I feel that I should preface this by warning questioning people that looking for signs is generally not a good way to find out if you’re trans. Different people experience being trans in different ways.
Thank you lady_scarecrow for the above disclaimer. Very good advice ❤️
A common trope in my history is, “Why do they get it and I don’t?”
Lots of envy regarding feminine folk.
I (mtf) used to have the classic embarrassment about going shirtless as a boy, took me years to somewhat overcome. Still somewhat feel it these days but I begrudgingly deal with it anyway because my area is warm as heck.
Also always thought being a man was meh and women were fucking amazing and interesting in pretty much every way but that was totally because I was attracted to them and respectful, still totally cis though!
A particularly sad/hilarious one is the intense and euphoric recurring dreams about being a girl followed by inevitably waking up devastated, that’s totally a thing everyone has, right? Right, guys??
I didn’t know about the shirtless thing being a sign. I did have a time like that but I had assumed it was because I didn’t like my fat body and later puberty body hair. It might have been more complicated that that 😅
I may have done something similar about the women thing too. Can’t say about the dreams though.
Haha yup, I didn’t connect the dots until I heard some trans folks bring it up a while ago, seen it mentioned a few extra times since. I definitely had some of the body image thing going on too but in hindsight there was some big, unknown discomfort I couldn’t quite put my finger on at the time. I legit couldn’t put into words just how deeply weird it felt to have my chest exposed and it bewildered people nearly as much as it did myself lol.
I forgot until later that somewhere nearish to that time I also felt weird about it because I thought somehow everyone messed up at my birth and thought I was a boy, but I wasn’t and no one knew but me. 😂 I was young enough to not know enough anatomy, but the thought still 😅
THE SHIRTLESS NIGHTMARE! I forgot about those, I got them so often. Now I want to know how common it is in cis boys.
Up until I realized that I am trans, I always felt really awkward going into the men’s restroom. I would always check the signs like 5 times and then I’d go in, see the urinals, and still feel like I was somehow in the wrong place.
I also hated having my top off, and I rarely swam until I discovered rash guards. In middle school we were required to do swimming for gym and they didn’t allow me to wear my rash guard and I felt so embarrassed the entire time.
I relate hard to the men’s restroom feelings. To the point I avoided going in public at all costs.
Over the weekend was actually the very first time I used the woman’s restroom. I would of held it but damn does Spiro make me need to pee, lol.
I waited till no one was in there and it was both exhilarating and relieving (more ways than one, hehe!). Had the added bonus of wearing a face mask to better blend in. Looked up in the mirror while washing my hands and saw a woman. I saw me ❤️
Congrats on using the women’s restroom for the first time! I know it takes a lot of courage, and the first time I did my mother and sister went with just in case there were problems, and it was still quite nerve wracking because there were a lot of other women in there too.
Spiro is indeed a bitch sometimes lol. I appreciate that it blocks my T, but damn does it makes me have to piss a lot. I can’t wait to get an orchi some day lol.
I remember reading Calvin and Hobbes, with their transmogrifier, and thinking I would write “girl” on it. Bit of foreshadowing I guess haha
I remember telling my sister when I was around nine “I wish I was the son he never had” (referring to my dad). She scoffed and said that was a stupid thing to say. Little did we know…
She is very supportive of me nowadays. We were kids then and she didn’t know any better. I got pretty lucky in the sister game.
I remember asking my brother something like “if you could come back and live another life after this one, would you want to see what it was like as a girl?” he was like “noo??” I was like “oh…” and years later it was like “OHHH!”
I feel that I should preface this by warning questioning people that looking for signs is generally not a good way to find out if you’re trans. Different people experience being trans in different ways.
Having said that… There were so many signs. Daydreaming about being a girl. Being uncomfortable about being shirtless in public. Feeling a deep admiration for women. Nearly only relating to female characters. Never falling in love for gay men despite being attracted to men.
I remember when I was playing the sims. I made a female character and the game was so much fun. Then after my sim died, I decided to make a male character, and suddenly I lost interest in the game. It was the exact same game, but being a woman just seemed so much more fun… I should’ve known.
Thank you for that. And you are absolutely right! Questioning people looking for signs is not a good idea because it all comes from within. It is self discovery and not something other people can put on you.
Do you mind if I use your first paragraph as an actual preface in my post? I will of course give you credit.
Feel free to do that.
I feel that I should preface this by warning questioning people that looking for signs is generally not a good way to find out if you’re trans. Different people experience being trans in different ways.
What is a good way to find out if you’re trans?
As I see it at least, the one thing that actually matters is finding out if you’d be happier living as a different gender than the one you currently live as.
I put that disclaimer there because I’ve seen many posts from people saying they think they might be trans, “but I didn’t have any childhood signs”, “but I don’t see myself as [insert gender here]”, “but I don’t have dysphoria” (very often they do, they just fail to recognize it as such). My sibling in Christ, none of that matters. If you know you’d rather live as a different gender than the one you’re living as, just do it.
I was constantly thinking “damn I hate masculinity and I want to have as little of it as posssible, very normal cis thing”
Sometimes I feel like this is basically my gender 😂
Every time I saw a shooting star I wished I would wake up as a girl with nothing else changing in the world. Same for blowing away an eye lash.
I desperately wanted to be the little mermaid.
At around 8, I told my cousin’s friends I was a girl, I didn’t understand their laughter. At 10, I distinctly recall thinking that it would be nice if I could live half my life as a man and half as a woman. Around then, I started reading through my mom’s medical books and found GID listed as a diagnosis. At the time, I remember thinking a diagnosis would be scary and something that I couldn’t walk back, so I became obsessed with finding an alternate diagnosis that could get me a prescription that would have a similar effect.
Lots of stereotypes like playing the female character in games, confusing envy with attraction, always being upset about male fashion or lack therof.
I feel all of those!
An entrance exam for some psychiatrist thing as a kid asked if I wanted to be the other sex/gender (idr the wording). I cried and took a while to answer that. And then I forgot about it for a decade.
I remember I went to school mental health counseling sessions in 7th grade (Christian private school. Yuck.) and the counselor asked me “do you wish that you were born as a different gender?” (I have no idea how that even came up) And I replied “uhhhh I don’t care, I wouldn’t mind either” trying to play it cool and in my head I was like “holy shit I want to be a boy” but immeditely felt this weird shame and fear about it.
Yeah, I lied too
i had this whole argument with my mom when i was like, 5, because i didn’t understand why i wasn’t a boy. i preferred boy things, i should be a boy. she was very insistent i was a girl.
my parents ended up divorcing not long after this but that was mainly prompted by mom fucking off for approximately six months.
“Maybe I’m not a guy but a girl”, says me in primary school, “but no, it’s not possible”
Rediscovered this memory a decade and half later, a whole year or more into questioning my gender. Big “oh fuck” moment.
Hitting subscribe on egg_irl.
They’re just funny relatable memes, still cis tho
Along the same lines: being amused by egg_irl and yet feeling a vague and nebulous yet irresistible sense that it would be dangerous to subscribe and therefore avoiding it.
Still cis tho.
Yeah totally. All boys dream of being a girl some day. If only we were trans. But ya know
Still cis tho. 😂
Probably the biggest one for me was always feeling discomfort when being referred to or referring to myself as a “man”. I didn’t have any problem with words like “male”, “guy”, “dude”, “lad”, “boy”, “fella”, etc., but “man” was just one step too far, apparently.
Always figured it was just a reaction to my strong distaste for toxic masculinity, and/or a reluctance to grow up. With hindsight, it seems silly that it wasn’t a dead giveaway.
I also explained away my feelings with my disgust of toxic masculinity 😄
