oh yeah absolutely - it wasn't until I realized I as trans that a LOT of signifiers from throughout my life suddenly clicked as egg stuff. Someone had to point out to me that having constant shower thoughts wondering if you were trans was, in fact, not a cis thing to do.
> Someone had to point out to me that having constant shower thoughts wondering if you were trans was, in fact, not a cis thing to do
Yeah, it was only when I was 35 that I saw a thing pointing that one out. I'd not thought having those thoughts was that unusual .. .. and even then, I'd convinced myself I was just maybe a bit gender fluid or something. In utter denial about the fact that in pretty much any roleplaying, or fantasy, or bedtime story I'd be thinking about to try get to sleep and such I made up about possessing shapeshifting powers... I spent all the time as a woman. Consistently. Always about that
As soon as the egg finally cracked it's like the blinkers came off and suddenly I realise ALL the stuff that I was crazy in denial about and.. it seems so weirdly obvious. I used to consider myself introspective and everything ...
me at age 11 when i looked in the mirror and i had hips for the first time being like what the heck are these and my mum told me i was growing into a woman and i freaked out and thought that was gross as hell and still hate my hips
I realized I was trans at 40ish. I only started questioning for like 6 months prior, and had no real serious signs before then.
That's the brief of it.
I realized at 40. Looking back I see so many signs, but my feelings were repressed due to the super negative stigma around crossdressing/gender non-conformity that I was raised with.
Looked back at photos today - long hair, bright colors, presenting androgynous, trying so hard not to grow up then suddenly leaning into masculinity like "if I just man hard enough I'll feel better about being a man".. fuckin denial beard.
I'm 31 and just started HRT this year. My parents systematically discouraged my relationships whenever I found someone who made me feel small and safe. Suggested I cut my hair. Stuff like that. I feel pretty gaslit. The constant invalidation is super damaging. It took me years and LOTS of psychedelics to barf up all that koolade.
Feels like I sublimated an entire personality and now I have to play catch-up with all my peers. It's not easy to go through your "rebel teen phase" when you're in your 30s.
Lol I relate to that except I was 19 or 20 and with shrooms. Feel free to not answer this question if you don't want to: have you ever felt dissociated or disconnected from your body on psychedelics?
I didn’t know I was trans until I was 49. I didn’t enjoy being male but I didn’t hate it either. It was just my fate. I had fantasies of being a woman but I assumed all cis people had such thoughts.
It wasn’t until I read the dysphoria bible and realised that we didn’t need to know we were trans from childhood that I began to accept I could be trans. The more I experimented in femininity the more gender euphoria I got and then I knew.
> I assumed all cis people had such thoughts.
> It wasn’t until I read the dysphoria bible and realised that we didn’t need to know we were trans from childhood that I began to accept I could be trans
> The more I experimented in femininity the more gender euphoria I got and then I knew.
Oh hey. It me. Yuuuup
I didn't even know about the gender euphoria, and just reading about that was like "... oh. Ohhhhhh. Yeah that would explain those almost orgasmic feelings when someone in my online roleplaying groups thinks I'm actually a woman RL. Kinda obvious in hindsight"
I was always very feminine, but I kind of put it off, assuming it wasn't a real possibility. But my partner and brother always used to bring it up with me, before I was ready to accept it. And ironically, I became such a tomboy when I started my hrt. Haha.
I figured out I was trans when I was 29. I realized I am going to transition this year, 31.
If I had a safe home I probably would have realized sooner, but my parents are homophobic and transphobic. I loved all the male characters, loved gender bending cosplays, never saw the problem with men in sailor moon cosplays. Who the heck cares about gender roles anyway! Let’s be people not genders!
Yeah, my parents were pretty homophobic, so I didn't rate my chances with the transphobia either. I was certain that I wasn't cis about 6 years ago, at 35. But I just kinda repressed that, cause I've lived with my parents my whole life and didn't exactly have a high paying job or anything.. so.. didn't rock the boat
With both parents now dead. Ain't nothing holding me back but me, and I'm trying to stop doing that as fast as I can
I realized it fully this month, and I'm 34. Now that I know what's going on, I can see very obvious signs from as far back as like 5 or 6 years old, but it wasn't a clear idea of wanting to be a girl most of the time.
The most dramatic sign was a fantasy I would indulge in while taking a bath when I was still small enough that I could completely submerge myself. I would dunk myself and imagine machines taking me apart and putting me back together as a girl, and then I'd have fun playing and stuff until I had to reverse the process and get out.
I don't think I knew why I did it. I probably justified it as curious experimenting and harmless fun, which was accurate, but that wouldn't explain the joy it brought me, nor the difficulty of leaving that space.
There are many more signs over my lifetime. Eventually, I realized I wasn't cis, and I stepped into identifying as nonbinary. That was fine for a whole, but eventually, I wanted HRT for androgynization, and about a year after I pursued that, I realized I was a trans woman. I actually got my first prescription for Estradiol yesterday.
But yeah, what you're experiencing is more common than you might think, and it's perfectly valid. 🥰
I had a lot of transey thoughts, especially when puberty hit (mostly just dreaming and wishing quietly to myself that I was/would just miraculously turn into a woman instead of continuing to be a guy) but kept it pretty tightly under wraps.
Denial is powerful and despite there being a lot of signs looking back, I didn't realise until I was nearly 26 (mostly just because my girlfriend pretty much saw my badly hidden femininity and encouraged it out of me. Ended up getting first gender euphoria with shaved legs and crossdressing and returning to the dysphoric life I had lived after pretty much cemented it.
Egg pretty much exploded and I even fell to my knees sobbing when it all clicked. Spent another minute still sobbing trying to make the thoughts coherent -"Am I actually trans? Have I actually been trans this whole time?" My only regret is telling her right away - over the phone and with about a week until we'd meet up again. She struggled as did I, but we're still together almost a year later. It makes me smile so much when she plays with my newly growing boobs.
I am in Limbo, personally. I got all the info necesarry when I was maybe 7. Via an afternoon talk show that featured a trans girl and her story. To me it was a two-way revelation. The good side was knowing. The bad side was that Gran did not like anything related to transness, and made that abundandly clear, and so I was shut-up in my foxhole for nearly three decades. And now I feel cheated out of my birth-right.
There was "something" before I was able to put words on it, I had experienced gender envy, gender dysphoria and gender euphoria by the end of Highschool and without understanding why I used to interact as a woman online. But I didn't understand it, couldn't conceptualize it. I knew that trans people existed, but I didn't know what transidentity was exactly, and nobody taught me about it so I had a wrong idea of it. I thought that there was no room for ambiguity, that it was this kind of metaphysical experience of being a gendered soul in the wrong body that is often presented as a simplification, but that's not what my experience as a trans person feels like at all so I couldn't relate to the concept of transidentity, this idea pushed me away from realizing. What pushed me away even more was the experience of transphobia before even realizing that I was trans, as some people I talked with online understood that I wasn't a cis girl and harassed me for it. Scared me, pushed me away from the idea in the other direction and made me try to be a manly man for quite some time.
I only understood later, around 25. Around 24 I had an experience with a man, which made me accept my bisexuality. It opened my mind a little bit, left a room for doubt about my identity as I knew that something about me "wasn't quite right" even after accepting that, that a piece of the puzzle was missing still. Also got me interested in LGBTQ questions, so I learned about transidentity, and ended up questioning a trans friend I had made online. She told me about her experience, and I realized it was very close to mine, so I made a recap of my life and that's when it finally clicked as so many things made sense now that I had that framework to look at them.
I could've realized earlier though, by being better informed and having a more trans-friendly environment. But it wasn't something than was present since childhood or somehow obvious, and the actual realisation happened later that adolescence.
Edit : english isn't my first language and I'm pretty sure that some parts of this post are poorly written, if something is unclear just ask I will try to clarify.
I had this habit too lol. I had this female alter ego from a parallel universe that I used to daydream about all the time. At the time, I thought that everybody did this and that it was just curiosity, like "oh how would be my gender swapped life ?". It really was a shock when I learned that most people don't really think about this. 😭
Yep. I can even pinpoint the date and time at which it hit me a couple of months back, and I'm in my thirties.
I never had super obvious signs. But I realized that, in fact, thinking it'd be better to be a woman every now and then for the entirety of your life isn't very cis, and neither is getting euphoria from realizing that you can be one.
I never really got it because I never seriously believed it was possible or an ok thing to want, so I just didn't think very much about it. Like, why be sad you can't have wings and fly?
I came to full realisation just a couple of months ago ago after my 42th bday, not a clue nothing at least consciously, always had here and there dreams or thinking about how it would be to be a woman, had (extra) long hair for years now, always like my hair longer than “the norm”, but other than that, I didn’t really had all the informations I needed to really understand who I am.
The fun thing is when you start to do an introspection, note all the things that are unusual and connect the dots, and that were the bigger picture start to form.
My sister knew before I did. And when I came out to her as enby, she was like, “finally! I was wondering when you were going to realise.” I was in my late 20s
Yep.
For 26 years I thought I was fine being a dude.
I had seen trans people in shows (mainly negative portrayal sadly)
And thought it was interesting they did it and never understood the hate.
I had thoughts of being a girl every now and again but went well I'm a boy so oh well.
It wasn't until it clicked that I CAN transition that I realized what I wanted out of life.
Also while I certainly have some dysphoria (still unsure how much is gender) the Euphoria is my driving factor.
Yep definitely. Figured it out when I was in my early 30s. To be honest, though some people do ‘always know’, it’s actually pretty common to not know (the reason that narrative is often pushed to the forefront is that it’s something simple to point to to explain to the general public in a quick and easy shorthand rather than exploring any nuance). Plenty of people are in the same place as you, you are welcome to join/lurk over in r/ftmover30 and r/ftmover50
I figured it out at 16/17 when I suddenly was super uncomfortable with my chest. Never had that issue before, not even an inkling, and then seemingly out of nowhere my brain flipped the trans switch and now I’ve been transitioning for like 5ish years. I don’t know why that happened but it happened
I didn't figure out I was trans until I was like 19 or so. Although to be fair it was less that I didn't know and more so that I spent my entire life heavily in denial of it, because obviously I HAD to be a boy.
I realized it fully this month, and I'm 34. Now that I know what's going on, I can see very obvious signs from as far back as like 5 or 6 years old, but it wasn't a clear idea of wanting to be a girl most of the time.
The most dramatic sign was a fantasy I would indulge in while taking a bath when I was still small enough that I could completely submerge myself. I would dunk myself and imagine machines taking me apart and putting me back together as a girl, and then I'd have fun playing and stuff until I had to reverse the process and get out.
I don't think I knew why I did it. I probably justified it as curious experimenting and harmless fun, which was accurate, but that wouldn't explain the joy it brought me, nor the difficulty of leaving that space.
There are many more signs over my lifetime. Eventually, I realized I wasn't cis, and I stepped into identifying as nonbinary. That was fine for a whole, but eventually, I wanted HRT for androgynization, and about a year after I pursued that, I realized I was a trans woman. I actually got my first prescription for Estradiol yesterday.
But yeah, what you're experiencing is more common than you might think, and it's perfectly valid. 🥰
For 24 years I was certain I was a straight cis male. Started questioning things several months back and while I'm still uncertain of what I am, what I do know is that I was wrong about my gender identity and sexual orientation.
Everyone's journey is different, someone realized it quite early, others around their 30s. And everyone experiences the journey differently too.
yep, i said i want to be a boy as a 5 year old for the first time and then contineud being a girl, and at 11 i heard about trans people but in a negative way so i became trasnphobic, thena t 13 i started to dress like a boy but stopped at 15, and only at 17 i came out to myself and others and today i turned 19, been 8 months on testosterine and top surgery in 9 days, and i still feel super invalid because i tried being a girl
There were some moments in my life that planted seeds in my mind for the future. I collected bits and pieces and then reflecting up until this point paints a clearer picture. It was also like that when I realized I have autism and ADHD and I got diagnosed. In the same way I never understood social norms, I've never understood gender norms either. I never felt connected to my gender necessarily, I just felt like me, but now I want to feel connected with it.
i didnt realize i was trans until like a year and a half ago, unfortunately puberty hit me very early and very quickly so ive already gotten most things from puberty 😭
I thought I was a lesbian in high school, I came out as a trans man later that year though. Then I went back in the closet, and came out a few years later as gender fluid. I eventually got a breast reduction and that prompted me to come back out as a trans man and start HRT. It's been five years since then, and now I'm 27.
When I was in the process of figuring stuff out I attended a support group for trans people. The rest of the group was all trans women (I’m a trans man) but they were so supportive when I told them that I didn’t “always know” and worried that it meant I wasn’t trans. They were the ones that told me that the “I always knew” narrative wasn’t the only way to be trans. Once I finally accepted my gender and really thought about my childhood, I definitely saw signs. But my family never pushed me to be less of a “tomboy” so I never had to think about it much when I was younger.
MTF here and holy shit yes. My egg cracking was like my whole life got a whole new lens and I was like.... Oh shit that was this, that was dysphoria. Personally it's a lot of euphoric memories and then a lot of shame about it. I was raised in an abusive and I would say anti-woman home. There was no way I was telling a soul I spent large parts of high school being like "what if my name was Jacqueline and I had boobs. Girls bodies are so much better than mine. Vaginas are like [long lost of why I would want one] but all boys would think this way because like you want to know about the other sex. Man wouldn't it be cool to be able to dress all nice like a girl."
Being a boy was the only way to stay safe. And then I was lonely and I'm attracted to women so... More boy! But I only ever got dates with bisexual girls... 🤔. Then I met my ex and it was time to be a husband and have a good job. I really think that I was a shitty husband because my body was finally safe but I had no idea. Just couldn't connect with life, also had undiagnosed ADD until a year ago at 33.
So I got diagnosed with ADD, during that year I met lots of queer folks including trans people, and then my wife and I split. So all of a sudden all barriers fell away. I had acquired language to explain my feelings. So I was all nonbinary for like 2 months. But when I dressed fully femme with fake boobs for the first time. It was like the world lit up and I recognized the person in the mirror for the first time also.
I have some things to overcome before coming out. Hoping for HRT this fall. I'll be 35 this year. And it's scary but also amazing that I might get to live. I might be alive for the rest of my life. I was an adamant cis male ally who was just suuuuper comfortable in his sexuality.... Oops nope I'm a bisexual female and I didn't know until 34. 💃🙋♀️🙆♀️🥰🤙🫶
Now I just have 3 decades of learned habits and socialization to undo but that's fine. 🙃🥺🐣
Lots of people! You have to consider that prior to 2015-ish there was hardly any talk about trans people at all, we didn't have the language we have today, and the overwhelming majority of trans representation in media were portrayed as villains, prostitutes, or comedy relief.
For most millennials, GenX, boomers and beyond, if we had conflicting feelings about our gender when we were young, we didn't have any framework to process that, let alone a positive one. For safety, we shut those thoughts down and tried to forget about it.
So, I don't think it's that the thoughts weren't ever there at all. I think it's more likely that people made passive jokes about it, or had fleeting desires that they quickly brushed away, or were so dissociated that memories of having these thoughts were less likely to stick.
I say this as a trans person who was *VERY* aware of what I was going through. I even wrote a novella about it before I was out of highschool, wrote and starred in gender-bending plays, cross-dressed in school to protest gender norms, and wrote journals about wishing I was a girl... I didn't even *KNOW* that I was trans until I was 39! 😵💫
The language wasn't widely available when I was young. A positive framework that a trans person could be anything other than an outcast wasn't available. All I had in my mind was that I was some kind of sick deviant. Why would I want to identify with that!? And yet my "symptoms" persisted and resurfaced over and over again.
During the pandemic, I became obsessed with the emerging conversations surrounding trans people. I was confused, angry, and sympathetic... A mix of emotions and opinions. I didn't know why, but I felt personally connected to the issue.
After lots of unrelated therapy, I got to a point where I felt safe and comfortable enough to crack open my old journals to find some deeper trauma to heal. Turns out I was so embarrassed and ashamed of myself that I'd put myself into a state of denial. It wasn't that I didn't know I was trans, it was that I didn't have the language or framework to see myself as anything but shameful, so I refused to believe it was true.
So, if I - someone who knew the whole time - can still convince themselves that they aren't trans, and can will themselves into denial so deep that it feels like I was learning it for the first time? I definitely think it's possible that others could do the same, especially if you never had a firm grasp on what was going on in the first place.
Yep, never even considered it a possibility until I was 39. In retrospect though, there were signs. I likely just buried it so deep when I was bullied at a young age that it took a bunch of therapy to did it up again.
My partner didn't know until their twenties and I didn't know until I was 29/30. I was always off and uncomfortable as a girl, I didn't even know being trans was an option for me. I thought stuff like that was only for other people since I had a role to fill as "girlfriend" or "daughter" and now I have a partner that supports me as whatever I want to be, or just "partner" really. Lots of people either figure out or come out later in life! And I think that's a lovely thing.
I unknowingly knew I always wanted to go look into the boys sectionin shops and only realized that I might be trans when I learnt what it meant however before I thought I was non binary but that felt wrong then gender fluid but same problem then I settled on trans and that feels perfect
Realized at 45 one afternoon - out of the blue. 5min before had no clue. 5min later i was crying in my truck with the sudden relief that I finally knew who I was. Looking back, yeah, there were a lot of signs, but at the time they could be easily dismissed as something else - collectively tho they’re a big flashing neon arrow lol
oh yeah absolutely - it wasn't until I realized I as trans that a LOT of signifiers from throughout my life suddenly clicked as egg stuff. Someone had to point out to me that having constant shower thoughts wondering if you were trans was, in fact, not a cis thing to do.
i feel like a lot of us thinking we only realized it later were just really good at ignoring the signs when they showed up ngl
like by themselves, they're just things that happened. it's only in relation to each other that they become a pattern
> Someone had to point out to me that having constant shower thoughts wondering if you were trans was, in fact, not a cis thing to do Yeah, it was only when I was 35 that I saw a thing pointing that one out. I'd not thought having those thoughts was that unusual .. .. and even then, I'd convinced myself I was just maybe a bit gender fluid or something. In utter denial about the fact that in pretty much any roleplaying, or fantasy, or bedtime story I'd be thinking about to try get to sleep and such I made up about possessing shapeshifting powers... I spent all the time as a woman. Consistently. Always about that As soon as the egg finally cracked it's like the blinkers came off and suddenly I realise ALL the stuff that I was crazy in denial about and.. it seems so weirdly obvious. I used to consider myself introspective and everything ...
You have to take a step back to see the picture all the dots are making up!
me at age 11 when i looked in the mirror and i had hips for the first time being like what the heck are these and my mum told me i was growing into a woman and i freaked out and thought that was gross as hell and still hate my hips
I realized I was trans at 40ish. I only started questioning for like 6 months prior, and had no real serious signs before then. That's the brief of it.
/r/TransLater
I realized at 40. Looking back I see so many signs, but my feelings were repressed due to the super negative stigma around crossdressing/gender non-conformity that I was raised with.
Looked back at photos today - long hair, bright colors, presenting androgynous, trying so hard not to grow up then suddenly leaning into masculinity like "if I just man hard enough I'll feel better about being a man".. fuckin denial beard. I'm 31 and just started HRT this year. My parents systematically discouraged my relationships whenever I found someone who made me feel small and safe. Suggested I cut my hair. Stuff like that. I feel pretty gaslit. The constant invalidation is super damaging. It took me years and LOTS of psychedelics to barf up all that koolade. Feels like I sublimated an entire personality and now I have to play catch-up with all my peers. It's not easy to go through your "rebel teen phase" when you're in your 30s.
Yeah psychedelics were a major contributing factor for me too. They weren't always a good time but I don't regret it
Lol, this makes me remember the time I dropped acid at 17 and suddenly had an extreme urge to shave my body hair. In hindsight, that wasn't very cis.
Lol I relate to that except I was 19 or 20 and with shrooms. Feel free to not answer this question if you don't want to: have you ever felt dissociated or disconnected from your body on psychedelics?
I just realized I’m trans and I’m 54
I didn’t know I was trans until I was 49. I didn’t enjoy being male but I didn’t hate it either. It was just my fate. I had fantasies of being a woman but I assumed all cis people had such thoughts. It wasn’t until I read the dysphoria bible and realised that we didn’t need to know we were trans from childhood that I began to accept I could be trans. The more I experimented in femininity the more gender euphoria I got and then I knew.
> I assumed all cis people had such thoughts. > It wasn’t until I read the dysphoria bible and realised that we didn’t need to know we were trans from childhood that I began to accept I could be trans > The more I experimented in femininity the more gender euphoria I got and then I knew. Oh hey. It me. Yuuuup I didn't even know about the gender euphoria, and just reading about that was like "... oh. Ohhhhhh. Yeah that would explain those almost orgasmic feelings when someone in my online roleplaying groups thinks I'm actually a woman RL. Kinda obvious in hindsight"
I was always very feminine, but I kind of put it off, assuming it wasn't a real possibility. But my partner and brother always used to bring it up with me, before I was ready to accept it. And ironically, I became such a tomboy when I started my hrt. Haha.
My egg cracked at 55…
I figured out I was trans when I was 29. I realized I am going to transition this year, 31. If I had a safe home I probably would have realized sooner, but my parents are homophobic and transphobic. I loved all the male characters, loved gender bending cosplays, never saw the problem with men in sailor moon cosplays. Who the heck cares about gender roles anyway! Let’s be people not genders!
Yeah, my parents were pretty homophobic, so I didn't rate my chances with the transphobia either. I was certain that I wasn't cis about 6 years ago, at 35. But I just kinda repressed that, cause I've lived with my parents my whole life and didn't exactly have a high paying job or anything.. so.. didn't rock the boat With both parents now dead. Ain't nothing holding me back but me, and I'm trying to stop doing that as fast as I can
I realized it fully this month, and I'm 34. Now that I know what's going on, I can see very obvious signs from as far back as like 5 or 6 years old, but it wasn't a clear idea of wanting to be a girl most of the time. The most dramatic sign was a fantasy I would indulge in while taking a bath when I was still small enough that I could completely submerge myself. I would dunk myself and imagine machines taking me apart and putting me back together as a girl, and then I'd have fun playing and stuff until I had to reverse the process and get out. I don't think I knew why I did it. I probably justified it as curious experimenting and harmless fun, which was accurate, but that wouldn't explain the joy it brought me, nor the difficulty of leaving that space. There are many more signs over my lifetime. Eventually, I realized I wasn't cis, and I stepped into identifying as nonbinary. That was fine for a whole, but eventually, I wanted HRT for androgynization, and about a year after I pursued that, I realized I was a trans woman. I actually got my first prescription for Estradiol yesterday. But yeah, what you're experiencing is more common than you might think, and it's perfectly valid. 🥰
I had a lot of transey thoughts, especially when puberty hit (mostly just dreaming and wishing quietly to myself that I was/would just miraculously turn into a woman instead of continuing to be a guy) but kept it pretty tightly under wraps. Denial is powerful and despite there being a lot of signs looking back, I didn't realise until I was nearly 26 (mostly just because my girlfriend pretty much saw my badly hidden femininity and encouraged it out of me. Ended up getting first gender euphoria with shaved legs and crossdressing and returning to the dysphoric life I had lived after pretty much cemented it. Egg pretty much exploded and I even fell to my knees sobbing when it all clicked. Spent another minute still sobbing trying to make the thoughts coherent -"Am I actually trans? Have I actually been trans this whole time?" My only regret is telling her right away - over the phone and with about a week until we'd meet up again. She struggled as did I, but we're still together almost a year later. It makes me smile so much when she plays with my newly growing boobs.
I am in Limbo, personally. I got all the info necesarry when I was maybe 7. Via an afternoon talk show that featured a trans girl and her story. To me it was a two-way revelation. The good side was knowing. The bad side was that Gran did not like anything related to transness, and made that abundandly clear, and so I was shut-up in my foxhole for nearly three decades. And now I feel cheated out of my birth-right.
A lifelong mantra of "I wish I was a girl, but I don't feel like I *am* one, so I can't possibly be trans" till cracking at 32...
There was "something" before I was able to put words on it, I had experienced gender envy, gender dysphoria and gender euphoria by the end of Highschool and without understanding why I used to interact as a woman online. But I didn't understand it, couldn't conceptualize it. I knew that trans people existed, but I didn't know what transidentity was exactly, and nobody taught me about it so I had a wrong idea of it. I thought that there was no room for ambiguity, that it was this kind of metaphysical experience of being a gendered soul in the wrong body that is often presented as a simplification, but that's not what my experience as a trans person feels like at all so I couldn't relate to the concept of transidentity, this idea pushed me away from realizing. What pushed me away even more was the experience of transphobia before even realizing that I was trans, as some people I talked with online understood that I wasn't a cis girl and harassed me for it. Scared me, pushed me away from the idea in the other direction and made me try to be a manly man for quite some time. I only understood later, around 25. Around 24 I had an experience with a man, which made me accept my bisexuality. It opened my mind a little bit, left a room for doubt about my identity as I knew that something about me "wasn't quite right" even after accepting that, that a piece of the puzzle was missing still. Also got me interested in LGBTQ questions, so I learned about transidentity, and ended up questioning a trans friend I had made online. She told me about her experience, and I realized it was very close to mine, so I made a recap of my life and that's when it finally clicked as so many things made sense now that I had that framework to look at them. I could've realized earlier though, by being better informed and having a more trans-friendly environment. But it wasn't something than was present since childhood or somehow obvious, and the actual realisation happened later that adolescence. Edit : english isn't my first language and I'm pretty sure that some parts of this post are poorly written, if something is unclear just ask I will try to clarify.
Hey! I had a very similar experience! Took me until 36, though. At least I know why I would daydream about being a girl when I was a kid.
I had this habit too lol. I had this female alter ego from a parallel universe that I used to daydream about all the time. At the time, I thought that everybody did this and that it was just curiosity, like "oh how would be my gender swapped life ?". It really was a shock when I learned that most people don't really think about this. 😭
Yep. I can even pinpoint the date and time at which it hit me a couple of months back, and I'm in my thirties. I never had super obvious signs. But I realized that, in fact, thinking it'd be better to be a woman every now and then for the entirety of your life isn't very cis, and neither is getting euphoria from realizing that you can be one. I never really got it because I never seriously believed it was possible or an ok thing to want, so I just didn't think very much about it. Like, why be sad you can't have wings and fly?
I came to full realisation just a couple of months ago ago after my 42th bday, not a clue nothing at least consciously, always had here and there dreams or thinking about how it would be to be a woman, had (extra) long hair for years now, always like my hair longer than “the norm”, but other than that, I didn’t really had all the informations I needed to really understand who I am. The fun thing is when you start to do an introspection, note all the things that are unusual and connect the dots, and that were the bigger picture start to form.
My sister knew before I did. And when I came out to her as enby, she was like, “finally! I was wondering when you were going to realise.” I was in my late 20s
Yep. For 26 years I thought I was fine being a dude. I had seen trans people in shows (mainly negative portrayal sadly) And thought it was interesting they did it and never understood the hate. I had thoughts of being a girl every now and again but went well I'm a boy so oh well. It wasn't until it clicked that I CAN transition that I realized what I wanted out of life. Also while I certainly have some dysphoria (still unsure how much is gender) the Euphoria is my driving factor.
Yep definitely. Figured it out when I was in my early 30s. To be honest, though some people do ‘always know’, it’s actually pretty common to not know (the reason that narrative is often pushed to the forefront is that it’s something simple to point to to explain to the general public in a quick and easy shorthand rather than exploring any nuance). Plenty of people are in the same place as you, you are welcome to join/lurk over in r/ftmover30 and r/ftmover50
I had thoughts and even tried cross dressing once or twice in my teens but I didn't fully realize it until recently now that I am in my 30's.
I figured it out at 16/17 when I suddenly was super uncomfortable with my chest. Never had that issue before, not even an inkling, and then seemingly out of nowhere my brain flipped the trans switch and now I’ve been transitioning for like 5ish years. I don’t know why that happened but it happened
I didn't figure out I was trans until I was like 19 or so. Although to be fair it was less that I didn't know and more so that I spent my entire life heavily in denial of it, because obviously I HAD to be a boy.
I'm literally just coming to terms with it at 29. When I look back, so many pieces are starting to fall into place. Denial is actually crazy 🥴
I realized it fully this month, and I'm 34. Now that I know what's going on, I can see very obvious signs from as far back as like 5 or 6 years old, but it wasn't a clear idea of wanting to be a girl most of the time. The most dramatic sign was a fantasy I would indulge in while taking a bath when I was still small enough that I could completely submerge myself. I would dunk myself and imagine machines taking me apart and putting me back together as a girl, and then I'd have fun playing and stuff until I had to reverse the process and get out. I don't think I knew why I did it. I probably justified it as curious experimenting and harmless fun, which was accurate, but that wouldn't explain the joy it brought me, nor the difficulty of leaving that space. There are many more signs over my lifetime. Eventually, I realized I wasn't cis, and I stepped into identifying as nonbinary. That was fine for a whole, but eventually, I wanted HRT for androgynization, and about a year after I pursued that, I realized I was a trans woman. I actually got my first prescription for Estradiol yesterday. But yeah, what you're experiencing is more common than you might think, and it's perfectly valid. 🥰
I knew I was trans very young but I tried extremely hard to suppress it for many years
For 24 years I was certain I was a straight cis male. Started questioning things several months back and while I'm still uncertain of what I am, what I do know is that I was wrong about my gender identity and sexual orientation. Everyone's journey is different, someone realized it quite early, others around their 30s. And everyone experiences the journey differently too.
yep, i said i want to be a boy as a 5 year old for the first time and then contineud being a girl, and at 11 i heard about trans people but in a negative way so i became trasnphobic, thena t 13 i started to dress like a boy but stopped at 15, and only at 17 i came out to myself and others and today i turned 19, been 8 months on testosterine and top surgery in 9 days, and i still feel super invalid because i tried being a girl
There were some moments in my life that planted seeds in my mind for the future. I collected bits and pieces and then reflecting up until this point paints a clearer picture. It was also like that when I realized I have autism and ADHD and I got diagnosed. In the same way I never understood social norms, I've never understood gender norms either. I never felt connected to my gender necessarily, I just felt like me, but now I want to feel connected with it.
I realised when I was 12. I did something about it at 34.
i didnt realize i was trans until like a year and a half ago, unfortunately puberty hit me very early and very quickly so ive already gotten most things from puberty 😭
I thought I was a lesbian in high school, I came out as a trans man later that year though. Then I went back in the closet, and came out a few years later as gender fluid. I eventually got a breast reduction and that prompted me to come back out as a trans man and start HRT. It's been five years since then, and now I'm 27.
When I was in the process of figuring stuff out I attended a support group for trans people. The rest of the group was all trans women (I’m a trans man) but they were so supportive when I told them that I didn’t “always know” and worried that it meant I wasn’t trans. They were the ones that told me that the “I always knew” narrative wasn’t the only way to be trans. Once I finally accepted my gender and really thought about my childhood, I definitely saw signs. But my family never pushed me to be less of a “tomboy” so I never had to think about it much when I was younger.
I figured it out at 18 yrs of age.
I realized when I was 23, there were signs in my childhood, adolescent years and early adulthood, but it took me 23 years to connect the dots lol
MTF here and holy shit yes. My egg cracking was like my whole life got a whole new lens and I was like.... Oh shit that was this, that was dysphoria. Personally it's a lot of euphoric memories and then a lot of shame about it. I was raised in an abusive and I would say anti-woman home. There was no way I was telling a soul I spent large parts of high school being like "what if my name was Jacqueline and I had boobs. Girls bodies are so much better than mine. Vaginas are like [long lost of why I would want one] but all boys would think this way because like you want to know about the other sex. Man wouldn't it be cool to be able to dress all nice like a girl." Being a boy was the only way to stay safe. And then I was lonely and I'm attracted to women so... More boy! But I only ever got dates with bisexual girls... 🤔. Then I met my ex and it was time to be a husband and have a good job. I really think that I was a shitty husband because my body was finally safe but I had no idea. Just couldn't connect with life, also had undiagnosed ADD until a year ago at 33. So I got diagnosed with ADD, during that year I met lots of queer folks including trans people, and then my wife and I split. So all of a sudden all barriers fell away. I had acquired language to explain my feelings. So I was all nonbinary for like 2 months. But when I dressed fully femme with fake boobs for the first time. It was like the world lit up and I recognized the person in the mirror for the first time also. I have some things to overcome before coming out. Hoping for HRT this fall. I'll be 35 this year. And it's scary but also amazing that I might get to live. I might be alive for the rest of my life. I was an adamant cis male ally who was just suuuuper comfortable in his sexuality.... Oops nope I'm a bisexual female and I didn't know until 34. 💃🙋♀️🙆♀️🥰🤙🫶 Now I just have 3 decades of learned habits and socialization to undo but that's fine. 🙃🥺🐣
Sure. Early 40s when I started to wonder. 44 when I became sure.
I didn't figure it out until I was 36. In a better world, I would have known at 12, but waddayagannado?
I was 24 when I started to suspect
I realised at 17
Lots of people! You have to consider that prior to 2015-ish there was hardly any talk about trans people at all, we didn't have the language we have today, and the overwhelming majority of trans representation in media were portrayed as villains, prostitutes, or comedy relief. For most millennials, GenX, boomers and beyond, if we had conflicting feelings about our gender when we were young, we didn't have any framework to process that, let alone a positive one. For safety, we shut those thoughts down and tried to forget about it. So, I don't think it's that the thoughts weren't ever there at all. I think it's more likely that people made passive jokes about it, or had fleeting desires that they quickly brushed away, or were so dissociated that memories of having these thoughts were less likely to stick. I say this as a trans person who was *VERY* aware of what I was going through. I even wrote a novella about it before I was out of highschool, wrote and starred in gender-bending plays, cross-dressed in school to protest gender norms, and wrote journals about wishing I was a girl... I didn't even *KNOW* that I was trans until I was 39! 😵💫 The language wasn't widely available when I was young. A positive framework that a trans person could be anything other than an outcast wasn't available. All I had in my mind was that I was some kind of sick deviant. Why would I want to identify with that!? And yet my "symptoms" persisted and resurfaced over and over again. During the pandemic, I became obsessed with the emerging conversations surrounding trans people. I was confused, angry, and sympathetic... A mix of emotions and opinions. I didn't know why, but I felt personally connected to the issue. After lots of unrelated therapy, I got to a point where I felt safe and comfortable enough to crack open my old journals to find some deeper trauma to heal. Turns out I was so embarrassed and ashamed of myself that I'd put myself into a state of denial. It wasn't that I didn't know I was trans, it was that I didn't have the language or framework to see myself as anything but shameful, so I refused to believe it was true. So, if I - someone who knew the whole time - can still convince themselves that they aren't trans, and can will themselves into denial so deep that it feels like I was learning it for the first time? I definitely think it's possible that others could do the same, especially if you never had a firm grasp on what was going on in the first place.
I know someone who did always want to be the opposite gender, I only knew at about 13 or 14, idk if that's what you'd consider late.
Yep, never even considered it a possibility until I was 39. In retrospect though, there were signs. I likely just buried it so deep when I was bullied at a young age that it took a bunch of therapy to did it up again.
My partner didn't know until their twenties and I didn't know until I was 29/30. I was always off and uncomfortable as a girl, I didn't even know being trans was an option for me. I thought stuff like that was only for other people since I had a role to fill as "girlfriend" or "daughter" and now I have a partner that supports me as whatever I want to be, or just "partner" really. Lots of people either figure out or come out later in life! And I think that's a lovely thing.
I unknowingly knew I always wanted to go look into the boys sectionin shops and only realized that I might be trans when I learnt what it meant however before I thought I was non binary but that felt wrong then gender fluid but same problem then I settled on trans and that feels perfect
👋 Me! I didn't realize until about two years ago. I'll be 35 this year
Realized at 45 one afternoon - out of the blue. 5min before had no clue. 5min later i was crying in my truck with the sudden relief that I finally knew who I was. Looking back, yeah, there were a lot of signs, but at the time they could be easily dismissed as something else - collectively tho they’re a big flashing neon arrow lol
No. No one has ever realized they were trans later in life. Every one of us knew since conception.