What's your Experience?

I've never felt either female or male since I was a little kid and the feeling grew as I went through puberty. I could never really fit into what was considered a 'pretty' girl and I could be a 'tough' guy but I didn't always want to be a 'tough' guy..plus, people would always remind me of my assigned gender which sucked. I hated trying to fit in those moulds or trying to please other people's expectations.

At first, especially during that puberty stage, I cried a lot and I was just so full of anxiety, angst, anger and frustration. It was hard to try to develop my own personal style or even try to figure out my gender identity because middle school was hell (seriously, so many judgemental people) and I was too self-conscious at the time. I think I coped by pretending to be more self-assured in public or just distancing myself from others. I remember relating a lot to my gay friend (who was not out at the time) but at the same time, we couldn't really relate on that level because he had already figured out both his sexuality and gender identity..so I kind of envied him in a way.

 

I grew up feeling really bad about the body I was in, especially since I couldn't really relate to the males and females around me. I had trouble coping with my body, but I had been told since I was young that I was supposed to be unhappy with my body because I was overweight and I was supposed to fix that in order to be happy. I'm just summing it up. But that was the gist of my parents' urging.
So, my first clue that I was dissatisfied with my gender was when I began to lose weight and I panicked. I gained it all back because I panicked. As it turns out, I have a pretty feminine figure. And the extra weight disguised that in a way I needed. I felt like I was getting steadily more feminine with every pound a lost. In fact, weight didn't matter to me at all. I wasn't so much self conscious about my weight as I was the figure beneath it.
The other indicator was that I didn't envy masculine parts, so to speak. The quintessential male setup, if you get my gist. But I still hated all the feminine parts of me, and wanted to get rid of them. But I didn't want to replace them, I wanted to distance myself from both genders.
To cope, I used to wear super loose clothes that better hid my figure. I would stand in front of the mirror and pull forth my sweatshirt or oversized t, and I would stare at the spot where my collarbones met. I could see flat plane there, just before it gets.. hilly. And I would stare there and pretend that the rest of my chest was flat. I pulled the shirt forth so I didn't see the definition of my body beneath that little plane of flatness. It made me feel better to pretend.

I'm much better now

 

From the time I was about 7 or 8 until I was about 11, I chose the clothes I played in that day based on whether they made me feel like a girl or a boy. I had this pair of cargo shorts that I loved to wear specifically because they made me feel boyish. Even though I liked wearing dresses, I felt really uncomfortable as I got older when I had to get all dressed up & girly looking, because I didn't feel like myself. I finally started exploring my gender at 16, & realized that while I was fine with being called a woman or a girl & hearing she/her & "daughter" & all those female gendered words for myself, I never paid much attention to my gender & didn't notice it. When I did notice it, "female" didn't quite suit me. It was weird to realize at first, because I didn't really know what it meant for me. But I started looking up different labels as a jumping off point. The first time I ever thought of myself as trans was just before I went to school one morning, & I spent the whole day thinking about the agender label & if it fit. I doubted if I really trans often, & sometimes still do, because it's still new to me. I'm getting more settled into it every day, though.

 

I grew up trying really hard to "fit in" because I've never fit in with any girls and I was disliked by most girls. The whole transgender thing was something I knew of, but wasn't really aware of until the day Leelah Alcorn's note surfaced in the morning. I started looking into what transgender actually meant and realized it's me. The feeling and everything was me and I felt like I could finally fit in and be myself. Then I realized I don't need to fit in and now I'm probably happier then I've ever been and I've learned that I am beautiful but I am a man. There was never anything wrong with me and I love it.

 

Now when I look back, I see that there were signs ever since I was very little. I strongly disliked all girly toys, makeup and jewellery and I leaned more towards cars, weapons and action figures, but back then I didn't care or pay attention. I've never really been a tomboy or anything, even though I didn't feel comfortable playing with dolls (I've always hated them) or doing any similar activities. I started wondering if there was something "wrong" with me much later, when I was about 10, when for the first time I thought I would be much happier if I were a boy. However, I refused to believe this and I kind of forgot about it until last year.

One day I was sitting in the park, really upset about something; it was very cold, I had just slipped on some ice, fallen down and hurt my leg and arm a little, so I was waiting for the pain to disappear. There was almost no one around me, only my boyfriend talking on the phone at some distance and two gipsy women passing by. Suddenly one of the women stopped near me and stared at me for a few moments, then she said, out of nowhere, something like: "You may look like a woman, and you may have long hair and pretty face, but I can see that in your chest you're carrying the heart of a man; a girl on the outside, but a man on the inside, that's what you are" It was a really weird experience and it left me puzzled for a long time after that. A year later, last December, I was talking to a taxi driver while he was driving me somewhere (I don't really remember anymore, but it doesn't matter anyway); when we reached our destination and he pulled over, he said basically the same thing, that he can see through me and what he sees is a boy, not a girl. It seemed strange to me, because I don't look masculine at all, back then my hair used to be very very long and even though I was wearing a men's shirt (I've loved wearing men's clothes long before I realized I was trans), he wouldn't be able to see it, because I was wearing a coat and a long brightly-colored scarf over it. Anyway, this made me wonder if they didn't actually see something in me I had been ignoring for such a long time and I realized that they were right.

 

When I started using the internet more often around 12 or 13 I became aware of how I didn't want to tell anyone that I was a boy, and I started off fairly gender neutral, little by little I got more comfortable seeing myself as a girl. When people started to "mistake" me for a girl online I realized that it made me happy for some reason, but I assumed (since I basically knew nothing about transgender at the time) I was some kind of pervert and so I was ashamed about my preference to be thought of as a girl rather than a boy and didn't want anyone IRL to know. There was other stuff I did too, cross-dressing, role-playing and fantasizing about being female instead of male. I did that more and more as the years went on while simultaneously being way too ashamed to admit it was actually a pretty integral part of who I am. Last year I decided to do some personal writing to try to flesh out my thoughts on the matter which I'd never touched before because it was too "squicky" for me to look at and analyze, but when I finally did it and got a better feel for who I was as a person, I felt relieved. Well, scared at first, then relieved that there were others like me.

 

While I always knew I was a boy in my heart (with periods of trying to drown that part of me), the earliest memory I had was throwing a tantrum over a binary gendered art project in daycare. I must have been four or five at the time. It was an Easter thing, where we got to make bunny ear headbands out of construction paper. All the boys had blue and girls had pink...you can tell where this is going. Also around that time, I remember getting pretty sad over not being able to build a bird house with some of the older kids. Why? I don't know.

Beyond that, I can't really think of anything specific. If anything, I just remember this time as a kid where I tried to pack in the privacy of my room around the time I was maybe seven or eight and it felt right and normal to me.

 

I honestly couldn't say when I first knew I didn't quite fit in as male, because I've never fit in at all in other ways that have little or nothing to do with gender. I remember the first time I questioned it would have been when I was about 10 and I was playing with the girls, but by that age I was already aware that transgender was a thing, which came before then. It's difficult to separate how I don't fit in gender-wise from my just weird status!

 

I always felt as a kid that there was something fundamentally different between me and the other girls. I didn't understand them, didn't fit in, I was too boyish. I refused to wear dresses or skirts, I often wore my brother's old clothes. I can remember little things like how I used to think I might go through some sort of guy puberty (I thought I might grow a penis), or I thought that I might actually be a boy and the doctors had made a mistake when they labeled me at birth. I sort of worried about this stuff though, because I was supposed to be a girl and I felt like I was "failing" at being a girl or something. I sometimes had trouble recognizing my reflection in the mirror as me. And even though I didn't know I was trans back then, I subconsciously identified with male stuff even then, I would use male titles for myself, play as guy characters in games, and I idolised lots of guys and wanted to be like them. When I hit puberty I started having dysphoria, I got very withdrawn and anxious and I didn't like being out around people. I felt uncomfortable with the way my body was developing (especially because people kept complimenting me on how curvy I was becoming :tears. Also it seemed like there was more pressure after then to start conforming, suddenly there was tons more expectation to wear makeup or be girly or whatever. I had a brief phase where I tried wearing dresses and skirts regularly, and even though I looked nice I felt uncomfortable in them and I had to stop. (It's annoying remembering this too because everyone praised me for finally dressing nice, I'm sure they hate the way I dress now)

 

I can't really remember my childhood but I do remember being excited when I was told that I was a tomboy. Young me thought it meant a person that was a boy but looked girl. But my dad told me that that was a bad thing and then he would make sure to make me feel horrible any time in wasn't acting like an girl.
Looking back i could see all the signs that I missed as a child and teen. I use to be jealous of intersex people, I thought they got to choose between being male or female. If I had been given a choice I would of been male. I never thought I could be trans though. I didn't have male online characters, I didn't try to pass as male, and i hated that I had a slightly boyish face. As a teen I did everything I could to pass as a girl except wear make up and dresses and skirts. I wasn't really tomboyish or masculine anyway. But I was so unhappy being a girl. I always felt like a failure. I wished I had been a boy, I knew i would of been so much better as one, I would of been happier.
Me realizing I was trans was a slow process that began at puberty and went through years of denile. Now that I admit that I am I am afraid that I will find out that I'm not or that someone will tell me I'm not. This seems so right, I'd hate for it to be wrong