So recently I've been on YouTube watching vids on how to know if your trans, and in these videos were saying how long it took them to realise they were trans. So I'm curious how long did it take to figure out you were transgender?
I didn't know until later, but I felt 'strange' as long as I could remember. Was crossdressing already from my earliest memories, but I got to an age where I understood shame and expectation so I mostly kept it repressed. As time got on it starter to get harder and harder to hold onto, and one day I wound up in a doctor's office, honestly it was all a blur.
Now seeing 20/20 into my past and recognizing the signs, I've been non-binary trans from the time I was 13 and I finally figured it out last month. So, 35 years. My husband knew long before I did, perhaps for the past 20 years, but he didn't know about non-binary either and thought I was a deeply repressed FtM. He actually suggested it several times, which, of course I denied because I can't imagine giving up being a girl. I never thought I actually had the option of being *both*.
I feel the same way Akari... I think i subconsciously knew there was something off... but I didn't realize till mid twenties that I even needed to question my gender identity.
I'm 14. Ever since I was a kid I've played with toys outside the "norm" of my biological gender. I would sometimes pretend I was a girl when playing pretend I was often considered "feminine" in personality. I figured out I was transgende when I was 12 when all the Caitlin Jenner hype made me reflect.
Pretty much. Took 29 years, but honestly something felt off since AT LEAST puberty. I just thought I was weird my whole life.
I knew something was up when I was like ten. I started to think about what it could be and eventually found the word "transsexual" and basically fit the textbook definition of it. I was around 13-14 when I started to really notice it. I was questioning all throughout middle school and I discovered the answer the summer before my sophomore year of high school. What really set it off was me growing out my hair (I hate short hair on me) and people teasing me for looking like a girl, that started when I was in 8th grade. I would periodically play with my hair for the heck of it, and I would occasionally try to style my hair like Ellie from The Last of Us. I had some younger cousins staying with me for my 8th grade graduation party. One of them said that I looked like a girl in the pool and when I went to go change out of my bathing suit, I styled my hair like Ellie (with holding my hair back like a ponytail, as it wasn't long enough to be tied back, and putting some loose clumps of hair on the left and right side of my face) and looked in the mirror. I turned red in the face and realized that I was really feminine on the inside and saw a cute feminine face in the mirror. I didn't really look up what this meant for a while, but I knew it was there. I really started to look it up, and basically Google my feelings, when I was 15. It seemed like such a close fit. I was skeptical for a while, but I eventually accepted it. I searched deep inside myself and I found it to be true. I've been identifying as Trans since then. However, when I look back on it, there's kinda a small part of me that always knew. I would always prefer girly/ feminine things. I liked dolls, purses, girl's clothes, girls in general. My sister even put me in a dress once when I was like three, at my own request and to my father's disgust. He literally came home from work to make sure I took it off. But yeah, I feel like I always knew in a way, but I didn't accept it or know what it was until a few years ago. If anyone asks, I usually say that I knew when I was 13 because of the hair thing. I know for sure now because it just makes sense, I'm not lying when I say I'm a textbook transsexual. It's just so right in so many ways, it fits me like a glove. ^-^ <3
To me all the information was pretty useless. I knew subconsciously all the time that something was off with me, that I was a different kind of girl. I kind of knew since 14, that I was a boy mentally, but I didn't phrase it this way. It was only last year that I realised what it means. I kept on questioning my gender for a nice couple of year before thats. Nothing seemed to fit.
I never came into the solid conclusion that I was not cis until I turned sixteen, but I had been questioning for around two years prior.
Since I was probably in middle school. Wasn't mature or brave enough until 31 to admit it and do something.
I knew since I was at least four, and I first heard the word transgender when I was about nine in 2002 and it made sense to me--but I didn't do anything about it until I was 16.
-sets aside the test I am studying for- My friend, let me tell you a story...lol Looking back it wad easy to see all the signs, but growing up I had not a damn clue. I would not be sure enough to join sights like this till I was in my 20s. I think 22 or 23. Look at my join date and 4 months before that was when I knew enough to start researching more. But when I was 3 I thought for sure that while I was born like the girls I would grow to be a boy. And around 13 is when I first started experiencing fysphoria. And 16 was when I started thinking things like "I wish I was trans" or "I wish I was intersex" because if I was either of those things I would be allowed to transition. I was told by several people that I couldn't be trans and attracted to dudes, and that I was to feminine, and that I had to of had dysphoria from birth. It was what took me so long to really figure it out i suppose.
14 - and it was sort of quite sudden. I'd always subconsciously wished I was a guy but I thought that was just so I wouldn't be the only girl in my class. Apparently not. I realised something was off when I went to secondary school and discovered I was a lot different to girls my age and then when I came across the term nonbinary and what it meant, it just clicked. 'Course I spent ages going back and forth - "I'm nonbinary" "don't be ridiculous you're just making it up" "I'm trans" "faker!" "I'm not a girl" "liar liar pants on fire"- in my head
Off: Have known basically as long as I can remember - weird gender misalignments back to first grade. Noticed more when I first got online (15 or 16ish) and found my identity was fluid...but I didn't have the terms or framing for it. Dated someone ungendered who gave me the mental framework to explore it. Still didn't hit me until someone said "hey, you're a guy, you know what guys are like!" ...and at that moment, it clicked. I didn't. I really did not know what "guy are like". I had never known. Suddenly all of these things that were difficult and awkward and weird slid into monumental and immediate clarity.