Pre-transition (guy mode)

[Marleena]

I think most of us spent time pretending to be guys. Were you good at it or did people pick up on you being different? Do you think you fooled everyone?

[Rianna Humble]

From what many people told me when I came out, most of them hadn't suspected anything. I must have let some signs show because of the GG colleague who asked me at a christmas party one time why I was not wearing a dress :eek: (See my very early posts for details).

[Michelle.M]

I was beginning to look somewhat androgynous my last 6 months before going full time, but most people attributed it to my weight loss program and letting my hair grow longer. So, yes to both - I was good at passing as male, and yes, people noticed that something was up.

[Marleena]

Rianna Ouch at wearing a dress comment.

Well we have an advantage being that we had a male anatomy for the most part. I was just the "weird" guy overcompensating. I did okay because I married twice but...

My ex-wife said I knew there was something different about you when I told her I liked wearing women's clothes. I asked my current wife a couple months ago if she noticed anything different about me when we met. She said she knew I was different but couldn't put her finger on it.*sigh*.

Same thing at work, the guys were treating me different but probably thought I was gay. They were stand offish with me. I caught them laughing at me at different times. I don't think I was fooling too many people.:sad:

[arbon]

I was always weird and I did not really fit in anywhere. When I was young I had very very few friends, mostly I was trying to stay invisible and not be noticed. I stayed alone, I did not like being with other kids.

When I got to jr high / high school I was pretty well pegged as the class f** and suffered for it. I tried to get into some male sports (like wrestling, basketball and rodeo) to make my dad happy but I really sucked and no one wanted anything to do with me so did not last long at any of them.

When my drinking started I became a lot more social and was fitting in better, at least with the other heavy drinkers / partyers. But sometimes "she" came out when I was drunk, in embarrassing ways. Around the community I was still pretty much considered gay and I still got harassed for it. A couple years ago my wife ran into an old roommate of mine from when I was around 20 My wife asked her what the roommate knew about me and she said oh he's gay and wears womens cloths - so people knew I was different.

Up till then my mom suspected I was gay to.

I just could not own it, I was terrified of what I was.


When I sobered up I found god and I was going to be a man and get married. Put all that other stuff behind me.

And I did. Buried it inside started hanging our with the guys and going to mens groups and all sorts of stuff. Got involved in one very masculine activity and I was very good at it and got a lot of respect from other guys. I had a reputation for taking risks, and being reckless. I was a real manly man! :) The thing about it was I took risks because I had a death wish, the guys did not know that part of it.


When I finally came out some people were really surprised and never saw it coming, while there were some other people were not surprised at all.

[gonegirl]

I was very good at hiding it and I fooled everyone except myself. The result was being incredibly unhappy and angry inside, but the only people who saw that were those closest to me, which is a double tragedy.

I look fairly androgynous now, similar to what Michelle experienced with long hair and having lost a lot of weight. It's a weird place to be, somewhere in that awkward in-between stage where strangers will sometimes stare as they try to figure out what's wrong with this picture. I generally get read as a male (sometimes female) but people sure know there's something up.

[Jorja]

I must have sucked at hiding it. From the time I was very young the rest of the boys would call me sissy. I can remember a time when a neighbor guy was talking to my father, he said, your boy is different ain't he?

[MysticLady]

I'd like to reply, I'm not thinking of transition but, When I was young I mostly a loner. Yes, I enjoy hanging out w/ buddies and having a few beers, then I started hanging out w/ women and I liked that better. At times I liked the Girlfriend part then, at times, I'd rather be alone. I believe that's the still the case with me since my wife got on my case for not spending every second of my life w/ the family. I would go out to the garage and just hang out there tinkering and listening to music. She would then come out and tell that I should inside enjoying my family. Anyway, my guy mode is much different than my girl mode. In girl mode, I like going out and being out and about. I love to dance in both modes but, in girl mode I really enjoy it more. I really enjoy the fact I can fluid myself between both essences and not be disturbed by it. I feel for those of us that have much trouble with this part of us into not knowing where your niche is at. I've learned that the spectrum in which we exist is very wide, hence the time it takes to find that niche, months, even years.

[whowhatwhen]

As far as I can tell almost everyone thinks I'm gay now, I guess I fit more in the genderqueer type area now though for my day-to-day presentation.
I mean, my nails match my sea foam green purse - that's like the gay bat signal or something.

Gonna be stuck that way for a while since I'm literally stuck with a dark-ass beard for half the week.
So far nothing negative though, I guess give it time eh?

[KellyJameson]

Childhood was difficult because I could sense somehow I was different from everyone else and also because people treated me as different as "odd" or somehow not "normal"

With my hair long most people would ask me or my mother if I was a girl or boy. I thought they were being mean but looking at pictures of myself I can see they probably were not sure.

My facial features are distinctly feminine with large almond shaped eyes and little to no brow ridge and I'm small boned.

My mother tried to make me look like a boy by cutting all my hair off but I freaked out so much she never tried that again.

I also had a high emotional sensitivity so felt everything much more deeply and everyone was sure I would be gay or was gay.

It is clear to me that my brain and body were simply not masculinized for whatever reason.

It has taken me a long time to understand the thinking behind men because I cannot get on their level but I always find it easy to understand the why behind woman's thinking and feeling.

Men are work but women are effortless to understand and relate to.

I could never make that leap to acting or being like boys and men. First I have almost nothing in common with their interests and always found what the girls and women were talking about more interesting. Men would be watching sports and I was in the kitchen talking to the women.

I have a strong interest in fashion, art, architecture and horses and animals in general plus I'm very connected to nature and have a strong spiritual inner world.

I have a rich and delicate inner world that is almost impossible to find in a man but I often find it in women when they trust you enough to share it.

In my childhood and teen years I largely tried to stay invisible and was very cautious with who I would interact with and I'm still very cautious.

People would have noticed I was more different than I actually appeared but I became good at being a chameleon and filled my need for others through going into books and my imagination.

As a teen and well into my twenties I avoided men at all costs except for a very select few who I knew were safe to interact with. For years I viewed men as foreign and dangerous because I could not understand or relate to them.

Men were always the "other" who were exotic, dangerous but also interesting. Many were very interested in me sexually and this added to my discomfort with them because I liked it but also did not like it.

Women felt safer to be with sexually even though this had its own share of problems.

I would always watch men out of the corner of my eye partly from curiosity but partly from the feeling that they were different from me so possibly dangerous yet I have never experienced violence from them at their hands so it was not a learned danger but a felt danger.

I have noticed a pattern with many transsexuals where they either withdraw from life or force themselves to bend into an unnatural shape by "manning up" and become an extreme expression of masculinity.

Both of these behaviors are attempts to remain invisible to hide a truth the mind feels but does not understand.

One of the most distinctive differences between myself and men is I do not worship women or see them as above or below me but as my natural equals where I notice most crossdressers adore women and the idea of being one.

They are men who idolize women and this concept is utterly foreign and unthinkable to me. For me this was key to my understanding my own transsexuality.

I have no interest in being a woman because I like what I see in other women but have come to the conclusion that I am one by how I have experienced myself in relationship to men and women and through the discovery of self and my inner story that I carry with me.

I actually could care less about what gender I am but I do care that I live the gender I was born to live.

[GBJoker]

I am exceptionally skilled at acting. It is unbelievably easy to fool people. I have been picked on, but for reasons unrelating to TG stuff.

[I Am Paula]

All my friends said the same thing:
I never knew.
Now that I see it, it was so obvious! How did I miss it!

I sucked at being a guy so much that if I swore, I said excuse me, I ate chicken wings with a fork, and carried a little packet of klennex with me.
Oh yeah, my Mom asked if I was gay weekly.

[GBJoker]

Wait... What's wrong with eating chicken wings with a fork?

[Kathryn Martin]

Those who knew me said literally: Duh!!!!! because everyone who knew me thought I was very different long before I came out. Kathryn was leaking out everywhere for years and it became impossible to contain by the time I was around 40.

[LaurenB]

Oh let me list the silly ways I tried to fool everyone when I was between 18 and 30:
- Flying Airplanes
- Motorcycles
- Sailing
- God, how many pick up trucks (I live near Boston so it's not like I need one)?
- fishing
- guns
- workin' on my cars with tools

I fooled some of the people some of the time but realized I didn't really like any of those things. I didn't like taking risks. It gave me extreme anxiety to go for a ride on my motorcycle. I'd develop a knot in my stomach when I drove out to the airport to rent a plane. I liked the physical sensations but didn't like being in control of them. Weird huh?

I gave all that up when my son was born or soon after. Everything changed when there was a life depending on me. Long before I felt those things had to be done to define me as a man, I was a peaceful artistic sensitive teenager that preferred the company of girls. Now I'm back to the future. My most extreme activity is gardening. I love that. No anxiety, total peace.

So to answer the OP, I think a few knew. I'd say the girls and women in my space. They knew I was a poseur and wouldn't date me or have anything to do with me beyond friendship. I, at the time, couldn't figure it out. I was doing all the manly stuff right, wasn't I? But I wasn't a bad boy at the core and they knew it. I couldn't be the a**hole. I was too compassionate, empathetic and made eye contact face to face. I was a good person to have long talks with.

The guy's were easily bluffed. With a few stupid statements, they could be duped into thinking I was as much of a man as them. This was more intellect than brawn. Since I could land an airplane safely they thought it took balls. But as any woman pilot will tell you it's really just practice and knowledge.

[JackieInPA]

I never really tried to fool anyone...i sucked at sports growing up, when i took karate it was because i liked it not to be macho...no one that i know of ever guessed I was transgender, I did hide the blatant dressing, but no the self conscious clues, i just didnt have them until later in life when I activly started to try and change them.

[sandra-leigh]

When I got to jr high / high school I was pretty well pegged as the class f** and suffered for it.

I got pegged with that pretty much from the time that the other kids were old enough to have heard the term. But it felt more like they didn't really believe I was sexually interested in men, but rather that they didn't have any other term for my differentness. At the age the name-calling started, the kids had no (known) experience with homosexual people and their behavior, and so attributed atypical gender behavior to homosexuality. Calling me a f** was also a good excuse to shun me.

As I transition in place, so far the only person who has expressed any surprise is my mother. Though I know my ex-boss (of 25+ years) was doing a good job of self-denial at the visible changes I was going through.

There being a difference between "not expecting" and "not surprised". I suspect that if you had put the idea to my friends that "someone you know well is transgender; who would you say is most likely?" then a number of them might have named me -- but it wasn't something that was actively in their mind. I know a very good friend of mine had not thought about the possibility, but still when I told him, it was no shock at all.

So far, the most I have had (other than from my mother) was one woman who looked over at me for some seconds trying to place where and when she had seen me before; once she had matched my face, her eyes flashed briefly with a look that seemed to express "I know he was different, but I couldn't place how; now, seeing him dressed, it all makes sense!".

Oh yes, my ex-GP did express some doubt about me being transgender when I finally disclosed it to him. He hadn't noticed the blouses and tops and shoes and tights; he hadn't seen me in dress or skirt so he didn't at first believe I was transgender; he effectively dared me to wear a dress to my next appointment (so I wore a skirt, and then he believed me.) I guess he counts as someone who was surprised.

[Angela Campbell]

From my preschool days I didn't want to play with the boys. I only played with the girls unless none were available. My best friends were two girls who lived across the street from me. We had very good times and I was accepted as one of them. Until we got older and slowly it became clear that they didn't accept me as one of them anymore. But then the boys didn't accept me either. I was smaller, weaker, had no sense of competition at all and didn't like the kind of things they liked to do. I was quickly branded a "sissy". This resulted in a lot of bullying and quite a few beatings, and caused me to retreat into my own little world. This was in south Ga so you may can imagine.

From the time I was about 4 I started wearing my mothers things I would find in the laundry hamper. The beatings continued.

In school I was always the last one picked for anything we did. You know the old way where two team captains are picked and they take turns picking their team mates. I was always last. This and the beatings continued until about Jr. high ....

At that time it was the beginning of the 70's. Suddenly it was ok to have all the girl things I wanted. Long hair, necklaces, bracelets, (remember platform shoes) colorful clothes, hip huggers....yes and some musicians were pushing the boundaries...like David Bowie wearing a dress, Alice cooper. Yes androgyny was in, and I liked it.

I still wanted nothing much to do with boys and had a lot of girls who I was friends with. Not as a boyfriend usually because they sensed me as just not that type, more like a friend or brother than a lover. So I turned to music. I still hid in my little world. In high school I ended up dropping out because they insisted I take PE and shower with the other boys. This was hard because I had not developed yet and looked more like a 10 year old than a 15 or 16 year old. The beatings continued.

I eventually had a girlfriend and as the whole world expected of me, I got married and had kids. I tried, really hard too. It was never right but I had learned to act tough and people were fooled quite a bit. I also started learning tae kwan do and learned how to make the beatings stop. I still retreated into my own little world on most days and that helped me to complete college. No one would bother me if I was studying.

I gravitated to jobs where travel was a must. It was a way I could wear the womens clothes and never get caught. I would buy what I wanted use it as long as I was out of town and throw it all away when it was time to go home. This went on for about 30 years. I became obese and did not take care of myself in any way whatsoever.

Eventually the marriage fell apart, and I did it again and it fell apart too. I became such a loner, that I had no social contacts, and the only people I talked to were customers at work. At this point I have hid this so well that people are starting to wonder about me as my appearance and mannerisms are changing quite rapidly to what feels natural to me.

[Jorja]

Oh let me list the silly ways I tried to fool everyone when I was between 18 and 30:
- God, how many pick up trucks (I live near Boston so it's not like I need one)?

You just needed to move to Ohio. The girls here have bigger and badder trucks than the boys.

[kellycan27]

People thought I was gay because I liked boys and..... I looked like one.:heehee:

[Sephina]

I guess i would say i was pretty good at pretending, i even fooled myself, everyone i came out to was completely shocked but after a bit of talking to a former roomate of mine, she said that she just thought i was a little weird... lol anyways i dont think that for me it was neccessarily pretending, simply because a child learns what it is taught for the most part. i grew up as a boy in American society and at that time it was still a pretty rigid cookie cutter type mentality (Boys act and dress this way and like these things and Girls dress and act this way and like these things) with that in mind also my parents raising me as a boy and teaching me things they thought i should like, i just adapted i always felt i was different i didnt really take to any of the traditional boy stuff, like hunting and fishing, being rugged and all that crap i always had more delicate interests? I guess i will just say and then the more then casual interest in dressing up, playing house, and all that fun girl stuff lol. Got into baseball and football when i was pre teens-teens then fell out of it. I was a loner, moved to a new state when i was 12 and was an outcast ever since, was always painted the odd one, not like that but harrased quite a bit at school i just grew up alone playing video games, always used to play the female characters whenever i could, never actually thought about why until i was much older and people asked me. To which i told them i would rather look at a girl all day then a guy cause if i wanted to do that id look in a mirror all day. It was kind of my way to zone out and be a Girl ( i really got into my avatars ) there was recently a great artical about TS gamers that i found very interesting anyways now here i am 29 and i am at a stage where i am on the cusp of starting HRT and things are starting to look up.

[DeeDee1974]

I've had 3 very close friends since freshmen year of college. All female. Despite two marriages, most suspected I was gay. My best friend Jenn had a very serious discussion with me about not getting married the second time. When I came out as transgendered, there may have been a bit if surprise that there was way more to it than just being gay. I guess there could have been surprise too just because you don't meet tg people as often as you would a gay/ lesbian person. The fact is, I was never very masculine, I very small, only about 5'5, always had long hair. So people always knew I was different. I mean I moved into an apartment with three girls in college and lived with one of them another 3 years after college and these were gorgeous girls and it would have never crossed my mind to ever try to date one of them. I just felt like one of them.

[Angela Campbell]

You just needed to move to Ohio. The girls here have bigger and badder trucks than the boys.

Oh I read too fast...I saw the part about the girls in Ohio have bigger and badder and got all excited and thought about moving, then I saw the part about trucks.....

[groove67]

I was always very girly and never had many guy friends mostly a loner. I was very upset at prom that i had a suit and tie and not a gown. started wearing female attire in 20 s in 30 ,s and by 40 new that was not the problem realized I needed to be a woman total woman and that will happen in less than 90days. did not realize I was into men until I started hrt but i am now and might have been all along just never realized it. well after three years living , working, looking and family accepting me as a woman it just all seems normal being a woman. as matter of fact many days I forget that I am really not as yet. I have had no male cloths in my house for me to wear in over three years . I feel fem and love looking it. doing makeup every morning just seems normal, guess surgery will just make me whole and I welcome that. oh yea as one sister said panty s will fit better. lol

[Mary Lee]

During junior and senior high school I became a loner. I was not good at sports. I was never invited to guy things or girl things. I dated a lot of females; maybe they like a boy who had a softer side. Even in the service with my lack of physical fitness as a guy none of the guys hung around with me. I have tried HRT and loved it but had unwanted side effects and I do have small boobs which none of the women say anything when I exercise in the pool with them. I mostly dress as a guy and try to present myself most of the time as a guy. I do dress as a female when I am alone. However no matter how I dress or present I know I am female on the inside and I love every minute of it.