19 Transgender People Reveal The First Sign That They Were Trans

9.

First memory? Around when puberty first began (9 years old for me) I started to have a lot of body issues and feeling like I was going through the wrong one. I think by the time I was trying to pick a new name for myself and run away to transition when I was older is when I knew for sure (11 years old), but I didn’t work up the courage to face the possible rejection from my family, friends, and society as a whole until age 24. After coming out, beginning HRT, and learning to be more true to myself over the following years, I would never go back to living that lie.

10.

I distinctly remember the Girl Scouts coming to our door to sell cookies. I begged my dad for weeks to let me join. He didn’t seem to understand that I had zero interest in joining the Boy Scouts, and couldn’t get me to understand that the Girl Scouts probably weren’t going to let me in. I’m still super pissed I never got to join. I really wanted one of those berets.

11.

Male to female here. I am currently 19 and well into transition. One of my very first memories that I still remember is realizing how much I wanted to be a girl. I was around 5-6, and I was in grade 1. I live in Australia so we wear school uniforms when we attend school. I remember quite vividly that I started feeling slightly envious of girls in my class wearing their overalls whilst I had to wear shorts and a polo shirt. However the real epiphany came in a very vivid dream. That same year I remember having a dream where I was a girl and I was wearing the female uniform and went to school like a normal girl. I just remember a sense of ecstasy throughout the entire dream, as if it was the first time I ever felt happy, despite being 5 or 6 years old at the time. When I woke up from that dream I was overcome with a huge, huge sense of overwhelming disappointment. These dreams kept happening in my life until I began transitioning, each time I would feel the lasting effects of the disappointment over the next few days after the dream.

12.

I remember playing male characters sometimes while playing pretend with my friends. I might be a knight or the prince, and for the most part this was always just okay? Like I said, very relaxed childhood. Then a little bit older, maybe 4th or 5th grade, I had my first crush and wanted to be her boyfriend instead of her girlfriend? I’m glad I never acted on that because I don’t think it would’ve gone over as well as a simple game of pretend.

Written by Laura McNairy

Laura is a freelance writer for TFLN. She likes to write about what she knows best — dating, sex, and being awkward, but usually in the opposite order. She is the Assistant Editor and videographer for Peach Fuzz, a sex-positive nudie magazine in ATX.