When did you know?

[Donna Joanne]

I recently had a very close old friend ask me " When did you know you wanted to become a woman?" (their words not mine). After explaining to them that I've always been female; I made it simple by saying I was a Barbie who got put into a GI Joe box by mistake at the factory; I proceeded to tell them that all my life I've been Donna. You can imagine the rest of the conversation. Is there an simple answer to this question that is easy for people to comprehend?

When someone asked you this question what was your answer?

[Dianne S]

I have probably known since I was a child, but only admitted it to myself about four months ago. Not many people have asked me that question because I'm not out to very many people yet, but I guess the first sentence would be my answer.

[Michelle.M]

. . . I made it simple by saying I was a Barbie who got put into a GI Joe box by mistake at the factory

Oh, that's terrific! I am SO gonna steal that!


When someone asked you this question what was your answer?

"I discovered my gender in the same way and at the same time you did. But at the same time I also discovered that I had arrived improperly built, and it took me a while to be able to fix that."

[Rianna Humble]

When I was quite young, I dreamt of growing up to be a woman and had all the idealistic images (church wedding etc) that most young girls my age had at the time. Only problem was, nature played me a dirty trick.

[Angela Campbell]

From my earliest memories. I cannot remember a time when I did not know.

[Starling]

From the dawn of my gender awareness, I was uncomfortable with boys and drawn to girls. I started piecemeal dressing in grade school, and around the age of ten, with trembling hands, in dead of night, put on my mom's sundress, completing my "look" with my own yellow thongs (which my father hated!) and bright red toenail polish. Then I sat around and dreamed for awhile.

I did not know what was wrong with me, but I knew it was something awful, an obsession which pulled me away from other people and turned me into a lover of long, solitary walks. Many days I pretended to be sick and stayed home from school, so that I might have a chance to dress if my mom had to run some errands, but also because keeping up the male facade exhausted me.

I fantasized constantly about dressing as a woman, but female impersonators embarrassed me, and I wasn't at all attracted to men--especially gay men. I knew I was not them, but I didn't know who I was. I dressed more and more frequently as I got older, and by my forties had begun to cancel dates, and even business obligations, in order to dress fully and imagine I was a complete woman.

I knew that I was heading for some sort of crisis, and that what I'd thought was merely a time- and energy-consuming fetish, was almost certainly more essential to my core being. But it was only after joining this forum, and doing the reading, that it all came into focus: I was, and had been all my life, a woman. A two-month experience with HRT, suspended by health woes, confirmed it for me, as if I needed confirmation by that point.

Of course I love women's clothes, because they're comfortable and pretty and "right", but I've come to know that if I had really good hair (real or false), and breasts and a vagina, I could be happy in a flour sack--as long as I had yellow thongs and bright red toenails.

:) Lallie

[noeleena]

Hi,

Quite simple really i am an intersexed female, so it made my life very easy in many regards though did cause a lot of other issues still does not matter now its all sorted,

I like.... your..... mistake at the factory, no they got it right for this kid just a few bits got left out and were needed else where.

At least they got the brain wired right, my Mom sorted my name out as well noel or no-el male or female. and even noeleena was given to me, you see many people had a hand in getting this kid on the right track and gave me what i needed, and you know what even after all that many others have stepped in and are doing where the others left off,

Ill tell you , this is just one fantastic long trip of my life, and so many changes and detail going on dont worry i get pulled up now and again just to see what is going on. yes its .......SO....... neat.

...noeleena...

[Rita C.]

I'm just like Donna, I was a Barbie put in a J.I. Joe box. The one thing that I would love is to bear a child and breast feed my baby.

[Badtranny]

All of these simplified analogies make me sort of uncomfortable. People hear stuff like that and they think that one day we lost our minds and started transitioning, (which isn't entirely inaccurate really).

The fact is that most of us on this board are late transitioners meaning this process of "knowing" took years. The realization happens in layers of moments spread out over our lives.

Yes I will admit to "knowing" something as early as 5 years old. I knew I was different somehow, but I couldn't comprehend exactly how. As I grew up I eventually began to assume that I was simply gay. In my teen years if you were to ask me about my secret, I would not have said I was a "girl", I very likely would have said that I was gay. How was I to know what these feelings were? had I been allowed or encouraged to relax and just be myself, who knows how I would have turned out? As it was, I didn't seriously think about gender bending until I came out as a gay man in my late 30's.

It was the experience of living openly yet still feeling hidden that forced me to dig deeper. When I truly "knew" that I was transsexual/transgender/whatever the current nomenclature is, I began transition that year. It's the knowing that gives you the power.

I don't answer the question with cute analogies. I just say; I always knew something wasn't right. It took me 40 years to figure it out.

[PretzelGirl]

Hmmm.... I am one that my detailed memories don't go back to my childhood. I have vague recollections of surroundings and big events for my pre-teen years and that is it. I certainly cannot say I knew as a child. Even the times from my teen years to about 40 were a jumble of not addressing any thoughts and I minimized my actions enough, that I felt like a late bloomer when I finally let go. So thinking about it to the point of saying how I felt wasn't happening. Somewhere in the last 14 years, I "figured it out". It don't think that type of thought is a Eureka moment item. It is a realization that comes over time. The important part is I know now, I am comfortable with that being the truth, and I am ready to make my life better.

[anaissa]

There isn't a time that I can remember that I didn't think I was a girl. My earliest memories revolved around thinking I was a freak of some kind. Then there was a period of self - loathing and fantasies of self-surgery, followed by years of repression and acting out, and finally acceptance and hope.

[vikki2020]

Me too---my very earliest memories. I remember thinking all I had to do was cut that "thing" off, and,I'd be a girl!

[DeeDee1974]

I can remember wanting my sister's Wonder Woman underoos around the time I was in kindergarten. At that point I couldn't tell you it was because I knew deep down I was a girl, but that is my earliest memory of wanting something outside of the gender norms. Whatever that feeling was I suppressed it through college and wound up getting married for a couple years right after. By 26 I was divorced and living on my own for the first time.

One day I decided to go online and buy some women's clothing and make up. I started practicing, dressing, wearing makeup, walking like a woman. I started going to gay clubs dressed. Even fooled around with a couple of guys. Something was missing or didn't feel quite right. I stopped dressing for some reason, met another woman, got married again.

I then got depressed. Started therapy and my past experiences with gender came up. Finally I was able to dig deep down and spend time thinking about what I was feeling. One day in therapy at the age of 35 my therapist and I were talking, really more small talk about the weekend I had just had.

I said good, but something there really upset me. I explained how I was at a party and I was talking to a couple of guys who we're commenting on my friend Jenn's body and what they would like to do to her. And it came down to how all I could focus on was how I wished it was my body. And that I was jealous of her for getting to be her.

That day is when the light bulb went off.

[linda lynn]

I think deep down I knew I liked womens clothes, make up, hair, nails and things, being pretty was something girls could do but not me, I was a male. I have always liked wearing womens things. I was told anything like that was so wrong, I now know I wish I were a woman all the time. I joined this web site to find help and talk to others like myself, and from what I read, I am not alone. Thanks for sharing girls,
Linda Lynn.