At what point did you realize you were different?
Maybe it was a statement my real-country grandmother said I needed to pull my pants down to show my cousin's friends I was really a boy.
But seriously, I never really was what some would call uber-sissy.
I knew a couple of boys like that. They were ridiculed because of it, mocked. But I never was.
I wasn't as tough and rough as my older brothers, or the above-mentioned cousin.
It's not like I dismissed everything boys did and wanted to wear tutus and tiaras.
I played army with my brothers and other boys on the street and loved it. I sucked at sports, but that didn't keep me from playing despite always being the last picked in sandlot games or never getting a hit hardly in Dixie Youth Baseball (the Southern version of Little League.
I still like sports to this day. I'm a moderate baseball fan, huge college and pro football fan. And love the Olympics, and not just women's gymnastics or figure skating (although I hate the men's competition in both to be totally honest).
And I played with boys action figures (G.I. Joes, Star Wars).
I was more sensitive, I think, than most boys. And I felt a kinship with a couple of girls in my neighborhood.
I had a younger sister, whose was only a couple of years younger, and as early as I could remember, loved putting on her clothes, although the clothes I chose weren't necessarily frou frou (if that is how you spell it).
And I loved playing things that were associated mainly with girls, playing house, jumping rope and with dolls when I got the chance.
But it might have been when I was sitting in a line in P.E. in sixth grade that I realized something wasn't quite right. Something told me I was supposed to be on the other side of the gym, with the girls.
It was really at that point I started noticing subtle body differences, and finding myself wanting to go through what they were going through.
I loved their attitude, how they carried themselves. It carried on to high school and through college, where my strongest friendships were with girls, even though I pretended to be macho. I even played a year of high school football and enjoyed it, but I sucked, and didn't play anymore.
But I also longed to be a cheerleader, a majorette or a member of the high school band's flag corps (now called color guards), but I didn't have the courage to try out.
I missed my chance to try out for cheerleader my sophomore year. They were selected by popular vote, but only 16 tried out for the 15-member B-team squad. Even unpopular, very overweight girls made the squad. Had I tried out and made it appear to be a joke, I think I might have made the squad.
And I know I was just as talented, if not moreso, than most of the girls on the flag corps.
A girl who was in band tried to talk me into trying out, but I was afraid of the ridicule.
I was brave enough to take ballet...and relished being the only boy in class the couple of years I took as a teenager. It gave me the one chance to be graceful and beautiful. I've loved it to this day, which is one reason I picked it back up as a hobby.
Growing up in the South, you're raised to believe that if a boy is somewhat sissy, then he must be gay. But I found that not to be the case. I have never really been attracted to men at all. To the contrary, I'm not too fond of the sight of men's bodies. But I do admire the chivilry sometimes.
There are women I've long wanted to be like, have a body like them, wanted to dress like them. But there have been a couple I fell completely in love with.
As I struggled with my gender identity as a child, I had no idea there was a thing such as being transgendered until I came upon an article in one of my mother's women's magazines.
I must have been about 12 or 13 at the time (around the time of the P.E. incident).
It was like a light bulb coming on.
Well, those are this my thoughts. What are yours?
Torey
Comments
I was six and I was sitting on the floor in our living room
I was coloring in a coloring book...Circus Animals if I remember correctly. My dad had just yelled at my sister for something. I lay down on the floor with the book in front of me. I closed my eyes and said to myself "I want to be a girl." I sorta wanted to be more three dimensional though. Owing to family needs, this is as far as it goes.
She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Con grande amore e di affetto, Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
I do remember one incident I left out.
My second grade teacher gave us books for Christmas. She gave all of the girls Little House in the Big Woods, and all of the boys books about dinosaurs, with one notable exception, me! I wonder if she knew something then that I didn't. I've loved Laura Ingalls Wilder's books from that day on.
The Phil Donohue Show Was My Moment
An episode of the "Phil Donohue Show" about transsexuals was my moment. I had always felt out of place from a young age and didn't know exactly how to describe what I was feeling. One day, I watched the show and the guests on there started talking about what they felt from earliest childhood and it was like they were talking about me. I finally had a word with a definition that provided a lot of answers for me. It took me until the age of 33 before I actually moved forward with transition. My story is posted on here, so I won't say too much more.( You can read "My Life Transgendered" for that) As you know, growing up in the South and being Trans doesn't make you very popular.
Perhaps always was a girl?
My Birth name was Gwinn (Which sounds like Gwen)(And that makes me remember some of the lyrics of "Trouble" in "The Music Man") Mom complained a lot that I was not a girl in my early teen years. My Step Father beat the hell out of me almost constantly, and now my other brothers think that he may have been sexually attracted to me. Shortly after I came out, my younger brother said that he was often told by "Dadeee" that he was going to beat the woman out of me.
I remember a few incidents about the time I was 5; being forcibly removed from my dress; put in pants, and having my long hair cut off nearly to the scalp. It was all beyond traumatic.
When I came out, I thought I was transgendered. In light of recent developments, it appears that I am intersexed. I don't know if I will get a Kariotype done. They are a lot of money. The Doc says that by just looking at me, I am probably an XY with an incomplete Y, if that means anything to anyone.
I can see that data on the incomplete Y chromosome is increasing in an astonishing manner, but for me most of it is couched in terms far too technical for me. Forget the old XX female, XY male protcol. It is no longer valid. There are XY females who are fertile women and yes, Virginia there are XX males who have sperm. It makes my head spin.
Much peace
Khadijah Gwen
I don't know...
My memory starts when I was in 5th grade... Except for a few "snapshot" style memories before that, I would have said I didn't even exist before then, if my parents didn't have photo proof.
A few of my "memories" from before 5th grade show I was different. (How many boys would have fond memories of a pink ball gown, that they were wearing?)
I was also - in many ways - a very different person between 4th and 5th grades. I went from a lousy baseball player, to a star of the little league team. I even played football that year... The next year, no football & Baseball wasn't much fun any more.
By 7th grade - I avoided sports (except swimming) when I could.
BY 9th grade - I was obviously a confused kid. I snuck into mom's room (when she was out) and tried on stuff - always very careful to put it back so it wasn't apparent someone had been there (successfully, it turns out). I was a varsity swimmer in 10th grade, but managed to get out of "gym" class all of 10th-12th grade.
No dates until I was 17, and then my 2nd date - I was 18.
College - I was "struggling" a tad with the fear of being crazy (guys don't want breasts, do they?). I was also working toward a commission in the Navy (successfully achieved).
I got married in '81 - to a WONDERFUL person! (More wonderful than I had any reason to believe at the time.)
In '84, then again in '85 I did "Halloween" in "drag" (someone else's suggestion in '84). Comments about me having too much fun, and being too good at it were common both years. My wife was disturbed - specially the 2nd time.
So, after '85, I opened the phone book, and picked a shrink almost at random (I liked her name). After a few months of therapy, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't really crazy wanting to HAVE a baby and such. It was a wonderful feeling to discover that there were other people that had been born in the wrong bodies too.
So, as I say, I don't really know when I knew I was "different". I strongly suspect it was as a kid, and SOMETHING caused me to suppress all of that (& almost everything else) before 5th grade, but I can't get any confirmation.
Ann
I'm Different?
I'm not sure what you mean by different. Wait... You mean I'm not supposed to be like this?
___________________
If a picture is worth 1000 words, this is at least part of my story.
I was born with
I was born with misformed genitalia, now referred to as severe hypospadia, and micro-penis. Inso far as I can reconstruct, the euretha opening was about an inch or so from the base of what the doctor viewed as the base of a penis. This is common in intersexed kids. Our family doctor convinced my parents that he could "fix the problem" and they changed my name from the female name selected and on the first birth certificate the midwife filled out, to a male alternate, and that was filed over a month after my birth. The doctor "corrected" the problem in the meantime. I now know that it was common practice from about 1938 to do this, and given that it was during WWII that I was born and males were more valued psychologically to young parents facing separation by war, I can understand intellectually why they went that route. My parents refuse to discuss it.
I didn't know all this as a child of course. I would often wear a towel as a skirt and play with my doll when I was without a playmate. I was three and taking a bath with my 4 years older female cousin when my attention was caught by the configuration of her sex organs. I remember looking at mine. Due to scar tissue pulling the short penis rearward, I sat to urinate, just as she, my mother, and my aunt did. I had walked in on my uncle as he was standing to urinate a few times, so could see the difference. I decided then that I would look like my cousin and other female relatives when I was older and that made me very happy, but confused about why I was being called a boy. My first haircut after that was traumatic!
A second surgery when I was 5 (1947) was needed due to the scar tissue and frequent bladder infections, and the result was a little red worm that I was really bothered by (felt a fear that something was falling out of me), as when my mother told me the doctor was going to "fix me" with a little surgery my expectation was that I would look like her and my cousin. Instead I was left with an apparently circumcised penis.
All my best friends and playmates were girls, though I played with my male cousins by default often (all male within my generation) and often enjoyed that. It was not until I was 10 and saw the interview with Christine Jorgensen on Movietone in the News in the theatre (1953, her interview in 1952) that I knew I had been right about me and what should have happened when I was 5. Sat through the movie twice to see that 90 seconds or so three times. That was in May.
In August, I was again with my cousins this time at a county fair, and we walked by a side show that advertised a half man-half woman. We stopped and listened to the spiel, and I saw this tall woman with dark hair doing some Ta-da poses, and a local doctor was going to verify her status. They wouldn't let us in, of course.
My cousins and I tried to get inside the tent but we were run off. They went on, but I doubled back and went to the rear of the tent where the performers went in and out, and waited for her to come out. She did after awhile, and I went up to her. She had dark eyes in addition to black hair, and was heavily made up. She was walking toward a tent set back from the others. I asked her if she could tell me what I was, as I thought I might be like her. She just looked at me and big tears rolled down her face and she shook her head and went on. She was walking toward the tent and there were some men standing around it, some of them locals. It took several years for me to be sexually aware enough to understand why they were waiting for her.
I started growing breasts, nearly A-cup by the time I was 13, and my parents took me to yet another doctor who started me on testosterone (I was late in my 13th year at the time), which continued for 16 months. It did stop the growth, but I did not lose that mass. When I had a physical for the draft, the doctor wrote down that I had mild gynecomastia as the T had pushed my chest wide and deep and the breasts looked kinda like fleshy pecks on a fat person, but I wasn't fat, and passed me as fit for duty. That "T" stuff is bad shit, and I started on cyclical depression related to the timing of the shots, and grew rapidly while I was on it, but with male physical characteristics. HATED it. Didn't want my picture taken, didn't want to see myself in the mirror, but had to look to get rid of hated growing facial hair, and body hair was gross, which I also hated. Grades went to the crapper, and NO one EVER tried to find out why a formerly A and B student went to C and D student. Not even my parents. They just told me to get my grades up, but I didn't care.
I ended the T shots after a failed suicide attempt left me angry enough to say "no more" to my parents, and as the excess "T" left my system my mental attitude improved and so did my grades and sense of humor, well a bit anyway. I was always lousy with sports, but good at girls activities (even volleyball), and had been harrassed over that from about 8 years old. The harrassment didn't change until I was given a medical excuse to be out of gym, the only good thing that came from the T-shots. My math skills were poor (didn't help I think that the use of symbols and variables that led to algebra and beyond were being taught while I was going through the turmoil of the T shots and day dreaming for escape during class), but history, english, composition, typing, all seemed easy, and I loved building miniatures, which substituted for not having a doll house and dolls, I think. Never dated in highschool or college. Seemed futile, and I never had attraction in a sexual way to anyone, anyway.
I lived with depression, confusion, suicidal ideation with one serious attempt as an adult until I was 62, and I finally had enough information available to do something about it. My maternal aunt died in 1995, and while going through her papers, I found the rough draft birth certificate with the my birth day and female name that was not filed. For a bit I thought I had been born a twin who died, but finally realized the truth.
I then felt I was too old to transition, so resolved to live with it. At 61 I couldn't take anymore and started therapy, facial hair removal, and allowing my hair to grow out. I went full time after I retired early, but money for surgery has been slow in saving. Living with the conflict has left me in not too good shape physically, so surgery may or may not happen in spite of money being available.
CaroL
CaroL
I don't remember a
I don't remember a particular incident or anything. I just remember that somewhere around 3-5 I realized that everyone was treating me as a boy and seemed to think I was one. Which was confusing. When I realized my body was male I knew nobody would believe me if I told them I was a girl (I was terrified of being sent to the 'loony bin'), so I suppressed all knowledge of it. I only remembered that after I started transitioning.
At first I just did what came naturally, but before long I was getting a lot of negative attention for that. So I tried to emulate the boys behavior. Problem was, some things I just wasn't willing to do. Others I could do, but inevitably got wrong because I didn't understand the reasons behind them. In the end I just tried to be invisible and not do anything remotely feminine. That helped, but I still was made fun of a lot and called 'fag', 'gay', etc.
I was always finding something new that I needed to change in order to fit in (or at least not stick out). I absolutely despised my body and would actually forget certain body parts were even there for short periods of time (I developed a real knack for 'forgetting' things that upset me. It became reflexive after a while so I've had to struggle to not do that even now). I thought about killing myself often from junior high on. I also daydreamed (and almost attempted) removing those body parts I hate so much often.
I think I was pretty much as low as I could go without ending it all when I finally went online to do some research, hoping to find something, anything, to give me hope that I wouldn't have to be like that forever. That was the first I learned about terms like transgender, transsexual, transition, hormones, etc. And that, as they say, was that. Unlike many I've read about here and elsewhere, once I knew what was possible there were no doubts or questions except about how I'd go about it. I knew from that moment (April 29th, 2005) that I'd transition or die trying.
As for activities, I liked playing with my sister's Barbie dolls when I was little. But once she stopped playing with them I stopped, because I was afraid of what my family would think. I was also in ballet, tap, and gymnastics for a year or two (my brother and sister were both in ballet and tap classes, though only my sister pursued them for long), but dropped out for the same reason. I never dressed in girl's clothes until I started transitioning, it just never occurred to me. The fact that my mother and sister have rather drab (by my standards at least) taste in clothes might have something to do with that, I don't know.
I was okay at sports, except that my asthma kept me from participating very much. I could do volleyball okay, though, and liked it alright. Tennis is also fun, though my asthma causes me trouble there on occasion. I always hated football, though. And basketball, because the other kids always played so roughly. I guess I preferred cooperative sports. And I hate watching any sport on TV.
It came as a bit of a surprise to me, once I transitioned, that I turned out to be a bit of a girly girl (with a bit of a goth streak). I rarely wear pants, and my wardrobe is mostly made up of pink and black. Maybe that's a reaction to my frustration with the limitations of male clothing. I felt that rather keenly in high school, but I didn't let myself think about it in terms of girl's clothes. About the only time I really thought about that stuff, besides wanting to cut off certain body parts, was when I'd think that I would have been better off as a girl. My knowledge of always having been a girl (in my head), was suppressed.
I suspect there are other memories and things that I've suppressed over the years that I haven't remembered yet, and may never. Like I said, I got altogether too good at suppressing memories.
Saless
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
I first knew
something was off in elementary. I remember looking at my mom and thinking how pretty she was, and how i hoped i could be like her when I grew up, and fighting that feeling, thinking I was going crazy, since i had learned that I was supposed to be a boy. Since then its been the same fight between this need to be female and a fear of insanity.
Realizing I was different (Update)
I've blogged probably entirely too often about my past and where I stand, but I'll go ahead and post the abridged version.
Basically I've known all my life that I wanted to be a girl. When I was like, four, my aunt entered my younger cousin in one of those little kid beauty pageants. God, she threw a fit. She hated that red dress she had to wear so much. I would have taken her place in an instant.
I didn't really become interested in girls in the traditional sense until I was 14, and even then I thought I'd stand a better chance at winning them over by being a friend... Yeah. You can guess how that went over :-)
Anyway, that's the short, short, short version. I've always been not normal. I continue to have people who refuse to believe I'm not female, which makes telling myself I'm not a difficult task to keep doing.
Edit:
Updating this for a more accurate answer, as it's something I've been thinking about quite a lot this last week.
My answer isn't exactly inaccurate, but only part of the story, but the rest is actually short-and-sweet.
I've always known I was 'different', so to speak, but up until recently I've been able to convince myself that I was just a cross-dresser, nothing more. Even though when I was engaged many moons ago, the topic of transitioning did come up with the fiancé briefly (and she promptly informed me that if I ever transitioned, even partially, she'd divorce me immediately. But the relationship died for other reasons, so not getting into that here =P)
So what changed? BigCloset, amusingly enough. I read a comment from someone identifying themselves as 'just a crossdresser', and as I read through their commentary it occured to me just HOW far beyond 'just' I really am. It's not that their comment had anything at all to do with me or anything, but that it was a catalyst to self-awareness.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm the poster child for the expression, "Denial's not just a river in Egypt", so that's not an easy thing for me to admit, but there you go :-)
So I guess basically I've always 'known' I was different, but actually being able to admit how deeply so is a more recent turn of events.
not quite the right question maybe
I can describe exactly the scene where I first began to question. I was 6 in the school playground and I was watching several girls play elastics. A sort of skip rope game where a long loop of elastic is stretched around two girls as the counters, chanters, who set the height as the others jump and dance over and through. I knew I wasn't 'expected' to take part or even be interested, though I did want to join in. I didn't quite understand why I often knew my reactions and thoughts were not quite in parallel with most boys. I wasn't too bothered by the shorts and shirt vs the little check dress and had no huge desire to jump into party dresses or whatever.
I could happily play soldiers or or pick flowers or sit and watch the creek burble along in the sunlight... was and still am reasonably athletic and okay at sports in general, though I lost interest as I moved into my teens. So I questioned and looked at me compared to others and tried to see where I fit. That took several years and I was 13/14 before I knew for sure. Exactly what to do about that took somewhat longer and there was a 5 year break mid stream in my 20's.
But here I am, just your average screwball getting by like most folks. Different? Yeah maybe, but isn't everyone, then not that different I think.
Kristina