What seems telling in hindsight

When I was little I'd have tantrums about not wanting to wear a shirt. Aside from that, well, there is all the stereotypical gender expression and interests side like wearing boyish clothes and playing with boy toys. But that I attribute more to having a lot of brothers and a nonconformist personality.

The main thing was around thirteen or fourteen, before I knew I was trans, how I'd mapped my life out to essentially include all but transition. I wanted to get a hysterectomy "when I was 18," thinking that doctors just do those on demand. I'd have short hair and wear men's clothes. I even thought to myself on more than one occasion that I related far more to gay men than straight girls.

Interestingly I think an early telling point was the fact that in video games I'd always play as a male character. Not in merely a preference manner, but these were RPG games and every time I'd make these characters as someone I could be. A hero in another world that I could play as, which felt so good and affirming to be a guy because it was what I craved in reality.

I could go on. But there were so many little things just about the way I have behaved and the mindsets I have, that to be frank make zero sense coming from a girl.

 

I keep wondering as well. Perhaps because I was 'gendered' (puberty / obviously female) very early on, including all the traditional family crap such as 'now you're becoming a woman so we're going to give you gifts of crockery and stuff so that you're ready to marry your husband later' (not kidding -_-).

But looking back, when I played with my friends as a child, we'd often play superheroes rather than mommy-daddy; I'd often play a more male-oriented role; when I started pen & paper RPGs, I naturally played male characters, and later, whether male or female, they'd more than often display characteristics that pertained both genders (or were very obviously 'human' first and foremost, and not 'gender-coloured'). It just seemed more... logical to me. The same way, I realised a few years ago than whenever I wrote stories, the default orientation for my characters was bisexual (or pansexual, for some ofo them), and they were openly heterosexual only if the plot really demanded it.

And I'm definitely pondering a gender-neutral name, although I haven't found one yet that would fit me & my family name (the latter sounds crap with a lot of first names). I'd almost go with Asa (yeah I know it's male), but there's no way I can pull this off at work ("Asa, like the Cisco firewalls?" )

 

I was "obsessed" with eunuchs (exspecially the ones in the Forbidden City). I formulated "the eunuch archetype" in order to explain many psychological mechanisms of mine, even those that don't relate to gender.
I could completely understand their psychological position: the desire to be buried with their «organ» in order to be men at least after death, the hate/love for their destiny because they could reach otherwise unreachable social positions (at court as councilor or harem's guardian, at theatre as castrato singer) at the cost of renouncing to a normal sexual and family life. Privileged but maimed.
I had a male alter ego who I fantasized to be when I was walking around the town, but my characters in stories weren't males mostly, they were females but with "non binary roles". They were often maimed in their femininity; one was unfertile and risked death if she became pregnant, the other was a clone fabricated with a defect that in fact made her intersexual.

 

Others were just gender role rebels (they behaved like Arya in GoT). And there was a bigender and bi-sexed god(dess) of war who could turn male or female as they pleased and also beget demigods with the sex they pleased. (Because in my stories gods breed like rabbits)
But the character fullest of (unread) clues was a "female eunuch". She had to pretend to be an eunuch at court in order to follow and protect one of the Emperor's wifes. «An un-titted woman who pretends to be an evirated man», I joked. Yes, because - even if it wasn't possible with the tecnologies of that pre-industrial fantasy society - at some point she got her breast cut off and also had a transvaginal hysterectomy, risking her life after the operation.
I remember when I was little and saw an intersex child on a medical drama series. "And if that happens to me? Until I'll start having a period, it's not proved that I have an uterus." When I got my echography, I was almost disappointed

 

Day dreaming about being a woman for days and weeks at a time. Those were times I thought I was Trans, but the feelings would go away, or I would repress them and force myself to be male. That should have been a huge signal that I wasn't cis, but since I didn't always want to transition all the time, I didn't start exploring these feelings until much later in life. It wasn't until I began to read more into Trans identities after one of these episodes, that I found out about being Fluid, and how that described exactly how I felt.

 

Legoes are the queerest toys in the world. You build whatever you want with them. I liked to build boxes and containers and box-shaped items. So when it came time to build a gender box to stuff myself in and a closet to hide in, that was really easy. ^_^

I was really dominant as a child. And really insistent on gender equality. I got into fights with boys over stupid things. I was physically more aggressive than the other girls, more tomboyish, even into middle school and high school.

 

For me, I guess it was just that I was more tomboyish, more masculine presenting. Like into action figures like Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Most of my friends growing up were male, but that suddenly changed in about grade 7 because this seemed to be the year that people feel that "oh, Bob likes Jill. Haha!". It was childish behaviour, but seemed to be the norm, so my friend, who was being teased about liking me, told my teacher to not hang with him anymore during recess. So from here, I have pretty much had all female friends. I have a few non-binary friends too. They're not that close to me though so... My friend in grade 8 was/is a male also, but the same thing seemed to happen. I remembering wishing I was a boy so I could hang out with all the guys. Most of the girls would talk about crushes, shopping, make-up, etc., and I hated this stuff. Still do. I have recently bought make-up just to look more masculine but other than that, I haven't wore makeup other than to cosplay.

-Niko

 

I never understood why do I have to wear dresses and skirts. It had no logic. "But mom, those are for girls!" <- a real line I said, according to my mom.
When we played pretending games, I always wanted to be a cowboy, an astronaut, or a dinosaur (a male dinosaur, ofcourse). My notebooks were full of drawings of boys doing stuff (or dogs or cars or aeroplanes). I wasn´t interested in drawing pretty princesses like all the girls around me.
Toys for boys. Give them to me! I spent more time watching cars and asking my uncle about engineering than his two sons.
Later I have found myself naturally attracted to gay men rather than straight ones, without having a clear idea of what would I do with them. It led to few misunderstandings and awkward situations. To be fair, I must add that straight cis boys were very rarely interested in me.
When I did a historical cosplay, I always hated playing ladies. I talked the manager to let me play the gentleman part, in a top hat (loved it, made me look taller) or a knight (even better). I noticed that I do feel like crosdresser when I´m wearing female costume.
All my idols, all my heroes, people I admired and wanted to be (like) them were male. All of them. From random prince from a child´s fairytale to James Bond.

 

A couple of little things.. like trying on Women's clothes and how It made me feel, first I can remember was with a friend in their basement, we found his older Sister's hand me downs and dressed up, then back in high school having a friend ask me why I carried my books "Like a Girl" on my hips instead of in my hands with arms extended at my side. I grew up before computers were a common thing, but later on I also found myself gravitating to playing female characters when possible.. like with the original Tomb Raider game. lots of other little details that weren't anything at the time but in retrospect were indicators.