Transgender Signs

[Kian]

I’ve been thinking about this earlier how there were signs when I was growing up that I’ve always been trans. A couple things that come to my mind is when I was 6-8 years old my family would be in the vehicle, and I’d hate to catch my reflection in the side mirror. Or when people would say “you look so much like your mom”. My reaction would always be “yeah, I know, you’re not the first one to say that stuff.” ? Where I’d think most girls would relish in that fact and take it as a compliment. I always preferred to be like my dad, or I’d try and find similarities between my dad and myself. 

[Mx.Drago]

I get it. The shear jump to red inside that cuts and burns worse than the real. You want to be that image but nobody will give you the thought cuz you have to be reminded of those defining features over and over. I'm told it's done cuz they thought it would be nice. But I was honestly thrilled when my brother dubbed me 'Sheman,' though it also made me sad because it wasn't meant as a compliment. But whatever I'm on a different level than what my dad knew and did, my world is different and it's ok. I'll be the better man in the end or at least, hopefully. Like the kobuai fish.

[VickySGV]

We have all had those signs but those of us in the oldest reaches did not have the words or the idea of what they could mean.  The term Dysphoria actually is made up of two Greek words that together mean "Terrible Burden" in translation.  Things people do to us because of the wrong expectations of who we were felt over time that they were backpack of rocks that was locked onto us just as we began to run a marathon. 

[TTheta]

One thing I remmeber clearly was when we went to McDonald's, I always asked for a boy's toy. 

[Mx.Drago]

8 hours ago, Mary Jane said:

i get that, i've always said i look like my mom and people keep saying i look like my dad (note that im biologically a boy) more signs i have are about a year ago i started preferring girl characters in games and last one i think is me wondering how my life might be as a girl i dont wonder it now but when i did it was because i think i was pretty jealous because girls seemed to have it better of course that was my view about grade 4 to 7 maybe mine is a phase or just preference but only time will tell

Girls don't have it better, it's a different type of brainwashing from my experience. Trying not to rant bout it. But it's all bout the cookie cutter fitting in stuff or be labeled as that thing that's too bothersome to deal with or listen too.

[Mx.Drago]

10 hours ago, Aidan5 said:

One thing I remmeber clearly was when we went to McDonald's, I always asked for a boy's toy. 

The boys toys were unfairly awesome...

[TTheta]

44 minutes ago, Mx.Drago said:

The boys toys were unfairly awesome...

That is true. The pokemon toys were one of my favorites.

[Jackie C.]

That's a completely fair assessment. Toys for boys were always better growing up. Back in the 70's, your choices for girls were basically plushie, rag doll, fashion doll or baby doll. I'm not saying that you can't make those awesome with some imagination, but boy toys generally had more kick-ass themes. i.e. the Shogun Warriors (look 'em up).

 

The toy industry still has a ways to go before it achieves toy equality, but it's better now than in the stone age of my youth.

 

Anyway, yeah, hated to have my picture taken. It took me ages to figure out why. It just didn't feel right and I always hated the way I looked. I always emulated the female characters on TV. I absolutely hated somewhere around 90% of "Boy" activities. Also gardening, but I put that down to being allergic to... oh, everything that exists outside. I always preferred more feminine activities and more nurturing behavior. I thought guys in the locker room were disgusting and never cared for the look of my body to the point where I indulged in a very unhealthy lifestyle because hey, it was going to get me to the end of the ride faster.

I think I would have reached my "Ah ha!" moment faster if I'd had a sister. What can you do?

 

Hugs!

[Mx.Drago]

True bout the 70s, I just remembered it being on overdrive in the 80 & 90s.

Awe...but I love gardening, and I'm also allergic to the world. For me I had a choice between a bubble or world, and I picked world. But first runs of Claritin D sucked horribly, was on a cloud most the day.

Gardening to me is one of the most gender neutral things you can be doing. You can be active, nurturing and self sufficient.

:Hugs:

1 hour ago, Jackie C. said:

That's a completely fair assessment. Toys for boys were always better growing up. Back in the 70's, your choices for girls were basically plushie, rag doll, fashion doll or baby doll. I'm not saying that you can't make those awesome with some imagination, but boy toys generally had more kick-ass themes. i.e. the Shogun Warriors (look 'em up).

 

The toy industry still has a ways to go before it achieves toy equality, but it's better now than in the stone age of my youth.

 

Anyway, yeah, hated to have my picture taken. It took me ages to figure out why. It just didn't feel right and I always hated the way I looked. I always emulated the female characters on TV. I absolutely hated somewhere around 90% of "Boy" activities. Also gardening, but I put that down to being allergic to... oh, everything that exists outside. I always preferred more feminine activities and more nurturing behavior. I thought guys in the locker room were disgusting and never cared for the look of my body to the point where I indulged in a very unhealthy lifestyle because hey, it was going to get me to the end of the ride faster.

I think I would have reached my "Ah ha!" moment faster if I'd had a sister. What can you do?

 

Hugs!

 

[Mx.Drago]

1 hour ago, Mary Jane said:

as MX Drago said about girls which was 

(which i already new) boys dont have it better too

 

but you know girls today can do pretty much anything its boys that has most of the limits im not kidding you can seegirls having boy things but never boys having girls things unless there's something wrong with him/trans/something else so

You think that, for girls it's still an uphill battle to be leaders in anything other than humanitarian and environmental work. In science, business, construction, national offices, military... They say you can be anything, but you have to get past the boys club test, all the time, you also need to know your stuff or be very easy on the eyes and very rarely get respected for your efforts. But I lived in the states all my life, where there's enough hate to choke on, my views may differ from where you live. It would have been nice to go to an office and not have that up-down look thing or be blatantly ignored even by other women. It's bad enough when guys do it, but gals are if not more brutal, cuz this be the shark tank, you become a threat to yourself. Boys are watch over like hawks cuz of the whole boys be boys mentality, where they expect you to be the young buck who goes out and gets in trouble, what they want are ,men like shields, guards, warriors that just obey and lead accordingly. If girls do it their either label "as that dog" or "she goes around" then be publicly shame them for being outside the box. There is lots of tricks used to train everybody, but it's all to keep you well cut and groomed to fit what tradition deems fit.

"It's not a skirt, it's a kilt..."

"It's not a dress, it's a men's gown"

"It's not make-up, it's warpaint"

"It's not Barbie, it's G-I Joe"

Men can get away with anything they do so long as they're confident. For women it takes a bit more than confidence to beat the bar.

[Dana Michelle]

I don't think someone saying they look like their mom necessarily means to look feminine. So far I have only presented as male, and plenty of people say I look like my mom.

[Mx.Drago]

57 minutes ago, Mary Jane said:

not always true for any side but what is mostly true is girls have more freedom and hey 

 

true for boys too in fact true for everyone 

 

for boys and girls its hard the question is which is more free? i think theres no answer but if you isolate it to say united states and canada its most likely girls i said most likely

Nobody is free, especially if you're worried bout what box you fit in.

It's ironic, the internet displayed through a fancy box, has helped open the box to people who would normally be cut off without a chance to just be themself. Sadly, I had dial-up growing up. It was like waiting for a snail to past you. Yes, there are those fortunate to defy the odds before and get that " freedom," but we want to increase the odds, the odds are not even.

You aren't born free, you are born under the country that takes you as one of them, till you're old enough and have money enough to go elsewhere, even then there are rules. You go to school you, get a job, you pay your taxes, and don't break the other red tape rules unless you make the rules, even then you are still not free. But things can change for the better, I can only hope.

[TTheta]

why can't I just be a goldfish, swimming happily in my little bowl?

[Mx.Drago]

27 minutes ago, Aidan5 said:

why can't I just be a goldfish, swimming happily in my little bowl?

Because then you wouldn't be able to watch JoJo without help. ?

[TTheta]

29 minutes ago, Mx.Drago said:

Because then you wouldn't be able to watch JoJo without help. ?

That is very true- Now I can't decide.

[Mx.Drago]

I started young as a shapeshifter dragon otherkin that was both genders. My dreams were the only safe place for me. Still am considered dragon otherkin, cuz my mind is still mine. But sadly older now I can't sleep well cuz depression sucks that way for me. At least in reality, I got the title 'Sheman.' Yay...improvements? But at least I have this lovely place to visit.?

[jester]

this might not be early enough to be a sign, but my first partner (DMAB) and i would talk all the time about how cool it would be if we could swap bodies. he had a few "but only for a day" and "but we could switch back at any time" caveats, but i wasn't too fussed about those. we used to spend whole weekends holed up in his room, wearing each other's pyjamas and pretending we'd swapped, haha. i actually remember us talking about trans people now and then, in a very distant, couldnt-be-us kind of sense, which is kind of hilarious in retrospect.

[MetaLicious]

I know, deep in my heart, that girls don't "have it better," yet I feel (also deep in my heart) that I would be better as a girl.  It is one of those questions I often struggle with - why, if I have so much more privilege as a male, do I feel I want to be female?  I know it's a step down to be a woman in US society, and an even bigger step down to be trans, yet the call is so strong... Living as a woman for half a year has already proven more rewarding than a lifetime of being male.

[JamesM]

I have so many things I can look back on and feel like, okay how did I never even consider this? The earliest I remember is one day when I was maybe 9, walking up our driveway with my mom and her pointing out the mountain laurel growing nearby. She told me that if my younger brother had been a girl, she would have named him Laurel. I asked what my name would have been if I were a boy, and she said my brother's name. I remember being so disappointed that it was taken and not something that could be mine.

 

I also almost never identified with female characters unless they were very nonconforming (Jo in Little Women for example), literally the only person in the story who knows how to use their brain (Hermione), or giant nerds (such as Charlie in Supernatural though it helps that I have a huge crush on Felicia Day). I always thought it was a "well so many female characters are written by misogynist men" thing but even in things with woman creators, I tended to ID more with the guys.

 

And I want to add to the chorus of "it's okay to look like your mom and be a boy," family resemblance doesn't have to mean looking feminine! My brother and I both look like my mom (and aunts and uncle and grandmother, we have family group photos where it's just the same face staring out of like eight different bodies).

[Jackie C.]

23 minutes ago, JamesM said:

it helps that I have a huge crush on Felicia Day

 

OMG, me too. Wow. ?

 

Love her work.

 

I could identify with a female butt-kicker or the girl that can use her brain. Basically, I had the opposite problem. ?

 

Expected to go to action movies where the female characters are usually written as wallpaper or sex objects. That probably had something to do with it. I did want to be Godzilla when I was younger though. Probably has a lot to do with why I picked up anime so quickly though. Lots more strong female leads. I wanted to be Princess (Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets). I could totally see myself working my way through a squad of goons with a battle yo-yo while dressed as a swan. I couldn't tell anybody though because it was the 70's and I wanted to have friends.

 

Hugs!

[JamesM]

Umm doesn't everyone want to be Godzilla?

 

I forgot Princess Leia but she's definitely the only OT Star Wars character who uses her brain so that tracks

[Jackie C.]

Also one of like three women in the entire first movie (Aunt Beru, Princess Leia and the Rebel general). Tragically Asoka came MUCH later.

 

I don't know... Gamera is good too. ?

 

Hugs!

[Guest]

I'm AMAB. I recall my mother once telling me she had hoped she'd have a girl. (As I recall I think she said my name would have been Susan or perhaps Suzanne.) But she followed up with she was glad she had a boy. (I suppose she kind-of felt she had to say that.) I guess actually she sort-of had a girl. She just didn't know it. (Had I realized such a thing was even possible, & had I had the courage to say it, I could have told her. But I didn't.)

 

I have few memories of my early childhood. And I was an only child. I didn't even have any close cousins. So the first transgender signs I recall were putting on my mother's nightgowns in the bathroom where there was a hamper for soiled clothes. I also have this vague memory of jumping on my parents' bed wearing nothing but a pair of my mother's underpants while she was in the kitchen cooking. (I don't even know if that memory is real or if it was some sort of childhood dream that stuck with me.)

 

As a young child, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. But years later, as I entered & proceeded through my teens she became employed outside the home. And at that point I graduated from wearing her nightgowns in the bathroom to raiding her closet in general whenever she was at work & I was home alone. In a strange way, perhaps, these are some of my fonder memories. 

[Susan R]

1 hour ago, Overalls Bear said:

And at that point I graduated from wearing her nightgowns in the bathroom to raiding her closet in general whenever she was at work & I was home alone. In a strange way, perhaps, these are some of my fonder memories

@Overalls Bear This reminds me of my early teen years. I never let a moment alone go by without taking full advantage of the situation. It was like my own little world where I was one of the girls. It was an exhilarating feeling with a touch of taboo...a powerful tonic for a young person.

 

Susan R?

 

PS: Your mom has good taste when it comes to picking potential names for her children. ?

[Kylie]

I remember the same. I hated catching the reflection of self when I was caught by a mirror. It took me years to figure out what that all exactly meant! I hope all works out!