Self Awareness

[tugon (imported)]

I am curious as to others experiences and self awareness when it comes to gender issues. Many know from childhood that their bodies are not in sync with who they are. Others, like myself, take a long time to figure out what is wrong.

I was wondering if self awareness is more common with younger generations. Or does it vary between individuals. I have always been impressed that many younger people have a better sense of who they are.

So my question is, "at what age did you know you did not fit into the norm"? I was in my mid twenties when I realized things were not as they should.

[Dave (imported)]

Either fifteen or sixteen.

It's an ugly story that I don't really speak of and I won't here. But that was my age as near as I can tell. The thing was, there was no one I wanted sexually in high school. I wasn't until I got into college and then I kept hitting situations where I knew I was attracted to men and not women.

[LiveFreeOfT (imported)]

I believe that I started thinking about having my body hair and genitals removed as soon as puberty started for me (it may have been earlier). The feelings of wanting my body to be different got stronger in high school, and I started doing ballet, shaving my body, and wearing more feminine underwear. I think I did all of that as a way to cope with having a male body. It was also in high school that I started seriously researching castration.

[jemagirl (imported)]

Well I think when I was really young my middle gender wasn't as incongruent with my body, although I did have dreams where I cut it off. SO there must have been something going on.

I know that at least on some level I had an understanding that I was different, and I really didn't want to be different. I remember worrying that I wouldn't go through puberty, and I think that was the concern over being different. It was when puberty actually started that I felt something was really wrong.

Of course there were a lot of other things going on at the same time. I was attracted to the same sex, my parents were getting divorced, and to top it off I was dyslexic. I pretty much got through high school by self medicating. I'm not complaining, just sharing how I got through it. These days I am not too interested in drugs. I just want to make my body a little closer to my gender.

[erikboy (imported)]

I am curious as to others experiences and self awareness when it comes to gender issues. Many know from childhood that their bodies are not in sync with who they are. Others, like myself, take a long time to figure out what is wrong.

I was wondering if self awareness is more common with younger generations. Or does it vary between individuals. I have always been impressed that many younger people have a better sense of who they are.

So my question is, "at what age did you know you did not fit into the norm"? I was in my mid twenties when I realized things were not as they should.

I think it all varies from person to person. That is my impression reading or hearing many personal stories. But it is also a sign of modern society that younger people realise much earlier what is wrong with with them. I think it is due to readily available data and references, so they see similar cases and don't feel like they are the only in the world. They can easily find alike people and communicate, which was not possible earlier, or was very difficult. Still the pressure from surroundig environment hasn't evaporated. It is still there. We will see more conflicts. Mostly inside the person. As at younger age they are more prone to other opinions. How he or she is expected to behave by peers, family, society and how he or she feels inside. This could increase suicide rate. It is not even about gender issues it is about suxuality too.

Just my speculation.

[georg_germany (imported)]

I can only speak for my own case with TG issues. I can't remember exactly, but at the latest I became aware at 8 or 9 years. At that age my CDing started. At 12 to 14 years I had a girlfriend who wore miniskirts and pantyhose. I always wanted to be like her and wear such clothes. But she didn't arouse me as a woman.

[kennath7 (imported)]

I would guess early to mid teens is when I was totally aware and started acting on my desires

[Riverwind (imported)]

I knew at age 7 or 8 that the balls did not belong, it took tell age 54 to do something about it.

River

[punkypink (imported)]

I was partially aware as early as 3 or 4. However, due in part to my tomboyish personality and preference for women, it never occured to me that I wasn't actually a boy when the social conditioning started.

Furthermore being in a society where even homosexuality was frowned upon, and where kids are often taught that "it is just a phase" I bought into it for awhile, so any sort of faint instinctive feelings telling me that despite having the right personality and orientation for a conventional male, I was living as the wrong gender socially, was ignored and suppressed with the justification being that those instincts were just part of that "phase".

But of course, once I'd hit my 20s and the instinctive feeling did not just "go away" I begin to realise that what society had tried to condition me with were lies, prejudice and ignorance.

Personally I think it is very very injust and ignorant to say that children are not born with a particular gender. They are, even if they don't realise what gender they are, and that to refer to a transperson's pre-transitional life with the wrong pronoun is doing them all a very big disservice.

[graylayer02 (imported)]

At least by age 5, maybe earlier.