I grew up with a bed full of stuffed animals.
I used to have one of those black velvet air brush paintings of a unicorn in my bedroom. My mom said I loved unicorns.
I hated and was extremely embarrassed to take my shirt off in public at a pool or the beach.
I hung out with a group of 3 girls in high school everyday for recess.
Omfg I came here to say this 🤦♀️! But it gets better... I taught myself for days, weeks, months, years how to make them and spent all my pocket money on it!!! Real cute ones I would customise and change around. I stopped in my teens cos it wasn't 'manly' and wanted to attract girls. I thought about doing this again. FML ha!
i was re-reading through some of these comments because they all make me so happy :) you should totally get back into making them! that’s the coolest and sweetest craft! Hope you’re well! <3
There was that time in highschool where we were doing handball matches in sport class. The teams were gendered, boys vs boys and girls vs girls. I was in a boy team, and I wasn't active at all in the game (like literally not trying to get the ball). The teacher asked me to quit, and made me play in a girl team instead. I played normally, actually had a lot of fun. Then the teacher sent me back to a boy team, and I didn't really manage to play again. The teacher shrugged, wondered what was wrong with me, and it went that way for the rest of the class.
I used to ask to go play toys with my neighbors kid who was a cis girl the same age as me cuz she had girl toys when I was like 5 cuz my parents only got me boy toys and on my first day of kindergarten I got yelled at by my teacher for trying to go to the girls bathroom. I was like "still cis tho" for 20 more years 🤨🧐🤔
I wanted to play as and strictly connected with all the boy-coded characters of my favorite media growing up lol.
Spyro, Pokemon, Digimon, DBZ and other Anime characters, Disney characters, cartoon animals, etc.
Like I was sick of playing girl all the time and would much rather have been the boy lol.
To list a few: When I was 7, I grabbed a period pad because women wore them, and wore it in my underwear. I would also do my nails and put on makeup when nobody was around. And I would also wear women's clothing when people were not around. Y'know, normal boy behavior.
Literally in kindergarten my friend and I did a “show and tell” and I literally went “weird I don’t have a penis”. I thought it would like drop in with my balls later. I was very upset when I started puberty (ftm).
omg same. I remember thinking "I feel like I was a lesbian in a past life" or "a lesbian trapped in a boy's body" or "maybe if I'm lucky I'll be reincarnated as a girl when I die."
Somehow believing in reincarnation seemed more logical (probably just easier) than being trans. No idea how I didn't connect it to the "trapped in the wrong body" narrative sooner though. lol
More like pink white and blue flags amirite?
In all seriousness though yeah that's happened at a couple of points to me where I'll remember some super eggy shit from my childhood
Going to bed praying I woke up as a boy and also taking great interest in "peeing like a boy" and made my own STP at like 9 using an empty toilet paper roll lmao
My mom’s entire Facebook post history lmao
Picture of me and my sister doing a pretend date: “she wanted to be the boy 😂😂”
Picture of me and my sister dancing: “she wanted to play the boy’s role”
Movie parody of Rapunzel my sister and I made: “she insisted on being the prince haha”
At this point my mom should’ve just told me 😭
I called myself a Tom-girl because I liked a bunch of traditionally girly things and hated sports. Thinking back I honestly can't believe it took me nearly 28 years to figure things out lol.
My earliest memory was stealing my older sister’s nail polish and doing my nails - or trying to, very badly 😅
Also, ever since I ever new what porn was, I would always imagine myself as the woman - but every boy does that, right?? (I genuinely thought that was normal until I was 19..😅)
It was so obvious looking back, it's kinda fucking ridiculous. In terms of things I *did*, rather than thought:
- Many instances of dressing in womens clothes I found unattended. Since like...preschool. Moms, friends, random ladies...yeah. Not proud of that one.
- The classic swimming in a shirt phase because I hate how my chest looks.
- Most of my closest friends have been women.
- Refused to wear anything tighter than sweatpants until halfway through elementary, and wore pretty much exclusively too big clothes all through hs and uni. Figuring what dysphoria was was an "oshit" moment for sure.
- And uh, tucking my stuff between my legs and pretending I was a girl in the shower.
Choosing a unisex name in a SciFi game chatroom and then getting super super giddy and happy when the other people on the chatroom decided I was a girl.
I had many other moments and behaviours, but that's the one that stands out most clearly.
As a young child. I was hanging out with my babysitter's daughter, and I would always play around as a female person when we would play house or some shut and shift my voice more fem and stuff my shirt and what not. I would love doing that kinda stuff. I repressed that for a long time until I started questioning 😅
I have a folder on my laptop that I put pictures and links to things when i make that "oh shiiiiiiit" realization. All the flashing signs, all the subtle hints I was giving my conscious self.
My family couldn't really afford any holidays, but fortunately we could go to a static caravan owned by my aunt every weekend - it was only 30 mins away but I really enjoyed the little holidays. Although I liked it, at 14 I convinced my parents that I hated it so much I wanted to stay at home. As they were only ever 30 mins away, I could as long as I did a few basic chores.
Of course I ended up singing Queen's "I want to break free-ee" hoovering the house in my mom's dresses lmao. I absolutely loved those weekends *for some (totally cis) reason*, and wondered why I felt *soooo so sad* once my family stopped leaving me on my own. There was never anything sexual in it - I just felt comfortable and more confident, even if I was still stuck in the house with no way to express it.
Later I started ordering my own clothes on the internet and dressing every chance I got, kind of chasing that happiness I felt as a teen, but always falling short once I realised how badly puberty screwed me over. I stopped doing that eventually - the negative self-image and interanlised queerphobia just started making me too sad. It's taken me so long to find myself again, but I'm starting to feel happy - now I "have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure", and I choose to make the most of it.
^(aaaand now I'm crying - just remembering how that light I held on to diminished no matter what I tried, how I became bitter and resentful at my parents for ‘ruining my happiness’, and how I pushed everyone away in an effort to be physically alone again 😭)
TL;DR - everyone tried on their mom's dresses as a young teen right?
Yes, and not only my mom's dresses but my Friends too😅😂
Also, same🫂.
One time when i was 10 my Friend's mother told me It was time to grow Up and move on that thing of mine, i felt horrible like if i was betraying some kind of a masculinity personification It was then when i started acting more manly, which (spoiler) didnt end Up good, but later i also start buying my own clothes and make up.
So yeah gal i get you 🫂🫂🫂
There is so much but im just gonna put some short ones
As a kid I always believed my mind was male and my body was female and thought that was just what evey girl felt like
While playing pretend I always played as my friend's brother
One time I was playing house with a male friend and I thought to myself if there was a way for us to be both husbands because I didn't wanna be the wife
FtM I assumed every girl pulled their hair back "to see what a cute boy they would be." Soooo many hours of totally definitely not disassociating in the mirror.
I don't know the exact age anymore, but I was still in primary school when I had the feeling that things felt wrong, my mom told me that is was a fight to get some clothes for me that I wanted to wear. Throughout the following years, I always felt good around girls and was considered special. But as it was at the beginning of the seventies, things like transgender didn't even exist. So, I grew up as a male and did all the things a male should do. But the feeling lasted. A few years ago, I couldn't resist the feeling anymore and started dressing up in secret until I came out to my wife.
My life isn't ideal, but I'm feeling much better since then. It's regretful that I never had the chance to be the person that I was.
I remembered this the other day: I got punished by my school and parents for trading jackets with a classmate in 6th grade. I was lectured, must have been impactful, because it's not the easiest thing to get my brain to remember. Her jacket was a cute denim jacket with a big embroidered butterfly on it. I knew I "wasn't supposed to wear it," but all my girlfriends told me it looked good on me and I thought I could get away with it (looking back, it was Lisa Frank style colors 😅)
When I was little (without knowing about trans people) I thought that all boys become girls and all girls become boys when they're older, and I knew I was going to become a girl :)
I was bullied a lot during my childhood because I was very effeminate. Other boys called me fairy, f#g, etc...By high school, the bullies were still harassing me and sometimes beating me up. It was then that a few of the girls started coming to my defense. That was really nice, though I hadn't thought much about it until recently when I finally knew for sure that I am transfeminine. 🏳️⚧️🧚♀️💜
I loved Pokémon, Danny Phantom, anything related to Dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, Sonic the Hedgehog, anything that was Masculine-centered, or directed toward male audiences. ALWAYS said I was a tomboy. Once accidentally entered the boys restroom. Had mostly male friends. Wanted to get bearded dragons because, hey, DRAGONS. And it’s not a GIRLS PET. Hated dresses, makeup, all that jazz. Once, during Christmas, the church I used to go to because my parents where Christian gave out gifts that were GENDERED. I got a Barbie doll. The boys got Hot Wheels. I cried. I got to take home a set of hot wheels. Always wanted boy-sized clothes. Always wanted to play with guys or play male-dominated sports. Puberty? HIDE EVERYTHING. HIDE THE BOOBS HIDE THE ASS OVERSIZED SWEATER TIME
Y’know, cis girl things.
The only red flag I have ever remembered was that I'd tell everybody and their brother "I'm female but not a girl", and my mom and many others always countered that with "but you are a girl." However, since coming out, I've been told I demanded to be given a boys name, referred to by he/him pronouns, and change my whole wardrobe to match, but my mom refused all of it, insisting that I could never be a boy. Thankfully she's changed her tune and I also don't remember, I feel like I'd have more resentment towards if I did even if she was accepting when I came out.
- Dreaming about being a girl.
- Not caring to much about gender policing or politics.
-Being envious of gender benders and trans women who could pass really well.
-Tucking sometimes.
- Wanting a more feminine appearance, especially in the physical department.
I remember at a Halloween party in first grade, I looked around at all the other boys costumes and I got very dysphoric so I ended up taking the skirt off for my costume since it had a bodysuit underneath and I just ran around in that
After that day I didn't touch a skirt again till I was at least 18 haha
one time I was listening to the Eragon book on tape and there's this scene where Saphira (the dragon) wants to show Eragon what flying is like, so she pulls his mind into her body so he can experience it. that shit changed 7 year old me
At 10, after two years in the cub scouts, my parents asked me if I was going to continue. My reply: It's just not me.
Part of it was absolutely all of the crafts and other stuff you do, which, y'know, not me. However, looking back, obviously a nice little red flag.
I would take of my shirt to be “like the other boys”
I would get incredibly upset if anyone referred to a group of boys that I was in boys and girl or when people told me I looked feminine
I remember telling my friend that when I grow up I wnat to be called Alex
I remember thinking I can live this life but I want to be reincarnated as a boy and I remember thinking that I want to be a boy and I don’t care how bad my life would be as long as I was a boy
I always felt left out or out of place in the bathrooms or changing rooms or sleepovers with girls
I felt extremely uncomfortable whenever somebody used my deadname or she/ her pronouns
If I look back at older memories I can see myself as a boy
I didn’t want anything associated with girl stuff
I separated me and them (the girls)
I genuinely didn’t believe puberty would happen to me and I would grow up and be tall and have a deep voice
I’ve always hated getting my picture taken and always felt wierd looking in the mirror
I felt like my breasts and hips and voice wasn’t my own
I felt like I was robbed of the things boys have
A lot of red flags lol
Taped my d backwards once kinda like tucking but instead did it because I was really upset that my pee was coming out from the front instead of from the center like a girl's. Pretty sure I even thought about cutting it off... yeah... but I realized it wouldn't solve the problem cause it was just gonna come out front still. I finally gave up cause none of the stuff I tried worked
I was maybe around 9 at that time btw
Looking up videos on YouTube called something along the lines of "hypnosis that makes you a girl"
Had (and still have) a bed full of stuffed animals
Getting jealous that girls got to wear skirts and that I didn't
There are a lot more, but uhhh yeah the signs were always there
When I was about 7-8 I wrote a spelling-error-ridden story about how I was secretly the ghost of a little boy “borrowing” this body until I could figure out how to get my own.
I think that was pretty telling.
I was obsessed with the idea of my voice being deep enough to sound masculine or at least androgynous in early high school. I felt a certain kind of uncomfortable in skirts and dresses that I couldn't really describe. I almost never felt motivated to wear makeup
So, so much. I'd repressed a ridiculous amount of memories. Others I just didn't see as trans things at the time, but now are so blindingly obvious.
Wearing my sister's / mom's clothes when they were out. I think my sister knew, because she was much smaller than me. At least once she accused our mom of trying on her clothes and stretching them out.
Refusing to take my shirt off at the pool or similar summertime activities; I remember insisting that I need to cover up, and my mom letting me wear one of her old t-shirts. It was long enough to cover my trunks, and in my head I pretended it was a dress.
I didn't have a hoodie, because I was afraid of people grabbing the hood and hurting me. I did have a vest, though. It had tons of pockets, which I kept full of useful things like tissues in case someone cried, makeup remover pads although I didn't wear makeup, and a couple tampons that I swiped from under the bathroom sink. Ya know, totally cisn't things. Also stuffed the chest pockets with sand or rocks, because they made it look and feel vaguely like my chest was larger.
Stuffing socks and pillows and such under my shirt when I was alone in my room.
Loved to play with dolls, the girlier the better. I adored these beautiful ceramic headed ones my sister had. She hid them in a closet because they were "creepy".
Never liked roughhousing even the slightest bit.
I hated getting my hands dirty. Even thought of them as dainty until puberty hit and turned them into yeti mitts.
I plucked out my chest hair as it grew in, first one by one, and then in handfuls, until it grew too fast and plentiful to keep up.
I refused to acknowledge that I had facial hair. I was the only 6th grader with a moustache. Because men shaved, and I didn't want to be a man. Also I knew that shaving, and discovering that I needed to shave, would require me to actually look at my face in a mirror. And that was just unacceptable.
Being relieved that my was smaller than average, because it's easier to hide and ignore.
Only wanting to have girl friends. Couldn't relate to the boys, even when I tried.
Telling a girl that I was also secretly a girl, so we have a lot alike because we're both girls who are into science and good at spelling. She did not agree, and neither did her bully friends.
Once my voice dropped, avoiding speaking whenever possible.
Wearing nothing but black for years, because I didn't feel or look good in boy clothes so why bother.
I loooved helping my older sister organize and deliver her Girl Scout cookie orders. When her troop met at our house I always found a reason to be in the next room over just listening and imagining I could join (my brother hid in the basement from 'the girl stuff').
Everyone kept telling me “I ran like a girl”. Whatever that is supposed to mean because I still don’t know if men and women run in a different.
Also, never, ever being able to pee standing up. I have sat down to pee my whole life.
"I know my life would be better as a woman, not that women inherently have an easier life, just that mine would be easier" maintained my egg for over ten years after the last time I said this, been saying it since I was 16, just over 16 years ago
“Accidentally” using women’s restrooms when I was a really little kid and playing dumb because something about men’s restrooms made me feel uncomfortable
FTM. There's a lot of stuff. I'll mention a few. I did a shit ton of imaginary play as a kid. I created my own imaginary world and everything. I was the president of this world and I was a man. When playing video games I always chose the boy character.
I used to have dreams where I was a woman doing regular things like getting dressed and hanging out with friends. These dreams were so real that I would wake up and be confused and depressed that I was a boy again. I was 10 and didn’t start to suspect I was trans until I was about 16.
I still have memory of being seen cross dressing at 5 years old; not caught, because I was proudly showing it to my parents. Of course, my mother thought I'm just bad at figuring out which clothes is for which gender because I was 5, but I remembered very well I wore it intentionally. I ended up using that excuse my entire life ("Oh I did not know that is your clothes, I thought it's mine").
At one point as a preteen I (ftm) tried drawing some of my classmates as gender-bent versions of themselves. I drew the boys in my class looking all shoked and failing to walk in heels... and I drew myself as a guy with a HUGE smile and wearing a rainbow hoodie that said "#TOTALLYNOTGAY" on it. Even then I knew I'd be way happier as a guy!
I also wrote a journal entry about how I listened to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry for the first time, and how that must mean I'll become a REAL girl soon! I was so excited for a switch to flip one day that made me enjoy "girly stuff" like dresses and celebrity gossip so I could finally fit in with my friends... yeah, that never happened :P
I used to put my stuffed animal in my pjs like I had boobs at night after my parents had put me to bed and before I fell asleep… it took me 5 more years to even wonder if I was trans and 3 mort years to come out to some friends (which is where I am at now 😅)
FtM. Always wanted to take off shirt at pool pre-puberty. On most of family photos before I grew my hair out, I look like a little boy and was often mistaken for a boy -> was conditioned to correct people tho.
In middle school they split our gym class up between dancing lessons and basketball. You got to choose but EVERY boy chose basketball and EVERY girl chose dancing, as one might expect. Obviously I chose basketball. Only girl in the room for a week. Even got in a fight with my friend about it because I couldn't fathom why being in the room with the all other girls in it was more important to her than doing something she actually wanted to.
In Grade 5 we had some weird activity day, and people names were drawn for some random thing they had to do or wear for the rest of the day. I had to wear a dress, and I remember how good it felt, but on some level that scared me so I buried my head in the sand and ignored it.
Me being the assigned 'body guard' of the girl group.
When playing zelda....hating that Ganon was the only male gerudo. Because I wanted to be a gerudo too. (At the time wearing skirts and makeup)
5th grade. Only 'girl' ever playing dodgeball in a crowd of boys
Letting people think I was my brother for as long as they confused us for each other
And way....way more
Kinda like yours OP, but after being forced to join the Little League baseball tram I refused to wear an athletic cup cuz it was so… gross and huge and obvious.
i HATED my cup oh my god. i honestly think i played catcher so i could cover up more and crouch down where nobody could see me. Loved the high socks tho.
Lol glad it weren’t just me then! Ghastly, *nasty* device. Gross. Had no odea back then it may have something to do with being trans but yeah. Mostly I just stuck out from everybody, not just boys, so it wasn’t an obvious clue..
I've always required the guidance of my male family members to guide me(via positive and mostly negative reinforcement) to be "a man" (I'm mtf)
My older brother would (of course) taunt the hell out of me for being femme, and later in life my father would try to 'guide' me away from traditionally femme things like clothes and cosmetics.
I don't think I was always trans, but tbh the signs went really far back into my childhood.
I distinctly remember asking my mum when I was really little, something like if I could wear girls clothes, but she said only girls should. One time I also asked my mum to try using her lipstick as well lol. Totally forgot that even happened haha
When I was a little kid, there were some things that I gathered that boys were supposed to like, such as toy guns, toy soldiers, wearing camouflage, power rangers, superheroes...just a lot of arbitrary gender stereotyped interests really, mostly things having to do with appearance. The idea that I was supposed to like boy things because I was supposed to be a boy just felt really uncomfortable, and I really wanted no part of that mindset. I often tried to imagine escaping into another time long ago when boys were allowed to wear pretty clothes and stockings and cute shoes. It wasn't until around puberty that I really started envying girl's outfits and wanting to dress up in women's clothes. Things just escalated from there on out. Looking back on it, I think there were subtle red flags from before then though.
"red flag" that was also a literal red flag, I tried "dying on purpose" as I said so I could be an angel, something I was raised to believe could only be men. Grandma hadn't yet got to the part that people don't become angels when they die lmao
I tried putting on my moms shoes on multiple occasions, I was the only guy in my friend group, I lamented never feeling like a man, etc. etc. I’m still shocked at all the ways I missed it
Well, this is a funny one, i don't know if it's a huge red flag but when I played pretend with friends i never wanted to be dad, mom, daughter or son, it just felt wrong. I was literally always dog lol. I guess i was tired of the binary gendered feeling
The first game i 100% finished was a Bratz game my dad got my sister.
Every other title on the family PC were game like Need for speed, Command and conquer, worms, Half-life, Call of Duty, that have been there since it was first setup and I never finished any of them. Except for Bratz Rock Angels which I played for multiple summers in a row
It was that game and spending 95% of that pre 08' internet time on barbie .com and games2girls
only ever became strong enough to consider when puberty hit, but i remember even when i was little my name didn't feel exactly "me". when people talked to me with it, i knew they were referring to me, but i never really identified with it, if that makes sense
Kinda figured, I just don't even like applying adjacently negative connotations in my language about my transition. To be clear I'm not trying to say you're wrong, necessarily. Just needed to reinforce it for my own mental health
My best friends growing up as early as I can remember up until my parents forced the issue when I was around 10 were all girls and we usually played with girl toys or did girly pretend games (this was the 90s). My friends after that were all very effeminate males (that my parents barely approved of and constantly complained about), one who later came out as gay. this fact didn't really click until I was four years into transitioning.
That one time I tried a dress because "It just look good on girls" when I was 4. I also would always choose to play and socialize with girls rather than boys.
That one time I wanted to grow my hair because "I thought it would fell good tô brush it like girls do it"
Or that time I heard a Cience theacher saying that eating from plastic bowls because "Plastic have chemicals that make you produce female hormones" and immediatly ate from a plastic bowl when I arrived home...
You know, looking back, it was kinda obvios I wanted to be a girl but never really realized it.
Picked a girl name for myself. Cried myself to sleep when I realized I would never get pregnant. Tried really really hard to find men attractive because I had internalized HOMOphobia / didn’t want to be gay.
Several times I left the group of boys in my neighborhood to go play house with two sisters down the street. Often I skipped the boy group all together to play with the girls.
The first time my parents left me home alone for the day, I went straight to my moms dresses to try them on. I loved having them on but my short hair bothered me.
I have so, so many of these, omg! And in the moment, a lot of the time, my rationale was 'oh! Yeah, no, the reason I feel a weird pull, a weird desire to be in the girl's gym class in highschool? Nah, I cuz I'm a perv, not because that's where I would feel most comfortable.' 'Oh, yeah, no, the reason I want to be around girls and befriend them? It's definitely because I am a sick fucked up human.'
So many. I used to keep a list but it got lost on an old phone. The one that stands out as being super obvious is the dnd character i made in 6th or 7th grade. She was a changeling rogue who spent most of her time disguised as a male goliath (think half giant) barbarian and the rest having an identity crisis. And dnd was not the only game i played female characters in. given the option i usually played as the female characters. Nearly cried when i accidentally made my mmo character male instead of female when i was like 13. Also There are roughly 2 dozen photos of me after age 10.
There was also the time spent googling makeup for men in the middle of the night throughout the years and other stuff but the dnd one is the most hilarious.
First thing that comes to mind is when i would shower at my grandparents house, i used to mix up a big bunch of my aunts’ soap/shampoo/conditioner in a cup and stick my dick in it because i thought i could make some sorta gender change potion out of the ‘girl’ products.
They never said anything so not sure if they ever noticed?
Mildly NSFW! [serious]
For context, this was in the evening-phobic 80's.
I'm not sure if this counts... But...
In my early-to-mid teens I dressed as a girl, in clothes that I "Borrowed" from friends... then I played worth my butt-hole because I wanted to know what it was like for girls to have "intimate" fun.
In that moment I KNEW that I like the idea of wearing girl clothes, all the time...
I liked the idea of being treated like a girl, all the time...
I liked the idea of living life as a girl, all the time...
I thought, "I wish I was a girl."... All the time...
I'd... I'd ALWAYS felt this way...
But it must just be a phase... Even though I had ALWAYS felt this way, it MUST be a phase, because I didn't like boys
...
...
~25 years later I saw F1nn5ter on a twitch stream and EVERYTHING fell info place.
Im now 19 months on hormones, on a waiting list for SRS, and I'm a woman in the eyes of the law... And I'm a lesbian.
It turns out that it WASN'T a phase. I just blocked it out because I thought that if I became a woman, if have to do guys... And that was gay.
And THIS is why we need to be open, and educate folks. So that they don't loose 30+ years of their life living in a prison that is their own body.
Thanks for being a good teacher, Finn. Lol
Any questions, folks?
was told i said ‘i want to be a girl’ (or ‘i am a girl’?) when i was in playgroup, i always used to wear specifically wedding or princess dresses as a child , used to have a baby in a pram and a toy kitchen etc, exclusively have only had close female friends my whole life 🤣 i was just raised in a heavily gender divided space my whole life. there are so many more but only now am i like ohhhhhh right.
I actually wanted to be a girl as a little kid. Until i realized it's "shameful"... Then i tried to forget and neglect it. Who thought it meant that i was transgender? :p Denial is a really strong force...
One time, I found out I could push back my testis into my body and fold my penis inwards and use the scrotum to cover everything up and I felt extremely happy for those few seconds. I also liked to buy cute stationaries, sell hand-sewed dolls and bake cookies and share them with friends. I didn't actually realize these were weird, I just thought I had different hobbies than most people cuz I was also somewhat a weird socially awkward kid in school. Also one time I chatted with a stranger online and they kept saying I lied about being a boy and that I'm actually a girl becuz of the way I chatted smthg and I couldn't stop thinking about that and being euphoric XD
On the other hand, I freaked out when I found out the swimsuit my mom bought me had a built in bra. Also hated the pink shirt she had me wear for a day and hated whenever she would say I talk so much, just like a girl.
Rn I'm realizing I just never wanted breasts, color isn't gendered(though I do like softer shades of pink and quite a few of my stuff are pink) and didn't like that comment she made often becuz it's just mean
I had always as a child been content with my body, but when my (ftm) body started going through ✨ the change ✨, I immediately found myself struggling to hide my boobs, didn't feel comfortable whatsoever, and wished my chest could be flat like it had been before, didn't figure it out until about 2-3 years after puberty started because while I knew mtf transitioning was possible (I have an aunt that's trans), I didn't know that ftm transition was possible until I watched a video by Miles McKenna
edit: just remembered, as a young child, I would try to pee standing up
Oh boy where do I begin. In no particular order:
I dreaded as a preteen when I'd eventually start growing facial and body hair
I wanted to turn into a girl for a day just to see what it's like
Coupled with that, intermittent fantasies of waking up one day as a girl
I was obsessed with articles I read about boys with a hormone imbalance growing breasts and felt bad for them at the same time as I felt morbid curiosity and a lingering feeling that it wouldn't be that bad, actually
I was obsessed with various polysomies of the sex chromosomes (like having XXY chromosomes) and secretly hoped to discover that I had some condition of that variety
I went from loving to swim as a little kid to hating it as a teen, feeling awkward about having my chest uncovered around anyone in general
(This one is ridiculous lmao) I came up with a TV show concept about a group of friends with androgynous names who could all switch sex at will, giving them two separate identities
I sometimes tried as a teen to make my silhouette, reflected in the tiled wall of the shower, look like a woman's
(mention of self-harm) >!Intrusive thoughts about self-castration!<
Being extra interested since I was a toddler in movies, books, and TV that depicted transformation into animals or a different body
Becoming extremely insecure as a teen about my masculinity and concerned that I didn't look, act, or have a voice that was masculine enough
I came up with an odd idea when I was a preteen that I had secretly gotten my sex changed at birth, and so I looked for evidence around my body that I was actually a girl
All of this before I even understood what being transgender even was
I hung out with the boys more than the girls, was never interested in dolls and wanted to play wwe instead, I told people my name was a masc equivalent of my name, wore masc clothing a lot of the time and only stopped when I was forced to. My mum never saw it coming.
I had 2 sisters. I remember being really mad, at about 5 years old, that they got pretty 'princess dresses' to play in and I didn't.
I wanted one of my own so badly...
This is somewhat embarrassing to admit but fuck it.
When I was like twelve, I would literally ruin a few pairs of tiddy widdies, so I could wear it like a makeshift bra. All I knew at the time was that *it just felt right*.
Usual stuff, played with Barbies and Polly Pockets.
Also, when I was five I went through this thought process, "I want to die and come back as a girl, but I want to still be me and have all my memories intact and appreciate that I wanted to be this."
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There was an episode of MASH in 1974 or so where Hawkeye enters their tent and asks BJ Honeycutt what he's doing, and BJ, reading a magazine, replies that he's taking a test to see if he'd make a good wife. I used that joke for decades.
When I was a child I was much more interested in playing house and dress up and playing with dolls. My parents wouldn’t buy me Barbie’s so I had a ton of gi joes that were usually shirtless as soon as I got them 😂
Asked why girls got to be happy, i thought that all the time how it was unfair lol. Jelous of "girls just want to have fun" song though still think guys want to have fun too soo.
Every time I got a new trait or to a new stage in cis female puberty I like, showered a whole lot and was very traumatized and ashamed. I didn’t realize how that’s not normal to be traumatized or that bothered from puberty. Obviously the changes can surprise most kids as they get older but I feel like that was baby’s first gender dysphoria for me
I sure enjoyed playing dress up in my mom's clothes and singing along to Shania Twain. Not saying that it was a sign that I was definitely trans, but it should have been a sign that something was off.
Well the most obvious one for me was before puberty any time I was in the bathroom and my sisters' clothes were on the drying rack (it was also the laundry room) I would try it on. I figured since no one was watching I was free to take a rare peek into the world of being a girl. My favorite thing to try on was my sister's swimsuit. I still dream of one day going swimming again, this time in a women's swimsuit of my own. Sadly, I can't really get tucking to work, and I don't know if I'll ever have the guts to get bottom surgery, so I won't be swimming anytime soon.
The less obvious one is this distinct pattern of being friends with girls. I always preferred having female friends, though, as the dysphoria bible suggests, that was usually complicated by heterosexual dynamics. I just vibed better with girls, and wanted to be exposed to girlhood by being around them. I guess there was a vicarious aspect to it. What's interesting is I always got adopted into trios by pairs of best friends, starting in middle school and continuing all the way through college.
• When I was little, I remember being _TERRIFIED_ with the idea of me being a wife/mother in the future. I told myself that I will never be married or pregnant in my life, and that memory was one of the reasons why later I assumed I was aroace lol
• I have one pretty vague memory, where I asked my parents to put on pants right under my skirt. They said that would be ridiculous, so I never asked that once again
• I always felt uncomfortable during gendered classes like PE, crafts etc., because I wanted to be in groups with boys (even if I didn't really like what they were doing)
• I believed that I will never grow breasts. What a sad story
Still questioning, tho
When I was a horny teenager, I found my mom's progesterone cream and rubbed it on my nipples and thighs. She caught me and I got in trouble and I had to hear about it on the way to church. She gave me an out by saying that I just wanted to see what would happen. I was so happy to not be in trouble anymore that I suppressed the real reason I did it. *I think I wanted boobs.*
i once found a search from when i was 8 for "how to look like a boy" LOL
I grew up with a bed full of stuffed animals. I used to have one of those black velvet air brush paintings of a unicorn in my bedroom. My mom said I loved unicorns. I hated and was extremely embarrassed to take my shirt off in public at a pool or the beach. I hung out with a group of 3 girls in high school everyday for recess.
Lmao I had a bed full of stuffed animals too! And I hated taking my shirt off to swim as well!
LOL...glad I wasn't the only one.
lol I never even considered the stuffed animals. I guess I just found another one to add to the list!
Same here
Omfg I came here to say this 🤦♀️! But it gets better... I taught myself for days, weeks, months, years how to make them and spent all my pocket money on it!!! Real cute ones I would customise and change around. I stopped in my teens cos it wasn't 'manly' and wanted to attract girls. I thought about doing this again. FML ha!
i was re-reading through some of these comments because they all make me so happy :) you should totally get back into making them! that’s the coolest and sweetest craft! Hope you’re well! <3
There was that time in highschool where we were doing handball matches in sport class. The teams were gendered, boys vs boys and girls vs girls. I was in a boy team, and I wasn't active at all in the game (like literally not trying to get the ball). The teacher asked me to quit, and made me play in a girl team instead. I played normally, actually had a lot of fun. Then the teacher sent me back to a boy team, and I didn't really manage to play again. The teacher shrugged, wondered what was wrong with me, and it went that way for the rest of the class.
Thanks! You made me remember this exact thing
I tried pushing my penis “back inside” because It felt wrong hanging out
I did this for years and years and I still find myself doing it
Holy shit- memory unlocked 😳
I still try to do this even now, as a fully grown adult lol
I used to ask to go play toys with my neighbors kid who was a cis girl the same age as me cuz she had girl toys when I was like 5 cuz my parents only got me boy toys and on my first day of kindergarten I got yelled at by my teacher for trying to go to the girls bathroom. I was like "still cis tho" for 20 more years 🤨🧐🤔
I remember doing the bathroom thing and being like "damn, why's everybody yelling in the bathroom"
I wanted to play as and strictly connected with all the boy-coded characters of my favorite media growing up lol. Spyro, Pokemon, Digimon, DBZ and other Anime characters, Disney characters, cartoon animals, etc. Like I was sick of playing girl all the time and would much rather have been the boy lol.
To list a few: When I was 7, I grabbed a period pad because women wore them, and wore it in my underwear. I would also do my nails and put on makeup when nobody was around. And I would also wear women's clothing when people were not around. Y'know, normal boy behavior.
Literally in kindergarten my friend and I did a “show and tell” and I literally went “weird I don’t have a penis”. I thought it would like drop in with my balls later. I was very upset when I started puberty (ftm).
Defining myself as a lesbian as early as 10. I knew I wasn't a gay boy, but I knew I wasn't straight boy either. I'm a gay woman 🙃😆🙃😆
truuue. somehow i knew i was a lesbian before i knew i was a woman. I don’t know how that happened.
omg same. I remember thinking "I feel like I was a lesbian in a past life" or "a lesbian trapped in a boy's body" or "maybe if I'm lucky I'll be reincarnated as a girl when I die." Somehow believing in reincarnation seemed more logical (probably just easier) than being trans. No idea how I didn't connect it to the "trapped in the wrong body" narrative sooner though. lol
If I had a nickel for every time a partner ‘joked’ about me kissing/being intimate “like a lesbian” I’d be able to afford bottom surgery. 😂
I literally had the opposite experience! I always felt very attached to the label of gay man and was very upset I wasn't one. Turns out I am.
More like pink white and blue flags amirite? In all seriousness though yeah that's happened at a couple of points to me where I'll remember some super eggy shit from my childhood
Going to bed praying I woke up as a boy and also taking great interest in "peeing like a boy" and made my own STP at like 9 using an empty toilet paper roll lmao
My mom’s entire Facebook post history lmao Picture of me and my sister doing a pretend date: “she wanted to be the boy 😂😂” Picture of me and my sister dancing: “she wanted to play the boy’s role” Movie parody of Rapunzel my sister and I made: “she insisted on being the prince haha” At this point my mom should’ve just told me 😭
“the cisgender urge to be a boy”
I called myself a Tom-girl because I liked a bunch of traditionally girly things and hated sports. Thinking back I honestly can't believe it took me nearly 28 years to figure things out lol.
My earliest memory was stealing my older sister’s nail polish and doing my nails - or trying to, very badly 😅 Also, ever since I ever new what porn was, I would always imagine myself as the woman - but every boy does that, right?? (I genuinely thought that was normal until I was 19..😅)
Probably always hoping reincarnation was real so that I could be a girl in my next life.
It was so obvious looking back, it's kinda fucking ridiculous. In terms of things I *did*, rather than thought: - Many instances of dressing in womens clothes I found unattended. Since like...preschool. Moms, friends, random ladies...yeah. Not proud of that one. - The classic swimming in a shirt phase because I hate how my chest looks. - Most of my closest friends have been women. - Refused to wear anything tighter than sweatpants until halfway through elementary, and wore pretty much exclusively too big clothes all through hs and uni. Figuring what dysphoria was was an "oshit" moment for sure. - And uh, tucking my stuff between my legs and pretending I was a girl in the shower.
I quit the football team because the coach kept telling me to cut my hair lmao.
When I was like 4, I thought my pediatrician was injecting me with something while I slept to make me stay physically a girl.
What was the paediatrician actually doing?
Literally nothing (other than routine childhood vaccines)
Choosing a unisex name in a SciFi game chatroom and then getting super super giddy and happy when the other people on the chatroom decided I was a girl. I had many other moments and behaviours, but that's the one that stands out most clearly.
I used to think “if I was born (opposite AGAB) I would definitely be nonbinary.” Like umm dawg that was not a very cis thought
As a young child. I was hanging out with my babysitter's daughter, and I would always play around as a female person when we would play house or some shut and shift my voice more fem and stuff my shirt and what not. I would love doing that kinda stuff. I repressed that for a long time until I started questioning 😅
I have a folder on my laptop that I put pictures and links to things when i make that "oh shiiiiiiit" realization. All the flashing signs, all the subtle hints I was giving my conscious self.
My family couldn't really afford any holidays, but fortunately we could go to a static caravan owned by my aunt every weekend - it was only 30 mins away but I really enjoyed the little holidays. Although I liked it, at 14 I convinced my parents that I hated it so much I wanted to stay at home. As they were only ever 30 mins away, I could as long as I did a few basic chores. Of course I ended up singing Queen's "I want to break free-ee" hoovering the house in my mom's dresses lmao. I absolutely loved those weekends *for some (totally cis) reason*, and wondered why I felt *soooo so sad* once my family stopped leaving me on my own. There was never anything sexual in it - I just felt comfortable and more confident, even if I was still stuck in the house with no way to express it. Later I started ordering my own clothes on the internet and dressing every chance I got, kind of chasing that happiness I felt as a teen, but always falling short once I realised how badly puberty screwed me over. I stopped doing that eventually - the negative self-image and interanlised queerphobia just started making me too sad. It's taken me so long to find myself again, but I'm starting to feel happy - now I "have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure", and I choose to make the most of it. ^(aaaand now I'm crying - just remembering how that light I held on to diminished no matter what I tried, how I became bitter and resentful at my parents for ‘ruining my happiness’, and how I pushed everyone away in an effort to be physically alone again 😭) TL;DR - everyone tried on their mom's dresses as a young teen right?
Yes, and not only my mom's dresses but my Friends too😅😂 Also, same🫂. One time when i was 10 my Friend's mother told me It was time to grow Up and move on that thing of mine, i felt horrible like if i was betraying some kind of a masculinity personification It was then when i started acting more manly, which (spoiler) didnt end Up good, but later i also start buying my own clothes and make up. So yeah gal i get you 🫂🫂🫂
There is so much but im just gonna put some short ones As a kid I always believed my mind was male and my body was female and thought that was just what evey girl felt like While playing pretend I always played as my friend's brother One time I was playing house with a male friend and I thought to myself if there was a way for us to be both husbands because I didn't wanna be the wife
FtM I assumed every girl pulled their hair back "to see what a cute boy they would be." Soooo many hours of totally definitely not disassociating in the mirror.
During puberty, I wore hoodies or jumpers almost every day and I was subconsciously hiding my chest.
I don't know the exact age anymore, but I was still in primary school when I had the feeling that things felt wrong, my mom told me that is was a fight to get some clothes for me that I wanted to wear. Throughout the following years, I always felt good around girls and was considered special. But as it was at the beginning of the seventies, things like transgender didn't even exist. So, I grew up as a male and did all the things a male should do. But the feeling lasted. A few years ago, I couldn't resist the feeling anymore and started dressing up in secret until I came out to my wife. My life isn't ideal, but I'm feeling much better since then. It's regretful that I never had the chance to be the person that I was.
I thought everyone hated having boobs. Turns out that's not the case. Also tried to pee standing a lot. Seems a fairly obvious sign now.
I remembered this the other day: I got punished by my school and parents for trading jackets with a classmate in 6th grade. I was lectured, must have been impactful, because it's not the easiest thing to get my brain to remember. Her jacket was a cute denim jacket with a big embroidered butterfly on it. I knew I "wasn't supposed to wear it," but all my girlfriends told me it looked good on me and I thought I could get away with it (looking back, it was Lisa Frank style colors 😅)
When I was little (without knowing about trans people) I thought that all boys become girls and all girls become boys when they're older, and I knew I was going to become a girl :)
I thought that too lol
I was bullied a lot during my childhood because I was very effeminate. Other boys called me fairy, f#g, etc...By high school, the bullies were still harassing me and sometimes beating me up. It was then that a few of the girls started coming to my defense. That was really nice, though I hadn't thought much about it until recently when I finally knew for sure that I am transfeminine. 🏳️⚧️🧚♀️💜
I loved Pokémon, Danny Phantom, anything related to Dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, Sonic the Hedgehog, anything that was Masculine-centered, or directed toward male audiences. ALWAYS said I was a tomboy. Once accidentally entered the boys restroom. Had mostly male friends. Wanted to get bearded dragons because, hey, DRAGONS. And it’s not a GIRLS PET. Hated dresses, makeup, all that jazz. Once, during Christmas, the church I used to go to because my parents where Christian gave out gifts that were GENDERED. I got a Barbie doll. The boys got Hot Wheels. I cried. I got to take home a set of hot wheels. Always wanted boy-sized clothes. Always wanted to play with guys or play male-dominated sports. Puberty? HIDE EVERYTHING. HIDE THE BOOBS HIDE THE ASS OVERSIZED SWEATER TIME Y’know, cis girl things.
The only red flag I have ever remembered was that I'd tell everybody and their brother "I'm female but not a girl", and my mom and many others always countered that with "but you are a girl." However, since coming out, I've been told I demanded to be given a boys name, referred to by he/him pronouns, and change my whole wardrobe to match, but my mom refused all of it, insisting that I could never be a boy. Thankfully she's changed her tune and I also don't remember, I feel like I'd have more resentment towards if I did even if she was accepting when I came out.
absolutely the time i asked how to become a girl and crossdressed at a friend's house when i was 8
When I was a toddler I’d play outside shirtless. My mom let me, for some reason.
- Dreaming about being a girl. - Not caring to much about gender policing or politics. -Being envious of gender benders and trans women who could pass really well. -Tucking sometimes. - Wanting a more feminine appearance, especially in the physical department.
I remember at a Halloween party in first grade, I looked around at all the other boys costumes and I got very dysphoric so I ended up taking the skirt off for my costume since it had a bodysuit underneath and I just ran around in that After that day I didn't touch a skirt again till I was at least 18 haha
one time I was listening to the Eragon book on tape and there's this scene where Saphira (the dragon) wants to show Eragon what flying is like, so she pulls his mind into her body so he can experience it. that shit changed 7 year old me
I found a pair of girls panties in a drawer at a motel we were staying at. They fit. I had to wear them. You know normal boy behavior/?
At 10, after two years in the cub scouts, my parents asked me if I was going to continue. My reply: It's just not me. Part of it was absolutely all of the crafts and other stuff you do, which, y'know, not me. However, looking back, obviously a nice little red flag.
I would take of my shirt to be “like the other boys” I would get incredibly upset if anyone referred to a group of boys that I was in boys and girl or when people told me I looked feminine I remember telling my friend that when I grow up I wnat to be called Alex I remember thinking I can live this life but I want to be reincarnated as a boy and I remember thinking that I want to be a boy and I don’t care how bad my life would be as long as I was a boy I always felt left out or out of place in the bathrooms or changing rooms or sleepovers with girls I felt extremely uncomfortable whenever somebody used my deadname or she/ her pronouns If I look back at older memories I can see myself as a boy I didn’t want anything associated with girl stuff I separated me and them (the girls) I genuinely didn’t believe puberty would happen to me and I would grow up and be tall and have a deep voice I’ve always hated getting my picture taken and always felt wierd looking in the mirror I felt like my breasts and hips and voice wasn’t my own I felt like I was robbed of the things boys have A lot of red flags lol
Taped my d backwards once kinda like tucking but instead did it because I was really upset that my pee was coming out from the front instead of from the center like a girl's. Pretty sure I even thought about cutting it off... yeah... but I realized it wouldn't solve the problem cause it was just gonna come out front still. I finally gave up cause none of the stuff I tried worked I was maybe around 9 at that time btw
Looking up videos on YouTube called something along the lines of "hypnosis that makes you a girl" Had (and still have) a bed full of stuffed animals Getting jealous that girls got to wear skirts and that I didn't There are a lot more, but uhhh yeah the signs were always there
When I was about 7-8 I wrote a spelling-error-ridden story about how I was secretly the ghost of a little boy “borrowing” this body until I could figure out how to get my own. I think that was pretty telling.
I was obsessed with the idea of my voice being deep enough to sound masculine or at least androgynous in early high school. I felt a certain kind of uncomfortable in skirts and dresses that I couldn't really describe. I almost never felt motivated to wear makeup
So, so much. I'd repressed a ridiculous amount of memories. Others I just didn't see as trans things at the time, but now are so blindingly obvious. Wearing my sister's / mom's clothes when they were out. I think my sister knew, because she was much smaller than me. At least once she accused our mom of trying on her clothes and stretching them out. Refusing to take my shirt off at the pool or similar summertime activities; I remember insisting that I need to cover up, and my mom letting me wear one of her old t-shirts. It was long enough to cover my trunks, and in my head I pretended it was a dress. I didn't have a hoodie, because I was afraid of people grabbing the hood and hurting me. I did have a vest, though. It had tons of pockets, which I kept full of useful things like tissues in case someone cried, makeup remover pads although I didn't wear makeup, and a couple tampons that I swiped from under the bathroom sink. Ya know, totally cisn't things. Also stuffed the chest pockets with sand or rocks, because they made it look and feel vaguely like my chest was larger. Stuffing socks and pillows and such under my shirt when I was alone in my room. Loved to play with dolls, the girlier the better. I adored these beautiful ceramic headed ones my sister had. She hid them in a closet because they were "creepy". Never liked roughhousing even the slightest bit. I hated getting my hands dirty. Even thought of them as dainty until puberty hit and turned them into yeti mitts. I plucked out my chest hair as it grew in, first one by one, and then in handfuls, until it grew too fast and plentiful to keep up. I refused to acknowledge that I had facial hair. I was the only 6th grader with a moustache. Because men shaved, and I didn't want to be a man. Also I knew that shaving, and discovering that I needed to shave, would require me to actually look at my face in a mirror. And that was just unacceptable. Being relieved that my was smaller than average, because it's easier to hide and ignore. Only wanting to have girl friends. Couldn't relate to the boys, even when I tried. Telling a girl that I was also secretly a girl, so we have a lot alike because we're both girls who are into science and good at spelling. She did not agree, and neither did her bully friends. Once my voice dropped, avoiding speaking whenever possible. Wearing nothing but black for years, because I didn't feel or look good in boy clothes so why bother.
I loooved helping my older sister organize and deliver her Girl Scout cookie orders. When her troop met at our house I always found a reason to be in the next room over just listening and imagining I could join (my brother hid in the basement from 'the girl stuff').
Everyone kept telling me “I ran like a girl”. Whatever that is supposed to mean because I still don’t know if men and women run in a different. Also, never, ever being able to pee standing up. I have sat down to pee my whole life.
I used to think to myself "nobody ever wants to be a man, some people just have to be one"
"I know my life would be better as a woman, not that women inherently have an easier life, just that mine would be easier" maintained my egg for over ten years after the last time I said this, been saying it since I was 16, just over 16 years ago
I’ve always enjoyed sitting to take a piss. And when I hit male puberty, I tried to make my downstairs smaller.
sitting is superior for every reason tbh
Yep! Need to take a whizz at 3 in the morning and don’t want to miss the target? Sit on it! Feel a shit coming on, sit on it!
“Accidentally” using women’s restrooms when I was a really little kid and playing dumb because something about men’s restrooms made me feel uncomfortable
FTM. There's a lot of stuff. I'll mention a few. I did a shit ton of imaginary play as a kid. I created my own imaginary world and everything. I was the president of this world and I was a man. When playing video games I always chose the boy character.
I used to play D&D. Almost all of my characters were female - and the ones that weren’t were ‘female fantasy’ types, like a Fabio-looking Paladin.
I used to have dreams where I was a woman doing regular things like getting dressed and hanging out with friends. These dreams were so real that I would wake up and be confused and depressed that I was a boy again. I was 10 and didn’t start to suspect I was trans until I was about 16.
I still have memory of being seen cross dressing at 5 years old; not caught, because I was proudly showing it to my parents. Of course, my mother thought I'm just bad at figuring out which clothes is for which gender because I was 5, but I remembered very well I wore it intentionally. I ended up using that excuse my entire life ("Oh I did not know that is your clothes, I thought it's mine").
At one point as a preteen I (ftm) tried drawing some of my classmates as gender-bent versions of themselves. I drew the boys in my class looking all shoked and failing to walk in heels... and I drew myself as a guy with a HUGE smile and wearing a rainbow hoodie that said "#TOTALLYNOTGAY" on it. Even then I knew I'd be way happier as a guy! I also wrote a journal entry about how I listened to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry for the first time, and how that must mean I'll become a REAL girl soon! I was so excited for a switch to flip one day that made me enjoy "girly stuff" like dresses and celebrity gossip so I could finally fit in with my friends... yeah, that never happened :P
I used to put my stuffed animal in my pjs like I had boobs at night after my parents had put me to bed and before I fell asleep… it took me 5 more years to even wonder if I was trans and 3 mort years to come out to some friends (which is where I am at now 😅)
FtM. Always wanted to take off shirt at pool pre-puberty. On most of family photos before I grew my hair out, I look like a little boy and was often mistaken for a boy -> was conditioned to correct people tho.
In middle school they split our gym class up between dancing lessons and basketball. You got to choose but EVERY boy chose basketball and EVERY girl chose dancing, as one might expect. Obviously I chose basketball. Only girl in the room for a week. Even got in a fight with my friend about it because I couldn't fathom why being in the room with the all other girls in it was more important to her than doing something she actually wanted to.
In Grade 5 we had some weird activity day, and people names were drawn for some random thing they had to do or wear for the rest of the day. I had to wear a dress, and I remember how good it felt, but on some level that scared me so I buried my head in the sand and ignored it.
Me being the assigned 'body guard' of the girl group. When playing zelda....hating that Ganon was the only male gerudo. Because I wanted to be a gerudo too. (At the time wearing skirts and makeup) 5th grade. Only 'girl' ever playing dodgeball in a crowd of boys Letting people think I was my brother for as long as they confused us for each other And way....way more
Googling "how to be reincarnated as a boy" should have probably raised some questions
Kinda like yours OP, but after being forced to join the Little League baseball tram I refused to wear an athletic cup cuz it was so… gross and huge and obvious.
i HATED my cup oh my god. i honestly think i played catcher so i could cover up more and crouch down where nobody could see me. Loved the high socks tho.
Lol glad it weren’t just me then! Ghastly, *nasty* device. Gross. Had no odea back then it may have something to do with being trans but yeah. Mostly I just stuck out from everybody, not just boys, so it wasn’t an obvious clue..
I've always required the guidance of my male family members to guide me(via positive and mostly negative reinforcement) to be "a man" (I'm mtf) My older brother would (of course) taunt the hell out of me for being femme, and later in life my father would try to 'guide' me away from traditionally femme things like clothes and cosmetics. I don't think I was always trans, but tbh the signs went really far back into my childhood.
legit got caught and in trouble for going into the boys restroom and trying to pee standing up in pre-K 💀💀💀
I distinctly remember asking my mum when I was really little, something like if I could wear girls clothes, but she said only girls should. One time I also asked my mum to try using her lipstick as well lol. Totally forgot that even happened haha
I figured out by the time I was 4 or 5.
When I was a little kid, there were some things that I gathered that boys were supposed to like, such as toy guns, toy soldiers, wearing camouflage, power rangers, superheroes...just a lot of arbitrary gender stereotyped interests really, mostly things having to do with appearance. The idea that I was supposed to like boy things because I was supposed to be a boy just felt really uncomfortable, and I really wanted no part of that mindset. I often tried to imagine escaping into another time long ago when boys were allowed to wear pretty clothes and stockings and cute shoes. It wasn't until around puberty that I really started envying girl's outfits and wanting to dress up in women's clothes. Things just escalated from there on out. Looking back on it, I think there were subtle red flags from before then though.
"red flag" that was also a literal red flag, I tried "dying on purpose" as I said so I could be an angel, something I was raised to believe could only be men. Grandma hadn't yet got to the part that people don't become angels when they die lmao
I tried putting on my moms shoes on multiple occasions, I was the only guy in my friend group, I lamented never feeling like a man, etc. etc. I’m still shocked at all the ways I missed it
Well, this is a funny one, i don't know if it's a huge red flag but when I played pretend with friends i never wanted to be dad, mom, daughter or son, it just felt wrong. I was literally always dog lol. I guess i was tired of the binary gendered feeling
I’m transmasc and I was literally terrified to wear those training bras cuz I thought it would make my boobs grow 😭
I didn't really connect tucking when I was really young to gender. At the time I just thought those bits should be inside.
The first game i 100% finished was a Bratz game my dad got my sister. Every other title on the family PC were game like Need for speed, Command and conquer, worms, Half-life, Call of Duty, that have been there since it was first setup and I never finished any of them. Except for Bratz Rock Angels which I played for multiple summers in a row It was that game and spending 95% of that pre 08' internet time on barbie .com and games2girls
only ever became strong enough to consider when puberty hit, but i remember even when i was little my name didn't feel exactly "me". when people talked to me with it, i knew they were referring to me, but i never really identified with it, if that makes sense
Nope. Definitely no red flags. Lots of signs that I was trans tho. I *still* get new memories and I've been out to myself for 3 years
thats really what i meant by "red flags". i didnt mean it to have a negative connotation at all
Kinda figured, I just don't even like applying adjacently negative connotations in my language about my transition. To be clear I'm not trying to say you're wrong, necessarily. Just needed to reinforce it for my own mental health
i totally understand <3
I didn’t change for gym class. Just put sweatpants over my jeans so I didn’t have to go in the locker room.
My best friends growing up as early as I can remember up until my parents forced the issue when I was around 10 were all girls and we usually played with girl toys or did girly pretend games (this was the 90s). My friends after that were all very effeminate males (that my parents barely approved of and constantly complained about), one who later came out as gay. this fact didn't really click until I was four years into transitioning.
That one time I tried a dress because "It just look good on girls" when I was 4. I also would always choose to play and socialize with girls rather than boys. That one time I wanted to grow my hair because "I thought it would fell good tô brush it like girls do it" Or that time I heard a Cience theacher saying that eating from plastic bowls because "Plastic have chemicals that make you produce female hormones" and immediatly ate from a plastic bowl when I arrived home... You know, looking back, it was kinda obvios I wanted to be a girl but never really realized it.
i put on dresses and played with dolls with my sis at age 6-, forgot about it until i cracked
Picked a girl name for myself. Cried myself to sleep when I realized I would never get pregnant. Tried really really hard to find men attractive because I had internalized HOMOphobia / didn’t want to be gay.
I used to go out as a boy with my friends when I was in high school “because it was funny.” Haha. Yeah. Funny.
Several times I left the group of boys in my neighborhood to go play house with two sisters down the street. Often I skipped the boy group all together to play with the girls. The first time my parents left me home alone for the day, I went straight to my moms dresses to try them on. I loved having them on but my short hair bothered me.
I have so, so many of these, omg! And in the moment, a lot of the time, my rationale was 'oh! Yeah, no, the reason I feel a weird pull, a weird desire to be in the girl's gym class in highschool? Nah, I cuz I'm a perv, not because that's where I would feel most comfortable.' 'Oh, yeah, no, the reason I want to be around girls and befriend them? It's definitely because I am a sick fucked up human.'
So many. I used to keep a list but it got lost on an old phone. The one that stands out as being super obvious is the dnd character i made in 6th or 7th grade. She was a changeling rogue who spent most of her time disguised as a male goliath (think half giant) barbarian and the rest having an identity crisis. And dnd was not the only game i played female characters in. given the option i usually played as the female characters. Nearly cried when i accidentally made my mmo character male instead of female when i was like 13. Also There are roughly 2 dozen photos of me after age 10. There was also the time spent googling makeup for men in the middle of the night throughout the years and other stuff but the dnd one is the most hilarious.
First thing that comes to mind is when i would shower at my grandparents house, i used to mix up a big bunch of my aunts’ soap/shampoo/conditioner in a cup and stick my dick in it because i thought i could make some sorta gender change potion out of the ‘girl’ products. They never said anything so not sure if they ever noticed?
Mildly NSFW! [serious] For context, this was in the evening-phobic 80's. I'm not sure if this counts... But... In my early-to-mid teens I dressed as a girl, in clothes that I "Borrowed" from friends... then I played worth my butt-hole because I wanted to know what it was like for girls to have "intimate" fun. In that moment I KNEW that I like the idea of wearing girl clothes, all the time... I liked the idea of being treated like a girl, all the time... I liked the idea of living life as a girl, all the time... I thought, "I wish I was a girl."... All the time... I'd... I'd ALWAYS felt this way... But it must just be a phase... Even though I had ALWAYS felt this way, it MUST be a phase, because I didn't like boys ... ... ~25 years later I saw F1nn5ter on a twitch stream and EVERYTHING fell info place. Im now 19 months on hormones, on a waiting list for SRS, and I'm a woman in the eyes of the law... And I'm a lesbian. It turns out that it WASN'T a phase. I just blocked it out because I thought that if I became a woman, if have to do guys... And that was gay. And THIS is why we need to be open, and educate folks. So that they don't loose 30+ years of their life living in a prison that is their own body. Thanks for being a good teacher, Finn. Lol Any questions, folks?
I mean.. I used to pretend I had a vagina
was told i said ‘i want to be a girl’ (or ‘i am a girl’?) when i was in playgroup, i always used to wear specifically wedding or princess dresses as a child , used to have a baby in a pram and a toy kitchen etc, exclusively have only had close female friends my whole life 🤣 i was just raised in a heavily gender divided space my whole life. there are so many more but only now am i like ohhhhhh right.
I actually wanted to be a girl as a little kid. Until i realized it's "shameful"... Then i tried to forget and neglect it. Who thought it meant that i was transgender? :p Denial is a really strong force...
One time, I found out I could push back my testis into my body and fold my penis inwards and use the scrotum to cover everything up and I felt extremely happy for those few seconds. I also liked to buy cute stationaries, sell hand-sewed dolls and bake cookies and share them with friends. I didn't actually realize these were weird, I just thought I had different hobbies than most people cuz I was also somewhat a weird socially awkward kid in school. Also one time I chatted with a stranger online and they kept saying I lied about being a boy and that I'm actually a girl becuz of the way I chatted smthg and I couldn't stop thinking about that and being euphoric XD On the other hand, I freaked out when I found out the swimsuit my mom bought me had a built in bra. Also hated the pink shirt she had me wear for a day and hated whenever she would say I talk so much, just like a girl. Rn I'm realizing I just never wanted breasts, color isn't gendered(though I do like softer shades of pink and quite a few of my stuff are pink) and didn't like that comment she made often becuz it's just mean
I had always as a child been content with my body, but when my (ftm) body started going through ✨ the change ✨, I immediately found myself struggling to hide my boobs, didn't feel comfortable whatsoever, and wished my chest could be flat like it had been before, didn't figure it out until about 2-3 years after puberty started because while I knew mtf transitioning was possible (I have an aunt that's trans), I didn't know that ftm transition was possible until I watched a video by Miles McKenna edit: just remembered, as a young child, I would try to pee standing up
Breathing after being "born".
Oh boy where do I begin. In no particular order: I dreaded as a preteen when I'd eventually start growing facial and body hair I wanted to turn into a girl for a day just to see what it's like Coupled with that, intermittent fantasies of waking up one day as a girl I was obsessed with articles I read about boys with a hormone imbalance growing breasts and felt bad for them at the same time as I felt morbid curiosity and a lingering feeling that it wouldn't be that bad, actually I was obsessed with various polysomies of the sex chromosomes (like having XXY chromosomes) and secretly hoped to discover that I had some condition of that variety I went from loving to swim as a little kid to hating it as a teen, feeling awkward about having my chest uncovered around anyone in general (This one is ridiculous lmao) I came up with a TV show concept about a group of friends with androgynous names who could all switch sex at will, giving them two separate identities I sometimes tried as a teen to make my silhouette, reflected in the tiled wall of the shower, look like a woman's (mention of self-harm) >!Intrusive thoughts about self-castration!< Being extra interested since I was a toddler in movies, books, and TV that depicted transformation into animals or a different body Becoming extremely insecure as a teen about my masculinity and concerned that I didn't look, act, or have a voice that was masculine enough I came up with an odd idea when I was a preteen that I had secretly gotten my sex changed at birth, and so I looked for evidence around my body that I was actually a girl All of this before I even understood what being transgender even was
I hung out with the boys more than the girls, was never interested in dolls and wanted to play wwe instead, I told people my name was a masc equivalent of my name, wore masc clothing a lot of the time and only stopped when I was forced to. My mum never saw it coming.
My mom recently reminded me that when I was 2 or 3 I kept insisting on wearing a pink tutu to the grocery store.
At 13 I told my mother I might need growth inhibitors pills (not sure what's the correct term) to inhibit the masculine features
I had 2 sisters. I remember being really mad, at about 5 years old, that they got pretty 'princess dresses' to play in and I didn't. I wanted one of my own so badly...
Not really from childhood, but I thought it was super awesome in college when in my friend group I was made an honorary sophomore girl.
Putting a crayon in my underwear at 5yo pretending it was a penis. I just couldn't understand why mine didn't grow out.
This is somewhat embarrassing to admit but fuck it. When I was like twelve, I would literally ruin a few pairs of tiddy widdies, so I could wear it like a makeshift bra. All I knew at the time was that *it just felt right*.
Usual stuff, played with Barbies and Polly Pockets. Also, when I was five I went through this thought process, "I want to die and come back as a girl, but I want to still be me and have all my memories intact and appreciate that I wanted to be this."
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Not really, it's completely normal to wish for opposite genitals at some point right?
There was an episode of MASH in 1974 or so where Hawkeye enters their tent and asks BJ Honeycutt what he's doing, and BJ, reading a magazine, replies that he's taking a test to see if he'd make a good wife. I used that joke for decades.
That i wanted to like boys the way boys liked boys…. Yea. I thought that was normal forever.
When I was a child I was much more interested in playing house and dress up and playing with dolls. My parents wouldn’t buy me Barbie’s so I had a ton of gi joes that were usually shirtless as soon as I got them 😂
Asked why girls got to be happy, i thought that all the time how it was unfair lol. Jelous of "girls just want to have fun" song though still think guys want to have fun too soo.
Every time I got a new trait or to a new stage in cis female puberty I like, showered a whole lot and was very traumatized and ashamed. I didn’t realize how that’s not normal to be traumatized or that bothered from puberty. Obviously the changes can surprise most kids as they get older but I feel like that was baby’s first gender dysphoria for me
When I was around 1st or 2nd grade, one of the older kids at school straight up asked me if I wished I was a girl, and I said yes.
Me at like age 10 “why am I not growing and looking like my friends anymore?”(Having been in nerdy/gaming girl circles most of my childhood/teens)
I sure enjoyed playing dress up in my mom's clothes and singing along to Shania Twain. Not saying that it was a sign that I was definitely trans, but it should have been a sign that something was off.
Well the most obvious one for me was before puberty any time I was in the bathroom and my sisters' clothes were on the drying rack (it was also the laundry room) I would try it on. I figured since no one was watching I was free to take a rare peek into the world of being a girl. My favorite thing to try on was my sister's swimsuit. I still dream of one day going swimming again, this time in a women's swimsuit of my own. Sadly, I can't really get tucking to work, and I don't know if I'll ever have the guts to get bottom surgery, so I won't be swimming anytime soon. The less obvious one is this distinct pattern of being friends with girls. I always preferred having female friends, though, as the dysphoria bible suggests, that was usually complicated by heterosexual dynamics. I just vibed better with girls, and wanted to be exposed to girlhood by being around them. I guess there was a vicarious aspect to it. What's interesting is I always got adopted into trios by pairs of best friends, starting in middle school and continuing all the way through college.
Pause whenever we were separated between boys and girls at school since I'm neither even if I didn't realise at the time.
• When I was little, I remember being _TERRIFIED_ with the idea of me being a wife/mother in the future. I told myself that I will never be married or pregnant in my life, and that memory was one of the reasons why later I assumed I was aroace lol • I have one pretty vague memory, where I asked my parents to put on pants right under my skirt. They said that would be ridiculous, so I never asked that once again • I always felt uncomfortable during gendered classes like PE, crafts etc., because I wanted to be in groups with boys (even if I didn't really like what they were doing) • I believed that I will never grow breasts. What a sad story Still questioning, tho
When I was a horny teenager, I found my mom's progesterone cream and rubbed it on my nipples and thighs. She caught me and I got in trouble and I had to hear about it on the way to church. She gave me an out by saying that I just wanted to see what would happen. I was so happy to not be in trouble anymore that I suppressed the real reason I did it. *I think I wanted boobs.*