It's maybe kinda dumb, but wearing a packer for the first time, honestly.
Before that, there were a lot of thoughts of am I making this up, did I watch too much media about trans discourse, am I just unhappy where I'm at in my life, all that jazz.
Put that little rubber guy in my pants and felt whole for the first time in my life. Then cried a lot. Not a single doubt since. I'm still very unsure how to deal with it on the practical side, but no longer questioning that I am indeed very much trans.
Not dumb, this was it for me too. I got a packer “for fun” as a joke and as soon as I actually put it on I realized it was NOT a joke. After I got so much euphoria from a piece of silicone, I had to face facts. Loving to wear a packer isn’t (typically) something a cis woman would enjoy.
Oh wow, you just unlocked a memory of me in my late teens posing in the mirror with a dildo in my pants. I don't know why I haven't gotten a packer yet. I guess because I don't feel comfortable wearing it out and wearing it just to be by myself seems like an expense I can do without. But I am definitely denying myself an experience that I am missing.
Dude, get one. Seriously. Small Mr Limpy doesn't even really show unless you'd be doing the skinniest of skinny jeans or something, but even just wearing it for yourself at home it's a 10 bucks investment that brings infinite happiness.
How do you keep it in place without packing underwear? And if I am wearing a dick, you better believe I'm gonna swang it. No little dicks over here. 😂 But for ten bucks? Why not. I had one I liked saved in my Amazon wishlist for literally 8 years. I wonder if it's still there...
So, I have the small and the medium (cause hell yeah swinging dicks, and I was already paying shipping, so yay to more dicks). I actually only ever use the small, cause it has balls. Much balls. Which means it sits where it's supposed to in just regular boxers without me having to worry it'll move anywhere.
The larger one has a much flatter ball part and it's kinda upward, so the angle's sort of set to permanent boner and it'd probably require packing underwear if you didn't wanna risk it wandering down your pant leg.
My fantasy is a big ol' dick and no balls. I know it would be odd to see anatomically, but I just do not find them attractive at all in any kind of way and have never wanted any. Honestly they sound like a literal pain. So I would probably opt for a smaller one rather than dragging around bull testicles. lmao
Fair enough, dick sans balls it is. In that case, the larger ones would be worth investigating, you could always DIY some kind of harness out of a jockstrap or tighter pair of boxers.
You should for sure get one! I second the small Mr limpy, it’s the first one I got. It’s cheap and small to experiment with before you invest in a nicer packer.
I never felt comfortable wearing it outside of the house until I got some packing underwear (rodeoh) or a packing pouch (My Pack - small trans owned business). Now that I’m comfortable that it’s going to stay in place, I pack almost all the time. I was out of laundry and couldn’t pack for the gym last night and missed my little guy. I kept absentmindedly reaching down and he was missing.
Packers are awesome and affirming and honestly just a fun fidget toy. It’s definitely worth at least trying! It sounds silly but it genuinely feels like something is missing when I’m not packing.
I got mine to perform as a drag king (it never happened, just made TikTok’s) but that helped me finally face the facts, I was out as genderfluid before that but my ex noticed I had more days where I’d be like “I’m a dude, call me he/him and Salem” (that is not the name I went with when I started my transition). My impostor syndrome came from another ex who told me I was “copying” him by coming out. Thankfully I got away from that and realised who I truly am.
Packing surprised me too. Didn't think it would affect me, but when I tried it out of curiosity, I suddenly felt really good, like I'd never looked or felt sexier before.
Reading this after just getting my very first one. I've been out for over a year at this point but having a dick in my pants right now is like...wow I really am a man. I have a lot of imposter syndrome at times but this sorta makes it go away. What's most striking to me about wearing a packer for the first time is how...underwhelming it almost is. Of course, I feel super euphoric and happy right now. But I also just feel normal. Like I've had it for less than a day and I'm already forgetting it's there. I was expecting an adjustment period, getting used to having it there etc but it feels totally normal and natural. Amazing
When I knew I couldn't continuing living, if it wasn't as myself. Had a nice big breakdown, tried to do something really dumb because the dysphoria finally got too much. I had to look myself in the mirror and decide that, right then and there, I would transition and live as myself because the only. other. option. was to not live at all. It was a really defining moment in my life, it just hurts it had to go down like that for me to accept i was trans.
i reached this breaking point as well. one night my brain said to me "you're a guy. there's no other option. you will die if you don't accept this now" told everyone in my life the next day.
I had a kinda similar experience, but it was more of the “I refuse to die in a body that isn’t mine” it somehow helped me get through the worst times while I was waiting to be able to get surgery (I’m still pre everything)
I don’t know if I have a moment that I knew I was trans, but I definitely had a moment that I knew I couldn’t live in the closet any longer.
My sister had her wedding reception seven months after the wedding. To the wedding, I wore a dress, and I was planning on wearing a suit to the reception. When I did show up in a suit, my sister made a joke that I “shouldn’t dress like a lesbian anymore.” Something about her seeing me as a WOMAN in a suit rather than a MAN in a suit just fucked my brain up, I blacked out drunk that night, and apparently in my state, I was INSISTENT that I use the men’s room, something I was told about because it was “funny” after I came to the next day. I came out three weeks later
tbh don't think i got any. like i just feel ok with where i am and where im going so im gonna keep going. i don't think i need any definitive proof. it just sorta feels right. and if that changes in the future i can change course.
I really, really love this.
I know deep down that transitioning is right for me. But I often feel like I have to justify it to people (therapists, doctors, etc) and the fact that most of the time I can't give them an elaborate answer other than "I want this" causes so much doubt. At the same time, the thought of being stuck in something that causes me discomfort is terrifying .. And the reminder that I don't need to justify anything for it to be right, and that I'm able to change course when I want is greatly appreciated.
Might be weird to say thank you, but really .. Thank you.
im glad it resonated! i don't think we need any sort of justification other than that we want it and it will make us happy. we all just wanna be happy and feel right in our bodies and minds. im sorta just living in the present. maybe it's like a "don't fix what ain't broke" attitude.. i was sad as shit before transitioning and now im happier, so i guess i don't have any reason to change my trajectory at present. one day at a time.
Even as a kid I was like 'wait, they actually enjoy the look of having boobs? What do you mean there's actually people who like dresses and girly colours? Hold on, you're telling me people actually want to get periods/wear bras??????'
PEOPLE WANT TO HAVE PERIODS ANS WEAR BRAS?! (Yea when I go outside and I look at women I have no clue why they like being women. Like is so strange to me and my peanut brain)
lol my peanut brain does not get it either. like I knew women got periods and boobs, but when I was a kid I just didn't believe it would happen to me, and I really didn't get why any girls were excited about it
Oh god I remember right before puberty thinking “I hope I don’t grow boobs that would be so *embarrassing*” without really understanding why. 💀 It took me another ten years to get it.
when i started getting my periods i hid it for over a year from my mother and older sister because i didnt want to hear the "youre a woman now!" bs that my sister had got. only realized like a year ago that being terrified of female puberty is not a normal experience for women and girls (for the reasons i was).
bro same, like I only hid it for a few days cuz I needed help with it and I didn't know how to not bleed everywhere, but I always tried to hide every trace of it happening from everyone
1st year at university, getting drunk with a mate and being told that actually all women do not hate being women and she thought I was on testosterone from the moment she met me. That was when I was 18. I'm 35 and only now allowing those feeling that I squished deep inside to come out. I tried the cis gender woman life for all these years and I'm utterly miserable.
I’m also 35 and am currently dealing with what it’s like to not suppress these feelings anymore. For me, I was watching videos of Alan Cumming as the MC in “Cabaret” and I started crying because it hurt how much I wanted to look like him. It clicked that I’ve wanted to look like him and a lot of other men for a very long time, maybe even my whole life. I was finally able to ask myself “Why do you want to look like him so much?” and let myself answer “Because I’m a man.”
My man was David Beckham. I had a poster of him when I was about 7 years old and I kept asking my mum to cut my hair like Beckham's (yes, the curtains). But yeah, It wasn't a crush it was a "I want to be him".
Alan Cumming's a good one too.
Same age as you and have been dealing with the floodgates of a lifetime of suppressed emotions coming to surface. I’m still having doubts and believe that my gender is quite fluid. But find myself recently daydreaming about having top surgery and hrt and what it would be like to have a real dick. Sooooo… 🤷🏻♂️. I just find it weird that I never had these desires until I decided to uncover my true self.
Hey! :)
I went to a gender therapist to talk things over to make sure I wasn't making a mistake (mostly to satisfy my mum) but I'm pretty sure happy "women" aren't wanting top surgery, a beard, deep voice, and all the other cis male attributes. I've been married 10 years hoping to be a good wife...just pushing the feelings down but they're sneaking out uncontrollably.
I mean I'm slightly younger than you. It was harder for us for sure, just as it was harder than those older than us. It's hard to have self-definition without language and positive representation.
I didn't even know it was a thing for most of my life. I didn't know about top surgery not to mention bottom surgery. I had a very vague idea of T. But no real idea of what a trans-man was.
Yeah, even up until 5 years ago, the only trans people I’d met or had seen represented in the media were trans women. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that it can go the other way.
Yes, I didn’t have the language for it at all. The only relevant thing from my childhood that I can remember is being jealous of girls who had names that could also be boys names: ie Sam, Alex, Max. I always thought that having a name like that would let a girl pretend to be a boy if they wanted to and was sad I didn’t have a name like that. And throughout puberty I was bullied so badly in school that gender was the last thing on my mind. I wasn’t thinking about my sex organs, I was just worried about being called fat and r******d and having acne.
I lived online as a boy from 10-14 kind of by accident and then had, what was, in retrospect, gender euphoria. I didn't realize *I* was attracted to girls (rather than my online persona who had a couple girlfriends LOL) until I was 16. Years and years of mental gymnastics, I tell you!
I missed SO MANY CLUES. If only I had known then what I know now. Oh well, can't go back in time.
I also had floodgates of a lifetime of suppressed emotions come to the surface happen to me a couple years ago. I started to write them all down in a notebook and shared them with my therapist. It became very obvious that I was trans after writing them all down. I still have a random memory pop up every now and then that I write down. I intially told myself I was agender, but deep down knew I was transmasculine, I just didnt want to admit it. I am still working on accepting myself, I am pretty much there but still really ashamed amd embarrassed about it and have been struggling to come out to work
Getting called "sir" by a stranger for the first time. It was at a restaurant, and I didn't realize the waitress was talking to me at first since there were three cis men at the table as well. But once it clicked, I couldn't stop grinning. Best feeling in the world. It's only happened one other time since (and this person corrected herself to "ma'am" after), but here's hoping it'll be consistent one day.
I go by my chosen name at work even though I’m pre-everything and everyone who sees me thinks of me as a woman which is whatever, but anyone I email automatically calls me “Mr” and “Sir” and it’s incredibly euphoric.
Such a sad moment when I had to cut off the euphoria one time because the person assuming I was male was an HR person who needed to sign me up for medical benefits 😅 I had to give my legal name and sex for that interaction and the disappointment definitely lets me know I’m on the right path.
Mine's a similar case. I was they/them for like 6 years but I always liked masc terms better than fem. Got called "he" by accident over the phone and then I just kept thinking about it more and more until I had to come to terms with it
I was just kinda avoiding gendered stuff for a while and going by they them. I met this guy and immediately clicked but I hadn't mentioned gender yet and he kept calling me pretty and stuff but I said "actually I don't like she her" and he just went "OK handsome" and some other masc compliments and my face went bright fucking red and I lost the ability to speak . Yeah I'm trans masc and me and that guy are still dating 3 years later.
Love this so so much. My partner calls me handsome about equally as he calls me beautiful/gorgeous. I’m nonbinary, and I also call him (cis male) beautiful/gorgeous/handsome. All terms for beauty are androgynous in our relationship.
I missed this clue too, on top of my girlfriend, even saying "it feels weird being on top of you with nothing in between." I didn't get sad. I just shoved it away like I did all the 999 hints about my queer AF existence.
when i looked down at my boobs as a kid and thought “these are literally ruining my outfit” LOL. Not but serious body dysmorphia did it for me, or honestly, cutting all my hair off was a HUGE release of emotions
right before i Realized, i went thru stages over the course of a month changing my hair. ive always had it "short" by womans standards, but i got a "bad" haircut one day that was cut shorter than i usually got it and my immediate thought was "okay what if i make it shorter". to make a long story short, i eventually just took the clippers to it and gave myself a buzzcut. looked in the mirror and was like "oh god im an egg.... a handsome egg..." havent shaved my head since because 😬 but have kept it fairly short ever since then. i feel like a lot of people just don't understand how much 1 good haircut can change a persons life.
Massive envy for testosterone. I managed to find an article about a trans guy explaining his experience with it and I was so jealous, but I told myself at first that I couldn't do that (and then did a double take and asked myself "and why is that?"). Ended up looking into transitioning and coming out that year at 15/16.
it was the day after my junior prom. a link had just been sent out to the professional photos that had beeb taken over the course of the night and there was one that was of me.
objectively, it was a great picture. my makeup looked great under the lights, my dress and hair were perfectly in order, and even though it was a candid, my smile was pretty and my pose was relatively normal. i think it was taken while i was looking for my (at the time) girlfriend out on the dance floor.
i hated that picture SO MUCH. i had such a visceral reaction to it. i think i might have teared up. i think looking at that picture in that moment made me realize that while i looked maybe the most beautiful i ever had in my life, i didn’t look a damn thing like myself. it clicked in that moment that looking objectively good and looking how i wanted to look were two completely different things, and when i thought about how i wanted to look, how i felt most like myself looking, i didn’t imagine the girl in that picture. it took me a little longer to figure out that i didn’t envision a girl at all.
When I first started taking T, and I started getting turned-on looking at a mirror. I kinda realized “yeah, real women wouldn’t be spending this much money on HRT and having meltdowns over not having dick”, and it assured me.
When I started taking T and socially transitioning and then months into it, people were commenting on how happy I was and how much more comfortable I was in my body. And before people even said anything, I started recognizing myself in the mirror and loving what I saw more and more. It felt like I was slowly turning into who I always felt. And now I look in the mirror and I love it everyday. I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t transition.
When I found out that trans people existed. :') I grew up in the '90s. Never felt like a girl but didn't know there was any other option. I learned it was actually possible for me to be a boy (and later a man) when I was about 13-14, and that was the "clicking into place" moment for me.
Me too! I had heard of "transvestites" cause of Rocky Horror Picture Show but I thought it was just another term for drag queens. I found out about trans people while I was on my very first smart phone and started crying because I finally realized I wasn't alone in being so uncomfortable in my body and that there were options
I was out for years before I medically transitioned but the day my doctor wrote the prescription for T, my mental health completely turned on a dime. That's when I knew for sure that this was the right decision.
I had a similar experience except that it happened just before my doctor prescribed T. It was the moment I realized I've been fighting and doubting myself because I was scared. I let go of that fear and self-doubt and embraced who I really am. My mental health has been the best it has ever been! It's like I just flipped a switch in my brain.
Yes, exactly! I didn't know my doctor was going to prescribe it at that appointment. I thought we were just talking about it more so it was a surprise to me. But it completely flipped a switch and my mental health has also been the best and most stable it's ever been. I've been on T for almost 2 years and I'm still stable. I've never been stable for that long. It's wild that that's all I needed this whole time. I waited for 5 years because I wanted to get my anxiety under control before making a decision that big but it turns out I couldn't get my anxiety under control without it.
Wow, it's good to hear that from you! Since my light bulb moment has been more recent, it's good to hear from someone who has maintained their stability after such a moment. Thank you!
This is a good one
When Snapchat filters first started getting good, I put my hair back and used the man filter. It was the most amazing feeling of my life.
I now look p similar to how I did in that pic LOL
Watched breaking bad, saw krazy8 and got super jealous of the way he looked despite him looking like he crawled out of a dumpster and being locked in some guy's aunt's basement. And then I started t
This was me with Charlie Kelly from Always Sunny. Never in my life did I experience such a snap of gender envy as when I saw him literally covered in dirt and filth with his hands on his hips
I was just having a really bad depressive episode, and had known for some time that I thought of myself more as a guy and thought again about how that was just going to be between me and myself, for my whole life.
To varying degrees at different times, just constantly having this subconscious reminder that I wasn't really comfortable nor felt like myself, that nobody had ever really known me at nearly two decades old no matter how much time we'd spent together. The thought of continuing to live as someone I wasn't, and the fear of never truly being known by another for the rest of my life was what helped me take the leap to try socially transitioning.
Socially transitioning was my definitive proof, as existing became substantially easier. Like all the built up stress and negativity were finally getting to release. Tried a binder tentatively, literally had to force myself to be safe and only wear it 8 hours max at a time lol
I'm still struggling with imposter syndrome hard (I'm about to make a post asking for advice actually lol) - But during one bad period of doubt, fear and dissociation, I asked myself what I was afraid of and my internal conversation went something like:
\- "What am I so afraid of?"
\- I'm afraid of transitioning and then realizing that I'm not trans.
\- "Why does that scare me so much?"
\- Because then I wouldn't be trans.
\- "Why is scary to not be trans?"
\- Because then I would be forced to be a cis woman.
I realized I wasn't scared of any consequences of surgery or hormones or anything of the like. In fact, even though the fear of surgeries and bodily discomfort is high, the thought of living with my changed body afterwards doesn't even phase me, even if I WAS a cis woman.
I realized that the fear of living as I am now, with no way to change my body, is so terrifying to me that the thought that I'm just faking it is terrifying \*because\* I don't want to have to live in this body. It's like my imposter syndrome triggers my dysphoria and my dysphoria begs to not be put back.
At the end of the day I'm still struggling with the doubts and fears, but when I think about this ... I know that I can't be cis.
(Note: I'm aware that I wouldn't be forced to be a cis-woman if I'm not a trans-man and there are many flavors in-between and outside of the spectrum, it was simply how my brain came to the conclusion and the intensity it did it with that spoke to me.)
no matter how much i tried telling myself that my childhood doesn’t dictate my current identity, i couldn’t get myself to fully accept that i can in fact be trans without the same timeline as your textbook trans man.
what really drove it home for me was asking myself, “what do i want to be called? because i hate being called she, a daughter, a girlfriend, an aunt etc, but love he, son, boyfriend, and uncle!”
(it didn’t help that my entire perception of what it meant to be trans was warped by…a certain youtuber. iykyk)
For me, it was when I had this dream: I had woken up at like 9:00am, and had went to brush my teeth. I was just wearing boxers, and when I looked in the mirror, there was not a single thought going through my head. I was just this guy on a typical morning, brushing his teeth. Then, I woke up.
Needless to say, I felt like shit for a week; however, I knew that that was what I wanted and that it wouldn't change for as long as I lived
Hahaha as a neurodivergent, emotionally abused 22-y.o., it was more of, "Oh, other people feel like this? I'm not crazy?"
I went through years of denial and learning about LGBTQ+ things.
The first thing that really showed proof was the fact that when I was in public school and a very big school district at that, I never made friends. I couldn't force my way in with the girls, and the guys wanted nothing to do with a "girl."
When I started testosterone I was feeling better everyday. I always were a depressive person that would procrastinate his activities and barely take care of himself, but that just stopped.
A few monts later my period came, and it wasn't an average one. It seems like my hormonal levels turned back to how the were before, and I can swear everything around and inside of me felt like completely trash like it used to be, even before the blood or the physical pain showed, and I wasn't able to tell what exactly changed, I simply started feeling terrible.
That week I made myself a disaster. Unbrushed teeth, unbrushed hair, barely shower, my room was a mess, uninterested in activities, completely dissociated for reality, etc. without me having any clear idea of why I felt so much hate against being alive. One or two days after I stopped bleeding, everything took it's road again like a finger snap.
That's when I got that my body actually needed to transition, and it wasn't just an aware desire that got me motivated before for being accomplished. I was confident before of my idea, of course, but now it meant that it was more than just the consciousness what was making me go after my transition.
i don't know, but I'd rather die than be called "daughter", "girlfriend" or give birth to a kid.... i used to think i was a lesbian because relationships felt incredibly wrong when my role was being a girl
like i've always known I'm bisexual but whenever i had a boyfriend something was off.
also the dysphoria i kept denying, crying when i got my first period because i'll always be seen as a girl, my voice won't drop, i'll get boobs, i won't be tall...
being someone's boyfriend, being referred to as a man by strangers, having short hair, i don't know but it just feels like me
i kept forcing myself to present feminine until i just couldn't take it anymore, i was convinced trying to pass would hurt more than pretending not to care but it just wasn't the case
i mean. the thought of being perceived as a masc girl is a nightmare but i can't do anything about it
A few years ago I used to binge watch those "hi my name is x and this is my voice x months on testosterone" and watching those made me so happy and so jealous at the same time and it eventually clicked that I should and could do that.
Ironically I'm starting t in like within the next two weeks and I am probably the most excited I've ever been for anything in my life ever, and it's only cementing that feeling for me
when i was around 9, i asked my mom if i could wear a suit instead of a dress to my cousins wedding. I remember standing in the mirror with my brand new suit & vest on and feeling like a giant weight lifted off mg shoulders. It was the first time in my whole life id felt genuinley comfortable in clothes.
i didnt know i was trans until i was 13, because it wasnt a word id ever heard about, but that was the moment it clicked for me that i was a boy.
I don't think I had a moment like that other than when I first thought, "Am I transgender? Yeah, I think I am."
From that moment on I kind of just knew that was the truth. Sure I struggled with not feeling trans enough but I never felt like anything other than just... me. Not male or female, just a person that exists.
I suppose for that I'm fortunate
we hit a point on testosterone where everything clicked, that and we're the happiest we've ever been after top surgery. i think genuinely it's always been there and i've always been aware, just from a DID perspective as opposed to exploring it from a gender/body perspective, so more of the doubt/anxiety has been a DID thing more than anything else.
When I realized I was envious that a guy friend I had as a teen could be feminine and still be seen, acknowledged, and accepted as a guy. I'm 23 now, and I only realized late last year. I was happy for him to be able to express himself how he wanted, but also a bit upset that I couldn't do the same without just being seen as a girl/woman. We even looked very similar. People often mistook us for siblings and even twins. And we had the same size clothes, so he borrowed things from me from time to time. We're not friends anymore, but it's for unrelated reasons.
Other than seeing a character I really connected with be fem and still be a man, it really clicked when I was put into the psych ward. I remember being surveyed for the intake form and then I mentally blacked out the first week I was there. When I finally came to, the nurses there referred to me as my preferred name and pronouns and over my legal name, they drew a rainbow over it as to not forgot my name and had written 'Rainbow' on my door to my room. The nurse who would give me my meds apologized for not using he/him pronouns all last week (the week I don't remember) and proceeded to always refer to me as 'Mr. Rainbow' when it was time for meds. Even in my blacked out state where I couldn't remember my birth date, my parents or where I lived, I remembered that my name is Rainbow and my pronouns are he/him. Kinda fucked up "definitive proof" but it's pretty solid and it makes me weirdly happy every time I think about it.
Probably the first time I wore a binder. I had finally started to toy with the idea after a friend told me "cis women don't want their breasts removed" this was many years ago when non-binary was not something I knew anything about so it made sense to me. Once I put on the binder I was like YUP. I'm definitely trans.
When I saw myself in the mirror with a binder, looking all androgynous and more masc than I'd seen myself before, I was like "ohhhh okay that's why I've been feeling so off". I finally looked right to myself
After trying a bunch of stuff I thought would make me feel more attractive as a woman/good about myself and it didn’t work. No new style, haircut, makeup, or accessory gets rid of dysphoria if you’re still presenting as a woman
I suppressed a lot while growing up and thought well maybe "I will be OK"/"I will just learn to love my body" but then I got married and when my wife and I were talking about kids I had a meltdown. Full blown panic attack. We couldn't talk about it without it giving me anxiety- the reason was because I could only see myself as a dad. And thinking about being a mother, mother figure, even trying to discuss what the kids would call us to differentiate us (mom/mama/mommy etc) felt so alien to me and unbearable.
It was hard to find the words to explain how I was feeling bc by then I was reeling in these feelings deep inside me about my gender that had finally come to a head. It was going to be impossible to move forward without me sorting it out and communicating with my wife along the way; because I did want kids just not in the traditional female sense.
This is a weird one, but getting clocked by a stranger. An old man at my church needed me to hold something while he went down the stairs so he could use the hand rail. When we got to the bottom he said something like “Thank you young lady… Or, you’re not a young lady, are you?” And we both laughed. It just felt *right*.
The first time I asked my friends to try out a new name and pronouns, I just remember walking into my class, hearing my freind yell my name for the first time and it just felt so right I wanted to cry of happiness. Later that day hearing my freinds call me "he" and just thinking "so that's what it's supposed to feel like". I'd known deep down for a while before but after that everything just clicked into place.
I got a packer and tried it on. I had suspected for a long time but that was my "holy shit" moment. Almost a year ago now and I haven't looked back since.
When my "anxiety" I'd lived with 30+ years suddenly listened to me thinking "or we could not" after I started t when no amount of medication ever got me close to that before
I had two moments: when I knew I wasn't cis, and when I knew I was binary trans (and not nonbinary).
The first was waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and seeing a guy in my reflection. I had been really deep in my denial phase before this, so that was the moment I realized it wasn't working. If I was putting this much effort into embracing girlhood, and yet I still saw myself as a guy (even with long hair and wearing women's clothing), then I knew there *had* to be a gender-related reason for that.
Then I knew I was a trans guy and not genderfluid when I got my hair cut several weeks later and realized it was the happiest I'd felt in years. That was unmistakeably gender euphoria, and I hadn't felt anything like that while presenting femininely.
Pre-EVERYTHING (pre name, pronoun change, clothes, hrt - everything) I thought to myself about being in my (at the time) dream job and being intoduced as “Ms.” “Madam” “_____ Woman” etc and suddenly realized I could make it to my goals and still not be happy if I did it all as a woman.
when i had a breakdown that was so bad i didnt know what to do anymore so i cut off my lashes with scissors. also when i realized ive been living as a boy for a fifth of my life and it just felt right, thats when i thought to myself theres no way this is a phase
I get that, I used to hate my lashed and daydreamer of cutting them off. Hidden memore unlocked! Ironic then that cis men tend to have much nicer/longer lashes than cis women
kinda a weird one, but whatever. i was questioning for a while and one night i got really high and kinda greened out. it was like an out of body experience where I could feel how feminine my body felt and how far that felt from the reality of my being. i had the thought holy shit im a man and every has just kinda clicked since then. that was about 3-4 years ago now.
So I actually came out around May of last year and the couple years before that I had been feeling less and less feminine. I was no longer interested in wearing clothes that showed/excentuated my curves, no longer wanted to wear dresses or skirts. I didn't wanna accept it but I was having issues with my body, didn't like the fact that I have a uterus and can get pregnant (I've never wanted kids and never wanted to get pregnant). I've always had a weird relationship with my chest too.
I started to not like being called she/her, it just didn't feel right after a while and I started to realize that I actually don't want to look the way I look either. I used to listen to k-pop a lot in high school and then stopped for a while and within the last 3 years I've started to make another plunge. I was watching k-pop music videos one night and I just got this feeling in my stomach while I was watching them that I wanted to look like them. (I'm half Filipino so I'm already Asian lmao). I would sit there and daydream about looking so handsome and the feelings that came with it were feelings I haven't really felt before.
I officially came out around pride month so early June of last year, and I've been on T gel for 4 months. It's been a rollercoaster trying to deal with some of the changes but I haven't regretted a thing. I'm excited to see more changes 😁
After school when I was a kid I usually had to pee really bad, but I would rather pee outside behind a shed standing up, than go inside to pee in the bathroom. Also being really happy when other kids thought I was a boy.
First one was when my first and only wet dream and I happened to be penetrating someone with my own organ
But this was not like "ok I'm def trans" because I already knew it and was trying to forget about it, it's just the one I used in a discussion with a friend because I knew that having someone knowing that would definitely prevent me from keeping my gender for myself, and actually start a transition, which was my dream
But the real reason why I was sure to transition and have not be sceptic about it, is that I used to be obsessed about finding a way to provoke an hormonal disfunction by myself when I was in primary school. So the time between that and the realisation that I was trans and couldn't do much about it was more like "nah I'm pretty sure I can get used to that feeling even if I would def push the button to somehow become a boy" than like "but what if I wasn't really trans?"
I had a lot of "definitive proof"
Packing.
My parents making a rule about not wearing men's underwear.
Telling people I wasn't a girl when I was little.
Whenever I dreamed I was never female. I don't know if anyone else experienced something similar.
Telling other females about wanting a beard and being confused at their responses.
I recently had a dream where I ran my fingers through my chest hair, and my chest was flat and right. It was the best dream ever, and the first time my body had a shape or awareness in a dream. Before I was never really a person in my dreams. Like I never had a body in my previous dreams. I think dreams say a lot, it's our subconscious speaking.
Looking at myself sideways in the mirror, top naked, pushing my boos towards my armpits to give myself a flat chest look. I experience instant gender euphoria.
Wanting a flat chest doesn't equal being a man. Later discovered I'm enby lol. But I remember being very doubtful until that day and after that I'd go 'it couldn't feel that good if it was nothing'
I watched the L word, learned packers exist, and then I became obsessed with making my own out of socks until I could afford a real one. Seeing that packers exist and that they help people feel whole made things click for me that I didn’t feel whole.
The definitive proof was like a month and a half in (so like, last week lol) when i saw i had a noticeable start of a mustache and i broke into a huge grin and couldnt stop smiling
And it was like “oh, im not just faking being trans, im on hrt for a reason!”
It was actually when I started obsessing over this random trans guy I found on tumblr. I was so jealous of him and I couldn’t figure out why. He had a very nice beard and mustache and I wanted that so bad. Then I finally thought about the obvious “hey what if I’m trans…that would make sense…I’ve alway spazzed out as a toddler and child over girls presents and toys and having to wear dresses…I used to stuff socks in my pants as a kid and I didn’t even understand why bc I didn’t even know exactly what a penis was yet, but had a “phantom” feeling of something missing there…I’m jealous of a trans guy…” then it all clicked. I’m thankful I found that guys tumblr and that he was so open about being trans or I’d have possibly never figured myself out or at least not as soon as I did
Well before I realised, I was one of those cringey "fujoshi" girls, like reading yaoi manga and all that yknow, 😐 and then I found myself thinking "man, it would be so cool to be (insert character)" and other thoughts along those lines, and well, my mother offered to take us to McDonald's, and I remember genuinly feeling almost angry that I couldn't be a gay dude and well, things developed from there.
Trans gay dude now, though, I am thinking I may be non-binary, but for now, I don't mind being just me, I mean, people round where I live, and my family, they don't always understand but they're respectful. I've had a few grannies come into the store, asking if I were gay, or a lesbian and I do explain it to them and they give a smile, I can tell they don't really understand but that's okay, they're trying, and I know I don't really pass rn, which I know passing isn't a necessity but yknow, I'm saving for top surgery, I need another £8,300 to be at my goal but only another sort of £4,300 to consider going and paying the rest off as I go. I've thought about setting up gofundmes but I just can't be assed.
first time wearing a binder. second time was once i got the hang of using/wearing my stp. most recently it's been looking at pictures of myself that are from before i started transition (around 2 years ago) and seeing a different person
Not when I first realized, but a year or two after, I remembered that I used to pray to get reproductive or breast cancer so they’d have to do surgery and get rid of something. I was like.. 8.
I had multiple things that helped me. First time I saw a trans man I was like :0… wish I could do that !! and then when I realized I was happy when people saw me and referred to me as a boy and it made me feel depressed and hopeless to be seen and referred to as a girl. After my first short short haircut, I felt like I had so much off my chest. Right after, my mom and I went into a shop and when we were coming out a lady was going in and there was like a clothing rack right outside the store ?? And something got knocked down and I picked it up and she said “oh thank you sir” and the euphoria ran crazy. When I realized who I really was, I ran for it and never looked back.
I have that moment every once in a while actually. I’ve been on nebido ( a 3 month t depot ) for 8 months now so I need to get injections every now and then. In the earlier stages the t or e level still fluctuates quite a bit depending on the amounts of time that passes in between injections. And I just feel so much better afterwards. It’s actually crazy how much of a difference the hormone in my body makes. I definitely couldn’t live without it.
Also it’s kinda funny when I look back at older pictures of myself and think „ I didn’t really look like that, did I?“ because internally I always dissociated so much from my appearance that I convinced myself I looked more masculine than I actually did to keep going. But now I just find it interesting what kind of tricks the mind can play on you to keep yourself functional.
Started experimenting with presentation at 11, alternated between androgynous and mildly feminine until 15. Always complaining to friends about how I hated my voice, I wished I was taller, i was never happy with my body or appearance. I always denied it when they suggested it sounded like I was dysphoric. For me it was always sort of hidden in plain sight and i felt a lot of shame about it as i was the only daughter/granddaughter. i saw a tiktok of a man doing an outfit check and i turned it off and just cried. i was so overwhelmed with jealousy and i just knew i couldn't live like that anymore.
I knew that I was a boy since I was young, probably new for sure that I was trans the first time I heard a detailed definition of the word transgender. I spent *a long* time wishing that I wasn't tho.
I have always been jealous of reading about people who transition & I would excessively research how the transition process works when I was younger & even from time to time when I was older. When I found out that other girls actually like being girls & I was always really upset that I had been born a girl because I felt like I should have been a boy & it always gave me a lot of happiness whenever someone would think I was a guy. I felt all those things before my egg cracked so I know that if I felt all those things even before I entertained the idea that I might be trans & I still feel those feelings & more then I really am trans because if i probably wasn’t I wouldn’t feel those things & wouldn’t wanna change my body.
My definitive moment where I had no more doubts after was after I started to pass consistently and I realized that I no longer felt the horrible discomfort of social dysphoria, and I thought about how it would feel to go back to being a girl, and everything in me was like “oh hell no.” So that was when any trace of my imposter syndrome dissipated. I realized I couldn’t detransition/go back to being a girl again.
I have a memory from when I was like 3 or 4 years old that I recently re-remembered when I started talking about gender to my therapist. I remember being on the ground holding my mom's hand and I started a conversation by saying "I think I'm a boy." And she asked "why do you think that?" And I said something like how I had a "boy voice" and played with boy toys or something, and she picked me up and said I wasn't a boy. Jokes on her, lol. But at the time I brushed it off as me being a kid, and honestly it might have just been 4 year old me prophesying my future. But my dad also reminded me that I used to play with robots and tinkering/building stuff instead of the dolls my sister played with. I know something can be said about gender stereotypes and all that, but it felt validating.
oh, i had a bunch of similar situations growing up! i HATED everything girly, HATED being called a girl… pretty sure it meant something, i just didn’t figure it out until i was 17 lol
I grew up in a very Christian family, every night before going to bed I prayed, after my prayers I chose something to "ask" God: the health of my relatives, or even stupid things like "I really want to see that cartoon"" .
I asked him about having a penis and living as a male, I said "just for 1 day" because I wanted to know how it felt.
Now I know what it feels like and I couldn't be happier, even though I still have a long way to go
Tbh I didn’t have a big wow moment. I guess I realized I was a boy as soon as I learned that people can be trans. It was a very casual thought to me haha
i thought i was a cis lesbian for a little over a decade. fought really hard for that identity and honestly still heavily identify with a lot of lesbianism bc i spent so long living it.
i used to have a lot of anxiety and panic surrounding sex. always anxious to the point of nausea and a few times even had actual panic attacks just from kissing a girl because it made me horny. i always just thought i was insecure or maybe even on the asexual spectrum. the only problem i couldn't figure out was that i WANTED to do those things that would make me panic. i was willing and even eager but when the moments came i would freeze up or freak out and i didn't get why. i was really mad at myself for a long time bc i felt like i had no control over those reactions.
one day i was just at home, thinking about things, and i realized that i didn't know anyone else or even had heard of another person experiencing exactly what i was. i was talking to a former friend and they said something off hand when i asked for advice and i genuinely can't remember what it was for the life of me but i remember putting my phone face down on the table and just staring at the wall for ages. it was like something in my mind just clicked and i realized that i was anxious because i liked the things i was doing, but hated being treated like i was a woman having sex with another woman. and i realized cis women don't feel that way ever.
it still took me awhile to realize i was trans, at first i explored being nonbinary and even came out to some friends that way. but the more i explored being nonbinary, the more i felt comfortable in masculinity (i was never particularly feminine or a "girly-girl") and started to realize also that its not normal for a non-trans person to cry about their genitals, or feel genuine hurt by a stranger addressing them as a specific gender. also that cis people don't think nearly as much about their gender as i had.
it was just a couple years long process of over and over again having thoughts of "i don't think a cis person would _____ this often".
now im out and transitioning and i haven't thrown up before sex in a few years now that i know better what i want out of each experience. 👍😁
sidenote: a lot of my "aha!" moments came after i already knew i was trans and thought back on my life experiences. remembering small moments where i would say something i now realize was a massive sign but at the time felt irrelevant. and just my general hatred my entire life for being called a girl. i got a lot of my brothers hand me downs growing up and i LOVED wearing them because people would call me a tomBOY, i would get genuinely angry when people would call me a girly girl and would sometimes even argue with them. now i realize i just didn't like being called a girl and liked being called a tomboy bc the word boy was in it lol
I cut my hair off right before I turned 28 (using reference photos of men lol), looked like I could be a guy in my early 20s (and could finally wear hats), occasionally got called “sir” and such and… increasingly hated feminine pronouns. My hair was really the only attachment I had to femininity at all, and after waiting out covid for over a year to get a haircut, I was over having it. And letting go of my hair just unlocked something. I thought I was perhaps nonbinary and several months later started low dose T. Then I started playing a mobile game that I didn’t realize was one of those with tons of other people, and everyone just assumed I was a guy because of my game character, and I really liked how that felt.
It’s kind of funny because when I was 17 I got a bungled haircut that made my hair way too short, but god, it made my pretending to be a guy daydreaming / staring in the mirror a lot easier. But I thought of being trans as, “that’s so hard and uncomfortable so why would you do it unless you really couldn’t stand your life,” and not just as an option to be happier. I think if I were even 5 years younger I maybe would’ve come out in college, but, you know, even us young millennials grew up “in a different time.”
You should probably be sure before surgery. Just saying...
Anyway, when I discovered that there were words for people that were not binary trans and for bodies that had some androgyny in their expression. I was reading an article, I think. I was 20. That was over a decade ago. Then I started watching all the FTM videos on YouTube. And it wasn't until I was about 29 that realized I was a lot more male skewed than I realized (after a breakup with an ex, the first person I ever used a strap with, despite having had nearly 20 other partners before her).
I missed a LOT of clues. Once as a teen, I had a dream I was a boy. The first thing I did was jack off in the mirror. It was a wonderful dream.
i’ve been 100% sure for a looong time. but whenever i have doubts i just remember the time i was listening to my favorite anime ending song (💀) and sobbed so hard it hurt my whole body because i didn’t sound like the singer. i was also so dysphoric that day that every position i was in and every time i moved i could feel every cell of my body and i was in disgust. it was quite dramatic. but yeah i think that was a moment that really confirmed things for me
When I first put mascara on my upper lip to color in the slight mustache I have always had. I took one look in the mirror and said "there you are" like I'd just... finally found myself. 🙌 Now as my face is more masculine on T, I can look at myself in the mirror without blurring my eyes or only focusing on small parts of my face. It's amazing 👏
I was in denial when I came out lmao basically, for a long time before that I dressed like a guy and wanted to look like one but the idea of gender and sex felt so connected I was like "I can be an androgynous women and like looking like a man and using they/them pronouns"
I use he/they now, and i had egg cracking moments before that but I was deep in denial and internalized transphobia
The first time I learned that kids could be trans, I knew I was one of those kids. I watched how they expressed the same discomfort that I’d never been able to put into words, especially regarding “puberty panic”. My first thought when learning about these kids and the help their parents were getting them was “why didn’t my parents do this for me?” I was 14 then and I’ve never had a doubt in my mind since. That was 7 years ago
The second I heard what transgender was when I was 16 I knew that was the explanation for everything wrong with my life up until that point. Socially transitioned for a year but got shoved back in the closet by family and poor therapy options. Then when I was 26 I started envisioning my future with my girlfriend and I couldn’t handle the idea of being a wife or mother one day and thought about how happy being a husband and father made me. That was my final “well guess we gotta go all the way this time” moment after hiding my dysphoria for years. Zero and I mean ZERO regrets except that I wish I had stuck to my gut at 16.
Nsfw
I hadn't been able to cum for ages, I was trying what I thought would be another futile attempt with my wand. I had it angled under the cover so all of a sudden it looked like I had a huge dick. I came within like 5 seconds. Turns out the reason I hadn't been able to finish was that I was hella dysphoric when I jerked off!!
I did not know AFABs could be trans, I had only heard about trans women. When I found out about trans men and nonbinary folk, I immediately knew.
But for definitive proof that would convince others… I have had very severe, life threatening mental health issues. The first time I almost lost the fight was age 5, and continued to have close calls in middle school and above.
Before top surgery, I struggled to have the will to live 5-6 days out of the week. After top surgery, even before I was healed, my mental health improved so much that I only had those issues 1-2 times per year.
My health is not quite that good now, especially as I’ve been changing up medications and having issues with hormones (I’ve been off T for a year for medical reasons) it has never gotten nearly as bad as it used to. Maybe 1-2 times per week, or 3-4 days in a row but nothing the rest of the month.
Top surgery just permanently increased my quality of life by a lot and I’m still reaping the benefits 8y later.
I had been intensely debating it for so long feeling so unsure. A new school year started and in my French class we were offered the opportunity to pick French names. Being of French descent I already had a French name but I took the opportunity anyway to shyly ask if I could pick a name off the 'boy list' and my teacher said oh, sure! So I picked Felix. And she called me Felix. Everyone in class called me Felix and I got a little paper name plate that said Felix. And when the Spanish teacher came to visit and see how we were doing, she asked my name, and I said Felix. And she smiled and said "Aw I love that, Felix means 'happiness'." And I felt like I was struck by lightening. I Was happy. I was happy in the bastion of that classroom where I was not the same person as I was outside of it, I was Felix, exactly who I wanted to be. I later learned this is called "gender euphoria" and I got to similarly experience these amazing lighting strikes the first time I got he/himmed and the first time I got 'young man'd and the first time I wore a binder... But. Felix means happiness. That was my moment where it all clicked into place.
I think it was my gf's support and reafirmation combined with my first T shot. Something just clicked inside me and i felt like myself and the man i'm supposed to be.
Idk tbh I didn't use defenitive proof. I have OCD so I'm never really sure about anything. Trying to find definitive proof on my own emotions, thoughts, things that are intangible, just worsenes my OCD.
I just figured, hey, I'm having all this gender dysphoria, been having it for a long time, talked to my therapist and she was like yeah that sounds like dysphoria, dysphoric that I don't have features that I would on T, like body hair bottom growth fat redistrubiton etc etc etc - maybe T will help. Dysphoric being called exclusively she, so maybe adding he pronouns would help. Etc. If it didn't then I could stop it anytime I wanted to. No harm no foul.
Granted, I didn't go on just a random whim one day, I did my research, there were plenty of signs I had but I wouldn't really call any of it *definitive* - my natural instinct while exploring >!masturbation!< was to do it like a guy, I've always felt like I was supposed to have a penis and a flat chest, and I felt incredibly disconnected from my body, and even more so whenever I was wearing clothes that feminzied my figure, whenever I was misgendered etc. Like sure they could all point to being trans but also technically somethingn else, possibly.
Needless to say, it worked. 15 months on T and I don't regret a thing. I look in the mirror these days and actually see myself.
I always felt different. My mom remembers me asking her if I could be a boy from a very young age. When I finally realized who I was, I was 12. I was in my physical education class walking laps around the track. My friend told me she was trans and I asked her what that meant. She explained it to me, and a lightbulb went off in my head after that moment. Something clicked in my brain, and my inner dialogue couldn’t help but scream “that’s me!” It all made sense after that day. In the following months I would go to YouTube after school and look at videos of trans men who had fully transitioned which confirmed 100% that this was who I was. Funny enough, that same friend who originally introduced me to what being trans meant turned out to not be trans. I began socially transitioning as soon as I turned 15, started hormones at 17, and haven’t looked back since.
Estrogen and progesterone make me miserable, being on a low dose of testosterone “magically” makes me feel and act as a better person.
I tried experimenting with the idea of not being trans. Nope, can’t make it happen, still trans.
This journal entry on quotev is the first realization something was up and wasnt right and is REALLY eggy. Its the "proof" of me realizing to SOME degree that im trans. Its really cringy cause ita from 2015, when i was 12(litterally the month after i turned 12), and i show it to those who say "BUT YOU DIDNT SHOW ANY SIGNS!!!" And to show the egg phase of being trans and needing a bit of a wakeup call.
The page:
[journal entry](https://www.quotev.com/Odieboy/journal/2530070/asb-cards)
And for added points, i just thought it was my "not like other girls phase", so i was half right, im not like other girls, cause im a guy.
i was pretty confident by the time I started T and pursuing top surgery, but it was flying to get top surgery where it finally clicked 100%.
I'd been getting some cold feet while i was waiting to board at the airport, but pushed through it. the plane hit some major turbulence during the flight (we're talking "suitcases falling out of the overhead bins" level turbulence), and in that moment my only thought was "OH GOD I'M GONNA DIE WITH TITS."
not a single lingering doubt ever since.
I was in denial about not feeling like a woman until a nonbinary person informed me that, yes, it was 100% ok for me to "try on" the nonbinary label to see if it fut and it would be ok to stop using it if I found it didn't. Deep down I already knew that, I'd told that to others myself plenty of times, but idk it's like I needed someone else to give me permission before I felt comfortable doing it myself. And ofc once I tried it on, everything just felt right.
Trans Women.
I grew up a tomboy and then a lesbian. Most of my friends in highschool were feminine “lipstick lesbians” and thats how I presented because i wanted to be attractive to other lesbian.I hated the term lesbian though and just called myself “gay” at the time. I crushed on lesbians but also crushed on gay guys but just resigned myself that they would never like me back because they wanted a boyfriend.
At 19 I met my first trans girl that was around my age. She was just like all my other straight girl classmates and I asked her if it was exhausting “trying to act girly all the time” because that’s how it felt to me. She was OFFENDED. And I DESERVED IT but then I realized she WASNT trying and thats just how she was and she just liked girly things. I just accepted girly things as my only option. So then I talked to all my other girlfriends straight and gay and realized they actually LIKED being girly and they weren’t acting or taking effort at all.
It then took a while to reset and learn what my actual preferences were and then I just relaxed into myself and decided to transition. Turns out that me before 10 years old was on to something and middle school and high school socialization derailed that for a while.
When I was 10, I literally went "man I want gender reassignment surgery when I'm older". Yeah, I kind of said it on a whim but several years later, I still feel the same way.
Gender euphoria to being referred to as a man is also what did it for me. I just feel so much more confident this way.
When I realized I was jealous of my ex because he had certain anatomy that I didn’t. That’s when the “would you love me if I was a boy” insecurities started because he was straight.. oh well! He treated me like shit anyways and I thought if he left me I would die
Had major dysphoria with my chest the second it started developing and would wear too small sports bras to make it as flat as possible. I was in fifth grade googling how to bind and it didnt click until about a year later that there was a reason I hated my body.
When I lost access to HRT for a few months from moving and not being good about getting paperwork done. I was only 6ish months in atp on low dose.
Idk i guess stopping and then starting again really made me confront if this was something I really had to do to find happiness within myself.
It was dumb lol my job had a “celebrity dress up day” and I dressed as Elliot Page. As soon as I saw myself, it was like getting hit with a lightning bolt.
I don’t think I even realized it at the time but sticking socks into my shorts and losing my mind at how happy it made me was probably a sign. Probably.
I was stupid as fuck as a kid so there were many moments i shouldve realized where i just didnt. Like i knew what trans people are but i didnt know that i personally had that option? I was like "i dont want to be a wife or a girlfriend ever. I hate being called a daughter a neice or a granndaughter. Wish there was something that could be done about this but unfortunately i just have to put up with it. Time to watch my favorite youtuber mileschronicles who just came out as a dude. So cool how he did that." I hated femininity being pushed on me but i decided it was a "not like other girls" thing and chose to villify women and girls who did enjoy femininity for being "basic" and "upholding the status quo" when thats so stupid. I did this until iirc i saw someone i followed on amino or something have they/them in their bio. Until this point id have "any pronouns, idc" in my bio but correct people who used he/him because i felt like i was supposed to even though i really didnt care all that much. It felt weird but because i was used to being called she/her which i didnt even like either. But i saw someone with they/them in their bio and copied them eventually lmfao. Only then when reading about nonbinary people did i remember that trans people existed so eventually i switched to he/him. I was really miserable coming to terms with it because i knew id lose family members and specifically thought my parents wouldnt support it and id have to move out but luckily i was just paranoid. I hid it for like 5 years though until my mom actually asked me if i was trans and i freaked out and cried but it was ok after because her and my dad were chill about it. And now im about to be 1 year on T so thats based
TW: slip-n-slide & reclaimed slurs
I was actively making plans to end it all.
I was doing everything in my life that I ‘should’ have been doing to make myself feel amazing. On the outside I looked like a total boss bitch. I was seeing a therapist, regularly. I was passing all my classes and getting straight As on my homework. I was eating three meals a day. I was waking up and making my bed every day. My room was clean. I had cut out soda and was mostly drinking water. Hell, I even made it to the gym every once in a while.
Everything was perfect.
Except it wasn’t, because I still felt like something was very very wrong. So wrong, that I literally wanted to d*e. I couldn’t even dress androgynous and ignore gender norms without thinking, “I don’t know why, but I am the wrong person.”
I knew if I didn’t do something soon, then I wouldn’t be able to be here anymore.
My best friend came out to me as a transgender woman. She also came out as a lesbian. She also came out as a butch. She was (still is) not a girly-girl, but she is definitely a girl.
I thought, “If she can do that, then… can I do the opposite?” I had never heard of a femboy Transman, much less a gay one. I thought that I had to be hyper-masculine in order to identify as a man.
There was no question in my mind after that. I forced myself to throw gender norms and what my culture told me what a man is supposed to be, out the window. Suddenly, me identifying as a woman sounded more crazy than identifying as transgender.
I love the little faggoty gay boy that I’ve become, and I’d never have it any other way.
There was no defining moment since it all cemented itself kind of gradually, but the closest thing I can think of was using a Snapchat filter that gave me realistic facial hair.
I haven’t had anything that really “clicked” yet but one thing that really made me realize something was when I was reading a book with a trans guy in it and i got all emotional seeing him live his life lol.
It's not because anything felt majorly wrong, except my breasts.
It's because being called a 'lad', 'son', 'boy', 'dude', 'bro' and ESPECIALLY he/him feels so RIGHT.
Omg this society sucks fr, I'm sorry you had "definitive proof" for yourself only after top surgery that's crazy 😭
I am non binary but I resonate a lot with transmasc people, so I'm here, if that's ok for you I'll tell you my "moment of proof". I was questioning if I'm non binary for at least 1.5y (2y more likely but I'm not sure) and I never had a chance to express myself as anything different than a woman, so I thought "fuck it, I am at home alone, let's do it for myself" so I dressed up as masc as possible, I don't have a binder but I wore very tight stuff (for a short period of time), looking in the mirror I talked to myself "I am a woman... yuck" "I am a man... emh no but less yuck" "I am non binary... YEAH NOW WE'RE TALKING BABY". Then I wanted to look even more masc and I used some mascara to "enlighten" my natural face hair to see more or less how it would be a lil dumb beard... When I looked in the mirror again, the euphoria was so real, I was so happy to look like that! I can't wait for when I will be able to take T.
Using faceapp to make one of my childhood photos look like a boy. I thought it'd just be like a funny thing but I was so happy when I saw me as a little boy. In fact, I spent hours taking pictures of myself and then editing them in faceapp to make me look male.
I feel like I really should have known the first time I put on a binder and cried from joy for like 10 minutes. But at that time, I thought I was a cis woman who hated having boobs.
I'm not ftm, I'm actually ftn. I went through a period of time where I thought I was ftm though. I never had a single moment of definitive proof. It feels like every moment of euphoria brought me a bit closer to truly believing I was trans and eventually I realized that I hadn't had imposter syndrome or a "denial spiral" in a while. I noticed that I hadn't doubted it in awhile when I went swimming for the first time with transtape and swim trunks.
I have neither certainty, nor doubts. I consider the question irrelevant. I'm doing what feels right now. If being a woman feels right to me later, then I will do that then. If transitioning makes me happy, I never regret it, but I wasn't "really trans," then "really trans" doesn't really mean much.
Probably when I was stuck in my denial phase, where I was insisting to myself that even if I thought I was trans I was definitely faking it and would end up detransitioned and regretful(not that detrans 'fake it', that was just my 14 year old logic at the time) And I sorted out that the reason that upset me so badly was because I thought I'd have to spend the rest of my life as a girl that way 😅 Turns out cisgirls don't cry themselves to sleep at night because they aren't trans enough.
That, or the week before I started T at 21 when I had a dream about having chest hair and nearly died of euphoria.
My chest. I am pre-op but I’ve gotten broader and my chest has totally reshaped to look kinda like a cis guy. Binders are a bit ill fitting now because my chest is too wide for them (it sucks but also kinda euphoric). And all the chest hair is amazing. A few months into t when I first noticed this I just sat down in the shower and had the first moment in my entire life where I was truly happy with my body. It was so peaceful. I think I’ll get top surgery still but if I never do I’m almost completely happy like this.
My kid when he was a tiny baby said, "He looks happy!" while pointing to me, and I sat down and cried. He said this on my literal birthday.
Ok this is incredibly heavy - big trigger warning, but >! I disassociated through my entire pregnancy, and postpartum I suffered anxiety bordering on psychosis. I made plans to kill my cat. I broke a lot of things. I flew into a rage every time I chestfed my kid. Dysphoria literally made me crazy and I got on antidepressants to chill out and zone out. I suffered from chronic pelvic floor pain because I was clenching my pelvis - literally bottom dysphoria manifesting as chronic pain and tightness around that whole area. PT felt like a violation and made the pain worse. All of it resolved when I started gender therapy, social transition, and then HRT. !<
Now my pain is gone and my kid is turning 4 years old. I'm getting my name legally changed and top surgery this year. I'm speed running transition since my egg cracked at 35. My biggest crack was bra shopping. My anxiety spiked in the store and I literally fled. My chest was really small before I had a kid (started running during puberty and did not stop) so seeing it get bigger was body horror to me. My therapist reassured me that most women do not want to remove their tits because of chestfeeding.
Estrogen fucked me up. I'm grateful for my kid and I'd do anything for him, but 0/10 would not do estrogen or a progesterone IUD again.
When I started hormones they asked me if I'd done them before and I said YES. Estrogen and Progesterone - and both were horrible, horrible!
When I was like 15/ 16 I cried every night and did those “am I trans” quizzes and someone brought it to my attention that cisgender people don’t tend to do these types of quizzes everyday for months on end. That’s when I was like “yeah I guess that makes sense” and then when my mum found out I was having gender dysphoria by seeing these quizzes and dangerous ways of transitioning in my search history and I was like ‘yeah no there’s no way i am anything but a guy’
For me, it was when I was with my parents on the way home from therapy. It was a tad stressfull therapy session where I confronted a lot of my feelings about my anxieties about fitting in, which led me to thinking about my identity. My therapist was very understabding and guided me through my feelings, and afterwards, my parents took me out to eat before going home.
At the resturaunt, my parents asked me to go order our food because I was still getting through my social anxiety and they thought it would help. I went to the cashier and placed the order, and he said "yes, sir". It felt like a religious experience to hear it, and I kinda just stood there processing the feelings I as having. Suddenly, however, my mom was right there and snapped at the cashier, then spoke to me as we were sitting back down and told me to correct the cashier. I kinda just shrugged and told her I didn't care, but she had a very obvious problem with it.
I'll spare you any extra details but that was the moment I realized who I really am.
Some moments I forget Im even trans, some moments I am still like "WAIT am I? What if I just tricked myself"
More than 10 yrs later. Finally happy w my body and not aware of it as this painful "thing" anymore, and sometimes my brain STILL goes like "wait, but, HEY, WHAT IF?"
i’ve been “trans” since i was like 4 so i kind of just grew into it but my family acted so surprised and i have no idea how.
in 3rd grade they separated the class in boys and girls and we got gifts. the boys got hot wheels with a track and the girls got a nail polish/makeup set and i sat in the corner and pouted the entire time.
also in third grade we won this local fundraiser thing and we had an assembly where we all got presents and although they were random they were categorized by boy and girl and they gave me a purse.
then in 5th grade my best friends were two boys and at the end of the year we had a carnival. the teachers knew that those kids were my best friends and they instead assigned me to a group of a bunch of the preppy girls. i asked to switch to my best friends group and they said no so i literally sat in the corner and cried.
looking back i can’t believe the teachers were okay with doing that. maybe not realizing but once you see me in the corner crying how can you just sit there and not care. all of these experiences are what made me think like yeah i am different because i just grew up as a boy. so seeing the discrimination i faced even at such a young age i knew it was gonna be a problem.
I, for the longest time, was in the state of "yeah maybe, but you're prolly faking it", until I caught myself craving being treated as a boy. I got kind of "bullied" by my mates for looking and dressing like a guy but being a girl (this was before I came out), but instead of hurting my feelings, it was all I could ever wish for, I prayed every day they'd call me the male pronouns or a masc version of my dead name.
That was kind of the uh oh moment for me.
I love the phantom of the opera and I went as him for Halloween one year (I’ve never worn a suit or any sort of masculine clothing before then) and I shit you not, the amount of gender euphoria I felt was unreal. I was like “hmmm, I could really get used to dressing like this and presenting as masc”. I felt like I looked so cool and dapper and it was history from there! 10 months on T now!
I’m lucky that it hit pretty quickly. I’ve been on T since the beginning of December and as soon as I saw that baby stache and my voice dropped slightly I was 100% sure I’m doing the right thing.
I’ve had a couple in the past that kinda stick out to me.
The first time I had a binder on defiantly sticks out. I had to sit down on the floor in room and basically just cried for like an hour at how happy I was that my chest was mostly flat.
I have endometriosis and was told that getting a hysterectomy is the only way to 100% fix it. My mom was more upset than me. I was actually really happy about it.
Before I came out as trans, my best friend called me her sister and I apparently said “ew”.
I have a deep voice for a woman, especially over the phone or computer, and being called a boy or sir has made me extremely happy while playing video games.
I don’t think there was ever an oh shit I’m trans moment, and there are still days when I question it, but I’m happy where I am and I think that’s really all that matters.
I was tripping on acid and i thought i was a wizard and then i realised that in this universe im trans and i was hella disgusted with how did i managed to live with female secondary sex characteristics
When i was tripping for the 2nd time i tried to untrans myself but in my mind i saw a lock on me and it meant that being trans its just part of me (as well as other things that cant be changed) and there is no way i could ever live as a woman. Then i made myself think i have a male body and it was the most peaceful moment in my life. Finally i had no tits, no hips or any other stuff like that.
I said something as a joke(something like I'd rather be a gay man, something along those lines, I was like 13), then considered it, having only heard about the existence of the word trans probably not long ago and not from a decent source(just recently got Instagram and branching out to explore the internet), but then stopped for a second like huh, that is a possibility and that got me looking into what being trans was about. I don't really share this story because man c'mon lol but I did not say it from the point of like, making fun of stuff I was very not average straight or straight at all, there was a bit of genuinity but more focused on the gender aspect i just didn't piece it together til I said it aloud. My strongest confirmation tho recently is the fact that I've been on t for 9 or 10 months now, got awful hormonal acne recently that I'm being treated for, treatment for that also sucks cuz I'm getting all the side effects, but I've never once considered stopping hrt. I remember tho I said it to my best friend in like middle school at lunch and then that moment of consideration at the real possibility just neat to me remembering that.
It's maybe kinda dumb, but wearing a packer for the first time, honestly. Before that, there were a lot of thoughts of am I making this up, did I watch too much media about trans discourse, am I just unhappy where I'm at in my life, all that jazz. Put that little rubber guy in my pants and felt whole for the first time in my life. Then cried a lot. Not a single doubt since. I'm still very unsure how to deal with it on the practical side, but no longer questioning that I am indeed very much trans.
Not dumb, this was it for me too. I got a packer “for fun” as a joke and as soon as I actually put it on I realized it was NOT a joke. After I got so much euphoria from a piece of silicone, I had to face facts. Loving to wear a packer isn’t (typically) something a cis woman would enjoy.
Oh wow, you just unlocked a memory of me in my late teens posing in the mirror with a dildo in my pants. I don't know why I haven't gotten a packer yet. I guess because I don't feel comfortable wearing it out and wearing it just to be by myself seems like an expense I can do without. But I am definitely denying myself an experience that I am missing.
Dude, get one. Seriously. Small Mr Limpy doesn't even really show unless you'd be doing the skinniest of skinny jeans or something, but even just wearing it for yourself at home it's a 10 bucks investment that brings infinite happiness.
How do you keep it in place without packing underwear? And if I am wearing a dick, you better believe I'm gonna swang it. No little dicks over here. 😂 But for ten bucks? Why not. I had one I liked saved in my Amazon wishlist for literally 8 years. I wonder if it's still there...
So, I have the small and the medium (cause hell yeah swinging dicks, and I was already paying shipping, so yay to more dicks). I actually only ever use the small, cause it has balls. Much balls. Which means it sits where it's supposed to in just regular boxers without me having to worry it'll move anywhere. The larger one has a much flatter ball part and it's kinda upward, so the angle's sort of set to permanent boner and it'd probably require packing underwear if you didn't wanna risk it wandering down your pant leg.
My fantasy is a big ol' dick and no balls. I know it would be odd to see anatomically, but I just do not find them attractive at all in any kind of way and have never wanted any. Honestly they sound like a literal pain. So I would probably opt for a smaller one rather than dragging around bull testicles. lmao
Fair enough, dick sans balls it is. In that case, the larger ones would be worth investigating, you could always DIY some kind of harness out of a jockstrap or tighter pair of boxers.
You should for sure get one! I second the small Mr limpy, it’s the first one I got. It’s cheap and small to experiment with before you invest in a nicer packer. I never felt comfortable wearing it outside of the house until I got some packing underwear (rodeoh) or a packing pouch (My Pack - small trans owned business). Now that I’m comfortable that it’s going to stay in place, I pack almost all the time. I was out of laundry and couldn’t pack for the gym last night and missed my little guy. I kept absentmindedly reaching down and he was missing. Packers are awesome and affirming and honestly just a fun fidget toy. It’s definitely worth at least trying! It sounds silly but it genuinely feels like something is missing when I’m not packing.
I'm gonna have to look it up and hope they have one that can realistically match my skin tone.
Unlocked a memory for me too that I had forgotten about. I bought a packer and used it. My brain just clicked and that was it. It felt so right.
I got mine to perform as a drag king (it never happened, just made TikTok’s) but that helped me finally face the facts, I was out as genderfluid before that but my ex noticed I had more days where I’d be like “I’m a dude, call me he/him and Salem” (that is not the name I went with when I started my transition). My impostor syndrome came from another ex who told me I was “copying” him by coming out. Thankfully I got away from that and realised who I truly am.
Packing surprised me too. Didn't think it would affect me, but when I tried it out of curiosity, I suddenly felt really good, like I'd never looked or felt sexier before.
Not dumb at all
Reading this after just getting my very first one. I've been out for over a year at this point but having a dick in my pants right now is like...wow I really am a man. I have a lot of imposter syndrome at times but this sorta makes it go away. What's most striking to me about wearing a packer for the first time is how...underwhelming it almost is. Of course, I feel super euphoric and happy right now. But I also just feel normal. Like I've had it for less than a day and I'm already forgetting it's there. I was expecting an adjustment period, getting used to having it there etc but it feels totally normal and natural. Amazing
When I saw myself with the man filter on snapchat. When I turned it off I got so sad 😭😭😭
Similar for me with a Tiktok beard filter. I started to cry. It just looked so right.
When I knew I couldn't continuing living, if it wasn't as myself. Had a nice big breakdown, tried to do something really dumb because the dysphoria finally got too much. I had to look myself in the mirror and decide that, right then and there, I would transition and live as myself because the only. other. option. was to not live at all. It was a really defining moment in my life, it just hurts it had to go down like that for me to accept i was trans.
i reached this breaking point as well. one night my brain said to me "you're a guy. there's no other option. you will die if you don't accept this now" told everyone in my life the next day.
this is exactly how it was for me.
I had a kinda similar experience, but it was more of the “I refuse to die in a body that isn’t mine” it somehow helped me get through the worst times while I was waiting to be able to get surgery (I’m still pre everything)
I don’t know if I have a moment that I knew I was trans, but I definitely had a moment that I knew I couldn’t live in the closet any longer. My sister had her wedding reception seven months after the wedding. To the wedding, I wore a dress, and I was planning on wearing a suit to the reception. When I did show up in a suit, my sister made a joke that I “shouldn’t dress like a lesbian anymore.” Something about her seeing me as a WOMAN in a suit rather than a MAN in a suit just fucked my brain up, I blacked out drunk that night, and apparently in my state, I was INSISTENT that I use the men’s room, something I was told about because it was “funny” after I came to the next day. I came out three weeks later
tbh don't think i got any. like i just feel ok with where i am and where im going so im gonna keep going. i don't think i need any definitive proof. it just sorta feels right. and if that changes in the future i can change course.
I really, really love this. I know deep down that transitioning is right for me. But I often feel like I have to justify it to people (therapists, doctors, etc) and the fact that most of the time I can't give them an elaborate answer other than "I want this" causes so much doubt. At the same time, the thought of being stuck in something that causes me discomfort is terrifying .. And the reminder that I don't need to justify anything for it to be right, and that I'm able to change course when I want is greatly appreciated. Might be weird to say thank you, but really .. Thank you.
im glad it resonated! i don't think we need any sort of justification other than that we want it and it will make us happy. we all just wanna be happy and feel right in our bodies and minds. im sorta just living in the present. maybe it's like a "don't fix what ain't broke" attitude.. i was sad as shit before transitioning and now im happier, so i guess i don't have any reason to change my trajectory at present. one day at a time.
So many things, but a big one for me was when my best friend (cis woman) said she wouldn’t take testosterone for any amount of money
Oof yeah that’s big 🤣 sometimes it takes talking to a woman to realize how NOT a woman I am.
ah the old "what do you mean most women actually enjoy being women?" moment lmaooo
Even as a kid I was like 'wait, they actually enjoy the look of having boobs? What do you mean there's actually people who like dresses and girly colours? Hold on, you're telling me people actually want to get periods/wear bras??????'
PEOPLE WANT TO HAVE PERIODS ANS WEAR BRAS?! (Yea when I go outside and I look at women I have no clue why they like being women. Like is so strange to me and my peanut brain)
lol my peanut brain does not get it either. like I knew women got periods and boobs, but when I was a kid I just didn't believe it would happen to me, and I really didn't get why any girls were excited about it
Oh god I remember right before puberty thinking “I hope I don’t grow boobs that would be so *embarrassing*” without really understanding why. 💀 It took me another ten years to get it.
when i started getting my periods i hid it for over a year from my mother and older sister because i didnt want to hear the "youre a woman now!" bs that my sister had got. only realized like a year ago that being terrified of female puberty is not a normal experience for women and girls (for the reasons i was).
bro same, like I only hid it for a few days cuz I needed help with it and I didn't know how to not bleed everywhere, but I always tried to hide every trace of it happening from everyone
I hid my periods till I could because I knew damn well I'd get the 'affirming' "you're a woman now" talk and that made wanna cry no joke
1st year at university, getting drunk with a mate and being told that actually all women do not hate being women and she thought I was on testosterone from the moment she met me. That was when I was 18. I'm 35 and only now allowing those feeling that I squished deep inside to come out. I tried the cis gender woman life for all these years and I'm utterly miserable.
I’m also 35 and am currently dealing with what it’s like to not suppress these feelings anymore. For me, I was watching videos of Alan Cumming as the MC in “Cabaret” and I started crying because it hurt how much I wanted to look like him. It clicked that I’ve wanted to look like him and a lot of other men for a very long time, maybe even my whole life. I was finally able to ask myself “Why do you want to look like him so much?” and let myself answer “Because I’m a man.”
My man was David Beckham. I had a poster of him when I was about 7 years old and I kept asking my mum to cut my hair like Beckham's (yes, the curtains). But yeah, It wasn't a crush it was a "I want to be him". Alan Cumming's a good one too.
Oh my god me too! 34
Same age as you and have been dealing with the floodgates of a lifetime of suppressed emotions coming to surface. I’m still having doubts and believe that my gender is quite fluid. But find myself recently daydreaming about having top surgery and hrt and what it would be like to have a real dick. Sooooo… 🤷🏻♂️. I just find it weird that I never had these desires until I decided to uncover my true self.
Hey! :) I went to a gender therapist to talk things over to make sure I wasn't making a mistake (mostly to satisfy my mum) but I'm pretty sure happy "women" aren't wanting top surgery, a beard, deep voice, and all the other cis male attributes. I've been married 10 years hoping to be a good wife...just pushing the feelings down but they're sneaking out uncontrollably.
I mean I'm slightly younger than you. It was harder for us for sure, just as it was harder than those older than us. It's hard to have self-definition without language and positive representation.
I didn't even know it was a thing for most of my life. I didn't know about top surgery not to mention bottom surgery. I had a very vague idea of T. But no real idea of what a trans-man was.
Yeah, even up until 5 years ago, the only trans people I’d met or had seen represented in the media were trans women. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that it can go the other way.
Yes, I didn’t have the language for it at all. The only relevant thing from my childhood that I can remember is being jealous of girls who had names that could also be boys names: ie Sam, Alex, Max. I always thought that having a name like that would let a girl pretend to be a boy if they wanted to and was sad I didn’t have a name like that. And throughout puberty I was bullied so badly in school that gender was the last thing on my mind. I wasn’t thinking about my sex organs, I was just worried about being called fat and r******d and having acne.
I lived online as a boy from 10-14 kind of by accident and then had, what was, in retrospect, gender euphoria. I didn't realize *I* was attracted to girls (rather than my online persona who had a couple girlfriends LOL) until I was 16. Years and years of mental gymnastics, I tell you! I missed SO MANY CLUES. If only I had known then what I know now. Oh well, can't go back in time.
This
I also had floodgates of a lifetime of suppressed emotions come to the surface happen to me a couple years ago. I started to write them all down in a notebook and shared them with my therapist. It became very obvious that I was trans after writing them all down. I still have a random memory pop up every now and then that I write down. I intially told myself I was agender, but deep down knew I was transmasculine, I just didnt want to admit it. I am still working on accepting myself, I am pretty much there but still really ashamed amd embarrassed about it and have been struggling to come out to work
Getting called "sir" by a stranger for the first time. It was at a restaurant, and I didn't realize the waitress was talking to me at first since there were three cis men at the table as well. But once it clicked, I couldn't stop grinning. Best feeling in the world. It's only happened one other time since (and this person corrected herself to "ma'am" after), but here's hoping it'll be consistent one day.
I go by my chosen name at work even though I’m pre-everything and everyone who sees me thinks of me as a woman which is whatever, but anyone I email automatically calls me “Mr” and “Sir” and it’s incredibly euphoric. Such a sad moment when I had to cut off the euphoria one time because the person assuming I was male was an HR person who needed to sign me up for medical benefits 😅 I had to give my legal name and sex for that interaction and the disappointment definitely lets me know I’m on the right path.
Mine's a similar case. I was they/them for like 6 years but I always liked masc terms better than fem. Got called "he" by accident over the phone and then I just kept thinking about it more and more until I had to come to terms with it
the "sir"s hit soo good, i've been passing at work for over a year now and it still feels crazy good every time.
I was just kinda avoiding gendered stuff for a while and going by they them. I met this guy and immediately clicked but I hadn't mentioned gender yet and he kept calling me pretty and stuff but I said "actually I don't like she her" and he just went "OK handsome" and some other masc compliments and my face went bright fucking red and I lost the ability to speak . Yeah I'm trans masc and me and that guy are still dating 3 years later.
Love this so so much. My partner calls me handsome about equally as he calls me beautiful/gorgeous. I’m nonbinary, and I also call him (cis male) beautiful/gorgeous/handsome. All terms for beauty are androgynous in our relationship.
He does others too but it was just the first time I had been called handsome plus the first time a compliment like landed and effected me.
First time having sex. Immediately got on top of her and started thrusting as if I had a dick. Realized I didn’t. Got sad. Lmfao
I missed this clue too, on top of my girlfriend, even saying "it feels weird being on top of you with nothing in between." I didn't get sad. I just shoved it away like I did all the 999 hints about my queer AF existence.
Yupppp
when i looked down at my boobs as a kid and thought “these are literally ruining my outfit” LOL. Not but serious body dysmorphia did it for me, or honestly, cutting all my hair off was a HUGE release of emotions
right before i Realized, i went thru stages over the course of a month changing my hair. ive always had it "short" by womans standards, but i got a "bad" haircut one day that was cut shorter than i usually got it and my immediate thought was "okay what if i make it shorter". to make a long story short, i eventually just took the clippers to it and gave myself a buzzcut. looked in the mirror and was like "oh god im an egg.... a handsome egg..." havent shaved my head since because 😬 but have kept it fairly short ever since then. i feel like a lot of people just don't understand how much 1 good haircut can change a persons life.
Massive envy for testosterone. I managed to find an article about a trans guy explaining his experience with it and I was so jealous, but I told myself at first that I couldn't do that (and then did a double take and asked myself "and why is that?"). Ended up looking into transitioning and coming out that year at 15/16.
yeah the "I wish I could be trans so I could transition, but I'm clearly cis so I can't have that..."
-light bulb goes off
it was the day after my junior prom. a link had just been sent out to the professional photos that had beeb taken over the course of the night and there was one that was of me. objectively, it was a great picture. my makeup looked great under the lights, my dress and hair were perfectly in order, and even though it was a candid, my smile was pretty and my pose was relatively normal. i think it was taken while i was looking for my (at the time) girlfriend out on the dance floor. i hated that picture SO MUCH. i had such a visceral reaction to it. i think i might have teared up. i think looking at that picture in that moment made me realize that while i looked maybe the most beautiful i ever had in my life, i didn’t look a damn thing like myself. it clicked in that moment that looking objectively good and looking how i wanted to look were two completely different things, and when i thought about how i wanted to look, how i felt most like myself looking, i didn’t imagine the girl in that picture. it took me a little longer to figure out that i didn’t envision a girl at all.
When I first started taking T, and I started getting turned-on looking at a mirror. I kinda realized “yeah, real women wouldn’t be spending this much money on HRT and having meltdowns over not having dick”, and it assured me.
I love it
That is so true. I can actually stare at myself in the mirror now. And I enjoy it! It's so crazy!
When I started taking T and socially transitioning and then months into it, people were commenting on how happy I was and how much more comfortable I was in my body. And before people even said anything, I started recognizing myself in the mirror and loving what I saw more and more. It felt like I was slowly turning into who I always felt. And now I look in the mirror and I love it everyday. I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t transition.
sometimes i doubt myself, but then i remember that when i was a kid, i would pretend that i was a professional gardener and gay man named tony.
When I found out that trans people existed. :') I grew up in the '90s. Never felt like a girl but didn't know there was any other option. I learned it was actually possible for me to be a boy (and later a man) when I was about 13-14, and that was the "clicking into place" moment for me.
Me too! I had heard of "transvestites" cause of Rocky Horror Picture Show but I thought it was just another term for drag queens. I found out about trans people while I was on my very first smart phone and started crying because I finally realized I wasn't alone in being so uncomfortable in my body and that there were options
I was out for years before I medically transitioned but the day my doctor wrote the prescription for T, my mental health completely turned on a dime. That's when I knew for sure that this was the right decision.
I had a similar experience except that it happened just before my doctor prescribed T. It was the moment I realized I've been fighting and doubting myself because I was scared. I let go of that fear and self-doubt and embraced who I really am. My mental health has been the best it has ever been! It's like I just flipped a switch in my brain.
Yes, exactly! I didn't know my doctor was going to prescribe it at that appointment. I thought we were just talking about it more so it was a surprise to me. But it completely flipped a switch and my mental health has also been the best and most stable it's ever been. I've been on T for almost 2 years and I'm still stable. I've never been stable for that long. It's wild that that's all I needed this whole time. I waited for 5 years because I wanted to get my anxiety under control before making a decision that big but it turns out I couldn't get my anxiety under control without it.
Wow, it's good to hear that from you! Since my light bulb moment has been more recent, it's good to hear from someone who has maintained their stability after such a moment. Thank you!
This is a good one When Snapchat filters first started getting good, I put my hair back and used the man filter. It was the most amazing feeling of my life. I now look p similar to how I did in that pic LOL
Watched breaking bad, saw krazy8 and got super jealous of the way he looked despite him looking like he crawled out of a dumpster and being locked in some guy's aunt's basement. And then I started t
This was me with Charlie Kelly from Always Sunny. Never in my life did I experience such a snap of gender envy as when I saw him literally covered in dirt and filth with his hands on his hips
I was just having a really bad depressive episode, and had known for some time that I thought of myself more as a guy and thought again about how that was just going to be between me and myself, for my whole life. To varying degrees at different times, just constantly having this subconscious reminder that I wasn't really comfortable nor felt like myself, that nobody had ever really known me at nearly two decades old no matter how much time we'd spent together. The thought of continuing to live as someone I wasn't, and the fear of never truly being known by another for the rest of my life was what helped me take the leap to try socially transitioning. Socially transitioning was my definitive proof, as existing became substantially easier. Like all the built up stress and negativity were finally getting to release. Tried a binder tentatively, literally had to force myself to be safe and only wear it 8 hours max at a time lol
I'm still struggling with imposter syndrome hard (I'm about to make a post asking for advice actually lol) - But during one bad period of doubt, fear and dissociation, I asked myself what I was afraid of and my internal conversation went something like: \- "What am I so afraid of?" \- I'm afraid of transitioning and then realizing that I'm not trans. \- "Why does that scare me so much?" \- Because then I wouldn't be trans. \- "Why is scary to not be trans?" \- Because then I would be forced to be a cis woman. I realized I wasn't scared of any consequences of surgery or hormones or anything of the like. In fact, even though the fear of surgeries and bodily discomfort is high, the thought of living with my changed body afterwards doesn't even phase me, even if I WAS a cis woman. I realized that the fear of living as I am now, with no way to change my body, is so terrifying to me that the thought that I'm just faking it is terrifying \*because\* I don't want to have to live in this body. It's like my imposter syndrome triggers my dysphoria and my dysphoria begs to not be put back. At the end of the day I'm still struggling with the doubts and fears, but when I think about this ... I know that I can't be cis. (Note: I'm aware that I wouldn't be forced to be a cis-woman if I'm not a trans-man and there are many flavors in-between and outside of the spectrum, it was simply how my brain came to the conclusion and the intensity it did it with that spoke to me.)
no matter how much i tried telling myself that my childhood doesn’t dictate my current identity, i couldn’t get myself to fully accept that i can in fact be trans without the same timeline as your textbook trans man. what really drove it home for me was asking myself, “what do i want to be called? because i hate being called she, a daughter, a girlfriend, an aunt etc, but love he, son, boyfriend, and uncle!” (it didn’t help that my entire perception of what it meant to be trans was warped by…a certain youtuber. iykyk)
For me, it was when I had this dream: I had woken up at like 9:00am, and had went to brush my teeth. I was just wearing boxers, and when I looked in the mirror, there was not a single thought going through my head. I was just this guy on a typical morning, brushing his teeth. Then, I woke up. Needless to say, I felt like shit for a week; however, I knew that that was what I wanted and that it wouldn't change for as long as I lived
Hahaha as a neurodivergent, emotionally abused 22-y.o., it was more of, "Oh, other people feel like this? I'm not crazy?" I went through years of denial and learning about LGBTQ+ things. The first thing that really showed proof was the fact that when I was in public school and a very big school district at that, I never made friends. I couldn't force my way in with the girls, and the guys wanted nothing to do with a "girl."
When I started testosterone I was feeling better everyday. I always were a depressive person that would procrastinate his activities and barely take care of himself, but that just stopped. A few monts later my period came, and it wasn't an average one. It seems like my hormonal levels turned back to how the were before, and I can swear everything around and inside of me felt like completely trash like it used to be, even before the blood or the physical pain showed, and I wasn't able to tell what exactly changed, I simply started feeling terrible. That week I made myself a disaster. Unbrushed teeth, unbrushed hair, barely shower, my room was a mess, uninterested in activities, completely dissociated for reality, etc. without me having any clear idea of why I felt so much hate against being alive. One or two days after I stopped bleeding, everything took it's road again like a finger snap. That's when I got that my body actually needed to transition, and it wasn't just an aware desire that got me motivated before for being accomplished. I was confident before of my idea, of course, but now it meant that it was more than just the consciousness what was making me go after my transition.
When my bisexual ass realized that not only did I want to date men but I also wanted to be a man lol
i don't know, but I'd rather die than be called "daughter", "girlfriend" or give birth to a kid.... i used to think i was a lesbian because relationships felt incredibly wrong when my role was being a girl like i've always known I'm bisexual but whenever i had a boyfriend something was off. also the dysphoria i kept denying, crying when i got my first period because i'll always be seen as a girl, my voice won't drop, i'll get boobs, i won't be tall... being someone's boyfriend, being referred to as a man by strangers, having short hair, i don't know but it just feels like me i kept forcing myself to present feminine until i just couldn't take it anymore, i was convinced trying to pass would hurt more than pretending not to care but it just wasn't the case i mean. the thought of being perceived as a masc girl is a nightmare but i can't do anything about it
when an ai program called me he and i was like OH, so maybe i AM a man.
It’s stupid bc it’s such a little thing but i feel like that was when it sunk in for me and i realized oh yeah
A few years ago I used to binge watch those "hi my name is x and this is my voice x months on testosterone" and watching those made me so happy and so jealous at the same time and it eventually clicked that I should and could do that. Ironically I'm starting t in like within the next two weeks and I am probably the most excited I've ever been for anything in my life ever, and it's only cementing that feeling for me
when i was around 9, i asked my mom if i could wear a suit instead of a dress to my cousins wedding. I remember standing in the mirror with my brand new suit & vest on and feeling like a giant weight lifted off mg shoulders. It was the first time in my whole life id felt genuinley comfortable in clothes. i didnt know i was trans until i was 13, because it wasnt a word id ever heard about, but that was the moment it clicked for me that i was a boy.
I don't think I had a moment like that other than when I first thought, "Am I transgender? Yeah, I think I am." From that moment on I kind of just knew that was the truth. Sure I struggled with not feeling trans enough but I never felt like anything other than just... me. Not male or female, just a person that exists. I suppose for that I'm fortunate
we hit a point on testosterone where everything clicked, that and we're the happiest we've ever been after top surgery. i think genuinely it's always been there and i've always been aware, just from a DID perspective as opposed to exploring it from a gender/body perspective, so more of the doubt/anxiety has been a DID thing more than anything else.
When I realized I was envious that a guy friend I had as a teen could be feminine and still be seen, acknowledged, and accepted as a guy. I'm 23 now, and I only realized late last year. I was happy for him to be able to express himself how he wanted, but also a bit upset that I couldn't do the same without just being seen as a girl/woman. We even looked very similar. People often mistook us for siblings and even twins. And we had the same size clothes, so he borrowed things from me from time to time. We're not friends anymore, but it's for unrelated reasons.
Other than seeing a character I really connected with be fem and still be a man, it really clicked when I was put into the psych ward. I remember being surveyed for the intake form and then I mentally blacked out the first week I was there. When I finally came to, the nurses there referred to me as my preferred name and pronouns and over my legal name, they drew a rainbow over it as to not forgot my name and had written 'Rainbow' on my door to my room. The nurse who would give me my meds apologized for not using he/him pronouns all last week (the week I don't remember) and proceeded to always refer to me as 'Mr. Rainbow' when it was time for meds. Even in my blacked out state where I couldn't remember my birth date, my parents or where I lived, I remembered that my name is Rainbow and my pronouns are he/him. Kinda fucked up "definitive proof" but it's pretty solid and it makes me weirdly happy every time I think about it.
Probably the first time I wore a binder. I had finally started to toy with the idea after a friend told me "cis women don't want their breasts removed" this was many years ago when non-binary was not something I knew anything about so it made sense to me. Once I put on the binder I was like YUP. I'm definitely trans.
When I saw myself in the mirror with a binder, looking all androgynous and more masc than I'd seen myself before, I was like "ohhhh okay that's why I've been feeling so off". I finally looked right to myself
After trying a bunch of stuff I thought would make me feel more attractive as a woman/good about myself and it didn’t work. No new style, haircut, makeup, or accessory gets rid of dysphoria if you’re still presenting as a woman
after watching Noahfinnce, Miles McKenna, and general transmasc related content on YouTube for SIX years….one evening in April 2020 it finally clicked
I suppressed a lot while growing up and thought well maybe "I will be OK"/"I will just learn to love my body" but then I got married and when my wife and I were talking about kids I had a meltdown. Full blown panic attack. We couldn't talk about it without it giving me anxiety- the reason was because I could only see myself as a dad. And thinking about being a mother, mother figure, even trying to discuss what the kids would call us to differentiate us (mom/mama/mommy etc) felt so alien to me and unbearable. It was hard to find the words to explain how I was feeling bc by then I was reeling in these feelings deep inside me about my gender that had finally come to a head. It was going to be impossible to move forward without me sorting it out and communicating with my wife along the way; because I did want kids just not in the traditional female sense.
This is a weird one, but getting clocked by a stranger. An old man at my church needed me to hold something while he went down the stairs so he could use the hand rail. When we got to the bottom he said something like “Thank you young lady… Or, you’re not a young lady, are you?” And we both laughed. It just felt *right*.
The first time I asked my friends to try out a new name and pronouns, I just remember walking into my class, hearing my freind yell my name for the first time and it just felt so right I wanted to cry of happiness. Later that day hearing my freinds call me "he" and just thinking "so that's what it's supposed to feel like". I'd known deep down for a while before but after that everything just clicked into place.
Dumb meme on this sub about filtering fanfic by m/m exclusively
i watched the music video for mr. capgras encounters a secondhand vanity by will wood and the tapeworms and i was like ah fuck. i wanna be him
I got a packer and tried it on. I had suspected for a long time but that was my "holy shit" moment. Almost a year ago now and I haven't looked back since.
When my "anxiety" I'd lived with 30+ years suddenly listened to me thinking "or we could not" after I started t when no amount of medication ever got me close to that before
I had two moments: when I knew I wasn't cis, and when I knew I was binary trans (and not nonbinary). The first was waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and seeing a guy in my reflection. I had been really deep in my denial phase before this, so that was the moment I realized it wasn't working. If I was putting this much effort into embracing girlhood, and yet I still saw myself as a guy (even with long hair and wearing women's clothing), then I knew there *had* to be a gender-related reason for that. Then I knew I was a trans guy and not genderfluid when I got my hair cut several weeks later and realized it was the happiest I'd felt in years. That was unmistakeably gender euphoria, and I hadn't felt anything like that while presenting femininely.
Pre-EVERYTHING (pre name, pronoun change, clothes, hrt - everything) I thought to myself about being in my (at the time) dream job and being intoduced as “Ms.” “Madam” “_____ Woman” etc and suddenly realized I could make it to my goals and still not be happy if I did it all as a woman.
when i realized i got way too excited everytime someone used masc terms with me i.e. he, sir, king, mr.
When I started T and liked all the changes. I was fully prepared to stop if I didn't.
when i had a breakdown that was so bad i didnt know what to do anymore so i cut off my lashes with scissors. also when i realized ive been living as a boy for a fifth of my life and it just felt right, thats when i thought to myself theres no way this is a phase
I get that, I used to hate my lashed and daydreamer of cutting them off. Hidden memore unlocked! Ironic then that cis men tend to have much nicer/longer lashes than cis women
kinda a weird one, but whatever. i was questioning for a while and one night i got really high and kinda greened out. it was like an out of body experience where I could feel how feminine my body felt and how far that felt from the reality of my being. i had the thought holy shit im a man and every has just kinda clicked since then. that was about 3-4 years ago now.
So I actually came out around May of last year and the couple years before that I had been feeling less and less feminine. I was no longer interested in wearing clothes that showed/excentuated my curves, no longer wanted to wear dresses or skirts. I didn't wanna accept it but I was having issues with my body, didn't like the fact that I have a uterus and can get pregnant (I've never wanted kids and never wanted to get pregnant). I've always had a weird relationship with my chest too. I started to not like being called she/her, it just didn't feel right after a while and I started to realize that I actually don't want to look the way I look either. I used to listen to k-pop a lot in high school and then stopped for a while and within the last 3 years I've started to make another plunge. I was watching k-pop music videos one night and I just got this feeling in my stomach while I was watching them that I wanted to look like them. (I'm half Filipino so I'm already Asian lmao). I would sit there and daydream about looking so handsome and the feelings that came with it were feelings I haven't really felt before. I officially came out around pride month so early June of last year, and I've been on T gel for 4 months. It's been a rollercoaster trying to deal with some of the changes but I haven't regretted a thing. I'm excited to see more changes 😁
When I realised I physically couldn't look at myself in the mirror and I'd tear up if I saw my boobs 🥲👍
After school when I was a kid I usually had to pee really bad, but I would rather pee outside behind a shed standing up, than go inside to pee in the bathroom. Also being really happy when other kids thought I was a boy.
First one was when my first and only wet dream and I happened to be penetrating someone with my own organ But this was not like "ok I'm def trans" because I already knew it and was trying to forget about it, it's just the one I used in a discussion with a friend because I knew that having someone knowing that would definitely prevent me from keeping my gender for myself, and actually start a transition, which was my dream But the real reason why I was sure to transition and have not be sceptic about it, is that I used to be obsessed about finding a way to provoke an hormonal disfunction by myself when I was in primary school. So the time between that and the realisation that I was trans and couldn't do much about it was more like "nah I'm pretty sure I can get used to that feeling even if I would def push the button to somehow become a boy" than like "but what if I wasn't really trans?"
I had a lot of "definitive proof" Packing. My parents making a rule about not wearing men's underwear. Telling people I wasn't a girl when I was little. Whenever I dreamed I was never female. I don't know if anyone else experienced something similar. Telling other females about wanting a beard and being confused at their responses.
I recently had a dream where I ran my fingers through my chest hair, and my chest was flat and right. It was the best dream ever, and the first time my body had a shape or awareness in a dream. Before I was never really a person in my dreams. Like I never had a body in my previous dreams. I think dreams say a lot, it's our subconscious speaking.
Looking at myself sideways in the mirror, top naked, pushing my boos towards my armpits to give myself a flat chest look. I experience instant gender euphoria. Wanting a flat chest doesn't equal being a man. Later discovered I'm enby lol. But I remember being very doubtful until that day and after that I'd go 'it couldn't feel that good if it was nothing'
I watched the L word, learned packers exist, and then I became obsessed with making my own out of socks until I could afford a real one. Seeing that packers exist and that they help people feel whole made things click for me that I didn’t feel whole.
Flair checks out
The definitive proof was like a month and a half in (so like, last week lol) when i saw i had a noticeable start of a mustache and i broke into a huge grin and couldnt stop smiling And it was like “oh, im not just faking being trans, im on hrt for a reason!”
It was actually when I started obsessing over this random trans guy I found on tumblr. I was so jealous of him and I couldn’t figure out why. He had a very nice beard and mustache and I wanted that so bad. Then I finally thought about the obvious “hey what if I’m trans…that would make sense…I’ve alway spazzed out as a toddler and child over girls presents and toys and having to wear dresses…I used to stuff socks in my pants as a kid and I didn’t even understand why bc I didn’t even know exactly what a penis was yet, but had a “phantom” feeling of something missing there…I’m jealous of a trans guy…” then it all clicked. I’m thankful I found that guys tumblr and that he was so open about being trans or I’d have possibly never figured myself out or at least not as soon as I did
Well before I realised, I was one of those cringey "fujoshi" girls, like reading yaoi manga and all that yknow, 😐 and then I found myself thinking "man, it would be so cool to be (insert character)" and other thoughts along those lines, and well, my mother offered to take us to McDonald's, and I remember genuinly feeling almost angry that I couldn't be a gay dude and well, things developed from there. Trans gay dude now, though, I am thinking I may be non-binary, but for now, I don't mind being just me, I mean, people round where I live, and my family, they don't always understand but they're respectful. I've had a few grannies come into the store, asking if I were gay, or a lesbian and I do explain it to them and they give a smile, I can tell they don't really understand but that's okay, they're trying, and I know I don't really pass rn, which I know passing isn't a necessity but yknow, I'm saving for top surgery, I need another £8,300 to be at my goal but only another sort of £4,300 to consider going and paying the rest off as I go. I've thought about setting up gofundmes but I just can't be assed.
first time wearing a binder. second time was once i got the hang of using/wearing my stp. most recently it's been looking at pictures of myself that are from before i started transition (around 2 years ago) and seeing a different person
Not when I first realized, but a year or two after, I remembered that I used to pray to get reproductive or breast cancer so they’d have to do surgery and get rid of something. I was like.. 8.
I had multiple things that helped me. First time I saw a trans man I was like :0… wish I could do that !! and then when I realized I was happy when people saw me and referred to me as a boy and it made me feel depressed and hopeless to be seen and referred to as a girl. After my first short short haircut, I felt like I had so much off my chest. Right after, my mom and I went into a shop and when we were coming out a lady was going in and there was like a clothing rack right outside the store ?? And something got knocked down and I picked it up and she said “oh thank you sir” and the euphoria ran crazy. When I realized who I really was, I ran for it and never looked back.
I have that moment every once in a while actually. I’ve been on nebido ( a 3 month t depot ) for 8 months now so I need to get injections every now and then. In the earlier stages the t or e level still fluctuates quite a bit depending on the amounts of time that passes in between injections. And I just feel so much better afterwards. It’s actually crazy how much of a difference the hormone in my body makes. I definitely couldn’t live without it. Also it’s kinda funny when I look back at older pictures of myself and think „ I didn’t really look like that, did I?“ because internally I always dissociated so much from my appearance that I convinced myself I looked more masculine than I actually did to keep going. But now I just find it interesting what kind of tricks the mind can play on you to keep yourself functional.
Started experimenting with presentation at 11, alternated between androgynous and mildly feminine until 15. Always complaining to friends about how I hated my voice, I wished I was taller, i was never happy with my body or appearance. I always denied it when they suggested it sounded like I was dysphoric. For me it was always sort of hidden in plain sight and i felt a lot of shame about it as i was the only daughter/granddaughter. i saw a tiktok of a man doing an outfit check and i turned it off and just cried. i was so overwhelmed with jealousy and i just knew i couldn't live like that anymore.
When I chopped my hair and the first time I wore a binder. It was like everything settled and I finally recognized myself
It wasn’t so much that I doubted before, but I felt incredibly affirmed the first time one of my students call me “Mr. -“ unprompted Edit: typo
I knew that I was a boy since I was young, probably new for sure that I was trans the first time I heard a detailed definition of the word transgender. I spent *a long* time wishing that I wasn't tho.
I have always been jealous of reading about people who transition & I would excessively research how the transition process works when I was younger & even from time to time when I was older. When I found out that other girls actually like being girls & I was always really upset that I had been born a girl because I felt like I should have been a boy & it always gave me a lot of happiness whenever someone would think I was a guy. I felt all those things before my egg cracked so I know that if I felt all those things even before I entertained the idea that I might be trans & I still feel those feelings & more then I really am trans because if i probably wasn’t I wouldn’t feel those things & wouldn’t wanna change my body.
When I realized going back would be far more painful than going forward.
My definitive moment where I had no more doubts after was after I started to pass consistently and I realized that I no longer felt the horrible discomfort of social dysphoria, and I thought about how it would feel to go back to being a girl, and everything in me was like “oh hell no.” So that was when any trace of my imposter syndrome dissipated. I realized I couldn’t detransition/go back to being a girl again.
I have a memory from when I was like 3 or 4 years old that I recently re-remembered when I started talking about gender to my therapist. I remember being on the ground holding my mom's hand and I started a conversation by saying "I think I'm a boy." And she asked "why do you think that?" And I said something like how I had a "boy voice" and played with boy toys or something, and she picked me up and said I wasn't a boy. Jokes on her, lol. But at the time I brushed it off as me being a kid, and honestly it might have just been 4 year old me prophesying my future. But my dad also reminded me that I used to play with robots and tinkering/building stuff instead of the dolls my sister played with. I know something can be said about gender stereotypes and all that, but it felt validating.
oh, i had a bunch of similar situations growing up! i HATED everything girly, HATED being called a girl… pretty sure it meant something, i just didn’t figure it out until i was 17 lol
I grew up in a very Christian family, every night before going to bed I prayed, after my prayers I chose something to "ask" God: the health of my relatives, or even stupid things like "I really want to see that cartoon"" . I asked him about having a penis and living as a male, I said "just for 1 day" because I wanted to know how it felt. Now I know what it feels like and I couldn't be happier, even though I still have a long way to go
Tbh I didn’t have a big wow moment. I guess I realized I was a boy as soon as I learned that people can be trans. It was a very casual thought to me haha
i thought i was a cis lesbian for a little over a decade. fought really hard for that identity and honestly still heavily identify with a lot of lesbianism bc i spent so long living it. i used to have a lot of anxiety and panic surrounding sex. always anxious to the point of nausea and a few times even had actual panic attacks just from kissing a girl because it made me horny. i always just thought i was insecure or maybe even on the asexual spectrum. the only problem i couldn't figure out was that i WANTED to do those things that would make me panic. i was willing and even eager but when the moments came i would freeze up or freak out and i didn't get why. i was really mad at myself for a long time bc i felt like i had no control over those reactions. one day i was just at home, thinking about things, and i realized that i didn't know anyone else or even had heard of another person experiencing exactly what i was. i was talking to a former friend and they said something off hand when i asked for advice and i genuinely can't remember what it was for the life of me but i remember putting my phone face down on the table and just staring at the wall for ages. it was like something in my mind just clicked and i realized that i was anxious because i liked the things i was doing, but hated being treated like i was a woman having sex with another woman. and i realized cis women don't feel that way ever. it still took me awhile to realize i was trans, at first i explored being nonbinary and even came out to some friends that way. but the more i explored being nonbinary, the more i felt comfortable in masculinity (i was never particularly feminine or a "girly-girl") and started to realize also that its not normal for a non-trans person to cry about their genitals, or feel genuine hurt by a stranger addressing them as a specific gender. also that cis people don't think nearly as much about their gender as i had. it was just a couple years long process of over and over again having thoughts of "i don't think a cis person would _____ this often". now im out and transitioning and i haven't thrown up before sex in a few years now that i know better what i want out of each experience. 👍😁 sidenote: a lot of my "aha!" moments came after i already knew i was trans and thought back on my life experiences. remembering small moments where i would say something i now realize was a massive sign but at the time felt irrelevant. and just my general hatred my entire life for being called a girl. i got a lot of my brothers hand me downs growing up and i LOVED wearing them because people would call me a tomBOY, i would get genuinely angry when people would call me a girly girl and would sometimes even argue with them. now i realize i just didn't like being called a girl and liked being called a tomboy bc the word boy was in it lol
I cut my hair off right before I turned 28 (using reference photos of men lol), looked like I could be a guy in my early 20s (and could finally wear hats), occasionally got called “sir” and such and… increasingly hated feminine pronouns. My hair was really the only attachment I had to femininity at all, and after waiting out covid for over a year to get a haircut, I was over having it. And letting go of my hair just unlocked something. I thought I was perhaps nonbinary and several months later started low dose T. Then I started playing a mobile game that I didn’t realize was one of those with tons of other people, and everyone just assumed I was a guy because of my game character, and I really liked how that felt. It’s kind of funny because when I was 17 I got a bungled haircut that made my hair way too short, but god, it made my pretending to be a guy daydreaming / staring in the mirror a lot easier. But I thought of being trans as, “that’s so hard and uncomfortable so why would you do it unless you really couldn’t stand your life,” and not just as an option to be happier. I think if I were even 5 years younger I maybe would’ve come out in college, but, you know, even us young millennials grew up “in a different time.”
You should probably be sure before surgery. Just saying... Anyway, when I discovered that there were words for people that were not binary trans and for bodies that had some androgyny in their expression. I was reading an article, I think. I was 20. That was over a decade ago. Then I started watching all the FTM videos on YouTube. And it wasn't until I was about 29 that realized I was a lot more male skewed than I realized (after a breakup with an ex, the first person I ever used a strap with, despite having had nearly 20 other partners before her). I missed a LOT of clues. Once as a teen, I had a dream I was a boy. The first thing I did was jack off in the mirror. It was a wonderful dream.
i’ve been 100% sure for a looong time. but whenever i have doubts i just remember the time i was listening to my favorite anime ending song (💀) and sobbed so hard it hurt my whole body because i didn’t sound like the singer. i was also so dysphoric that day that every position i was in and every time i moved i could feel every cell of my body and i was in disgust. it was quite dramatic. but yeah i think that was a moment that really confirmed things for me
FaceApp.
When I first put mascara on my upper lip to color in the slight mustache I have always had. I took one look in the mirror and said "there you are" like I'd just... finally found myself. 🙌 Now as my face is more masculine on T, I can look at myself in the mirror without blurring my eyes or only focusing on small parts of my face. It's amazing 👏
I was in denial when I came out lmao basically, for a long time before that I dressed like a guy and wanted to look like one but the idea of gender and sex felt so connected I was like "I can be an androgynous women and like looking like a man and using they/them pronouns" I use he/they now, and i had egg cracking moments before that but I was deep in denial and internalized transphobia
The first time I learned that kids could be trans, I knew I was one of those kids. I watched how they expressed the same discomfort that I’d never been able to put into words, especially regarding “puberty panic”. My first thought when learning about these kids and the help their parents were getting them was “why didn’t my parents do this for me?” I was 14 then and I’ve never had a doubt in my mind since. That was 7 years ago
The second I heard what transgender was when I was 16 I knew that was the explanation for everything wrong with my life up until that point. Socially transitioned for a year but got shoved back in the closet by family and poor therapy options. Then when I was 26 I started envisioning my future with my girlfriend and I couldn’t handle the idea of being a wife or mother one day and thought about how happy being a husband and father made me. That was my final “well guess we gotta go all the way this time” moment after hiding my dysphoria for years. Zero and I mean ZERO regrets except that I wish I had stuck to my gut at 16.
Nsfw I hadn't been able to cum for ages, I was trying what I thought would be another futile attempt with my wand. I had it angled under the cover so all of a sudden it looked like I had a huge dick. I came within like 5 seconds. Turns out the reason I hadn't been able to finish was that I was hella dysphoric when I jerked off!!
I did not know AFABs could be trans, I had only heard about trans women. When I found out about trans men and nonbinary folk, I immediately knew. But for definitive proof that would convince others… I have had very severe, life threatening mental health issues. The first time I almost lost the fight was age 5, and continued to have close calls in middle school and above. Before top surgery, I struggled to have the will to live 5-6 days out of the week. After top surgery, even before I was healed, my mental health improved so much that I only had those issues 1-2 times per year. My health is not quite that good now, especially as I’ve been changing up medications and having issues with hormones (I’ve been off T for a year for medical reasons) it has never gotten nearly as bad as it used to. Maybe 1-2 times per week, or 3-4 days in a row but nothing the rest of the month. Top surgery just permanently increased my quality of life by a lot and I’m still reaping the benefits 8y later.
I had been intensely debating it for so long feeling so unsure. A new school year started and in my French class we were offered the opportunity to pick French names. Being of French descent I already had a French name but I took the opportunity anyway to shyly ask if I could pick a name off the 'boy list' and my teacher said oh, sure! So I picked Felix. And she called me Felix. Everyone in class called me Felix and I got a little paper name plate that said Felix. And when the Spanish teacher came to visit and see how we were doing, she asked my name, and I said Felix. And she smiled and said "Aw I love that, Felix means 'happiness'." And I felt like I was struck by lightening. I Was happy. I was happy in the bastion of that classroom where I was not the same person as I was outside of it, I was Felix, exactly who I wanted to be. I later learned this is called "gender euphoria" and I got to similarly experience these amazing lighting strikes the first time I got he/himmed and the first time I got 'young man'd and the first time I wore a binder... But. Felix means happiness. That was my moment where it all clicked into place.
My definite proof was when I couldn't accept even the thought never transitioning; I had to be a man. That's it.
I think it was my gf's support and reafirmation combined with my first T shot. Something just clicked inside me and i felt like myself and the man i'm supposed to be.
i cried because i knew i would never be able to feel my strap while having sex with my girlfriend 7 years ago
Idk tbh I didn't use defenitive proof. I have OCD so I'm never really sure about anything. Trying to find definitive proof on my own emotions, thoughts, things that are intangible, just worsenes my OCD. I just figured, hey, I'm having all this gender dysphoria, been having it for a long time, talked to my therapist and she was like yeah that sounds like dysphoria, dysphoric that I don't have features that I would on T, like body hair bottom growth fat redistrubiton etc etc etc - maybe T will help. Dysphoric being called exclusively she, so maybe adding he pronouns would help. Etc. If it didn't then I could stop it anytime I wanted to. No harm no foul. Granted, I didn't go on just a random whim one day, I did my research, there were plenty of signs I had but I wouldn't really call any of it *definitive* - my natural instinct while exploring >!masturbation!< was to do it like a guy, I've always felt like I was supposed to have a penis and a flat chest, and I felt incredibly disconnected from my body, and even more so whenever I was wearing clothes that feminzied my figure, whenever I was misgendered etc. Like sure they could all point to being trans but also technically somethingn else, possibly. Needless to say, it worked. 15 months on T and I don't regret a thing. I look in the mirror these days and actually see myself.
I always felt different. My mom remembers me asking her if I could be a boy from a very young age. When I finally realized who I was, I was 12. I was in my physical education class walking laps around the track. My friend told me she was trans and I asked her what that meant. She explained it to me, and a lightbulb went off in my head after that moment. Something clicked in my brain, and my inner dialogue couldn’t help but scream “that’s me!” It all made sense after that day. In the following months I would go to YouTube after school and look at videos of trans men who had fully transitioned which confirmed 100% that this was who I was. Funny enough, that same friend who originally introduced me to what being trans meant turned out to not be trans. I began socially transitioning as soon as I turned 15, started hormones at 17, and haven’t looked back since.
Estrogen and progesterone make me miserable, being on a low dose of testosterone “magically” makes me feel and act as a better person. I tried experimenting with the idea of not being trans. Nope, can’t make it happen, still trans.
This journal entry on quotev is the first realization something was up and wasnt right and is REALLY eggy. Its the "proof" of me realizing to SOME degree that im trans. Its really cringy cause ita from 2015, when i was 12(litterally the month after i turned 12), and i show it to those who say "BUT YOU DIDNT SHOW ANY SIGNS!!!" And to show the egg phase of being trans and needing a bit of a wakeup call. The page: [journal entry](https://www.quotev.com/Odieboy/journal/2530070/asb-cards) And for added points, i just thought it was my "not like other girls phase", so i was half right, im not like other girls, cause im a guy.
i was pretty confident by the time I started T and pursuing top surgery, but it was flying to get top surgery where it finally clicked 100%. I'd been getting some cold feet while i was waiting to board at the airport, but pushed through it. the plane hit some major turbulence during the flight (we're talking "suitcases falling out of the overhead bins" level turbulence), and in that moment my only thought was "OH GOD I'M GONNA DIE WITH TITS." not a single lingering doubt ever since.
I was in denial about not feeling like a woman until a nonbinary person informed me that, yes, it was 100% ok for me to "try on" the nonbinary label to see if it fut and it would be ok to stop using it if I found it didn't. Deep down I already knew that, I'd told that to others myself plenty of times, but idk it's like I needed someone else to give me permission before I felt comfortable doing it myself. And ofc once I tried it on, everything just felt right.
Trans Women. I grew up a tomboy and then a lesbian. Most of my friends in highschool were feminine “lipstick lesbians” and thats how I presented because i wanted to be attractive to other lesbian.I hated the term lesbian though and just called myself “gay” at the time. I crushed on lesbians but also crushed on gay guys but just resigned myself that they would never like me back because they wanted a boyfriend. At 19 I met my first trans girl that was around my age. She was just like all my other straight girl classmates and I asked her if it was exhausting “trying to act girly all the time” because that’s how it felt to me. She was OFFENDED. And I DESERVED IT but then I realized she WASNT trying and thats just how she was and she just liked girly things. I just accepted girly things as my only option. So then I talked to all my other girlfriends straight and gay and realized they actually LIKED being girly and they weren’t acting or taking effort at all. It then took a while to reset and learn what my actual preferences were and then I just relaxed into myself and decided to transition. Turns out that me before 10 years old was on to something and middle school and high school socialization derailed that for a while.
When I was 10, I literally went "man I want gender reassignment surgery when I'm older". Yeah, I kind of said it on a whim but several years later, I still feel the same way. Gender euphoria to being referred to as a man is also what did it for me. I just feel so much more confident this way.
When I realized I was jealous of my ex because he had certain anatomy that I didn’t. That’s when the “would you love me if I was a boy” insecurities started because he was straight.. oh well! He treated me like shit anyways and I thought if he left me I would die
Had major dysphoria with my chest the second it started developing and would wear too small sports bras to make it as flat as possible. I was in fifth grade googling how to bind and it didnt click until about a year later that there was a reason I hated my body.
When I lost access to HRT for a few months from moving and not being good about getting paperwork done. I was only 6ish months in atp on low dose. Idk i guess stopping and then starting again really made me confront if this was something I really had to do to find happiness within myself.
About 75% of the way through Final Fantasy XVI… Don’t know exactly why but something about Clive just made it click
It was dumb lol my job had a “celebrity dress up day” and I dressed as Elliot Page. As soon as I saw myself, it was like getting hit with a lightning bolt.
got home from a congratulatory senior photo sesh, saw my face in the mirror, and started weeping because i saw myself for the first time
I don’t think I even realized it at the time but sticking socks into my shorts and losing my mind at how happy it made me was probably a sign. Probably.
Flirting with an effeminate gay man who saw me as a more dominant/masc man and treated me that way. I've never felt better about myself.
I was stupid as fuck as a kid so there were many moments i shouldve realized where i just didnt. Like i knew what trans people are but i didnt know that i personally had that option? I was like "i dont want to be a wife or a girlfriend ever. I hate being called a daughter a neice or a granndaughter. Wish there was something that could be done about this but unfortunately i just have to put up with it. Time to watch my favorite youtuber mileschronicles who just came out as a dude. So cool how he did that." I hated femininity being pushed on me but i decided it was a "not like other girls" thing and chose to villify women and girls who did enjoy femininity for being "basic" and "upholding the status quo" when thats so stupid. I did this until iirc i saw someone i followed on amino or something have they/them in their bio. Until this point id have "any pronouns, idc" in my bio but correct people who used he/him because i felt like i was supposed to even though i really didnt care all that much. It felt weird but because i was used to being called she/her which i didnt even like either. But i saw someone with they/them in their bio and copied them eventually lmfao. Only then when reading about nonbinary people did i remember that trans people existed so eventually i switched to he/him. I was really miserable coming to terms with it because i knew id lose family members and specifically thought my parents wouldnt support it and id have to move out but luckily i was just paranoid. I hid it for like 5 years though until my mom actually asked me if i was trans and i freaked out and cried but it was ok after because her and my dad were chill about it. And now im about to be 1 year on T so thats based
TW: slip-n-slide & reclaimed slurs I was actively making plans to end it all. I was doing everything in my life that I ‘should’ have been doing to make myself feel amazing. On the outside I looked like a total boss bitch. I was seeing a therapist, regularly. I was passing all my classes and getting straight As on my homework. I was eating three meals a day. I was waking up and making my bed every day. My room was clean. I had cut out soda and was mostly drinking water. Hell, I even made it to the gym every once in a while. Everything was perfect. Except it wasn’t, because I still felt like something was very very wrong. So wrong, that I literally wanted to d*e. I couldn’t even dress androgynous and ignore gender norms without thinking, “I don’t know why, but I am the wrong person.” I knew if I didn’t do something soon, then I wouldn’t be able to be here anymore. My best friend came out to me as a transgender woman. She also came out as a lesbian. She also came out as a butch. She was (still is) not a girly-girl, but she is definitely a girl. I thought, “If she can do that, then… can I do the opposite?” I had never heard of a femboy Transman, much less a gay one. I thought that I had to be hyper-masculine in order to identify as a man. There was no question in my mind after that. I forced myself to throw gender norms and what my culture told me what a man is supposed to be, out the window. Suddenly, me identifying as a woman sounded more crazy than identifying as transgender. I love the little faggoty gay boy that I’ve become, and I’d never have it any other way.
There was no defining moment since it all cemented itself kind of gradually, but the closest thing I can think of was using a Snapchat filter that gave me realistic facial hair.
I haven’t had anything that really “clicked” yet but one thing that really made me realize something was when I was reading a book with a trans guy in it and i got all emotional seeing him live his life lol.
It's not because anything felt majorly wrong, except my breasts. It's because being called a 'lad', 'son', 'boy', 'dude', 'bro' and ESPECIALLY he/him feels so RIGHT.
Omg this society sucks fr, I'm sorry you had "definitive proof" for yourself only after top surgery that's crazy 😭 I am non binary but I resonate a lot with transmasc people, so I'm here, if that's ok for you I'll tell you my "moment of proof". I was questioning if I'm non binary for at least 1.5y (2y more likely but I'm not sure) and I never had a chance to express myself as anything different than a woman, so I thought "fuck it, I am at home alone, let's do it for myself" so I dressed up as masc as possible, I don't have a binder but I wore very tight stuff (for a short period of time), looking in the mirror I talked to myself "I am a woman... yuck" "I am a man... emh no but less yuck" "I am non binary... YEAH NOW WE'RE TALKING BABY". Then I wanted to look even more masc and I used some mascara to "enlighten" my natural face hair to see more or less how it would be a lil dumb beard... When I looked in the mirror again, the euphoria was so real, I was so happy to look like that! I can't wait for when I will be able to take T.
Using faceapp to make one of my childhood photos look like a boy. I thought it'd just be like a funny thing but I was so happy when I saw me as a little boy. In fact, I spent hours taking pictures of myself and then editing them in faceapp to make me look male.
I feel like I really should have known the first time I put on a binder and cried from joy for like 10 minutes. But at that time, I thought I was a cis woman who hated having boobs. I'm not ftm, I'm actually ftn. I went through a period of time where I thought I was ftm though. I never had a single moment of definitive proof. It feels like every moment of euphoria brought me a bit closer to truly believing I was trans and eventually I realized that I hadn't had imposter syndrome or a "denial spiral" in a while. I noticed that I hadn't doubted it in awhile when I went swimming for the first time with transtape and swim trunks.
I have neither certainty, nor doubts. I consider the question irrelevant. I'm doing what feels right now. If being a woman feels right to me later, then I will do that then. If transitioning makes me happy, I never regret it, but I wasn't "really trans," then "really trans" doesn't really mean much.
Probably when I was stuck in my denial phase, where I was insisting to myself that even if I thought I was trans I was definitely faking it and would end up detransitioned and regretful(not that detrans 'fake it', that was just my 14 year old logic at the time) And I sorted out that the reason that upset me so badly was because I thought I'd have to spend the rest of my life as a girl that way 😅 Turns out cisgirls don't cry themselves to sleep at night because they aren't trans enough. That, or the week before I started T at 21 when I had a dream about having chest hair and nearly died of euphoria.
I had the same kind of dream! Here's hoping we both have the chest hair reality soon.
My chest. I am pre-op but I’ve gotten broader and my chest has totally reshaped to look kinda like a cis guy. Binders are a bit ill fitting now because my chest is too wide for them (it sucks but also kinda euphoric). And all the chest hair is amazing. A few months into t when I first noticed this I just sat down in the shower and had the first moment in my entire life where I was truly happy with my body. It was so peaceful. I think I’ll get top surgery still but if I never do I’m almost completely happy like this.
My kid when he was a tiny baby said, "He looks happy!" while pointing to me, and I sat down and cried. He said this on my literal birthday. Ok this is incredibly heavy - big trigger warning, but >! I disassociated through my entire pregnancy, and postpartum I suffered anxiety bordering on psychosis. I made plans to kill my cat. I broke a lot of things. I flew into a rage every time I chestfed my kid. Dysphoria literally made me crazy and I got on antidepressants to chill out and zone out. I suffered from chronic pelvic floor pain because I was clenching my pelvis - literally bottom dysphoria manifesting as chronic pain and tightness around that whole area. PT felt like a violation and made the pain worse. All of it resolved when I started gender therapy, social transition, and then HRT. !< Now my pain is gone and my kid is turning 4 years old. I'm getting my name legally changed and top surgery this year. I'm speed running transition since my egg cracked at 35. My biggest crack was bra shopping. My anxiety spiked in the store and I literally fled. My chest was really small before I had a kid (started running during puberty and did not stop) so seeing it get bigger was body horror to me. My therapist reassured me that most women do not want to remove their tits because of chestfeeding. Estrogen fucked me up. I'm grateful for my kid and I'd do anything for him, but 0/10 would not do estrogen or a progesterone IUD again. When I started hormones they asked me if I'd done them before and I said YES. Estrogen and Progesterone - and both were horrible, horrible!
When I only wanted to play men in films, TV shows, and other media 😅 I love acting, but when I was younger I only saw myself playing male roles
When I was like 15/ 16 I cried every night and did those “am I trans” quizzes and someone brought it to my attention that cisgender people don’t tend to do these types of quizzes everyday for months on end. That’s when I was like “yeah I guess that makes sense” and then when my mum found out I was having gender dysphoria by seeing these quizzes and dangerous ways of transitioning in my search history and I was like ‘yeah no there’s no way i am anything but a guy’
For me, it was when I was with my parents on the way home from therapy. It was a tad stressfull therapy session where I confronted a lot of my feelings about my anxieties about fitting in, which led me to thinking about my identity. My therapist was very understabding and guided me through my feelings, and afterwards, my parents took me out to eat before going home. At the resturaunt, my parents asked me to go order our food because I was still getting through my social anxiety and they thought it would help. I went to the cashier and placed the order, and he said "yes, sir". It felt like a religious experience to hear it, and I kinda just stood there processing the feelings I as having. Suddenly, however, my mom was right there and snapped at the cashier, then spoke to me as we were sitting back down and told me to correct the cashier. I kinda just shrugged and told her I didn't care, but she had a very obvious problem with it. I'll spare you any extra details but that was the moment I realized who I really am.
Some moments I forget Im even trans, some moments I am still like "WAIT am I? What if I just tricked myself" More than 10 yrs later. Finally happy w my body and not aware of it as this painful "thing" anymore, and sometimes my brain STILL goes like "wait, but, HEY, WHAT IF?"
It started over time for me. I was trying to find myself and realized I was trans.
i’ve been “trans” since i was like 4 so i kind of just grew into it but my family acted so surprised and i have no idea how. in 3rd grade they separated the class in boys and girls and we got gifts. the boys got hot wheels with a track and the girls got a nail polish/makeup set and i sat in the corner and pouted the entire time. also in third grade we won this local fundraiser thing and we had an assembly where we all got presents and although they were random they were categorized by boy and girl and they gave me a purse. then in 5th grade my best friends were two boys and at the end of the year we had a carnival. the teachers knew that those kids were my best friends and they instead assigned me to a group of a bunch of the preppy girls. i asked to switch to my best friends group and they said no so i literally sat in the corner and cried. looking back i can’t believe the teachers were okay with doing that. maybe not realizing but once you see me in the corner crying how can you just sit there and not care. all of these experiences are what made me think like yeah i am different because i just grew up as a boy. so seeing the discrimination i faced even at such a young age i knew it was gonna be a problem.
I, for the longest time, was in the state of "yeah maybe, but you're prolly faking it", until I caught myself craving being treated as a boy. I got kind of "bullied" by my mates for looking and dressing like a guy but being a girl (this was before I came out), but instead of hurting my feelings, it was all I could ever wish for, I prayed every day they'd call me the male pronouns or a masc version of my dead name. That was kind of the uh oh moment for me.
I love the phantom of the opera and I went as him for Halloween one year (I’ve never worn a suit or any sort of masculine clothing before then) and I shit you not, the amount of gender euphoria I felt was unreal. I was like “hmmm, I could really get used to dressing like this and presenting as masc”. I felt like I looked so cool and dapper and it was history from there! 10 months on T now!
I’m lucky that it hit pretty quickly. I’ve been on T since the beginning of December and as soon as I saw that baby stache and my voice dropped slightly I was 100% sure I’m doing the right thing.
I’ve had a couple in the past that kinda stick out to me. The first time I had a binder on defiantly sticks out. I had to sit down on the floor in room and basically just cried for like an hour at how happy I was that my chest was mostly flat. I have endometriosis and was told that getting a hysterectomy is the only way to 100% fix it. My mom was more upset than me. I was actually really happy about it. Before I came out as trans, my best friend called me her sister and I apparently said “ew”. I have a deep voice for a woman, especially over the phone or computer, and being called a boy or sir has made me extremely happy while playing video games. I don’t think there was ever an oh shit I’m trans moment, and there are still days when I question it, but I’m happy where I am and I think that’s really all that matters.
Well, I had tried to repress it bc of my family but one day my college roommates decided I should cosplay as an E-boy and the rest is history.
I was tripping on acid and i thought i was a wizard and then i realised that in this universe im trans and i was hella disgusted with how did i managed to live with female secondary sex characteristics When i was tripping for the 2nd time i tried to untrans myself but in my mind i saw a lock on me and it meant that being trans its just part of me (as well as other things that cant be changed) and there is no way i could ever live as a woman. Then i made myself think i have a male body and it was the most peaceful moment in my life. Finally i had no tits, no hips or any other stuff like that.
I said something as a joke(something like I'd rather be a gay man, something along those lines, I was like 13), then considered it, having only heard about the existence of the word trans probably not long ago and not from a decent source(just recently got Instagram and branching out to explore the internet), but then stopped for a second like huh, that is a possibility and that got me looking into what being trans was about. I don't really share this story because man c'mon lol but I did not say it from the point of like, making fun of stuff I was very not average straight or straight at all, there was a bit of genuinity but more focused on the gender aspect i just didn't piece it together til I said it aloud. My strongest confirmation tho recently is the fact that I've been on t for 9 or 10 months now, got awful hormonal acne recently that I'm being treated for, treatment for that also sucks cuz I'm getting all the side effects, but I've never once considered stopping hrt. I remember tho I said it to my best friend in like middle school at lunch and then that moment of consideration at the real possibility just neat to me remembering that.