Trans Memes

somehow I'm both?

EDIT: I "knew" since some of my earliest memories (4 - 5 years old), when I was trying on my mom's heels in her closet, and when stories of my birth were told and everyone in the family thought I was going to be born a girl, and I was pretty sure they were right and I was supposed to be born a girl, etc.

I also grew up wanting to be a girl, which especially got more intense after puberty started. I definitely played with barbies growing up (in the limited way I could under the watch of my father, who projected his fragile masculinity onto me by threatening violence for even minor mis-steps in my gender).

But I also ended up repressing hard and thought I could never be a woman or a girl, and I lost a lot of my memories of childhood and ended up very dissociated and unhappy. Therapy and meditation actually caused me to regain a lot of my childhood memories, which was very weird - I woke up one morning with access to them after months in EMDR + 1 hour vipassana meditation / day (which ... I tend to think EMDR is quackery, but it sorta works because it's like exposure therapy for traumatic memories? something like that).

No memories, head empty

I could never put word on my feelings as a child to be honest. As a kid I think I wanted to be seen as a boy, never really to be seen as something other. Because that what was expected of me?

I had a teenage phase where I really wanted that emo look but never could engage afraid of my father's disapproval as well as society / school. Now I see this as a way to tend to a more androgynous self and a form of rebellion?

And then I grew up more, dysphoria was there, I thought it was my weight only. But I've always felt different from other men. All these boys objectifying girls when I was in middle school. I mean I was interested in them too (but never like this, not this way) and somehow I've felt ashamed of being seen a man because of these kind of behavior.

Under is a bit more adult themed so I've included a spoiler.

Anyway. I don't see this as typical trans journey? Maybe I'm trying to find things to justify my transition?

Either way I'm rambling, and in the end transitioning doesn't need any reason other than the wish to transition.

I don't think I'm either?

I knew I "should have been a girl" since I was a kid, but I didn't realise that I always was until much later.

But I never had the slightest interest in makeup, pretty clothes, barbies or anything else. And all in all, my childhood was pretty good. I struggled with unidentified dysphoria, and we were dirt poor, but I had good friends, a mum who supported and loved me, and I was always social and charismatic enough that even though I was too weird for the popular kids, I never face serious bullying.

My childhood was in many ways indistinguishable from many cis femme lesbians in the fact that involved an aggressive rejection of femininity and complicated relationship with it until my 20s (years after transitioning actually). But yeah no it's kinda funny to me that early on I felt insecure for my childhood not matching the "proper trans childhood" until I started talking to cis gay friends and learning that some very feminine ones had a buzz cut and combat boots when I was growing a denial beard.

But yeah I always knew I wanted to be a girl, it's just that sometimes that girl wanted to be one of the boys

There are a lot of people here saying they're both, for me it's a firm type two. Even in retrospect I can't find any signs, because I can barely remember anything about my childhood in more than the broadest strokes.

My first "sign" I can remember was someone pointing me to r/egg_irl, and I'm still not sure if that was because I showed proper signs or just because I didn't understand that guys can be bottoms too at that point. And for some reason, because of that, I'm still scared that I am somehow faking it to myself, because I saw an identity that partially matched and then adapted the rest, as I pretty much grew up in online transfem spaces and my dysphoria was never that extreme, almost always just a nagging at the back of my head. But it's been over eight years at this point, so you know, it's part of me either way at this point, and I doubt I could talk myself into something that lasts this long. Still sometimes a bit afraid of faking things though.

I share the sentiment a few have shared where I'm sorta both. Bleh

And a young-adult-hood. Crazy, ain't it?

They can both be true at the same time

I'm the one on the right.. I'm happy for my friends on the left, still don't know if I should transition, oh well

Meh. I had a good childhood that I remember fondly. I didn't "know" until 18. 9 years in, no regrets.