Transgender: How old were you when your 1st sign of not being your birth gender?

When I was growing up I never fit in or felt "right". I never knew what to call it, but always tried to fit in with the guys, but it never worked. I would always say something or do something that would make everyone thing different of me and then just not be a friend of mine any more. I always would confide in women more, I could relate. I first went and all out cross dressed about 8 years ago and it felt great. Just seeing this other me in the mirror was great. But things happened and I got scared, and I'm now still starting to try and deal with it all. I don't hate myself, but I'm not right, I don't feel like me. Some days I feel RAWR other days,...Mew. If that makes any sense. It is also 2:30am and I should be sleeping as I have to be up in 5 hours.

But the hard thing with me now. Is having two kids and a wife and family. I just don't think I can keep being who I am. Oh well things will all work out in the end.

Sorry went off on a tangent.

Night.

 

I had my first realization moment at 12 or 13. If I look back I can see potential signs from much earlier, but nothing that I really understood or is 100% proof of being trans.

 

In Canada too.

I know a trans teen (FtM) in my hometown. I met him through a youth group for disabled kids, and we were under orders to call him 'she'. I started out saying 'she' because I didn't know for sure the kid was trans (could just be butch) but then I asked him what pronouns he preferred and he said 'he', and then I got my official orders to use 'she' anyway. I told the camp coordinator that this was wrong, as a psychology major I'd read research showing that trans kids do better if their gender identity is accepted, but he wasn't willing to argue with the idiot therapist who'd given that order. I ended up having to quit because I was so upset about how this kid was being treated that I was no longer able to be an effective counselor, plus I seemed to have gotten singled out as a troublemaker.

I'm cissexual, so this has really opened my eyes. I thought everyone was as accepting about trans issues as my parents were. Now I know they're not.

 

I think it was around 6 or 7 that I started to think I was a girl, though it didn't really affect me too much until puberty started and then all hell broke loose on my emotions. I kinda obsessed over it for years, but I didn't really accept that I was trans until this year, despite knowing what it was before hand (though in much less detail).

I'm really ashamed of my teen years because from 12-14 I put on a homophobic, transphobic front to make myself seem as far from them as possible. Denial does weird things to people I guess...

 

When I was a kid, I often flip-flopped between being a little boy and a little girl, and my family always thought I was playing. I couldn't really convince them that what I was feeling was real. When I got older and this feeling persisted, I hid in androgynous clothes, and then in high school and early college I overcompensated with extremely feminine clothing, even though oftentimes I would feel extremely uncomfortable in those clothes. Now, I'm allowing myself to be male and female, and coming to terms with how I need to present myself to reconcile these two parts of me. It's been a long journey, lol, and it's still not over.

 

I knew I was way different by age 5. I hated girl clothing, girl toys...and just about everything else that was girly. I remember I actually cried for hours one day because I came home to see a flower patterned quilt on my bed.
I lacked girl friends during elementary, always had boy friends and would always play some sort of fighting game (like a dragon ball z style game xD) with them, instead of house or dolls or whatever girls played. I just didn't seem to fit or relate to any girl that age.
Whenever I played video games I always chose the boy characters, even signing up for websites I was male. I always dressed like a boy and cried when I had to wear a dress or look like a girl.
When I was like 10 or perhaps younger, I packed on the sneak without even knowing what packing meant. Some nights I would wish that I would wake up the next morning being a guy. I actually had a dream one night when I was little that I was a boy, and I could feel everything. When I woke up I became extremely disappointed to see my female parts were still intact.
It wasn't till recently, like a year or so ago, did I actually do some research and figure out what was wrong with me. That's when it really clicked, and I was actually relieved to have finally figured it out.

 

This thread is great it offers so much perspective and awesome dialogue. I am not trans however of the people I know one knew she was when she was 3 and was so adamant about it she was threatening suicide when her parents refused to believe she was a girl not a boy. My aunt began cross dressing when she was in elementary school but I do not know what age and I don't have many stories as she passed away. I do know that she hid a huge collection of women's clothing in the wall of the house in the attic and would wear them whenever she was alone. My other friend was very reclusive and only really interacted with people on the internet and from the time she could use a computer represented as a woman online.

keep the thread up great stuff really informative!

 

Oh, I just realized this is an old thread and I posted a response in it twice =P

 

I don't know really, I'm complicated. My gender is not comfortably in either girl or boy, as a child I was pretty happy actually. I wasn't aware of gender differences and I would hang out with boys and girls and for the most part play with the toys I wanted *and if I didn't get the toys I wanted I usually threw a major fit over it * I would bounce between femme and butch pretty often during my teenage years. any dysphoria I had I dismissed as puberty... right, puberty...

When all I knew was you had to be a girl or a boy I didn't know what I was. it made me extremely uncomfortable not having a box to snuggle down in I guess. fortunately I made a decision and decided to go one of the presented directions, and fortunately during that journey I made the magic discovery of non-binary gender options *everyone applaud here*

and now I'm here being me and doing stuff. it's pretty awesome

 

I was about five... There may have been things before that, but I don't remember everything about my early childhood.

 

This memory is really vague due to how small I was, but iirc I was two at the time and playing with my grandmother's lipstick and makeup, trying to get myself to look like her. I had feelings then that I wasn't quite the same as everyone else, but I didn't put the pieces together until I was 12.

 

When did I first know FOR SURE?
This year at age 18.
I only came across the term transgender earlier this year and after a few months of self-doubt and realization, I came to the fact that I'm not a girl.

Looking back, I think if I'd known I was allowed to be a boy and that I wasn't alone, I probably would've come to the realization in early highschool.

There were always little things...
Hated hanging around girls cause they'd always be doing girly stuff and I hated it, so I'd hang out with the guys, digging in the dirt, playing sports etc.
According to my Dad, I've never liked wearing dresses even when I was little.
I've always identified more strongly with my male friends than the female ones cause I find it hard to find things in common with them other than the fact they play video games - albeit, my male friends really properly introduced the females to gaming.
Puberty was hellish to put it simply. I hated seeing all my guy friends going through the changes of becoming a man while I had to sit by and become female and just wishing that I didn't have to go through puberty at all so that I wouldn't have to become noticeably female. (up until that point I'd always been one of the guys and I definitely haven't felt ... right since puberty)

And I've always been very shy and never confident in myself, but since I started binding my bosses and family have all said that I seem more confident and happy.
That confidence boost is really the thing that has surprised me most and has kept me thinking that this is really the path I need to go down and that I'm not making a mistake nor is this just a phase.


EDIT:
Crap, didn't realize I wrote a friggin essay! O_O

 

I'm not really sure what I am at the moment, but I'm leaning towards trans* ftm.

My mum and I have talked about it, and she said I was never that girly, but I was never a boy boy either. I was just always a tomboy, so I don't know really. I mean I always hated it when girls started to talk about boys and things, but I matured emotionally quite late, so that might be why. But I do remember distinctly wanting to play football in the playground with the boys, but they didn't let me because I was a girl. And I've always preferred male titles. Like "king" over "queen" and stuff whilst playing games etc. and I was always the male in the kiddie games I used to play.

So I guess thinking about it, it makes sense that I would be trans, I just didn't realise until now, because I've spent most of my life trying to copy other people to fit in.

 

Never feel like you need to shorten your posts about your life and feelings. No matter how long it is, we are here to read and learn about eachother. And in doing so, we learn to love and accept not only one another but ourselves too. I may be transitioning the other way, but I totally understand. (*hug*)

 

My grandmother.... well. She's why I'm here today. I wasn't out to anyone at the start of last year, and was mired in depression, isolated. I hated everything around me, but most of all myself. I shut myself off from everything, everyone.

It would take a big push to get me to come out and break my cycle of self torment. The person who ended up giving me that push was my Grandmother. She was always so kind, and whatever else anyone thought she always wanted to visit and see how I was doing. I always hid my other side from her, and my feminine clothes, makeup, lotions, and plushies whenever she came by. Still, she was a smart woman and she gave me a look once or twice like she knew something was up.

She always wanted to have me visit, and for a while I did, back when I was 19 or so. But eventually I had another breakdown, I became more distant, shut myself in. Not because there was anything wrong with her or anyone else, but because of myself. I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt my body in the shower, I'd be forced put on my male persona and dress male, then go out into the world feeling sad and miserable because I couldn't be myself. And it made me cry, every night. I hated myself, my body, I was ashamed. I couldn't bear to be seen. I shut myself in and drove everyone around me away because I couldn't bear it.

I lost a good friend, drove them away with my carelessness and neglect. My grandmother and I didn't start talking again until after my 26th birthday. We saw each other a few times, and then she was gone. Like a candle blown out suddenly. It was like a knife through my heart. Here was this kind woman who had been nothing but good to me and I had pushed her away, never told her why. Never been able to tell anyone why.

I told myself that this could not happen again, and with this determination I decided the time had come to talk to someone. I approached my friend in Sweden and told them the whole truth of myself, and began planning a website with their help. I still have my grandmother's necklace, I wear it often.

Since then I've come out here, then on twitter. I've curated the LGBTQ Rotation Curation project and shared my story with the world. I've spoken to lots of people around the globe, and even if I can't really help myself, if I can just make one person smile who couldn't before then it's all worth it.