Trans

A dream. I was at some sort of event and ended up wearing a dress as a "joke" which then escalated to me being assigned to do like street interviews at a sci-fi convention which transitioned into me just attending the con as a fully out trans woman (no HRT or surgery, can't ever have anything too nice in my dreams 🙄). But then my dream took a really dark turn.

I woke up shaking and in a sweat and my mind was racing as i drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the night. I was a mess the next day, I felt dizzy, I probably shouldn't have been driving.

I was replaying my entire life in my head and just laughing at how oblivious I was. Some were smaller, coincedental things like always being closest friends with girls growing up or one time when I was a kid I kicked my leg up during a hug (a totally normal memory to be locked in as a core memory). Some were pretty huge clues like how much I was wrecked by I Saw the TV Glow (I'm just a really empathetic ally!) or using a character creator to make a version of myself as the final stage of the trans-pipeline meme 🤦‍♀️

Looking back, I think the thought did pass thru my mind but I've just always taken a long time to realize things.

I slowly had been distancing myself from masculinity, trying on demi-boy or agender identities in my head (I know those can fall under the trans umbrella but they didn't feel like they "counted" lol, they were safer to my egg shell). I felt like I wasn't worthy of being a woman, I could only approach it sideways or by degrees.

I've been hanging around queer and especially trans spaces on the internet for a long time so I had as much exposure and knowledge as you can from that. So once the pressure had finally built my brain just had to shake me by the shoulders to snap me out of it.

To be honest it was probably sheer luck, since I'm AFAB act and present feminine people usually just assume I'm a woman. Though I never felt like a woman and didn't feel like a man either. I feel like something else. I guess when I learned that NonBinary is a thing and that it's under the trans umbrella that's when I figured it out. If no one had ever told me about NonBinary I would've continued thinking that the thoughts of not wanting to be referred to as a girl was me just being weird and dumb for no reason.

I was an ally™️ before I transitioned so already fairly invested and educated on the trans community, I spent a lot of my time advocating for us. So I knew that what I felt was gender euphoria when one day I saw a boys vs girls meme and imagined myself as a woman in a way I guess I never had before. It was pretty wild because I knew enough about the trans community to pretty accurately appreciate how much the trajectory of my life had changed in that moment.

It made a lot of things line up as well. One time I told an old therapist that the discomfort I had with my body felt a lot like what trans people described as gender dysphoria but "I didn't want to appropriate their experiences" 🤦‍♀️. I don't know how I didn't put two and two together there, but my therapist must have been asleep at the wheel jfc. I also remembered being a kid and reading Calvin and Hobbes and thinking I'd set their transmogrifier to girl and be a girl and getting a fuzzy feeling from that. Few other things too.

The culmination of many different experiences throughout 4 decades. But to cut it down to a singular thought: I asked myself why I shouldn't transition and I came up with many reasons. But, "because I don't want to be a woman" wasn't one of them.

TL/DR experiencing gender euphoria for the first time made me realise I'd been living with crushing gender dysphoria my whole life).

Convinced myself for years that I was just an ally. Convinced myself that there was some magic certainty available to "real" trans people that I didn't possess. I remember a dear friend (trans girl, probably carefully trying not to break the prime directive) asking me "if I'd ever had any gender feelings?" and I said (with a straight face my dear reader) "not really...I mean I hate everything male and masculine about myself but...".

That same year I watched "I Saw The TV Glow" and i cried almost throughout, like broken down ugly crying. Particularly the third act. I didn't even realise that it was a trans film until later. I remember turning to my friend who was watching the movie with me (a sweet cis man), as the credits rolled, and said to him, through buckets of tears, "that was amazing" and he was like "yeah it was alright". I wondered for a few months why the fuck i reacted that way to that movie.

Fast forward a few months and I was going to a queer event and I decided to put on nail polish, you know for fun, and it gave me happy feelings I couldn't explain. Slowly started playing a bit more, jewellery, makeup, and it kept making me feel good in a way I couldn't explain.

So then I was up late one night googling "am i trans?" (you know that normal question that all cis people have googled a a few dozen times), and came across the gender dysphoria bible. Well, that was what finally smashed the egg. The "oh my god, THAT's what gender dysphoria is, and wow do i have a whole lot of it" moment. From then I let myself explore more with clothes, styles, etc. Let myself imagine what it might be like to be seen as a girl, let myself imagine what it might be like to have the physical effects that came along with HRT (which of course, I knew everything about already because I was a very well-informed cis ally).

It eventually got to the point where the doubts just didn't make any sense any more. I'm currently in therapy with a nice older trans lady, and awaiting a spot at free clinic to get my bloods checked so I can start HRT.

Some other missed signs:

• Getting my first tattoo, my arms being shaved for it made me happy in a way I couldn't explain.
• Every character I have ever made in any video game that has allowed me to, has been a woman. Not just any woman, the same woman. Every time.
• 1000s of egg_irl memes on my phone (why is it that every time i saved a relatable meme then checked the community it came from it was egg_irl over and over? no further investigation needed apparently).
• A sense of intense longing whenever I was in queer spaces but very specifically when I was spending time with trans women.
• Intense self-hatred around my body
• Panic attacks in any situation where I was made to wear a suit

The list goes on.

It began with a long attempt to not look too hard into the fantasies of being a girl or to transition that more or less dominated my internal life as a kid. Then as a teenager I asked myself seriously if I was trans and found a stupid argument I could stretch to say I wasn't. I spent the next year or so low key thinking that there was a 50% chance I'd transition later in life.

Then at 18, after a high school religious retreat, I accepted that at least a part of me was female and I wasn't cis. I spent the next year and a half closeted nonbinary identifying.

At 19 everything just kinda started overflowing. I was seeing online trans women start to appear that were just like me, and they made it less scary. And I decided I'd start experimenting with femininity. I made some breast forms and something just kinda clicked there. As that night went on I started really thinking about my dysphoria and how while it had a sinusoidal steady state solution, the transient solution continued increasing (calculus is transing genders, you heard it here first). Then it just clicked. I still remember my first thoughts: "fuck I'm a woman. Shit, that makes me gay. Fuck, my life's going to be hard isn't it."

After that it was just a question of if I tried to keep it hidden until I could dip out of everyone in my life's life or come out and transition quickly. I'm glad I chose the latter.

I think mine was quite uncommon because i never identified my personal discomfort as dysphoria and rather found out through lying about my identity online (for anonymity purposes) that being seen and addressed as male felt incredibly euphoric and just right. Through that the discomfort in my day to day life becoming more apparent till i eventually had to consider the possibility of being trans and everything else kinda started from there. I was 15-16 during that time. The dysphoria i felt in younger years for me back then was just something i assumed is normal if youre a teenage girl

... realizing you're trans at 15 - 16 through euphoria is not an usual path at all, and I think the vast majority of trans people don't recognize their dysphoria is dysphoria until much later, so just so you know, you are in the majority (not unusual at all)

It was a very slow clicking. I used to be the classic tomboy child who would hang out with the boys and feel really awkward and uncomfortable with girls, like i was performing. With the guys i could just "be myself". Puberty was hell and it made my friends stop seeing me as a fellow human. I tried complying and "acting as a girl" but the more i forced that the weirder it got and i was just so depressed. When i was 18 i started being exposed to trans stuff online and questioning "whats up with gender, what really makes you a man or a woman?" And then took 2 more years to realize i found no answer to what made Me a woman. Realized then i probably was not a woman. The more comfortable i felt in my nonbinary identity, the more i realized my truest happiest self was a very masculine person. I realized i was a man. And ive been trying to become one (or look like one) ever since. I was deep in denial until i was 25 tho. I guess i still kinda am

I had a few signs growing up, but I wasn't really dysphoric until I hit puberty age. I had a trend of identifying with characters who were men and not women, I would try to copy my dad when I was really little because I wanted to be like him, but when you are five that stuff can be pretty flexible. I also loved femme style dressup, so there wasn't a huge reason to think I wasn't cis.

I should have realized when my mom gave me her college bio textbook as her way of giving me "the talk" when I was 13. It mentioned puberty blockers for trans people and I asked about it. Trigger warning for transphobia here: she told me being trans was when gay men wanted to have sex with more men, so they would change their bodies to look like women. My first thought was "That makes no sense, being a woman is awful, why would anyone want that, I would give anything to be a guy."

I didn't get my lightbulb moment until college. Attended an educational drag party and decided to go 'in drag' as a guy. Bound my chest, used makeup to contour my face and give myself a moustash, the works. I didn't like how I looked because I thought I didn't pass. But I did pass, to several people, and each time they would gender me as a guy, I felt that gender euphoria. I also learned that you coukd be a trans guy and do femme drag, which helped, because I do love femme fashion.

It would be a couple of years before I was able to start my transition, but almost 10 years later and I am so happy I decided to do it.

for me it just kinda gradually happened.

i never thought too much about my gender identity, honestly. i just did what i thought made be look nicest in the mirror once i realized i have to take care of myself instead of relying on mother.

at some point i thought of, "what would i look like if i was a girl", then decided that the concept of being outright female actually kinda sounded nice, and then just kinda went with that. when i told others, pretty much none of them were surprised hehe (i live in a VERY trans-/queer-positive area).

there was never really a "moment" for me, i didn't ever change super suddenly. i still love motor racing, i still lift weights, i still love lots of other traditionally "masculine" stuff, i just happen to also now be girl. :)

the main thing that pushed me was puberty. when i was a young boy, i looked AWESOME, and i still maintain that to this day. however, when i started going through puberty, i think it was how not good i looked that pushed me to start caring about my appearance, which eventually led to me just throwing in the towel and becoming a girl, cause like there was NO way i could ever look good as a guy with my body.

interestingly (or realistically, quite unremarkably), i only felt any bit of dysphoria quite a bit after even figured out i enjoy being female. it is what pushed me to start HRT.

My ex-girlfriend asked “Do you feel like you are a girl?”. All of a sudden a few things clicked, and I said “yes.”

When I was around 9 I knew I didn't like my genitals and wanted those of the opposite sex, but I didn't know that was something I could actually do. When I was around 12/13 I found a Scratch project that explained about sex and gender and trans people and I was like "That's me!"

Cue several years of oscillating between "yeah, I'm trans, stop lying to yourself" and "you're just trying to feel special/seek attention/rebel/you'll never be a real girl anyway". I eventually realised I was genderfluid and that I was actually oscillating between being fem/girl and being agender, and rarely masc.

Around 15/16 I came out as nonbinary at school which was ignored. Around 17 I started insisting on they/them pronouns which was then respected by some people, around the same time I got on HRT.

Then when I started passing around a year later and getting gendered as female by strangers and feeling gender euphoria from that, I was pretty sure that I was actually trans :p

honestly? it was always there while growing up. i had always felt feminine my entire life and i never felt comfortable growing up as male. never felt okay doing the usual 'male' stuff or even engaging with it. hated how i looked and everything.

i finally learned about how i was trans as i got older but i was always i guess...afraid? of being judged for it so i kinda put it aside, but my real 'oh shit' and acceptance moment was when i played animal crossing for the first time (like many i had hopped on the new horizons bandwagon lmao) and trying on the feminine clothing gave me SUCH a wave of euphoria that i had never really felt before.

I was 18, I played Fire Emblem Engage and came across a recruit named Rosado. He was my awakening lol. Had a week or so of a femboys phase until I realized I'm just trans

I had a dream where I saw a girl with beautiful breasts coming out of the water. I was transfixed by them. I woke up from the dream and realized it was not attraction, it was envy. I wanted those boobs in my body :)

I can never wrap my mind around the amount of denial, nor the duration of it. We're talking SIGNS here, with multiple people suggesting me being trans and parents worrying about it in early age. I had very specific stereotypes and assumptions about what a trans woman is, that I scoffed at the suggestion. Weirdest things are: I felt more comfortable in women's jeans and tights and accessories, integrated in my normal clothing, I kept a secret collection of clothing items and dressed up at home, I had online accounts with a female name, and I had looked up HRT and voice training. Still didn't figure it out.

At some point I think about 20yo it dawned on me that I am actually a trans woman and need to transition, but I was afraid about the stigma, homelessness, violence, etc, so I made a semi-conscious choice to forget about it. I successfully buried it deep down despite all the signs. Being lesbian also confused the hell out of me, as I thought trans women "who get to transition" must be straight. Low bottom dysphoria also set me back because I thought trans women "who get to transition" must want bottom surgery. I had limited understanding of HRT which confused me a lot with some trans women I had observed.

Later in life dysphoria became such a huge burden I could not overlook it anymore, and I realized I want to transition and possibly go all the way. I made several awkward steps towards transition and almost gave up, but after going through self-care and therapy I had a full insight into who I really was and wanted to be. I immediately told important people and groups in my life and after a while I started HRT. I am a decade on it now! (I am like GenX)

I wish I had waited even less. My overall social and personal function massively improved ever since realizing, and especially after HRT. I regret going through the "Real life experience" before starting HRT, as I didn't know the options to get informed consent and aimed at going the medicalist route. I did face some bullying, stares, laughs, and harassment, but also acceptance and support. Take-home message: I learned who to keep in my life and who to cut off. At the time I was thriving for the first time and didn't care, but knowing what I do know I would prefer to go the HRT route before coming out socially, and put more stock to the fact that people who knew me before mostly were unable to switch mentally to another concept of myself.

I had a lot of trans thoughts growing up but like you I had no framework to understand it, so it wrote it all off as daydreaming an just general normal thoughts.

I think the first crack was a video by a youtuber called vihart about how she didn't initially get all the gender stuff, and then later realizing that just because she doesn't get something doesn't mean it isn't real. I think she also talked about how she might possibly be agender or something to that effect, and it resonated with me.

Still, I didn't really get the content fully and I didn't connect it to anything in my life beyond a vague notion that something gendery was going on. I also didn't really know yet that even if I was trans or anything that I could also do something about it. That felt like something for other people that weren't "normal" like me. I didn't really hang online in spaces where gender was talked about. Her video was the first true introduction to the concept of gender and transness I had.

Many years later I noticed that people on reddit were talking a lot about trans people. It also seemed people in the US were getting increasingly incensed about the topic. There seemed to me to be a pattern where anti trans people were largely motivated by finding transgender people icky, while pro trans people seemed to be motivated by freedom of expression and sometimes science. I was upset that I couldn't really argue for or against anything, so I decided to sit down and read some stats. Learning that anti-trans shit is all made up nonsense and pro-trans stuff saves lives made an impact on me, but it didn't crack my egg.

Memes did. I was subscribed to 196 on reddit, and the many trans and femboy memes for some reason I found very compelling. I later found egg irl and that comm also spoke to me in ways I couldn't put into words. At some point I also decided to read this site, and that really was what did it. I found it funny how relatable it was, and then memes kept saying very very specific things I had experienced myself, and I started panicking :P

I kept rereading the site over and over again and I took quizzes and I kept remembering things in my childhood that fit, and a month or two later I was fairly certain that I was trans. It was weird to have an existential crisis while hanging with my family and pretending like nothing hehe. A short while later I decided I was gonna get HRT and I started looking into that. I needed it as a final confirmation that I was truly trans, to remove all doubt. I knew I was never gonna be entirely certain if all I did was question for ages.

I at first identified as non-binary because I felt sort of like I was intruding or like I wasn't allowed to be trans or a woman, but I identified increasingly as just a woman until voilà! Here I am.

Bit of a long one :P Wish you a speedy recovery from your surgery!