When Did you Know You Were TS?

[johnna]

Hi!

I am just curious about when you felt you knew you were TS?

Thank you!!

:love:

[MissDanielle]

when did I know? 8th grade. When did I come to terms? Last November.

[johnna]

Thank you Danielle, that is good to know!

[Kaitlyn Michele]

i didnt know until i read this article..

http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

I was in my mid 40's...

i knew i 'crossdressed'..and did it since i was a little kid...
but the depth of my feelings were not available to my conscious mind... i desperately wanted to be a woman...wished it...fantasized ..etc... but it all felt unreal...it felt confusing and most of all it felt just WRONG and i couldnt ever come to terms with it...i spent many many years in very deep denial... i would add that during those years my secretive dressing and behavior around it was getting more and more and by the time i read this article my wife was planning to leave me because i was growing distant from her.. she had no idea about all this..i thought being a good husband and dad was how to get out of the problem... unfortuntely i didnt know what the problem really was..
i was losing the ability to function and my depression exploded..i was so depressed i stopped eating...i stopped caring...hit the weed hard...
she had no idea about all this..i thought being a good husband and dad was how to get out of the problem... unfortuntely i didnt know what the problem really was..

until i read that article and found out literally for the first time in my life that i was not the only person going through this...it was gender dysphoria...it was very bad...

i thought transsexuals were entertainers, drag artists that took it "all the way"... i felt so much shame and guilt i was strangely comforted by this lie i told myself...

only in hindsight can i look back and say i know what i was feeling and doing... at the time, it felt like autopilot...i was a great autopilot but the plane ran out of gas... and as it started falling thats when i got serious about learning
...thats when i got serious about all the idiotic coping thoughts and secret plans in my mind... thats when i read that article and realized i needed help and i got help..

[KymberlyOct]

i didnt know until i read this article..

http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

Johnna, When I came out to my brother recently I told him the story of when I was 5 years old I did a pretend sex change on him in the back of the family car. (He said he was glad it was pretend lol) By 10 yrs old
I was wearing my Mom's clothes. By 12 and the onset of self gratification I did it while wishing I was a girl. So it sort of evolved.


Kaitlyn, I read the article. It was stuff that I had realized long, long ago but it did answer one question for me. My therapist was convinced very early on that I was TS. I didn't have to sell her on it. I just told her about myself and some stories of things that happened. I couldn't figure out why she believed so fast I am TS and why she believed my cross gender sexual arousal meant pretty much nothing that it was nothing more than a coping mechanism and that I am truly TS. After reading that article I now understand why she so readily believed I am TS.

[Georgette_USA]

http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm


Can't say I ever saw that article before. Found it interesting. Also her other articles.
Especially the one of the Post-Op + 5. I had some of those realizations at the + 5-10 year marks, and still do. My partner and I were definitely in the Stealth mode.
Interesting that they were from 1978 and onward, and of 25-30 year periods. I came from before that, where no-one I knew saw any Gender Therapists, just some Psychiatrists.

[Starling]

I didn't really know until after I came here in 2009. I had always dreamed of being a woman, but I thought wearing women's clothes like I did as often as I could meant I was a sexual pervert, and it made me sick to think of it. The idea that I could actually be a woman seemed impossible to me, just a delusion. I wrote some very embarrassing forum posts early on, which unfurled my ignorance for everyone to see.

My first lesson was that there was nothing immoral or disgusting per se about wanting to wear women's clothes, which gave me some comfort; but I soon realized that I was not going to get off the hook so easily. Instead, I found myself as a woman, and have been struggling ever since to free myself. It's been a rough road, emotionally and physically, as I hit it way too deep into my life.

:) Lallie

[Marcelle]

To be honest, I think deep down I always knew but was so deep in denial I managed to beat this into submission. Now the mind is a funny thing in that you can repress all you want but eventually it (the angst) will bleed out in different ways.

I always knew there was something and let's just say my father was a bit old school (spare the rod spoil the child) so any inclination to play dress up or play stereotypical girl with my sisters or female cousins resulted in the rod reinforced with good old stereotypical male things (hunting, sports, boxing, fishing and outdoor labour). By the time I was 12 my father passed away but the damage was done and I began hating myself and loathing any impulses related to wanting to be a girl because he was not there to hate me. As I grew up I continued engaging in all things male but still knew there was something. I joined the military at 17 and continued to be as "dude" as I could but there was something always in the back of mind. I married fathered a child . . . still something there, divorced and re-married . . . still something there. I thought the chaos of combat would quell it . . . no. Eventually my mind became so chaotic that all I could do was become bitter, mean and depressed reaching my lowest darkest point in 2013 when things imploded. At that point I clawed my way out and went through the whole "I am truly just a dude who likes to dress like a woman but still all dude" moved on to "two genders sharing the same body" until I realized that I am and always have been TS.

So when did I know? Probably my entire life. When did I finally accept who I was? Last year.

Cheers

Marcelle

[I Am Paula]

It's not as easy to answer as one thinks. Here goes.
I was more feminine than a nipple as a youngster. Played dressup in girls clothing etc.
As a teen I was brainwashed by conventional logic, and figured I must be gay. Why else wear women's clothing? Teenage years being most peoples most sexually active, I was one busy guy. None of my friends cared.
I decided to cave to being normal, and began marrying women. I don't know why, it seems the right thing to do. None of my marriages lasted, because I wanted to be the woman in the relationship. At first they found me comforting, in my meekness. No macho crap. Then they figured out the truth, and that I was far too feminine for them.
I went thru' a 'try to be macho' phase. I wore jeans, and itchy scratchy work shirts, and carried an axe everywhere I went. I almost pulled it off, except in bars, during hockey game breaks, I would ask the bar tender to switch over to 'Say yes to the dress'.
I tried an androgenous phase, to see if that would quiet the demons of ever increasing dysphoria. Women's sneakers, jeans, t-shirt, purse, and light makeup. I figured no one would notice. In hindsight, I'm sure everybody did.
I turned 53. Yup, that takes a hell of a lot of denial to wait 53 years!!! I realized I was still playing the part of a guy, and really failing miserably. I had not noticed that I was getting closer, and closer to stepping out onto the ledge. Everything about my dysphoria, and life in general was crashing down, and getting up each day became torture. I was presenting fully female most of the time, but not out to my parents.
On the day of my 54th. birthday, with my family showering me with GUY presents, and saying what a great GUY I was, something snapped. During a dog walk with my sister, I had a messy breakdown on a nieghbors lawn. (must have been quite a sight). My sister, her cockapoo, and I sat there, and everything came out. Somehow thru' the tears, I told the first person in my life all my gender struggles.
My sister and I had never been close. We saw each other thanksgiving, and Christmas, but I hung out with my brother, part of the facade. Now, we are the best friends in the world, and we do everything together...sisters.
During my little breakdown my sister asked if I knew what was involved with changing my sex. Of course I did, I had been researching it for 30 years! She asked why I didn't just do it. That's crazy talk, I can't just up and change my sex!! Then she said the most important thing anybody has EVER asked me-
Why not?
I decided that day, then and there, on a strangers lawn, to get the ball rolling.
I have been the all new me for almost four years now. I'm not under construction, I'm not transitioning. I'm done. I'm Paula. The government agrees I'm Paula, and my old life is becoming a memory. This is one happy girl.

[MonicaJean]

I knew I was different at age 4, but didn't know what it was.

By the time puberty fully kicked in somewhere around the age of 11 or 12, I was CD'ing often in absolute secret.

I signed on to this site in 2010, took me to the end of 2013 to realize I was TS. Age 43.

Lastly, that link that Kaitlyn shared was very important in understanding who I was. What hit me between the eyes initially was the anxiety based self-sexual release. I couldn't deny that fact when I read it.

[Emma Beth]

I wish I could honestly say that I knew when I was a lot younger, around 7 or 8.

But, I can't.

I knew that there was something wrong with me. Even to the point of telling my Parents and Dr.s that I felt like I had some kind of birth defect. Then all of them telling me that nothing is wrong with me and to "Suck it up"; as it were.

Then I can say that I went through the cross dressing in secret phases, the "Fantasizing" phases, and so on. The entire time not being able to connect any of it.

Then suppressing all of it, and "forgetting about it" so to speak. Even though it remained at the back of my mind.

That is, until about three years ago when I came on here, originally to do research for just Cross Dressing for a writing project.

When researching for that project, I got curious and started looking around. As I read the stories; something in my head slammed into place, the walls I had built crumbled away, and everything finally connected for me.

So I guess that you could say that I knew around the age of 42.

LOL. So that was my question! Sorry, just had a really bad Douglas Adams moment there.

I hope I helped.

[NewBrendaLee]

When puberty started for me .I was wishing that my body would change , also I wanted to continually dress as a girl .I remember before that wanting to look at girls toys in stores and when I would people would make rude comments. I would say it really started about age 11

[Mirya]

For the longest time I thought I was a closeted crossdresser. I never participated in or even viewed any internet forums or message boards.

It wasn't until a year ago, when I went out into the real-world TG community for the first time, that things changed for me. For some reason I just felt a need to connect with real TG people. So I went to a TON of different meetings, bars, clubs, dinners, and other events in the Chicago metro area (lots of opportunities in Chicago, lol). I met many people from all across the TG spectrum. I made many friends. We had fun together, but I also had some serious talks with many of them. I realized after a while that I really didn't see myself as a CD anymore - but I wasn't sure that I was TS. I thought maybe I could be non-binary in some way. Maybe genderfluid? I just didn't know for sure.

But I had to figure it out!! So I read countless online articles (the one by Anne Vitale that Kaitlyn linked was especially helpful). I watched all sorts of YouTube videos. I read a bunch of books. I started a daily journal to sort out my thoughts. And I started seeing a gender therapist. All in an attempt to figure out exactly who/what I was. Eventually, I just came to the conclusion that I had to be a TS based on everything I had read and experienced. It just seemed like a logical conclusion. I really wanted to feel some sort of emotional connection to figuring it out, but I didn't. It certainly wasn't an "ah-ha!" moment, though I was hoping for something like that. It was more of a reluctant "I guess I am... /shrug".

Now, looking back at my experiences over the past year, and really throughout my entire life, it seems soooo obvious to me that I was always a TS. I suppose I was in denial for so long and simply refused to see it. Most of my TS friends say that "they knew all along" that I was a TS, often from the moment they met me. But they didn't want to tell me that until I reached that conclusion on my own.

I have been living full-time for several months now. I'm 7 months on HRT, completed my name and gender marker change, and am scheduled for additional FFS in 3 weeks. My mom and my sister accept me for who I am. In fact it seems we spend even more time together lately than we did before! :) I am finally at peace with who I am - and it is a great feeling.

[johnna]

Thanks for all the great posts. They are very helpful!

:hugs:

[Kris Avery]

For me, it was a thing I always knew - but didn't consciously realize.

Ok I was female - well, or I was a space alien..honestly both were equally plausible....hell, when you are adopted anything is possible. I started my life on Earth as an outcast.

I certainly didn't know what it meant for my first 45 years. What a long list of crap this could alternately be - rather than transgender woman who is - also a lesbian. The lesbian part was the deal killer for me for over 40 years.

Good thing my lovely wife figured this all out for me and sat my ass down and told me what I was.

The best part is that she still loves me to this day. Perhaps even more.
A few of you have even met her when I was in SFO last month.

She is the best part of my world and keeps me between the ditches.

Kris

[Jmichelle60]

After talking with my counselor for a few sessions. Some of the questions she asked made me really think deep. When the light finally came on, I realized what she knew after our first session.

[Leanne2]

I knew that I wanted to be a girl when I was 3 or 4 years old. I realized that I am a woman in 2008 after completing gender counseling........Leanne

[Nikki.]

Kaitlyn, thanks for posting that link. I've read a bunch of dr. vitale's stuff, but I've never seen that one. very insightful.

[tgirlamc]

Excellent article Kaitlyn!... Thanks for posting that! We should have " Group 3 and Proud" tee shirts printed!...I just printed it up for my aunt... She is so cute... Every Trans related article in the LA Times gets cut out and mailed to me in a big Manila envelope every month

A :)

[Nikki.]

a group 3 shirt would be funny...make it sound like some kinda top secret government research project ala X-Files or Fringe

[GBJoker]

Some where in my teen years is when I knew. Sadly, I don't really remember much of myself from before '08 though, so can't give a more specific answer.

[Pat]

i didnt know until i read this article..

http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm


Wow. What a great paper. Thanks so much for the pointer!

[Suzanne F]

Yes I agree that Ann Vitale is brilliant. I read that paper early on also. I then discovered that she lives and works 20 minutes from my house. I called to schedule a therapy secession with her for me and my wife. The purpose was to work through our differences early on in my journey. I was presenting as female in limited circumstances. We met her at her office and I was hopeful. About 10 minutes into the session Ms. Vitale informed my wife that I would in fact transition, have SRS and want to sleep with men. Wow my wife freaked out. That was the end of the session. Now I can tell you that she was certainly accurate. However, she may have wanted to ease into that assessment since we had only been there a few minutes. She could have developed some trust before being so blunt. In her defense she may believe that life is too short to pull any punches. I may go back and discuss how things turned out some day. It might be interesting. I just wanted to share my experience with you!

[Starling]

My wife doesn't want to consult a gender counselor with me--especially one who has transitioned herself--because she assumes they will be biased in favor of transition. But that's what I call shock treatment, Suzanne.

:) Lallie

[Kaitlyn Michele]

GROUP3GIRL

Kinda cool.. i think we can make them up on ETSY

WHen i read that article i was sitting right here where i am now... it destroyed me...but at the same time, for the first time literally ever i was reading about "me".... i couldnt beleive it..it was one of the few truly transcendant moments in my life..it was an amazing feeling to feel "understood"

but i was pretty distraught i knew what i meant i was going to do..

my kind of fatalistic view is if you are transsexual you suffer more and more until you transition.... although for some of us the suffering just never comes the way it did for me... ive met alot of 60 and 70 yr old transitioners though , and i wouldnt take anything for granted..

so it always makes sense to live day by day as best you can, to express your gender and test your boundries, and learn your own coping mind so you can figure the difference between constructive thoughts and bad coping thoughts.

you have to be open to everything or your GD will go right there, move in and tear you up... you cant make promises as GD loves to break promises...
and you cant judge others because you are basically just trying to judge yourself as better...

[tgirlamc]

Wow Suzanne!...10 minutes in... Although she seems to lack diplomacy skills, apparently Dr V believes in giving the customer what they are paying for in short order!!!! At least she isn't one of those therapists trying to milk the patient for years!!!

With the beginning of school sessions, I will be getting back into a schedule of speaker panels at the local university and other locations and plan to refer the instructors to this paper... Thanks again Kaitlyn!!!!

A :)

[Heidi Stevens]

I've been crossdressing since I was 12. I liked girls, so I figured that this was something that would go away with dating and puberty. (We all know the answer to that one). Since all of this was pre Internet, your only source for info was a rare library book or magazines like Penthouse Forum. I kept saying to myself that I must be just a crossdresser, can't be a girl cause I don't like guys as a sexual partner. For over 45 years, that's what I told myself.
In '07. I came down with a life threatening reaction to Lyme. I had lots of time on my hand recuperating and an IPad. I learned a lot getting well. Hey, You could still be TG and like girls! I would have two more bouts with the Lyme over a 5 year period. I also found out just how special I was, but wouldn't admit it to myself.
Finally in November of 2014, I had a week to be Heidi and be myself. I had already begun laser treatments on my beard in July just to give me a break from having such a heavy shadow. These two events finally convinced me that I was more than just a crossdresser. I had a long talk with myself and decided that everything pointed to being gender dysphoric. I waited until after the Holidays to make my first gender psychologist appointment. It didn't take her long to come to the same conclusion that had taken me 46 years to arrive at. So on my 59th birthday, March 11, 2015, I was given the go ahead to begin HRT as soon as the Doctor ok'd my health. So in a way I knew at 12, I just wasn't informed enough until much later. Better late than never, they say!

[SarahjayneA]

I Knew from an early Age , probably 6 or 7 although at that time i did not know , i just thought it was natural , it was more later in life , hitting puberty , not wantng to change in the boys changing room etc
finding Girls easier to talk to , and being more comfortable around girls, but again did not think much of it and do anything and everything possible not to mix with the boys , which ultimately ended up being bullied for the reason of being different than the rest Kids can be distructive , i found myself being a loner in my teenage years , and found a hobby i liked , which also became my work which expanded with trips around the world , which was fantastic
ultimately ending up in marriage , kids etc .
But being away a lot meant i had time , ended up transitioning late in life , my only regret is not doing so earlier .

[MarieTS]

Early. And I mean REAL early. I was two. While playing with a large group (about 7) kids seated in a circle I still recall looking around and noticing there was a dichotomy. Intuitively I categorized myself as being one of these, not one of those. Ever since, it was a secret known just to me up through the early school years. Questions led to understandable scolds and I learned to internalize my realization. By college time I knew this would never relent and I began the long shift that should have occurred at conception.

[karenpayneoregon]

At a very young age I had issues being forced by my parents to conform to be a male and knew it was wrong. Lived in a small community were looking back there was (at least from my memories) nobody like me. So from say age 6 to early teens I was totally confused. Sometime around the age of 20 I began researching but nothing really came up. Sometime around 30 years old I found out about crossdressers yet I could not place myself into this category. A few more years rolled by and I learned about transgender and said to myself, this is me. Took another 20 plus years to make the decision to transition, did the normal things, hair removal and hormones then finished off with top and bottom surgeries.

In hindsight I have no regrets after transitioning of the lost years as what came before made me who I am today.

I'm very happy knowing that the younger generation will have an easier time overall being able to transition at earlier ages,

[johnna]

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU- for all the wonderful posts!!! I SOOOOO appreciate learning about everyone's unique path. There is no "way" to transition except that which is right for each of us. :)

I think I should have been a girl!

Blessings to all!

:love: :love: :love:

[LeaP]

Know? What's "know"? I've posted before on how the meaning of this changes over time, but this time, I want to emphasize how the implications just keep sinking deeper and deeper. Anne Vitale describes how this plays out in terms of life stages accurately - but clinically. To consciously experience passing from one stage to another, however, is quite another thing, the difference between fearing what you may become to feeling its realization.

All the self-analysis drive has faded away for me. I don't need it to understand myself any longer, at least for gender. I still feel some need for validation, though, because analyses like this commentary on Vitale's views:

https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/a-clinical-view/

... can still trigger - what? - pain, angst, even desperation - as my identity is questioned, parsed, and judged by others. Nothing, NOTHING in the literature really describes my life and how identity has played out and why. So "when did I know" doesn't seem like such an interesting question any more. The answers, including those I've given, don't seem that interesting or enlightening any more, either. Any time I have a more intimate exchange with another trans woman, the depth and complexity of the nuances are more telling than than any arbitrary knowledge milestones.

An old friend's signature line read "There are many ways to be a woman - or a transsexual." I've come to appreciate that point of view more and more over time. Life runs two ways: forward in un-appreciated experience and continuously retroactive in ever-changing understanding. There's beauty and pain at both ends. I'm not sure that valuing one stage of understanding more than another does anything but create more problems. Live in the now. Act in the now.

Sorry if this is a little dense.

[Georgette_USA]

Looking at that paper. I would describe my self to be a cross between type 1 and 3.

Never was interested in boys. Did have some occasions of being called sissy or such. Was a loner and spent much time reading. Not one for typical men's sports.

Probably why when I researched it in the 70s, was so easy to accept what I was and my path was clear. Did not spend years fighting what was inevitable.

[Nikki.]

Why do you think it triggers those reactions? Is it the linkage between Vitale's Group 3 to Blanchard's/Lawrence's AGP and the implicit negative connotation of misplaced erotic target locations? Personally I identify with a little of group one and a whole lotta group 3. Trying to understand...

[LeaP]

Nikki, excellent question. Unfortunately, I have to reply both yes and no. The implications you mention are there and I don't like them. To the point of my reply, though, my lived experience doesn't fit neatly into the various boxes the theorists use. I'm not at all anti-label or opposed to systems and frameworks. I just wish they were used properly as aids to understanding and not as bases for judgment. The article I cited hints at the fundamental problem that leads to moral postures. The author uses Vitale's framework to justify, simplify and reduce her views, not to increase the depth of her understanding and empathy.

[Jesse Six]

Lea, ouch, that's a tough blog you quoted! Jesus, you can practically hear the Schadenfreude.

In response to Nikki's question: why the angsty reaction? I read Kay Brown's AGP articles and was taken aback: they drip with disdain. She more or less calls any MtF transitioner over the age of puberty an incorrigible sexual deviant. If you believe differently, then either your therapist was too timid to say it, or you've managed to fool them.

There are generalizations all over the place:
- if you're attracted to the wrong gender (in line with the author's own preference), your transsexuality is invalid
- if you didn't dare to come out decades ago (like the author did), you're not really trans
- if you're not passable (like the author), you're not trans enough
etc

The overall tone and conclusions are crazy patronizing. Lea, your life is not the only one that doesn't fit those boxes Brown uses.

[Nikki.]

ok, I read more of Brown's articles from her blog and I get it. I basically agree with your take Jesse, except I don't think she invalidates one's trans experience based on sexual attraction, but rather your ultimate conclusion- someone like me (mostly vitale group 3) is trans, but a highly inferior, narcissistic, sexually deviant one, especially compared to group 1. Sweet. I also disagree with the idea that I was into my wife because I wanted to be her. That was and is completely inaccurate. And I'm not engaging in self deception.

[Georgette_USA]

Read Brown's articles, and others on AGP.

I was just about a +5 or so. Was military, computers and programming, higher IQ around the 130s, am more attracted to women, in the middle at age 26 (not late but not early enough) most people say I was an early Transition.

As far as sex with men, can take it or leave it. Did have at least 2 experiences prior to SRS, no male parts activity on my part. No male to female sex prior to SRS.
Lived with another Pre- / Post-Op MtF for 38 years. Have had multiple sex with women Post SRS.
I am good with children, even did some baby sitting as a teen. Just never really felt like children of my own. Have plenty of nieces/nephews and now grand nieces/nephews.

But 39 years later I have NO regrets about transition/SRS.

[Starling]

I believe the obsessive attention to most of the apparent differences between early and late transitioners will melt away, as they are actually distorted artifacts of an outmoded--normative and punitive--understanding of gender and sex. It's only very recently that a significant number of very early transitioners have even been identified and acknowledged. When I was a child, I would have been institutionalized and been given shock treatment for saying I wanted to be a girl--which I most certainly did--and I would be tortured until I shut up about it. Of course, I didn't care to suffer that fate. Today's nurturing attitude did most emphatically not exist in 1950, even among college-educated coastal liberals.

The stated correlation between socio-economic status and whether one is type one (real) or type three (fake, as they dog-whistle), which is said to prove effect, could just as likely demonstrate cause. A janitor or file clerk has less to lose by transitioning than a pediatrician, for instance.

Of course, there could be a million ways I am totally off-base here, but if I compare my own experience to what I read...it's like what the doctor says, while taking a pulse: "Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped."

:) Lallie

[LeaP]

It wasn't lost on me growing up that my mother underwent electroshock and that a cousin was lobotomized. I couldn't possibly have erected more impassable barriers to the psychs to which I was dragged if I had tried. Sit still. Say NOTHING. Hour after hour after ...

[Starling]

At least I didn't have to survive third-degree interrogations by a bunch of educated bigots...

:) Lallie

[Lorileah]

:thinking: when did I know?

I knew I was a "girl" as early as age 4 (maybe before, but I don't remember anything specific before then). But knowing I was "TS" is different. I, like many above, had mental roadblocks about it. I went through a stereotypic progression.
* Internalized desire in high school. I didn't want to date the cheerleaders I wanted to be them. Later I now realize the women I idolized were women I wanted to be. Yeah, I played the be as macho as possible game at that time. (12-18 years old)
* I must be a freak because I don't get guys but just keep it to yourself (18-25)
* getting "permission" from some authority ( a professor) to be who you are (25)
* Underdressing works...ok maybe add nail polish...ok maybe longer hair...ok maybe women's shoes that are androgynous... (29-40)
* dressing fully when possible on the sly- taking the title "crossdresser" (40-50)
* realizing that I was really TS (55 or so)
Transitioning (57-present)

[Starling]

Lorileah, all of that sounds really familiar to me--especially the "I don't get guys" part--except it took me a lot longer to get from 25 to 55...er, 65.

:) Lallie

[jentay1367]

When I was 4, staying with my Grandmother while my parents worked, I would play dress-up with my Grandmother till my Grandfather came home to find me in my Grandmothers Peignoirs and notified me that only fags did that and none of this would do. This of course, was before I even knew what a "fag"" was. Can't blame my Grandmother, though. She caught me in her Dresser ogling her feminine nightwear and I begged her to try it on. I'm sure I must have presented quite the adorable sight. Yet, my Grandfather, whom I loved dearly, would have none of it.
This was the impetus of a very long journey with anecdotal heartbreak and most probably..... some very humorous moments....but this was the beginning......at four years old....before I even knew what any of it all meant........and doing these things with my grandmother, innocence personified. I knew what I wanted then, but I was unable to process it or deal with who I was as I was too young. Fast forward to 1975. A show called "Medical Center" had a Dr. portrayed by actor, Robert Reed.....that's right, Mr. Brady of Brady Bunch fame, and playing a transitioning transsexual. Oh my God!!!!! That's me!!!!!!! All the lights came on at once, the epiphanies were all had...... I haven't been the same since.

[Georgette_USA]

Fast forward to 1975. A show called "Medical Center" had a Dr. portrayed by actor, Robert Reed.....that's right, Peter Brady of Brady Bunch fame, playing a transitioning transsexual.


I remember my partner and I watching that show. We were at her place doing electrolysis on each other, and Medical Center was one we would watch.

[Rogina B]

My open minded and very supportive Mom recognized my "special interests" at around age six. Along with supporting my curiosity,she also made sure that I realized it wouldn't be good to "share " my interests with the other kids ! Lorileah's development outline fits so many of us. Years fly by until we realize that to feel happy,we need to be ourselves to the world.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Know? What's "know"? I've posted before on how the meaning of this changes over time, but this time, I want to emphasize how the implications just keep sinking deeper and deeper. Anne Vitale describes how this plays out in terms of life stages accurately - but clinically. To consciously experience passing from one stage to another, however, is quite another thing, the difference between fearing what you may become to feeling its realization.

All the self-analysis drive has faded away for me. I don't need it to understand myself any longer, at least for gender. I still feel some need for validation, though, because analyses like this commentary on Vitale's views:

https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/a-clinical-view/

... can still trigger - what? - pain, angst, even desperation - as my identity is questioned, parsed, and judged by others. Nothing, NOTHING in the literature really describes my life and how identity has played out and why. So "when did I know" doesn't seem like such an interesting question any more. The answers, including those I've given, don't seem that interesting or enlightening any more, either. Any time I have a more intimate exchange with another trans woman, the depth and complexity of the nuances are more telling than than any arbitrary knowledge milestones.

An old friend's signature line read "There are many ways to be a woman - or a transsexual." I've come to appreciate that point of view more and more over time. Life runs two ways: forward in un-appreciated experience and continuously retroactive in ever-changing understanding. There's beauty and pain at both ends. I'm not sure that valuing one stage of understanding more than another does anything but create more problems. Live in the now. Act in the now.

Sorry if this is a little dense.

right

I knew from day 1.... but i also didnt...

remember we are 5 yrs old...6? 7? when it hits us in some way.... i can only imagine the coping skills of a 6 year old
i don't remember much of what i thought then... i do remember in first grade catholic schools boys on the right girls on the left...

i went with the boys of course because of course i was a boy.... i just so desperately wished i was with the girls...but i wasn't "allowed" ..over time i also learned that the worst thing in the world to be is a p*ssy......

from there on it was fantasy and shame and wishful thinking...

[jentay1367]

from there on it was fantasy and shame and wishful thinking...

our common bond.

[LeaP]

The boys and the girls and the boys who are girls who can't know what they know ...

[Peggie Lee]

When I started praying ever night to GOD to make me a girl starting around 6 years old.

[jentay1367]

I remember my partner and I watching that show. We were at her place doing electrolysis on each other, and Medical Center was one we would watch
l.o.l. Georgette, Most of these kids weren't even born when we were watching that. At least you had the guts to face up to who you are! So many years wasted and lost. I try not to give it any energy....but sometimes, it's just heartbreaking.

[Georgette_USA]

At least you had the guts to face up to who you are! So many years wasted and lost. I try not to give it any energy....but sometimes, it's just heartbreaking.


I really feel bad for some I meet now, never to good with feeling empathy. I have quite a few friends in their 50-60s that are just starting some of this. They do get a kick out of my tales though.

Hate when talking about it and they start using terms like (pioneer, ground breaking), we were the guinea pigs of that time. Or when they say if only the Internet or such was around back then. I say that I was so screwed up as a teen, and learned about previous TS, that I had to do it, as I couldn't take living a split life.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

in 1985 i was stealing womens clothes out of laundromats...and buying trans porn at lee's mardi gras and getting j$$rkd off in the dressing room
then i went back to work at the bank...
i feel that is pretty pioneering...

[jentay1367]

in 1985 i was stealing womens clothes out of laundromats...and buying trans porn at lee's mardi gras and getting j$$rkd off in the dressing room
then i went back to work at the bank...

Just the kind of behavior that I suspect drives most of us to feel were "t" poisoned and ready for something else....like transitioning. I know that furtive crap like that helped me find alternative realities.

[Georgette_USA]

in 1985 i was stealing womens clothes out of laundromats...and buying trans porn at lee's mardi gras


Was that the one in NYC (Lee's Mardi Gras) in early 70s, would visit when I was in town.

In the 60s, around 12-13, I was a clothesline thief, actually started to break and enter homes. Got caught and had to see my first pyschs.

Don't think that as pioneering, was very desperate. At least by my early 20s had a shared house and could buy my own stuff, and could start to research CD and TS.

[Exris]

Age 3 or 4? Something like that.

I grew up in a rough part of the north of England. Any of you that know the area... know it's very rough in some parts. Mine was one of those parts (Oh... so lucky!)

Weirdly tho my family were not rough. Professionals in professional jobs. But lived in a shithole and I have no time for the place or the (majority) of it's people.

But in the next street... there was a similar couple my parents were (not exactly greatest BFF's...) but quite friendly with. They had a daughter. 1 year older than me. And of course we used to play together. A lot. Almost exclusively.

We loved each others company. When no-one was around she and I would swap tops. Swap bottoms... usually playing a tea serving game in her bedroom.

Im a lot older now. 45 or near as dammit. Barely a week goes by where I dont have at least one dream when we are together again now as adults. Serving tea. In princess gear. With a castle and butler entourage that seems to get bigger by the week.

Disapproval as I got older from what I felt "should be my better friends" ... young males... as I was growing up drove us apart. The majority of the fault is mine. I stopped passing by. She eventually gave up passing by my house and asking us to play as we got older. My rejection cut her and I will never wipe that shame away from me.

IRONY HERE. BITTER IRONY. I bumped into her about 10 years ago on a parental visit. She IS a princess in real life now. Not by deed or title... but how she is and looks and commands her sexuality and appearance. I got the barest recognition and faintest nod.

I deserved that. Girls can be bitches... but I was the one that wronged her. I was the one that was STUPID enough to conform.

So... how long? ALWAYS! And have a shit ton of regret to add to that...


EDIT: Some terrible typo's.

[OCCarly]

I knew when I was five. Only back then I didn't call it "transsexual" I called it "I wanna be a girl."

I grew up not knowing transition was possible, then somewhere around 1980 or so I saw Dr. Renee Richards on television. It took me another 35 years to get here, though.

[Starling]

...stealing womens clothes...buying trans porn...and getting...off in the dressing room...that is pretty pioneering...

I once stole a paper shopping bag containing a girl's clothes and shoes that had been left in my high school auditorium. Later, as an adult, I actually walked into stores and bought clothes, pretending they were for someone else. And I just now remembered buying a pair of high heels "for my mother," when I was 10ish, and actually taking them back to the store! Never stole from a laundro, however, nor got "irked" by anyone, anywhere. You were obviously a dangerous delinquent and a poor role model for other bank employees!

:heehee: Lallie