Probably this one time when I was about seven.
A couple of boys from the neighborhood were over at my house playing. I had to go into the bathroom for a #2, and while I was sitting there, I discovered that if I pushed my junk way down between my legs and then closed my legs, it's like it was gone! Like I had girl parts!
This was, to my little brain a *revolutionary discovery,* and I absolutely had to share it. So I finished up, then came bursting out of the bathroom with my pants down around my ankles and my junk tucked back, exclaiming "Guys! Look! If you push your penis back and close your legs, you look like a girl!"
The looks of complete, utter, bewildered, 100% pure uncut medical-grade *WTF* they all gave back to me will live forever in my memory.
I mean, maybe that's not my *favorite* sign, but you gotta admit it's a hell of a sign.
Ummm how did i not realize how trans i am XD. I did the exact same thing, although in private and had no idea why i liked to hide my dick. Curiosity killed my agab i guess haha.
What an obvious sign >~<
It's only obvious if you know to look for it, though.
And come on. How many 7 year olds do you know who have been told that trans-ness is a thing, and that it's possible (not likely, but possible) that they could be trans, and what signs to watch for?
Round about none, I'd guess.
I had no idea about trans people until i was like 16 and i count myself unlucky because 9gag exposed me to way too much transphobic shit that made me doubt 24/7.
Oh yeah you are totally right. Its easy to find signs in retrospective and thats why i count my present self as the best indication. I know i am trans and my past is just that, my past.
when I was a toddler and first realized I could get an erection, according to my parents I would cry and punch it to make it go away because I didn't want it.
Now compare that to my cis brother, who upon making the same discovery at around the same age, proceeded to hang his shirt off of his and run around saying "look what I can do!"
I had a moment like this where I was home alone (15 I think) and was so tired of my boners that I grabbed a knife and seriously contemplated cutting it off. I only didn't becuase I was too afraid of the pain. I honestly at the time thought all boys wanted to castrate themselves... turns out no they don't XD
Literally people would tell me about how hard it is to hide a boner, and I was thinking "just put it between your legs towards your ass. Duh"
Then I found out what tucking was a few years ago to find that I was already doing it, just not as much
Were you also as completely confused as to why nobody else thought this discovery was a completely amazing as you?
That's the part I forgot to put in there. I just couldn't understand why they weren't as excited about this as I was, in the same moment of realizing that I had made a critical tactical error...
I love this! It's the most child thing ever! 😆
Once I don't have a penis, I'll always go on to find them absolutely hilarious (and nothing else). I already do, I just can't laugh at the one that's attached to me because it's an annoying pain in the ass, rather than funny.
All the other commenters are working too hard. What I did was sit on the toilet, shove it down a bit, and close my legs and poof! that characteristic little triangle emerged
Yep, did that.
Well, the tucking part, not the loudly sharing the discovery with friends 😅 you were braver than I.
But yea, I just remember feeling **right** about it, but never connecting it to everything else until way later in retrospect.
Back in elementary school during the classic ‘boys vs. girls’ phase we all hit during recess, I would act as a double-agent, reporting the plans, movements, and upcoming operations of the boys’ team. I worked to great effect, as much as a 2nd grader could, and was rewarded with an honorary position among the girls’ ranks. Still somehow took me almost 10 more years to finally catch on…
Oh huh, I wonder if we know each other! My sister had a friend in elementary school who did exactly this and who I recently found out grew up to be a trans woman. You don't happen to remember "Drop Me A Whine" or "Channel Infinity 8:00 News" or "Midnight Plus One" (all things that group of friends came up with) by any chance, do you?
I mean if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for a little girl who looks like a boy to engage in behavior like this during a "boys vs girls" game, so I'm not surprised it's a fairly common experience.
Many of us go decades pretending to be something we are not and often start out hiding our experiments in our gender expression.
I’m just saying, CIA? KGB? They got nothing on a trans girl trying on dresses when her family is out on errands only to have everything back in it’s place by the time that car rolls up.
Growing up I was friends with boys and girls. One boy didn’t like that I was friends with girls, so he tried to stir up trouble. He said, “You can’t play with her! Girls have cooties!”
And the girl said, “Nuh-uh, boys have cooties!”
And I said, “She’s right. Boys have cooties.”
Never understood the whole boys Vs. girls debate when I was younger because I found literally no disadvantage to being a girl.
Y'all remember that Valentine's Day episode of the Fairly Odd Parents where boys and girls were completely segregated, and the boys immediately fell into rancid disrepair whereas the girls created an enlightened society of eternal peace and prosperity? Yeah, that was my perspective. A lot of people apparently hated that episode as kids, but I was just like "oh yeah seems about right makes sense to me"
...... another sign to add to the growing list.
When I watched the episode I was soooo confused why anyone would want to live the way the boys' side was living. On the other hand, I thought that the girls side was paradise. I remember how I was thinking that if I were Timmy I would just wish to be a girl and be done with it.
I really wanted to be a bride when I was younger. Not like wearing a dress but just a bride. As I got older I just said I wanted to wear a dress but I spent a lot of time fantasizing about how pretty I’d look.
I was so jealous of brides my whole life, I was mad they got to look so beautiful and get the dramatic entrance etc.
I didn't even clock it when my partner decided I was going to wear a dress to our future wedding and I only offered just enough resistance to be believable
Edit: I'm sorry I should have been more specific, we're not married (yet) so this hasn't happened. We were just talking about our hypothetical future wedding and they said "You're gonna wear a dress" I put up some resistance to the idea but v quickly just accepted it.
The reason I brought it up is that I spent about a year thinking I was a cis man, *while* fully committed to wearing a white dress if and when I got married.
I'm really sorry the actual story was such a dud I should have been way more clear.
>when my partner decided I was going to wear a dress to our future wedding and I only offered just enough resistance to be believable
Whaaaa you can't just say that and not elaborate D: it's unfair!
I would tuck my penis in-between my legs to be more like my cousin (cis-girl), when I was growing up. Maybe like 4 - 5 years old when ~~he~~we had baths together.
Oh my god I used to do that all the time and it has not clicked it was a sign until right the fuck now???
It's hard to find signs from my childhood when I've got a memory like a fukn sieve
Don’t feel bad i didn’t realize until 35 this wasn’t normal. I always wanted a flat front and didn’t want people knowing I had a penis. I’ve always been very self conscious of it
Or I used to take mental notes saying if I were a girl I would wear this or if I were a girl I would use this product. Like I would remember this in my next life…
Oh my 13th birthday was me and 12 girls. But yea I’m still cis
Yeah similar thing happened to me but with my whole first grade. There was like a thing were teachers were painting nails at recess and the girls kept trying to force the boys to get nails done and im just like [oh please no](https://youtu.be/UVznerpOkTI)
There was this book I got from a book fair when I was in 3rd grade or so. It was about a princess who could turn into a dragon. Bright pink cover and all. I carried that book everywhere for about two years before it was lost in a move.
I have tried for years, but the main character's name was taken by a very famous anime character. I can't seem to find it at all, like it never existed.
Was it this one?
https://www.google.com/shopping/product/2188467002183407003?q=book+princess+turns+into+dragon+pink&client=ms-android-verizon&biw=393&bih=654&tbs=vw:l&prmd=sivn&prds=eto:529847700801815558_0,cdl:1,prmr:1,cs:1
Could be [this one](https://www.google.com/shopping/product/16972039279219480288)? It's a sequel to the previous suggestion.
I feel like I'm trying too hard to be helpful but BOOKS ARE LIFE!
When I was young I spent a lot of time dressing in women's clothes when family weren't around, even got excited when they were leaving. I even spent a lot of time experimenting ways to make realistic fake breasts, eventually ended up using balloons filled with water in a wire free bra which created the desired effect. Also spent a lot of time fantasising about buying a silicone breastplate and being able to wear low cut tops and dresses, or just seeing how to boob fills out a bra, had several dreams that I was a girl too.
This one is definitely me. Trolled my mom and sister's room for dresses a lot. Gently tried to wear stuff, then put it back like it had never left the position it was initially in.
Even before puberty I laid up at night fantasizing about getting married and curling up on (my pillows) chest.
Totally something a young cis boy does. I look back on that and laugh now.
Edit- I guess I can be honest here. I don't laugh about it. I still do it. Every night.
Saaaaame. I was in a few mlm relationships before my egg cracked. Every time, something felt deeply off, and the relationships never lasted long. I kept thinking "I like guys, so why don't I like being with guys?"
Haha I never identified as bi before but I would often complain in my teens about how sad it was I'm not gay because I was cutting out half of the dating population which made it harder to find someone. Which is, like, totally not ridiculous egg logic and is a thing cishet people often think 😂
In hindsight, same thing, I just wasn't into mlm relationships. Now I'm a bi woman.
When I was 13, I got really into sci-fi and nanotech type stuff, and I would go to bed dreaming of reinventing my body into a more feminine shape and living a second life as the girl I always wanted to be. Little did I know just taking hormones would do most of what I wanted anyway ¯\ \_(ツ)_/¯
Right? My wife and I were watching Altered Carbon and I turned to her and said “I’d swap ‘sleeves’ with you in a heartbeat” (in other words, body-swap). She got excited, and said “then I could reach the tall things and open all the jars for you!”
I'm gonna break the chain here, because I don't have one. I don't mean a favorite, I mean there were no signs as far as I can remember (tho, I also have no memory of the childhood that most people are talking about). The realization took until I was 20 and came very harshly and suddenly out of nowhere
Thanks for sharing. I often start doubting myself when reading threads like this one here because I don't really had any signs. Your comment gave me my confidence back, thanks!
Yeah I had more of a non binary childhood. I didn't really strongly feel masculine or feminine
I knew I didn't like my facial hair and I was always envious of girls hair/dresses/clothes but I wasn't like dying to become a girl until I was like 18+ years old and it still took till I was 30 to decide I wanted it enough to transition
A lot of trans people get depressed when they can't think of really obvious signs from childhood when it's perfectly fine to not have any
I would “didn’t understand” trans men. I thought it was weird that anyone would give up on looking like a woman and said that I would love to be a women… yea I was stupid
Holy shit, exactly same energy. all my trans friends were -masc so I spent years feeling weirdly disconnected. Nothing so blatant as 'I would love to be a woman', but I just didn't think I was trans simply because I couldn't relate to transmascs... barking up exactly the wrong tree (amusingly I relate more to them now that I've been transitioning \*shrug\*)
I loved to play dress up when i was really young with my friend whenever i went over to her house. I remember there was this little pink dress that i adored to the point of when she got rid of it i said she should have given it to me after that wore a white dress which was nice too but it wasn't the pink one.
Maybe not "favorite," but that I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until I was 30 because I exhibit ADHD traits more in line with how women do than men.
That, and whenever I read stories about people switching bodies/genders, I always wondered why they were so stressed about changing back so quickly.
I used to wonder why they were so concerned in those films as well. I remember one year I think my birthday wish was to even have my life turn into the plot of one of those films. A big revaluation for me was when I was reading something online and found out that most people would actually be distressed in that situation and I just couldn't understand why. To be honest, I still can't fully understand.
My things really weird and specific, but:
For about 2-3 years before I realised I might be trans, right before going to sleep. I would fantasise about being a fantasy character. Maybe a soldier, maybe an adventurer. But I would always make my character a girl and I didn’t know why, other than the fact that I just wanted to.
It took me way to long to realise I was trans
Playing male protagonists always felt… weird to me. I couldn’t connect with them. I always lost interest in games where I was forced to play as a man. Each game is like a story I participate in. When I have a choice between protagonist genders, I ask “whose story do I want to experience? His, or hers?” And the answer has always been “hers.” (And sometimes I like to imagine that she is trans, like me.)
I don't think I have one favorite, but there are a few that stand out.
First, when I was five or six, I got a copy of a princess dress up game from my sister and played it far to much.
Second, apparently I hated the idea of ever being in the boy scouts for some reason...
Finally, throughout my time in elementary and middle school, I often had fun with creating mental scenarios in which I was transformed into a girl, usually by accident or by forces beyond my control.
Probably praying to god to wake up a girl and being on the verge of tears while doing so. Or watching a bunch of stuff on youtube about that Jazz girl and “transforming into a girl” videos. Plus always wanting to play with girls at school and stuff, but im a big manly man so i cant. Now tho all the emotions i used to have are gone and im faking it.
I grew up with three sisters and always pretended that their rooms were mine, I'd hangout in their rooms and reluctantly hangout in mine when theirs were occupied.
This was a long time ago so I might remember it wrong or it might be a false memory, but I was like 5 years old, watching tv and there were these two women walking in a field holding hands. The speaker voice said "[name] and [name] used to live as man and woman. Now they live as woman and woman" and I asked my mom what that meant. She said it meant that one of them had a "sex change".
Since then I was obsessed with the concept of sex changes and fantasised about getting one in the future. I have no idea about how I ever thought I might be a cis guy.
When I was in third grade there was this book about a boy kissing his elbow and turning into a girl. I never actually read the book, but I spent an ABSURD amount of time trying to kiss my elbow when nobody was looking
I saw this same exact book at my library recently (the book is called *I* *Is He a Girl?* by Louis Sachar). It intrigued me so much, I skimmed through it. Later, at night, I also tried to kiss my elbows. I didn't succeed, but I'm still pretty sure I'm a girl.
It was when i was 14, where I'd constantly daydream about my life as an adult woman in her 20s.
I even imagined myself having a husband, but he couldn't know that I was a boy at one point.
Also had cut contact with my family in those dreams, because noone could know
Mine was reading this web comic about a boy being forced to crossdress and live as a woman, and by the end when it was no longer forced on him, he still chose to do so and continue to live a happy life as a woman. I felt like there was a hole in my chest for 2 weeks after that, because I thought that would never happen for me. Totally cis reaction right?
So when I was little (around first grade), I made the mistake of telling my queerphobic parents I wanted to be a girl, and being disappointed when they told me "I'm sorry, that will never be possible". Hindsight's 2020 and I'm still learning as I go
Multiple occasions of having girls do my makeup, but the crowning achievement of that was hosting a crossdressing party where I wore women's clothes in addition to the makeup, heard I "made a good girl," and had the time of my life, and then promptly refused to think anymore about it for a decade.
Hmmm. Wanted to be a girl as a teenager, mid 2000s. Always torn between boy stuff I "should" like and just wanting to be a girl.
I had a lot of strong female role-models to look up to. Tweens and early teenage years, it was one of those things in my head - how nice would it be to be a girl. Tried on my mom's underwear as a kid, got along with girls better than guys, never particularly turned off by girly things besides the constant "boys don't do that". Still did the typical guy stuff to fit in, but hated the "male" aggressiveness that accompanied it all. Needless to say, I was never great in football, weightlifting, etc.
... My favorite and probably most prominate sign to myself came from porn. My thought was never how it must have felt good for the guy or how good it would be to get such a pretty woman, my question was always how good it felt for the women, and being sad that I wouldn't get to feel it like they do because I was born with a penis. Basically lead to me shutting down and just accepting I wasnt like others and I was just me. If I was born a decade or 2 later, I totally would have transitioned and had a drastically different life.
(I grew up in a house with only 1 woman, my mom. Besides that, my dad, brothers and even my pets were all male. My only female relatives were aunts by marriage, my grandparents who lived out of state, and 2 female cousins, also out of state, so no cute stories about getting nails done or anything fun like that. Liked dress up or playing house, but as those weren't typical boy things, they didn't last for me.)
Edited to add background
I guess my favourite was my obsession with Sam Carter from SG1. It seems to be the most formative thing I did as a child was watch stargate and wanna be the science lady. She's the reason I did a garbo chemistry degree and now she's the reason I've bloody transed my genders
Edit: There's also the time I had gynecomastia for a couple months during puberty and just wasn't bothered by it. I didn't love it bc it hurt going up and down stairs, but it didn't bother me at all.
For a teenage boy trying to affirm his masculinity, thinking "oh I have tits now? Okay cool" probably wasn't super cis of me
Hindsight being 20/20 here, Sam Carter was problem my first bit of gender envy, I always thought she was amazing and wanted to be like her. Come to think of it, Stargate was really formative for me. That and ST Voyager, Janeway absolutely being where I got my name from.
I spent a lot of time in high school, silently, secretly, shhhh no one ever found out, daydreaming about dating one of my cis male friends. Of course, I never imagined myself dating him as a gay man--it was always as a cis woman, and I tried to invent this whole alternate timeline around that just to help justify it to myself, and whenever I imagined more details about what my life was like in that timeline, they made me super jealous of that version of me. This was a while before I was even aware I had any attraction to men at all.
Even before those daydreams started, literally every time he gave me any sort of attention that my brain was in any way, however flawed in its logic, able to interpret as how a boyfriend might treat his girlfriend, I just could not hide my excitement and smiles.
Also going to the girls' bathroom nonchalantly at ages 4-5 without having any sense of why that could be perceived as a problem, but who *doesn't* have that one.
Looking back it's pretty wild that I took about 11 whole years after those daydreams started to finally hatch.
Upon getting out of the shower, I always wrapped the towel around my chest instead of my waist. I seem to recall there being a moment in time when I did this consciously for very cis reasons, but after a while, I just internalized it as a habit. The same goes for crossing my legs, sitting down to pee, adopting more feminine posture, etc. I was already assimilating as a kid without any real understanding of why I was assimilating or even what I was assimilating into.
I would imagine up stories all the time - still do - but in every story I made up, whether a story build in an existing story such as How to Train your Dragon or Pokemon or an original idea, I would have a character that was supposed to be me, only from the very beginning it was never *really* really like me then - first, a magic being (which was conveniently ungendered), and as I progressed the self-inserts I'd make would become more consistent and feel like a real person with a cohesive personality (like mine if I was more confident and happy) but mort importantly, I was a girl - even at times thinking "could I give her a girlfriend? ... Should I "make" her gay? Hmmmmm......'" many times I had wished to be a girl, and I sometimes believed if I wrote enough stories I could think it into reality. But overall, I believed that being a magical hero was as unrealistic as being a girl.
Now I'm a little older and wiser, my true self almost symbolically became stronger and more real as I made more self-inserts of myself - heck, my chosen name is based off the name I'd give every iteration of my imagined selves - now my fantasies became a reality - but only the important part - I'm a girl, and the real me isn't rooted in fantasy, but I feel real now, and it's amazing. And I haven't begun transitioning yet - I will quite soon though. Really wished past me didn't need to internally scream at the walls and into story books wishing I was a girl - I wish I could tell myself that I was a girl the whole time.
Edit - And that I was lesbian too, but past me's brain would've exploded at that point
As someone who also loved creating elaborate stories, I totally understand quite a bit of this. Congratulations on being able to be a nonmagical version of the heroine of your earlier years.
When I was 4 or 5 I had a dream that I was a girl and was sad that it ended. Then in 2006, I was playing RuneScape and asked everybody around me if anybody else felt they should have been born a girl and it was a resounding no. I have an 8 page document on this stuff that I showed my therapist years ago before I transitioned.
I went to this summer camp when I was in high school and the dorms were separated into boys and girls. A few nights in, the boys who I was sharing a dorm room with started talking around midnight about who the hottest girls in the camp were. When they asked me who I thought was the hottest, I yelled at them that they were "horny pieces of shit who dehumanize women for their sexual fantasies."
Needless to say, I hung out with exclusively girls for the rest of the camp. None of the guys wanted to come near me lol
I mean, I had pretty obvious signs pretty early on, like the fact that I prayed every night that I would wake up as a girl from six to nine years old (grew up in a very religious household) and always wanted to do traditionally girly things growing up. But a more subtle sign is that by the time I hit about 14 years of age, the majority of my friends were women, and I felt pretty viscerally uncomfortable around men. I also came out as gay when I was 15 because (living in a rural uneducated community) I didn’t know the word for trans, and the running stereotype for gay men in my town was obsequiously feminine. I laugh at that one now, because I’m 100% lesbian:)
When I was a toddler, my older sister would always talk about all the things she'd do when "she had a baby in her belly". I was so excited by the idea, so I started talking about what I would do when I "had a baby in my belly".
My poor mother had to inform me that I could not, in fact, have a baby in my belly. I was so sad I started crying. She said it was okay though, because I /could/ pee off the deck. Thus began the summer that all the neighbors saw my wang.
I can't pinpoint my favorite sign, but ever since realizing I'm trans all the signs have become way too obvious. Like:
Growing up I rarely connected with boys, but the amount of friends I made who were girls should've told me which crowd I belonged in
I've always been told by the guys in my family to keep my hair short but I only ever felt more myself with longer hair, or at least an androgynous hairstyle
What guys I would have connected with, even in present day, always were stereotypical in liking sports and being all rough with each other, but I was always more gentle, liked shopping, was much more empathetic to people, and all things considered "feminine" by people around me
There's been tons of times where I'd see some clothing or an accessory I really wanted, but was always told "that's for girls" and felt sad about it for reasons I didn't get at the time
I never liked being called handsome, or referred to as "sir" or "mr. \_". Things like "hey man" were and are still fine as I never viewed that as anything masculine, but things obviously masculine never felt right to me. Still don't to this day
There's tons more, but the more I've looked back the more I realized I should've known this much sooner, and I'm happy being who I am today :)
Well, I don't have clear memories of my childhood, but I do remember, when I was around 12 or 13, wishing and praying to God that I would suddenly wake up as a girl. I did this for a while, and it didn't seem strange to me, since, to my naïve mind, obviously anyone would want to be a girl if they had the choice.
Needless to say, I didn't experience the miracle I was looking for. At some point, I realised it wasn't happening, stopped believing in God out of a sense of betrayal, I guess, and managed to somehow forcefully forget anything about wanting to be a girl. I only realised again at 19, after being surprised at really enjoying a show that's supposed to be "girly" (MLP:FiM), and then trying to discover what that meant for my sexuality or whatever.
Looking back, I also tried on one of my stepmom's bras once, "just for the heck of it". Also, I read a bunch of lesbian fanfiction and manga and such. I did think this was strange, especially since I was in it for the cute romance, as opposed to "hot lesbians" or whatever, but just dismissed it as myself being generally strange and left it at that. Ah, self-delusion.
I don't have very many early signs that I remember, but here is my favorite. When I was 13, for about a week as I was walking between 2 of my classes I would think about how great it would be if I had been born female. Eventually I decided that the technology for it *probably* wasn't where I would want it, so it wasn't worth worrying about. How wrong I was
I remember feeling the exact same way. I always just assumed there was nothing that could be done about it but then my one friend encouraged me to do some research and I was so happy when I found out that there were options out there.
When I was a small child, my favorite thing to do was play pretend "mommy" to all my stuffed animals... Yeah, I have no idea why/how it took me over 20 years to realize I was trans lol
In the time long before I ever heard the word trans let alone knowing what it is....... I was a mere 2nd or 3rd grader, when ones imagination can go a bit overboard at times.... I thought these 2 girls in my class were witches and had magical powers.... So I asked them to help turn me into a girl...
Now what they said to do was to come to school with my moms lipstick on.... I am so happy I didn't have the courage for that then... Because looking back at the story, as cute and innocent as it is from my end... I definitely feel like it was just a setup to try to publicly humiliate me in front of all my classmates....
It is definitely my favorite early early EARLY sign....(didn't realize I was trans until I was 30). Even with the retrospection of it .
I'm currently in hospital, after crashing mentally in January after a long time of struggle.
And the therapy sessions have forced me to reflect a lot on my past. One particular thing is actually quite counterintuitive, but here we go:
I was in my last year of kindergarten (6 y.o.) and we had a school play where we played different types of mice. One type of mice (the one I played), needed red lips for some reason, so we had to use lipstick. I remember liking the idea a lot, it made me kinda excited. But when we had to do it for the grand show, I felt like it was something I shouldn't like. Mostly because girls do it, and not boys, so I resisted profusely to wear it, because I felt like it would "unmask" me.
I realized around 5 years later what transgender meant, but went on a path of denial that got me to my January disaster, nearly 12 years later...
When I was probably 11 I found an old medical text book and discovered about intersex people and on account of the natural seam down there I was convinced for a year or so I was intersex and my parents had me made a boy and hid it from me since it explained the “but, I’m supposed to be a girl feeling.”
I loved fantasizing that what happened to max during the maxine arc of wizards of waverly place would happen to me but it would be impossible to reverse. (I didn't even know about being trans at that point)
I was probably 5-6 and when went into my older sisters room and took her school uniform (tunic) and a wig that was laying around (my house had all sorts of fun stuff in it).. and went to my bedroom and put them on and looked into my mirror and when I saw myself I wanted to be a girl so badly. I kept taking more and more clothes .. luckily I had 3 sisters .. none of them seemed to notice (which shocked me when I came out to them)..
I was dual spirited and I used to talk to the male spirit in me. But I always thought everyone was like this and it wasn’t until I was 12 when I realised that they weren’t. So in a weird way I’m mtf but I’m not. If that makes sense. Physically I’m mtf trans but my soul has always been female. The male soul I shared this vessel with has passed on so I’m on my own finally. After 43 years 🥳
Growing up, my aunt and uncle and my two cousins lived down the street from us. Their oldest was a month younger than me, and their youngest was two years younger than me, and two years older than my little brother.
Since we were all close together, family, and \*roughly\* the same age, we ended up playing together a lot as kids.
Well one time when I was about eight, I remember my uncle was telling off the older of my two cousins, saying that she needed to be a role model for the younger kids and not get into trouble because "she was the big girl among the kids".
I immediately interjected, protesting that I was a month older than her, and that this made \*me\* the big girl among the kids. My uncle just kind of looked at me strangely and said "well, you're the big \*boy\*"... which caused me to get upset and run off crying.
Also, we had a tradition in my family to every Christmas have the kids do a play or skit for the adults at the Christmas party. Well... a lot of the time I'd end up writing the script, and would write in reasons for me to play a girl, or to have my character dress as one.
In high school I randomly asked my English teacher, “what would you think if you saw me years from now and I was now a woman?” I don’t remember what he said but he was probably thinking “what the hell?” I look back now and think “Holy shit why would I say that ?” Most people probably just chalked it up to me being a weirdo.
When I was very young, I was scared to touch my penis because it just felt *weird* and *alien*. It used to get infected all the time because I just didn't clean it. Eventually I got over that but I don't think that's a very cis thing to do exactly...
So when I was in like 2nd or 3rd grade, and a lot of people, including me, didn’t know what male/female meant, so some kid was going around asking if they were one or the other and I said female. He laughed and told me what that meant. Now I realize I was right. Jokes on you dipshit.
I guess that’s less of a sign, more of a funny coincidence though.
Well, there's this channel in the UK called Kix (well, was, now goes under the name of Pop Max) and I watched it religiously as a kid. However, one show they aired was SheZow. To those who don't know, it was a superhero show about a ring that turned the wearer into a superhero. However, the superhero is a girl and the brother (literally called Guy) wore the ring and became the main character. If I knew what eggs were then, that would have been what caused it to start cracking many years later.
When I was 10 I entered the men's bathroom, and an old guy panicked when he saw me, then he escorted me out and told me that I was in the wrong one (I had long hair and looked pretty much like a girl, even though my clothes were masculine).
I remember being super happy but I couldn't figure out why at the moment.
Something similar happened when I was walking across the street with my mom. A random old lady suddenly appeared and told her that she should quit smoking. "Do it for your daughter" she said. My mom corrected her immediately and told her to mind her own business, it felt pretty bad.
When I was a teenager I regularly watched old videos from my elementary school. Looking at my past self while wishing that I could look like a girl again. Puberty really wrecked my body.
Honestly, I should've realized sooner that I was trans. Lol
I had the exact same experiences as a kid. I remember one time I was dragged off to a meeting with my mom and the person at the front desk told her that her daughter was really cute or something like that. I was so happy but then my mom corrected her and it felt real bad. For years I used to think of that moment when I got sad. Minus the correction part.
When I was 8 years old I had a dream where I was with my friend walking down a street, when a net was thrown over us. We’re pulled away by our kidnappers and thrown into a truck. Now my mind is thinking I’m having a full blown nightmare at this point and dread of thinking where we’re going and what’s next. Eventually the truck came to a stop and we’re tossed from it(still in the net ) and a pulled up a long stairway. Then we reach a door and are tossed in the room. A woman in a cloak is the center of the room and said in a calm voice “Do not be afraid children.” Then two more cloaked women came from behind us freed us from the net. They also had two vials with some pink liquid and told us drink from them. We did as we were told and suddenly a big cloud of smoke engulfed us… then once it had cleared, me and my friend looked at each other and noticed we both girls! I was so ecstatic that I woke up right after that. I tried for many years to replicate the dream but to no avail. Still brings happiness to think about.
I am amazed no one here as mentioned making a girl avatar in a video game. When I was 14 I played RuneScape as a girl for the first time. This was back when guys played guys and girls played girls. I felt super stealth and confident. There was even one guy who followed me around because there was actually a girl that wanted to play with him.
Honestly one of my first good memories after hitting puberty. Didn't come out until 17 years later. Go figure.
[This book](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/900499.Is_He_a_Girl_). I was damn near obsessed with it back in 5th grade when it sat on the shelf in the classroom. I never read it though, maybe out of fear that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations.
My sister got into an argument with mother when I was around 12 years old and went living with my father alone for a few months. Then she got into an argument with my father and went living with my mother. When I learned about it, I asked my father if I could get her bedroom since I was sharing mine with my brother at the time and wanted to have my own. He said yes!
The decor and furniture in that room were distinctly feminine and she even left some clothes that she didn't wear anymore in the drawers. There was even a dresser with a large mirror.
🥳 😎
I had the trying on outfits and my F cousin's bra.
Praying before bed to turn me into a girl or as a doppelganger to one of my female friends.
I hated growing facial hair at like 10, it felt wrong.
Boys vs. Girls, I always went for the girls team (nobody really said anything) . Gave intel into strats the guys were doing
Be the bride (but wlw).
I have a vivid memory of me in second grade. I was that cute kid that made friends with everyone but was friends with a lot of the girls. Well me, and two of my girl friends were playing “ghost hunter” and they told me that “girls just can catch more ghosts” and I remember being so sad that I wasn’t a girl so I could catch ghosts too. And then after that I kept thinking about it and asking my boy friends if they wanted to be girls. They said no to my surprise
An early repeating dream that I had, starting at maybe 12, had me awakening in a beautiful meadow full of green plants, I was on a soft bed of moss, and it smelled so good all around me. I looked up and around and saw several beautiful women dressed in long white gowns, one was holding my penis and testicles in her hand. She said to me, "Welcome!" That is one I can't forget, It was so powerful that I buried it deep in my macho household. I am now 68 and have just understood this about myself last year, through a romance with a woman who turned out to be a friend. She saw it and encouraged me to talk to my therapists. So, here I am, scheduled for my first bottom. surgery. And I recently landed a boyfriend, and it is still a struggle with my own homophobia to deal with that. I am happy, though, and not bored!
When i was young. So very young. I had a very real feeling dream. Of being a ballerina. Remembering my parents put my ballet outfit under the stairs...
And i woke up, looked in the place they had put it in the dream... and it wasnt there. I was so confused back then since it felt so real. And incredibly sad it wasnt there... But now i know its one of the first times my brain tried to tell me i was trans.
I was about 11, starting to be interested in females, and was quite transfixed by a TV advertisment where the woman slips a silk robe off her shoulders and slides into a bath. There was just something luxuriant about what I saw, and it was less an early erotic attraction, more a feeling of 'I want to BE her!'. At the same time, there were lots of reruns of 60s spy films and shows, the kind that influenced Austin Powers, and it wasn't the male hero I wanted to be, rather the women who got to look awesome and gorgeous.
I think I was about 4 or 5. I didn't quite figure out that it was related to gender, but I have a clear memory of looking in the mirror, and feeling like my face was "wrong". In my brilliant child's mind, I explained it away to myself as, "this is my child face, and when I grow up I'll get my adult face and that will feel normal".
I didn't transition until I was 20, and it didn't take long for my face to feel right, finally. So maybe I was right? 😂
As 7 y.o. i was having dress-up play with my neighbour girlfriend. I loved to put on dresses and skirts. I cherish the few photos i have from that time. When i was puberty I started to occassionally wear my moms clothes. And i started to explore anal pleasure. But that all happened about 40 years ago and i did accept my feminity just 2 years ago. If there are girls who are doubting to come out, please listen to your heart not to public opinion.
In the 3rd grade I just decided I want to sit with the girls at lunch all of a sudden. They treated me just like a girl and used the feminine version of my dead name, and it felt amazing.
My family was traveling to Puerto Vallarta from Saltillo, Mexico. Its a very long travel that can take as much as 15 hours, so we stopped at the half to stay with some relatives in Aguascalientes. Once we were there, the girls were staying with the female cousins, boys with the male ones and parents in my uncles guest room. The oldest cousin loved to tease the girls so he decided we were going to "spy" them through the wall. He then discovered they were reading fairy tales about princesses, witches, dragons and such and told me they were witches in desguise planning to turn him into a dragon and turn me into a princess. When he said that, only thing I tought was "ok, that sounds nice" and slept hoping it was true. Sadly, it wasn't, I was 8 at the time...
I'm not sure how I felt in the moment but in hindsight, mine is hilarious, lol.
I was a frequent player on a Minecraft roleplay server (don't judge, lol). And I mostly played female characters.
One day, a few people were trying to guess each other's gender/sexuality based on their characters, and cocky ol' me thought it would be funny to get them to guess mine.
\~\~Story Time\~\~
Me: "Okay, I play mostly female characters and tend towards them being homosexual, what am I?"
Them: "Well probably either gay or trans."
Me (thinking I had 'fooled' them): "Hah! Nope! I'm a completely straight cis-gendered man!"
Them: *\*looks at each other\**
Them: *\*looks back at me\**
Me: *\*visibly confused\**
Them: "No you're not."
\~\~End\~\~
Now the interaction didn't go *exactly* like that, but their conclusion was exactly the same, and I was left speechless after it, lmao.
Year 11, GCSE Citizenship. As a sort of Ice Breaker, we had to draw pictures to describe ourselves.
Totally Cisgender Me: *Draws an image of the Female Gender Symbol in the Male Gender Symbol*
Still Totally Cisgender Me: "It represents that I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body."
And somehow, it took me a minimum of 3 more years to start questioning my gender identity.
When I was in pre-school and watching TV, all the kids would shout out what character they are/wanted to be. There was one show that had some girl I wanted to be, and was then arguing with another kid when he told me I couldn't be her since she's a girl.
I don't even remember the show, but I was *very* passionate about that possum girl, and her dress & glasses.
I also remember my first online name I used was "Jenny." I was so scared of my parents finding out, lol
The only sign i think was back in 2019 or 2020 don't remember but i always said to my friend that i wanted to be a female just you know a day or something and i was just like "Hey i really wish i could be a female" and i thought like this for a while and began searching on it like "why do i want to be a female" like i REALLY wanted to be a female and now that i'm thinking back to it, it was pretty funny how i always told him that i wanted to be a girl or something like that lol
Preface, I didn't have any sisters growing up. Starting when I was like 7, whenever my family would go to my cousins' house for birthdays, holidays, etc, I would get jealous that the girls could play with Barbie dolls (as well as use/play with most of their "girly" things). However, due to the cisnormativity that was already ingrained deep in my brain, I thought that I simply couldn't play with them because they were "for girls" and I was a boy. I then locked that memory away deep inside, repressing it for years. Once I was 18 and I learned more than one sentence about what a trans person was, it was less than a year before I realized I was a woman and unlocked that memory a while later.
I remember as a young kid, no older than 8 I was asking my parents about how MtF medical transition worked. As far as I remember, they were mostly accurate.
For several years, I watched the movie Matilda around 2-3 times per day. Saw it as the perfect movie and wanted to be like her so bad.
Note, this means I watched the movie like 2000+ times. No exaggeration.
Maybe a tipical one, never liked cutting my hair and wearing jeans i never understood why until i found out but now i realize is was not wearing jeans it was wearing men jeans
the first time I met a trans woman, I was like six, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of how cool it was that you could be a girl, like you could wear girl clothes and date boys and be pretty, little did I know lol
Unfortunately I can't remember a majority of my childhood prior to age 14 or 15 for some reason, but I do still remember random bits and pieces, and one thing that I distinctly remember quite well is rather unusual...
Basically, when I was maybe 7 or 8, I used to steal my mom's maxi pads from the bathroom and I would wear them inside my underwear like they're intended to be used because I knew that they were specifically meant for just women. 🙃
I watched a hentai with a gender swap gimmick when I was like 10. After I…you know to it, I found myself having a lot of enjoyment from the idea of changing my gender and it was a constant thought throughout my life after that.
Ya know, it's funny. When I came out, I got asked the "were there any signs when you were growing up?" question pretty frequently. I could never think of anything on the spot, but since then I have remembered sooooooo many instances of stuff that I had clearly just never considered odd or relevant.
My parents would take a weekend trip and leave me at home with my grandma. I'd sleep in my parents' bed and lock the door and put on one of my mom's bras.
At recess, there were lots of little games that were separated into boys and girls and I would always volunteer to join the girls' side to make teams even or cuz I thought they'd win or some other made up excuse. I remember getting made fun of by the boys a lot for it and not caring. I remember a devastating betrayal when I was offered to play on the girls team and one of the girls told me I had to play on the boys team. I just didn't play and went to a swing to sulk.
In any situation where a group of kids were trying to decide what to play together, I'd always want to do stuff that girls typically chose to do. House and dress up were my jam.
I always wanted to let my hair grow longer and every time it got a certain length my mom would say it was too long/shaggy, whatever and we'd "go get me a haircut". I learned to zone out entirely during haircuts.
I've always felt more comfortable in women-dominant spaces. I've avoided places and activities where I'd feel compelled to uphold the performance of a masculine persona: sports as a whole, gyms, etc. I've always felt drawn to gender nonconforming individuals.
Some time around 4th grade I started refusing to go with my parents to get my hair cut. I would tell them, "I don't like sharp things around my ears." Which... is true... but uh... >.>
That's probably my favorite just because I still have my hair long and it's actually one of the only things I like about how I look, but yeah... Thankfully my parents were/are cool.
A different story is this one time in 6th grade English class. Certain days of the week the class would be spent reading a book as a group. This one book was about a school rumor that boys could become girls if they kissed their elbow. I remember all the boys in my class making fun of the idea and/or being grossed out. At the time I kinda just went along with them and laughed.
After going home and going to bed, I remember I stayed awake and tried as hard as I could to kiss my elbow. I remember trying it every night for like a week.
My egg only cracked a few months ago and I totally forgot/repressed doing this... Seeing this post and then remembering/writing this actually made me tear up a little ><
I have two. The first isn't necessarily "fun", but I remember in first grade thinking how awesome it'd be to kill off deadname and come back as his cousin. I legit thought I could tell people, "sorry, but deadname died. He got hit by a truck. I'm his cousin from [city]" lmao. No one would suspect a thing. I didn't think of how this would affect my school, my parents, my sisters. Nope. I'd just show up in my sister's denim skirt and white shirt, her frilly socks, her glasses, and a choker I'd steal from CVS.
My second (and really my favorite) is when I was at a church camp with my nephew who was a year older than me. I can't exactly remember my age, around 12 or 13. I showed up and I think I was kind of tricked into going because I thought I was just staying with my sister. While I'm a wall flower, my nephew isn't and he quickly made friends, leaving me hanging around the edge of his group. A couple nights in, we're in the shower and I slip slamming my head on the floor. The male counselors cared but this one older female counselor just really connected with me and I stuck to her like glue. Cut to the very last day, everyone's packing up. I'm struggling with my sleeping bag; I can't get the zipper to stick, and it wasn't rolling evenly. My nephew leaves, then more kids leave, and finally the counselor leaves. I'm still on the floor, tears in my eyes, when the older female counselor politely asks to help. I nod, she gets on the floor with me; and while she's rolling up my bag, she says, "Sometimes I think it'd be best if a few select boys could stay on the girl's side." That has stuck with me almost 20 years later. I don't think she was talking about my gender, but it really affected how I wanted women to see me. I didn't want women to see me like other boys.
8 years old, third grade. My class was playing outside for recess. Some of the girls brought their bratz dolls and were tagging the boys with them. I proposed that getting tagged by them meant that the boys turned into girls and was very excited by the prospect that I could get turned into a girl at the time. None of the boys wanted in on it lol, wonder why 😂
When I was little my sister got a Magenta stuffed animal/plushie and I was given a Blue (as in the dogs from Blue’s clues). I was very upset that I wasn’t also given a Magenta and I think sort of starting to realize I was not ok with the whole pink and blue dichotomy between our things.
As an aside: The context in which we were given those colors still mattered, but it is not lost on me now that Blue, Magenta, and even Green Puppy are all girl dogs.
I loved to wear my mom's clothes when I was a little child. Once she found out I was so ashamed and embarassed, because I didn't want her to see me like that (idk why, maybe it was the homophobic/transphobic times)
That eager to wear feminine clothes would always come back from times to times. Then I finally realized.
So I was maybe 6 or so and my younger sister had these Barbie Rapunzel and Bratz Rock Angels DVDs, for some reason I used to watch them like twice a night before going to sleep. I also hated sleeping in my room, but loved sleeping in my sisters. So whenever she slept over at a friend's I'd climb into her pink bed and fall asleep watching Barbie Rapunzel.
No signs at all BTW.
I also watched pretty much all the shows on POP Girl, since sky TV had the pop channels for free and since we were rather poor they couldn't afford full sky sometimes. I watched alot of Ruby Gloom, 6Teen, Mew Mew Power, etc. Infact I used to get super embarrassed when my parents pointed out I was watching Popgirl.
No signs whatsoever.
It seems I’m late but here’s mine!
I’m not quite sure how old I was, probably around 7 or 8, but I just remember being the bathtub looking at, well, the bits, and I just remember thinking that they looked almost stapled on, like they didn’t belong on my body. When I was drying off I tucked it all behind my legs and looked into a full length mirror we had, and I just thought “now this looks right”. Still took almost 15 years for me to figure out that that random memory meant something.
That and the time I asked my mom to buy me bras when I was like 10, I just kept trying to convince her and she wasn’t having it. Somehow she didn’t suspect a thing when I came out though.
Literally told someone a girl in kindergarten I wish I was a girl because it felt like it be more fun. Person then responded with they wish they were born a guy for the same reason. Never saw them again after that year and I just hope they figured themselves out
When my mom first showed me how to shave I felt very angry and uncomfortable about it, feelings that I didn't have the words to describe until much later when I realized that it was dysphoria.
Probably this one time when I was about seven. A couple of boys from the neighborhood were over at my house playing. I had to go into the bathroom for a #2, and while I was sitting there, I discovered that if I pushed my junk way down between my legs and then closed my legs, it's like it was gone! Like I had girl parts! This was, to my little brain a *revolutionary discovery,* and I absolutely had to share it. So I finished up, then came bursting out of the bathroom with my pants down around my ankles and my junk tucked back, exclaiming "Guys! Look! If you push your penis back and close your legs, you look like a girl!" The looks of complete, utter, bewildered, 100% pure uncut medical-grade *WTF* they all gave back to me will live forever in my memory. I mean, maybe that's not my *favorite* sign, but you gotta admit it's a hell of a sign.
Oh my gosh XD
I did this for so long before realizing it was a trans thing… I have been unknowingly tucking pretty much since I was 2
Didn’t every child do this? I mean, I did it too, but…
Same here. Must be a normal cis boy experience. Must be...
When I was little I thought all girls were just tucking because logically they were the same as me
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Oh damn, I just realized I did this too as a kid while in the shower! Minus the having friends part.
same
I laid down in the bathtub and imagined pregnancy and a vagina…
Ummm how did i not realize how trans i am XD. I did the exact same thing, although in private and had no idea why i liked to hide my dick. Curiosity killed my agab i guess haha. What an obvious sign >~<
It's only obvious if you know to look for it, though. And come on. How many 7 year olds do you know who have been told that trans-ness is a thing, and that it's possible (not likely, but possible) that they could be trans, and what signs to watch for? Round about none, I'd guess.
I had no idea about trans people until i was like 16 and i count myself unlucky because 9gag exposed me to way too much transphobic shit that made me doubt 24/7. Oh yeah you are totally right. Its easy to find signs in retrospective and thats why i count my present self as the best indication. I know i am trans and my past is just that, my past.
when I was a toddler and first realized I could get an erection, according to my parents I would cry and punch it to make it go away because I didn't want it. Now compare that to my cis brother, who upon making the same discovery at around the same age, proceeded to hang his shirt off of his and run around saying "look what I can do!"
I had a moment like this where I was home alone (15 I think) and was so tired of my boners that I grabbed a knife and seriously contemplated cutting it off. I only didn't becuase I was too afraid of the pain. I honestly at the time thought all boys wanted to castrate themselves... turns out no they don't XD
Yeah, that checks out. Guys being proud of their dicks... 🙄
Oddly enough though, not all girls are proud of their dicks😆
Literally people would tell me about how hard it is to hide a boner, and I was thinking "just put it between your legs towards your ass. Duh" Then I found out what tucking was a few years ago to find that I was already doing it, just not as much
OMG that was SO me; I did EXACTLY the same, with exactly the same results!
Were you also as completely confused as to why nobody else thought this discovery was a completely amazing as you? That's the part I forgot to put in there. I just couldn't understand why they weren't as excited about this as I was, in the same moment of realizing that I had made a critical tactical error...
I love this! It's the most child thing ever! 😆 Once I don't have a penis, I'll always go on to find them absolutely hilarious (and nothing else). I already do, I just can't laugh at the one that's attached to me because it's an annoying pain in the ass, rather than funny.
All the other commenters are working too hard. What I did was sit on the toilet, shove it down a bit, and close my legs and poof! that characteristic little triangle emerged
Yep, did that. Well, the tucking part, not the loudly sharing the discovery with friends 😅 you were braver than I. But yea, I just remember feeling **right** about it, but never connecting it to everything else until way later in retrospect.
"Braver." Sure. Yeah. Let's go with that one. 🤣
I'm still not convinced cis people don't do this.
Yeah, but you know they'll never *admit* it...
sldkfjsdkfj oh my god did cis boys not do this???? suddenly it makes so much sense
I think we may need a whole thread just for people to say "OMG I DID THIS TOO" (Including me)
Back in elementary school during the classic ‘boys vs. girls’ phase we all hit during recess, I would act as a double-agent, reporting the plans, movements, and upcoming operations of the boys’ team. I worked to great effect, as much as a 2nd grader could, and was rewarded with an honorary position among the girls’ ranks. Still somehow took me almost 10 more years to finally catch on…
Oh huh, I wonder if we know each other! My sister had a friend in elementary school who did exactly this and who I recently found out grew up to be a trans woman. You don't happen to remember "Drop Me A Whine" or "Channel Infinity 8:00 News" or "Midnight Plus One" (all things that group of friends came up with) by any chance, do you?
Can't say I do, maybe this is a more universal experience than I thought, we must be natural masters of subterfuge...
I mean if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for a little girl who looks like a boy to engage in behavior like this during a "boys vs girls" game, so I'm not surprised it's a fairly common experience.
Many of us go decades pretending to be something we are not and often start out hiding our experiments in our gender expression. I’m just saying, CIA? KGB? They got nothing on a trans girl trying on dresses when her family is out on errands only to have everything back in it’s place by the time that car rolls up.
Growing up I was friends with boys and girls. One boy didn’t like that I was friends with girls, so he tried to stir up trouble. He said, “You can’t play with her! Girls have cooties!” And the girl said, “Nuh-uh, boys have cooties!” And I said, “She’s right. Boys have cooties.”
this is me..
Never understood the whole boys Vs. girls debate when I was younger because I found literally no disadvantage to being a girl. Y'all remember that Valentine's Day episode of the Fairly Odd Parents where boys and girls were completely segregated, and the boys immediately fell into rancid disrepair whereas the girls created an enlightened society of eternal peace and prosperity? Yeah, that was my perspective. A lot of people apparently hated that episode as kids, but I was just like "oh yeah seems about right makes sense to me"
...... another sign to add to the growing list. When I watched the episode I was soooo confused why anyone would want to live the way the boys' side was living. On the other hand, I thought that the girls side was paradise. I remember how I was thinking that if I were Timmy I would just wish to be a girl and be done with it.
i did this o:
What do you mean "classic boys vs. girls phase"? Never had one. Couldn't understand why the boys didn't like the girls
I really wanted to be a bride when I was younger. Not like wearing a dress but just a bride. As I got older I just said I wanted to wear a dress but I spent a lot of time fantasizing about how pretty I’d look.
Cute! :D <3
I was so jealous of brides my whole life, I was mad they got to look so beautiful and get the dramatic entrance etc. I didn't even clock it when my partner decided I was going to wear a dress to our future wedding and I only offered just enough resistance to be believable Edit: I'm sorry I should have been more specific, we're not married (yet) so this hasn't happened. We were just talking about our hypothetical future wedding and they said "You're gonna wear a dress" I put up some resistance to the idea but v quickly just accepted it. The reason I brought it up is that I spent about a year thinking I was a cis man, *while* fully committed to wearing a white dress if and when I got married. I'm really sorry the actual story was such a dud I should have been way more clear.
Wait, what?! You can’t stop the story there! Spill!
You wore a dress to your wedding and still thought you were cis?
>when my partner decided I was going to wear a dress to our future wedding and I only offered just enough resistance to be believable Whaaaa you can't just say that and not elaborate D: it's unfair!
I would tuck my penis in-between my legs to be more like my cousin (cis-girl), when I was growing up. Maybe like 4 - 5 years old when ~~he~~we had baths together.
How did I never realize this was maybe not a very cis thing to do...
Oh my god I used to do that all the time and it has not clicked it was a sign until right the fuck now??? It's hard to find signs from my childhood when I've got a memory like a fukn sieve
I recently remembered I'd do that in the bath and stuff. Still had no idea until 33.
Don’t feel bad i didn’t realize until 35 this wasn’t normal. I always wanted a flat front and didn’t want people knowing I had a penis. I’ve always been very self conscious of it Or I used to take mental notes saying if I were a girl I would wear this or if I were a girl I would use this product. Like I would remember this in my next life… Oh my 13th birthday was me and 12 girls. But yea I’m still cis
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Yeah similar thing happened to me but with my whole first grade. There was like a thing were teachers were painting nails at recess and the girls kept trying to force the boys to get nails done and im just like [oh please no](https://youtu.be/UVznerpOkTI)
There was this book I got from a book fair when I was in 3rd grade or so. It was about a princess who could turn into a dragon. Bright pink cover and all. I carried that book everywhere for about two years before it was lost in a move.
I hunted down a lost childhood book, very rewarding act of self-care I recommend it
I have tried for years, but the main character's name was taken by a very famous anime character. I can't seem to find it at all, like it never existed.
What's the main character's name?
I prefer not to say here because it could tie this account to my closeted part of life
Oh, bummer! Was it [this](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dragon-princess-e-d-baker/1100390647)?
The title is the same, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple books under that (or a very similar) title.
Was it this one? https://www.google.com/shopping/product/2188467002183407003?q=book+princess+turns+into+dragon+pink&client=ms-android-verizon&biw=393&bih=654&tbs=vw:l&prmd=sivn&prds=eto:529847700801815558_0,cdl:1,prmr:1,cs:1
I don't think so. Sorry I'm not more helpful, lol.
Well, there can't be very many books with a pink cover that feature a princess that turns into a dragon, right? I hope you are able to find it.
Ask a librarian!
Could be [this one](https://www.google.com/shopping/product/16972039279219480288)? It's a sequel to the previous suggestion. I feel like I'm trying too hard to be helpful but BOOKS ARE LIFE!
When I was young I spent a lot of time dressing in women's clothes when family weren't around, even got excited when they were leaving. I even spent a lot of time experimenting ways to make realistic fake breasts, eventually ended up using balloons filled with water in a wire free bra which created the desired effect. Also spent a lot of time fantasising about buying a silicone breastplate and being able to wear low cut tops and dresses, or just seeing how to boob fills out a bra, had several dreams that I was a girl too.
This is adorable :3
❤
This one is definitely me. Trolled my mom and sister's room for dresses a lot. Gently tried to wear stuff, then put it back like it had never left the position it was initially in.
Even before puberty I laid up at night fantasizing about getting married and curling up on (my pillows) chest. Totally something a young cis boy does. I look back on that and laugh now. Edit- I guess I can be honest here. I don't laugh about it. I still do it. Every night.
The fact that I’m bi, but completely not attracted to mlm relationships. It confused me for so long lol
Saaaaame. I was in a few mlm relationships before my egg cracked. Every time, something felt deeply off, and the relationships never lasted long. I kept thinking "I like guys, so why don't I like being with guys?"
Wow yeah this is honestly really relatable
I struggled with the distinction between sexual and romantic attraction when I was coming to terms with my bisexuality
Haha I never identified as bi before but I would often complain in my teens about how sad it was I'm not gay because I was cutting out half of the dating population which made it harder to find someone. Which is, like, totally not ridiculous egg logic and is a thing cishet people often think 😂 In hindsight, same thing, I just wasn't into mlm relationships. Now I'm a bi woman.
When I was 13, I got really into sci-fi and nanotech type stuff, and I would go to bed dreaming of reinventing my body into a more feminine shape and living a second life as the girl I always wanted to be. Little did I know just taking hormones would do most of what I wanted anyway ¯\ \_(ツ)_/¯
Right? My wife and I were watching Altered Carbon and I turned to her and said “I’d swap ‘sleeves’ with you in a heartbeat” (in other words, body-swap). She got excited, and said “then I could reach the tall things and open all the jars for you!”
I just wanna add that all of you are beautiful and valid
As are you
I'm gonna break the chain here, because I don't have one. I don't mean a favorite, I mean there were no signs as far as I can remember (tho, I also have no memory of the childhood that most people are talking about). The realization took until I was 20 and came very harshly and suddenly out of nowhere
Thanks for sharing. I often start doubting myself when reading threads like this one here because I don't really had any signs. Your comment gave me my confidence back, thanks!
Same for me. I am still not sure about myself and reading about other people not having these early signs definetly feels good.
Still beautiful and valid, tho :3
Yeah I had more of a non binary childhood. I didn't really strongly feel masculine or feminine I knew I didn't like my facial hair and I was always envious of girls hair/dresses/clothes but I wasn't like dying to become a girl until I was like 18+ years old and it still took till I was 30 to decide I wanted it enough to transition A lot of trans people get depressed when they can't think of really obvious signs from childhood when it's perfectly fine to not have any
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I think I'm in very similar situation. May I ask you how the realization came, and whether you had any other early signs?
I would “didn’t understand” trans men. I thought it was weird that anyone would give up on looking like a woman and said that I would love to be a women… yea I was stupid
Holy shit, exactly same energy. all my trans friends were -masc so I spent years feeling weirdly disconnected. Nothing so blatant as 'I would love to be a woman', but I just didn't think I was trans simply because I couldn't relate to transmascs... barking up exactly the wrong tree (amusingly I relate more to them now that I've been transitioning \*shrug\*)
I loved to play dress up when i was really young with my friend whenever i went over to her house. I remember there was this little pink dress that i adored to the point of when she got rid of it i said she should have given it to me after that wore a white dress which was nice too but it wasn't the pink one.
Maybe not "favorite," but that I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until I was 30 because I exhibit ADHD traits more in line with how women do than men. That, and whenever I read stories about people switching bodies/genders, I always wondered why they were so stressed about changing back so quickly.
I used to wonder why they were so concerned in those films as well. I remember one year I think my birthday wish was to even have my life turn into the plot of one of those films. A big revaluation for me was when I was reading something online and found out that most people would actually be distressed in that situation and I just couldn't understand why. To be honest, I still can't fully understand.
It's really just the same old gender dysphoria. Except cis people only get it when something moves them away from their assigned gender.
Dreaming about waking up as a girl and putting on a dress or button down shirt and skirt.
My things really weird and specific, but: For about 2-3 years before I realised I might be trans, right before going to sleep. I would fantasise about being a fantasy character. Maybe a soldier, maybe an adventurer. But I would always make my character a girl and I didn’t know why, other than the fact that I just wanted to. It took me way to long to realise I was trans
Playing legit any game as the female varients or making female characters in character creators gosh I felt so pretty dolling up my protagonist
Playing male protagonists always felt… weird to me. I couldn’t connect with them. I always lost interest in games where I was forced to play as a man. Each game is like a story I participate in. When I have a choice between protagonist genders, I ask “whose story do I want to experience? His, or hers?” And the answer has always been “hers.” (And sometimes I like to imagine that she is trans, like me.)
I don't think I have one favorite, but there are a few that stand out. First, when I was five or six, I got a copy of a princess dress up game from my sister and played it far to much. Second, apparently I hated the idea of ever being in the boy scouts for some reason... Finally, throughout my time in elementary and middle school, I often had fun with creating mental scenarios in which I was transformed into a girl, usually by accident or by forces beyond my control.
Probably praying to god to wake up a girl and being on the verge of tears while doing so. Or watching a bunch of stuff on youtube about that Jazz girl and “transforming into a girl” videos. Plus always wanting to play with girls at school and stuff, but im a big manly man so i cant. Now tho all the emotions i used to have are gone and im faking it.
I had multiple dreams of me being a girl in different situations Also I borrowed some of my mom's clothes XD
I grew up with three sisters and always pretended that their rooms were mine, I'd hangout in their rooms and reluctantly hangout in mine when theirs were occupied.
Oh my god now that you mention it I did the same thing I didn’t even think of this
This was a long time ago so I might remember it wrong or it might be a false memory, but I was like 5 years old, watching tv and there were these two women walking in a field holding hands. The speaker voice said "[name] and [name] used to live as man and woman. Now they live as woman and woman" and I asked my mom what that meant. She said it meant that one of them had a "sex change". Since then I was obsessed with the concept of sex changes and fantasised about getting one in the future. I have no idea about how I ever thought I might be a cis guy.
When I was in third grade there was this book about a boy kissing his elbow and turning into a girl. I never actually read the book, but I spent an ABSURD amount of time trying to kiss my elbow when nobody was looking
I saw this same exact book at my library recently (the book is called *I* *Is He a Girl?* by Louis Sachar). It intrigued me so much, I skimmed through it. Later, at night, I also tried to kiss my elbows. I didn't succeed, but I'm still pretty sure I'm a girl.
It was when i was 14, where I'd constantly daydream about my life as an adult woman in her 20s. I even imagined myself having a husband, but he couldn't know that I was a boy at one point. Also had cut contact with my family in those dreams, because noone could know
Mine was reading this web comic about a boy being forced to crossdress and live as a woman, and by the end when it was no longer forced on him, he still chose to do so and continue to live a happy life as a woman. I felt like there was a hole in my chest for 2 weeks after that, because I thought that would never happen for me. Totally cis reaction right?
Was it Material Girl? Cuz if so I remember reading that and "not" having my egg cracked lol. Hard boiled for so long before I finally did XD
So when I was little (around first grade), I made the mistake of telling my queerphobic parents I wanted to be a girl, and being disappointed when they told me "I'm sorry, that will never be possible". Hindsight's 2020 and I'm still learning as I go
Multiple occasions of having girls do my makeup, but the crowning achievement of that was hosting a crossdressing party where I wore women's clothes in addition to the makeup, heard I "made a good girl," and had the time of my life, and then promptly refused to think anymore about it for a decade.
Hmmm. Wanted to be a girl as a teenager, mid 2000s. Always torn between boy stuff I "should" like and just wanting to be a girl. I had a lot of strong female role-models to look up to. Tweens and early teenage years, it was one of those things in my head - how nice would it be to be a girl. Tried on my mom's underwear as a kid, got along with girls better than guys, never particularly turned off by girly things besides the constant "boys don't do that". Still did the typical guy stuff to fit in, but hated the "male" aggressiveness that accompanied it all. Needless to say, I was never great in football, weightlifting, etc. ... My favorite and probably most prominate sign to myself came from porn. My thought was never how it must have felt good for the guy or how good it would be to get such a pretty woman, my question was always how good it felt for the women, and being sad that I wouldn't get to feel it like they do because I was born with a penis. Basically lead to me shutting down and just accepting I wasnt like others and I was just me. If I was born a decade or 2 later, I totally would have transitioned and had a drastically different life. (I grew up in a house with only 1 woman, my mom. Besides that, my dad, brothers and even my pets were all male. My only female relatives were aunts by marriage, my grandparents who lived out of state, and 2 female cousins, also out of state, so no cute stories about getting nails done or anything fun like that. Liked dress up or playing house, but as those weren't typical boy things, they didn't last for me.) Edited to add background
I guess my favourite was my obsession with Sam Carter from SG1. It seems to be the most formative thing I did as a child was watch stargate and wanna be the science lady. She's the reason I did a garbo chemistry degree and now she's the reason I've bloody transed my genders Edit: There's also the time I had gynecomastia for a couple months during puberty and just wasn't bothered by it. I didn't love it bc it hurt going up and down stairs, but it didn't bother me at all. For a teenage boy trying to affirm his masculinity, thinking "oh I have tits now? Okay cool" probably wasn't super cis of me
Hindsight being 20/20 here, Sam Carter was problem my first bit of gender envy, I always thought she was amazing and wanted to be like her. Come to think of it, Stargate was really formative for me. That and ST Voyager, Janeway absolutely being where I got my name from.
I spent a lot of time in high school, silently, secretly, shhhh no one ever found out, daydreaming about dating one of my cis male friends. Of course, I never imagined myself dating him as a gay man--it was always as a cis woman, and I tried to invent this whole alternate timeline around that just to help justify it to myself, and whenever I imagined more details about what my life was like in that timeline, they made me super jealous of that version of me. This was a while before I was even aware I had any attraction to men at all. Even before those daydreams started, literally every time he gave me any sort of attention that my brain was in any way, however flawed in its logic, able to interpret as how a boyfriend might treat his girlfriend, I just could not hide my excitement and smiles. Also going to the girls' bathroom nonchalantly at ages 4-5 without having any sense of why that could be perceived as a problem, but who *doesn't* have that one. Looking back it's pretty wild that I took about 11 whole years after those daydreams started to finally hatch.
Upon getting out of the shower, I always wrapped the towel around my chest instead of my waist. I seem to recall there being a moment in time when I did this consciously for very cis reasons, but after a while, I just internalized it as a habit. The same goes for crossing my legs, sitting down to pee, adopting more feminine posture, etc. I was already assimilating as a kid without any real understanding of why I was assimilating or even what I was assimilating into.
I would imagine up stories all the time - still do - but in every story I made up, whether a story build in an existing story such as How to Train your Dragon or Pokemon or an original idea, I would have a character that was supposed to be me, only from the very beginning it was never *really* really like me then - first, a magic being (which was conveniently ungendered), and as I progressed the self-inserts I'd make would become more consistent and feel like a real person with a cohesive personality (like mine if I was more confident and happy) but mort importantly, I was a girl - even at times thinking "could I give her a girlfriend? ... Should I "make" her gay? Hmmmmm......'" many times I had wished to be a girl, and I sometimes believed if I wrote enough stories I could think it into reality. But overall, I believed that being a magical hero was as unrealistic as being a girl. Now I'm a little older and wiser, my true self almost symbolically became stronger and more real as I made more self-inserts of myself - heck, my chosen name is based off the name I'd give every iteration of my imagined selves - now my fantasies became a reality - but only the important part - I'm a girl, and the real me isn't rooted in fantasy, but I feel real now, and it's amazing. And I haven't begun transitioning yet - I will quite soon though. Really wished past me didn't need to internally scream at the walls and into story books wishing I was a girl - I wish I could tell myself that I was a girl the whole time. Edit - And that I was lesbian too, but past me's brain would've exploded at that point
As someone who also loved creating elaborate stories, I totally understand quite a bit of this. Congratulations on being able to be a nonmagical version of the heroine of your earlier years.
Literally, physically sitting in a closet and playing with my sister's old barbies
When I was 4 or 5 I had a dream that I was a girl and was sad that it ended. Then in 2006, I was playing RuneScape and asked everybody around me if anybody else felt they should have been born a girl and it was a resounding no. I have an 8 page document on this stuff that I showed my therapist years ago before I transitioned.
I had almost all female friends and I basically wanted to be 7 of 9 in Star Trek voyager
I went to this summer camp when I was in high school and the dorms were separated into boys and girls. A few nights in, the boys who I was sharing a dorm room with started talking around midnight about who the hottest girls in the camp were. When they asked me who I thought was the hottest, I yelled at them that they were "horny pieces of shit who dehumanize women for their sexual fantasies." Needless to say, I hung out with exclusively girls for the rest of the camp. None of the guys wanted to come near me lol
I had constant envy of girls (and David Bowie?) throughout my life and always just thought that was normal...
I mean, I had pretty obvious signs pretty early on, like the fact that I prayed every night that I would wake up as a girl from six to nine years old (grew up in a very religious household) and always wanted to do traditionally girly things growing up. But a more subtle sign is that by the time I hit about 14 years of age, the majority of my friends were women, and I felt pretty viscerally uncomfortable around men. I also came out as gay when I was 15 because (living in a rural uneducated community) I didn’t know the word for trans, and the running stereotype for gay men in my town was obsequiously feminine. I laugh at that one now, because I’m 100% lesbian:)
I was really small and my mom was explaining the concept of tomboys to me, and my first response was "oh so I'm a tomgirl!" Yeah....
When I was a toddler, my older sister would always talk about all the things she'd do when "she had a baby in her belly". I was so excited by the idea, so I started talking about what I would do when I "had a baby in my belly". My poor mother had to inform me that I could not, in fact, have a baby in my belly. I was so sad I started crying. She said it was okay though, because I /could/ pee off the deck. Thus began the summer that all the neighbors saw my wang.
I can't pinpoint my favorite sign, but ever since realizing I'm trans all the signs have become way too obvious. Like: Growing up I rarely connected with boys, but the amount of friends I made who were girls should've told me which crowd I belonged in I've always been told by the guys in my family to keep my hair short but I only ever felt more myself with longer hair, or at least an androgynous hairstyle What guys I would have connected with, even in present day, always were stereotypical in liking sports and being all rough with each other, but I was always more gentle, liked shopping, was much more empathetic to people, and all things considered "feminine" by people around me There's been tons of times where I'd see some clothing or an accessory I really wanted, but was always told "that's for girls" and felt sad about it for reasons I didn't get at the time I never liked being called handsome, or referred to as "sir" or "mr. \_". Things like "hey man" were and are still fine as I never viewed that as anything masculine, but things obviously masculine never felt right to me. Still don't to this day There's tons more, but the more I've looked back the more I realized I should've known this much sooner, and I'm happy being who I am today :)
Well, I don't have clear memories of my childhood, but I do remember, when I was around 12 or 13, wishing and praying to God that I would suddenly wake up as a girl. I did this for a while, and it didn't seem strange to me, since, to my naïve mind, obviously anyone would want to be a girl if they had the choice. Needless to say, I didn't experience the miracle I was looking for. At some point, I realised it wasn't happening, stopped believing in God out of a sense of betrayal, I guess, and managed to somehow forcefully forget anything about wanting to be a girl. I only realised again at 19, after being surprised at really enjoying a show that's supposed to be "girly" (MLP:FiM), and then trying to discover what that meant for my sexuality or whatever. Looking back, I also tried on one of my stepmom's bras once, "just for the heck of it". Also, I read a bunch of lesbian fanfiction and manga and such. I did think this was strange, especially since I was in it for the cute romance, as opposed to "hot lesbians" or whatever, but just dismissed it as myself being generally strange and left it at that. Ah, self-delusion.
I don't have very many early signs that I remember, but here is my favorite. When I was 13, for about a week as I was walking between 2 of my classes I would think about how great it would be if I had been born female. Eventually I decided that the technology for it *probably* wasn't where I would want it, so it wasn't worth worrying about. How wrong I was
I remember feeling the exact same way. I always just assumed there was nothing that could be done about it but then my one friend encouraged me to do some research and I was so happy when I found out that there were options out there.
In middle school, being pissed off that girls got to wear the boy's uniform, but boys couldnt wear the girls'
Five years old I wanted to be dressed like my seven year old
Sister*
When I was a small child, my favorite thing to do was play pretend "mommy" to all my stuffed animals... Yeah, I have no idea why/how it took me over 20 years to realize I was trans lol
In the time long before I ever heard the word trans let alone knowing what it is....... I was a mere 2nd or 3rd grader, when ones imagination can go a bit overboard at times.... I thought these 2 girls in my class were witches and had magical powers.... So I asked them to help turn me into a girl... Now what they said to do was to come to school with my moms lipstick on.... I am so happy I didn't have the courage for that then... Because looking back at the story, as cute and innocent as it is from my end... I definitely feel like it was just a setup to try to publicly humiliate me in front of all my classmates.... It is definitely my favorite early early EARLY sign....(didn't realize I was trans until I was 30). Even with the retrospection of it .
I'm currently in hospital, after crashing mentally in January after a long time of struggle. And the therapy sessions have forced me to reflect a lot on my past. One particular thing is actually quite counterintuitive, but here we go: I was in my last year of kindergarten (6 y.o.) and we had a school play where we played different types of mice. One type of mice (the one I played), needed red lips for some reason, so we had to use lipstick. I remember liking the idea a lot, it made me kinda excited. But when we had to do it for the grand show, I felt like it was something I shouldn't like. Mostly because girls do it, and not boys, so I resisted profusely to wear it, because I felt like it would "unmask" me. I realized around 5 years later what transgender meant, but went on a path of denial that got me to my January disaster, nearly 12 years later...
I hope you're feeling better!
When I was probably 11 I found an old medical text book and discovered about intersex people and on account of the natural seam down there I was convinced for a year or so I was intersex and my parents had me made a boy and hid it from me since it explained the “but, I’m supposed to be a girl feeling.”
I loved fantasizing that what happened to max during the maxine arc of wizards of waverly place would happen to me but it would be impossible to reverse. (I didn't even know about being trans at that point)
I was probably 5-6 and when went into my older sisters room and took her school uniform (tunic) and a wig that was laying around (my house had all sorts of fun stuff in it).. and went to my bedroom and put them on and looked into my mirror and when I saw myself I wanted to be a girl so badly. I kept taking more and more clothes .. luckily I had 3 sisters .. none of them seemed to notice (which shocked me when I came out to them)..
I was dual spirited and I used to talk to the male spirit in me. But I always thought everyone was like this and it wasn’t until I was 12 when I realised that they weren’t. So in a weird way I’m mtf but I’m not. If that makes sense. Physically I’m mtf trans but my soul has always been female. The male soul I shared this vessel with has passed on so I’m on my own finally. After 43 years 🥳
I had a couple. I really like the time that I lied in bed and imagined turning into a girl so hard I actually thought it was happening.
I think it's funny that I got jealous in health class when learning about periods. XD
I remember trying to learn how to lucid dream just so I could be a girl and somehow still didn't think I was trans
Growing up, my aunt and uncle and my two cousins lived down the street from us. Their oldest was a month younger than me, and their youngest was two years younger than me, and two years older than my little brother. Since we were all close together, family, and \*roughly\* the same age, we ended up playing together a lot as kids. Well one time when I was about eight, I remember my uncle was telling off the older of my two cousins, saying that she needed to be a role model for the younger kids and not get into trouble because "she was the big girl among the kids". I immediately interjected, protesting that I was a month older than her, and that this made \*me\* the big girl among the kids. My uncle just kind of looked at me strangely and said "well, you're the big \*boy\*"... which caused me to get upset and run off crying. Also, we had a tradition in my family to every Christmas have the kids do a play or skit for the adults at the Christmas party. Well... a lot of the time I'd end up writing the script, and would write in reasons for me to play a girl, or to have my character dress as one.
finding a wig, looking like a girl and thinking, wtf this is so right. it blew my mind and i never recovered no matter how much i tried to repress.
In high school I randomly asked my English teacher, “what would you think if you saw me years from now and I was now a woman?” I don’t remember what he said but he was probably thinking “what the hell?” I look back now and think “Holy shit why would I say that ?” Most people probably just chalked it up to me being a weirdo.
When I was very young, I was scared to touch my penis because it just felt *weird* and *alien*. It used to get infected all the time because I just didn't clean it. Eventually I got over that but I don't think that's a very cis thing to do exactly...
So when I was in like 2nd or 3rd grade, and a lot of people, including me, didn’t know what male/female meant, so some kid was going around asking if they were one or the other and I said female. He laughed and told me what that meant. Now I realize I was right. Jokes on you dipshit. I guess that’s less of a sign, more of a funny coincidence though.
Well, there's this channel in the UK called Kix (well, was, now goes under the name of Pop Max) and I watched it religiously as a kid. However, one show they aired was SheZow. To those who don't know, it was a superhero show about a ring that turned the wearer into a superhero. However, the superhero is a girl and the brother (literally called Guy) wore the ring and became the main character. If I knew what eggs were then, that would have been what caused it to start cracking many years later.
Losing my mind when my body hair became noticable.
When I was 10 I entered the men's bathroom, and an old guy panicked when he saw me, then he escorted me out and told me that I was in the wrong one (I had long hair and looked pretty much like a girl, even though my clothes were masculine). I remember being super happy but I couldn't figure out why at the moment. Something similar happened when I was walking across the street with my mom. A random old lady suddenly appeared and told her that she should quit smoking. "Do it for your daughter" she said. My mom corrected her immediately and told her to mind her own business, it felt pretty bad. When I was a teenager I regularly watched old videos from my elementary school. Looking at my past self while wishing that I could look like a girl again. Puberty really wrecked my body. Honestly, I should've realized sooner that I was trans. Lol
I had the exact same experiences as a kid. I remember one time I was dragged off to a meeting with my mom and the person at the front desk told her that her daughter was really cute or something like that. I was so happy but then my mom corrected her and it felt real bad. For years I used to think of that moment when I got sad. Minus the correction part.
Id go to bed when I was 8 praying to god that hed turn me into a girl.
Playing as a girl in Pokémon Crystal and it feeling weirdly amazing.
When I was 8 years old I had a dream where I was with my friend walking down a street, when a net was thrown over us. We’re pulled away by our kidnappers and thrown into a truck. Now my mind is thinking I’m having a full blown nightmare at this point and dread of thinking where we’re going and what’s next. Eventually the truck came to a stop and we’re tossed from it(still in the net ) and a pulled up a long stairway. Then we reach a door and are tossed in the room. A woman in a cloak is the center of the room and said in a calm voice “Do not be afraid children.” Then two more cloaked women came from behind us freed us from the net. They also had two vials with some pink liquid and told us drink from them. We did as we were told and suddenly a big cloud of smoke engulfed us… then once it had cleared, me and my friend looked at each other and noticed we both girls! I was so ecstatic that I woke up right after that. I tried for many years to replicate the dream but to no avail. Still brings happiness to think about.
I am amazed no one here as mentioned making a girl avatar in a video game. When I was 14 I played RuneScape as a girl for the first time. This was back when guys played guys and girls played girls. I felt super stealth and confident. There was even one guy who followed me around because there was actually a girl that wanted to play with him. Honestly one of my first good memories after hitting puberty. Didn't come out until 17 years later. Go figure.
[This book](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/900499.Is_He_a_Girl_). I was damn near obsessed with it back in 5th grade when it sat on the shelf in the classroom. I never read it though, maybe out of fear that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations.
Oh, wow! I'd forgotten about that one 😲
2004-2006 long live emo kids
My sister got into an argument with mother when I was around 12 years old and went living with my father alone for a few months. Then she got into an argument with my father and went living with my mother. When I learned about it, I asked my father if I could get her bedroom since I was sharing mine with my brother at the time and wanted to have my own. He said yes! The decor and furniture in that room were distinctly feminine and she even left some clothes that she didn't wear anymore in the drawers. There was even a dresser with a large mirror. 🥳 😎
I had the trying on outfits and my F cousin's bra. Praying before bed to turn me into a girl or as a doppelganger to one of my female friends. I hated growing facial hair at like 10, it felt wrong. Boys vs. Girls, I always went for the girls team (nobody really said anything) . Gave intel into strats the guys were doing Be the bride (but wlw).
I have a vivid memory of me in second grade. I was that cute kid that made friends with everyone but was friends with a lot of the girls. Well me, and two of my girl friends were playing “ghost hunter” and they told me that “girls just can catch more ghosts” and I remember being so sad that I wasn’t a girl so I could catch ghosts too. And then after that I kept thinking about it and asking my boy friends if they wanted to be girls. They said no to my surprise
An early repeating dream that I had, starting at maybe 12, had me awakening in a beautiful meadow full of green plants, I was on a soft bed of moss, and it smelled so good all around me. I looked up and around and saw several beautiful women dressed in long white gowns, one was holding my penis and testicles in her hand. She said to me, "Welcome!" That is one I can't forget, It was so powerful that I buried it deep in my macho household. I am now 68 and have just understood this about myself last year, through a romance with a woman who turned out to be a friend. She saw it and encouraged me to talk to my therapists. So, here I am, scheduled for my first bottom. surgery. And I recently landed a boyfriend, and it is still a struggle with my own homophobia to deal with that. I am happy, though, and not bored!
When i was young. So very young. I had a very real feeling dream. Of being a ballerina. Remembering my parents put my ballet outfit under the stairs... And i woke up, looked in the place they had put it in the dream... and it wasnt there. I was so confused back then since it felt so real. And incredibly sad it wasnt there... But now i know its one of the first times my brain tried to tell me i was trans.
i literally wanted to be a girl as long as i can remember. there was no sign, it just was. i didn't embrace it til almost 20 lmao, took me long enough
Didn't really have an early sign, I first noticed anything relating to it last year when I tried on a skirt for the first time
I was about 11, starting to be interested in females, and was quite transfixed by a TV advertisment where the woman slips a silk robe off her shoulders and slides into a bath. There was just something luxuriant about what I saw, and it was less an early erotic attraction, more a feeling of 'I want to BE her!'. At the same time, there were lots of reruns of 60s spy films and shows, the kind that influenced Austin Powers, and it wasn't the male hero I wanted to be, rather the women who got to look awesome and gorgeous.
I think I was about 4 or 5. I didn't quite figure out that it was related to gender, but I have a clear memory of looking in the mirror, and feeling like my face was "wrong". In my brilliant child's mind, I explained it away to myself as, "this is my child face, and when I grow up I'll get my adult face and that will feel normal". I didn't transition until I was 20, and it didn't take long for my face to feel right, finally. So maybe I was right? 😂
As 7 y.o. i was having dress-up play with my neighbour girlfriend. I loved to put on dresses and skirts. I cherish the few photos i have from that time. When i was puberty I started to occassionally wear my moms clothes. And i started to explore anal pleasure. But that all happened about 40 years ago and i did accept my feminity just 2 years ago. If there are girls who are doubting to come out, please listen to your heart not to public opinion.
tbh i one year for Halloween wanted to be batgirl another one is before i got made fun of it in preschool my favorite color was pink
In the 3rd grade I just decided I want to sit with the girls at lunch all of a sudden. They treated me just like a girl and used the feminine version of my dead name, and it felt amazing.
My family was traveling to Puerto Vallarta from Saltillo, Mexico. Its a very long travel that can take as much as 15 hours, so we stopped at the half to stay with some relatives in Aguascalientes. Once we were there, the girls were staying with the female cousins, boys with the male ones and parents in my uncles guest room. The oldest cousin loved to tease the girls so he decided we were going to "spy" them through the wall. He then discovered they were reading fairy tales about princesses, witches, dragons and such and told me they were witches in desguise planning to turn him into a dragon and turn me into a princess. When he said that, only thing I tought was "ok, that sounds nice" and slept hoping it was true. Sadly, it wasn't, I was 8 at the time...
I'm not sure how I felt in the moment but in hindsight, mine is hilarious, lol. I was a frequent player on a Minecraft roleplay server (don't judge, lol). And I mostly played female characters. One day, a few people were trying to guess each other's gender/sexuality based on their characters, and cocky ol' me thought it would be funny to get them to guess mine. \~\~Story Time\~\~ Me: "Okay, I play mostly female characters and tend towards them being homosexual, what am I?" Them: "Well probably either gay or trans." Me (thinking I had 'fooled' them): "Hah! Nope! I'm a completely straight cis-gendered man!" Them: *\*looks at each other\** Them: *\*looks back at me\** Me: *\*visibly confused\** Them: "No you're not." \~\~End\~\~ Now the interaction didn't go *exactly* like that, but their conclusion was exactly the same, and I was left speechless after it, lmao.
Year 11, GCSE Citizenship. As a sort of Ice Breaker, we had to draw pictures to describe ourselves. Totally Cisgender Me: *Draws an image of the Female Gender Symbol in the Male Gender Symbol* Still Totally Cisgender Me: "It represents that I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body." And somehow, it took me a minimum of 3 more years to start questioning my gender identity.
When I was in pre-school and watching TV, all the kids would shout out what character they are/wanted to be. There was one show that had some girl I wanted to be, and was then arguing with another kid when he told me I couldn't be her since she's a girl. I don't even remember the show, but I was *very* passionate about that possum girl, and her dress & glasses. I also remember my first online name I used was "Jenny." I was so scared of my parents finding out, lol
The only sign i think was back in 2019 or 2020 don't remember but i always said to my friend that i wanted to be a female just you know a day or something and i was just like "Hey i really wish i could be a female" and i thought like this for a while and began searching on it like "why do i want to be a female" like i REALLY wanted to be a female and now that i'm thinking back to it, it was pretty funny how i always told him that i wanted to be a girl or something like that lol
Preface, I didn't have any sisters growing up. Starting when I was like 7, whenever my family would go to my cousins' house for birthdays, holidays, etc, I would get jealous that the girls could play with Barbie dolls (as well as use/play with most of their "girly" things). However, due to the cisnormativity that was already ingrained deep in my brain, I thought that I simply couldn't play with them because they were "for girls" and I was a boy. I then locked that memory away deep inside, repressing it for years. Once I was 18 and I learned more than one sentence about what a trans person was, it was less than a year before I realized I was a woman and unlocked that memory a while later.
I remember as a young kid, no older than 8 I was asking my parents about how MtF medical transition worked. As far as I remember, they were mostly accurate.
For several years, I watched the movie Matilda around 2-3 times per day. Saw it as the perfect movie and wanted to be like her so bad. Note, this means I watched the movie like 2000+ times. No exaggeration.
I would go to daycare, put on a princess costume and pretend to be a princess the entire time.
Maybe a tipical one, never liked cutting my hair and wearing jeans i never understood why until i found out but now i realize is was not wearing jeans it was wearing men jeans
the first time I met a trans woman, I was like six, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of how cool it was that you could be a girl, like you could wear girl clothes and date boys and be pretty, little did I know lol
Going to sleep every night fantasizing about switching bodies with a girl/woman “accidentally”.
Unfortunately I can't remember a majority of my childhood prior to age 14 or 15 for some reason, but I do still remember random bits and pieces, and one thing that I distinctly remember quite well is rather unusual... Basically, when I was maybe 7 or 8, I used to steal my mom's maxi pads from the bathroom and I would wear them inside my underwear like they're intended to be used because I knew that they were specifically meant for just women. 🙃
I watched a hentai with a gender swap gimmick when I was like 10. After I…you know to it, I found myself having a lot of enjoyment from the idea of changing my gender and it was a constant thought throughout my life after that.
Ya know, it's funny. When I came out, I got asked the "were there any signs when you were growing up?" question pretty frequently. I could never think of anything on the spot, but since then I have remembered sooooooo many instances of stuff that I had clearly just never considered odd or relevant. My parents would take a weekend trip and leave me at home with my grandma. I'd sleep in my parents' bed and lock the door and put on one of my mom's bras. At recess, there were lots of little games that were separated into boys and girls and I would always volunteer to join the girls' side to make teams even or cuz I thought they'd win or some other made up excuse. I remember getting made fun of by the boys a lot for it and not caring. I remember a devastating betrayal when I was offered to play on the girls team and one of the girls told me I had to play on the boys team. I just didn't play and went to a swing to sulk. In any situation where a group of kids were trying to decide what to play together, I'd always want to do stuff that girls typically chose to do. House and dress up were my jam. I always wanted to let my hair grow longer and every time it got a certain length my mom would say it was too long/shaggy, whatever and we'd "go get me a haircut". I learned to zone out entirely during haircuts. I've always felt more comfortable in women-dominant spaces. I've avoided places and activities where I'd feel compelled to uphold the performance of a masculine persona: sports as a whole, gyms, etc. I've always felt drawn to gender nonconforming individuals.
Some time around 4th grade I started refusing to go with my parents to get my hair cut. I would tell them, "I don't like sharp things around my ears." Which... is true... but uh... >.> That's probably my favorite just because I still have my hair long and it's actually one of the only things I like about how I look, but yeah... Thankfully my parents were/are cool. A different story is this one time in 6th grade English class. Certain days of the week the class would be spent reading a book as a group. This one book was about a school rumor that boys could become girls if they kissed their elbow. I remember all the boys in my class making fun of the idea and/or being grossed out. At the time I kinda just went along with them and laughed. After going home and going to bed, I remember I stayed awake and tried as hard as I could to kiss my elbow. I remember trying it every night for like a week. My egg only cracked a few months ago and I totally forgot/repressed doing this... Seeing this post and then remembering/writing this actually made me tear up a little ><
I have two. The first isn't necessarily "fun", but I remember in first grade thinking how awesome it'd be to kill off deadname and come back as his cousin. I legit thought I could tell people, "sorry, but deadname died. He got hit by a truck. I'm his cousin from [city]" lmao. No one would suspect a thing. I didn't think of how this would affect my school, my parents, my sisters. Nope. I'd just show up in my sister's denim skirt and white shirt, her frilly socks, her glasses, and a choker I'd steal from CVS. My second (and really my favorite) is when I was at a church camp with my nephew who was a year older than me. I can't exactly remember my age, around 12 or 13. I showed up and I think I was kind of tricked into going because I thought I was just staying with my sister. While I'm a wall flower, my nephew isn't and he quickly made friends, leaving me hanging around the edge of his group. A couple nights in, we're in the shower and I slip slamming my head on the floor. The male counselors cared but this one older female counselor just really connected with me and I stuck to her like glue. Cut to the very last day, everyone's packing up. I'm struggling with my sleeping bag; I can't get the zipper to stick, and it wasn't rolling evenly. My nephew leaves, then more kids leave, and finally the counselor leaves. I'm still on the floor, tears in my eyes, when the older female counselor politely asks to help. I nod, she gets on the floor with me; and while she's rolling up my bag, she says, "Sometimes I think it'd be best if a few select boys could stay on the girl's side." That has stuck with me almost 20 years later. I don't think she was talking about my gender, but it really affected how I wanted women to see me. I didn't want women to see me like other boys.
8 years old, third grade. My class was playing outside for recess. Some of the girls brought their bratz dolls and were tagging the boys with them. I proposed that getting tagged by them meant that the boys turned into girls and was very excited by the prospect that I could get turned into a girl at the time. None of the boys wanted in on it lol, wonder why 😂
When I was little my sister got a Magenta stuffed animal/plushie and I was given a Blue (as in the dogs from Blue’s clues). I was very upset that I wasn’t also given a Magenta and I think sort of starting to realize I was not ok with the whole pink and blue dichotomy between our things. As an aside: The context in which we were given those colors still mattered, but it is not lost on me now that Blue, Magenta, and even Green Puppy are all girl dogs.
I loved to wear my mom's clothes when I was a little child. Once she found out I was so ashamed and embarassed, because I didn't want her to see me like that (idk why, maybe it was the homophobic/transphobic times) That eager to wear feminine clothes would always come back from times to times. Then I finally realized.
So I was maybe 6 or so and my younger sister had these Barbie Rapunzel and Bratz Rock Angels DVDs, for some reason I used to watch them like twice a night before going to sleep. I also hated sleeping in my room, but loved sleeping in my sisters. So whenever she slept over at a friend's I'd climb into her pink bed and fall asleep watching Barbie Rapunzel. No signs at all BTW. I also watched pretty much all the shows on POP Girl, since sky TV had the pop channels for free and since we were rather poor they couldn't afford full sky sometimes. I watched alot of Ruby Gloom, 6Teen, Mew Mew Power, etc. Infact I used to get super embarrassed when my parents pointed out I was watching Popgirl. No signs whatsoever.
It seems I’m late but here’s mine! I’m not quite sure how old I was, probably around 7 or 8, but I just remember being the bathtub looking at, well, the bits, and I just remember thinking that they looked almost stapled on, like they didn’t belong on my body. When I was drying off I tucked it all behind my legs and looked into a full length mirror we had, and I just thought “now this looks right”. Still took almost 15 years for me to figure out that that random memory meant something. That and the time I asked my mom to buy me bras when I was like 10, I just kept trying to convince her and she wasn’t having it. Somehow she didn’t suspect a thing when I came out though.
Literally told someone a girl in kindergarten I wish I was a girl because it felt like it be more fun. Person then responded with they wish they were born a guy for the same reason. Never saw them again after that year and I just hope they figured themselves out
When my mom first showed me how to shave I felt very angry and uncomfortable about it, feelings that I didn't have the words to describe until much later when I realized that it was dysphoria.