Realising that you're trans later in life

I've heard of a few cases where people didn't realize until they were older. A cartoonist by the handle Trans Girl Nextdoor Didn't know she was trans until her therapist told her! and while I personally always acted on the male side, I didn't know trans people existed until later in high school/early college!

 

I didn't realize until I was 29 years old that I was trans. I've been experiencing dysphoria since puberty(at latest), but I didn't know what it was. I kinda knew transgender was a thing, but I never looked into what it entailed, and what being trans was actually like. Until this year when it got so bad I couldn't ignore it, did I do some research and I realized "oh wait....shit that's me."

 

I would say a lot of them just say it to sound trans enough. I can't imagine that a child can fully grasp the concept of transgender and identify with that. What is mostly meant is signs I guess. For example I once vowed to put my breasts away when I'm grown up because I was soo disgusted that I would eventually have such a thing.

But there are also calmer boys who don't fit the stereotype. It doesn't mean you're less of a man but you WILL have to fight more to have that accepted, as shitty as it sounds.

 

I think I realised I was more like a boy than a girl at 14, and no, I wasn't a tomboy, and didn't have the words to describe it until last year. I wondered for a couple of years if I'm gender fluid or something, but childhood - girly girl, lively but girly. Moreover, I strongly identified as a girl. I never "felt like" a boy and even thought to myself that it must be terrible to be someone who is a boy but everyone treats you like a girl or vice versa. I mean, I didn't see myself as a boy or masculine in any manner.

 

It doesn't matter when you realized it 'cause you're living with it right now.

People change and grow into themselves. There are too many assumptions surrounding what it means to be or not be trans. It's all very personal and only has meaning on the personal level.

 

It seems quite rare to realize it before puberty. People typically feel gender dysphoria for the first time when their body begins to change at puberty. However, the feeling of discomfort is often hard to pinpoint espescially if you aren't aware of what it means to be trans.

 

I only came out as trans like a year + ago. as a kid I always liked girl things, even if it was discouraged by the society I grew up in. but I liked boy things like guns, swords, etc. (I know these things aren't gendered and there are females who are fantastic shots and swords persons) but in the 70's/early 80's these were boy pursuits. but I like "tea time" and playing with girls too. fast forward to adolescence and adulthood and a love for wearing feminine attire comes out but I thought it was just a fun "sexual" thing....

but as I said I was in my late 40's before I truly realized I am Trans. so later in life is not unheard of, but most of us are not famous so no one asks and we don't fit a narrative that some in and out of the community push.

if you didn't know till you were 14, fantastic. you do you.(*hug*)

 

It's also complicated by the fact that puberty is uncomfortable for everyone. Your body is going through major physiological changes. Changes you aren't used to. I think our community and those outside that push this "known since puberty" nonsense need to remember this. It can be quite difficult to decipher what's GD related and what's just normal discomfort with puberty.

 

I don't think the age when realisation is made should have anything to do with validation. After all , the validity of these feelings comes with honest introspection and personal therapy, not by comparing yourself with someone else. Being trans is not a question about "who is more valid than who " .


I trust the question is much better phrased "When did you first became aware that you weren't okay with physically being a boy/girl" . These thoughts can take shape in the mind of a child, even if they don't know what dysphoria is, or what transgender is. The feeling that "I shouldn't be a boy" for MtF , or "I shouldn't be a girl" for FtM " things would have been better if only I was this way..." can occur well before puberty.

I wore a long pink dress that I had found in the attic (and felt at home in it) before puberty. I loved that dress more than any of my boy's clothing. But even before that, the identity issue might have started the very early childhood, when the child unconsciously tries to find their place in the family, during the moments in early childhood when my mother told me that she would have wanted a girl instead of a second son, all the times that my dad told me in a rather cruel tone that i'm more like my mom for always sticking around her in the kitchen and, not adventuring enough.. those might have helped set the stage. Add on top of them the mother's depression and the father's abuse. " Maybe i would have gotten beaten less often if I was a girl" "Maybe I could have comforted my mother better if I was a girl" these are all thoughts that might have formed in the subconscious mind. Again I don't know for sure, but is a valid hypothesis .

Puberty just ramped up the gender identity change desire, and brought the sexual dimension to it. It debuted with me wishing more and more the penis would just go back into the body and then there was this desire to have a girl's body and to be be taken as a woman would be;
But the seeds for the identity conflict had been planted way before, or had always existed (from the womb), and were further helped to grow in that direction by my parents behaviour before puberty. It wasn't sexual when it started. I just wanted to be pretty, and kind and helpful. Subconsciously it was probably because I thought then maybe I was this way, I would be loved more, and get more attention. Or maybe I was copying my mom, in order to differentiate myself from my older brother who obviously had my father as a model, and was more reckless.

 

Yeah I was probably 22 when I knew for sure what trans was and that it fit me.

It is easy to look back now and see all the signs that were there since I was 3 or so, but the fact is that as a child I just didn't know. I would play with barabies just as much as I did "boy" toys. I went to schools with teacher who made it clear that boys and girls could do the same thing. So I never really knew that there was a difference between male and female besides the physical aspects. And it want till puberty or a little after the start ,maybe around 13 or 14, that I started to feel off about my body. But by then I was use to being apart of a world that said all teens were depressed and that all teen girls hated their body.

 

Same as Ryan. But I somehow managed to realise where the dysphoria is coming from and got rid of it. Almost.

 

That is awesome! Dysphoria sucks!

 

I didn't even entertain the possibility of being trans until I was about 16. There were however quite a few signs before hand.

Pre Puberty even I hated girls things, never touched barbies, got offended when people gave them to me as gifts and decapitated them (not that liking barbies and girl stuff makes you any less valid). I enjoyed wrestling and exploring more the play house. I had friends of both genders but I would rough house with the girls too much and not understand why they didn't like playing the way I did. Sometimes I was okay with girls clothes, but most of the time I hated them and would refuse to wear them. I tried to join the Boy Scouts and was told I couldn't and got really confused. I felt happy when people called me he and masculine and offended when they called me a girl.
Puberty hit and things got so much worse. I half wanted breast cancer just so my boobs would be cut off. I couldn't go swimming anymore because I couldnt tolerate girls swim wear. I would wear dark heavy and baggy clothing to hide my body, even in the summer heat. I hated shaving but knew it wasn't socially acceptable to have unshaven legs so I never shaved and just wore long pants all the time. I felt awkward changing in front of girls in the locker room. I couldn't understand why girls liked girls things it seemed like such a foreign concept. Being called a woman and feminine made me feel like I was getting stabbed. But I managed to ignore it all pretty well, I had hobbies that I dedicated all my time and thought to so I was okay, except for in the stituations where this stuff was brought up and then I freaked out.

Eventually I realized this wasn't normal and had an "oh shit" moment.

No one really knows from the start, but more often than not there are signs. I didn't even realize how many early signs I had until I really thought about it... But also, don't dismiss yourself if you're lacking in signs but still experience gender dysphoria.

 

It does suck.

 

I didn't get rid of mine but I did become numb to it and told myself that everyone felt this way about their body. It didn't occur to me that hating ones body like that wasn't "normal"

 

It's also worth adding that the age you realise you're trans might be correlated to how much you know about being trans. Like, I thought I was just weird, gay and non conforming in some sense, or different. It's not like I knew nothing about trans people, but I didn't know what it really means to be one and that I could actually benefit from transitioning. Plus, seeing non passing people made me repress any desire to transition, because I thought that to be a bad idea. So pretty much the growing thought of changing my life to fit the way I am came with more maturity, and that "later in life" is around, well, 20 ish for me. I struggled with sexuality long enough to not be able to think of gender at the same time too, which definitely delayed my realisation as well.

 

This mostly rings true for me as well.

 

For me too. I just had no idea what it all really means. I was like... I'm not trans because I think that I am a girl, I like boys, have long hair, wear girl clothes and like how I look. I had no idea that all those signs of being trans are results of knowing you are quite often.