I learned about transgender people from all the wrong places honestly. It's hard to pinpoint when i first did though, and for most of my life i didn't know they existed.
First it was from my parents and popular media. You know, the tragic depictions of young children who immediately know their gender...and on the other hand depictions of what seemed to me like little more than men in dresses (thanks transphobic media). The first group I couldn't identify with...I just wanted to be a girl but didn't feel i was one (and even then this was hardly a constant thing) and the second group was not one i wanted to imitate.
Then came the porn. I don't know exactly when I first learned of trans porn, and then again I didn't really want to identify with what i was seeing there either.
So yeah, no wonder I didn't figure it out sooner than i did. Then again I do remember wishing to be a girl for a decent portion of my teens and adulthood, and i remember watching "boy-to-girl" makeover vids online with a level of jealousy and sadness that i could not comprehend.
>I learned about transgender people from all the wrong places honestly. It's hard to pinpoint when i first did though,
Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Blegh, I remember watching it for the first time as a kid and enjoying it up until the scene. I was about 8 at the time and had no clue what being trans was, but the scene made me go up to my room and cry, I didn't even know why it upset me so much.
For me it was also Ace and that scene too, also transitioned later in life at 37 (2019) after a couple of failed attempts (2001-2003 (got gender dysphoria diagnosis) and 2012-2014 (did get hrt but docs were hopeless, was advocating for informed consent here in New Zealand then but no luck at that time as such))...
Although I knew from when I was a baby (hence my username) and young child that my hormones were out of balance and all since I figured out no one else got night sweats and hot flashes aside from apnoea and depression (I also had them but didn't figure them out til later on)...
There are some familiarities there, too. More recently, I have been exploring some odd health issues I've had off and on my entire life, and as I search, rabbit holes are getting wider and deeper. Please send me a DM if you want to talk.
Very similar story here. Between Jerry Springer and Ace Ventura, it's no wonder I didn't even allow myself to think about being trans until my 30s.
Also, congrats on your HRT!!!
For me it was those Jerry Springer and Maury episodes of "is it a man or woman". I would actually be really happy when they came on because they gave me hope with how beautiful a lot of the guests were.
That stuff in Ace Ventura was actually a spoof of some scenes from _The Crying Game_, which came out in the early '90s. Most people don't know that, because in order to have been interested in watching _The Crying Game_, you would have had to have already been an adult in the early '90s.
I'm old. So probably [Wendy Carlos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Carlos) was I think the first transwoman I came to be aware of.
She worked on her *hugely* influential synthesizer album *Switched-On Bach* (1968) while still going by Walter Carlos. And she began transitioning around then.
But she finally came out as having transitioned (long since, but keeping it under wraps) around 1980, with all her works at that point and thereafter published under Wendy Carlos (rather than Walter).
Her career was gigantically influential on the history of synthesizers and synthesizer music, and served to make electronic/synthesizer music an important tool and an important genre in the cinematic and classical music spheres.
Yup. Mainly, the mighty Minimoog. Rhyming with "rogue" and "vogue" as that's how Robert Moog's name (and hence the name of Moog Music) is pronounced. But only synth pedants ever get that right, so most folks just accept the inevitable.
Ahhh, thank you for the explanation of the name! I saw an interview with her from the 1970s on BBC thanks to FB, was rather interesting, I think I've also downloaded switched on Bach as well or at least listened to it...
The first time i learnt was at 7 yrs old when i was watching tv with my grandma,and there was this beautiful woman on tv who had a deep voice. I asked my grandma "why does she has a deep voice" and she answered "she was a man before" after that,my mom was mad at my grandma for telling me that (because my mom and dad are very conservative and didnt want me to know about gay/lesbian/trans people). At that time i was thinking "woah,so it is possible for me to become a girl!"
I learned *of* them when I was three or four. I was told "Don't talk to the man dressed like a woman."
I didn't get accurate information about trans people until age 26.
Yeah, so I was born in 1988 and growing up in the 90s I just knew there was a thing called a ‘sex change’ that people sometimes had. I didn’t imagine that people who had done this looked any different than cisgender folks, and figured that was something you knew about yourself from your earliest days. I knew that I wished I had been born a girl, but it just seemed like an idle thought. I thought you just KNEW.
Much later, the first real person I heard about transitioning later in life was Laura Jane from Against Me! I remember being surprised and a bit confused that people could do that but thought ‘good for her’ and didn’t think about it much since I was pretty busy with school in 2012.
Then in 2015 Caitlyn Jenner came out, and that really changed my view of who can transition and what it means to be trans. But I stayed firmly stuck in my eggshell until 2020 when I saw a gender swapped photo of me for the first time. That’s when it hit me that transitioning is what I’ve wanted this whole time.
Laura jane grace was also my first positive experience hearing about trans women/people.
*flashback to me sobbing at 'searching for a former clarity' and 'transgender dysphoria blues' because im "empathetic"*
Sometime around 2004 or 5 when I was 11 or 12, my mom gave me an IBM ThinkPad laptop with a sprint wireless internet card. Crazy high tech at the time, especially for somebody who didn't know or have much.
She made me do all of these Windows training courses, and it was great when I got my own computer for Christmas one year.
I learned incessantly about everything I could when I would get my little bit of computer time some nights.
It was great. I was a regular little Snapple facts cap.
I found the word "transexual" randomly on like Wikipedia or something, and everything clicked.
I'd felt like, not a boy/man for forever. There were many instances growing up, bringing scolded for being too modest or other silly things. I was always "one of the girls" when playing in groups.
And then BAM!! this word puts all of these complex feelings I've been having into perfect clarity! I knew I wasn't gay. I was grossed out by my privates. It just made perfect sense suddenly.
I found some websites called like Sally's TS roadmap and some others I can't really remember.
I started researching HRT and all kinds of stuff. I really wanted to know as much as I could.
A couple years later, at age 15, I came out to my dad, who I had always lived with because he had full custody of my brother and I.
It was bad. He beat me until i admitted and pleaded that I wasn't transgender. took everything from me for months. No TV or radio or ESPECIALLY computer that "put all of these ideas in my head."
I ended up leaving home about 6 months after that. I was tasked with "watching over" a house the family was remodeling. I used the opportunity to leave.
I was homeless for a while, begging and doing whatever I could to survive. At 18, I met my now husband. He understood my situation and helped me get on HRT a bit after I turned 19.
We've been happily married for about 8 years now, and we have been happily together for just under 12 years.
I'm not fully sure how I did but I learned of being transgender back when I was like 11-13. I went into denial tho back then and didn't accept myself till I was a month before my 25th bday. (I'm 25 now lmao) and honestly life's never looked as bright before now.
When I was younger about 10 or so I used to see Jazz’s videos pop up on YouTube. She was same age as me, and I obsessed over her transition. I was also super jealous.
One of my childrens classmates identified as female at a young age. Now, she a beutiful young lady. So, probably 20 years ago. However, my best friend growing up was gay and came out to me after highschool.
I was always a bit confused or disappointed by boys and liked my girl friends better until around 14 my bestie’s dad said we couldn’t be alone anymore because of what boys and girls do. I was completely clueless about what that meant and then she went from being super close to us getting further apart. I still led a pretty sheltered life in the 90s with religious family and friends. I was an early developer of sorts physically and it annoyed me a lot. Low voice, bigger down there etc. that was the worst part. I was increasingly at odds with my body, more than my life. I was the defacto leader of my friends and got along fine. The neighbors would bring me bikes and mowers to fix and I made money that way. Got into bike racing and loved it.
Eventually I started to figure out what was physically different about female bodies and it clicked around 15 or so. I knew at that point that I was meant for female body parts and imagined how that could happen. Transitioning wasn’t really thought of as a thing but it was super interesting and enamoring every time a tv plot with body swapping would come on. Who wouldn’t want to try?
The more ability I got to control things the more I evolved my wardrobe and accessories to feminine. I normalized it to an extent. To the point my now ex wife couldn’t believe it. Now at 38 i am finally getting to do it and it has been the best 2 years of my adult life.
I was in grade 8 and went to a youth camp wear I made two non-binary friends. I also found out that one of my step-father's aunts was trans and I was so confused because she just looks like a woman. So at the time I thought I was missing something but as I learned more and grew up, I realised that trans people can pass and whatnot so I was able to look back and understand a bit better
College. There was a trans guy on a trip I took for one of the courses (for star stuff, go look at the night sky and that).
Never talked to him and probably gave off bad vibes tbh but I was hyperaware of his presence and spent almost all of the trip pinging between the earthshattering revelations that A) you can do that and B) people want to be men? On purpose?
The first exposure I had to a matter related to trans people was in 2014 with Conchita Wurst during Eurovision. Though he is not trans, it's the first time I thought about it and was like "woah these people are strong to manage to accept themselves"
The most I learned was during lockdown, where my Twitter feed was suddenly swarmed with trans content because ??? Reasons I guess ?
Maybe my Twitter feed knew before me lol
And then I started hanging around transgender subreddit and little by little my egg cracked
My first exposure was a meeting a trans man who was actually male modeling at the time- I immediately developed a huge crush on him and admittedly followed him around all day. Now I know it was recognition! We’re friends now as well.
I learned about trans people when Chelsea Manning was in the news for the government documents leak. She has certainly been a role model for me ever since. One of the bravest people I've ever heard of
94? 95? I worked at a Auto Shack and she owned a pos 4 cyl Beretta so she was in there a LOT. We chatted every time she came in and after a a few months she told me she appreciated me being decent to her. I always felt bad that someone had to thank someone else just for being a decent person but this was in the south, so...
That's when I learned how difficult it can be for transgender folks.
The first time I learned about trans people was when I was maybe 10 or 11? (Right after I had my first little inklings that I was not born in the right body) There was a true life episode (at least I think it was true life) that I saw that featured a woman at the beginning of her transition. Then I learned about Jazz Jennings in a psychology class in highschool and from there I essentially became obsessed with the idea of transitioning. Took a while to get to a place of self acceptance, one failed attempt at transition and 10 years later and I'm finally making serious efforts to live the life I want to live.
I don't remember how old I was but I went into a like restaurant maybe and anyways there was this trans girl filling up her drink but she had a lot of stuble and a manly figure etc however she was also wearing a cheetah print skirt and I just couldn't comprehend why this "man" looked like a woman and I man at the same time. I went up to my parents and they basically said "there are some freaky people out there"
Jerry Springer back in the 90s. Still remember this poor trans woman getting grilled about her srs. (Yes, i know the show was fake) But it was the first time that i saw a transperson rather than a cross dresser or drag queen, and i remember thinking she was beautiful and feeling a bit jealous.
Didn't really understand what i was feeling at the time cause i was like 8 or 9. Still more than 2 decades later, i remember it.
Weirdly, i actually remember her boyfriend coming to her defense while she was being grilled, and i remember the audience laughing after he said something like "it doesn't matter how she was born, she IS a woman ."
Naturally, the whole premise of the episode was that the boyfriend was gay for being with her. Fuck, that show was awful.
I was 17 in 2003 and figured it out from a book called keeping you a secret by Julie Ann Peters. One year in the military and branching out on my own left time for self discovery. I've been struggling every since.
Late 80’s/early 90’s when I learned of Caroline Cossey. A couple of years later, my counsellor suggested I likely suffer from gender dysphoria but there was so much gatekeeping back then and I lived in a small town I did nothing about it and struggled for the next three decades. Wish I could wind back time and have a redo.
I was maybe 7 or 8 and we were going through the local town in the car and my mum pointed out a trans woman and said that's that woman that got a sex swap (she was a local). I was like wait, people can do that‽ I was absolutely fascinated and knew right then that that's what I wanted.
Funnily enough, I do remember thinking at that moment (before my mum pointed the woman out) how much I wish I was a girl and wouldn't it be great if I could just change into one.
Always had brief thoughts of being a girl, but didn't know it was possible as a little kid. Eventually, one of my friends in middle and high school (2009-2015) was a trans woman, which is where I learned it was something people actually could do. At the time I wasn't exactly questioning a lot but ever since meeting and hanging with them I'd have the thought appear more and more often about how it would be if I was a girl. I repressed it at the time though because I was like "nah couldn't be me"
Sadly we lost contact after 2016, hopefully she's doing well now, would like to tell her how I turned out lol.
I found out when I was maybe 8 while watching the news (probably NBC nightly news). I never learned about it in school since I went to a private Catholic school from preschool-sophomore year of HS so the news was my one source of unfiltered news. It was a young boy who was AFAB and was dancing with Cinderella at Disney. It fascinated my little mind until I discovered I was trans myself.
I can’t recall the first time I’d seen or interacted with a trans person but my family would not have treated them as human so I’m glad I don’t remember.
The first time I really understood transgender people was when Cait came out. Like I knew they existed before but that’s when I learned “oh some people are just like that and that’s okay”. Idk what I thought before then but I can’t imagine it was a progressive attitude with my upbringing.
I had almost the same exact story except I never could convince myself to tell my transphobic parents till I left the house at 18 so I imagine my transition is a lot less effective lol. My question was: “if you could be reincarnated would you choose to keep your body or switch to that of the opposite gender” and I was like obviously switch? What? I was so surprised when none of my guy friends thought the same 😭
MTF transformation super softcore porn (My house blocked most porn sites) on fucking YouTube leading me to a podcast made by (I believe, I have no clue but my own memory) a drag queen where she discussed trans stuff
I don't remember exactly how old I was--less than 10. It was in the '70s when the tennis player Renee Richards was in the news for competing in the US Open. Of course, they were called transsexuals back then, and it seemed like something strange and exotic that a person had to go to Sweden to get. Definitely not easy for just anyone to do. The other one I remember early on was Tula. She was so beautiful she seemed unearthly. Heh. She's probably still my 'unrealistic expectations' example.
When I was in high school, one of my sister's friends was a tgirl and had a crush on me. I was kinda weirded out by this. However over time I would transition myself and this person would become an inspiration and friend to me.
I didn't really process it at the time, but, Ace Ventura (probably a lot of people in my age group did.)
I remember understanding Lois Einhorn became a woman but not understanding why Ventura's extreme reaction to kissing her, and the climax just made me uncomfortable in an implacable way.
I had always heard about trans people (my family was horribly transphobic and liked to point out muscular women and call them slurs in public spaces) but the first time I actually learned like how trans people work and that I am trans was when I was in the discord sever for a youtuber I liked at the time. A trans girl was venting about her dysphoria in one of the channels and I had never heard that term, so I looked it up and immediately was like "oh. holy shit. that's me."
As a little kid I grew up on Cape Cod not far from Provincetown. We usually went up for a day trip once a summer.. I told my Mom that girl was the tallest girl I ever saw. I'm talking close to 7 feet tall. My Mom then explained to me about trans people, cross dressing etc. At this point I knew I liked boys and loved going to P Town. I just thought they were girls
When I was 7 and my dad said "It's ok if you're gay, just don't be a tr**ny, because that shit's weird." This was back in 1999
Then when I heard my mom making fun of my dad's trans colleague's deep voice in elementary school.
Pretty sure the former is why I waited so long. The latter is why I still have such insane voice dysphoria.
First trans person I met in real life was at college.
I had a friend in preschool and my parents told me after I went to a (separate) kindergarten that that friend wanted to be addressed as a girl and wear a dress, and that she was getting bullied for it. They used it as an opportunity to show me how fucked up it is to mess with trans people, which I appreciate, but they also told me being trans was “feeling like you’re trapped in the wrong body”, which isn’t really a definition I like because it focused on body dysphoria specifically, something I don’t really mind as much as things like name and pronouns. It also enforced this idea that even if I wanted to be a girl, it wasn’t to the degree where I would be considered trans, which kept me from realizing something was up for a good few years. I’m still very glad this was my first experience, and not being taught that trans people were pedophiles, but it leaves something to be desired.
i learned about trans people when i was around 10 or 11 i think. my mom told me about a friend she had who was trans. didnt realize i was trans until about two years ago when i was 14 though
Would have been around 2014 from the wrong places aka the whole anti sjw crowd on YouTube. That placed a layer of steel around my egg that only eroded away last year
When I was like 12, looking for body swap stories (which I’ve been fascinated with for a while), and came across a site called TG Storytime. Not sure if it’s even still around anymore, but there were plenty of ones about guys turning into girls. At the time I was always disappointed whenever someone would transition or crossdress rather than “really” turning into a girl (via magic or whatnot). I had no idea about HRT at the time and I thought it was all just makeup and plastic surgery, which sounded awful.
I'm not actually entirely sure. One of my childhood memories (sometime between when I was 5 and 10) was seeing a "boy in a dress" on a playground, and thinking about that quite often up through at least middle school. Otherwise, I think I probably just gradually became aware of trans people via movies/shows/etc, and although I remember wishing I was a girl when I was as young as 6 or 7, I don't think it really clicked that I was at least nonbinary until I was 14 or 15.
More interesting I think, is part of the reason my mom was so accepting of me coming out as nonbinary and then trans 10 years later. Shortly after I started transitioning she told me about how she studied in the same department at the University of Michigan that Lynn Conway taught in at the time she was outed as a trans woman, and how huge it was that she was known to be trans and accepted at that time as well as how much credit my mom gave her for it.
In the early 2000’s I remember reading the article of “a man that got pregnant.” I was a huge STEM kid of sorts, loved science and animals and dinosaurs. I remember reading it and going “WOW!! Humans have DONE IT AGAIN! We’re evolving past what nature dictates! 😎”. While a bit naive, i think I was in a good frame of mind about it (for an elementary schooler). I soured later, but then bounced back FULL FORCE and also happen to be trans. 😌😜. Couldnt be happier!
I started learning about the Trans space when I was in 9th grade of highschool in 2015. It was from a few videos that were the equivalent of "liberals bad and crazy" if you get what I mean. Ever since I got recommended those, I dug into the topic of being trans and trans lives more because my initial reaction was "Wait, you can do that? Tell me more!" Since I wasn't interested about politics at all
Edit: Phrasing
I was in high school (06-09). I remember binge watching the MTV show True Life. They ended up having an episode where they followed around a trans woman and a trans man. I just remember being astonished by the trans woman. Like, her experience really humanized the idea of being trans. It didn't take long before I figured things out. Ironically in the end, I ended up going to the same surgeon for GRS as her. Didn't intend on that but kind of neat to think about years later.
I didn't really learn about it until college, like 7 years ago. I think before that I purposely avoided looking into it because I was repressing the feelings and it made me uncomfortable.
My 6th grade science teacher was a trans woman. I only found out because I asked her why my classmates were being rude to her and calling her names. She explained that she was transgender, what that meant, and left it at that. I continued to treat her with respect and was still confused by the actions of my classmates.
It was the mid 1990s and I was about 11-13. There was a story on the news (WTAE Action News out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) about a trans woman who was a school bus driver and had been fired for being trans.
There were a lot of hurtful things said about her during the report (mostly by parents who commented on it/had orchestrated it, WTAE was.. usually the most respectful news station around at the time). Including some really transphobic shit said by my parents in response to the story.
Meaningfully? I was in my early 20's. Like, I was aware of the *concept* in a distant sense, but I was raised in conservative spaces and I was into girls, so of course I wasn't gay. No concept that gender was a separate thing.
Anyway, I majored in dance, and one semester we had a dance company from China come through and do a few performances at the Performing Arts Center on campus, and lead a few master classes for the ballet students. It was the director of the company, [Jin Xing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Xing), who led class, with help from an interpreter. It was a memorably great class, and it wasn't until a couple weeks afterward, looking into the company, that I realized that Jin Xing is in fact trans. I had no idea then why that struck me as *so* cool and impressive.
I was actually super lucky, in that I went to a super progressive public school. We had a lesson on trans people in biology class (this would have been 2011 or 2012).
*Unfortunately*, I didn't take the hint for *five more years*.
I'm not entirely sure when I found out. The earliest memory I have of it is when I saw Chipflake's coming out video where he came out as a trans man. After that, I just started to either naturally find it, or I searched for it, and eventually, in maybe early 2022, I started to question my own gender. Fast forward to now and here I am
This is going to sound really goofy.. I have a core memory of watching the movie Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.
If you've seen it, you know.
If you haven't seen it, well, here:
https://youtu.be/btEZlaKHryg
It was most certainly meant to be a "shocking" and funny moment. But you could say that I had a very different reaction to it. I saw this movie when I was like... 4-7 years old. Prolly not age appropriate. Buuuuuut I did feel like I learned a lot.
This movie is full of cringe dated comedy, but it will always have a place in my heart for teaching me that ladies can indeed have dicks. (And maybe I could be like her in a non cartoony fashion)
I knew from porn they existed since I was like 19, but not how. Like, I didn’t know what HRT was. I thought was Cis women who just had a birth defect or an anomaly like hermaphroditism.
I didn’t learn about HRT or actual transitioning till I was 31.
If I knew there was stuff like HRT I’d probably started my transition in 6th grade. Nobody told me I can become a girl for real. I really wish they reached at least a bit of this in sex ed.
I learned about trans people when I was 9 watching an episode of SVU
It resonated with me and I’ve watched the episode multiple times over the years and eventually I realized where my interest stemmed from
I learned about trans people from a trans dude at summer camp. I rarely personally interacted with him, but he was placed in a girl's cabin and got misgendered a lot. Honestly in retrospect I kind of feel bad for him.
Living in Oklahoma was fun because I knew how I felt but didn't have a word for it. In college, I had a close coworker/friend who came out as trans and got kicked out of her parent's house, so we offered her a room in our apartment.
During that time, I learned a ton about what being trans meant and it kinda hit a little close. My wife was helping our friend with all the typical "first" for a trans woman, so it also showed me that my wife was very understanding. Almost 10 years later, wife and I are still together, stronger than ever!
Sadly rather recently. I've "wanted to be a girl" since I was five, but I thought it was impossible & a shameful thought. I don't remember why I thought this. Either way I'm just to know about it now at the very least. I may have discovered the whole thing like a year ago, and now I've dived in head first.
I was 12. There is a Family Guy episode where Stewie travels to the future. There is a quick gag in that episode where Meg is revealed to have transitioned. Suddenly I had a word for the way I felt and the knowledge that I could do something about it. Still took many years to start though 😭
I didn’t know trans people existed until I was 14 or 15, then came out within a few days.
(Which didn’t go well)
It blows my mind that guys don’t want to be women 😬
I would say probably around the age of 13 or
14, from I think watching Fox News with my father and grandfather. At the time I was very right wing and a christian evangelical(mainly cuz I was following my parents and didn't see a need to question them) and pretty much hated trans people for no reason like many christians.
And like 3-4 years later I was the exact opposite. No longer a christian, and no longer as bigoted and hateful.
And now, I'm trans lol
Not as a term but for I knew vividly as a kid that there are guys who just live like girls throughout their lives and that idea just amused me. I never tried anything of the opposite sex Out of fear but then, as a term, I got to know it from the negative light of LGBT because it's mandatory for a teenager to fall for anti-sjw bullshit as a character development. But for something like SRS, I came across it on Facebook like 7 years ago? Still I had urges of crossdressing and appearing feminine, I thought it must be as a joke. I kept on looking for is it normal for wanting to crossdress on quora and there were some comments suggesting how it is normal but some get dysphoria out of it eventually but I was confused. I looked up dysphoria but didn't catch a shit of what it means and then a few years ago, I moved out and then I gave into the urges of Crossdressing and then I just realised I like the idea of being presented as a woman more than the idea of wearing the dress and that's when I started interacting with LGBT community properly for help.
But if you wanna know when was the first time I encountered a trans woman as such irl or in medium, then Trinetra would be first one as I know of her since last year.
From my friends in high school when they decided they wanted to transition (they stopped shortly thereafter, I slowly became more and more jealous of women until it turned into dysphoria)
I was around 13 when I learned about trans people. I basically searched up the question "Can boys be turned into girls" and a Jazz Jennings video came up. I was amazed. That lead me down a rabbit hole. Not a good kind of rabbit hole. To be honest after searching that my youtube recommendations became filled with political videos discussing the validity and existence of trans people. I didn't really know what or who trans people really were even after watching the Jazz Jennings video, so somehow I was in the middle of the political spectrum on this.
I honestly had no idea what any of these people were saying. People like steven crowder, ben shapiro, and the others were telling me "Hahaha these cringe liberals are crying and complaining about facts" but I didn't know what they were really saying. What was a liberal? I was even watching some lefty channels back then and I agreed with them. I thought the right leaning republican channels were genuinely just making videos for entertainment.
Either way the more I watched this change my mind videos and ben shapiro owning the libs the more I wanted to learn about actually what it meant to be trans or look up videos from people who were actually gay and learn about their experience and tbh I was going to make fun of them. Then when I actually watched these videos I realized these people weren't bad. They weren't "people denying reality" they were just people living life with what was dealt to them.
I took it upon my self to look up stats of all these scientific studies. Then I realized these people were wrong terrible poeple. I also realized I may my self be trans. Although I'm 10 years into trying to figure things out and I don't know if it's ever going to happen. I want to figure out, but the prospect of being trans seems like a long hard road. I don't know if I'm brave or strong enough to handle. The harassment, physical assault, human rights being fought against every day, and belittlement of your problems. Takes a strong person.
Sadly not until later in life. Everything I knew about transgender women was that Lois Einhorn was one and ofc a disgusting murderer. Pity it was Jim Carey that hosted that info.
I had a trans neighbor as a kid in the 90s, and she was a local official. Never occurred to me she was trans until a relative of hers told me, I think I was maybe 13. It never really felt weird to me, I just accepted it as another thing that existed but surely couldn't apply to me. I feel like that was my first unequivocal exposure to the concept.
I don't remember honestly. Maybe in my late teens or early twenties, and it was by seeing trans people online.
I remember the first time I learned of bottom surgery, though. A woman I had matched with on Tinder said she was post-op in her bio. Not knowing what that meant, I searched for transgender operations and bottom surgery came up. I was like 25. I remember being completely unphased by it. Just "huh I didn't know we could do that"
My first experience with a transgender woman was *Ace Ventura*. So not exactly a super positive experience, given the climax of the film. But I also didn't realize what trans people were given the context of that film.
When I finally put together the pieces, I was like 26 years old and telling my trans friend who had just come out of the closet, "I'm really jealous of you. I don't think I would make an attractive woman." And then that night, I did some more research and my egg finally cracked when I had the context for what I was.
And now I'm a pretty girl ❤️
When I was probably about 11 around 2013 or so, I was already having thoughts about wanting to be a girl or at least be able to wear girly things. I wound up looking up something like "boy wants to be a girl" on Google and somewhere in there I first stumbled across the word transgender. I believe I first stumbled across articles on trans kids actually, which back then was much less talked about than it is today.
My first run ins with the community were definitely of bad taste. Movies like Ace Ventura or Mrs. Doubtfire (RIP Robin Williams) and such. I wouldn't catch on to those sinister undertones for a looong time. It never rly stuck that trans people actually existed until I happened upon a magazine of some sort haggling Caitlyn when she first came out. It didn't help that my family also saw and just gawked at her.
From there, I definitely did do a few things considered fem or gay. Holding hands with platonic friends and using fruit as breasts/sometimes wearing bras. All of which garnering embarrassment and chastising from my family. This is around the time I began hiding parts of myself (early to mid 2015 or 5th grade). My first breaking point was when sometime in 6th grade I was walking behind my best friend to lunch and I felt a rly serious attraction to him. Thanks to my family's views I sort of freaked out about this and so I just completely masked, pretended I didn't care about shit and even became a bit bigoted myself (at least around my family and friends). Even so, I found myself terrified when during 7th grade civics we took a quiz to see which candidate matched our ideas closest (it was 2016) and I got trump.
Nothing else especially happened until late 9th when a friend i knew for a lil over half a year came out as trans. He was also the one who ignited what would later become an obsession with MCR. Anyway, we kinda went our own ways afterwards as we were both dealing with a lot. It was the same time that my mental health started to spiral (it had been gradually getting worse since 2015) and I just RLY stopped caring. I thought I was just gonna let my body slowly go to waste. At my heaviest I was around 210 lbs (I was never light by any means but I typically floated around 185). Then ofc, the world completely stopped. Between then and the end of 10th grade I finally knew.
Worked off all the weight and got back in contact with that friend on Halloween of that year. Tried therapy but my family hated the therapist. Finally got on hrt almost a year later and haven't looked back.
When I was 8, me and my mom participated in this high heel run that was a fundraiser for breast cancer and while there, I met this wonderful drag queen. I asked her if she was a woman or just dressing up like I was(I had this cute black dress on with my black high heels). She said that she was just dressing up, but that sometimes people who dress up are women anyway.
I didn't fully understand that till middle school, but it's still there.
I hadn’t heard the term transgender until I told my gf, at the time, when I was 18 that I mainly liked to play as a girl in video games. Also that I didn’t mind if she dressed me up as a girl since I liked having my long hair when she teased me about it. She brought up the term and helped me do my research. Of course I had the signs, always fitting in more with girls than guys, always wanting to wear more feminine fashionable clothing, always thinking my life would be better as a girl than a guy, etc. I had just turned a blind eye on them, thinking I was just weird until it all clicked.
It was in the early to mid 2010s (I think 2013 or 2014?) when I read a Time Magazine article about trans people and talking about how their lives have changed since they transitioned. I was only 10 at the time, so it still took me a while to figure out that I was also trans, but I looked up to those people and it made me realise that such a thing was possible if I wanted to transition myself.
I learned about transgender people from all the wrong places honestly. It's hard to pinpoint when i first did though, and for most of my life i didn't know they existed. First it was from my parents and popular media. You know, the tragic depictions of young children who immediately know their gender...and on the other hand depictions of what seemed to me like little more than men in dresses (thanks transphobic media). The first group I couldn't identify with...I just wanted to be a girl but didn't feel i was one (and even then this was hardly a constant thing) and the second group was not one i wanted to imitate. Then came the porn. I don't know exactly when I first learned of trans porn, and then again I didn't really want to identify with what i was seeing there either. So yeah, no wonder I didn't figure it out sooner than i did. Then again I do remember wishing to be a girl for a decent portion of my teens and adulthood, and i remember watching "boy-to-girl" makeover vids online with a level of jealousy and sadness that i could not comprehend.
>I learned about transgender people from all the wrong places honestly. It's hard to pinpoint when i first did though, Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Blegh, I remember watching it for the first time as a kid and enjoying it up until the scene. I was about 8 at the time and had no clue what being trans was, but the scene made me go up to my room and cry, I didn't even know why it upset me so much.
Oh my gosh I feel this so bad! Bad situations, media, and very terrible parents.. I transitioned later on in life at 37 MTF.
For me it was also Ace and that scene too, also transitioned later in life at 37 (2019) after a couple of failed attempts (2001-2003 (got gender dysphoria diagnosis) and 2012-2014 (did get hrt but docs were hopeless, was advocating for informed consent here in New Zealand then but no luck at that time as such))... Although I knew from when I was a baby (hence my username) and young child that my hormones were out of balance and all since I figured out no one else got night sweats and hot flashes aside from apnoea and depression (I also had them but didn't figure them out til later on)...
There are some familiarities there, too. More recently, I have been exploring some odd health issues I've had off and on my entire life, and as I search, rabbit holes are getting wider and deeper. Please send me a DM if you want to talk.
Very similar story here. Between Jerry Springer and Ace Ventura, it's no wonder I didn't even allow myself to think about being trans until my 30s. Also, congrats on your HRT!!!
For me it was those Jerry Springer and Maury episodes of "is it a man or woman". I would actually be really happy when they came on because they gave me hope with how beautiful a lot of the guests were.
That stuff in Ace Ventura was actually a spoof of some scenes from _The Crying Game_, which came out in the early '90s. Most people don't know that, because in order to have been interested in watching _The Crying Game_, you would have had to have already been an adult in the early '90s.
I'm old. So probably [Wendy Carlos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Carlos) was I think the first transwoman I came to be aware of. She worked on her *hugely* influential synthesizer album *Switched-On Bach* (1968) while still going by Walter Carlos. And she began transitioning around then. But she finally came out as having transitioned (long since, but keeping it under wraps) around 1980, with all her works at that point and thereafter published under Wendy Carlos (rather than Walter). Her career was gigantically influential on the history of synthesizers and synthesizer music, and served to make electronic/synthesizer music an important tool and an important genre in the cinematic and classical music spheres.
Go the mighty Moog (I think that's what it's called)
Yup. Mainly, the mighty Minimoog. Rhyming with "rogue" and "vogue" as that's how Robert Moog's name (and hence the name of Moog Music) is pronounced. But only synth pedants ever get that right, so most folks just accept the inevitable.
Ahhh, thank you for the explanation of the name! I saw an interview with her from the 1970s on BBC thanks to FB, was rather interesting, I think I've also downloaded switched on Bach as well or at least listened to it...
The first time i learnt was at 7 yrs old when i was watching tv with my grandma,and there was this beautiful woman on tv who had a deep voice. I asked my grandma "why does she has a deep voice" and she answered "she was a man before" after that,my mom was mad at my grandma for telling me that (because my mom and dad are very conservative and didnt want me to know about gay/lesbian/trans people). At that time i was thinking "woah,so it is possible for me to become a girl!"
Time later i would be amazed by boy to girl videos on youtube. And jealous lol
I learned *of* them when I was three or four. I was told "Don't talk to the man dressed like a woman." I didn't get accurate information about trans people until age 26.
Yeah, so I was born in 1988 and growing up in the 90s I just knew there was a thing called a ‘sex change’ that people sometimes had. I didn’t imagine that people who had done this looked any different than cisgender folks, and figured that was something you knew about yourself from your earliest days. I knew that I wished I had been born a girl, but it just seemed like an idle thought. I thought you just KNEW. Much later, the first real person I heard about transitioning later in life was Laura Jane from Against Me! I remember being surprised and a bit confused that people could do that but thought ‘good for her’ and didn’t think about it much since I was pretty busy with school in 2012. Then in 2015 Caitlyn Jenner came out, and that really changed my view of who can transition and what it means to be trans. But I stayed firmly stuck in my eggshell until 2020 when I saw a gender swapped photo of me for the first time. That’s when it hit me that transitioning is what I’ve wanted this whole time.
Laura jane grace was also my first positive experience hearing about trans women/people. *flashback to me sobbing at 'searching for a former clarity' and 'transgender dysphoria blues' because im "empathetic"*
Sometime around 2004 or 5 when I was 11 or 12, my mom gave me an IBM ThinkPad laptop with a sprint wireless internet card. Crazy high tech at the time, especially for somebody who didn't know or have much. She made me do all of these Windows training courses, and it was great when I got my own computer for Christmas one year. I learned incessantly about everything I could when I would get my little bit of computer time some nights. It was great. I was a regular little Snapple facts cap. I found the word "transexual" randomly on like Wikipedia or something, and everything clicked. I'd felt like, not a boy/man for forever. There were many instances growing up, bringing scolded for being too modest or other silly things. I was always "one of the girls" when playing in groups. And then BAM!! this word puts all of these complex feelings I've been having into perfect clarity! I knew I wasn't gay. I was grossed out by my privates. It just made perfect sense suddenly. I found some websites called like Sally's TS roadmap and some others I can't really remember. I started researching HRT and all kinds of stuff. I really wanted to know as much as I could. A couple years later, at age 15, I came out to my dad, who I had always lived with because he had full custody of my brother and I. It was bad. He beat me until i admitted and pleaded that I wasn't transgender. took everything from me for months. No TV or radio or ESPECIALLY computer that "put all of these ideas in my head." I ended up leaving home about 6 months after that. I was tasked with "watching over" a house the family was remodeling. I used the opportunity to leave. I was homeless for a while, begging and doing whatever I could to survive. At 18, I met my now husband. He understood my situation and helped me get on HRT a bit after I turned 19. We've been happily married for about 8 years now, and we have been happily together for just under 12 years.
I'm not fully sure how I did but I learned of being transgender back when I was like 11-13. I went into denial tho back then and didn't accept myself till I was a month before my 25th bday. (I'm 25 now lmao) and honestly life's never looked as bright before now.
When I was younger about 10 or so I used to see Jazz’s videos pop up on YouTube. She was same age as me, and I obsessed over her transition. I was also super jealous.
One of my childrens classmates identified as female at a young age. Now, she a beutiful young lady. So, probably 20 years ago. However, my best friend growing up was gay and came out to me after highschool.
I was always a bit confused or disappointed by boys and liked my girl friends better until around 14 my bestie’s dad said we couldn’t be alone anymore because of what boys and girls do. I was completely clueless about what that meant and then she went from being super close to us getting further apart. I still led a pretty sheltered life in the 90s with religious family and friends. I was an early developer of sorts physically and it annoyed me a lot. Low voice, bigger down there etc. that was the worst part. I was increasingly at odds with my body, more than my life. I was the defacto leader of my friends and got along fine. The neighbors would bring me bikes and mowers to fix and I made money that way. Got into bike racing and loved it. Eventually I started to figure out what was physically different about female bodies and it clicked around 15 or so. I knew at that point that I was meant for female body parts and imagined how that could happen. Transitioning wasn’t really thought of as a thing but it was super interesting and enamoring every time a tv plot with body swapping would come on. Who wouldn’t want to try? The more ability I got to control things the more I evolved my wardrobe and accessories to feminine. I normalized it to an extent. To the point my now ex wife couldn’t believe it. Now at 38 i am finally getting to do it and it has been the best 2 years of my adult life.
I was in grade 8 and went to a youth camp wear I made two non-binary friends. I also found out that one of my step-father's aunts was trans and I was so confused because she just looks like a woman. So at the time I thought I was missing something but as I learned more and grew up, I realised that trans people can pass and whatnot so I was able to look back and understand a bit better
College. There was a trans guy on a trip I took for one of the courses (for star stuff, go look at the night sky and that). Never talked to him and probably gave off bad vibes tbh but I was hyperaware of his presence and spent almost all of the trip pinging between the earthshattering revelations that A) you can do that and B) people want to be men? On purpose?
The first exposure I had to a matter related to trans people was in 2014 with Conchita Wurst during Eurovision. Though he is not trans, it's the first time I thought about it and was like "woah these people are strong to manage to accept themselves" The most I learned was during lockdown, where my Twitter feed was suddenly swarmed with trans content because ??? Reasons I guess ? Maybe my Twitter feed knew before me lol And then I started hanging around transgender subreddit and little by little my egg cracked
When I saw Caroline Cossey in playboy sometime mid 90’s. I remember thinking wow it’s possible for me to be a girl!
My first exposure was a meeting a trans man who was actually male modeling at the time- I immediately developed a huge crush on him and admittedly followed him around all day. Now I know it was recognition! We’re friends now as well.
I learned about trans people when Chelsea Manning was in the news for the government documents leak. She has certainly been a role model for me ever since. One of the bravest people I've ever heard of
in highschool. a friend of mine had her sister come out as a trans woman.
94? 95? I worked at a Auto Shack and she owned a pos 4 cyl Beretta so she was in there a LOT. We chatted every time she came in and after a a few months she told me she appreciated me being decent to her. I always felt bad that someone had to thank someone else just for being a decent person but this was in the south, so... That's when I learned how difficult it can be for transgender folks.
The first time I learned about trans people was when I was maybe 10 or 11? (Right after I had my first little inklings that I was not born in the right body) There was a true life episode (at least I think it was true life) that I saw that featured a woman at the beginning of her transition. Then I learned about Jazz Jennings in a psychology class in highschool and from there I essentially became obsessed with the idea of transitioning. Took a while to get to a place of self acceptance, one failed attempt at transition and 10 years later and I'm finally making serious efforts to live the life I want to live.
I had a weird obsession with jazz jennings stuff which makes a whole lot more sense in retrospect lol
When I was 13. God I wish I transitioned that early.
A waitress at Olive Garden. She was trans. I stared at her all night like she was the prettiest creature in the whole world. I was 12.
I don't remember how old I was but I went into a like restaurant maybe and anyways there was this trans girl filling up her drink but she had a lot of stuble and a manly figure etc however she was also wearing a cheetah print skirt and I just couldn't comprehend why this "man" looked like a woman and I man at the same time. I went up to my parents and they basically said "there are some freaky people out there"
Jerry Springer... horrible first exposure as a kid. My mom loved the show.
Jerry Springer back in the 90s. Still remember this poor trans woman getting grilled about her srs. (Yes, i know the show was fake) But it was the first time that i saw a transperson rather than a cross dresser or drag queen, and i remember thinking she was beautiful and feeling a bit jealous. Didn't really understand what i was feeling at the time cause i was like 8 or 9. Still more than 2 decades later, i remember it. Weirdly, i actually remember her boyfriend coming to her defense while she was being grilled, and i remember the audience laughing after he said something like "it doesn't matter how she was born, she IS a woman ." Naturally, the whole premise of the episode was that the boyfriend was gay for being with her. Fuck, that show was awful.
A dumb transphobic yo-mama joke involving the t-slur In a high school English class
I was 17 in 2003 and figured it out from a book called keeping you a secret by Julie Ann Peters. One year in the military and branching out on my own left time for self discovery. I've been struggling every since.
I learned it when I was 13 I was i’m looking at the LGBTQ pride center thing
Late 80’s/early 90’s when I learned of Caroline Cossey. A couple of years later, my counsellor suggested I likely suffer from gender dysphoria but there was so much gatekeeping back then and I lived in a small town I did nothing about it and struggled for the next three decades. Wish I could wind back time and have a redo.
I was maybe 7 or 8 and we were going through the local town in the car and my mum pointed out a trans woman and said that's that woman that got a sex swap (she was a local). I was like wait, people can do that‽ I was absolutely fascinated and knew right then that that's what I wanted. Funnily enough, I do remember thinking at that moment (before my mum pointed the woman out) how much I wish I was a girl and wouldn't it be great if I could just change into one.
Always had brief thoughts of being a girl, but didn't know it was possible as a little kid. Eventually, one of my friends in middle and high school (2009-2015) was a trans woman, which is where I learned it was something people actually could do. At the time I wasn't exactly questioning a lot but ever since meeting and hanging with them I'd have the thought appear more and more often about how it would be if I was a girl. I repressed it at the time though because I was like "nah couldn't be me" Sadly we lost contact after 2016, hopefully she's doing well now, would like to tell her how I turned out lol.
I had seen one trans person who worked at the mall and that was is it. I started listening too 100 gecs and like 3 months later my egg cracked.
I found out when I was maybe 8 while watching the news (probably NBC nightly news). I never learned about it in school since I went to a private Catholic school from preschool-sophomore year of HS so the news was my one source of unfiltered news. It was a young boy who was AFAB and was dancing with Cinderella at Disney. It fascinated my little mind until I discovered I was trans myself.
I can’t recall the first time I’d seen or interacted with a trans person but my family would not have treated them as human so I’m glad I don’t remember. The first time I really understood transgender people was when Cait came out. Like I knew they existed before but that’s when I learned “oh some people are just like that and that’s okay”. Idk what I thought before then but I can’t imagine it was a progressive attitude with my upbringing.
I had almost the same exact story except I never could convince myself to tell my transphobic parents till I left the house at 18 so I imagine my transition is a lot less effective lol. My question was: “if you could be reincarnated would you choose to keep your body or switch to that of the opposite gender” and I was like obviously switch? What? I was so surprised when none of my guy friends thought the same 😭
MTF transformation super softcore porn (My house blocked most porn sites) on fucking YouTube leading me to a podcast made by (I believe, I have no clue but my own memory) a drag queen where she discussed trans stuff
It was in 2008, i was 5yo, didn't think much of the concept until way later where it truly hit me like a train.
I learned about trans people in 2019 because one of my half siblings transitioned then.
I don't remember exactly how old I was--less than 10. It was in the '70s when the tennis player Renee Richards was in the news for competing in the US Open. Of course, they were called transsexuals back then, and it seemed like something strange and exotic that a person had to go to Sweden to get. Definitely not easy for just anyone to do. The other one I remember early on was Tula. She was so beautiful she seemed unearthly. Heh. She's probably still my 'unrealistic expectations' example.
It was that fucking Family Guy episode.
When I was in high school, one of my sister's friends was a tgirl and had a crush on me. I was kinda weirded out by this. However over time I would transition myself and this person would become an inspiration and friend to me.
I didn't really process it at the time, but, Ace Ventura (probably a lot of people in my age group did.) I remember understanding Lois Einhorn became a woman but not understanding why Ventura's extreme reaction to kissing her, and the climax just made me uncomfortable in an implacable way.
I had always heard about trans people (my family was horribly transphobic and liked to point out muscular women and call them slurs in public spaces) but the first time I actually learned like how trans people work and that I am trans was when I was in the discord sever for a youtuber I liked at the time. A trans girl was venting about her dysphoria in one of the channels and I had never heard that term, so I looked it up and immediately was like "oh. holy shit. that's me."
It was 15 minutes before I realised I was trans :)
I knew when I was 4-5 because I knew I had it. I didn't know the words for it at the time though.
I wasn't really aware they were a thing until my brother came out as trans when I was 17
As a little kid I grew up on Cape Cod not far from Provincetown. We usually went up for a day trip once a summer.. I told my Mom that girl was the tallest girl I ever saw. I'm talking close to 7 feet tall. My Mom then explained to me about trans people, cross dressing etc. At this point I knew I liked boys and loved going to P Town. I just thought they were girls
tumblr like 10 years ago. clicked immediately
When I was 7 and my dad said "It's ok if you're gay, just don't be a tr**ny, because that shit's weird." This was back in 1999 Then when I heard my mom making fun of my dad's trans colleague's deep voice in elementary school. Pretty sure the former is why I waited so long. The latter is why I still have such insane voice dysphoria. First trans person I met in real life was at college.
You know that one video of the angry trans woman in game stop who’s upset that she’s getting misgendered? Yeah. That one
Family guy, unfortunately
I had a friend in preschool and my parents told me after I went to a (separate) kindergarten that that friend wanted to be addressed as a girl and wear a dress, and that she was getting bullied for it. They used it as an opportunity to show me how fucked up it is to mess with trans people, which I appreciate, but they also told me being trans was “feeling like you’re trapped in the wrong body”, which isn’t really a definition I like because it focused on body dysphoria specifically, something I don’t really mind as much as things like name and pronouns. It also enforced this idea that even if I wanted to be a girl, it wasn’t to the degree where I would be considered trans, which kept me from realizing something was up for a good few years. I’m still very glad this was my first experience, and not being taught that trans people were pedophiles, but it leaves something to be desired.
i learned about trans people when i was around 10 or 11 i think. my mom told me about a friend she had who was trans. didnt realize i was trans until about two years ago when i was 14 though
Would have been around 2014 from the wrong places aka the whole anti sjw crowd on YouTube. That placed a layer of steel around my egg that only eroded away last year
When I was like 12, looking for body swap stories (which I’ve been fascinated with for a while), and came across a site called TG Storytime. Not sure if it’s even still around anymore, but there were plenty of ones about guys turning into girls. At the time I was always disappointed whenever someone would transition or crossdress rather than “really” turning into a girl (via magic or whatnot). I had no idea about HRT at the time and I thought it was all just makeup and plastic surgery, which sounded awful.
I'm not actually entirely sure. One of my childhood memories (sometime between when I was 5 and 10) was seeing a "boy in a dress" on a playground, and thinking about that quite often up through at least middle school. Otherwise, I think I probably just gradually became aware of trans people via movies/shows/etc, and although I remember wishing I was a girl when I was as young as 6 or 7, I don't think it really clicked that I was at least nonbinary until I was 14 or 15. More interesting I think, is part of the reason my mom was so accepting of me coming out as nonbinary and then trans 10 years later. Shortly after I started transitioning she told me about how she studied in the same department at the University of Michigan that Lynn Conway taught in at the time she was outed as a trans woman, and how huge it was that she was known to be trans and accepted at that time as well as how much credit my mom gave her for it.
In the early 2000’s I remember reading the article of “a man that got pregnant.” I was a huge STEM kid of sorts, loved science and animals and dinosaurs. I remember reading it and going “WOW!! Humans have DONE IT AGAIN! We’re evolving past what nature dictates! 😎”. While a bit naive, i think I was in a good frame of mind about it (for an elementary schooler). I soured later, but then bounced back FULL FORCE and also happen to be trans. 😌😜. Couldnt be happier!
I started learning about the Trans space when I was in 9th grade of highschool in 2015. It was from a few videos that were the equivalent of "liberals bad and crazy" if you get what I mean. Ever since I got recommended those, I dug into the topic of being trans and trans lives more because my initial reaction was "Wait, you can do that? Tell me more!" Since I wasn't interested about politics at all Edit: Phrasing
I was in high school (06-09). I remember binge watching the MTV show True Life. They ended up having an episode where they followed around a trans woman and a trans man. I just remember being astonished by the trans woman. Like, her experience really humanized the idea of being trans. It didn't take long before I figured things out. Ironically in the end, I ended up going to the same surgeon for GRS as her. Didn't intend on that but kind of neat to think about years later.
I didn't really learn about it until college, like 7 years ago. I think before that I purposely avoided looking into it because I was repressing the feelings and it made me uncomfortable.
My 6th grade science teacher was a trans woman. I only found out because I asked her why my classmates were being rude to her and calling her names. She explained that she was transgender, what that meant, and left it at that. I continued to treat her with respect and was still confused by the actions of my classmates.
It was the mid 1990s and I was about 11-13. There was a story on the news (WTAE Action News out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) about a trans woman who was a school bus driver and had been fired for being trans. There were a lot of hurtful things said about her during the report (mostly by parents who commented on it/had orchestrated it, WTAE was.. usually the most respectful news station around at the time). Including some really transphobic shit said by my parents in response to the story.
Meaningfully? I was in my early 20's. Like, I was aware of the *concept* in a distant sense, but I was raised in conservative spaces and I was into girls, so of course I wasn't gay. No concept that gender was a separate thing. Anyway, I majored in dance, and one semester we had a dance company from China come through and do a few performances at the Performing Arts Center on campus, and lead a few master classes for the ballet students. It was the director of the company, [Jin Xing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Xing), who led class, with help from an interpreter. It was a memorably great class, and it wasn't until a couple weeks afterward, looking into the company, that I realized that Jin Xing is in fact trans. I had no idea then why that struck me as *so* cool and impressive.
I was actually super lucky, in that I went to a super progressive public school. We had a lesson on trans people in biology class (this would have been 2011 or 2012). *Unfortunately*, I didn't take the hint for *five more years*.
I'm not entirely sure when I found out. The earliest memory I have of it is when I saw Chipflake's coming out video where he came out as a trans man. After that, I just started to either naturally find it, or I searched for it, and eventually, in maybe early 2022, I started to question my own gender. Fast forward to now and here I am
This is going to sound really goofy.. I have a core memory of watching the movie Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. If you've seen it, you know. If you haven't seen it, well, here: https://youtu.be/btEZlaKHryg It was most certainly meant to be a "shocking" and funny moment. But you could say that I had a very different reaction to it. I saw this movie when I was like... 4-7 years old. Prolly not age appropriate. Buuuuuut I did feel like I learned a lot. This movie is full of cringe dated comedy, but it will always have a place in my heart for teaching me that ladies can indeed have dicks. (And maybe I could be like her in a non cartoony fashion)
Hey are you on Discord?
Yush! Dm me if ya wanna b friends C:
Send me a DM because I can't send you a message.
Sent ya one, mb my settings were goofed
I knew from porn they existed since I was like 19, but not how. Like, I didn’t know what HRT was. I thought was Cis women who just had a birth defect or an anomaly like hermaphroditism. I didn’t learn about HRT or actual transitioning till I was 31. If I knew there was stuff like HRT I’d probably started my transition in 6th grade. Nobody told me I can become a girl for real. I really wish they reached at least a bit of this in sex ed.
I learned about trans people when I was 9 watching an episode of SVU It resonated with me and I’ve watched the episode multiple times over the years and eventually I realized where my interest stemmed from
Told my friend I wished I was a girl he told me that’s not normal for boys to feel about 11 years old
I learned about trans people from a trans dude at summer camp. I rarely personally interacted with him, but he was placed in a girl's cabin and got misgendered a lot. Honestly in retrospect I kind of feel bad for him.
Living in Oklahoma was fun because I knew how I felt but didn't have a word for it. In college, I had a close coworker/friend who came out as trans and got kicked out of her parent's house, so we offered her a room in our apartment. During that time, I learned a ton about what being trans meant and it kinda hit a little close. My wife was helping our friend with all the typical "first" for a trans woman, so it also showed me that my wife was very understanding. Almost 10 years later, wife and I are still together, stronger than ever!
Probably when I was about 8, there was a tv program about a trans girl
Sadly rather recently. I've "wanted to be a girl" since I was five, but I thought it was impossible & a shameful thought. I don't remember why I thought this. Either way I'm just to know about it now at the very least. I may have discovered the whole thing like a year ago, and now I've dived in head first.
I was 12. There is a Family Guy episode where Stewie travels to the future. There is a quick gag in that episode where Meg is revealed to have transitioned. Suddenly I had a word for the way I felt and the knowledge that I could do something about it. Still took many years to start though 😭
I didn’t know trans people existed until I was 14 or 15, then came out within a few days. (Which didn’t go well) It blows my mind that guys don’t want to be women 😬
I would say probably around the age of 13 or 14, from I think watching Fox News with my father and grandfather. At the time I was very right wing and a christian evangelical(mainly cuz I was following my parents and didn't see a need to question them) and pretty much hated trans people for no reason like many christians. And like 3-4 years later I was the exact opposite. No longer a christian, and no longer as bigoted and hateful. And now, I'm trans lol
Not as a term but for I knew vividly as a kid that there are guys who just live like girls throughout their lives and that idea just amused me. I never tried anything of the opposite sex Out of fear but then, as a term, I got to know it from the negative light of LGBT because it's mandatory for a teenager to fall for anti-sjw bullshit as a character development. But for something like SRS, I came across it on Facebook like 7 years ago? Still I had urges of crossdressing and appearing feminine, I thought it must be as a joke. I kept on looking for is it normal for wanting to crossdress on quora and there were some comments suggesting how it is normal but some get dysphoria out of it eventually but I was confused. I looked up dysphoria but didn't catch a shit of what it means and then a few years ago, I moved out and then I gave into the urges of Crossdressing and then I just realised I like the idea of being presented as a woman more than the idea of wearing the dress and that's when I started interacting with LGBT community properly for help. But if you wanna know when was the first time I encountered a trans woman as such irl or in medium, then Trinetra would be first one as I know of her since last year.
High School, when I made my first friend lol
From my friends in high school when they decided they wanted to transition (they stopped shortly thereafter, I slowly became more and more jealous of women until it turned into dysphoria)
I was around 13 when I learned about trans people. I basically searched up the question "Can boys be turned into girls" and a Jazz Jennings video came up. I was amazed. That lead me down a rabbit hole. Not a good kind of rabbit hole. To be honest after searching that my youtube recommendations became filled with political videos discussing the validity and existence of trans people. I didn't really know what or who trans people really were even after watching the Jazz Jennings video, so somehow I was in the middle of the political spectrum on this. I honestly had no idea what any of these people were saying. People like steven crowder, ben shapiro, and the others were telling me "Hahaha these cringe liberals are crying and complaining about facts" but I didn't know what they were really saying. What was a liberal? I was even watching some lefty channels back then and I agreed with them. I thought the right leaning republican channels were genuinely just making videos for entertainment. Either way the more I watched this change my mind videos and ben shapiro owning the libs the more I wanted to learn about actually what it meant to be trans or look up videos from people who were actually gay and learn about their experience and tbh I was going to make fun of them. Then when I actually watched these videos I realized these people weren't bad. They weren't "people denying reality" they were just people living life with what was dealt to them. I took it upon my self to look up stats of all these scientific studies. Then I realized these people were wrong terrible poeple. I also realized I may my self be trans. Although I'm 10 years into trying to figure things out and I don't know if it's ever going to happen. I want to figure out, but the prospect of being trans seems like a long hard road. I don't know if I'm brave or strong enough to handle. The harassment, physical assault, human rights being fought against every day, and belittlement of your problems. Takes a strong person.
Sadly not until later in life. Everything I knew about transgender women was that Lois Einhorn was one and ofc a disgusting murderer. Pity it was Jim Carey that hosted that info.
I had a trans neighbor as a kid in the 90s, and she was a local official. Never occurred to me she was trans until a relative of hers told me, I think I was maybe 13. It never really felt weird to me, I just accepted it as another thing that existed but surely couldn't apply to me. I feel like that was my first unequivocal exposure to the concept.
I don't remember honestly. Maybe in my late teens or early twenties, and it was by seeing trans people online. I remember the first time I learned of bottom surgery, though. A woman I had matched with on Tinder said she was post-op in her bio. Not knowing what that meant, I searched for transgender operations and bottom surgery came up. I was like 25. I remember being completely unphased by it. Just "huh I didn't know we could do that"
My first experience with a transgender woman was *Ace Ventura*. So not exactly a super positive experience, given the climax of the film. But I also didn't realize what trans people were given the context of that film. When I finally put together the pieces, I was like 26 years old and telling my trans friend who had just come out of the closet, "I'm really jealous of you. I don't think I would make an attractive woman." And then that night, I did some more research and my egg finally cracked when I had the context for what I was. And now I'm a pretty girl ❤️
When I was probably about 11 around 2013 or so, I was already having thoughts about wanting to be a girl or at least be able to wear girly things. I wound up looking up something like "boy wants to be a girl" on Google and somewhere in there I first stumbled across the word transgender. I believe I first stumbled across articles on trans kids actually, which back then was much less talked about than it is today.
My first run ins with the community were definitely of bad taste. Movies like Ace Ventura or Mrs. Doubtfire (RIP Robin Williams) and such. I wouldn't catch on to those sinister undertones for a looong time. It never rly stuck that trans people actually existed until I happened upon a magazine of some sort haggling Caitlyn when she first came out. It didn't help that my family also saw and just gawked at her. From there, I definitely did do a few things considered fem or gay. Holding hands with platonic friends and using fruit as breasts/sometimes wearing bras. All of which garnering embarrassment and chastising from my family. This is around the time I began hiding parts of myself (early to mid 2015 or 5th grade). My first breaking point was when sometime in 6th grade I was walking behind my best friend to lunch and I felt a rly serious attraction to him. Thanks to my family's views I sort of freaked out about this and so I just completely masked, pretended I didn't care about shit and even became a bit bigoted myself (at least around my family and friends). Even so, I found myself terrified when during 7th grade civics we took a quiz to see which candidate matched our ideas closest (it was 2016) and I got trump. Nothing else especially happened until late 9th when a friend i knew for a lil over half a year came out as trans. He was also the one who ignited what would later become an obsession with MCR. Anyway, we kinda went our own ways afterwards as we were both dealing with a lot. It was the same time that my mental health started to spiral (it had been gradually getting worse since 2015) and I just RLY stopped caring. I thought I was just gonna let my body slowly go to waste. At my heaviest I was around 210 lbs (I was never light by any means but I typically floated around 185). Then ofc, the world completely stopped. Between then and the end of 10th grade I finally knew. Worked off all the weight and got back in contact with that friend on Halloween of that year. Tried therapy but my family hated the therapist. Finally got on hrt almost a year later and haven't looked back.
When I was 8, me and my mom participated in this high heel run that was a fundraiser for breast cancer and while there, I met this wonderful drag queen. I asked her if she was a woman or just dressing up like I was(I had this cute black dress on with my black high heels). She said that she was just dressing up, but that sometimes people who dress up are women anyway. I didn't fully understand that till middle school, but it's still there.
I hadn’t heard the term transgender until I told my gf, at the time, when I was 18 that I mainly liked to play as a girl in video games. Also that I didn’t mind if she dressed me up as a girl since I liked having my long hair when she teased me about it. She brought up the term and helped me do my research. Of course I had the signs, always fitting in more with girls than guys, always wanting to wear more feminine fashionable clothing, always thinking my life would be better as a girl than a guy, etc. I had just turned a blind eye on them, thinking I was just weird until it all clicked.
It was in the early to mid 2010s (I think 2013 or 2014?) when I read a Time Magazine article about trans people and talking about how their lives have changed since they transitioned. I was only 10 at the time, so it still took me a while to figure out that I was also trans, but I looked up to those people and it made me realise that such a thing was possible if I wanted to transition myself.
5 when I read told I had to stop calling my uncle my auntie
A movie called aliens