or left handed?  It's just so.  I just feel like a women inside.  Growing up I remember wanting to braid hair, play house, and all the other things the girls in the school yard were doing.  I didn't know why and I guess I really still don't.  All I know is that after 26yrs these feelings  have never changed.

[Lisa Harney]

I like the handedness analogy.

I really wish that the idea that trans people get our personal gender cues from gendered activities we like doing would die in a fire. That's comes from people who don't really try to listen to us, but instead try to imagine what might maybe someday make them think they might possibly want to transition (although they also assume a huge amount of gender naivete on the part of trans people, like we're unable to realize that it's possible to be a feminine man or  masculine woman).

[cindybc]

Geeeeeez, I was surprised with people who watched me grow up from childhood into adulthood and not notice all the telltale differences in my characteristics and behavior from other cisgender boys. The gentleness, sensitivities and yearning to be loved and yes, doing the girl stuff, dressing-up and playing with dolls.

All those years later I am discussing these traits with them and they look at me kind of like in a daze, like they had never noticed these differences, then the questions come out and I am more than happy to respond to those questions, to fill in the blanks for them.

Feeling confident that they understood, I break the big news to them about coming out full time. They look at me more or less like, "yes, so big deal," or so I thought. But when I show up all decked out in nothing special, just ordinary shorts, girls shorts of course, a top and of course a bra complete with falsies, my hair all done up right nice like, and the next thing I know they all go running off for the hills screaming and waving their arms in fear of the big bad monster I had just suddenly transformed into. Well that was my experience with family.

As Northern Jane said, I knew who I was inside from an early age but unfortunately I didn't find out what the word transsexual was and what GID is until I was 50 years old. But now I am happy and feel comfortable with the person that had hidden inside of me, tormented, lonely, and frightened.

I am free to be the me I have always yearned to be, although a few years older than I had anticipated, who the person I was in the past outside of the experiences is no more then a faint memory. My mind seems to be adapting or reconciling my past to my present so that I see Cindy growing up from childhood to who I am today. Actually I feel much younger then I really am and maybe I can out do George Burns eh!

Cindy

[Chaunte]

  I have noticed a wide variety of thoughts and lifestyles in the transsexual community. Some MtF's have male oriented jobs and hobbies while others have female oriented ones.
  What I think I'm getting at is without jobs, hobbies or lifestyles to use as a judge of gender how do you know?
  For example, I don't judge gender by the above listed means, but by what comes naturally. By nature, or without thought, so to speak.
  If I had to use an example it would be my naturally soft spoken voice. Another example is my meek countenance. Other examples might be my small writing or involuntary body language I don't give any thought such as how I stand or how I sit. Things others may notice. Things I do not have to practice or perfect.
  While I can't put my finger on it, so to speak, the way some things just "feel" inside. The way I feel with doing things that were attributed to women in times past. Housework, sewing and such. Stuff that just comes natural I guess that agrees to the examples above about voice, writing and body language.
  Even when doing a male oriented job with male oriented hobbies some things just feel right inside even though they are attributed to women in times past.
  I would appreciate examples of how some others know in manners I described above.

  Frank 

For me, it was an inner sense of harmony that said that this was the correct path.  The inner peace resonated with a perfect clear tone - one that had been missing in my former life.

Chaunte

[cindybc]

Hi, Chaunte, I believe that each one of us had our own unique way of arriving to the door step of the journey we have undertaken.  We individually are probably as varied in our methods of handling stressful situations as there are individuals that undertake this walk into transition, each experiencing to a lesser or greater degree, suffering and pain, and yet others, it would appear, have  coalesced into their new gender identity with acceptance as to who they are inner and outer-self.

We all come her to learn what it is that drives us and to learn how to not just cope with it but also surrender to it. The same principles and reasons apply as to why we came here. It was that principle or reason which determined the different paths and procedures we followed getting there.

Just as everyone has a different threshold of pain, we adopt different ways of dealing with it.  Some suffer very little pain, others more. I still believe that much of this can be attributed to personality, attitude and how quickly we can adapt to an abrupt and unusual change in our known environment upon entering one to which we are a stranger.

Goodness, probably lost everyone with my rambling again.

Cindy

[Hellfrozeover]

I answered a similar question on another forum recently with:

"Because I just do. No further explanation needed."

A bit blunt but I guess it is sometimes just something you know.

[cindybc]

Hi
Sometimes the short and to the point answer might be all of the limit that we can teach most of the population out there in an effort to inform them about such a complex phenomena as transsexualism. Least ways to their capacity to understand us as transsexuals and the affliction of GID, through the limited medium of words.

It's hard to explain to someone about something that is a soul deep conviction as to who and what we were from our earliest age that memory can reach. How can they understand the concept of something that is soul deep? This knowing is from within, an inside job as I call it, who can truly understand it, except from the experiencer's point of view, which is a knowledge of knowing and experiencing that which is within our own selves?

As it is for one on the outside looking in, it would be next to impossible for them to wrap their little minds around this concept anyway, especially when even *we* among ourselves have a hard time of it to to agree and come up on a viable method to categorize and classify the different, multi-faceted theories on the cause and effect of GID. not to mention, trying to fit it in to what part of the sexual and gender variants catagory they may try to fit us in confuses it even more.

Just what sets us apart as our own uniqueness in our genre as transsexuals anyway? Even the researchers, some of whom are trans themselves are left scratching their heads as to how to physically pinpoint this genre which could alow them to actually lead them to an eventual classification that can be put in it's own niche. In this case I use the word "disorder" for lack of a better word only, depending on which side of the line one is looking in from.

If they accept the short and abrupt response, then all the power to you and thank you're Maker, that they did and just move on. Some people will not understand you if you had a truck load of books on the subject and even drew the line from point A to point B as direct as you could on the TS road map for them anyway, and yeah, you don't really need to go beyond the concise  and to the point with those who would not completely grasp the concept.

I can't claim to be a researcher, nothing near that, I am just a bush girl who grew up in the country and one day got really inquisitive about the world around her and she figured that the only way to find the answeres to everything was to first learn what it was that lead from eternity, the prelude to creation and then I would have the answers to everything.

Cindy

[Hypatia]

From my earliest memories, I intuitively sensed that I belonged with the girls and women. The world of boys and men just felt alien to me, I never felt I belonged there. Every time I saw girls and women, I instinctively recognized my affinity with them, these persons are like me, their world is my world. Around boys and men, I could only feel "other," these persons are not like me, their world is not my world. Due to the overbearing social pressure of how I was raised, I tried to force myself to override my instinctive feelings and be male. It was given to me to understand that I had no choice. However, all that effort never got me anywhere. After many years I was finally able to say that my parents and family had been all wrong about me, that I know better than they who I really am. That there was a good reason to explain why I had always felt displaced in gender, and there was something I could do about it.

[klodefm42]

I have to agree alot with what you said Shanetastic. And yea I never really fit with the rest of the guys or could for that matter and its odd cause a lot of guys sort of see right through me and my attempt to be like one of the guys. From a very early age I knew what was expected, okay and not okay in what society wants. I know for sure that my parents will most certainly not accept but thats cool. I sort of lost the feeling to care about that.

[Monique Martinez]

From my earliest memories, I intuitively sensed that I belonged with the girls and women. The world of boys and men just felt alien to me, I never felt I belonged there. Every time I saw girls and women, I instinctively recognized my affinity with them, these persons are like me, their world is my world. Around boys and men, I could only feel "other," these persons are not like me, their world is not my world. Due to the overbearing social pressure of how I was raised, I tried to force myself to override my instinctive feelings and be male. It was given to me to understand that I had no choice. However, all that effort never got me anywhere. After many years I was finally able to say that my parents and family had been all wrong about me, that I know better than they who I really am. That there was a good reason to explain why I had always felt displaced in gender, and there was something I could do about it.

I agree with this ...best post so far.

How you relate to other people can be just as informative as to how you view yourself, when you're young you don't always know who you are.. that more or less comes later.
I grew up with no sisters just surrounded by brothers (very male) if I even hinted towards anything feminine they'd start beating me up. I withdrew into myself very quickly.. entered my own little world (under my bed).
I was very close to my mother and still am, she is the only one in my family that knows of the real me. The only one I felt could ever understand. I was the youngest yet I was always the one put in charge when our parents went out.
Just because I was the one to never start fights and would tell them if my brothers did?
Playing with dolls and other girly toys is purely physical.. it's what you get out of it mentally that is the answer, what is your imagination doing while you are playing with them. Where all my gi-joes gay or girly like me?? I never sent them out to battle as much as they stayed around the base chatting and cleaning!! These are the toys that get put in front of us.. sure some kids see what the other one has and wants it.. but is that because it's a 'girls toy' or because a girl has it.. jealously? What if the girl only played with boys toys or more androgynistic toys. hhmm my point seems to be coming subjective. what is the big picture? hmm *shrugs*.
I guess my point is what we feel inside at a young age is not always what we express. But through the things we do.. like spending more time in the kitchen helping with food instead of being out the back playing football, can paint a pretty clear picture as well.

[cindybc]

Wow I do so agree with that. I was also close to my mom, bless her soul she ain't with us anymore. But I use to follow mom all over the house trying to do the same things she did, cooking sowing, knitting, even crocheting.

Sometimes mom would get annoyed with me being under foot and I remember on a few different occasions calling me her little berdache. I didn't know what that word meant at the time. I played with the neighborhood girls every opportunity I had. I felt more comfortable playing with girls then I did with boys.

My best running around buddy in my teens was a tomboy by the name of Helen, an outcast like me. And here my dad had such hopes that it would turn out to be more then just a friendship, but that never materialised. 

Cindy

[meow meow]

well, this is very anbiguous. For example, I am MTF and while i was pretending to me male, I developed certain mecchanisms that protected me from a) being discovered b) keeping my sensitivities and vulnerabilities under the radar...now after I decided to break out of the prison I was born in, those mecchanisms still bleed into my everyday behaviors without my even thinking about it.