What were the biggest clues for you?

I'm Gay...

*2 years old. After watching "The Little Mermaid" (1989), of course as a kid the film would lead you to role-play game. I thought of myself as Ariel rather than the Prince lol :lol:

*grade school--- I had a fascination with guy hard-ons. I also had guy crushes at school.

*high school--- I honed in on the guy porn actor (straight porn).

*First time I went on dates and had sex with a guy was in Medical School (at this point I was pretty sure I was 100% gay)

 

Barbies. I don't know why. I was never EXTREMELY into them, but when I was little I felt deprived that I couldn't play with them. My dad likes to pick on me about it (still) and every year I get a barbie wrapping papered present for my birthday and Christmas.

that was early childhood. I also NEVER liked boys. I hated them. They were rough and stupid and insensitive. That gave me away a bit.
Also, playing childhood games I could NEVER find a boy's name that fit me well enough. The best make-believe names I could come up with were distinctly androgynous. Red, Kendall, etc.
I only liked playing games with girls. Only. I was also really against fighting.

in school I always took a girl's role in relationships or STILL only hung out with the girls. Thankfully I was mostly still accepted. I dabbled in makeup and nail polish under the pretense of it being "emo" or "pop-punk" and I loved it. I also had a band with a trans-man bassist (who wore plaid pants), and me and the singer wore kilts and we never really fit the "manly" stereotypes.

I have always questioned little things about male-female equality. For instane I HATE going shirtless in public. I am a skinny, attractive male, but I can't swim comfortably without a shirt.

When puberty hit everyone was excited about their bodies growing this and that and I was really only interested in hearing about what happened when girls went through puberty. I never really cared at ALL what happened to myself; I was disconnected.

As a kid I always wondered if I would be better off with the other set of genitals.

I have always been genreally grossed out by the way men talk. I don't check women out, even though I'm attracted to them. Just a disconnect from my gender (don't get me started on how much I don't care about engines or sports or stuff like that. The most manly I get is an interest in science.)

I had weird hobbies and interests in music/movies.
I have always preferred girly hobbies and games and movies. This made it REALLY hard to talk about the latest trends with boys. I thought they were crude and silly. Cute but silly.

And fights. I HATE fighting. I've been in fights but I never started one or enjoyed watching them in school. I was annoyed by them. Also, I never felt like I was stronger than girls, so when one hit me I had to fight REALLY hard not to hit back (just out of indignation!).

Then finally in college I started seriously questioning whether I might be truly interested in sex with men. Turns out I was, and I took the "female" role in that dynamic more often than not.

I have a running list of little things that should have tipped me off, but generally, I just feel sad or angry when I have to act like a boy or I am stereotyped as one. It hurts but for a long time I just grit my teeth and pretended. It was depresseing, in hindsight, that I had to act so dominant or assertive so many times when it went deeply and aggressively AGAINST my whole personality.

 

Biggest pointer for me was probably how I'd always play female characters in video games and I really enjoyed (and was very good at.) dressing them up in as awesome outfits as possible, but whenever somebody questioned me about it I'd get extremely defensive and feel like I had to come up with some sort of excuse.

 

My sister told me I looked like a boy one day. I was wearing my brother's hoodie and a black pair of converse. My hair was tucked inside the hood so it wasn't visible. She said I looked like a boy and I didn't mind. I thought it was cool. So that's when I thought to myself "there's no way I am all girl." and that's when it hit me

 

What were my biggest clues? Hearing people call me a name that didn't feel right and having pronouns that made me uncomfortable. Then puberty hitting and none of it being what I wanted.

Then I joined a forum, even became a staff member on it, and I was known as a boy. One of the only boys, both in general and as staff, but a boy nonetheless. Which felt right. So a few weeks ago, when some people thought I was a girl the others were confused as to why they had assumed I was female "since it's so obvious you're a boy."

'Twas a big moment for me.

 

Ehm... when I was a kid and I envied the girls so much I almost, um... did the... cutty-cutty with the knifey-knifey.... yeah....

Oh, and when I started self-identifying as transfeminine... I was again a little kid...

*looks for more things in damaged memory..... nope...*

 

I guess there was just a lot of things missing. Being raised as a boy, a lot of things were not really available to me. Things like makeup, more feminine clothing and interests was just not okay for me to have. By realizing I´ve always liked those things, it became more evident that I didn´t fit into the norm for boys.

Also, I´ve never liked being compared with boys rather than girls. It just didn´t make sense that I would be a part of that group of people.

 

Same here :icon_bigg I play those fight games. Whenever my dad watched me play he'd ask why I was always using female characters. I'd reason they were easier to control or that they felt "lighter" to control.

I also played predominantly female characters in the Sims.

 

I was jealous of girls. Their bodies their appearances their clothes. I always played a female character. I was what I thought was a crossdresser but it was more than that. Every time it went away I thought the feelings came back.

That's when I knew.

 

Jealousy of girls, having puberty being a hellish experience, and most notably, attempting suicide and starting cutting because I wasn't a girl.

The last one really made things obvious.

 

There were lots of little clues during my childhood/preteen years that I never connected until I started questioning. There was stuff like never feeling like I fit in with girls, and a sort of general feeling something was off, but I'd always assumed I was just a tomboy, and had social anxiety. I was never interested in girly clothes or wearing makeup, and I used to be jealous of my brother's clothes. I was never able to imagine myself in a relationship either, I hated the idea of being "the girl" in a relationship. There was a few times I said that I was a boy, and I used to think that I might develop as a boy in puberty. I remember asking a friend to call me by the name of a male musician I really liked, I used to idolise a lot of famous guys and wish I could be exactly like them. I remember having dysphoria when I was younger too. And I would use male titles for myself, and I liked playing guy characters usually in make believe games. Whenever I was able to wear male clothes or do something in a male role it just felt so much better and natural.

 

1. When I was little I hated most things considered for girls (dolls, fake high heels n stuff) I wanted the boyish stuff
2. Somedays I feel really girly then other days I feel more masculine and I dress that way too
3. On the days I feel masculine I have major dysphoria about my chest. Sometimes it gets to where I want to saw it(breasts) off
4. On the days im feeling esp female i would still be ok with dressing a lil more masculine too.
5. On days im more male if somebody calls me my first n midd name I get really angry because raven brooke is just too girly.

 

As a kid I rejected most things girly and wanted to do what the boys did. I only grew to like the color pink because boys started wearing it.

The biggest thing was how at the age of 5 I always played with boys and refused to play with girls. The girls insisted I had to because I was a girl. Then I got called a tomboy and I felt this overwhelming relief that there was a word that fit me. I would tell the girls that I didn't have to play with them because I was a tomboy.

Then in 6th grade there was this thing were the boys went around calling everyone dude. The girls in my class hated and insisted on being called more feminine things, but I didn't mind. It made me feel more accepted by my male friends, but my female friends started picking on me and saying I wanted to be a boy. After that I put a lot of effort into conforming to being a girl.

I didn't mind playing with Barbie's, but I liked legos and hot wheels better.
I didn't mind playing girl characters in video games, but I loved the male ones.
I didn't like being called princess, didn't mind my lady, but I really liked how king and Lord and prince felt.
When playing as a kid I use to pretend to be a knight or warrior or soldier. I was just me as these things, so while they could of been female I always imagined male in these roles.

 

I mean I always felt like a boy and had all the "classic" signs like being uncomfortable in my body and being tomboy-ish. But the biggest eye opener for me was when I was a couple years younger and trying to dress more feminine but when letting myself dress a little more conventionally boyish thinking "wow I wish I could dress like this all the time" and feeling like a boy completely and just loving it. Also the chronic dissociation that almost completely went away when I started transitioning.

 

Praying to wake up as a girl for years was a fairly strong clue.... also the desire for castration and not really understanding why any man would mind being castrated and see it as something so terrible...

 

It was little things here and there, looking at my reflection in the mirror and feeling a disconnect with it, like it wasn't the "real me", general dysphoria and general disatisfaction with my gender, etc; it all eventually added up.

 

I can't say that there was any point where I went from not knowing to knowing. But I think things changed a lot after a bizarre nightmare I had. I'd taken some medicine for a fever, but it messed with my head. The dream was filled with so much body horror that I couldn't stop thinking about it. The next day I reached the breaking point, and ended up calling a friend to talk about what was going on. Telling someone how I felt about my gender was a huge relief. I was so glad I had someone else to share that with. I guess, at that point, I could see how much it meant to me.

 

My grandma liked collecting dolls, she used any and every excuse to get them, one was getting it for me, I actually played with it some before it was taken away.
Finding out about castration being a thing and wanting it.
Liking the dreams of being a girl.

 

Oh damn, let me go get my list (cracks knuckles).

1. I had remember throwing a fit in preschool (daycare but whatever) over a binary gendered art project we were doing around Easter. You know how it goes, boys get blue and girls get pink. It was a load of shit to me, and I griped about how unfair it was. I don't remember if I got my way or not, but that's the first time I really remember making a spectacle over being forced in the "female box".

2. Also during this time, I also remember getting irritated over having to wear a dress for picture day. It never felt right to me, and I'd continue to get physically uncomfortable with seeing it until it disappeared from sight a few years ago. Even when I got older, it would just get worse because I was lowkey forced to dress more feminine than how I already did, and each year I'd have a more hollow and dead look in my eyes from how tired of it I was. I felt like I was impersonating someone else, and I have moments where I remember how I looked in those pictures and I don't recognize myself at all.

3. Going back to when I was maybe six years old and I'm in elementary school. I remember having an argument with my mom over wearing a skirt to school. I hated it so much, because in my mind then, boys didn't wear skirts or dresses so why should I be forced to? I had a cry about it in a bathroom stall and never wore one again during the duration of my time in school.

4. I forgot if it was around this time, and to avoid this sounding weird, I'll just say I wore briefs for the first time and I almost cried because I felt so comfortable and right in my skin for that short moment. Around this time I unintentionally discovered what packing was and that gave me the same sort of feeling.

5. I must have been towards the end of elementary school, but I remember finding a Guinness book of records from 2002 or 2004 somewhere in my basement and started peeking at it out of boredom. I eventually found something about SRS/GRS and knew that was something I not only wanted, but needed and would have jumped at that chance on the spot if it was offered to me. I had an innocent and child-like concept of how it medically transitioning was, but dammit I wanted it more than anything.

6. I had a handful of dreams where I was male and they're the best I've ever had. At first it was a pretty big shock and scary to see how different I was, but I know after a while I'd be able to recall intense sensations of being complete and I'd just wake up so distraught and disappointed later on.

7. I don't know if this was a general thing with how I hated that puberty was creeping up on me, but it made me super uncomfortable with how my chest was developing when I was maybe nine or ten and being forced to star bra shopping brought on intense feelings of dysphoria before I knew that existed, not feelings of embarrassment of being seen in public with my family in that part of the mall.

8. When I was sixteen, I dressed up in an old cosplay getup but this time while packing and with my chest bound. For the first time, I saw something I liked. For a short moment, I was the guy I was supposed to be and I remember getting pretty emotional about it and I didn't want to leave my room.

9. Oh, and throw in every cliche about wishing on stars to wake up in the right skin and just overall knowing this isn't how it was supposed to be.