How'd you figure it out?

Around 13-14 years old when my body was clutched in the sweaty grasp of puberty, I had vivid fantasies of having sex with guys, but as a girl. I had some guilty spurts of cross-dressing too. When I started setting up an online presence for myself I told people on the forums I joined that I was a girl. I never asked myself why I did these things. I never thought hard about them. I just assumed that my mind was "perverted." And as the years went on it eventually got to the point where my inner self and outer life were so different that my outer life started to feel like a charade or a mask. I was consistently wishing to swap bodies with the girls I met since I started college. Once again I wrote all this off as "perversion."

When I finally figured this shit out, I was 20, and doing some creative writing exercises trying to make characters and whatnot. And I saw on a checklist of character traits a section that said "character's sex/gender." I thought those two words meant the same thing. When I looked up the difference between the two words, that gender is what you felt like on the inside vs sex being the body you were born into, that's when it "clicked" for me. Actually, although I was kind of scared and I still can't help but feel that way now from time to time, I was also thrilled to see there was some validity to the way I felt, that this was ME.

 

Story time! (Sorry if this gets long)

When I was young, like 7 or so, I was going with my family to a hayride place, and I wanted to go dressed in this very masculine mustard button down shirt. My mother didn't want me to wear it because she thought people would mistake me for a boy. A little part of me was thrilled to hear that. In the end, I fought and got to wear it, but she insisted I wear my hair in pigtails. I was pissed, but at least I got to wear the shirt.

When I was about 9, a friend of mine wrote a short story involving me, her, and another one of our friends. She had us as the characters, and she used each of our middle names as the names of the characters. She didn't tell me she was going to do that, and I was so mad at her.
I told her I hated my middle name (Grace) and that she was never to use it. She was confused, and asked me what name she was supposed to use to continue the story. I apparently gave her a bunch of male names.

And when I was younger school age and there'd be games that were "boys vs. girls" I knew I was supposed to be on the girls team, but I wanted to be on the boys team. And I was always really upset whenever there was any sort of activity where you were separated based on sex. I would get angry and become extremely disinterested in everything that didn't involve getting out of the game.

Fast forward to puberty, I hated it when I started to develop breasts. I fought having to wear a bra for a long time. And I wore overalls pretty much whenever I could, because no one really looks at your chest when you wear overalls. some days I would be in the shower and look at myself and just start crying. It was rough.

I didn't know that transguys even existed until a few years ago. The only transpeople I'd ever heard of were transwomen. I don't know why that is.

I finally figured this out only by telling a few really close friends about how I felt "weird", and it was so much clearer after I'd finally said "I don't feel like a girl", it was like, when I said it I realized how true it was. After that, I found and read books written by trans people about their lives, and looked up lots of things on the internet. And then, oddly enough I identified as a gay man before I identified as trans. Not sure what my thought process was on that.
When I finally admitted this to myself, I thought back to all these things and more. And I thought about what being trans means, and I realized it made a lot of sense. And it explained a lot.

 

This is so similar to what happened to me that it's scary ahaha

 

Okay. So, throughout my whole life, I was considered a 'tomboy.' When I was younger, I always connected more with the "guys." I'd enjoy playing basketball, playing super heroes, wearing baggy clothes, etc. I never understood what being "a girl," was. I never liked doing things associated with the female gender. I hated pink, I hated playing with dolls, I couldn't stand being around "girly-girls." My mom always tried to force upon me all the stuff that "girls," did.

When I was 8, I was always made fun of for not being a "girl." I finally gave in and forced myself to do stuff. That lasted until I was 10 or so. I started questioning myself, but I really didn't understand what was happening.

About 6 months ago, I found out about Non-binary genders. At first, I identified as demigirl. As time progressed, I felt more comfortable identifying as Agender/Neutrosis/Gender Neutral. I mostly associate myself masculine things, and all those things.

 

I discovered it this year. I, like Jellal, started having fantasies about having sex with male friends while being female. I thought that this was disgusting at the time, and didn't understand at all. I tried to forget that, and started to repress these feelings. I started growing my hair long at a really young age. I don't know why, and I don't think I did at the time. People used to think that I was female, and being called a girl just felt really good. (At least when used in a positive / neutral context. I always felt uncomfortable being me, I didn't know why, but it did. Apparently it was pretty noticeable too, because my dad has recently said that he could sense something wrong. I had heard a Youtuber talking about the gender binary, but he used the loosest possible definition. I instantly realized that I was genderqueer in some way, but I explored it no further. Also, I tried crossdressing. I took some of my mom's and sisters clothes, and wearing them just felt right. I ignored that too. I began to not only ignore these feeling, but repress them. I tried to forget.

But, then I came here! I had just accepted the fact that I like men and I was just browsing around on this site. I decided to look in the "Gender Identity and Expression" section. I had no idea what that meant - I had no idea that transexuality was actually a thing that people did. I just thought that it happened. I started reading some threads, just looking at trans / non binary folks' experiences. I eventually realized - "Oh, gosh. That's me." I questioned for a week or so - I posted a couple of threads and researched loads. I started getting severe dysphoria - I had always got it, I just never realized what it was before. Everything began making sense. I hope I didn't miss anything!

 

Well, I for sure knew I was a girl in middle school. Ever since I was young I always had an affinity for "girly" things, like painting my nails, playing dress up, I even lots of little dresses out of paper for my stuffed animals and action figures. My parents would always scold me for the nails and dress up, and never knew about the other stuff, so I sorta grew into a more guy kid. I ended up getting really into dinosaurs and Godzilla and stuff, which don't get me wrong I still love they're awesome, but also got into things I thought were guy things, like hot wheels and such. As I grew older and a little more self aware, I began watching tv. Yeah I'd watch shows like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, and they were awesome! But I also watched a crap ton of shows no other guys would have liked; Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Wynx... and I loved it.About this time I started thinking a lot about being a girl, I would dream of it all the time and started secretly painting my nails. Then middle school came, we were all changing. All of my friends were girls, and we'd hang out, they'd talk about this and that, and really just started to become jealous of them. It sucked. Then one day I saw a 20/20 episode on transgender kids and it blew my mind. There were other people like me, and it had a name. So yeah, that;s my long winded story

 

I knew I was out of place with my body and should have been a boy, but it was when I was eight that I got the rude awakening as to why. It was one of those cases where you see a friend's junk on accident, and that's what tripped me up for a long time. I think that's what really started to cause everything to go down hill for me, and why when I heard about that transitioning was a real thing when I was about nine, I knew that was something I wanted more than anything.

 

I guess the long version is, there had been signs since around puberty, but I was raised in an extremely transphobic environment, so it took me forever to see it. But I apparently thought it was perfectly normal to daydream about having all the butt fat removed. I didn't care about the rest of it; that was fine. I just didn't want it there. And that was also around the age that I started just feeling really... different? I guess that's the word I'm looking for. I always felt like an outsider in life. When I got my period, I saw it as some huge trial. Apparently that's not quite normal either.

Moving on into high school, there were little things. One weird example is that I was in marching band, and I wanted to switch instruments on the basis of "Personality-wise, I belong more with the people who play this other instrument." Who happened to almost all be male. My parents also started trying to force makeup down my throat. I didn't want to wear it. To me it was just a waste of time that infringed upon time that could have been better spent asleep. I was figuring out by that point that I hated wearing dresses and I hated wearing makeup. I thought it was just that I was "disconnected with the physical world". Looking back, I had no problems with anything else in the physical world. The only thing in the physical world that I was disconnected from was my own body.

By college, I also started openly talking about how I wanted to have my entire reproductive system yanked out. Everyone told me I'd change my mind eventually lol. And I would have whole breakdowns about being a woman. I was fairly religious at the time, and I remember praying to find just one good thing about being female. And then I slid into a depression, and to get through the depression, I made some online friends. Those online friends ended up starting to undo a lifetime of anti-LGBT brainwashing. Anyway, after graduation, I moved back in with my parents because the depression had kept me from functioning, so I had approximately zero money.

The summer after graduation, one of my online friends told me that he was transgender. I didn't really know anything about it at that point, and I didn't ask too many questions, either. I had lots of questions, but I didn't know what to ask. I did ask him how he knew he was transgender, though, and he just told me something along the lines of "I've always known I'm a guy just like you know you're a girl." For some reason that answer was really unsettling to me.

A few months later, the doctors told me to start going on walks to help boost my mood, so I started doing that, and being outside with no distractions but music, I noticed more things. My shadow, specifically. I hated it. And for once, I was paying enough attention to realise that it was my chest specifically that bothered me. I was always trying to make the shadow not show that it existed. And I started to notice other feminine features that really bothered me, to the point that I could barely stand showering anymore. And then I got bored and started taking brain gender tests. Stupid, I know, but they consistently came out as male, which is when the thought finally clicked that maybe it was time to do some research, especially since I had a word to apply to the research at that point. And after a lot of research, a lot of resistance to the idea, and a lot of soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that I was, in fact, male, not the female I'd been trying to be my whole life.

 

Well all my life I've always felt a little different from the other kids. Sort of disconnected and like an outsider, even when I was included. I was raised pretty gender neutrally, I got to wear what I liked and play with what I wanted, but I was more boyish. I can remember a few times doing things like saying I was a boy, or thinking that I might go through male puberty, or that the doctors made a mistake when I was born, and I'd been a boy all along. I never really put all of this together though, and I had no idea. I would also often play as male characters in games with my friends. I never really felt like there was any pressure for me to be girly until around 8th grade, when suddenly all my friends were girls and they were all just sort of fundamentally different from me, and I felt really lonely even though I was pretty social. I remember getting really depressed sometime around 7th grade, and it's been on and off again since then, which is sort of when puberty started, so maybe that's why. Ever since my body starting developing, I've always felt uncomfortable with it and really ashamed of it. I subconsciously wanted a male body, and I always looked up to male characters/celebrities and wanted to be just like them, but I didn't really realize it. I didn't start questioning my gender until I was 14, and even then I felt like I was too late, or that I wasn't masculine enough to be a boy. So I called myself agender for a while. But it never felt like enough, and I was still leaning more towards male, and eventually I realized I was just a trans guy. It took months of questioning though. There's a bit more than this, but I feel like I've been rambling on for long enough.

 

It's interesting how some folks assume one thing is 'male' or 'female'. If you have a female body and don't like make up, that doesn't automatically make you a male, for an example. Some seem more uncomfortable with gender roles than their sex/gender, or there's some self-esteem issues going on. But that isn't to take away from what anybody has said, it's just something I notice, when speaking with transgender individuals. I feel it's important to point out, though, and something that needs to be considered, because there's a difference between breaking gender roles and being, well, transgender.

To copy and paste:

 

I actually never felt very different from other kids until I was about 8, when the girls and boys kind of mostly stopped playing together and went into separate groups.. I wanted to play with the boys, but the boys didn't want to play with me and the girls did. It sounds stupid, but before that I was oblivious to any difference between girls and boys, besides the obvious.

It was at this time that I started to get very unhappy and began dressing exclusively in my brother's old clothing. I didn't want to say anything to my family because I had a cousin who , at the time, thought she was a boy and I always heard my family laughing about it. So I told a friend instead and they thought I was joking.

I went through all this confusion for about 2 years and came to the conclusion that I must be a lesbian because I "couldn't be a boy". I did, however, tell 2 people I wanted to be a boy and was met with very invalidating responses. I came out as a lesbian, even though I knew it didn't 'fit' me, and I got treated like dirt; all I could think was "it's better than if I'd said I was a boy"

One of my classes I was treated worst in was IT and my teacher obviously wanted to help me, and although I didn't want him to, I feel like I owe him my life now. He told me that sex and gender were different things and although I was female, it didn't mean I had to be a girl. That's when it all clicked.

I went home and did research for weeks. I found this site and others and found out that transgender men were a thing, and that's when I knew for sure that I was a guy and I didn't have to be a girl forever. I went through phases of denial but have recently fully accepted myself and it is the most reassuring feeling.

There are bits of the story I left out, but that's most of it.

 

Hmmm...well there wasn't much from my childhood except this one time I remember drawing myself as a boy and came up with a boy's name for myself. I did write one story when I was 10 centered around a male main character though that was probably out numbered by the amount of stories I wrote with a female main character.

It was mostly around puberty when I became worried that I would become more curvy. And when I did, it's hard to explain, but my body just didn't feel right to me and I had no idea why. Surprisingly, the first transgender person I met was a transitioned transman and since this was before I knew about transitioning I remember wondering how he became male-bodied.

I never connected with female characters in stories, in fact I preferred books with male protagonists. I found my own self start writing stories involving male protagonists.

I started to have a glimpse as to why I felt uncomfortable in my own body when I stumbled upon "binders" on the internet (at first really confused because I only knew of notebook binders, lol). The idea of obtaining a flat chest intrigued me but it just sent me right to denial. And at this time I was in high school where I grew tired of being associated with she/her/girl so I started IDed myself for agender for a while.

And then back in December is when I finally let myself order a binder and realize how good it felt to look and see a flat chested me. I heard other transgender narratives where they didn't realize since childhood and aren't straight like I had so long believed. And that was when I realized I was ftm.

 

Long story short - puberty. It was horrendous and I knew it wasn't right, but back then I didn't know about being transgender so I had no idea what to do about it. After that, it took a few years for the realisation to hit, and more time to say anything at all to anyone about it. As a kid I was a typical "tomboy" and enjoyed doing things typically considered more "boyish", but I don't think gender crossed my mind much back then. I did a lot of thinking about it and realised that if someone asked me what sex I would like to wake up as tomorrow I wouldn't hesitate to answer male.