Did everything start making sense when you realized your gender?

Hi, I suppose it's kind of a funny question, but for me when I figured out I was trans* so much of my life started making sense. I figured out why I always thought mens clothes were boring and kept asking my mom to wear girl clothes. I figured out why I always play the female character in video games. I figured out why I love crochet. I figured out why I was so confused about the concept of "macho". It made sense why I was always jealous about how girls can wear female dresses and skirts, but also wear t-shirts and jeans if they want. Yeah… I really should have noticed sooner.

 

yeah, some things just started to line up for me. especially some instances from my childhood, like the happiness i felt when the hairdresser accidentally gave me a "boy haircut", why i could never fit in with girls, why i wore my (male) friend's clothes at every opportunity. it's so obvious when you look at my childhood. but as they say, hindsight is 20/20

 

Yeah, I had the same kind of feeling. I've never been (and probably never will be) very masculine but I've always been drawn to male clothes (when I was little I would try on suits in clothing stores) and I always used male words for myself (like king instead of queen) and of course it finally explained what all the dysphoria was about. When I was a kid I thought that the doctors had messed up and mislabeled me at birth and I was actually male, and I worried about how to tell my mom. I refused to wear dresses or skirts when I was younger, and even though I actually like them, I always felt too uncomfortable to wear them. There were all these little signs I never even picked up on until recently :lol:

 

Not exactly. (I was aware that I hated being a guy I just hadn't accepted things very well in my head because I was trying to 'fake it till i make it') Things are slowly becoming less totally and utterly terrifying though. It's kind of hard to describe. Previously I had to basically bullshit through situations on grit and determination and pride (of a sort)... It actually feels easier as I accept myself more to be "braver" or something. I just hope that if I keep going in the direction I want that that trend will continue. It's sort of like (in a way) how I felt after losing a hundred or so pounds, years ago.

 

I won't beat a dead horse.

But exactly. You get it.

 

For me, it has been a some of each so far. It's a mixture of "well, that explains a lot", but there's still a lot of "where do I go from here?" that I'm still sorting through. There are times lately though, that I have been more comfortable with who I am than I have in... well, I can't even remember.

 

Some of my finer moments:
-When I was 8 I cried when driving away from the hair dresser with hair that was too long once (it was to my chin), so my mom took me back and the hair dresser and she cautiously cut off another half inch.
-When I was 6/7 I always wanted to tie my dad's ties (he'd untie and retie them when I was done with my mess, but I was obsessed with his ties).
Plus more things.

 

Yes.

It explained why I played with my sister's barbie dolls, both with and without her sometimes.

It explained why I was finicky as a child, never wanted to get dirty.

It explained why I always had a little trouble relating to my guy friends, especially whenever they talked about "being a man" and stuff like that. I originally thought I was just a wimp with that one lol but then I was like oh, okay that makes sense now...

It also helped explain why I mostly saw women as aesthetic attractions and not sexual attractions, even though this is part of my orientation. I always looked at women wanting their hair and their clothes, I never saw through that stuff and only focused on boobs like my friends did. I didn't think I was gay or anything at the time, I just thought maybe I was less crazy about boobs or something, I didn't really know for sure.

Can't remember everything at the moment but yeah, looking back a fair amount of things made more sense.

 

Still pretty new to this but I'm not finding it that simple. It's more I understand why I wasn't comfortable with some stuff, where I felt I had to force myself to like guy things, why I always seemed to relate to female characters etc.

 

Yeah, it made a lot of sense to me why having short hair bothers me so much.

 

Yes yes oh my god yes. When I was younger I used to fantasize a lot about being in made up worlds (some were realistic, some were not at all, it depended on what I was in the mood for) and for some reason the person that represented me was always male. I also hated wearing women's clothes and I couldn't stand it when my parents referred to my sister and I as "the girls". Even through all that I just thought I was a very masculine tomboy. When I learned what transgender was I knew instantly it was me even though I didn't want to admit it at first.

 

there was a point in 10th grade where id gotten into kinda a bad spot and i wouldnt pay attention sometimes and instinctively try to walk into the mens bathroom or use male pronouns in spanish when we hada write about ourselves, haha i shouldnt have ignored that should i?

 

Some things, like how I always liked to hang out with guys, why I always hated the idea of "being a woman", why I tend to relate more to male characters in anime and movies than to female characters, why I mostly played with boys toys as a child...

But when I was a child I did some feminine things as well... Which confused me for a little while.

 

There is a common trans narrative (well I see it a lot anyway) that when trans people were kids they identified with fictional characters of their gender (so trans women identifying with girls and trans men with boys). For a long time when I saw this my reaction was that the gender of characters wasn't relevant to how I perceived them but one day I realised that even though the characters I connected with were of all genders, I was much more likely to connect with characters that were gender nonconforming (tomboys, effeminate guys and so on). (Link, for one example, but probably because neither of us talk very much.)

 

It made things a lot clearer for me. I understood why I hated wearing women's clothing and why I loved wearing men's clothes. It also explained my masculine mannerisms.

 

I can relate so so so much to this. Ever since I am certain about being trans I start to remember stuff of my childhood up until age 13 or so that I hadn't thought about in years! If I had, almost surely I would've realized way earlier that I am trans. In my opinion it now seems so obvious actually, that I started to wonder if people ever asked my mum or if my classmates ever considered this option...

 

It clarifies things about puberty but for me I think it opened more questions about when I was younger. Before 8 or 9 I did play without a shirt in the summer, but I have always had girls for friends and I liked dolls and other more girl-oriented toys. I was never interested in sports but liked to clime trees and was active. At the same time, I don't think I really 'got' the difference in gender. I just knew I was a girl and it never occurred to me that I could question that. I just didn't understand what girl really meant.

Puberty was another story. I hated the changes that happened in my body and winced whenever people referred to me as a woman or young lady. All I knew was that something was wrong and that all the other kids seemed to know what was going on and I didn't. (even though now I know they probably didn't understand either...)

 

As a kid I loved androgynous characters, especially in anime, I thought they where awesome.

---------- Post added 31st Aug 2014 at 10:10 PM ----------

That's exactly how I felt. I never understood gender and why it's a big deal, up until the time my body became masculine and then it was a big deal even if I couldn't figure out why.

 

Yes!

And feeling relief... and more connected to oneself...

 

Yes, though I think I had less indicators as a child than everyone else here. I knew I hated girly clothes, as my mom made me wear them all throughout elementary. So I never got to see what I feel like in boy's clothes. Still haven't. My mom would kill me if she saw I spent lots of money on clothes that aren't for my "gender." But I dressed androgynously in middle school up to now, but it's still not enough...

I hated playing with Barbies but my friend always wanted to so I had to.

I felt really good when my friend accidentally used a male pronoun to call on me in math class. Everyone laughed, and I did too, but not from embarrassment.

Another time a substitute teacher called me "sir" and I felt really happy. I kick myself now for not going with the flow and instead, correcting her. And when I told a classmate that that sub did that, she awkwardly said that I look kind of like a boy when I had a certain hat on, which made me happy. Felt embarrassed for her because she started to say it and then immediately I could see her face panic and wish she hadn't said anything, but it was too late to take it back.

I felt weird when my parents would call my friends and I the "Girl Trio."