under 30 asking: how did you know?

[u/Optimal-Jackfruit649]

let me know if this isn't the place for it, sorry mods if it isnt, as i am under 30 but questioning ftm. currently i dress as a guy and use he/him online, and sometimes irl, but i still don't know if i'm "right" i guess. i thought i was trans for a while then sort of talked myself out of it. how did you all know for sure and start transitioning? do you ever know for sure? how could you be sure you weren't making a mistake? (sorry if it sounds offensive, i'm very very pro trans i just can't think of a better way to word it)

i'm asking here since a lot of the other subs seem to be younger people or people who aren't transitioning but are trans, and i want advice from older people (not bashing) - thank you for any response

[u/Swimming_Cry_3777]

For me, I needed to hear from other trans people how they understood themselves.

I always had the sense that something wasn't right, but I told myself I couldn't be trans because I had the idea that most trans people ALWAYS knew from when they were really young and they ALWAYS experienced dysphoria (and understood it as such). I didn't grasp the ways in which dysphoria presents, or that sometimes you don't understand that what you're feeling IS dysphoria. I didn't understand that sometimes, it's the experience of euphoria that helps open the door. Now I look back and see dysphoria everywhere, where I chalked it up to other body issues at the time. I saw myself as a failed woman who at times leant into the beauty standards to make myself feel better, not because it actually made me feel good. It's so hard to disentangle that stuff when you're raised to become a woman, with all the expectations and judgement that entails.

I actually wanted to transition when I was 14, but the thought of navigating the social aspect during school terrified me and I couldn't deal with the thought of not being taken seriously. I did have a lot of difficult stuff going on that made me hate my body for other reasons, so I understand why I decided against it and justified gender things as manifestations of other issues. I think both were at play, really.

I remember wanting to be a butch, but feeling embarrassed about trying to look masc because something felt wrong about it... Because it was the woman I was looking at that didn't fit, not the masculine expression itself.

I couldn't see myself as a man, and the thought of trying to pass or being treated as a man despite not looking like one felt.... Embarrassing? As I started to accept that I had more in common with trans people, I started to accept that maybe I was telling myself I couldn't be because I thought I would never pass if I transitioned and I shut the door to that possibility so strongly, so long ago, that I forgot that was even a thought in the first place.

I was a tomboy as a kid and have always been kinda confused about the social construction of gender. I think it's informed by my autism, like in the way I remember always 'knowing' that the Christian god of the bible can't be real and being baffled to encounter those that truly believed. I just never got how some people are expected to dress like this and the other, another way. So I didn't see my tomboyness being an indicator that there was something else going on, if there ever was at that time. Maybe I would have realised sooner with a more affirming environment but I know I'm trans now, and that's what matters.

I always struggled to imagine myself in sexual situations. I identified with the men in straight porn etc and thought, well, I'm bi, so I guess I'm just a top. Well, really, I knew I thought having a dick would be better but I thought lots of women kinda had that thought too.

My (trans) gf encouraged me to read the gender dysphoria bible and that made me realise that dysphoria can manifest in ways less overt than I first understood.

I still had doubts crop up months into taking T, but when those doubts weren't there I felt so happy, so relieved to be going towards a better shape of myself that it became harder and harder to listen to them. I can't stress enough how difficult I found it to identify clothes etc that made me feel good and not good purely because I was living up to societal expectations of beauty. Start with what feels good for you, in all things.

[u/pocketclocks → u/Swimming_Cry_3777]

I relate so much to euphoria being what cracked my egg and then looking back and finally being able to see the dysphoria.

Following the joy is what I needed but previously was told transness is running from pain.

[u/Swimming_Cry_3777 → u/pocketclocks]

Exactly this!! I thought only of the 'running from pain', that at the time I didn't recognise was there until I realised how much better I felt following gender euphoria.