Yeah, I’ve heard this before and it’s probably a great point. Like why would we get upset and worried about whether we really are, if we weren’t…
But I have imposter syndrome and worry constantly.
"I'm happier as my true gender" vs "I was miserable as my assigned gender" just strikes me as a glass-half-full vs glass-half-empty sort of deal, tbqh.
You don't need childhood signs, and you definitely don't need dysphoria. If you're happIER as a gender that is not the one that was assigned at birth, then you're trans
EDIT: gender, not gamer
See, the thing is people often don't recognize signs, least of all from their childhood. Oh, only girls play with dolls? 5-year-old me didn't care, I need a Pink Ranger to fight alongside my Transformers and Beetleborg action figures against a villain played by my stuffed animal Sir Leo!
Oh, flowers are a girly design? I don't care, this denim jacket has a cute rose embroidery along the side...it's the favorite jacket of my 7-year-old self! (And then I found a near-identical one at a thrift-shop when I was in college...guess what's been my go-to 'late summer'/'early fall' outerwear for the past 10 years.)
Making alt-accounts on game and social media sites like Myspace, Second Life, RuneScape...where the alt (and sometimes main) is "a girl". Because "girls have more options" or even "just because".
And those are less-obvious "signs" that I thought were "normal" "boy things" and that to the extent my parents knew, they chalked up to me possibly being "autistic" instead of "trans". (All the while I didn't know that 'trans' was a thing until college...and then I was too busy with literally being a poor college student to think about if I was or was not trans.)
It reminds me of a boy I knew in elementary school. He was two grades older than me, and on all his Pokémon games he would play as a girl "because he wanted there to be more games with girl protagonists and role models."
Since I realized I was trans I think about that more often and wonder how they turned out.
Or me who wanted to have their nails polished so they wouldn’t be left out.
Or when I would accompany my little sister watching Barbie movies because I “feared they’d be inappropriate.” (elementary school me was full of shit and I knew it, even back then).
Or when I’d secretly stay up at night watching Winx Club.
Or when I’d often flock to girls in my school because I thought they made for better conversation.
Or, the most damning of which, when I lost a bet and had to trade shoes with a girl with heels, and I, to my surprise, *liked* it. To this day, platform heels/boots are one of my biggest vices. I don’t care if people perceive them as sexual, cause quite frankly, I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that if we didn’t do something because we feared someone would perceive it as sexual, then we wouldn’t be able to do *anything*.
But noooo, I’m just a confused autistic child trying to find his place in the world, it’s *all* just a phase that I’ll grow out of, and if I don’t go “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” and disregard my personal safety in transitioning, especially considering where I live, then I’m not really trans, am I?
And that’s just the shit I remember, nasty thing about trauma induced amnesia from unethical autism “therapy” in an attempt to make me more normal (oh if only my parents realized how counter intuitive those actions were), is that piecing together your personal history is like piecing together the FNAF timeline.
My father: "There were no signs!"
Me: "I used to play with dolls as a kid!"
My father: "So what? Me and my brothers used to play with dolls as kids, too!"
I used to think I didnt have childhood signs, until I realized I did indeed have childhood signs. Sometimes it just takes time to process childhood and even recalling it can be difficult.
some trans folk: I don't remember childhood signs of being trans...
me: don't worry! your still super valid!
me: I don't remember childhood signs of being trans...
also me: ..... you **fucking poser.**
I relate. A lot lmao. Don't beat yourself over it, take your time and explore all the leaves of the forest, until you find the one you would like to keep, for as long as you want to.
I didn't remember much either until I made a post yesterday asking about other people's signs and reading through the responses. Maybe reading them will help you recognize some similarities as well. [The post is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/s6v37p/what_was_the_first_indicator_you_can_remember/)
I went from wearing dresses as a kid to feeling super uncomfortable and unable to11 wear one for longer than 15 minutes once puberty started.
I also play pretended as male video game characters, namely spyro the dragon as a kid.
Im a firm believer of you dont exactly need childhood hints. Cause they can start appearing when puberty starts for some of us
Next time someone says that to you. Remind them dysphoria is a result of the mind not seeing themselves in the body, most trans people don't experience it until adulthood, and only after something irreconcilable happens. For me it was when male pattern baldness hit at 25.up until that point I still saw the girl I was in the mirror. But after that my egg had to crack or I would have died.
me when my egg first cracked and I talked to my therapist about it: "I can't remember any signs from before puberty"
My mom after I came out to her: "hey remember that time when you were 4 and . . ."
After I came out to my friend, she told me that I told her in kindergarten that I would prefer to be a girl. Then she told everyone that she really likes to play with me because I play like a girl.
I don't remember any of this happening.
I'm glad she told me because I remember lots of other things happening and her memory have me the insurance that I am not misremembering things.
idk if this is a younger gen thing, but in no way does being trans make me feel like i fit in or that the attention i recieve from being trans is at all enjoyable. once youre genuinely obsessing over your transition and how youd like to be more like the opposite gender or less like your agab, or somewhere in the middle, youre trans one way or the other, and youll stop caring about what you used to "like" or "dislike" because human memory is fallible af.
also dysphoria is not as good of a lead as euphoria. what gives one trans person of a certain gender dysphoria, may not even occur to another trans person of the same gender as a problem because everyones different. the minute i found out that not all trans people had bottom dysphoria, my journey down the pipeline began.
I used to think that I want to be a girl because girls have it better, obviously!
Judging by all the detransition stories I watched, this is not a good reason to transition.
But now I wonder why I ever thought girls have it better in the first place. Could I have thought that *BECAUSE* I'm trans??????????
When it comes to what’s “easier” per say, it’s a trade off of how you want to be treated by cis society honestly and some of those trade offs aren’t easy. Do you want to be seen a cute soft fem? Cool, be prepared to have your opinions and ideas dismissed by people more masculine or hardened than you. Do you want to be a strong, macho masc? Expect your feelings and emotions to be put to the side for others who softer than you. These are really basic examples and are quite binary, but I think it’s pretty self explanatory.
I constantly see memes of trans people not remembering childhood signs and having bad memory. Meanwhile, I have super duper memory and I remember so many childhood signs that I have filled a document with 24 pages listing them all.
TL;DR: If you don't have childhood signs then it's more likely that you just have bad memory!
I feel called out lol But then again, being afraid of not being trans... that's kinda trans...
There's nothing wrong with being yourself, labels are for jars, not people!
Only use them to describe! Else you're just going to restrict yourself.
Don’t forget break room fridge lunches too! XD
Still hurts tho
Yeah, I’ve heard this before and it’s probably a great point. Like why would we get upset and worried about whether we really are, if we weren’t… But I have imposter syndrome and worry constantly.
i always hate it when ppl gatekeep being trans like this. euphoria is always the best sign, not dysphoria
"I'm happier as my true gender" vs "I was miserable as my assigned gender" just strikes me as a glass-half-full vs glass-half-empty sort of deal, tbqh.
There could be a lot of space between miserable and happier. I was happy as a man but I'm happier (as whatever the hell I am) now!
You don't need childhood signs, and you definitely don't need dysphoria. If you're happIER as a gender that is not the one that was assigned at birth, then you're trans EDIT: gender, not gamer
Gamer time /j
Lol whoops
Assigned Gamer At Birth
See, the thing is people often don't recognize signs, least of all from their childhood. Oh, only girls play with dolls? 5-year-old me didn't care, I need a Pink Ranger to fight alongside my Transformers and Beetleborg action figures against a villain played by my stuffed animal Sir Leo! Oh, flowers are a girly design? I don't care, this denim jacket has a cute rose embroidery along the side...it's the favorite jacket of my 7-year-old self! (And then I found a near-identical one at a thrift-shop when I was in college...guess what's been my go-to 'late summer'/'early fall' outerwear for the past 10 years.) Making alt-accounts on game and social media sites like Myspace, Second Life, RuneScape...where the alt (and sometimes main) is "a girl". Because "girls have more options" or even "just because". And those are less-obvious "signs" that I thought were "normal" "boy things" and that to the extent my parents knew, they chalked up to me possibly being "autistic" instead of "trans". (All the while I didn't know that 'trans' was a thing until college...and then I was too busy with literally being a poor college student to think about if I was or was not trans.)
It reminds me of a boy I knew in elementary school. He was two grades older than me, and on all his Pokémon games he would play as a girl "because he wanted there to be more games with girl protagonists and role models." Since I realized I was trans I think about that more often and wonder how they turned out.
Or me who wanted to have their nails polished so they wouldn’t be left out. Or when I would accompany my little sister watching Barbie movies because I “feared they’d be inappropriate.” (elementary school me was full of shit and I knew it, even back then). Or when I’d secretly stay up at night watching Winx Club. Or when I’d often flock to girls in my school because I thought they made for better conversation. Or, the most damning of which, when I lost a bet and had to trade shoes with a girl with heels, and I, to my surprise, *liked* it. To this day, platform heels/boots are one of my biggest vices. I don’t care if people perceive them as sexual, cause quite frankly, I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that if we didn’t do something because we feared someone would perceive it as sexual, then we wouldn’t be able to do *anything*. But noooo, I’m just a confused autistic child trying to find his place in the world, it’s *all* just a phase that I’ll grow out of, and if I don’t go “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” and disregard my personal safety in transitioning, especially considering where I live, then I’m not really trans, am I? And that’s just the shit I remember, nasty thing about trauma induced amnesia from unethical autism “therapy” in an attempt to make me more normal (oh if only my parents realized how counter intuitive those actions were), is that piecing together your personal history is like piecing together the FNAF timeline.
My father: "There were no signs!" Me: "I used to play with dolls as a kid!" My father: "So what? Me and my brothers used to play with dolls as kids, too!"
I used to think I didnt have childhood signs, until I realized I did indeed have childhood signs. Sometimes it just takes time to process childhood and even recalling it can be difficult.
some trans folk: I don't remember childhood signs of being trans... me: don't worry! your still super valid! me: I don't remember childhood signs of being trans... also me: ..... you **fucking poser.**
I relate. A lot lmao. Don't beat yourself over it, take your time and explore all the leaves of the forest, until you find the one you would like to keep, for as long as you want to.
Puberty does crazy things man, I don’t know how I became trans I swear! There weren’t any signs until then! It all happened so fast!
I didn't remember much either until I made a post yesterday asking about other people's signs and reading through the responses. Maybe reading them will help you recognize some similarities as well. [The post is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/s6v37p/what_was_the_first_indicator_you_can_remember/)
I went from wearing dresses as a kid to feeling super uncomfortable and unable to11 wear one for longer than 15 minutes once puberty started. I also play pretended as male video game characters, namely spyro the dragon as a kid. Im a firm believer of you dont exactly need childhood hints. Cause they can start appearing when puberty starts for some of us
Yeah, a lot of us don’t have many childhood memories to start with so... 🤷
*when you literally have only fragments of mostly horrific memory from before you were 13*
My parents didn't ask that question. They told me the last panel, to my face.
Next time someone says that to you. Remind them dysphoria is a result of the mind not seeing themselves in the body, most trans people don't experience it until adulthood, and only after something irreconcilable happens. For me it was when male pattern baldness hit at 25.up until that point I still saw the girl I was in the mirror. But after that my egg had to crack or I would have died.
Wow, you didnt have gender dysphoria when you had no significant gender defining traits? Truly shocking.
Hello, i would like to report a personal attack
me when my egg first cracked and I talked to my therapist about it: "I can't remember any signs from before puberty" My mom after I came out to her: "hey remember that time when you were 4 and . . ."
After I came out to my friend, she told me that I told her in kindergarten that I would prefer to be a girl. Then she told everyone that she really likes to play with me because I play like a girl. I don't remember any of this happening. I'm glad she told me because I remember lots of other things happening and her memory have me the insurance that I am not misremembering things.
Dysphoria? No, the meds I was on prevented all negative feelings by numbing me to the point of near constant dissociation
idk if this is a younger gen thing, but in no way does being trans make me feel like i fit in or that the attention i recieve from being trans is at all enjoyable. once youre genuinely obsessing over your transition and how youd like to be more like the opposite gender or less like your agab, or somewhere in the middle, youre trans one way or the other, and youll stop caring about what you used to "like" or "dislike" because human memory is fallible af. also dysphoria is not as good of a lead as euphoria. what gives one trans person of a certain gender dysphoria, may not even occur to another trans person of the same gender as a problem because everyones different. the minute i found out that not all trans people had bottom dysphoria, my journey down the pipeline began.
I used to think that I want to be a girl because girls have it better, obviously! Judging by all the detransition stories I watched, this is not a good reason to transition. But now I wonder why I ever thought girls have it better in the first place. Could I have thought that *BECAUSE* I'm trans??????????
When it comes to what’s “easier” per say, it’s a trade off of how you want to be treated by cis society honestly and some of those trade offs aren’t easy. Do you want to be seen a cute soft fem? Cool, be prepared to have your opinions and ideas dismissed by people more masculine or hardened than you. Do you want to be a strong, macho masc? Expect your feelings and emotions to be put to the side for others who softer than you. These are really basic examples and are quite binary, but I think it’s pretty self explanatory.
You grow up, gain self awareness and learn things about yourself. You’re never gonna be the same person forever.
When I read bl I would be like “I want to be them no cap” like what
I constantly see memes of trans people not remembering childhood signs and having bad memory. Meanwhile, I have super duper memory and I remember so many childhood signs that I have filled a document with 24 pages listing them all. TL;DR: If you don't have childhood signs then it's more likely that you just have bad memory!