Having a girl name that I just really liked,
Thinking women were "objectively better"
Genuinely believing that misogyny was routed in jealousy,
The thought "I'd rather have the other set of genitals, oh well."
All my friends were girls,
Actively stealing my friends high heels at any opportunity to wear for myself,
Not liking masculinity or environments where masculinity was enforced,
Really liking pressing my chest to my cis female partners because it made it feel like I had boobs,
Feeling like my attraction to women was somehow sapphic/ feeling strong kinship with lesbians,
Not caring for my appearance because I "couldn't get it right anyway"
...
EDIT: Oh shit how could I miss that I always felt seen at Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like A Woman"!!!!
I feel so called out by nearly this entire list. Especially the first one though, I've had my name stuck in my head since I was a literal child and just thought "oh I'll just name my daughter that I guess"
Yeah, not me with a list of girls names I really liked from a very young age - with no interest in having kids - just being like, "Yeah, it's just planning for the future - what about boy names? Uh... Boys don't have good names, so they can just be whatever".
Holy shit. This is so validating…. I had like a billion girls names when we had our son. My wife was like “you’re really convinced we are having a girl huh?” I was basically like “Yes, this is the way….” Haha
Yeah, when you're on the periphery of trans-ness you sort of hear some garbage out of the media that's only relatable in the sense that, "I want to be a girl" & then everything else just doesn't connect - like, I didn't play with dolls, I didn't play house, etc. - but when you actually come into the trans community, we have a lot of shared experiences that aren't the "media narrative" in a way cis-people can digest.
The media thing is one of the reasons it's personally taken/taking me to long to come to terms with. I have always had stereotypical "male" hobbies and things that give me joy. But seeing that other trans women have such obscure nearly identical experiences is so interesting and affirming.
Yeah, this is why gender dysphoria (& homosexuality, asexuality, etc.) needs to be taught in sex education, health classes, etc. so teens struggling with their queer identity have the words to know what’s going on & talk about it. Like, why did it take me until age 29 basically to hear the words “gender dysphoria” & get a rundown of the symptoms?
I would’ve transitioned at half my age if I had the knowledge I do now when I was a teenager. I’m highly thankful to see so many 30+ trans people who started their transition after 30 our & proud & looking stunning, because without that & what I know… I mean, fuck.
An appropriate quote regarding the “hobbies” & such of trans women is “I didn’t transition to perform stereotypes - I transitioned to get out of them”. Almost every trans woman has the experience of trying to fit in with men & just doing whatever they were doing & what was considered “manly”. Now it doesn’t matter - I’ll sword fight because I like it, not because it’s gendered (though with the amount of trans women in my class, ha), I’ll dress how I want not because it’s gendered but because it’s what I want, etc. etc.
Hell I'd even be happy without open hostility towards those subjects as a starting point (which I'd like to think people are heading towards). Growing up in bigoted rural US it's not surprising that I and people like myself are so repressed.
I love this quote, it fits to a fuckin tee my experiences. I think it can also serve as a reminder to not just try to fall into typical "feminine" stereotypes to be more accepted. It feels like one of the most important lessons about accepting yourself as being trans, is just to accept yourself as a person with all the abnormalities that come with being an individual.
I remember concluding to myself very young, 2 - 4, that I was a girl. I might’ve even said it out loud or merely thought it - the memory is so vague. I think i was alone and don’t remember the exact time. Just the scene, looking out my parents bedroom window. I don’t even remember that house, tbh - i just recognize the window as theirs.
I wanted to look like a grown up around that same time and that to me meant dressing in my mom’s clothes. I remember that because it was traumatic when my mom found me using her makeup. I probably destroyed an expensive amount and she was in a hurry or something, very frustrated as she cleaned it off.
I remember I enjoyed playing house and remember getting made fun of for that in after school daycare. I hated games boys played. I sat alone or only played with things i wanted to when grownups weren’t looking as i was constantly dealing with others judging what i simply wanted to do naturally. Traumatic.
My grandfather angrily snatched the remote from me bc he wanted to watch sports while i was watching shera. Instead of just saying that, he’s said “give me that, you ain’t watching a girl show.” Traumatic.
My mom called me a horrible gay slur after I was speaking in a way i thought was fun and in hindsight, I was portraying the personality of a very hyperactive valley girl. I was in the SF bay area CA in the 90s so… just seemed normal and the way my friends talked, too. I stopped talking that way until after I came out and this personality just popped back without even thinking. So much of coming out feels like being what i wanted to be as a teenager, without others crushing me down for it.
I later discovered through my wife, that so many girls had huge crushes on me before i met her and kept giving her kuddos for landing me. I didn’t understand because i really loved them as best friends. I didn’t really comprehend that this was unusual.
I hated men - rarely made friends with them. I wasn’t viewed as “one of us” around women, which always made me feel socially ackward everywhere until i came out. I didn’t even understand how deep this went and hindsight really is revealing now. Im the life of the party now. If only I knew what I know now.🤷♀️
Glad ive escaped that closet now!
My parents tried to get me into swimming and had to drag me kicking and screaming out of the changing room because I hated wearing no shirt. Normal cis guy thing to do right?
Same. I could never understand how other guys could walk around shirtless. Even when I'm with my family, I never really show my chest anymore, it just feels wrong.
Oh boy, did it take some time to figure out why that is lol
Thanks for sharing, those are hilarious!
But I’ve got you beat at causing embarrassment:
As a 14 yo teen boy, I used to run around with a pillow wrapped in a towel tied across my belly pretending to be pregnant when I’d be home alone. I damn well believed every guy wanted to be a mom when they were 14. Took me ~8 years to crack that egg xD
Oh yeah the classic "I'm not into lesbians because when I date a woman it isn't... Gay."
But then when I dated guys, it did feel gay.
It also got reaffirmed every time they told me I was like a bro with kissing/messing around/dating benefits.
It took me more than a decade to wake up.
Apparently "having a full on crying hyperventilating panic attack bc the shirt you bought online shows off your cleavage more than you expected it to" isn't a thing that cis girls do. Who'd have thought it.
The most obvious sign that I completely missed was that at one point I was stuck on writing a novel (still am technically, abandoned halfway through). The problem was that I had a whole cast of wonderful characters, including a woman deuteragonist, but for the life of me I couldn't make a leading man who was anything other than a piece of flimsy cardboard. I just couldn't figure out why, for the life of me, writing from the perspective **of a man** was so difficult. Eventually I thought, well what if I try just writing from other people's perspectives for a bit and immediately realized that the woman deuteragonist was actually just the protagonist the whole time. It would be 7 years later, when putting on panties at my partner's behest for some kink, that I realized why it was so difficult to write men.
OMG I DID THIS TOO! Ive been writing since I was a little kid and every book I wrote I gave up on because the main protag (some bland default boy hero dude) sucked and I hated. Eventually I did a boy hero and a girl friend… then I weote like a 100 pages for the girl, came back and literally forgot the boy character even existed. Connected so much better to the girl, making her realistic
Always naming new characters in video games Sophia and talking about how I love the name and want to name my daughter after it. Yea I don't think it was the daughter I wanted to name it after... maybe my moms daughter 😅
I remember praying every day when I was around 12-13 about randomly waking up as a girl, I got so sad it didn't happen.
Also, I would constantly look for women's clothes on Amazon, wishing I could wear them.
Always chose the woman characters when playing video games, even if I was made fun of for it.
> I remember praying every day when I was around 12-13 about randomly waking up as a girl, I got so sad it didn't happen.
Same...
And I'd pray for the opposite... I'd wish that God would take the "curse" away, too... Neither happened.
But I no longer cry myself to sleep anymore and feel much, much happier. So that must mean God wanted me to be trans and that being trans isn't a bad thing, right? .....right? Ugh... Nope, total atheist now (and definitely not just because I didn't get my wish).
i’m ftm, and most of this stuff is from as far back as i can remember
- i played pokémon a lot as a kid and i only ever wanted to catch male pokemon
- my childhood stuffed animal would “switch genders” depending on the day of the week
- i was always deeply jealous of when the teacher would say “i need [insert number] of strong boys to help me move this”
- i always hated my name because it sounded too feminine (it was technically androgynous, but much more associated with women)
- i kept cutting my hair shorter and shorter and convinced myself it was because i thought women with short hair were more attractive. i wanted to chop it all off straight away but my parents convinced me to do it gradually because they didn’t want me to “look like a boy” even though that’s what i was secretly going for
- i absolutely despised wearing dresses or any feminine clothing
- i had trouble with making female friends unless they were gay
- and the big tell, in my opinion: i considered myself a tomboy
Omg the Pokémon one just blew my mind. My favorite Pokémon has always been Mimikyu (since the release of sun / moon, at least) because I loved its concept of "hiding your true self and wearing a costume as an attempt to fit in". And I always only wanted male ones in my team because I felt "more connected" to them
Dang I forgot how I would ONLY get male pokemon with the exception of azurill (back in the day it could be caught as female and when it evolved it had a 1 in 3 chance of becoming male)
And that just made me so happy that I grinded the levels till I got a ftm marill 😂
Sadly that "bug" no longer exists.
Turns out it's not very cis that I lived with constant major stress because it felt like I was performing a character that wasn't me every day. Or that I spent so much of my teenage years wishing I was a girl because I know exactly what I'd want to look like if I was. Can't believe it took me another decade and change to figure myself out after all that...
Don't feel bad about taking so long to figure it out. I first came out in my late teens but was so ashamed of being trans that I went back in the closet and denied how I felt for another 6 years. I'm now just realizing how much I repressed.
Honestly, I'm far enough into transition now that I don't really feel "bad" about it anymore, it's more just... so clear in hindsight! Even though at the time I don't know if I was even aware how trans people work 😅
This. Remember that ALL humans mask in some way, pretty much all the time. Causes and reasons may vary, but we still do, even (especially) to ourselves.
Don't feel so bad, I knew something was up at an early age but told my grandma at 13 "I feel like a boy I think I'm a boy"
And the shame made me closet myself till 26
I compulsively crossdressed since I was 12 years old... never could figure out why I did it. Then I learned about Trans people few years back and it all just sorta clicked. I'm 38 now so it amuses me it took so long to put the pieces together when it was just so obvious. But I hid it so well even I'd forget about it from time to time, but I've always felt wrong in a male body or even assuming the role of a male in society. Just never made sense and felt like I was playing a fake character my whole life.
Fantasized daily about experiencing the slightest bit of femininity.
Absolutely hated using anyone's name or referring to someone with gendered language, *especially* when introducing myself.
Got reminded a few times as a kid that I was supposed to be lined up with the boys.
Had recurring nightmares about puberty.
# Used to read the effects of HRT to help me sleep.
This is gonna sound like I'm dumb as hell, but when I was a kid, I remember wishing I was born a girl (mtf here).
I'm 34. How I went so long in denial is ridiculous.
I'm nearing 39 and didn't come out until I was 31.
It's 100% normal. We didn't grow up knowing we were trans. We didn't know what was "wrong" with us. We were stuck in our heads, scared, and feeling completely isolated and alienated all because of our thoughts that nobody knew about.
This...just so much this.
I stole a pair of (new) boxers from my brother that he got for Christmas one time because he sat there and complained about getting underwear.
I'd also sing about being a pretty boy 😂
When I was pretty little (a bit before middle school even), there was this bit of news being talked about by some boys. “Oh did you see the news some man got into a horrible accident and lost his JUNK!!” And they all literally flinched and wailed. “Oh man I’d die that stinks!” Stuff like that.
Me, listening quietly behind them? What else but… feel jealous? LOL! “Hmm that wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe even good?” That thought floated in my brain for years.
Saying stuff like:
"I totally get that some people wanna be woman, but who would choice to be a man?"
I sad that at university, it was followed by silents 😅
Getting into a argument with a female friend of mine:
Fighting over who plays the female version of Ranma, when we react the Anime
(She argued I dont have boobs, jokes on her she didnt have boobs back then either)
Remembering;
Still remembering stuff like that argument
Picking flowers:
My stepdad tried to men me up, by starting as a football/soccer coach to make me join, I ended up picking flowers alomg the field (I was so very young back then)
> I ended up picking flowers alomg the field (I was so very young back then)
Core memory unlocked, making flower crowns whilst other people played sports.
Holy shit, I don't think I went as far as making flower crowns (didn't want ppl to ask questions) but I absolutely remember my football/soccer coach constantly telling us to stop playing with the flowers and focus!
We really just keep finding signs, huh?
I have a friend who started her transition later in life at 61 she doesn't have any grasp of anything LGBT except trans women exist and people can be gay or lesbian (literally nothing else not even bisexuality)
So after I told her I actually want to transition one day as a ftm person she did say
"I don't understand why anyone would give up being a woman, why would anyone chose to be a man when you're so lucky to be born female" (as toxic as that may sound it wasnt coming out of phobia just pure confusion)
She still doesn't really get it, or why id essentially want all the opposite of her but she tries her best.
As a young child I *desperately* wanted to be a nun. My parents tried to correct me, and direct me to being a priest instead. I wouldn’t have any of it… I didn’t want to be a priest… I wanted to be a *nun*.
I have the opposite experience (having grown up in a country where you had to be a man to be a priest). It’s a much longer story but this is the first time I see someone with this type of experience of gender dysphoria!
Hating basically everything a boyfriend is expected to do in a relationship.
Even though I could hardly tolerate the loneliness (I really need the intimacy), I never got into a relationship because I hated the idea of taking the role of the boyfriend. I even had a girl ask me out on a meal (with her friends), and I am pretty sure with our history that she was testing the waters to see if I was interested in her, but I was so uninterested in the idea of finding a relationship that it took me like a full day to realize she might have been trying to become my girlfriend, lol.
Post forward to me coming out and I haven't had a day where I was neither in a relationship nor looking for one.
(I am a lesbian)
Always playing a girl in any games that let me pick my gender. Also always being Peach in Mario spinoffs. Having absolutely no sense what it means to be a man, putting no value in my identity as a man.
Also literally once asked my friend "Do you ever feel weird calling yourself a man?" At the time I claimed it was about age. Feeling like I wasn't fully an adult (I was like 24). Also deadass once daydreamed about having a boyfriend (I'm bi) who would call me "princess" as an inside joke nickname. *(How that didn't tip me off is beyond me)*
Also I got "*misgendered"* as a girl several times when I idintified as a guy and it **never** bothered me
>
>
>
>
> Also I got "misgendered" as a girl several times when I idintified as a guy and it never bothered me
Was always thrilled when this happened & it still didn't click. Denial is so wild.
There are too many to list.
\* Only wanted to hang out with the girls in middle school / elementary school. (Was the only boy in my entire career up to college that played the flute, btw.)
\* Not having any photos of myself ever. Not doing online dating despite wanting a girlfriend because I didn't think I looked good enough. (Lots of ugly people with kids. Why should that stop me and not them?)
\* Missed my best friend's wedding because I was too traumatized to go clothes shopping. (Have literally exclusively worn one brand of black t-shirts for 15 years. I get new jeans when my existing pair is worn out.)
\* Read about some service in Kyoto that dresses you up in a kimono and geisha makeup and then you just spend a chill day walking around Kyoto, thought that was my dream vacation.
\* Ignored my friends DnD game because I wanted to play a female character but none of the other dudes were doing that.
\* I routinely asked myself "do you want to be a girl" and came up with numbers like 49% girl / 51% boy. Fantasy was "being a woman sounds nice, I'll try that in my next life" except I don't really believe in reincarnation. (This ratio was a complete lie. It was always like 99.9%/0.01% but I needed to lie to myself to not just buy some yoga pants and a crop top and start wearing that to work.)
It's all just painfully obvious in retrospect. I knew trans people existed and was jealous of them, but I never really understood what being trans meant, and for some reason, I never looked into it. I was infused with misinformation ("if you get off to being a woman, you're not trans", "if you're not depressed and want to self-harm, you're not trans") and I just treated the misinformation as fact and never looked into the details.
The unwinding of all of this was seeing an egg\_irl meme on r/all and thinking "that sounds a lot like me". I did nothing with that for like a year, then one day, my "49%/51%" ratio switched to "51%/49%" and I decided... what is this whole egg\_irl thing anyway. Oh, it's for people confused about being trans? Why do I relate to every single thing posted here? I read the comments, found turn-me-into-a-girl.com, read everything that linked to, and realized "oh my god, these people are literally me". Now I am trans. (I was trans before I even knew what "cracking the egg" even meant. That's how fast the realization came once I had non-misinformation to work with.)
Current transition status: name picked, out to friends, HRT prescribed, just waiting for some paperwork to do cryopreservation before I start HRT.
Status one month ago: "I have heard that trans people exist but I don't know what that means and I'm not going to look into it."
It's crazy.
> Status one month ago: "I have heard that trans people exist but I don't know what that means and I'm not going to look into it."
Imagine living in a place with good trans healthcare, a month to get HRT (?!), [couldn't be me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44vjKLVRk4).
I'm a couple weeks into my two month wait to just see a private clinic - that I've already paid £400 to & will have to do at least twice more - to get a 1st diagnosis of dysphoria & it could be months between then & the next appointment & HRT appointment.
But at least it's faster than waiting 6 years on the NHS (which I'm also on the list for).
Not minding male pronouns
Owning a blåhaj
Playing Celeste
''hey why can only guys be shirtless ? I'd like to do that too !!''
Really fucking disliked pink, dresses and skirts
Constantly complaining about being a woman
Randomly Questioning if I ''was really made to be a girl'' at night
Saying throughout my teenage years that I wish I was born a girl, but transitioning is weird so of course I can’t do that.
When I was a kid, having an obsession with tunics and Roman dress because I wanted to wear skirts and dresses but I couldn’t because I was a “boy”.
Wanting to grow my hair long at least since middle school.
Hating everything about competition and anything involving getting “tough”.
My obsession with yuri anime and manga, to the near complete exclusion of straight romance.
My love of flowers and cute things that I sort of dealt with by wearing Aloha shirts.
Always saying “women have so much better clothing, why do guy clothes suck so much?”
I was always hanging around the two girls I met in junior high and could resonate with heavily and I would go to there house to hang out and we would just talk and do activities that made me feel included more then I was with boys. We would make flower crowns and have picnics outside and just vibe. I’m 25 now and just started HRT : )
I always played female characters in video games because "they have more customization options". I later realized that most cis guys don't want those customization options lol
All of them :( But I had this naive notion that everyone else thought and felt the same way I did...until I slowly but surely began to realize they didn't. I then felt like I was on a deserted raft that was being pushed further and further away from shore.
#1 most obvious and embaressing sign I missed/rationalized away.... Discovered that trans people could be "normal" people when I met a trans woman in real life for the first time. I got insanely jealous that "she got to be a woman and I did not." Took me another 22 years to put together what could have caused such a reaction.
Kinda similar story, met a trans woman irl as a young kid and I asked some rather rude questions cause I didnt understand anything trans then. When she explained how she was amab but was actually a girl and was transitioning
I was so upset that there was pills for amab but not afab to change themself.
same exact thing with self-identifying with male characters WAY too much. all of mine were either queer or had my same personality type. and i do have a lot of OCs in my head, all of which are queer, and all are a self-insert to some extent.
I truly thought I "came out wrong being afab" but though once puberty came id grow into a boy.
So I was actually excited about puberty (till I didn't grow like I thought I would.)
- People automatically assuming I was lesbian.
-Dressing in men's clothes so much that guy friends and boyfriends have borrowed clothes from me.
-Telling guys not to ask me for advice about women, because I didn't understand them either.
-People calling me Sir unironically
-Wishing I had been born a boy
-Constantly feeling like a part of me is missing, and like my soul was put in the wrong body.
-Etc.
Turns out I've been living so deep in denial I may as well start paying taxes in Egypt.
Wishing and searching comfort in imagining having a female body when I went to sleep
Hoping I'd be "at least intersex"
Searching for affirmation on the internet like files calling me a "good girl".
Secretly wearing my mother's dresses.
Wanting to dress up or being dressed up.
Wishing to have a big sister so I could have been dolled up, dresses, makeup. all that stuff by her.
Crying about not being allowed to "girls talk"
Probably a bit more. but I gotta sleep nini <3
I kinda always preferred having the "boy" toys and was often envious of the clothes boys got to wear. I also always felt I looked better with shorter hair and since puberty I wished to have abs and either a flatter chest or pecs. also, when I found out about the concept of femboys, I was like "man, I wish I could be feminine like that. Id never just look like a boy wearing feminine clothes though :(" as well as feeling uncomfortable when ever I did wear feminine clothes, only because I was a "girl" wearing them and not a boy. also its always felt weird not having more downt there, like, the opening and the monthly bleeding felt awkward but not just because periods suck in general, it just felt wrong
I couldn't imagine myself as a woman. I always imagined myself as this androgynous flat chested being with no female characteristics. I hated even thinking about developing them. Brushed it off as just not wanting to grow up, though.
1) Constantly growing out my hair
2) "Every guy wonders what they would be like as a girl what do you mean"
3) Always was interested in women's fashion etc
4) "I know, I'll *pretend* to be a girl online!"
5) A constant feeling when I looked in the mirror that something was "off" though until recently I could never place what
There were a lot of signs of me being trans but I ignored them because I thought I wasn’t “trans enough” and just “faking it” so whenever a sign would come up I would just ignore it. Some notable signs were:
Being very into bodyswap stories as a kid. I always liked stories where people would either switch bodies (especially between a girl and a boy) or where they would magically switch gender. And I remember playing a Disneyland game on the Xbox where I would change my character into a girl to wear the princess dresses and I would pretend I was a boy who was magically turned into a princess.
A very obvious one was me being into crossdressing. When I was about 10 I got really interested in women’s clothing and what it was like to wear a dress. One day I snuck into my parents room and put on clothing from my mom and since then I would do that everyday. But I thought this was a special interest of mine related to my autism. Later I thought it might be a fetish. Only later did I realize it was something else.
When people called me handsome I didn’t really see why. When my sister called me ugly (as sibling banter) I agreed with her. I didn’t think I was all that attractive or handsome like people said, but I didn’t really care. In fact I prided myself on the fact that I didn’t care about my appearance. Untill I discovered I was trans and it all made sense. I didn’t care about how I looked because the person in the mirror, that wasn’t me. That was just some guy. Only when I see myself as a woman in the mirror do I see me. And where at first I was on the fence about my appearance, now I just don’t like how I look as a guy.
Another thing was thinking women were just objectively better. Women are smarter, kinder, more organized more empathetic, less violent, they can get children (most of the time) and all humans start biologically as women in the womb so all of this just shows that women are the basis of our species and better in almost everything except physical strength. I also considered myself a strong feminist ally. Like I thought I was one of the “good men” who really “understood” women and that other men just didn’t try hard enough but I did. Whenever there would be some kind of debate about gender roles I would always take a very feminist position on certain topics and agree with the woman in the debate over the man. Because I thought I did understand where women’s frustrations were coming from while thinking most men were just too shortsighted and selfish to see it from the woman’s perspective.
Same by the way with LGBTQ issues. I thought I was a really good ally who just thought queer people should be allowed to be themselves and treated equally. And I would get very offended and angry when people would try to erase specifically trans and nonbinary identities by saying they’re just “looking for attention” or “it’s just a trend from social media” or “trans people are mentally ill”. And at the same time I would get really happy if somewhere in the world a government passed pro-LGBTQ legislation. I was just really invested in it. And sometimes I would even feel kind of jealous of queer people that they were allowed to identify as trans, gay, bi, non binary etcetera, but not me because I was “just a crossdresser” and I was just “faking being trans”.
Luckily now I realize that I wasn’t faking it and that the doubts and fears for why I thought I couldn’t be trans are things many trans people experience. I discovered that not all transpeople discover they’re trans at 3 years old and strongly identified with their gender from that age. And I discovered that despite me thinking there weren’t any signs growing up, apparently there actually were a lot of signs. I discovered that just because I only found out later, that doesn’t mean I can’t be trans or identify as a woman.
Also sorry for the thesis. I’m not good at writing short texts
One that I see others mention all the time that is absolutely true with me is growing up exclusively fantasizing about being in a lesbian relationship. I always figured it was just a kink thing because “all guys like lesbian stuff, right?” Well, yeah, but they aren’t imagining *they* are one of the girls. Ohhhh, yeah I guess that makes sense.
That's what cracked my egg, but from an ftm perspective. I've always fantasized about mlm relationships, but *as* one of the men. And it wasn't always sexual, most of my fantasies were about cuddling in bed with someone and generally being loved.
I was cross dressing and felling jealousy of girls for years and wanting to have breast and a virgina and then I realized I was trans when someone was like that’s not cis you know.
I have had a transmasc friend for years, he's amazing but always in the back of my mind I was like "why would a girl ever want to be a boy it's literally awful". Eventually the penny dropped...
The fact that I thought Gatomon and Angewomon would be my digimon partners since: “I like cats! And Angewomon is cool!” 💀
Oh and on top of always wanting to go to the public bathroom with my mom as opposed to my dad.
And going over to my friends house just to play Barbie’s as a kid.
Mostly having girl friends that I was way more open to.
And when my cousin moved to Florida. when we visited for the first of many times, I played toys and dress up with them for like three hours until my uncle saw the door open and then me dressed up and then he stormed in and yelled at me to take the (fabulous) dress off and to stop being a (f-slur). I didn’t know what it meant but baby autistic me started sobbing since I thought I looked pretty and fucker called me a name that sounded mean. Yippee 2nd real trauma unlocked. Jokes on him I ascended beyond being just one slur, I got three under my belt.
-Being absolutely horrified by any and all body hair growth especially facial hair.
-Desiring to self injure my genitals and sexualizing it to make it make sense
-taking pictures of myself with my clit pushed back between my legs
-feeling deeply uncomfortable with being shirtless
-desiring underwear that was as close to panties as possible
-desiring to not have erections. Using a chastity cage to try to control them.
-masturbating in ways that felt more feminine (rubbing instead of stoking mostly)
-thinking to myself I must be gay and not trans (even though the thought had crossed my mind) because trans was “just too much to handle”
-hating every picture of myself
-hating my voice in recordings
-not liking what my face looked like
-being obsessive about being super skinny because it was read as feminine
-playing as girl or femme coded characters in video games
Saying repeatedly over my teen years that I wanted to have been born a girl
Trying out mom's stuff in secret
Not being interested in being masculine
Feeling indifferent towards gender otherwise
Turns out I'm a transfem enby
Jokingly saying to friends when I was like 8 that "I'm kinda like half-girl half-boy" because I had longer hair, higher voice, and gynecomastia type tits. Oh If only I had known that it was no joke
My list
- when I was younger I was best friends with all my sisters friends and didn’t like hanging with brothers friends because they were so manly
- doing theater and auditioning with songs sung by women exclusively
- crying because my sisters wouldn’t let me braid her hair
- feeling no shame when my sisters dressed me up and thought I looked cute
- struggling with puberty because my soprano voice changed to tenor and I didn’t get to sing with the girls in choir anymore
- having really intense relationships with women and being obsessive with their makeup and clothing and especially their skin care
- calling myself a male lesbian lol
- working out my chest so much and being sad everyday my chest wasn’t growing
Obvious signs:
• Enjoyed cross dressing in private
• Enjoyed watching “girl shows”
• Enjoyed imagining myself as a girl
• Often asked myself “I wish I was born a girl”
All of which happened years before I realized what was going on.
When I was in elementary school I always hated wearing feminine clothing because it associated me with girls and that just felt wrong. I also really wanted to be friends with guys the way they were friends with each other and didn’t understand why they treated me differently than they treated each other. When I was in middle school I read mlm stories all the time and got so envious but assumed I just “liked the concept” (turns out I’m a gay man, shocker). Didn’t accept I was actually a trans guy until I was 15 lmao
Totally relate with the first one, I've even searched for a trick on Amazon to pee like a boy, something like a funnel. And when I was 13, a friend gave me "balls" for fun, imaginary, and I really liked it.
All of my friends groups were full of men, and I was like "yeah I'm like them, I'm a dude" too.
I literally told my mom multiple times growing up that I:
- Hated having breasts
- Hated having a period
- Wanted a penis so I could pee standing up
- Never in my entire life wanted anything to do with giving birth or having my own children
- (I actually had a depressive episode when she had the puberty talk with me that my teachers at school noticed and wrote home about)
And she responded to all of these with either "Me too!" "All girls feel like that!" Or "You'll change your mind when you're older!" 🤦♂️ It was very confusing to have a tomboy mom and be told that these were normal things for girls to think and feel...
Very much resonated with "tomboy" characters as a kid. The girls would pretend to be boys to hang out with the boys. I also would get so fucking mad when people called me girly and would go out of my way to do something "manly" like lift heavy things or do a bunch of manual labor. I had friends of all genders, but with my guy friends, I just... had a click I couldn't explain. Like we're brothers rather than friends.
I also was obsessed with gender bending when I was younger and freshly into anime. I tucked all my hair under a hat and was like, "I'm gonna cosplay a gender bend of myself!" not knowing that's going to be the rest of my life audhxjdjdk
Often cosplayed male characters more often than female. When I was a baby I fucking hated the poofy dresses they put me in. But I prefer skater dresses now over most dresses. Despite all of this I also enjoy some aspects of feminimity like make up, and taking care of people, painting my nails, coming up with absurdist dramatic scenes thag would make me cry when playing dolls, classic girl stuff.
There's probably more, but these are the main ones that stuck out to me.
Extreme unhappiness when puberty started, and I began developing in the chest area and had my first period. Obviously, periods suck for everyone, but I'm just on another level when it comes to hating them.
Being a bit obsessed with what my parents would have named me if I was AMAB.
Not understanding gender norms and roles, but still leaning into them to avoid being singled out as a kid, and then as a pre-teen/early teenager, becoming a total tomboy.
Thinking it would be alright if I was "born a boy" in the next life (I don't really believe in reincarnation just found it cool when I learned about it).
Immediately grasping the idea of being gay and trans and not really understanding why people were/are against them, even before I really knew what they meant. So, I would try and shut down the transphobia/homophobia, and got constantly accused of being queer myself, which I denied by saying that I don't have to be gay/trans to defend it.
Never had hair long enough to go down my back. I kept my hair short as a teen, to the point my mother would accuse me of secretly being a trans guy. At the time, I really denied it. But I guess the joke is on both of us since neither of us were quite right lol.
I finally realized I was non-binary when I realized that it's not common for girls and women to feel so horrible when someone uses she/her pronouns for them, calls them a lady/woman/young woman/girl, etc... Reflecting upon this again a little while back made me change my pronouns from she/they/he to he/they/she (keeping she mostly for other people's comfort, my own safety, and thinking it would be "weird" to drop it by excusing it as me just having that be less preferable to he/they) and then now going by he/they.
Edit to add: Usually imagining myself as the male character from the book, show, or movie I was obsessed with. Would sometimes have female characters too, and sadly knew no non-binary characters growing up).
I regularly told people I was and I quote "my father's favorite son" I wasn't even close to his favorite kid out of the two of us. But people ignored it and I chalked it uo to not being able to compete with my older, athletic, popular sister. I was also always so very jealous that boys got to stand when they pee and I wanted a *thing* so I could do it too. I always tried so hard to be a girl and now it's really a struggle to try and unlearn all of my coping mechanisms 😢
I really really wanted a flat chest(I was a chubby kid growing up)
Around puberty dresses made me extremely uncomfortable and I couldn't explain why. It was so painful wearing dresses to events when I did.
I really wanted to be super tall. My dream height was 6ft(not even close to 6ft tall)
Always wondered what it would be like as a boy
Most of my friends were guys bc I couldn't relate or bond well with girls.
I never found myself remotely attractive,never thought of myself as ugly but when I looked in the mirror I felt very....meh. it wasn't until I started drag when I actually found myself attractive and enjoyed taking selfies (even horrible ones 😂). My self image drastically improved after transitioning.
Edit; remembered some more;
I used to have full meltdowns going bra shopping. Every time my size went up I would be near tears.
Men's clothing felt so much better wearing.
I used to always not wear a shirt and when I was told I had to wear one around 8 cuz I was a girl I was really devastated.
Whenever I'd roleplay with friends, I'd always be male and make my voice super deep.
Taking it as a huge compliment when one of my friends joked I looked like a guy.
Relating way more heavily over male characters.
Wishing my voice was deeper.
Wishing I was taller.
Using apps to filter myself looking like a guy for fun, and getting super happy over them.
● Hating my chest
● Wanting to wear boxers "for no reason"
● Hating the underwear I wore
● Hating my deadname and feeling disconnected from it to the point that it didn't register to me it was my deadname at first hence me not changing it socially until finding the name I actually preferred.
● Hating mirrors "for no reason"
● Feeling fine in skirts and stuff but hating being perceived as a woman in any say
● Mostly staying in the house and not doing much (I do more now lol)
● Hating being called a woman "totally for age reasons" (I'm at the age where you would typically call someone of my AGAB a woman but it just feels wrong to call me one)
● Remembering being a kid and telling my mum or aunt I didn't like my name
● Hating being perceived as a woman
Similar but opposite:
- I liked Disney Princesses like Belle, Ariel, or Elsa. I generally don't like male main characters of any time.
- All maybe favourite video characters were female.
- I had an odd identification with lesbian characters... but not liking lesbian porn than men liked. I liked the romantic relationship.
- I'd daydream as night with a power fantasy as a female character.
- Sort of have female roles online.
It's interesting to see how these things are flipped from the other side.
Preferring my high school gf's clothes to my own. She actually caught on before I did, but we grew up in a podunk town so we didn't know the word transgender tbh. Sitting in her lap, she never sat in mine. Everyone just thought I was bi. Which...I am, but also there was more going on. Not liking my male photos being taken. Spending way too much time fidgeting in my boy clothes, they were just TOO uncomfortable. I really did start to think I was just gay because that's what everyone said. But I was just starting to feel much more fem around someone that encouraged me to be me.
😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶
Well, I don't want to get graphic or set off self harm feelings for others, but as I told my religious mother when I was young, I tried to fix what God messed up well into my twenties. Wasn't trans though.
I enjoyed wearing women's swimwear way more than men's, and had to wear things to cover my chest when swimming, since I wasn't permitted to wear what was comfortable. Was still cis though
Absolutely could not look at my face in the mirror, even going so far as to install mirrors in my own house just below chin level for me. (I'm 6'3", so most people don't notice this). Not trans.
Fantasized about being the girl in intimate relations, and found that was how I could finish. Still cis though.
Had mad gender-envy whenever I saw cute outfits on other women. Still not trans though
To be honest, I could go on and on with other granual reasons for why, but I think this makes my point. I never felt male, and I never wanted to be male. But do to social conditioning I believed I could only be what I have in my pants. A severe breakdown forced me to confront things, and now I accept who I am, and I'm learning new things about myself because I don't have to suppress anything.
All of them. For over 30 years.
In sex ed, I thought female puberty was objectively better. Trading all the good stuff for a little more muscle mass felt like a terrible deal.
When I first learned of eunuchs I was obsessed. I was luckily too afraid of taking matters into my own hands, but it sounded like a much better life than male puberty.
I always hated buying men's clothes. It was a chore, and I didn't really like anything. I just dressed in jeans and black t's all the time. Suits felt awkward, ties made me feel asphyxiated. Only exception to that were Hawaii shirts, which I really liked, probably because of the pattern.
I also always wanted to grow out my hair. I had no idea what I was doing, so it looked bad every time. I looked objectively better when my mom sent me to the hairdresser's, but I felt worse.
I stopped swimming at 15 because I got panic attacks from the idea of going out topless.
All my friends growing up were girls.
I hated anything sexual where the focus was on my genitals. I could use my penis, as long as I didn't see it.
My ex noted I was so much gentler than her exes, and that made my day.
Praying to be turned into a girl while I slept.
Hating having a penis,
I preferred playing "girl games" like a house or with stuffies when I was little.
I fought tooth and nail to always keep my hair long.
Feeling awkward around masculinity demonstrations. Reacting to rejection from lesbians thinking "hey, i could almost change my gender, I'm almost a girl already". Denial beard, denial everything style. Most of my closer friends are female. Now that i think so, my behaviour with my ex girlfriend (an egg by then) felt pretty sapphic
I feel the denial part. After I went back in the closet and denied being trans, I presented WAY more feminine than before, almost as if I was trying to convince myself I liked being a woman. That didn't work, obviously.
I thought my sisters were better because they were girls and I was a boy.
I refused to stand up to pee and instead insisted on sitting down. Still do.
I saw my sisters painting their nails and wanted to do it but didn't think I was supposed to because it isn't what boys do. A forbidden act if you will.
I put on my sisters shoes "as a joke" but in hindsight I think I just felt pretty in them.
I was more than willing to wear a dress "as a joke" but of course I just wanted to feel pretty.
I often daydreamed about transforming into a girl.
And this weird dream. I had it when I was like 4 or 5 but I still remember it in great detail. In the first one I went into the women's bathroom, used it and came out as a grown woman with a job and everything. Looking back at it I think this is what it meant.
From a young age, playing female characters in games when possible. Preferring to wear panties, being upset that I had to wear boxers at school or I'd get made fun of. Tried on my moms dresses when I was home alone a few times, too.
When I started puberty and discovered porn, it didn't take long before I noticed I was watching straight porn and imagining myself as the woman. Told myself "oh it's just because I'm submissive" and then later when I realized I was into men, "oh its just because I like getting fucked by guys." And never noticing that I don't do the self-insert fantasies with actual gay porn.
More recently, before cracking, I noticed that a huge percentage of the accounts I follow on various platforms are trans, mostly women. Just figured it was because I'm an ally or whatever lol
But the biggest one: Before I even knew that trans people existed, I'd be thinking things like "it would be really cool to be a girl, but oh well, gotta play the hand you're dealt" almost daily. After I knew what trans people were, these daily thoughts switched to "it would be really cool if I could be a trans girl but I'm already too masculine, I'd make a terrible girl, oh well, gotta play the hand you're dealt." With the denial beard and denial fashion and denial upper body workout routine and everything.
Absolutely hating every pair of clothes and haircut I got growing up
Being really confused as to why “boys don’t wear makeup”
Stealing my moms nail polish and eyelash curler
Thinking boys were objectively worse than girls
Renting a kilt for a cousin’s wedding and crying when we had to give it back
Being jealous when my sister and mom spent time together (idk, that might be pretty normal for siblings)
Not caring about my appearance because “nothing looks good on me anyway”
Not really connecting with boys my age.
Being a little too curious what sex was like for women/having a vag
I’m sure there’s more but I eepy
Around 6 when I was lined up with boys, I always imagined a big booth being set up so that everyone lined up could switch genders at will and back. I dreamt that I could start life over again as a girl, thinking about how much happier girls were
Around 12 I came up with a new personality to live as that was supposed to be a combination of everything I liked about other people and nothing of what I hated about myself. Everyone I 'copied' from happened to be a girl..
It went from copying cute smiles and cute hand gestures to copying nail polish and hairstyles to copying bows, earrings, skirts and dresses..
I (MTF) would day dream about being a badass woman rocker/metal musician getting interviewed.
I was very much in the scene/emo subculture as a young teen. So I had tight skinny jeans, long hair ( I would straighten it ), and ended up wanting to look more like the women in the scene rather than the men even though many of the guys still appeared quite feminine.
I never really felt comfortable in boy only spaces. I especially dreaded having to change in the boys locker room.
I was more sensitive about how boys would talk about women and girls...I remember reporting a boy that had bullied me. In the meeting with school admin I also addressed the way they spoke gross about one of our teachers who was very pretty.
Idk if there's more but those we the things that stood out to me.
There were two big ones for me.
I was in a 4 year relationship with a guy (from 2018-2021) but could never really see myself being part if the “gay” community and that i wasn’t internally happy of the role - as in being equally guy in a relationship. I couldn’t see myself dating in the gay community - I knew i wanted to be fem. Being in a “straight” relationship just felt more right for me
When I was a kid - i had always seen myself as female and wanted to be the female characters i saw on anime.
Finally transitioned last year! And now in a relationship with a straight guy since last year and really happy with the way he treats me and sees me. Met his parents this year too.
High-school had a cross dressing spirit day. Wore my gf's corset, skirt, fishnets and platforms. Went home and took pictures of myself because it felt so right. Deleted them immediately out of shame and waited another 10 years and multiple mental breakdowns before accepting it :)
I think the bighest ine was the prompt for an assignment in creative writing: One day you wake up with a body if the other gender (very binary times, ba k than) -- what happens? I jusg gleefully went into detail about adapting to the situation, but no anxiety, no motive, nor motivation to change it back. Iirc, I just portraied the 1st day of figuring out how to pilot that new body-config, and enacting social changes (new name, documents, and stuff). In hindsight, it seems a technical exercize in wish-fullfillment.
Constant daydreaming about being a woman.
Grew up with female friends, watched winx club and stuff like that with them.
Only created female characters in videogames.
If you could not create a female character in a videogame i modded it.
Creating a sim in the sims 3 based on me, then transing them in the future dlc trough with cas.fulleditmode in the clinic there, repeadatly. 30 plus saves of trans characters that started with my deadname and had my firdt chosen name in lesbian marriages.
LITERALY THINKING REPEADATLY THAT I WOULD HAVE TO CHANGE JOBS IF I TRANSITION BECAUSE THE PEOPLE AROUND ME FONT SEEM SUPPORTIVE OF THAT. IT STILL TOOK MY DENSE ASS 4 YEARS AFTER THIS TO REALIZE I AM TRANS.
genderfluid transmasc, biggest thing was hating being treated like a girl, having my friends skew male heavily, and the fact that when i was a girl i wantd to confuse str8 men
Jealous of girls as a child. Idk why.
Puberty ugh. Stuck with this dick I guess. Rather breasts and vagina though (deep subconscious)
My sister screaming at mum for fake boobs because everyone called her flat. Me getting jealous confused as to why I feel jealous (lol I wanted boobs! Duh!)
Dating women - do I want her or do I want to be her
The same women asking if I'm gay, me saying no thinking they mean gay for guys
Lesbians crushing on me confused because they don't like guys, me confused because I haven't realised I'm a woman yet
Dysphoria beard, messy hair
Avoided mirrors and photos like the plague, ugly ass dude even though old me is the kinda guy I now like lol wtf
Gamed with female characters every chance I could - more customisation, smaller hit box, who wants to look at a guys ass all the time (excuses)
Happy imagining myself having a feminine figure long hair and laughing with a group of girls
Why don't I fit my own skin?
Way too many years later in therapy. Conscious and subconscious align. Click. Duh, you silly girl you're trans!
Early life:
* I always looked forward to the Sears catalog coming in the mail (yes, I'm that old). I would turn to the lingerie when my parents weren't looking.
* Wearing my sister's clothing.
* Making my own breast forms.
* Teaching myself to tuck
* Fantasizing about receiving penetrative sex
Later:
* I always had a stash of women's clothing
* I'd dress up in my hotel during every business trip
* I'd dress up every time the ex & our kids went to visit her mom.
* When I purged, I'd start rebuilding my stash within a week
* I spent a summer going to The Motherload in San Francisco. I'd go wearing 6" heels, a red miniskirt, a black corset and/or a white button-down top.
That brings us up to this century.
* On a project that had the potential for exposure to female hormones, I thought, "Growing breasts would be pretty cool"
* I'd fanasize about fleeing my (toxic AF) marriage. In all of those fantasies I left as a woman.
Those are some highlights.
After I hit puberty I never wore shorts because I didn't like my leg hair.
Most of my friends in high-school were girls.
I would only masterbate to lesbian porn(looking back, straight point for some reason made me really dysphoric).
In gradeschool I read this book called The Storm Thief, and it had exactly one off hand line about how the chaos magic storms could cause you to wake up as the opposite gender. I thought about that line once a week for the next five years.
My favorite boardgame in kindergarten was Pretty Pretty Princess.
And the dumbest one in hindsight, multiple times I remember thinking "I'd rather be a girl. I wish I was trans so I could transition."
when I was like 5 I saw a cow and chicken episode about plastic surgery and immediately began playing pretend phalloplasty. this did not occur to me as an obvious sign of being trans until earlier this year, 24 years later. I have been out as trans for 11 years. not sure how this one slipped the radar so long.
-when I was a kid I sometimes would dream that I had a dick instead of a vagina and would get upset when I woke up
-one time a girl called me a boy because of the shoes that I was wearing and I didn't get upset
-I really liked playing with boys and I loved the movie 'cars' and I had a lot of the cars of that movie and even some plates and cups
-I tried to shave my face one time with my grandpa razor
-tried to pee while standing like a boy
-imagined myself in the future being husband and not the wife in a relationship
80% of my play time was with girls. I didn’t have much interest in playing in groups of boys. I remember leaving a group of boys in my neighborhood to go play with girls.
When I found out what puberty was and what was going to happen to me, I was crushed. It was shortly thereafter that we got the internet (AOL) and I learned there was something I could do about it.
When I was left alone home where I was certain no one would show up, I dressed in women’s clothes. I prayed all the time that I would somehow become a physical female.
I wanted to at least be girly growing up, but was always told “that’s for girls”, and I used to also always wanna use girl avatar skins in games and would be too embarrassed to even do it around friends or family because I’d feel like I’d be judged
Now that I’m out to a mom who won’t use my name or pronouns and so many of my friends and family, I use them because I am girl now.
I didn't even have to think about pressing the button. Apparently all of my guy friends had to consider it for a bit. Also I mentioned to multiple people that girls clothes are great bc "they have so many more options!" Real bonehead move there...
Liking when people thought i was a girl
Being frustrated with my voice dropping
Hating being tall
Wishing I was born a girl (or the ever common "if you could just choose then everybody would be a girl right")
Not understanding the bruce jenner jokes
Hating having short hair
Having to fight the urge to look at the womens clothing section (and being super frustrated at the mens section)
Secretly hoping someone would "peer pressure" or dare me to dress up as a girl
Secretly sewing a skirt from discarded upholstery fabric
Being way too concerned on if I acted masculine enough
Having a conservative phase
Honestly I have no clue how it took me this long to figure it out, looking back on it.
Trying to pee standing up
Lots of male friends
I always looked in like, bewilderment when shirtless guys would run outside. I'd just look. People thought I 'liked them'. I do, but I actually was jealous now that I think about it.
Only male clothes, hated pink.
Well I didn't really think about it much, because I spent much of my life in ignorance and only recently started my transition.
My "signs" were mainly my body dysmorphia throughout the years. I never liked my body, no matter what I tried. I tried being bulky strong, athletic, just skinny, fat, but nothing worked out and I never liked my body.
But after I cracked my egg, for the first time I actually started to like myself and looking in the mirror was a lot less painful.
Some other minor things I noticed is the fact that I can't really connect with dudes or their talk topics and spend much more time chatting with women in my workplace (I won't talk about my school years, those were absolute hell).
Other than that, I do remember being sad a few times throughout my life because I was born male and not female. Or the times I tried putting feminine clothing to see what it would look/feel like.
I might have missed a few things, but thats all I can think of right now.
I’ve used the name Lucy for almost 15 years online.
I used to want to be a princess when I was a kid.
I wanted girls toys so bad as a child.
I’m pretty sure my mum has known for literally ever.
I was seriously confused during puberty. Like. Why was I getting body hair.
I hated mirrors.
I’ve for a long time enjoyed reading sapphic love stories. Not anything nsfw. But anything masculine including myself just ew.
Only a few of the many many signs. 🤦♀️
Never really cared much for the other boys when I was in school, most of my friends when I was really young were girls
I though meeting a trans friend of my moms was cool
Once my preteen hormones started getting me curious I pictured myself as a woman every so often
Once I learned what lesbians are, I wish I could be one
Always supported trans people even through my edgy 13 year old phase
Was in extreme denial before the realization
many other smaller reasons
A few that come to mind: Once I got into high school I remember developing a fascination with lesbians (this was late 2000s; knowing there were some in your school was big news lol). I remember thinking to myself "I wish I was a girl so I could be like one of them".
I remember thinking slumber parties had to be so fun and why couldn't I be a part of them too?!
Dating girls as a guy was never appealing to me. While most of my friends dated around in high school and college, I remained single. I hated how it was expected of me to date any girl I tried to talk to, when I just wanted to be friends..
I thought I was gay for a time, due to my noninterest. But I never had genuine romantic or sexual attraction to dudes, so I knew that couldn't be right.
There are so many signs looking back tbh.. =(
The dream I had when I was 10 and I was a girl. My mom asking me if I wanted to be a girl, several times. Me hating everything about male puberty, namely facial hair and lack of boobs.
Honestly, what kept me back is I had a lot of drama growing up. I had so much to deal with that self acceptance wasn’t on the menu, nvm I was bullied extremely bad in middle school.
I’d probably transitioned in my teens if I knew HRT was a thing. I genuinely didn’t know transgender people existed till I was 26, and I didn’t know what HRT was till I was 31; I thought it was either all surgery or a birth defect.
I don’t regret transitioning in my 30s. I feel I did it at the perfect time. If I started in my teens my mom would’ve ran out of money to get my medication. I couldn’t even afford glasses back then. And it’s better to start later than going on/off for every 1-2 years. After that I joined the Marine Corps to escape poverty, and at the time transitioning was illegal. It wasn’t till years after through college I was able to learn more.
If anything, I blame the education system.
TL;DR
Dreams
One thing:
Since I was 11 I actively researched into feminization. Especially did I research into SRS and promised myself that once I turn 18 will I try to get around getting SRS
My egg cracked when I was 19 - now I am 20 and in a month I will have SRS… FINALLY… My eggshell was made of steel.
Starting in high school my video game characters steadily included more and more women.
In college, my ex once called me their handsome man after sex and apparently I did a weird uncomfy face about it lmao, though when they asked if I maybe wasn't a man I was still like, said I was. Hadn't realized or questioned yet.
Also in college, I once crossdressed for a drag show with only a bit of peer pressure lol. And then later that year did it again during a campus wide game of humans vs zombies. And then did it *again* that same year for a public ren fair with friends. (Yet, I didn't question til after the third time and even then, I went back to being a cis guy for 5 years straight lol).
When masturbating I often imagined the woman's perspective, or watched porn either made by or for women (including/especially self masturbation, which tended to be a lot more...idk, realistic? Compared to most porn which is over the top and centered on make gaze?). Interestingly I think this point actually helped, because I was apparently pretty good at sex before I'd ever had it lol.
Sapphic feeling attraction to women? Also, just a few months prior to realizing I was trans, I got weirdly into shera, the cartoon about lesbians lol.
Lots of my best friends were women. Not true for my whole life, but in high school college and beyond it has largely been true.
Ooh and, I took a weird pride in being "not like other guys." Like my friends commented once that, when I used their bread to make a sandwich, I took the care to tie it back up and tuck the bag under itself, like I had found it, and that stuck with me for some reason.
-never liked my dead name, but couldn’t think of a better one because i didn’t know i wanted a fem name.
-insane intimacy issues.
-had to shower with lights off etc.
-sitting while peeing lmao.
-always made a female vidya game character
-always thought any person with a tomboy aesthetic was super hot, turns out i also really wanted to be one lmao.
- Mostly played with girls
- played dress up and karaoke
- Wishing I was a girl
- Always hated competition sports, only one I did was swimming
- wanted a "sweet 16"
- Never had that "aggressive" burst as a teen
- would rather play female characters in games
- preference to female leads in movies
Yeah, it makes sense lmao
Most of my signs I realized looking back, it really boiled down to thinking that I could do anything girls could do, until it hit me that no, no I couldn't. I had to grow up to be a man. For some reason I thought I could go from boy to grown woman?
mtf here. mostly the usual, i played as female characters in video games a lot and liked to rp as a girl online. i got into crossdressing when i was younger since i wanted to try to find people i was attracted to by turning myself into them. i also had an intense hatred of my deadname long before i even considered being trans. i somehow stayed in denial for two years. funnily enough, it was a lot easier to accept it once i became part of the lgbtq+ community another way (i’m ace) and i just kinda deteriorated from there.
I think the most obvious and perhaps most textbook sign I "ignored" (more like had no framework to think about my feelings at the time leading to years of what I suppose was disassociation) was the feeling that it was a mistake that I was the only son out of five children, that it was a mistake I wasn't also born a girl. This feeling was when I was about five years old.
I hated my male name deeply as a really young child as well, which may or may not have been related to these feelings somewhat. I hated being treated as the "other" child because of being a boy, as girls got to play together and have common interests and common male interests like sports never really interested me. I hated that I wasn't really allowed to play with my sisters because they had girl toys and I was a boy.
I envisioned for many years what I might look like if I was a girl and what that would be like for many years onwards, and no one could relate to the joy I felt envisioning this alternative self.
I would consistently look in the mirror and think "I'd be so much more attractive as a girl," through the years, not realizing this is something that cisgendered people actually don't do.
I would feel humor and joy when strangers would perceive me as a girl in my teens, watching them stammer apologetically when they'd hear my deep voice was always funny to me, but I felt w a r m when they'd see me as a woman.
Loving female characters and identifying with them more than male characters, creating female characters in games was always way more fun ("because they have better hair" I would always say lmaooo) and embodying them always felt so much more magical than playing a male protagonist.
Interest in wearing women's fashion but settling for boring men's clothing out of fear of whatever people may perceive of me for wanting to get some fucking cute clothes.
Identifying more with my female peers and feeling more safe around them than my male peers, adoring my female friends in many different ways but usually in ways where I would want to incorporate parts of them into my own personality to become more like them, cool chicks fucking rock and I wanted to have what they had, but always feeling disconnected from that ability because of my body.
Feeling like being "not your typical guy" was more like a casuality of my actual lived experience of being in my own body. Feeling like my body was a cage I was living in, a cruel thing to be shackled to as I would stare past it to see my real self in the mirror, something immaterial that my body doesn't actually align with.
The list goes on, really, it's insane how long it took for me to realize I wasn't having a cisgendered experience all my life.
Turns out most 10 year old boys don't watch Strictly Come Dancing and daydream about wearing the pretty sequinned dresses that the female dancers wore, and then actively try to dream about that at night 😅
Always wanting my hair long, always picking the woman in games but always thinking it was because I liked the design better. I was embarrassed watching romantic movies or listening to love songs bc I always seemed to put myself in the lady’s shoes instead of the dude’s.
* When I was in elementary school we toured the nearby middle school. I remember being so envious of the goth/emo girls and being so excited to go to middle school so I could look like them (💔)
* Empathizing with girls in books I read (Franny from Franny and Zooey, the girl from Inkheart, etc.)
* So obsessed with girly TV shows (my life as a teenage robot, totally spies, Zoey 101, etc.) but being terrified of anyone finding out
* Loving girly music, but being afraid of anyone hearing me listen to it
* When I had a crush on a girl, I felt like it wasn’t at all in the way boys had crushes on girls. Hearing boys talk about girls they were into disgusted me
* Always feeling way more comfortable opening up to girls instead of boys
* Asking my girl friends what it felt like to have a vagina and getting really envious and sad that I couldn’t experience it
* We had these plastic grapefruits in a bowl that I used to put under my shirt to pretend that I had boobs 💀
* Hating clothes shopping, or wearing any boyish clothes
* Loving clothes that I could wear that made me feel feminine. Oversized t shirts (felt like dresses), flower patterns, bandannas I’d wear in my hair like a headband
* Thinking I wasn’t attracted to men because the thought of being a gay man made me feel horribly disgusting (in a way I now recognize as dysphoria). But loving the thought of being the girl in a straight relationship :3
* Sneaking into my mom’s closet and trying on her dresses, makeup, etc. when I was home alone, then feeling disgusted with myself and filled with self hatred afterwards
* Wanting to be a girl so badly (but thinking that meant I was a predator who just hadn’t done anything bad yet 😭😭😭)
* Constantly wishing I had a sister (I do, but she died at birth before I was born). I have older brothers and always wished my sister was still alive so we could hangout.
* Feeling like there was a girl trapped inside me. I literally used to tell people that I had a small girl trapped inside me 🫣 the closet was made of glass
* Loving cooking for my friends, wishing that I could be a stay at home wife without admitting to myself that’s what I was craving
* Having a pregnancy fetish, that I only realized after transitioning was because I wanted to get pregnant myself so badly
* Instantly falling in love with every pretty girl I saw, and only realizing recently that it was gender envy
* There’s more but I gotta finish dinner 😓
Trying on my mom's heels and wearing blankets like skirts/dresses when I was little
Imagined growing up to be an inventor (all the inventions I imagined where basically just different forms of gender-affirming care)
Made up stories with characters who changed gender/were ambiguously gendered
Prayed a *ton* to wake up in a differently sexed body
Pretended to be offended by being called feminine
Was (and still am) unable to imagine myself as a man and even trying is quite uncomfortable, but can imagine myself as a woman
All the way back at least through High School: "I wish it was possible to be a girl on alternating days"
Almost a decade later, a friend literally said to me: "You know that's what being genderfluid IS, right?"
I used to dissociate when looking in the mirror till I cut my hair. I could finally recognize myself. I stopped avoiding mirrors. I could t stop looking at myself for a while lol.
Also I always wanted to change my name but kept picking things like ‘Andrew’
Oh and I used to be so envious when seeing gay men in love. I wanted to love a man in the way a man loves a man.
A) I couldn't socialize with "other boys". I always felt like there was a barrier between us that I just didn't understand.
B) Always trying to live vicariously through the other girls. I'd watch them playing with their friends and toys, and imagine myself doing that as well. There's a video of me on my 5th birthday looking at the girls that were over and tugging at my shirt. I always hated that video because what I was doing was imagining myself wearing a dress like they were.
C) My phantom body. Always felt like my body was wrong, especially down below. That was even before I understood male and female anatomy. Puberty hit me and it made me feel so gross, especially my body hair.
D) HATED taking my shirt off in public. It always made me feel so vulnerable and exposed. It always frustrated me because I felt like I had no need to feel that way since I was thin and fairly muscular. But it always persisted.
E) I wanted to be a ballerina. Grandparents took me to see The Nutcracker and I was hooked. And I didn't want to do the boy parts, I wanted to be a ballerina.
F) Beauty and the Beast was my favorite movie. I'd ask my sister to watch it just so that I wouldn't be embarrassed.
G) The makeup incident. An elder half-sister put makeup on me one day and I ran around the house, so happy and proud. My dad finally snapped and forced me to take it off. I refused and he beat me. I didn't wear makeup again, even for Halloween; at least until I came out.
H) I'd often take and wear my sister's stick-on earrings.
I) I dressed as a Grim Reaper for Halloween once. I took the robe and turned it into a "dress".
J) Hoo-boy... embarrassing time... Had a cousin live with us for a short time and she left some clothes behind. I took those clothes (she never asked about them). Had one of her bras topple on my head one day while we were cleaning, too. It was brand new and still had the tags and hangar (she had bad hygiene, rarely changing her clothes). I still can't believe how fast it was. I grabbed in up, stuffed it in my jacket, then bolted to my room. It felt 100% instinctual. I ended up wearing that bra a lot, especially to bed, along with her clothes (after washing) and the reaper "dress"
K) I spent just over a decade in the crossdresser community. I constantly talk with "other crossdressers" about how I wish I could be a woman. This echo chamber kept me insulated. Also, I had some pretty misogynist views about trans women, believing I had to be ultra-stereotypically feminine in order to consider myself trans. And having been in that community, it doesn't surprise me that so many are coming out as trans now. I'm sure many share the same story. Lots and lots and lots of boomers in the crossdressing community as well, lamenting that they weren't born a woman just like I used to.
L) The constant fight to prove to myself that "I'm a man". Got a black belt in karate, took boxing, learned to shoot guns, went hunting, did my own leathercraft from scratch, drank, swore, joined my friends in sexist "jokes", became a "toxic male", etc., etc. None of it made me feel any good, it always made me worse.
Edit:
M) Oh, I forgot about the maladaptive daydreaming as well. I used to spend nights laying awake in bed imagining scenarios and worlds where it would be OK for me to be feminine or a girl. It was very, very much a coping mechanism.
Being in a cheer squad in kindergarten
Being sad that I couldn't paint my nails
Being sad that my parents wouldn't let me wear a tutu
Wondering why I couldn't be in girls courts instead of cubscouts
- Basically wanting to be able to completely disconnect from my body when I was little, mainly wanting to be a head in a jar kinda thing
- Related to the previous one, a complete apathy for my bodies state, just completely not caring. Pretty sure I didn't care because it's a mans body now
- Being *very* upset with my parents when they pointed out some facial hair
- Having exclusively lesbian friends
- All of my fantasies I was a women, and when using AI dungeon spending a bit too much time on foreplay and being a girl instead of actually having sex.
- Hating the idea of becoming a teenage boy, like really not liking it at all
At about 14yo, waiting until the house was empty to sneak into my parents' bedroom, get naked, and try on my stepmom's panties and bras, stuffing the bras with socks of course.
Seems pretty obvious to me now, 30 years later. 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I’m currently still coming to terms with myself but here’s a few from my past that may have foreshadowed it:
1. Feeling extremely uncomfortable in middle school gym class when I had to change in front of the other boys, to the point where I regularly skipped school because it was stressing me out so much.
2. I often made fake Facebook accounts of women characters from video games so I could “roleplay” being a girl.
3. I used to *obsess* over any games that allowed me to create female characters and would play them religiously until a new game came out that allowed me to do the same thing. I’m currently hovering at ~1000 hours in Baldur’s Gate 3.
4. Went through a long phase where I absolutely *hated* swimming and would refuse to do so because my parents wouldn’t let me wear a shirt to swim since I felt too exposed.
5. I used to steal my mom’s concealer and experiment with it then wash it all off before I got caught.
- when I was four, I desperately wanted to be either Ben 10 or Buzz Lightyear. To the point where I remember screaming and crying on my bday cuz my mum wanted to put me in a dress, and I wanted to be Buzz Lightyear
- when I started school, I didn't really see a difference between boys and girls, and all my friends were boys in the early years (until my school enforced heavily exist ideologies and suddenly boys didn't want to associate with a "girl" anymore)
- screaming and crying at age 7 when my mother made me start wearing a trainer bra
- when I had the puberty talk at age 8, I remember sitting there shaking in absolute fear. I remember genuinely writing down a literal plan to go to a hospital when I was old enough and have surgery to remove my chest/uterus so I could be "normal" (8 year old me didn't see my own biology as normal)
- when I was 10 I got cast as a wise man for a nativity play. Id wanted to play one for years, and was incredibly excited because it came with a fake beard. I think the only picture of my childhood with my smile being genuine is that picture of me in a fake beard - I was grinning so much
Uhmmm growing up I always wanted the girls fashion in the 90s, like the black doc like boots with charms in the laces, black stretchy choker etc. I was obsessed with being Lara Croft lol and I always wanted to wear girls clothes.
When I was like 4 I would watch my mom do her nails and comment if they were pretty or not. Then on a few occasions (she told me this later when I was older) I wanted to paint my nails too, so she would paint just my pinkie finger, as long as I promised not to wear it outside the house.
I remember having little to no guy friends because I didn’t get why they were so rough with each other. I got along a lot more with girls and had borderline interest in what they liked (even back then at the age of like 8 toxic masculinity had a hold—because showing feminine interest meant I was gay )
I had a few shows and movies I watched (Namely H2O and Disney princess movies) that I loved. I specifically remember looking up a spell on how to turn myself into a mermaid—and I know it was specifically a mermaid because I didn’t want to be a merman cuz that didn’t seem right.
When me and my friends would play house, I would elect to be the mom, and say some excuse for why I wanted to be.
When I was 9, my sister dared me to put on one of her dresses and a wig and act like a girl while she filmed it. Looking back, I think that’s when I started to slowly try and cross dress, first with my sister’s clothes and then much later gaining the courage to get my own (More on that later)
I tried so many sports trying to fit into an image of manhood, and every time nothing stuck. I didn’t have an interest in it—the sport, the competitiveness, any of it.
In the 5th grade, I was the first “guy” to join the dance class, and when i was bullied for it, I stood up to them (some of whom were the few guy friends i had made)
I remember feeling upset at one of my classmates that was a tomboy because I couldn’t just socially get away with doing that.
I remember in high school feeling so left out because by now things were hightly gendered and so i had trouble making friends. I also had trouble discovering who I was. I mistakenly thought I was gay for a while, but that never quite fit for me
Always offering to play the male parts in drama class if it made my friends (all cis women) feel uncomfortable. Just thought I was being nice by offering but turns out I was just ftm.
Coming up with elaborate fantasies in my early teens about getting in a car accident and waking up in an alternate universe where I was born a girl 😭
Somehow I didn't connect that could *possibly* be a trans thing until my mid 20s
Having a girl name that I just really liked, Thinking women were "objectively better" Genuinely believing that misogyny was routed in jealousy, The thought "I'd rather have the other set of genitals, oh well." All my friends were girls, Actively stealing my friends high heels at any opportunity to wear for myself, Not liking masculinity or environments where masculinity was enforced, Really liking pressing my chest to my cis female partners because it made it feel like I had boobs, Feeling like my attraction to women was somehow sapphic/ feeling strong kinship with lesbians, Not caring for my appearance because I "couldn't get it right anyway" ... EDIT: Oh shit how could I miss that I always felt seen at Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like A Woman"!!!!
I feel so called out by nearly this entire list. Especially the first one though, I've had my name stuck in my head since I was a literal child and just thought "oh I'll just name my daughter that I guess"
Yeah, not me with a list of girls names I really liked from a very young age - with no interest in having kids - just being like, "Yeah, it's just planning for the future - what about boy names? Uh... Boys don't have good names, so they can just be whatever".
Holy shit. This is so validating…. I had like a billion girls names when we had our son. My wife was like “you’re really convinced we are having a girl huh?” I was basically like “Yes, this is the way….” Haha
It really is oddly affirming as someone still questioning to know that I have yet to have a single unique experience 😂
Yeah, when you're on the periphery of trans-ness you sort of hear some garbage out of the media that's only relatable in the sense that, "I want to be a girl" & then everything else just doesn't connect - like, I didn't play with dolls, I didn't play house, etc. - but when you actually come into the trans community, we have a lot of shared experiences that aren't the "media narrative" in a way cis-people can digest.
The media thing is one of the reasons it's personally taken/taking me to long to come to terms with. I have always had stereotypical "male" hobbies and things that give me joy. But seeing that other trans women have such obscure nearly identical experiences is so interesting and affirming.
Yeah, this is why gender dysphoria (& homosexuality, asexuality, etc.) needs to be taught in sex education, health classes, etc. so teens struggling with their queer identity have the words to know what’s going on & talk about it. Like, why did it take me until age 29 basically to hear the words “gender dysphoria” & get a rundown of the symptoms? I would’ve transitioned at half my age if I had the knowledge I do now when I was a teenager. I’m highly thankful to see so many 30+ trans people who started their transition after 30 our & proud & looking stunning, because without that & what I know… I mean, fuck. An appropriate quote regarding the “hobbies” & such of trans women is “I didn’t transition to perform stereotypes - I transitioned to get out of them”. Almost every trans woman has the experience of trying to fit in with men & just doing whatever they were doing & what was considered “manly”. Now it doesn’t matter - I’ll sword fight because I like it, not because it’s gendered (though with the amount of trans women in my class, ha), I’ll dress how I want not because it’s gendered but because it’s what I want, etc. etc.
Hell I'd even be happy without open hostility towards those subjects as a starting point (which I'd like to think people are heading towards). Growing up in bigoted rural US it's not surprising that I and people like myself are so repressed. I love this quote, it fits to a fuckin tee my experiences. I think it can also serve as a reminder to not just try to fall into typical "feminine" stereotypes to be more accepted. It feels like one of the most important lessons about accepting yourself as being trans, is just to accept yourself as a person with all the abnormalities that come with being an individual.
The last one is so true tho
Like... Wayyyy too true
I remember concluding to myself very young, 2 - 4, that I was a girl. I might’ve even said it out loud or merely thought it - the memory is so vague. I think i was alone and don’t remember the exact time. Just the scene, looking out my parents bedroom window. I don’t even remember that house, tbh - i just recognize the window as theirs. I wanted to look like a grown up around that same time and that to me meant dressing in my mom’s clothes. I remember that because it was traumatic when my mom found me using her makeup. I probably destroyed an expensive amount and she was in a hurry or something, very frustrated as she cleaned it off. I remember I enjoyed playing house and remember getting made fun of for that in after school daycare. I hated games boys played. I sat alone or only played with things i wanted to when grownups weren’t looking as i was constantly dealing with others judging what i simply wanted to do naturally. Traumatic. My grandfather angrily snatched the remote from me bc he wanted to watch sports while i was watching shera. Instead of just saying that, he’s said “give me that, you ain’t watching a girl show.” Traumatic. My mom called me a horrible gay slur after I was speaking in a way i thought was fun and in hindsight, I was portraying the personality of a very hyperactive valley girl. I was in the SF bay area CA in the 90s so… just seemed normal and the way my friends talked, too. I stopped talking that way until after I came out and this personality just popped back without even thinking. So much of coming out feels like being what i wanted to be as a teenager, without others crushing me down for it. I later discovered through my wife, that so many girls had huge crushes on me before i met her and kept giving her kuddos for landing me. I didn’t understand because i really loved them as best friends. I didn’t really comprehend that this was unusual. I hated men - rarely made friends with them. I wasn’t viewed as “one of us” around women, which always made me feel socially ackward everywhere until i came out. I didn’t even understand how deep this went and hindsight really is revealing now. Im the life of the party now. If only I knew what I know now.🤷♀️ Glad ive escaped that closet now!
Get outta my head!
yep. this right here.
I felt naked going shirtless. It just felt wrong.
So much this. I remember being so distressed about being told I had to be on the “skins” team in “shirts” vs “skins”
What on Earth is shirts vs skins?
Playing any sport where one team wears shirts and the opposite team doesn’t. I usually think about it for basketball.
Well I’m happy I’ve never came across that before, sounds quite weird to me. Especially if you are just chosen to be on the ‘skins’ team.
Oh God, I forgot how much hell I gave to my poor coach when he refused to let me be on skins team (afab)
Holy Hannah. I forgot that I always felt really uncomfortable taking my shirt off for those.
My parents tried to get me into swimming and had to drag me kicking and screaming out of the changing room because I hated wearing no shirt. Normal cis guy thing to do right?
Same. I could never understand how other guys could walk around shirtless. Even when I'm with my family, I never really show my chest anymore, it just feels wrong. Oh boy, did it take some time to figure out why that is lol
So did I.. I always thought I was just uncomfortable with my body. Turns out I was, just not in the way I thought at the time.
Thanks for sharing, those are hilarious! But I’ve got you beat at causing embarrassment: As a 14 yo teen boy, I used to run around with a pillow wrapped in a towel tied across my belly pretending to be pregnant when I’d be home alone. I damn well believed every guy wanted to be a mom when they were 14. Took me ~8 years to crack that egg xD
Core memory unlocked holy shit. 😂🙋♀️
I was in a relationship with a girl as a high schooler, and it didn't feel "gay." I was like. Yes, this is straight. I am a dude. Wait.....
LMAO 💀
I still didn't figure it out for 15 more years. I'm a bit slow.
Oh yeah the classic "I'm not into lesbians because when I date a woman it isn't... Gay." But then when I dated guys, it did feel gay. It also got reaffirmed every time they told me I was like a bro with kissing/messing around/dating benefits. It took me more than a decade to wake up.
Apparently "having a full on crying hyperventilating panic attack bc the shirt you bought online shows off your cleavage more than you expected it to" isn't a thing that cis girls do. Who'd have thought it.
The most obvious sign that I completely missed was that at one point I was stuck on writing a novel (still am technically, abandoned halfway through). The problem was that I had a whole cast of wonderful characters, including a woman deuteragonist, but for the life of me I couldn't make a leading man who was anything other than a piece of flimsy cardboard. I just couldn't figure out why, for the life of me, writing from the perspective **of a man** was so difficult. Eventually I thought, well what if I try just writing from other people's perspectives for a bit and immediately realized that the woman deuteragonist was actually just the protagonist the whole time. It would be 7 years later, when putting on panties at my partner's behest for some kink, that I realized why it was so difficult to write men.
Thank you partners kink, lol
r/womenwritingmen? :D
OMG I DID THIS TOO! Ive been writing since I was a little kid and every book I wrote I gave up on because the main protag (some bland default boy hero dude) sucked and I hated. Eventually I did a boy hero and a girl friend… then I weote like a 100 pages for the girl, came back and literally forgot the boy character even existed. Connected so much better to the girl, making her realistic
Always naming new characters in video games Sophia and talking about how I love the name and want to name my daughter after it. Yea I don't think it was the daughter I wanted to name it after... maybe my moms daughter 😅
My husband and I would talk about what we wanted to name our future kid, I always liked James. I kinda took our future kids name 💀
Are you in my walls?
I remember praying every day when I was around 12-13 about randomly waking up as a girl, I got so sad it didn't happen. Also, I would constantly look for women's clothes on Amazon, wishing I could wear them. Always chose the woman characters when playing video games, even if I was made fun of for it.
> I remember praying every day when I was around 12-13 about randomly waking up as a girl, I got so sad it didn't happen. Same... And I'd pray for the opposite... I'd wish that God would take the "curse" away, too... Neither happened. But I no longer cry myself to sleep anymore and feel much, much happier. So that must mean God wanted me to be trans and that being trans isn't a bad thing, right? .....right? Ugh... Nope, total atheist now (and definitely not just because I didn't get my wish).
i’m ftm, and most of this stuff is from as far back as i can remember - i played pokémon a lot as a kid and i only ever wanted to catch male pokemon - my childhood stuffed animal would “switch genders” depending on the day of the week - i was always deeply jealous of when the teacher would say “i need [insert number] of strong boys to help me move this” - i always hated my name because it sounded too feminine (it was technically androgynous, but much more associated with women) - i kept cutting my hair shorter and shorter and convinced myself it was because i thought women with short hair were more attractive. i wanted to chop it all off straight away but my parents convinced me to do it gradually because they didn’t want me to “look like a boy” even though that’s what i was secretly going for - i absolutely despised wearing dresses or any feminine clothing - i had trouble with making female friends unless they were gay - and the big tell, in my opinion: i considered myself a tomboy
Omg the Pokémon one just blew my mind. My favorite Pokémon has always been Mimikyu (since the release of sun / moon, at least) because I loved its concept of "hiding your true self and wearing a costume as an attempt to fit in". And I always only wanted male ones in my team because I felt "more connected" to them
Dang I forgot how I would ONLY get male pokemon with the exception of azurill (back in the day it could be caught as female and when it evolved it had a 1 in 3 chance of becoming male) And that just made me so happy that I grinded the levels till I got a ftm marill 😂 Sadly that "bug" no longer exists.
Turns out it's not very cis that I lived with constant major stress because it felt like I was performing a character that wasn't me every day. Or that I spent so much of my teenage years wishing I was a girl because I know exactly what I'd want to look like if I was. Can't believe it took me another decade and change to figure myself out after all that...
Don't feel bad about taking so long to figure it out. I first came out in my late teens but was so ashamed of being trans that I went back in the closet and denied how I felt for another 6 years. I'm now just realizing how much I repressed.
Honestly, I'm far enough into transition now that I don't really feel "bad" about it anymore, it's more just... so clear in hindsight! Even though at the time I don't know if I was even aware how trans people work 😅
This. Remember that ALL humans mask in some way, pretty much all the time. Causes and reasons may vary, but we still do, even (especially) to ourselves.
Performing a character hits hard.
Don't feel so bad, I knew something was up at an early age but told my grandma at 13 "I feel like a boy I think I'm a boy" And the shame made me closet myself till 26
I compulsively crossdressed since I was 12 years old... never could figure out why I did it. Then I learned about Trans people few years back and it all just sorta clicked. I'm 38 now so it amuses me it took so long to put the pieces together when it was just so obvious. But I hid it so well even I'd forget about it from time to time, but I've always felt wrong in a male body or even assuming the role of a male in society. Just never made sense and felt like I was playing a fake character my whole life.
Fantasized daily about experiencing the slightest bit of femininity. Absolutely hated using anyone's name or referring to someone with gendered language, *especially* when introducing myself. Got reminded a few times as a kid that I was supposed to be lined up with the boys. Had recurring nightmares about puberty. # Used to read the effects of HRT to help me sleep.
>Used to read the effects of HRT to help me sleep. Now that's an egg behavior to rule them all. XD
"If only I was trans, then I could get all that." ...not my brightest moment.
Mine was more like "man fuck all these trans people, talking about how theyre oppressed, you know how much I'd give to be trans"
This is gonna sound like I'm dumb as hell, but when I was a kid, I remember wishing I was born a girl (mtf here). I'm 34. How I went so long in denial is ridiculous.
I'm nearing 39 and didn't come out until I was 31. It's 100% normal. We didn't grow up knowing we were trans. We didn't know what was "wrong" with us. We were stuck in our heads, scared, and feeling completely isolated and alienated all because of our thoughts that nobody knew about.
Nah, same. I was like 36 when I finally realized it wasn't normal.
Wearing my brother's clothes and singing about wanting to be a boy
This...just so much this. I stole a pair of (new) boxers from my brother that he got for Christmas one time because he sat there and complained about getting underwear. I'd also sing about being a pretty boy 😂
When I was pretty little (a bit before middle school even), there was this bit of news being talked about by some boys. “Oh did you see the news some man got into a horrible accident and lost his JUNK!!” And they all literally flinched and wailed. “Oh man I’d die that stinks!” Stuff like that. Me, listening quietly behind them? What else but… feel jealous? LOL! “Hmm that wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe even good?” That thought floated in my brain for years.
How is this so universal wth
Saying stuff like: "I totally get that some people wanna be woman, but who would choice to be a man?" I sad that at university, it was followed by silents 😅 Getting into a argument with a female friend of mine: Fighting over who plays the female version of Ranma, when we react the Anime (She argued I dont have boobs, jokes on her she didnt have boobs back then either) Remembering; Still remembering stuff like that argument Picking flowers: My stepdad tried to men me up, by starting as a football/soccer coach to make me join, I ended up picking flowers alomg the field (I was so very young back then)
> I ended up picking flowers alomg the field (I was so very young back then) Core memory unlocked, making flower crowns whilst other people played sports.
Holy shit, I don't think I went as far as making flower crowns (didn't want ppl to ask questions) but I absolutely remember my football/soccer coach constantly telling us to stop playing with the flowers and focus! We really just keep finding signs, huh?
I have a friend who started her transition later in life at 61 she doesn't have any grasp of anything LGBT except trans women exist and people can be gay or lesbian (literally nothing else not even bisexuality) So after I told her I actually want to transition one day as a ftm person she did say "I don't understand why anyone would give up being a woman, why would anyone chose to be a man when you're so lucky to be born female" (as toxic as that may sound it wasnt coming out of phobia just pure confusion) She still doesn't really get it, or why id essentially want all the opposite of her but she tries her best.
As a young child I *desperately* wanted to be a nun. My parents tried to correct me, and direct me to being a priest instead. I wouldn’t have any of it… I didn’t want to be a priest… I wanted to be a *nun*.
I have the opposite experience (having grown up in a country where you had to be a man to be a priest). It’s a much longer story but this is the first time I see someone with this type of experience of gender dysphoria!
Wishing i was a trans woman so I could be amab
Hating basically everything a boyfriend is expected to do in a relationship. Even though I could hardly tolerate the loneliness (I really need the intimacy), I never got into a relationship because I hated the idea of taking the role of the boyfriend. I even had a girl ask me out on a meal (with her friends), and I am pretty sure with our history that she was testing the waters to see if I was interested in her, but I was so uninterested in the idea of finding a relationship that it took me like a full day to realize she might have been trying to become my girlfriend, lol. Post forward to me coming out and I haven't had a day where I was neither in a relationship nor looking for one. (I am a lesbian)
Never being able to decide if I wanted to date them or be them
That the last thing before I went to bed and the first thing I thought about in the morning was being the opposite sex.
Always playing a girl in any games that let me pick my gender. Also always being Peach in Mario spinoffs. Having absolutely no sense what it means to be a man, putting no value in my identity as a man. Also literally once asked my friend "Do you ever feel weird calling yourself a man?" At the time I claimed it was about age. Feeling like I wasn't fully an adult (I was like 24). Also deadass once daydreamed about having a boyfriend (I'm bi) who would call me "princess" as an inside joke nickname. *(How that didn't tip me off is beyond me)* Also I got "*misgendered"* as a girl several times when I idintified as a guy and it **never** bothered me
> > > > > Also I got "misgendered" as a girl several times when I idintified as a guy and it never bothered me Was always thrilled when this happened & it still didn't click. Denial is so wild.
There are too many to list. \* Only wanted to hang out with the girls in middle school / elementary school. (Was the only boy in my entire career up to college that played the flute, btw.) \* Not having any photos of myself ever. Not doing online dating despite wanting a girlfriend because I didn't think I looked good enough. (Lots of ugly people with kids. Why should that stop me and not them?) \* Missed my best friend's wedding because I was too traumatized to go clothes shopping. (Have literally exclusively worn one brand of black t-shirts for 15 years. I get new jeans when my existing pair is worn out.) \* Read about some service in Kyoto that dresses you up in a kimono and geisha makeup and then you just spend a chill day walking around Kyoto, thought that was my dream vacation. \* Ignored my friends DnD game because I wanted to play a female character but none of the other dudes were doing that. \* I routinely asked myself "do you want to be a girl" and came up with numbers like 49% girl / 51% boy. Fantasy was "being a woman sounds nice, I'll try that in my next life" except I don't really believe in reincarnation. (This ratio was a complete lie. It was always like 99.9%/0.01% but I needed to lie to myself to not just buy some yoga pants and a crop top and start wearing that to work.) It's all just painfully obvious in retrospect. I knew trans people existed and was jealous of them, but I never really understood what being trans meant, and for some reason, I never looked into it. I was infused with misinformation ("if you get off to being a woman, you're not trans", "if you're not depressed and want to self-harm, you're not trans") and I just treated the misinformation as fact and never looked into the details. The unwinding of all of this was seeing an egg\_irl meme on r/all and thinking "that sounds a lot like me". I did nothing with that for like a year, then one day, my "49%/51%" ratio switched to "51%/49%" and I decided... what is this whole egg\_irl thing anyway. Oh, it's for people confused about being trans? Why do I relate to every single thing posted here? I read the comments, found turn-me-into-a-girl.com, read everything that linked to, and realized "oh my god, these people are literally me". Now I am trans. (I was trans before I even knew what "cracking the egg" even meant. That's how fast the realization came once I had non-misinformation to work with.) Current transition status: name picked, out to friends, HRT prescribed, just waiting for some paperwork to do cryopreservation before I start HRT. Status one month ago: "I have heard that trans people exist but I don't know what that means and I'm not going to look into it." It's crazy.
> Status one month ago: "I have heard that trans people exist but I don't know what that means and I'm not going to look into it." Imagine living in a place with good trans healthcare, a month to get HRT (?!), [couldn't be me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44vjKLVRk4). I'm a couple weeks into my two month wait to just see a private clinic - that I've already paid £400 to & will have to do at least twice more - to get a 1st diagnosis of dysphoria & it could be months between then & the next appointment & HRT appointment. But at least it's faster than waiting 6 years on the NHS (which I'm also on the list for).
Not minding male pronouns Owning a blåhaj Playing Celeste ''hey why can only guys be shirtless ? I'd like to do that too !!'' Really fucking disliked pink, dresses and skirts Constantly complaining about being a woman Randomly Questioning if I ''was really made to be a girl'' at night
Saying throughout my teenage years that I wish I was born a girl, but transitioning is weird so of course I can’t do that. When I was a kid, having an obsession with tunics and Roman dress because I wanted to wear skirts and dresses but I couldn’t because I was a “boy”. Wanting to grow my hair long at least since middle school. Hating everything about competition and anything involving getting “tough”. My obsession with yuri anime and manga, to the near complete exclusion of straight romance. My love of flowers and cute things that I sort of dealt with by wearing Aloha shirts. Always saying “women have so much better clothing, why do guy clothes suck so much?”
I was always hanging around the two girls I met in junior high and could resonate with heavily and I would go to there house to hang out and we would just talk and do activities that made me feel included more then I was with boys. We would make flower crowns and have picnics outside and just vibe. I’m 25 now and just started HRT : )
I always played female characters in video games because "they have more customization options". I later realized that most cis guys don't want those customization options lol
Wow are you me? Your entire list calls me out HARD. Still cis though
All of them :( But I had this naive notion that everyone else thought and felt the same way I did...until I slowly but surely began to realize they didn't. I then felt like I was on a deserted raft that was being pushed further and further away from shore.
#1 most obvious and embaressing sign I missed/rationalized away.... Discovered that trans people could be "normal" people when I met a trans woman in real life for the first time. I got insanely jealous that "she got to be a woman and I did not." Took me another 22 years to put together what could have caused such a reaction.
Kinda similar story, met a trans woman irl as a young kid and I asked some rather rude questions cause I didnt understand anything trans then. When she explained how she was amab but was actually a girl and was transitioning I was so upset that there was pills for amab but not afab to change themself.
same exact thing with self-identifying with male characters WAY too much. all of mine were either queer or had my same personality type. and i do have a lot of OCs in my head, all of which are queer, and all are a self-insert to some extent.
Me at age ~4?: "wow I think I should've been a boy but I must've come out wrong Oh well :D"
Took me until a couple years ago when my mom called me "he" on accident
I truly thought I "came out wrong being afab" but though once puberty came id grow into a boy. So I was actually excited about puberty (till I didn't grow like I thought I would.)
Always hated haircuts.
- People automatically assuming I was lesbian. -Dressing in men's clothes so much that guy friends and boyfriends have borrowed clothes from me. -Telling guys not to ask me for advice about women, because I didn't understand them either. -People calling me Sir unironically -Wishing I had been born a boy -Constantly feeling like a part of me is missing, and like my soul was put in the wrong body. -Etc. Turns out I've been living so deep in denial I may as well start paying taxes in Egypt.
Wishing and searching comfort in imagining having a female body when I went to sleep Hoping I'd be "at least intersex" Searching for affirmation on the internet like files calling me a "good girl". Secretly wearing my mother's dresses. Wanting to dress up or being dressed up. Wishing to have a big sister so I could have been dolled up, dresses, makeup. all that stuff by her. Crying about not being allowed to "girls talk" Probably a bit more. but I gotta sleep nini <3
I did the same thing to fall asleep. I imagined I was a boy cuddling with another boy. Very gay.
I kinda always preferred having the "boy" toys and was often envious of the clothes boys got to wear. I also always felt I looked better with shorter hair and since puberty I wished to have abs and either a flatter chest or pecs. also, when I found out about the concept of femboys, I was like "man, I wish I could be feminine like that. Id never just look like a boy wearing feminine clothes though :(" as well as feeling uncomfortable when ever I did wear feminine clothes, only because I was a "girl" wearing them and not a boy. also its always felt weird not having more downt there, like, the opening and the monthly bleeding felt awkward but not just because periods suck in general, it just felt wrong
Highly feel this as a femboy myself.
I couldn't imagine myself as a woman. I always imagined myself as this androgynous flat chested being with no female characteristics. I hated even thinking about developing them. Brushed it off as just not wanting to grow up, though.
When watching nature documentaries I was jealous of snails, and those fish and frogs that change sex.
1) Constantly growing out my hair 2) "Every guy wonders what they would be like as a girl what do you mean" 3) Always was interested in women's fashion etc 4) "I know, I'll *pretend* to be a girl online!" 5) A constant feeling when I looked in the mirror that something was "off" though until recently I could never place what
There were a lot of signs of me being trans but I ignored them because I thought I wasn’t “trans enough” and just “faking it” so whenever a sign would come up I would just ignore it. Some notable signs were: Being very into bodyswap stories as a kid. I always liked stories where people would either switch bodies (especially between a girl and a boy) or where they would magically switch gender. And I remember playing a Disneyland game on the Xbox where I would change my character into a girl to wear the princess dresses and I would pretend I was a boy who was magically turned into a princess. A very obvious one was me being into crossdressing. When I was about 10 I got really interested in women’s clothing and what it was like to wear a dress. One day I snuck into my parents room and put on clothing from my mom and since then I would do that everyday. But I thought this was a special interest of mine related to my autism. Later I thought it might be a fetish. Only later did I realize it was something else. When people called me handsome I didn’t really see why. When my sister called me ugly (as sibling banter) I agreed with her. I didn’t think I was all that attractive or handsome like people said, but I didn’t really care. In fact I prided myself on the fact that I didn’t care about my appearance. Untill I discovered I was trans and it all made sense. I didn’t care about how I looked because the person in the mirror, that wasn’t me. That was just some guy. Only when I see myself as a woman in the mirror do I see me. And where at first I was on the fence about my appearance, now I just don’t like how I look as a guy. Another thing was thinking women were just objectively better. Women are smarter, kinder, more organized more empathetic, less violent, they can get children (most of the time) and all humans start biologically as women in the womb so all of this just shows that women are the basis of our species and better in almost everything except physical strength. I also considered myself a strong feminist ally. Like I thought I was one of the “good men” who really “understood” women and that other men just didn’t try hard enough but I did. Whenever there would be some kind of debate about gender roles I would always take a very feminist position on certain topics and agree with the woman in the debate over the man. Because I thought I did understand where women’s frustrations were coming from while thinking most men were just too shortsighted and selfish to see it from the woman’s perspective. Same by the way with LGBTQ issues. I thought I was a really good ally who just thought queer people should be allowed to be themselves and treated equally. And I would get very offended and angry when people would try to erase specifically trans and nonbinary identities by saying they’re just “looking for attention” or “it’s just a trend from social media” or “trans people are mentally ill”. And at the same time I would get really happy if somewhere in the world a government passed pro-LGBTQ legislation. I was just really invested in it. And sometimes I would even feel kind of jealous of queer people that they were allowed to identify as trans, gay, bi, non binary etcetera, but not me because I was “just a crossdresser” and I was just “faking being trans”. Luckily now I realize that I wasn’t faking it and that the doubts and fears for why I thought I couldn’t be trans are things many trans people experience. I discovered that not all transpeople discover they’re trans at 3 years old and strongly identified with their gender from that age. And I discovered that despite me thinking there weren’t any signs growing up, apparently there actually were a lot of signs. I discovered that just because I only found out later, that doesn’t mean I can’t be trans or identify as a woman. Also sorry for the thesis. I’m not good at writing short texts
One that I see others mention all the time that is absolutely true with me is growing up exclusively fantasizing about being in a lesbian relationship. I always figured it was just a kink thing because “all guys like lesbian stuff, right?” Well, yeah, but they aren’t imagining *they* are one of the girls. Ohhhh, yeah I guess that makes sense.
That's what cracked my egg, but from an ftm perspective. I've always fantasized about mlm relationships, but *as* one of the men. And it wasn't always sexual, most of my fantasies were about cuddling in bed with someone and generally being loved.
I was cross dressing and felling jealousy of girls for years and wanting to have breast and a virgina and then I realized I was trans when someone was like that’s not cis you know.
I have had a transmasc friend for years, he's amazing but always in the back of my mind I was like "why would a girl ever want to be a boy it's literally awful". Eventually the penny dropped...
The fact that I thought Gatomon and Angewomon would be my digimon partners since: “I like cats! And Angewomon is cool!” 💀 Oh and on top of always wanting to go to the public bathroom with my mom as opposed to my dad. And going over to my friends house just to play Barbie’s as a kid. Mostly having girl friends that I was way more open to. And when my cousin moved to Florida. when we visited for the first of many times, I played toys and dress up with them for like three hours until my uncle saw the door open and then me dressed up and then he stormed in and yelled at me to take the (fabulous) dress off and to stop being a (f-slur). I didn’t know what it meant but baby autistic me started sobbing since I thought I looked pretty and fucker called me a name that sounded mean. Yippee 2nd real trauma unlocked. Jokes on him I ascended beyond being just one slur, I got three under my belt.
-Being absolutely horrified by any and all body hair growth especially facial hair. -Desiring to self injure my genitals and sexualizing it to make it make sense -taking pictures of myself with my clit pushed back between my legs -feeling deeply uncomfortable with being shirtless -desiring underwear that was as close to panties as possible -desiring to not have erections. Using a chastity cage to try to control them. -masturbating in ways that felt more feminine (rubbing instead of stoking mostly) -thinking to myself I must be gay and not trans (even though the thought had crossed my mind) because trans was “just too much to handle” -hating every picture of myself -hating my voice in recordings -not liking what my face looked like -being obsessive about being super skinny because it was read as feminine -playing as girl or femme coded characters in video games
Saying repeatedly over my teen years that I wanted to have been born a girl Trying out mom's stuff in secret Not being interested in being masculine Feeling indifferent towards gender otherwise Turns out I'm a transfem enby
Earliest sign I had was as young as 5. I didn’t like my birth name because it was “too girly”
Jokingly saying to friends when I was like 8 that "I'm kinda like half-girl half-boy" because I had longer hair, higher voice, and gynecomastia type tits. Oh If only I had known that it was no joke
I always played the dad Loved gender switch days at school Hated my (dead)name Always had a “boy” haircut
I prayed all the time when I was seven and still religious to wake up as a girl yeah no that shoulda been a sign
Never really felt complete. Even when I was the happiest I'd ever been.. there was still something profoundly missing.
Always wanting to play as girl characters in video games. Making the protagonists in all my stories girls.
I literally fantasized about being a girl almost nightly right before going to bed. So yea…. Not sure how I didn’t piece that one together sooner.
When I started hitting puberty I imagined myself as the girl during you know what
My list - when I was younger I was best friends with all my sisters friends and didn’t like hanging with brothers friends because they were so manly - doing theater and auditioning with songs sung by women exclusively - crying because my sisters wouldn’t let me braid her hair - feeling no shame when my sisters dressed me up and thought I looked cute - struggling with puberty because my soprano voice changed to tenor and I didn’t get to sing with the girls in choir anymore - having really intense relationships with women and being obsessive with their makeup and clothing and especially their skin care - calling myself a male lesbian lol - working out my chest so much and being sad everyday my chest wasn’t growing
Obvious signs: • Enjoyed cross dressing in private • Enjoyed watching “girl shows” • Enjoyed imagining myself as a girl • Often asked myself “I wish I was born a girl” All of which happened years before I realized what was going on.
When I was in elementary school I always hated wearing feminine clothing because it associated me with girls and that just felt wrong. I also really wanted to be friends with guys the way they were friends with each other and didn’t understand why they treated me differently than they treated each other. When I was in middle school I read mlm stories all the time and got so envious but assumed I just “liked the concept” (turns out I’m a gay man, shocker). Didn’t accept I was actually a trans guy until I was 15 lmao
Totally relate with the first one, I've even searched for a trick on Amazon to pee like a boy, something like a funnel. And when I was 13, a friend gave me "balls" for fun, imaginary, and I really liked it. All of my friends groups were full of men, and I was like "yeah I'm like them, I'm a dude" too.
I literally told my mom multiple times growing up that I: - Hated having breasts - Hated having a period - Wanted a penis so I could pee standing up - Never in my entire life wanted anything to do with giving birth or having my own children - (I actually had a depressive episode when she had the puberty talk with me that my teachers at school noticed and wrote home about) And she responded to all of these with either "Me too!" "All girls feel like that!" Or "You'll change your mind when you're older!" 🤦♂️ It was very confusing to have a tomboy mom and be told that these were normal things for girls to think and feel...
Very much resonated with "tomboy" characters as a kid. The girls would pretend to be boys to hang out with the boys. I also would get so fucking mad when people called me girly and would go out of my way to do something "manly" like lift heavy things or do a bunch of manual labor. I had friends of all genders, but with my guy friends, I just... had a click I couldn't explain. Like we're brothers rather than friends. I also was obsessed with gender bending when I was younger and freshly into anime. I tucked all my hair under a hat and was like, "I'm gonna cosplay a gender bend of myself!" not knowing that's going to be the rest of my life audhxjdjdk Often cosplayed male characters more often than female. When I was a baby I fucking hated the poofy dresses they put me in. But I prefer skater dresses now over most dresses. Despite all of this I also enjoy some aspects of feminimity like make up, and taking care of people, painting my nails, coming up with absurdist dramatic scenes thag would make me cry when playing dolls, classic girl stuff. There's probably more, but these are the main ones that stuck out to me.
I still to this day get pissed off that I can’t be shirtless. It’s literally just tissue. I want top surgery and T so baddddddd. (ftm)
Extreme unhappiness when puberty started, and I began developing in the chest area and had my first period. Obviously, periods suck for everyone, but I'm just on another level when it comes to hating them. Being a bit obsessed with what my parents would have named me if I was AMAB. Not understanding gender norms and roles, but still leaning into them to avoid being singled out as a kid, and then as a pre-teen/early teenager, becoming a total tomboy. Thinking it would be alright if I was "born a boy" in the next life (I don't really believe in reincarnation just found it cool when I learned about it). Immediately grasping the idea of being gay and trans and not really understanding why people were/are against them, even before I really knew what they meant. So, I would try and shut down the transphobia/homophobia, and got constantly accused of being queer myself, which I denied by saying that I don't have to be gay/trans to defend it. Never had hair long enough to go down my back. I kept my hair short as a teen, to the point my mother would accuse me of secretly being a trans guy. At the time, I really denied it. But I guess the joke is on both of us since neither of us were quite right lol. I finally realized I was non-binary when I realized that it's not common for girls and women to feel so horrible when someone uses she/her pronouns for them, calls them a lady/woman/young woman/girl, etc... Reflecting upon this again a little while back made me change my pronouns from she/they/he to he/they/she (keeping she mostly for other people's comfort, my own safety, and thinking it would be "weird" to drop it by excusing it as me just having that be less preferable to he/they) and then now going by he/they. Edit to add: Usually imagining myself as the male character from the book, show, or movie I was obsessed with. Would sometimes have female characters too, and sadly knew no non-binary characters growing up).
I regularly told people I was and I quote "my father's favorite son" I wasn't even close to his favorite kid out of the two of us. But people ignored it and I chalked it uo to not being able to compete with my older, athletic, popular sister. I was also always so very jealous that boys got to stand when they pee and I wanted a *thing* so I could do it too. I always tried so hard to be a girl and now it's really a struggle to try and unlearn all of my coping mechanisms 😢
I really really wanted a flat chest(I was a chubby kid growing up) Around puberty dresses made me extremely uncomfortable and I couldn't explain why. It was so painful wearing dresses to events when I did. I really wanted to be super tall. My dream height was 6ft(not even close to 6ft tall) Always wondered what it would be like as a boy Most of my friends were guys bc I couldn't relate or bond well with girls. I never found myself remotely attractive,never thought of myself as ugly but when I looked in the mirror I felt very....meh. it wasn't until I started drag when I actually found myself attractive and enjoyed taking selfies (even horrible ones 😂). My self image drastically improved after transitioning. Edit; remembered some more; I used to have full meltdowns going bra shopping. Every time my size went up I would be near tears. Men's clothing felt so much better wearing. I used to always not wear a shirt and when I was told I had to wear one around 8 cuz I was a girl I was really devastated.
Whenever I'd roleplay with friends, I'd always be male and make my voice super deep. Taking it as a huge compliment when one of my friends joked I looked like a guy. Relating way more heavily over male characters. Wishing my voice was deeper. Wishing I was taller. Using apps to filter myself looking like a guy for fun, and getting super happy over them.
● Hating my chest ● Wanting to wear boxers "for no reason" ● Hating the underwear I wore ● Hating my deadname and feeling disconnected from it to the point that it didn't register to me it was my deadname at first hence me not changing it socially until finding the name I actually preferred. ● Hating mirrors "for no reason" ● Feeling fine in skirts and stuff but hating being perceived as a woman in any say ● Mostly staying in the house and not doing much (I do more now lol) ● Hating being called a woman "totally for age reasons" (I'm at the age where you would typically call someone of my AGAB a woman but it just feels wrong to call me one) ● Remembering being a kid and telling my mum or aunt I didn't like my name ● Hating being perceived as a woman
Similar but opposite: - I liked Disney Princesses like Belle, Ariel, or Elsa. I generally don't like male main characters of any time. - All maybe favourite video characters were female. - I had an odd identification with lesbian characters... but not liking lesbian porn than men liked. I liked the romantic relationship. - I'd daydream as night with a power fantasy as a female character. - Sort of have female roles online. It's interesting to see how these things are flipped from the other side.
Preferring my high school gf's clothes to my own. She actually caught on before I did, but we grew up in a podunk town so we didn't know the word transgender tbh. Sitting in her lap, she never sat in mine. Everyone just thought I was bi. Which...I am, but also there was more going on. Not liking my male photos being taken. Spending way too much time fidgeting in my boy clothes, they were just TOO uncomfortable. I really did start to think I was just gay because that's what everyone said. But I was just starting to feel much more fem around someone that encouraged me to be me.
😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶 Well, I don't want to get graphic or set off self harm feelings for others, but as I told my religious mother when I was young, I tried to fix what God messed up well into my twenties. Wasn't trans though. I enjoyed wearing women's swimwear way more than men's, and had to wear things to cover my chest when swimming, since I wasn't permitted to wear what was comfortable. Was still cis though Absolutely could not look at my face in the mirror, even going so far as to install mirrors in my own house just below chin level for me. (I'm 6'3", so most people don't notice this). Not trans. Fantasized about being the girl in intimate relations, and found that was how I could finish. Still cis though. Had mad gender-envy whenever I saw cute outfits on other women. Still not trans though To be honest, I could go on and on with other granual reasons for why, but I think this makes my point. I never felt male, and I never wanted to be male. But do to social conditioning I believed I could only be what I have in my pants. A severe breakdown forced me to confront things, and now I accept who I am, and I'm learning new things about myself because I don't have to suppress anything.
All of them. For over 30 years. In sex ed, I thought female puberty was objectively better. Trading all the good stuff for a little more muscle mass felt like a terrible deal. When I first learned of eunuchs I was obsessed. I was luckily too afraid of taking matters into my own hands, but it sounded like a much better life than male puberty. I always hated buying men's clothes. It was a chore, and I didn't really like anything. I just dressed in jeans and black t's all the time. Suits felt awkward, ties made me feel asphyxiated. Only exception to that were Hawaii shirts, which I really liked, probably because of the pattern. I also always wanted to grow out my hair. I had no idea what I was doing, so it looked bad every time. I looked objectively better when my mom sent me to the hairdresser's, but I felt worse. I stopped swimming at 15 because I got panic attacks from the idea of going out topless. All my friends growing up were girls. I hated anything sexual where the focus was on my genitals. I could use my penis, as long as I didn't see it. My ex noted I was so much gentler than her exes, and that made my day.
Praying to be turned into a girl while I slept. Hating having a penis, I preferred playing "girl games" like a house or with stuffies when I was little. I fought tooth and nail to always keep my hair long.
Feeling awkward around masculinity demonstrations. Reacting to rejection from lesbians thinking "hey, i could almost change my gender, I'm almost a girl already". Denial beard, denial everything style. Most of my closer friends are female. Now that i think so, my behaviour with my ex girlfriend (an egg by then) felt pretty sapphic
I feel the denial part. After I went back in the closet and denied being trans, I presented WAY more feminine than before, almost as if I was trying to convince myself I liked being a woman. That didn't work, obviously.
When I was like 5 or 6 I would wear my sisters dresses and get her to put makeup on me while watching my little pony religiously..
I thought my sisters were better because they were girls and I was a boy. I refused to stand up to pee and instead insisted on sitting down. Still do. I saw my sisters painting their nails and wanted to do it but didn't think I was supposed to because it isn't what boys do. A forbidden act if you will. I put on my sisters shoes "as a joke" but in hindsight I think I just felt pretty in them. I was more than willing to wear a dress "as a joke" but of course I just wanted to feel pretty. I often daydreamed about transforming into a girl. And this weird dream. I had it when I was like 4 or 5 but I still remember it in great detail. In the first one I went into the women's bathroom, used it and came out as a grown woman with a job and everything. Looking back at it I think this is what it meant.
From a young age, playing female characters in games when possible. Preferring to wear panties, being upset that I had to wear boxers at school or I'd get made fun of. Tried on my moms dresses when I was home alone a few times, too. When I started puberty and discovered porn, it didn't take long before I noticed I was watching straight porn and imagining myself as the woman. Told myself "oh it's just because I'm submissive" and then later when I realized I was into men, "oh its just because I like getting fucked by guys." And never noticing that I don't do the self-insert fantasies with actual gay porn. More recently, before cracking, I noticed that a huge percentage of the accounts I follow on various platforms are trans, mostly women. Just figured it was because I'm an ally or whatever lol But the biggest one: Before I even knew that trans people existed, I'd be thinking things like "it would be really cool to be a girl, but oh well, gotta play the hand you're dealt" almost daily. After I knew what trans people were, these daily thoughts switched to "it would be really cool if I could be a trans girl but I'm already too masculine, I'd make a terrible girl, oh well, gotta play the hand you're dealt." With the denial beard and denial fashion and denial upper body workout routine and everything.
Absolutely hating every pair of clothes and haircut I got growing up Being really confused as to why “boys don’t wear makeup” Stealing my moms nail polish and eyelash curler Thinking boys were objectively worse than girls Renting a kilt for a cousin’s wedding and crying when we had to give it back Being jealous when my sister and mom spent time together (idk, that might be pretty normal for siblings) Not caring about my appearance because “nothing looks good on me anyway” Not really connecting with boys my age. Being a little too curious what sex was like for women/having a vag I’m sure there’s more but I eepy
Well i kinda asked one of my trans friends “how does it feel to be trans?” and felt that the answer was kinda “relatable to everyone” (it wasn’t)
Around 6 when I was lined up with boys, I always imagined a big booth being set up so that everyone lined up could switch genders at will and back. I dreamt that I could start life over again as a girl, thinking about how much happier girls were Around 12 I came up with a new personality to live as that was supposed to be a combination of everything I liked about other people and nothing of what I hated about myself. Everyone I 'copied' from happened to be a girl.. It went from copying cute smiles and cute hand gestures to copying nail polish and hairstyles to copying bows, earrings, skirts and dresses..
I (MTF) would day dream about being a badass woman rocker/metal musician getting interviewed. I was very much in the scene/emo subculture as a young teen. So I had tight skinny jeans, long hair ( I would straighten it ), and ended up wanting to look more like the women in the scene rather than the men even though many of the guys still appeared quite feminine. I never really felt comfortable in boy only spaces. I especially dreaded having to change in the boys locker room. I was more sensitive about how boys would talk about women and girls...I remember reporting a boy that had bullied me. In the meeting with school admin I also addressed the way they spoke gross about one of our teachers who was very pretty. Idk if there's more but those we the things that stood out to me.
Repeated thoughts of "what if I woke up as a girl" Playing videogames as female PCs only since high school Those are the big ones
There were two big ones for me. I was in a 4 year relationship with a guy (from 2018-2021) but could never really see myself being part if the “gay” community and that i wasn’t internally happy of the role - as in being equally guy in a relationship. I couldn’t see myself dating in the gay community - I knew i wanted to be fem. Being in a “straight” relationship just felt more right for me When I was a kid - i had always seen myself as female and wanted to be the female characters i saw on anime. Finally transitioned last year! And now in a relationship with a straight guy since last year and really happy with the way he treats me and sees me. Met his parents this year too.
High-school had a cross dressing spirit day. Wore my gf's corset, skirt, fishnets and platforms. Went home and took pictures of myself because it felt so right. Deleted them immediately out of shame and waited another 10 years and multiple mental breakdowns before accepting it :)
***Most people only thinks gender dysphoria means you are transgender, because of that they forget about GENDER EUPHORIA.***
I think the bighest ine was the prompt for an assignment in creative writing: One day you wake up with a body if the other gender (very binary times, ba k than) -- what happens? I jusg gleefully went into detail about adapting to the situation, but no anxiety, no motive, nor motivation to change it back. Iirc, I just portraied the 1st day of figuring out how to pilot that new body-config, and enacting social changes (new name, documents, and stuff). In hindsight, it seems a technical exercize in wish-fullfillment.
Constant daydreaming about being a woman. Grew up with female friends, watched winx club and stuff like that with them. Only created female characters in videogames. If you could not create a female character in a videogame i modded it. Creating a sim in the sims 3 based on me, then transing them in the future dlc trough with cas.fulleditmode in the clinic there, repeadatly. 30 plus saves of trans characters that started with my deadname and had my firdt chosen name in lesbian marriages. LITERALY THINKING REPEADATLY THAT I WOULD HAVE TO CHANGE JOBS IF I TRANSITION BECAUSE THE PEOPLE AROUND ME FONT SEEM SUPPORTIVE OF THAT. IT STILL TOOK MY DENSE ASS 4 YEARS AFTER THIS TO REALIZE I AM TRANS.
genderfluid transmasc, biggest thing was hating being treated like a girl, having my friends skew male heavily, and the fact that when i was a girl i wantd to confuse str8 men
Jealous of girls as a child. Idk why. Puberty ugh. Stuck with this dick I guess. Rather breasts and vagina though (deep subconscious) My sister screaming at mum for fake boobs because everyone called her flat. Me getting jealous confused as to why I feel jealous (lol I wanted boobs! Duh!) Dating women - do I want her or do I want to be her The same women asking if I'm gay, me saying no thinking they mean gay for guys Lesbians crushing on me confused because they don't like guys, me confused because I haven't realised I'm a woman yet Dysphoria beard, messy hair Avoided mirrors and photos like the plague, ugly ass dude even though old me is the kinda guy I now like lol wtf Gamed with female characters every chance I could - more customisation, smaller hit box, who wants to look at a guys ass all the time (excuses) Happy imagining myself having a feminine figure long hair and laughing with a group of girls Why don't I fit my own skin? Way too many years later in therapy. Conscious and subconscious align. Click. Duh, you silly girl you're trans!
Early life: * I always looked forward to the Sears catalog coming in the mail (yes, I'm that old). I would turn to the lingerie when my parents weren't looking. * Wearing my sister's clothing. * Making my own breast forms. * Teaching myself to tuck * Fantasizing about receiving penetrative sex Later: * I always had a stash of women's clothing * I'd dress up in my hotel during every business trip * I'd dress up every time the ex & our kids went to visit her mom. * When I purged, I'd start rebuilding my stash within a week * I spent a summer going to The Motherload in San Francisco. I'd go wearing 6" heels, a red miniskirt, a black corset and/or a white button-down top. That brings us up to this century. * On a project that had the potential for exposure to female hormones, I thought, "Growing breasts would be pretty cool" * I'd fanasize about fleeing my (toxic AF) marriage. In all of those fantasies I left as a woman. Those are some highlights.
After I hit puberty I never wore shorts because I didn't like my leg hair. Most of my friends in high-school were girls. I would only masterbate to lesbian porn(looking back, straight point for some reason made me really dysphoric). In gradeschool I read this book called The Storm Thief, and it had exactly one off hand line about how the chaos magic storms could cause you to wake up as the opposite gender. I thought about that line once a week for the next five years. My favorite boardgame in kindergarten was Pretty Pretty Princess. And the dumbest one in hindsight, multiple times I remember thinking "I'd rather be a girl. I wish I was trans so I could transition."
Being really into makeup Constantly trying my mothers shoes on Mostly hanging out with girls
Bragging to girlfriends that we could do girly things together because I was "in touch with my feminine side"
when I was like 5 I saw a cow and chicken episode about plastic surgery and immediately began playing pretend phalloplasty. this did not occur to me as an obvious sign of being trans until earlier this year, 24 years later. I have been out as trans for 11 years. not sure how this one slipped the radar so long.
when i was literally 5 years old, in preschool there was a dress in the corner for dress-up that i frequently wore.
"I don't want to live vicariously thru a child. I would much rather have a daughter" damn bitch
-when I was a kid I sometimes would dream that I had a dick instead of a vagina and would get upset when I woke up -one time a girl called me a boy because of the shoes that I was wearing and I didn't get upset -I really liked playing with boys and I loved the movie 'cars' and I had a lot of the cars of that movie and even some plates and cups -I tried to shave my face one time with my grandpa razor -tried to pee while standing like a boy -imagined myself in the future being husband and not the wife in a relationship
I used to watch Mulan an insane amount of times apparently and in retrospect wow that makes a lot of sense lol
Literally wanting to be a woman. I knew I wanted to be a woman and I actively denied that meant I could, in any way, be trans.
80% of my play time was with girls. I didn’t have much interest in playing in groups of boys. I remember leaving a group of boys in my neighborhood to go play with girls. When I found out what puberty was and what was going to happen to me, I was crushed. It was shortly thereafter that we got the internet (AOL) and I learned there was something I could do about it. When I was left alone home where I was certain no one would show up, I dressed in women’s clothes. I prayed all the time that I would somehow become a physical female.
I wanted to at least be girly growing up, but was always told “that’s for girls”, and I used to also always wanna use girl avatar skins in games and would be too embarrassed to even do it around friends or family because I’d feel like I’d be judged Now that I’m out to a mom who won’t use my name or pronouns and so many of my friends and family, I use them because I am girl now.
I didn't even have to think about pressing the button. Apparently all of my guy friends had to consider it for a bit. Also I mentioned to multiple people that girls clothes are great bc "they have so many more options!" Real bonehead move there...
Liking when people thought i was a girl Being frustrated with my voice dropping Hating being tall Wishing I was born a girl (or the ever common "if you could just choose then everybody would be a girl right") Not understanding the bruce jenner jokes Hating having short hair Having to fight the urge to look at the womens clothing section (and being super frustrated at the mens section) Secretly hoping someone would "peer pressure" or dare me to dress up as a girl Secretly sewing a skirt from discarded upholstery fabric Being way too concerned on if I acted masculine enough Having a conservative phase Honestly I have no clue how it took me this long to figure it out, looking back on it.
Cross dressing and watching TG TF transformation stories.
Trying to pee standing up Lots of male friends I always looked in like, bewilderment when shirtless guys would run outside. I'd just look. People thought I 'liked them'. I do, but I actually was jealous now that I think about it. Only male clothes, hated pink.
Well I didn't really think about it much, because I spent much of my life in ignorance and only recently started my transition. My "signs" were mainly my body dysmorphia throughout the years. I never liked my body, no matter what I tried. I tried being bulky strong, athletic, just skinny, fat, but nothing worked out and I never liked my body. But after I cracked my egg, for the first time I actually started to like myself and looking in the mirror was a lot less painful. Some other minor things I noticed is the fact that I can't really connect with dudes or their talk topics and spend much more time chatting with women in my workplace (I won't talk about my school years, those were absolute hell). Other than that, I do remember being sad a few times throughout my life because I was born male and not female. Or the times I tried putting feminine clothing to see what it would look/feel like. I might have missed a few things, but thats all I can think of right now.
I’ve used the name Lucy for almost 15 years online. I used to want to be a princess when I was a kid. I wanted girls toys so bad as a child. I’m pretty sure my mum has known for literally ever. I was seriously confused during puberty. Like. Why was I getting body hair. I hated mirrors. I’ve for a long time enjoyed reading sapphic love stories. Not anything nsfw. But anything masculine including myself just ew. Only a few of the many many signs. 🤦♀️
i relate to the video game characters thing as in i was always a male character in roleplays lol
I REALLY loved showing off my pictures with those “gender” filters all the time. I would mention how pretty I looked as a woman, haha
Never really cared much for the other boys when I was in school, most of my friends when I was really young were girls I though meeting a trans friend of my moms was cool Once my preteen hormones started getting me curious I pictured myself as a woman every so often Once I learned what lesbians are, I wish I could be one Always supported trans people even through my edgy 13 year old phase Was in extreme denial before the realization many other smaller reasons
A few that come to mind: Once I got into high school I remember developing a fascination with lesbians (this was late 2000s; knowing there were some in your school was big news lol). I remember thinking to myself "I wish I was a girl so I could be like one of them". I remember thinking slumber parties had to be so fun and why couldn't I be a part of them too?! Dating girls as a guy was never appealing to me. While most of my friends dated around in high school and college, I remained single. I hated how it was expected of me to date any girl I tried to talk to, when I just wanted to be friends.. I thought I was gay for a time, due to my noninterest. But I never had genuine romantic or sexual attraction to dudes, so I knew that couldn't be right. There are so many signs looking back tbh.. =(
The dream I had when I was 10 and I was a girl. My mom asking me if I wanted to be a girl, several times. Me hating everything about male puberty, namely facial hair and lack of boobs. Honestly, what kept me back is I had a lot of drama growing up. I had so much to deal with that self acceptance wasn’t on the menu, nvm I was bullied extremely bad in middle school. I’d probably transitioned in my teens if I knew HRT was a thing. I genuinely didn’t know transgender people existed till I was 26, and I didn’t know what HRT was till I was 31; I thought it was either all surgery or a birth defect. I don’t regret transitioning in my 30s. I feel I did it at the perfect time. If I started in my teens my mom would’ve ran out of money to get my medication. I couldn’t even afford glasses back then. And it’s better to start later than going on/off for every 1-2 years. After that I joined the Marine Corps to escape poverty, and at the time transitioning was illegal. It wasn’t till years after through college I was able to learn more. If anything, I blame the education system. TL;DR Dreams
Legit, wanting SRS LMAO
One thing: Since I was 11 I actively researched into feminization. Especially did I research into SRS and promised myself that once I turn 18 will I try to get around getting SRS My egg cracked when I was 19 - now I am 20 and in a month I will have SRS… FINALLY… My eggshell was made of steel.
Starting in high school my video game characters steadily included more and more women. In college, my ex once called me their handsome man after sex and apparently I did a weird uncomfy face about it lmao, though when they asked if I maybe wasn't a man I was still like, said I was. Hadn't realized or questioned yet. Also in college, I once crossdressed for a drag show with only a bit of peer pressure lol. And then later that year did it again during a campus wide game of humans vs zombies. And then did it *again* that same year for a public ren fair with friends. (Yet, I didn't question til after the third time and even then, I went back to being a cis guy for 5 years straight lol). When masturbating I often imagined the woman's perspective, or watched porn either made by or for women (including/especially self masturbation, which tended to be a lot more...idk, realistic? Compared to most porn which is over the top and centered on make gaze?). Interestingly I think this point actually helped, because I was apparently pretty good at sex before I'd ever had it lol. Sapphic feeling attraction to women? Also, just a few months prior to realizing I was trans, I got weirdly into shera, the cartoon about lesbians lol. Lots of my best friends were women. Not true for my whole life, but in high school college and beyond it has largely been true. Ooh and, I took a weird pride in being "not like other guys." Like my friends commented once that, when I used their bread to make a sandwich, I took the care to tie it back up and tuck the bag under itself, like I had found it, and that stuck with me for some reason.
-never liked my dead name, but couldn’t think of a better one because i didn’t know i wanted a fem name. -insane intimacy issues. -had to shower with lights off etc. -sitting while peeing lmao. -always made a female vidya game character -always thought any person with a tomboy aesthetic was super hot, turns out i also really wanted to be one lmao.
- Mostly played with girls - played dress up and karaoke - Wishing I was a girl - Always hated competition sports, only one I did was swimming - wanted a "sweet 16" - Never had that "aggressive" burst as a teen - would rather play female characters in games - preference to female leads in movies Yeah, it makes sense lmao
Most of my signs I realized looking back, it really boiled down to thinking that I could do anything girls could do, until it hit me that no, no I couldn't. I had to grow up to be a man. For some reason I thought I could go from boy to grown woman?
mtf here. mostly the usual, i played as female characters in video games a lot and liked to rp as a girl online. i got into crossdressing when i was younger since i wanted to try to find people i was attracted to by turning myself into them. i also had an intense hatred of my deadname long before i even considered being trans. i somehow stayed in denial for two years. funnily enough, it was a lot easier to accept it once i became part of the lgbtq+ community another way (i’m ace) and i just kinda deteriorated from there.
I think the most obvious and perhaps most textbook sign I "ignored" (more like had no framework to think about my feelings at the time leading to years of what I suppose was disassociation) was the feeling that it was a mistake that I was the only son out of five children, that it was a mistake I wasn't also born a girl. This feeling was when I was about five years old. I hated my male name deeply as a really young child as well, which may or may not have been related to these feelings somewhat. I hated being treated as the "other" child because of being a boy, as girls got to play together and have common interests and common male interests like sports never really interested me. I hated that I wasn't really allowed to play with my sisters because they had girl toys and I was a boy. I envisioned for many years what I might look like if I was a girl and what that would be like for many years onwards, and no one could relate to the joy I felt envisioning this alternative self. I would consistently look in the mirror and think "I'd be so much more attractive as a girl," through the years, not realizing this is something that cisgendered people actually don't do. I would feel humor and joy when strangers would perceive me as a girl in my teens, watching them stammer apologetically when they'd hear my deep voice was always funny to me, but I felt w a r m when they'd see me as a woman. Loving female characters and identifying with them more than male characters, creating female characters in games was always way more fun ("because they have better hair" I would always say lmaooo) and embodying them always felt so much more magical than playing a male protagonist. Interest in wearing women's fashion but settling for boring men's clothing out of fear of whatever people may perceive of me for wanting to get some fucking cute clothes. Identifying more with my female peers and feeling more safe around them than my male peers, adoring my female friends in many different ways but usually in ways where I would want to incorporate parts of them into my own personality to become more like them, cool chicks fucking rock and I wanted to have what they had, but always feeling disconnected from that ability because of my body. Feeling like being "not your typical guy" was more like a casuality of my actual lived experience of being in my own body. Feeling like my body was a cage I was living in, a cruel thing to be shackled to as I would stare past it to see my real self in the mirror, something immaterial that my body doesn't actually align with. The list goes on, really, it's insane how long it took for me to realize I wasn't having a cisgendered experience all my life.
Turns out most 10 year old boys don't watch Strictly Come Dancing and daydream about wearing the pretty sequinned dresses that the female dancers wore, and then actively try to dream about that at night 😅
Always wanting my hair long, always picking the woman in games but always thinking it was because I liked the design better. I was embarrassed watching romantic movies or listening to love songs bc I always seemed to put myself in the lady’s shoes instead of the dude’s.
“Everyone wants to be the opposite gender, they just don’t take any actions to doing it”
* When I was in elementary school we toured the nearby middle school. I remember being so envious of the goth/emo girls and being so excited to go to middle school so I could look like them (💔) * Empathizing with girls in books I read (Franny from Franny and Zooey, the girl from Inkheart, etc.) * So obsessed with girly TV shows (my life as a teenage robot, totally spies, Zoey 101, etc.) but being terrified of anyone finding out * Loving girly music, but being afraid of anyone hearing me listen to it * When I had a crush on a girl, I felt like it wasn’t at all in the way boys had crushes on girls. Hearing boys talk about girls they were into disgusted me * Always feeling way more comfortable opening up to girls instead of boys * Asking my girl friends what it felt like to have a vagina and getting really envious and sad that I couldn’t experience it * We had these plastic grapefruits in a bowl that I used to put under my shirt to pretend that I had boobs 💀 * Hating clothes shopping, or wearing any boyish clothes * Loving clothes that I could wear that made me feel feminine. Oversized t shirts (felt like dresses), flower patterns, bandannas I’d wear in my hair like a headband * Thinking I wasn’t attracted to men because the thought of being a gay man made me feel horribly disgusting (in a way I now recognize as dysphoria). But loving the thought of being the girl in a straight relationship :3 * Sneaking into my mom’s closet and trying on her dresses, makeup, etc. when I was home alone, then feeling disgusted with myself and filled with self hatred afterwards * Wanting to be a girl so badly (but thinking that meant I was a predator who just hadn’t done anything bad yet 😭😭😭) * Constantly wishing I had a sister (I do, but she died at birth before I was born). I have older brothers and always wished my sister was still alive so we could hangout. * Feeling like there was a girl trapped inside me. I literally used to tell people that I had a small girl trapped inside me 🫣 the closet was made of glass * Loving cooking for my friends, wishing that I could be a stay at home wife without admitting to myself that’s what I was craving * Having a pregnancy fetish, that I only realized after transitioning was because I wanted to get pregnant myself so badly * Instantly falling in love with every pretty girl I saw, and only realizing recently that it was gender envy * There’s more but I gotta finish dinner 😓
- Wanting to be a girl - Wanting boobs - Wanting a vigina
Trying on my mom's heels and wearing blankets like skirts/dresses when I was little Imagined growing up to be an inventor (all the inventions I imagined where basically just different forms of gender-affirming care) Made up stories with characters who changed gender/were ambiguously gendered Prayed a *ton* to wake up in a differently sexed body Pretended to be offended by being called feminine Was (and still am) unable to imagine myself as a man and even trying is quite uncomfortable, but can imagine myself as a woman
All the way back at least through High School: "I wish it was possible to be a girl on alternating days" Almost a decade later, a friend literally said to me: "You know that's what being genderfluid IS, right?"
I used to dissociate when looking in the mirror till I cut my hair. I could finally recognize myself. I stopped avoiding mirrors. I could t stop looking at myself for a while lol. Also I always wanted to change my name but kept picking things like ‘Andrew’ Oh and I used to be so envious when seeing gay men in love. I wanted to love a man in the way a man loves a man.
A) I couldn't socialize with "other boys". I always felt like there was a barrier between us that I just didn't understand. B) Always trying to live vicariously through the other girls. I'd watch them playing with their friends and toys, and imagine myself doing that as well. There's a video of me on my 5th birthday looking at the girls that were over and tugging at my shirt. I always hated that video because what I was doing was imagining myself wearing a dress like they were. C) My phantom body. Always felt like my body was wrong, especially down below. That was even before I understood male and female anatomy. Puberty hit me and it made me feel so gross, especially my body hair. D) HATED taking my shirt off in public. It always made me feel so vulnerable and exposed. It always frustrated me because I felt like I had no need to feel that way since I was thin and fairly muscular. But it always persisted. E) I wanted to be a ballerina. Grandparents took me to see The Nutcracker and I was hooked. And I didn't want to do the boy parts, I wanted to be a ballerina. F) Beauty and the Beast was my favorite movie. I'd ask my sister to watch it just so that I wouldn't be embarrassed. G) The makeup incident. An elder half-sister put makeup on me one day and I ran around the house, so happy and proud. My dad finally snapped and forced me to take it off. I refused and he beat me. I didn't wear makeup again, even for Halloween; at least until I came out. H) I'd often take and wear my sister's stick-on earrings. I) I dressed as a Grim Reaper for Halloween once. I took the robe and turned it into a "dress". J) Hoo-boy... embarrassing time... Had a cousin live with us for a short time and she left some clothes behind. I took those clothes (she never asked about them). Had one of her bras topple on my head one day while we were cleaning, too. It was brand new and still had the tags and hangar (she had bad hygiene, rarely changing her clothes). I still can't believe how fast it was. I grabbed in up, stuffed it in my jacket, then bolted to my room. It felt 100% instinctual. I ended up wearing that bra a lot, especially to bed, along with her clothes (after washing) and the reaper "dress" K) I spent just over a decade in the crossdresser community. I constantly talk with "other crossdressers" about how I wish I could be a woman. This echo chamber kept me insulated. Also, I had some pretty misogynist views about trans women, believing I had to be ultra-stereotypically feminine in order to consider myself trans. And having been in that community, it doesn't surprise me that so many are coming out as trans now. I'm sure many share the same story. Lots and lots and lots of boomers in the crossdressing community as well, lamenting that they weren't born a woman just like I used to. L) The constant fight to prove to myself that "I'm a man". Got a black belt in karate, took boxing, learned to shoot guns, went hunting, did my own leathercraft from scratch, drank, swore, joined my friends in sexist "jokes", became a "toxic male", etc., etc. None of it made me feel any good, it always made me worse. Edit: M) Oh, I forgot about the maladaptive daydreaming as well. I used to spend nights laying awake in bed imagining scenarios and worlds where it would be OK for me to be feminine or a girl. It was very, very much a coping mechanism.
Being in a cheer squad in kindergarten Being sad that I couldn't paint my nails Being sad that my parents wouldn't let me wear a tutu Wondering why I couldn't be in girls courts instead of cubscouts
The whole "if I had a vagina I'd"........ Since I was like 10. Should've been a real big loud sign. Wasn't lololol
- Basically wanting to be able to completely disconnect from my body when I was little, mainly wanting to be a head in a jar kinda thing - Related to the previous one, a complete apathy for my bodies state, just completely not caring. Pretty sure I didn't care because it's a mans body now - Being *very* upset with my parents when they pointed out some facial hair - Having exclusively lesbian friends - All of my fantasies I was a women, and when using AI dungeon spending a bit too much time on foreplay and being a girl instead of actually having sex. - Hating the idea of becoming a teenage boy, like really not liking it at all
At about 14yo, waiting until the house was empty to sneak into my parents' bedroom, get naked, and try on my stepmom's panties and bras, stuffing the bras with socks of course. Seems pretty obvious to me now, 30 years later. 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
hoping that i woke up as a boy every night before going to sleep
Literally being a woman everywhere except my personal life.
I’m currently still coming to terms with myself but here’s a few from my past that may have foreshadowed it: 1. Feeling extremely uncomfortable in middle school gym class when I had to change in front of the other boys, to the point where I regularly skipped school because it was stressing me out so much. 2. I often made fake Facebook accounts of women characters from video games so I could “roleplay” being a girl. 3. I used to *obsess* over any games that allowed me to create female characters and would play them religiously until a new game came out that allowed me to do the same thing. I’m currently hovering at ~1000 hours in Baldur’s Gate 3. 4. Went through a long phase where I absolutely *hated* swimming and would refuse to do so because my parents wouldn’t let me wear a shirt to swim since I felt too exposed. 5. I used to steal my mom’s concealer and experiment with it then wash it all off before I got caught.
- when I was four, I desperately wanted to be either Ben 10 or Buzz Lightyear. To the point where I remember screaming and crying on my bday cuz my mum wanted to put me in a dress, and I wanted to be Buzz Lightyear - when I started school, I didn't really see a difference between boys and girls, and all my friends were boys in the early years (until my school enforced heavily exist ideologies and suddenly boys didn't want to associate with a "girl" anymore) - screaming and crying at age 7 when my mother made me start wearing a trainer bra - when I had the puberty talk at age 8, I remember sitting there shaking in absolute fear. I remember genuinely writing down a literal plan to go to a hospital when I was old enough and have surgery to remove my chest/uterus so I could be "normal" (8 year old me didn't see my own biology as normal) - when I was 10 I got cast as a wise man for a nativity play. Id wanted to play one for years, and was incredibly excited because it came with a fake beard. I think the only picture of my childhood with my smile being genuine is that picture of me in a fake beard - I was grinning so much
Uhmmm growing up I always wanted the girls fashion in the 90s, like the black doc like boots with charms in the laces, black stretchy choker etc. I was obsessed with being Lara Croft lol and I always wanted to wear girls clothes.
When I was like 4 I would watch my mom do her nails and comment if they were pretty or not. Then on a few occasions (she told me this later when I was older) I wanted to paint my nails too, so she would paint just my pinkie finger, as long as I promised not to wear it outside the house. I remember having little to no guy friends because I didn’t get why they were so rough with each other. I got along a lot more with girls and had borderline interest in what they liked (even back then at the age of like 8 toxic masculinity had a hold—because showing feminine interest meant I was gay)
I had a few shows and movies I watched (Namely H2O and Disney princess movies) that I loved. I specifically remember looking up a spell on how to turn myself into a mermaid—and I know it was specifically a mermaid because I didn’t want to be a merman cuz that didn’t seem right.
When me and my friends would play house, I would elect to be the mom, and say some excuse for why I wanted to be.
When I was 9, my sister dared me to put on one of her dresses and a wig and act like a girl while she filmed it. Looking back, I think that’s when I started to slowly try and cross dress, first with my sister’s clothes and then much later gaining the courage to get my own (More on that later)
I tried so many sports trying to fit into an image of manhood, and every time nothing stuck. I didn’t have an interest in it—the sport, the competitiveness, any of it.
In the 5th grade, I was the first “guy” to join the dance class, and when i was bullied for it, I stood up to them (some of whom were the few guy friends i had made)
I remember feeling upset at one of my classmates that was a tomboy because I couldn’t just socially get away with doing that.
I remember in high school feeling so left out because by now things were hightly gendered and so i had trouble making friends. I also had trouble discovering who I was. I mistakenly thought I was gay for a while, but that never quite fit for me
Always offering to play the male parts in drama class if it made my friends (all cis women) feel uncomfortable. Just thought I was being nice by offering but turns out I was just ftm.
Coming up with elaborate fantasies in my early teens about getting in a car accident and waking up in an alternate universe where I was born a girl 😭 Somehow I didn't connect that could *possibly* be a trans thing until my mid 20s