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how did u know//trans folk?

currently having an identity crisis so id like to hear the trans folks stories on how they knew they werent the gender they were assigned !! also - what is ur relationship w gender like? its weird , i never exactly think of myself as a girl and i do very specific things to seem masculine (literally started taking my shirt off by the collar , i wear boxers , sit/walk a certain way etc etc ) i dont really have any /problems/ being called she / her so idrk . sorry didnt mean for this to turn into a vent aha!! 


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Reply by oli!!

posted

When i was younger i was always called a boy because i had short hair and i loved it but i felt bad for liking it due to where i was growing up it wasn't normal. I struggled with my gender identity for a long time but always leaned closer to being a boy or nonbinary. I hated being the "girl" in relationships and then one day it just kinda smacked me in the face i was trans (ftm)


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Reply by arachnidsGrip

posted

I just had the strong, strong urge to dress and act femininely. And then a guy I knew diagnosed me as trans. I didnt protest. And I've been trans ever since.


I do want to transition, of course. But sometimes I dont want to be a woman. I just want to look like Batman.


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Reply by Cell.Body

posted

My friend came out to me as non-binary, and I was like "what's that?" And so they explained trans and stuff. After some time, I realized, I didn't like being called a girl. It didn't fit me. I felt more comfortable and in my own skin when people refered to me as a male. So when I tell people and they call me a man, I feel more better. I feel like I don't have to be uncomfortable going outside since people are seeing me as a male. there are some times when I'll get called a female, and it doesn't upset me. I just let them know. If they continue I just don't hang with them. :)


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Reply by Ghost_Society

posted


Back in like 2015 - 2016, I had been very intertwined with social media. Back when TikTok was Musical.ly, I had been shown into the LGBTQ+ community and at the time I thought nothing of it, and then I started to see more trans people come onto my feed. It spiked my interest, and a lot of the trans people, I was seeing were all over social media, and I became very involved in wanting to know more. I had thought about it time and time again, and I just brushed it off as wanting to be masculine, not necessarily in a male way. Until about 2 years later I was like 'I can't keep doing this' so I thought about it really hard making sure it was what I wanted and what I felt and when I was ready, I began coming out as trans to a lot of my close friends, which wasn't really that big of a deal because most of my friends at the time were already a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Once I did it, I felt this relief wash over me, and I felt more at peace with myself than I ever had. Now that I've been out for about 3 years, my relationship with gender couldn't be better, of course it's changed a little bit, but this time I was more accepting of my own change, and it feels amazing.


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Reply by Boogie

posted

So I always struggled with wanting to be a boy and doing boy things but never really being allowed to. There are pictures of me very young in pink dresses with flaming sketchers on because I only got to pick my shoes. Always playing as the boy character in games, always playing with boys even though they were cruel to me, etc etc. In elementary I had heard of trans people and it scared me how much I identified with it, especially after hearing trans phobic family discuss it. I tried to fit into the role of like a masculine lesbian, but I didn't like girls as much as I liked boys and as I realized that I tried to be straight and girly, but it didn't go away.
as much as I tried to ignore it it didn't go away, that's how you know. I also LIKED when people couldn't tell I was a girl. that's a pretty big sign.
If you're fine with being called she but don't see yourself as a girl, you probably aren't a binary trans masc, but you could only ever really tell with time. If you're in a safe situation to do so, try things out.


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Reply by Tag

posted

i was a fem child, around puberty i was just like "damn. im not a girl" and ever since then ive been identifying as enby/ftm for a few years.


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Reply by -⭒Ariana⭒-

posted
updated

I live in a homophobic family so it took me forever to find out who I was. In the first grade, I had a crush on this girl and we got along well. I told her how I felt and she was so happy. We went on until the 3rd and broke it off because I told her I didn't feel right in my body.

One year later I got close to this girl and well call her Angie, Angie and I were close friends and she started to love boys a lot and I was a bit mad for the fact the only thing she would talk about was that shit. We were on a call playing games and we got off to talk. I ended up telling her about who I think I am and told her I don't know if I'm a guy she was like "Oh It's okay I'll help you out" I thought it was nice she was helping. I went back to school happy that my life is better and the next thing I know everyone at my school knew about my life and what she had said. She said she didn't mean to and we got in this big-ass fight. My friend wasn't happy with what she did so she told her to fuck off and that she was in the wrong and that she can tell her mom about her boy crazy self. We both got sent to the office and it was pretty cool for me. She ended up telling the office I was gay and right then and there my life left my body.

As the bell rang I went home about to cry. later at dinner, my parents get a call from my school my ass was out of the room. Later they call me down to talk they said "Why did you pull a girl's hair?" I said because she made crap up about me and that was the end of the talk. I was scared my mom and dad knew and it changed my whole life around.

In sixth grade, I would always mess with my hair and pull it back to feel better. I stop wearing bras and just hung out with myself. I opened up to my sister it was fun. Pulling back my chest and feeling better about myself. I started to feel better and free to the point I felt like I should move even more.

Years went by and covid hit so everyone was fucked for the minute. I ended up having close feelings for my friend the girl who stood up for me. She would text me all the time and we'd be talking for hours to the point even life felt like the color pink. Soon on I asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend and she was so fucking happy I was scared that she block me but she didn't. A few weeks went by and I told her I go by he/him. I thought she was mad but turned out she didn't care she told me that she didn't give a damn. After that, we cared about each other for a long time and she just tried to have me happy all the time and it works.

My parents are really homophobic and they think people should be forced into a church to be "pure". At the time I didn't really know and I and my sister thought it would be a great idea to tell them how I feel. It didn't go so great luckily it was only my mom I told her she was so pissed to the point she stopped the car and yelled at me. She wanted to tell my dad but I made a deal with her. If she tells my dad I tell everyone at my school and if not we leave it alone. She wasn't gonna mess with the police. She told me if I ever said I was gay again she disown me. You know I'm still happy she said that cause maybe at the end of the year I will. She has caused so many things to go wrong in life it's fucked up. My mom is always bringing it up to my sister and me to the point I went off on her and told her If she wanted to be a bitch to me then just leave me already and bring it up all the time because it's on your page you force yourself to watch shit like that and if you didn't want that on your page then fucking leave it alone. She told me to get out of the car and walk home so I did.

We made up and so she's still homophobic I "forgave her".

Feeling like you don't know what gender you are sucks. It took me forever to find out what I was all I had to do was hear myself out and think. It takes you forever to find out who you are and the way I grew up was shit.

I would talk to myself and just mess around with things wondering if it's right. I would grow and think that having boobs are so ugly and weird. I started cutting my hair short and shorter. And buying fem and masc outfits. I started to stop being so fucking weird and show more than I used to. I pulled back my chest when I was at school and had better friends and my lovely girlfriend. I know who I am now and will never want to change who I am I love myself even if my parents don't like it I do.

There are a lot of bigger signs where you don't mind being called anything or even being anything messing with what you are is a big part of life and you don't want to take it away.

Lmao sorry for writing too much ;-; I can go on for hours about my life.

Have A Nice Day (=w=)


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Reply by blub blub

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i was like 14? n i just started watching more trans stuff n just kinda realised “yo that’s me” so yeah. but i still struggle heavily with how i present myself n internalised toxic masculinity.


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Reply by Sal

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when people used he/him prns i felt so unconfortable and id always hang around my male freinds and if someone called me a girl id say im not a girl but i just couldnt explain why i felt so unconfortable until i came out as trans when i started to feel happy for once


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Reply by Malen

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I think I was about 11 when I found out I was trans, I knew I was trans after awhile of trying out skirts and make up. I tried that stuff out cause I thought I'd feel 'normal' if I tried it, I kind of thought it was nice at first but then started hating it. And even when I did dress a little masculine when I was younger, I hated how my mom said I was just a 'tomboy'.

After learning all that about myself, a question randomly popped up in my head I never really thought I'd ever ask myself, if I was trans. So, that's how I found out I was a trans guy!


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Reply by Rain

posted

- Coming from an Agender person-

I never really knew I was trans(I define trans as anyone who identifies with a different gender then the one assigned at birth) because I only thought there were two options, transwomen and transman, until later I learn about non-binary also existing. Before that I had thought I wasn’t trans because (I’m AFAB btw) I didn’t want to be a man. So when I learned there was other options I felt I was non-binary since I didn’t identify with women or man and realised that transition didn’t mean you HAD to get all surgery (top and bottom) but you could literally do what ever you wanted, me personally only wanting top surgery and only feeling dysphoria from my chest. I also learned agender was a thing and realised that it fit me even better then non-binary, (agender meaning no gender to me) For myself I do not see things as masculine or feminine because that’s simply not how I see myself, my chest brings me dysphoria even though I know boobs does not equal femininity, there are plenty of people who identify more with femininity and have a smaller chest then mine, and the fact that they do have a smaller chest does not make them any less feminine and me who has a bigger one any more feminine. To me dysphoria is just a feeling that something, specifically my chest, does not belong there and I do not want it there. For me I never thought that entirely deeply about my gender it’s just been a feeling I guess. Maybe it’s because I have no gender/I’m agender that I’ve never fully thought about it, idk or maybe it’s just a difference of experience. I know that I am not women, a transman, or non-binary, or genderfluid, because I don’t feel I have any gender, I’ve never identified with any of them and I don’t think there’s really any way to describe my gender because there’s nothing for me to describe about it because for me it just isn’t there. 

I don’t know if that helps or makes any sense but that’s just sort of my story


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Reply by Jayden

posted

I always felt like I was different i never liked dresses or wearing "girly clothes" I always hang out with tomboys and boys when i was little i was called weird because i never wanted to do girl things i talked to my friends bout how I felt in 6th grade and they told me bout the identity transgender i did my research and it described me so i identified as trans for few years and I came out to my family in december 2022 and to my friends sometime in the 7th grade my name is jayden and I use he/they/xe pronouns


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Reply by ☆STRAN★

posted

i vividly remember as a child i always felt weird being called a "girl",it felt-odd?idk how to explain but like it was weird to me sometimes and even didnt make me feel right,and at first i just thought i was just a tomboy or something because around like 4th grade i learned abt the LGBTQ+ community and thought i was a lesbian,but...i then started to-dress alot more masculine,avoiding dresses and any form of feminie thing and making excuses,again i thought it was the tomboy in me..until a few years pass and i started looking at my mirror alot and feeling bad,not like in an insecure way but it was more of a way where i just...i looked too feminine(at the time this started happening i was a pansexual genderfluid),and i was like "no way im trans,am i?right???im not???"and then i went to my trans FTM friend in their dms talking to them/venting to them about this weird feeling(at the time i didnt know what dysphoria was yet because i was still learning abt the LGBTQ+ community) and there was just a deadpan silence for a second before they just smacked me in the face with the ultimate reply:
"youre trans."

and uhh thats how i found out i was a pansexual trans FTM :)


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Reply by murkrow

posted

i didn't know for sure until 19, but it was kind of a really really slow burning identity thing. getting my second ever short hair cut was what made me undergo my whole questioning crisis, cause i started thinking more about how i looked masc/like a boy and that brought up weird "wait i enjoy this" feelings which i then thought about a ton.

i remember looking in the mirror after i started growing my first ever short hair cut and thinking there was just something wrong. like underlying the image of me in the mirror was not correct somehow. didnt feel right, then i cut my hair again.

i think the popular "i knew since i was 6" or "i knew instantly" story works for a lot of people, but don't think it's the only way to figure stuff out. i grew up with societal expectations deeply ingrained in me and feeling more apathetic about how i looked than any strong bad or wrong feeling so i didn't question anything until after i became a young adult, and even then i would still get doubts for at least 2 years--up and including the time i started hrt! but it turned out to be the right choice for me and i am happy with where i am at now.


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Reply by Alyx Quinn

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how I knew I was fluid (in every aspect of my identity) is I’d always like feel different every whatever time idk, like majority of my childhood I was a cis butch lesbian who called myself a tomboy, and part of that I kept switching from like cis/butch lesbian to trans guy/aroace, and I’d just go back and forth, then in my tweenhood I was a pan/trans guy who kept going back and forth between that and being non-binary/bi, and now as a teenager I realized ‘hey I wasn’t actually those things I’m just genderfluid & abro! (plus fluidamorous, namefluid, & pronounfluid)


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Reply by H3ll.k1d

posted

Guess I’ve always known. I started experiencing social dysphoria at 8. Then physical dysphoria at 11.


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Reply by Benneli

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When I was in 5th grade, I started to realize that I didn't really feel connected to being a girl in a since, and so I decided to research online and thought I was gender fluid at first,but as the years went on and I was in middle school I started to think about it and realized that i didn't feel connected to being a man as well so I hsd a bit of am identity crisis trying to figure out why i felt this way, and soo er or later i caught myself relating to a lot of nonbinary stories and content being out on the internet and silly little me did those stupid gender quizes online and most of them would end up with the same result. NONBINARY!!! And with further research on what nonbinary meant and I felt comfortable with that term and have been identifying that way ever since and started using gender neutral terms for me that made me feel fire confident and happy with myself. 


REMINDER THAT GENDER DOESN'T MEAN PRESENTATION!!!

You can still identify as a girl and still present masc!!! Don't let others discourage you! Boys can wear skirts and be fem too!!! It's all about being comfortable in your own gender. For me, I'm non-binary and I choose to present masc and fem some days! This goes for pronouns too you don't need to change your pronouns if you don't identify with your assigned gender!!! You can identify as a boy and still use other pronouns then He/Him. Or you can identify as a girl and use other pronouns then She/Her!!! Your identity is yours and is personal to you!! 


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Reply by ThatKali

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stumbling into a friend group online that saw me as feminine, i thought "ive never really cared about pronouns or whatver so idc" and never 'corrected' them. when they'd ask i'd spit out some nonsense about it not mattering... eventually they started viewing me as masculine and i became unhappy and had to figure out why... and well :P

stayed in denial for a solid few years afterwards tho


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Reply by ervin ★˖ ° · ~

posted

When I was little I went to my cousin's house often and we would always play with their playstation or play football and I had so much fun, but at school I wouldn't ever dare to interact to other boys our class was really divided by gender (like girls hang out with girls and boys with boys) and I remember wishing I was a boy so I could talk to other boys without it being "weird". I also LOVED boys clothes but I hated the fact that I wouldn't look the same on me (clearly dysphoria but I was too little to realize)

it was in 2020 when I thought I had my sexuality figured out, I was 100% sure I was lesbian and I never questioned being cis, but then randomly I was talking to myself (as one does) and I refer to myself with masculine pronouns on accident (my first language is spanish) and it felt surprisingly good. I thought I was non-binary until like june of last year that when I fully accepted that I was a transman 


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Reply by Cindy Nemi

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I kinda felt something was up since I was little, at least 4 years old. I always preferred to be around the girls and one of the girls, but it was always seen really weird for me to be like that. I tried to live up to the expectations people had for me to be a boy but it always felt like I was extending myself to do that. It always felt that was what I was "supposed to be" rather than "who I am".

At some point as a kid I'd hear about the concept of sex changes, likely due to my family or some tv show making a crass joke about them, as they were very much the subject of ridicule at the time. But I kept the secret that like "hey, that sounds nice actually. I want to be a girl too." I didn't understand at the time that it was okay for me to feel that way, that it wasn't gross or weird, that many other people did too and that these changes were the treatment for those who felt just like I did. I just felt broken and I buried it deep inside. I never heard the word "transgender" before. I'd heard "transexual" and "transvestite" but only as insults and mockery and without a clear idea of what they actually meant.

It wasn't till around 2010-2011, when I was about 15 years old, when I first heard the word "transgender". I was getting into a show you might know on Teen Nick called Degrassi. It's a high school drama that I had once seen my female cousin about the same age as me watch at her house and I found it surprisingly enjoyable. So I started watching it on my own and there was a 2 part episode, "My Body is a Cage", that introduced Adam, an ftm trans boy. The show did a good job explaining what it meant to be transgender and upon learning about this I was like... "what the hell? this is literally how I have always felt what"

At the end of the episode they had the actress for Adam come on screen with this speech about how "if you or someone you know feel like they might be transgender, check out our resources at pflag.org/degrassi" or something like that. I went there and read a lot about being transgender there and I never felt so heard in my life. That's how I knew I was trans. Because I basically always was. I just didn't know that I was allowed to be.

Not long after that, I came out to my closest friends. And a couple months later, I came out to my mom, who was thankfully pretty accepting. I'm lucky to have a family that supports me in this.


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Reply by Seven

posted

I'm nonbinary trans masc. I struggled for years bc I never understood what I was until I heard an explanation on nonbinary in my 20's.

For years I knew I wasn't my AGAB, but I knew I wasn't a man. I preferred to push it down due to not having enough information to understand. I settled on it, but I wasn't happy. 

When I met a trans masc person who wasn't man or woman I finally had an epiphany. I wasn't alone.

Typically cis people don't even question their gender, which helps with the impostor syndrome personally. Reminding yourself that cis people don't experience the world through our lenses helps me ground my thinking.

I think vocal training is a great start to being gendered masculine in my experience. Either that or being on testosterone where your voice drops. I've been gendered he/him 90% of the time since I started my medical transition.


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