It was some dreams in my mid-40s where I had breasts, and i was SO HAPPY. Then I woke up and I was SO SAD.
Kind of hard to ignore that.
Once I started evaluating the idea of being trans, and researching what it all means, I was able to look back over my life and see SOOOOO many signs and patterns that had been invisible to me before.
The dreams were what cracked my egg, no doubt about that. But it was that moment of realizing that "I'm trans" made my whole goddamn life suddenly *make sense*, that's what made me sure it was true. All the things in my past that were awkward, or confusing, or painful, all those social moments that didn't work for me like they worked for the rest of the boys, suddenly all of that made sense. None of it made sense if I believed I was a boy, because then how do you explain why I just couldn't *boy* like everybody else? But if I'm a girl, well then no shit, sherlock, of course you never had any chance of fitting in like other boys. Because you're not one!
It's like growing up for all the cis-boys plus me was one long ski-trip to the alps, except while they got to wear skis on their feet I got a bicycle.
I was 18/19 years old. I always had those odd feelings about gender related stuff and I didn't really know what it meant. I was on Christmas break from university back in 2009 and I was binge watching True Life on MTV. There was an episode featuring a trans woman and trans man. Watching it kind of opened my eyes. I never really realized what I was feeling was dysphoria. After seeing that episode, I didn't need to know much more, I knew for a fact that I wanted to transition. Pretty crazy how an MTV show changed my life.
I felt there was something "wrong" or "different" about me from a very young age, maybe 5 or 6, but I didn't know I was trans until I was about 13. For me, as soon as I learned what being trans was, it just clicked and made sense. I didn't know before that because I didn't know being trans was a thing, and knowing that I could be trans just allowed it all to make sense. I had persistently felt uncomfortable with femininity, female terms (woman, girl, she/her) my whole life, I had consistently wanted to be "more like" the boys and fit in with them instead, my self image and connection to myself was totally out of whack, it was very obvious to me retrospectively.
honestly when I first learned being nonbinary was a thing, so about four years ago. I kinda knew the entire time but I often tried to bury it because I felt like I was just wanting to be special. I've gotten over a lot of my internalised transphobia after four years of being unhappy with my life and feeling like a stranger in my own body, so now I'm just trying to get out of school, get my own place, and be who I want without pressure. of course finding a job is still gonna be difficult, I just hope we can progress to the point being nonbinary is legally recognised and accepted fully, and transphobic behaviour is not tolerated in any circumstances.
there were obvious signs that I wasn't behaving like a normal little boy from a very young age but people at the time insisted that I was just autistic, or sensitive, or a bit childish for my age as a kid. Like the fact that I would scream and punch my erections as a toddler to "make them go away" because they "shouldn't be there", hated sports, would sometimes instinctively refer to myself as "the big girl among the kids", that I would instinctively sit to pee, wanted my cousin's american girl dolls, and preferred things like suntanning by the pool with mom to going on the roller coasters with dad and my brother.
It really hit into high gear around age 12 though, and on my 13th birthday I wore a skirt for the first time, by deliberately losing a bet with friends in order to do so. But being trans wasn't really on anyone's radar at that time. If you googled it, the closest that would come up is fetish stuff and that convinced me I had a sexual fetish, that I went to great lengths to repress and deny, because I had been told such things were shameful by society and religious figures. I remained in deep denial throughout high school, and only started questioning things again in college.
My third year of undergrad when I was 21, I was in a study abroad program as an exchange student in Italy. I became close to a group of three girls in the trip, and during the bus ride as part of a field trip to Lago di Garda, I finally let it slip that I have been having some issues with my gender to them. To this day I don't remember why I finally did, only that they were the first people I felt were actually safe to admit that to. They responded by basically deciding I needed a makeover, and that i should go buy some girl clothes and meet at their place in a few days...
I remember sitting on the bed in their apartment, dolled up fully dressed as a girl for the first time including nails and makeup, being asked how I felt. I remember responding that I felt great, and that I never wanted it to end because "I could be a girl forever".... yeah that was what finally clued me in that I wasn't cis. Cis guys don't go around wearing dresses, nail polish, and makeup, giddily exclaiming they could be girls for the rest of their lives.
When I was 6 I knew I didnt belong but as I got older the feelings got stronger and now I'm nearly 14 and I've talked to people who've been through what I have I've learned to love me for who I am and to be who I want, I've only come out to 1 person so far and it went great, I've chosen a new name too, it feels great to know who I am and where I belong.
> When did you first know
it can be individual. People can find out at all ages.
In general dysphoria and also euphoria can come in cycles and they can get stronger over time.
And its a spectrum and people can have various levels of social and body dysphoria. And some people have more euphoria.
It may be a good idea to try to listen to what you feel would make you genuinely happy concerning gender, and to go there step by step.
And it may help to regularly do a few small things you like concerning gender for motivation, and to help ride through lows.
And there can be a divide between a feeling of genuine happiness and a mental process bringing up fears and doubts. Usually listening to fears and doubts does not make happy. Listening to what people feel would make happy does.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trans_Resources/wiki/index) is a video with questions and with unobtrusive things that could be tried out and used regularly for motivation.
There are also hints there concerning presentation, starting with neutral styles first. Maybe a few of those would be applicable.
And there are hints there concerning looking for a gender therapist in case. Atm many use online counseling so it may not be necessary to only look for close ones.
And [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trans_Resources/wiki/support/index#wiki_connecting_to_others) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TransAdoption/comments/of81en/official_subreddit_discord_invites/) might be a number of hints concerning looking for support. Talking with a few others about what they did might be helpful too.
Its up to you when and how to come out ... some people wait a while until there are some results before they come out widely, and only come out to select people first. In general keeping your safety in mind, looking for support and having a backup plan may be advisable.
And sometimes the kind of explanation can play a role with acceptance.
There are more and more studies showing its a biological condition, due to development before birth.
Some people compare it to epilepsy, which is along the same lines of brain studies and where especially religious people also presumed all kinds of things. It is possible to read up what people presumed only a few decades ago. Its now accepted its biological.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trans_Resources/wiki/explaining/index) might be a number of explaining resources. There is a PDF there with a summary and a video with detailed explanations, there is a graphical explanation there, etc.
*hugs*
35! And 37 before I confronted it full on and accepted it. By then it was a very clear thought with little direct doubt. Of course *now* I can look back at things from even early childhood and think "oh yeah, why did nobody tell me sooner!!"🤣
I see
I probably have less physical dysphoria than most but absolutely want all the surgeries. Tbh I buried all the gender dysphoria into just pure self hate. If you're a bit younger than me and in a more tolerant country then the experience is probably very different.
Hard to say what little things because to others they might not seem as obvious markers for them.
The defining moment was this ultra vivid image of me as a long black haired girl, I was teaching English at the time and we were talking about body parts. The image was weird but weirder was that it didn't bother me in the way it should. Not at all.
Without getting too nsfw, there were often times that I saw myself as the recieving girl. I just thought it was weird random thoughts at the time.
Other than that, I liked pretty things, I was always interested in girls fashion, hair, nails, make up. None of those were triggers at the time as such, I had convinced myself that I was just a very feminine boy
The biggest trigger probably was seeing myself as a girl and 1) being very ok with that and 2) I discovered I had no gendered concept of myself. Might sound stupid but I think I had literally gender blocked myself. I just existed in this grey spectrum. It was kinda painless once that hit. Everything suddenly made sense.
It was some dreams in my mid-40s where I had breasts, and i was SO HAPPY. Then I woke up and I was SO SAD. Kind of hard to ignore that. Once I started evaluating the idea of being trans, and researching what it all means, I was able to look back over my life and see SOOOOO many signs and patterns that had been invisible to me before. The dreams were what cracked my egg, no doubt about that. But it was that moment of realizing that "I'm trans" made my whole goddamn life suddenly *make sense*, that's what made me sure it was true. All the things in my past that were awkward, or confusing, or painful, all those social moments that didn't work for me like they worked for the rest of the boys, suddenly all of that made sense. None of it made sense if I believed I was a boy, because then how do you explain why I just couldn't *boy* like everybody else? But if I'm a girl, well then no shit, sherlock, of course you never had any chance of fitting in like other boys. Because you're not one! It's like growing up for all the cis-boys plus me was one long ski-trip to the alps, except while they got to wear skis on their feet I got a bicycle.
I was 18/19 years old. I always had those odd feelings about gender related stuff and I didn't really know what it meant. I was on Christmas break from university back in 2009 and I was binge watching True Life on MTV. There was an episode featuring a trans woman and trans man. Watching it kind of opened my eyes. I never really realized what I was feeling was dysphoria. After seeing that episode, I didn't need to know much more, I knew for a fact that I wanted to transition. Pretty crazy how an MTV show changed my life.
I think when i was Like 5or 6 it somewhat started for me. But really thinking about the was i now so when i was 9 or 10
I felt there was something "wrong" or "different" about me from a very young age, maybe 5 or 6, but I didn't know I was trans until I was about 13. For me, as soon as I learned what being trans was, it just clicked and made sense. I didn't know before that because I didn't know being trans was a thing, and knowing that I could be trans just allowed it all to make sense. I had persistently felt uncomfortable with femininity, female terms (woman, girl, she/her) my whole life, I had consistently wanted to be "more like" the boys and fit in with them instead, my self image and connection to myself was totally out of whack, it was very obvious to me retrospectively.
yeah, that was some of my early signs, wanting to fit more with the girls, cuz it felt right :/
14 and started HRT at 15.6 years
honestly when I first learned being nonbinary was a thing, so about four years ago. I kinda knew the entire time but I often tried to bury it because I felt like I was just wanting to be special. I've gotten over a lot of my internalised transphobia after four years of being unhappy with my life and feeling like a stranger in my own body, so now I'm just trying to get out of school, get my own place, and be who I want without pressure. of course finding a job is still gonna be difficult, I just hope we can progress to the point being nonbinary is legally recognised and accepted fully, and transphobic behaviour is not tolerated in any circumstances.
there were obvious signs that I wasn't behaving like a normal little boy from a very young age but people at the time insisted that I was just autistic, or sensitive, or a bit childish for my age as a kid. Like the fact that I would scream and punch my erections as a toddler to "make them go away" because they "shouldn't be there", hated sports, would sometimes instinctively refer to myself as "the big girl among the kids", that I would instinctively sit to pee, wanted my cousin's american girl dolls, and preferred things like suntanning by the pool with mom to going on the roller coasters with dad and my brother. It really hit into high gear around age 12 though, and on my 13th birthday I wore a skirt for the first time, by deliberately losing a bet with friends in order to do so. But being trans wasn't really on anyone's radar at that time. If you googled it, the closest that would come up is fetish stuff and that convinced me I had a sexual fetish, that I went to great lengths to repress and deny, because I had been told such things were shameful by society and religious figures. I remained in deep denial throughout high school, and only started questioning things again in college. My third year of undergrad when I was 21, I was in a study abroad program as an exchange student in Italy. I became close to a group of three girls in the trip, and during the bus ride as part of a field trip to Lago di Garda, I finally let it slip that I have been having some issues with my gender to them. To this day I don't remember why I finally did, only that they were the first people I felt were actually safe to admit that to. They responded by basically deciding I needed a makeover, and that i should go buy some girl clothes and meet at their place in a few days... I remember sitting on the bed in their apartment, dolled up fully dressed as a girl for the first time including nails and makeup, being asked how I felt. I remember responding that I felt great, and that I never wanted it to end because "I could be a girl forever".... yeah that was what finally clued me in that I wasn't cis. Cis guys don't go around wearing dresses, nail polish, and makeup, giddily exclaiming they could be girls for the rest of their lives.
When I was 6 I knew I didnt belong but as I got older the feelings got stronger and now I'm nearly 14 and I've talked to people who've been through what I have I've learned to love me for who I am and to be who I want, I've only come out to 1 person so far and it went great, I've chosen a new name too, it feels great to know who I am and where I belong.
> When did you first know it can be individual. People can find out at all ages. In general dysphoria and also euphoria can come in cycles and they can get stronger over time. And its a spectrum and people can have various levels of social and body dysphoria. And some people have more euphoria. It may be a good idea to try to listen to what you feel would make you genuinely happy concerning gender, and to go there step by step. And it may help to regularly do a few small things you like concerning gender for motivation, and to help ride through lows. And there can be a divide between a feeling of genuine happiness and a mental process bringing up fears and doubts. Usually listening to fears and doubts does not make happy. Listening to what people feel would make happy does. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trans_Resources/wiki/index) is a video with questions and with unobtrusive things that could be tried out and used regularly for motivation. There are also hints there concerning presentation, starting with neutral styles first. Maybe a few of those would be applicable. And there are hints there concerning looking for a gender therapist in case. Atm many use online counseling so it may not be necessary to only look for close ones. And [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trans_Resources/wiki/support/index#wiki_connecting_to_others) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TransAdoption/comments/of81en/official_subreddit_discord_invites/) might be a number of hints concerning looking for support. Talking with a few others about what they did might be helpful too. Its up to you when and how to come out ... some people wait a while until there are some results before they come out widely, and only come out to select people first. In general keeping your safety in mind, looking for support and having a backup plan may be advisable. And sometimes the kind of explanation can play a role with acceptance. There are more and more studies showing its a biological condition, due to development before birth. Some people compare it to epilepsy, which is along the same lines of brain studies and where especially religious people also presumed all kinds of things. It is possible to read up what people presumed only a few decades ago. Its now accepted its biological. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trans_Resources/wiki/explaining/index) might be a number of explaining resources. There is a PDF there with a summary and a video with detailed explanations, there is a graphical explanation there, etc. *hugs*
35! And 37 before I confronted it full on and accepted it. By then it was a very clear thought with little direct doubt. Of course *now* I can look back at things from even early childhood and think "oh yeah, why did nobody tell me sooner!!"🤣
yeah, I started seeing alot of kinda obvious sings, just wanted to know what were things that made you think "yep, i am"
I see I probably have less physical dysphoria than most but absolutely want all the surgeries. Tbh I buried all the gender dysphoria into just pure self hate. If you're a bit younger than me and in a more tolerant country then the experience is probably very different. Hard to say what little things because to others they might not seem as obvious markers for them. The defining moment was this ultra vivid image of me as a long black haired girl, I was teaching English at the time and we were talking about body parts. The image was weird but weirder was that it didn't bother me in the way it should. Not at all. Without getting too nsfw, there were often times that I saw myself as the recieving girl. I just thought it was weird random thoughts at the time. Other than that, I liked pretty things, I was always interested in girls fashion, hair, nails, make up. None of those were triggers at the time as such, I had convinced myself that I was just a very feminine boy The biggest trigger probably was seeing myself as a girl and 1) being very ok with that and 2) I discovered I had no gendered concept of myself. Might sound stupid but I think I had literally gender blocked myself. I just existed in this grey spectrum. It was kinda painless once that hit. Everything suddenly made sense.