OK so like when did you suddenly know????

[Inna]

As I have grown up with the idea that I was a GIRL, well, let me rephrase, that I was not a BOY, and then started to like to wear exclusively girls attire in secrecy, where else! This started before any sexuality had surfaced, but quickly became somehow tight into sexuality when it started to become prevalent.

I am not sure that out of extreme confusion in my brain at that time I knew without the doubt that I was a Girl, but I felt that being a Boy wasn't right and being a Girl would had been a fulfillment of desire to be true.

Then at age 16 I had a epiphany moment a eureka of self identity when one day, walking from school I KNEW right then and there that [SIZE="3"]I in fact WAS a GIRL!!!!![/SIZE]
The awakening moment lasted a day and slowly, due to denial, drifted into subconscious to surface 26 years later with gazers of emotional turmoil.

I have read here recollection that some of you didn't know until real late in life, but I am so hesitant to buy into this realm, as I believe there had to be some, perhaps minute, perhaps faint, but some inclination in early years of some sort of glimpse into desire to be or just faint stimuli leading to the thought of femininity.

[SIZE="3"]So, when you really digress into your past do you faintly see the possibility that you knew all along but denied or didn't really pay attention to that faint dream whisper??????[/SIZE]

[kimdl93]

I knew I was different from my other male siblings. I didn't know what that difference was...except that it generated a lot of teasing and seemed to do with wanting to do girly things. Many decades later, after living most of my life presenting as male, I still can't say I"m a girl...but I can say that I feel very much at ease presenting as a woman to the best of my ability. So, although I'm leaning towards girl, I know I'm some sort of blend.

[ArleneRaquel]

For moi it was gradual, starting at age eight, at age 56 I decided to live/present as a woman. It was a wise choice.

[Meghan]

I think this a really good, introspective question.

I personally didn't fully accept this was me until about 6 months ago. In order to get there I had to tell my wife everything, including about here and the posts I have been making since I joined in Feb 2009.

After our first big talk I assembled all of my posts and sent them to her in one document so she can read at her leisure...and only after that was I able to accept this without a huge overhang of guilt.

Looking back, I have to believe I knew this wasn't really going away around age 10/11. I refused to hang out with the boys and spent my recesses with the girls. Past that age, I didn't have any meaningful relationships with men, all of my friends from that point on were girls.

Not too long after that, puberty set in I was really angry that my voice changed, I got hairy and horny. There is no way I could have stopped the process back then, but looking back I know I would have if I thought there was a chance it could work. But, I did hope every night thereafter that I would somehow wake up as a girl...

Meghan

[Wildaboutheels]

I think a very common MISCONCEPTION here at this Forum, is that EVERY person who wears "clothing items" designed for females, is doing it to appear more feminine.

Categorically NOT true.

Per Dear Abby/Ann Landers, years and years ago - probably longer than 10 - MANY men wear women's underwear and or pantyhose, simply because they like it/find it more comfortable or because they find it useful. I STILL have the article.

And ya know, both of them were around long before the Internet. So you know THEY can be trusted. If you can't trust them, you can't trust anyone.

[Beverley Sims]

Per Dear Abby/Ann Landers, years and years ago - probably longer than 10 - MANY men wear women's underwear and or pantyhose, simply because they like it/find it more comfortable or because they find it useful. I STILL have the article.

And ya know, both of them were around long before the Internet. So you know THEY can be trusted. If you can't trust them, you can't trust anyone.

Father Christmas and Santa Claus fall into similar categories too.
If dear Abby answered all her mail and replied to it the postal services of the world would still be sorting it.

[Foxglove]

I think a very common MISCONCEPTION here at this Forum, is that EVERY person who wears "clothing items" designed for females, is doing it to appear more feminine.

Categorically NOT true.

I think it's a very common MISCONCEPTION here at this forum that there is such a MISCONCEPTION here at this forum. Jeez, you don't have to be here very long before you know what people are saying.

Anyway, regarding the original question, when I look back on things I think I knew without really knowing at an early age. E.g., when I was probably around 7 or 8, sometimes when I was in bed at night, I'd wrap the blankets tight around my legs so that I could pretend to be wearing a long dress. There was also the time at about the same age when a girl just up the street invited me to put on one of her dresses. I didn't do it because I knew it was wrong. But I wanted to, and the girl started laughing at me because she could tell I wanted to.

And yet my brain never really switched on. Even when I got into my teen years and was fairly actively CDing, I didn't think about what I was doing. I as pretty good at that sort of thing in my youth--doing stuff without wanting to think about it.

Annabelle

[Inna]

I think a very common MISCONCEPTION here at this Forum, is that EVERY person who wears "clothing items" designed for females, is doing it to appear more feminine.

Categorically NOT true.

Per Dear Abby/Ann Landers, years and years ago - probably longer than 10 - MANY men wear women's underwear and or pantyhose, simply because they like it/find it more comfortable or because they find it useful. I STILL have the article.

And ya know, both of them were around long before the Internet. So you know THEY can be trusted. If you can't trust them, you can't trust anyone.

Extremely disagree with that point of view! However I give in to the notion that views are simply scenarios of presumption in someone's mind!!!!
However, In my humble opinion, any male wearing womans designated attire, what ever it may be, wears it because:
1. they don't know that it is exclusive to female attire
2. they need to wear a medical garment only available made for females (which is probably a cop out, LOL)
3. they want to feel and exude feminine charge within them selves.
4. they project an image of a female in the mirror congruent with how they see their alter ego, yet separate from their self.

[SIZE="1"]I reserve the right to know everything as perceived by my own self, result to have tendency to be right, and at the same time to be utterly wrong about everything yet confined by limitations of my own imagination and learned knowledge obtained from external stimuli. If you feel you must complain, please direct your communication to Innas complaint department, PO bOX 000001 Kabul, ooooo1 Afganistan[/SIZE]

[Karren H]

Never ever said I was a girl.... or wanted to be a girl....... just have to dress like them.... plain and simple.... don't know why.... don't care why......

[Inna]

Never ever said I was a girl.... or wanted to be a girl....... just have to dress like them.... plain and simple.... don't know why.... don't care why......

Hmmm, I somehow expected a bit more from you The OP does not state that anyone is or wants to be a GIRL, simply of knowing of being different and perhaps not entirely a BOY. Surely you are not saying that CDers wear woman's clothes to be more manly.......??????

[Wildaboutheels]

One can "wish" as hard as they want. Or until the cows come home. STILL won't change the FACTS.

NO ONE HERE IS A MIND READER.

So, pretending to know how and why EVERY single person thinks/does what they do is simply "unproductive" and not a very good influence on the newer members here.

[KellyJameson]

Wearing clothing will not turn you into a woman but it may help you discover that you identify as one and to what degree.

In relation to gender who you identify with or as can be a pure expression of one or the other or a blending of both that is fluid.

There is little that belongs only to men or only to women and much of what one gender is overlaps onto the other gender such that some women are thought to be masculine and some men thought to be feminine.

Everyone starts out female at conception so it is a change from one to another, a movement from the female to being less female that makes the male, the removal of the Fe from the male so it becomes a question of how much of the Fe was removed.

Technically all males are in some sense female even though there are males who will become angry at the thought of this because it feels like an attack (insult) to them.

My conscious mind accepted what those in power told me, that I am a boy but my subconscious mind believed strongly and completely that this was not true so consciously I became very interested in anything that dealt in metamorphism such as the caterpillar into a butterfly.

I became obsessed with trying to learn how this was done because I wanted to physically change also, but I did not understand the implications of why and what I wanted to change into.

Also we are attracted to what we identify with, who we relate with and to. I sought out the company of those who identified as transgendered or who performed as drag queens because like my caterpillar I was trying to discover how they had managed this because my subconscious mind (unknown mind) wanted something it needed for itself but at the same time I was repelled by them because of the fear I experienced for myself so I did not want to acknowledge my own truth.

Toys are an expression of subconscious identity and some girls will humanize a truck if that is all they have instead of using the truck as a tool like typical boys do.

Movies are also a powerful indication of identity because movies are able to create and bend fantasy turning it into a longed for reality.

I had the same intense interest when a man dressed up as a woman as I did in my caterpillar, always about Metamorphosis because I already had my identity but was trying to "become" it

My own life long experience with hormonal problems are an indicator to me this is all biological and I even think there is a biological basis for those who CD but clearly identify as men because the biology determines how far we move away from the Female to the male.

We are born with a brain structure that is than shaped by experience but that experiencing is defined by the structure and the structure lives in the subconscious.

The tension between the subconscious and the conscious is the difference between what "is" and what we think "is" is, between truth and opinion.

I suddenly "knew" when my subconscious and conscious became "one" bringing up from the depths of "me" that which was always there out into the light of day (consciousness).

Truth leaves its bread crumbs scattered all over our lives it is just a matter of having the courage and wisdom to read the bread crumbs (tea leaves) so you can devine the meaning.

[Inna]

One can "wish" as hard as they want. Or until the cows come home. STILL won't change the FACTS.

NO ONE HERE IS A MIND READER.

So, pretending to know how and why EVERY single person thinks/does what they do is simply "unproductive" and not a very good influence on the newer members here.

Everyone has a right to express their own opinions and no one truly has the right to tell them they are wrong, unless of course they clearly and certainly are wrong! I absolutely agree with that! And so I have put in a little wordage into the previous rebuttal : "In my own humble opinion"

On the other hand, I am a seeker, to know is to understand and to understand is to fully appreciate the mechanisms of life. To see the marvel of circumstance become inevitable event, pain turn to joy, guilt into serenity, darkness into light!

[Kate Simmons]

Oh, I knew early on without a doubt. As soon as I heard about Christine Jorgensen I knew I wanted the same. It was a solution to feelings that plagued me for about 6 years as a young person.The societal climate at that time, however, was very bitter in what was expected with fulfilling birth roles. Then came Viet Nam and it was even harder to try and be myself. How would I ever do that, I wondered and still be expected to possibly go to war?

I lasted two tours in Nam and fully intended to get a sex change as they were called at that time(as I thought that was my only option) when I got out of the Army in 1971 but then other things happened. I got religion and met my future wife and decided to give the guy thing a chance.

It went well for awhile but then the feelings came flooding back shortly after marriage and we had a baby on the way, so I buried the feelings once again to maintain my husband and provider role as others depended on me now and it was no longer just about myself. So it went until the children began to leave the nest. This was a hard time for my wife, so we grew apart and I decided to once again develop my feminine feelings but this time openly. I also decided to balance my feelings and learned that they went very deep and were part and parcel of my spirituality, so realized I did not have to physically transition after all to be myself.

In any case, I knew long ago when I was about 4 or 5 I was a girl inside. The rest as they say my friend, is history.

[sandra-leigh]

I was a young teen during the height of the "Second Feminist Revolution" (early-ish 1970's), so I was aware of women being treated worse then men. And I wondered what the experience was like. But since I wasn't female (then), I couldn't know the experience directly, so I did the closest experiment I could, namely to try wearing the clothes to at least experience the supposed discomfort and confinement of women's clothes.

Or at least that's what I told myself at the time. It doesn't explain why I kept at it or enjoyed it. And fishing through my memories, I have a nagging feeling that by then I had already tried on discarded nylons a few times.

Anyhow, that spate of "trying on clothes" ended by the time I moved away to university, and was mentally filed under "experiments, youthful, concluded". It was 25-ish years after that before I realized that I was a cross-dresser, and a few more years before I realized I was transgender.

Early thoughts of femininity? Not that I recall. I was pretty sure that I was a boy, and my confusion was about what was wrong with the other boys that they weren't more like me. I had access to boys books from the early part of the 20'th century, and to series such as The Hardy Boys, series in which boys might sometimes be naughty about eating a pie, but the bulk of the boys were portrayed as "Little Gentlemen", and certainly I was one of those -- so I had reason to think I was a good boy.

It is really only in retrospect that I can review my childhood and say that signs were already there, that I was transgender without being aware of it then.

[STACY B]

ALWAYS KNEW !! Something wasn't rite ,, Growing up in a strict Cathlic Family ,,,No way I could ever tell ,., Out of the question ,, But I always dressed an just pit it away off an on ,,,Till now ,,,But ya learn day after day ,, Still learning ,, But not even a shred of any question in my mind what so ever what I am or was back then an now . Never the right time an you gotta make time . So lets go ,,, Times a wasting .

[Karren H]

Hmmm, I somehow expected a bit more from you The OP does not state that anyone is or wants to be a GIRL, simply of knowing of being different and perhaps not entirely a BOY. Surely you are not saying that CDers wear woman's clothes to be more manly.......??????

Ooh.... now I'm supposed to answer the question that was asked? Jeezzzz..... Personally I still don't think I'm different....

[Kate Simmons]

Ooh.... now I'm supposed to answer the question that was asked? Jeezzzz..... Personally I still don't think I'm different....

Oh, mining engineers are so serious sometimes. You are you Karr, plain and simple.

[Amy Fakley]

hindsight is always 20/20.
yeah in that dim, poorly understood way I always knew ... always.
I mean I tried like hell to deny it; to forget about it; to ignore it hard enough that it'd stop being there.
For large chunks of my life I was marginally successful in that effort.

I mean I don't think "I am a girl" as the OP puts it. Clearly I am not. But there's something different about me and it seems pretty strongly tied to gender expression and clothing. So ... yeah. "Always knew" ... but "most of the time didn't understand".

[whowhatwhen]

A very long time, I've always felt out of place and "different" in that I've had a hard time acting like a man since it felt like the instincts just weren't there.
Loads of daydreams growing up where I could be a girl and it wasn't my fault. (witness protection, a bloody cocoon?!)

I crossdressed until I became aware that wearing my mom's clothes was starting to feel a bit creepy, so I put it away in a little corner of my mind since there wasn't much else I could do.
Fast forward until I got health problems, all that stuff comes flooding back and while I could put it away again it got harder each time and the duration much shorter.

Clothes don't mean much to me, I'm more interested in getting rid of my male appearance and seeing where that goes.

[Barbara Ella]

I am one of those late onset people. Growing up, I had absolutely no idea nor any inclination to wear female clothing, nor did I feel I was different. So one year ago, at age 65 I put on that first pair of panties, and it just exploded. Sure it had to be there, but there was never anything. Was it suppressed? Sure it was, but it was not a conscious effort. The last year has been a whirlwind of emotions and experiences as i try to fit some 50 plus years of experiences into this one year.

I can now use hindsight and see things that I thought were typically male behavior. A constant fascination with things feminine, the form, behavior, heels, hose, and on and on. Figures all males had the same thoughts. Little did I know.

Barbara

[Angela Campbell]

For me I don't think the question is when I knew...I always knew. The question is ...when did I decide to stop fighting it and finally just accept it? Just a few months ago I guess. Until then I just thought it would go away If I didn't do it.

[JenniferLynn0370]

For me, it was more like when did I suddenly realize I was a boy and not a girl! I remember slowly realizing that I was expected to hang out and play with the boys and wasn't supposed to like playing with my dollies, couldn't carry my purse to the store with mom, etc. I was very disappointed because mom was my role model from the get go (well, she still is) and I wanted nothing more in life than to be a carbon copy of her! Still feel that way today and always will, in spite of the hand life has dealt me!

[Tracii G]

I knew I was different in my early teens I felt more feminine.Loved playing with and hanging out with girls.
I caught tons of heat from my guy friends calling me a sissy but I didn't come to grips with it until much later in life.
Over compensated to prove I was all man because of social regulations of the 60's and 70's era.
In the 80's-90's I became more aware and started to try to come to and understanding but shoved it back into the back of my mind.
In the 2000's I said screw it time for me to be me and do some education on my own and ended up here and finally came out which was the best thing I ever did.
I feel free to express myself in any way I desire.

[Debglam]

I knew in 2nd Grade that I wanted to be a girl. 1970's blue collar town and it was made pretty clear that it was not "normal." A couple of stories from the time, one funny and one not so much.

Funny: The school library had a couple of magazines, "Boy's Life" and "Girl's Life." I thought, in my 8 year old mind, that all the secrets of being a girl and fitting in with the girls HAD to be in Girl's Life. Every time I tried to read that magazine, the school librarian would steer me towards "Boy's Life" as being the appropriate magazine for me to read. When I FINALLY stole a copy of Girl's Life I was crushed! It was as boring and pointless as Boy's Life! Oh well. . .

Not So Funny: I also convinced my parents that I should let my hair grow long "like everybody else." (1970's don't forget.) It reached shoulder length and I remember how happy I was that I could play with it like the girls in class. Somehow, my parents figured out "why" I wanted my hair so long and I was hauled off to the barber shop for a close haircut. I cried but I guess it "worked" because it only took about 40 years for me to come to terms with my gender and find a place where I am really happy!

I think that is why I subscribe to a couple of blogs from parents raising trans kids. What a wonderful world it is becoming!

Debby