When did you found out that you were nonbinary/transgender/other gender identity?

[Balance]

I still don't know (50s). Ace was very obvious to me, gender not so much. I don't think gender has much to do with what type of clothes, or even the physical body, I think it would have more to do with the way your brain is. i don't think I'm either one: not girl-ey, not boy-ey. I only think in terms of Me/Balance, I have no idea what my gender type is, probably somewhere in the middle I guess?

[Syrus]

I figured that I was trans when I realized that I liked any aspect of being a guy, wanted a binder to flatten my chest and felt completly happy in guy clothes a year or so ago. I'm waiting till I move out so I can start transitioning...I simply feel like I am a male in a female body. However, my parents enforced feminine clothing and makeup on me in the past but eventually just let me wear skateshop stuff.  

 

Dysphoria sometimes hits so bad, that I can't even look at myself.

 

 

[KiraS]

I've been questioning for 30 years. A few years ago, a lot of personal shit hit the fan, and I came to the conclusion that all the work I was putting into playing a role that had been dictated to me was likely going to take years off my life.

[Guest]

On 11/9/2019 at 5:37 AM, Balance said:

I still don't know (50s). Ace was very obvious to me, gender not so much. I don't think gender has much to do with what type of clothes, or even the physical body, I think it would have more to do with the way your brain is. i don't think I'm either one: not girl-ey, not boy-ey. I only think in terms of Me/Balance, I have no idea what my gender type is, probably somewhere in the middle I guess?

Gender has nothing to to with clothes or what type of clothes you wear or the physical body. For me being gender fluid is something that you feel, not what you wear. I had tried on a suit and tie one time. But you know it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear. I can wear dresses or skirts but still feeling non-binary or masculine. I know some gender fluid and nonbinary people who have changed their bodies and have some clothes on that reflects their gender identities. But you know i won’t change my body. And i wear clothes that reflects my mood. So you know. 

[ColeHW34]

I was 18 when I settled on Nonbinary.

[Custard Cream]

In my teenage years I became aware that I didn't always feel like a girl, but it was the 80s and non-binary wasn't understood. I kept questioning if I was, maybe, a boy in a girls body, as I knew that was a thing. But no, I didn't feel masculine. I kept asking the same question, with the same answer, as I got older. It wasn't until I joined Aven early this year at the age of 50 that I finally became aware of the non-binary, and started identifying as girlflux. Now menopause has struck and I am not fluxing much, seeming to vary between agender and slightly female. Don't know how to identify any more, so I'll just stick to non-binary.

[A Cool Fool]

-

[Captain_Tass]

I think I always knew I was agender, but I accepted it when I was 15. Here's my life story, for anyone interested.

 

Spoiler

 

When I was a kid, I never thought of myself as a girl. I couldn't grasp the concept of gender, and most of my friends were boys because I was subconcsiously hostile to girls my age because they were a reminder of the femininity that was being forced on me by my family and society. I was acting like a little boy, with all the "girls are icky" stuff that comes with it. I was aware that I was not fully a boy, and so were my friends. But my friends never treated me as a girl. They treated me as one of them, paying no mind to my AGAB. In third grade, one of my friends invited every boy in the class and me to his birthday party, and when he was asked about it by the parents, he said "Oh, Zoe's not a girl, she's one of us". Mostly because I was saying so myself. Overall, my childhood was a time where half the people I socialised with subconsciously accepted me as nonbinary, and the other half were forcing femininity on me.

 

Then puberty came along, and my friends decided that I was a girl and that they couldn't be seen with me, so they slowly cut me out. I found a new friend, a girl who's been my best friend for six years now, and I realised that girls are just people like me, and that my hostility was unfounded (while, ironically, my old friends did the opposite). Basically, I became a better person. I have not kept in touch with my old friends, but I have made new ones. Mostly girls, but there are three guys among them. I'm sure that when I go off to uni, I'll find even more friends. Maybe I'll even meet another enby!

 

When I first heard about the term "nonbinary" in 2016, I heard it on youtube in the context of [CW: TRANSPHOBIA]

 

Spoiler

SpEcIaL lItTlE sNoWfLaKeS tHaT aRe DoInG iT fOr AtTeNtIoN and all these "SJW PWNED COMPILATION #248" and the recommended videos that came after them which eventually led to a rabbithole of alt-right radicalisation, which I THANKFULLY got out of before I internalised any of these views.

 

And as such I was really scared to identify with the term. While never actually transphobic myself, I had adopted more of a "live and let live" mentality towards trans people, instead of recognising the rampant transphobia that went on in 2016 youtube. I know that it isn't an excuse, but I was a scared 13 year old living in a transphobic society and surrounded by transphobic messages that I was too afraid to realise that I, too, was a person outside of the gender binary. So, I pretended to be a girl.

 

It took 2 years and AVEN to "crack my egg", so to speak. I talked to some folks on here, and I finally realised that I'm agender. It took quite a bit of time for me to warm up to the label and discard the "girl" label, but I eventually did. This happened when I was 15. Now I'm 16, and I'm so glad that I've finally put what I had been feeling since early childhood in words. A word. "Agender".

 

 

[AmorphousBlob]

knew I wasn’t cis when I was 12 or 13, but didn’t stick to a specific identity (agender) til about a year ago.

[Mezzo Forte]

Started questioning at 18, shortly after learning of asexuality and realizing that if I’m not “straight by default,” then I’m not “cis by default” either. Didn’t admit to myself that I was trans until age 22, and by then, I was already well-researched on matters of medical transition. I started HRT just four months after coming out to myself, and I had my top surgery when I was about a year on HRT. It was this last year or so, around age 26, that I’ve started understanding myself as somewhat non-binary, even if I’m not quite sure what to do with that information since my presentation appears fairly binary in its masculine coding.

[cp1213]

I was around 15 when I started calling myself agender, but I'm still questioning on the label

[Barbio]

As a kid, I never paid any attention to my gender- I was just a "tomboy" who liked whatever I liked and acted however I felt like acting, with zero regard as to whether it would be seen as "feminine" or "masculine". When I was in middle school, I would half-jokingly call myself a "boy" sometimes. But in reality, I secretly did feel more like a boy in some situations, and more like a girl in other situations. (Usually, it depended on the gender makeup of the group I was in; if I was surrounded by all or mostly boys, then I would acknowledge that I wasn't *quite* like them in every way, so I was a "girl", since I didn't know at the time that you could be anything other than a girl or a boy. When I was surrounded by all or mostly girls, I felt a little out of place and identified as the "boy in the room". And when the gender balance was pretty much even... then I guess I'm a girl, 'cause that's what everyone says I am, so I may as well go along with it.)

 

That only lasted for a little while, though. I guess at some point, I got tired of "flip-flopping" between genders and started dressing and acting more "feminine" in an attempt to chase that "other" side of me away. And I felt ok with presenting as feminine. Then in my teens, when I learned that being non-binary was an option, I just thought that it was the most beautiful thing ever, and it sort of spoke to me in a way. It got me thinking back to when I was that closeted "boy in the room", and I wondered if maybe that was an early sign that I could be nonbinary, too. But at this point, I was so used to accepting my feminine identity that I wasn't ready to commit to being 100% gender-neutral. Then I stumbled upon the term "demigirl", and I thought that sounded like a perfect balance! So now, if anyone asks: I'm part-female, part-other.

[Janus the Fox]

Same on never paying attention to gender at all as a kid, personally or in others.  What was perhaps helpful or unhelpful is that I was overweight right through school and getting healthy, thinner and medicated properly into my 20s and 30s got me dysphoric and dissociated since I’ve never been this thin before.  The body shape isn’t typical as male or female and I began to see what fashion style I’m into, I’m big into women’s clothes privately, girl things feels more me.

[ElasticPlanet]

I realised that being male sucked at... let's say, about 6. I finally found out that being male didn't suck for all male people at about 39.

[Nylocke]

For me it was back in 2012 when I found the term genderqueer and I've been using it ever since. For the first year and a half just about I was using it more as a "bigender" type of identity because I was claiming both male and female identities and the way I would explain it would be that I was a "feminine boy" and a "tomboyish girl" existing in the same body. Of course before I found the term genderqueer, I would tell people that and they would think I was a head case because I didn't have the word for it at that point.

 

After that year and a half passed I started to dissociate from gender as a whole(and was also going through a break up at that time where I was continuously shamed by my family for having been broken up with due to "not presenting feminine enough") and claimed a more agender identity at that point. Another year or so passed and then my identity fluctuated back to bigender and would offen flop between bigender and agender so I just settled on genderqueer because it covers everything I need. I can still identify a great deal with the nonbinary crowd though but then I have more nonbinary identity then bigender identity anyway and that became apparent after the first switch.

 

Heh I hope I don't sound crazy with all this fluctuation here ... xD

[DarkStormyKnight]

I settled on non-binary earlier this year, I'm 24. Took me a while to figure it out and even longer to come out since gender still confuses me. But I feel like because it confuses me that's just further confirmation of being NB!

[Hui]

I realized I was non-binary around last summer, however, I knew about the term much longer than that. I actually knew a non-binary person back then who has a really androgynous appearance (I still don't know what their biological sex is), so I always kinda ruled it out because I thought you have to look androgynous to be non-binary (which certainly isn't the case, even though some people might assume that). 

 

However, I always kinda felt "out of place" with my biological sex (female), and it began when I was a child. I never really understood why certain toys were supposed to be "for boys" and others "for girls". When I was shopping for toys with my mother, I was always drawn to the boys' section more than to the girls' section, the same for clothing. I kinda stopped thinking about these things when I got older, but when I was around 16 years old and my mother wanted me to visit the gynecologist for the first time, my first reaction was "Why? I am not a woman!", even though I biologically am. I actually think my resentment for being seen as a woman is one of the main reasons I still haven't visited the gyn to this day (apart from my phobias, but that's a whole other story). I felt even more disconnected from my biological sex when I became an adult and people started addressing me as "Miss" or "woman". Something didn't feel right. Then I learned about what society seems to expect from women and I was 100 percent sure I can't be fully cisgender.

 

I also experience gender dysphoria, atleast sometimes and seemingly at random. When I entered puberty, I got really self-conscious about developing breasts. Imagine a 12 year old girl thinking about breast reduction surgery, it sounds weird but that's how I felt back then. To this day I hate wearing bras but I currently see no alternative that doesn't feel completely restrictive and uncomfortable, otherwise I would probably bind by now. I also feel dysphoric sometimes when I get my period or when i think about that I could theoretically become pregnant, which just outright disgusts me. After reading a bit into non-binary genders and looking at all the different identities, I first settled for agender, even though it didn't describe 100 percent of what I felt. I then found the term demigirl and found what describes me best. I currently identify as 50 percent girl and 50 percent agender.

[Sarah-Sylvia]

I'm glad I found this thread. I was wondering about others who're transgender on the site.

I don't know if I'd say there was a time I 'found out'.  It's been something that just came to sink deeper and deeper, calling my heart, and me wanting to be able to live as a woman. There was a time I thought maybe I'm more androgynous, but I don't know if I was admitting to myself at that time how important the female side is to me. In the last 10 years it stuck out to me more and more and I had dysphoria about my body. I try my best to focus in side, but I do really want my body to change, so I'm taking steps when I can.
It takes time to break the conditioning and feel more comfortable admitting it to oneself and seeing more truth in it.
I feel like I'm still learning about myself and what it is for me,. so we'll see how that goes

[Bloc]

9 hours ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

I'm glad I found this thread. I was wondering about others who're transgender on the site.

I don't know if I'd say there was a time I 'found out'.  It's been something that just came to sink deeper and deeper, calling my heart, and me wanting to be able to live as a woman. There was a time I thought maybe I'm more androgynous, but I don't know if I was admitting to myself at that time how important the female side is to me. In the last 10 years it stuck out to me more and more and I had dysphoria about my body. I try my best to focus in side, but I do really want my body to change, so I'm taking steps when I can.
It takes time to break the conditioning and feel more comfortable admitting it to oneself and seeing more truth in it.
I feel like I'm still learning about myself and what it is for me,. so we'll see how that goes

For me it was a feeling of not being "manly enough" starting with late puberty which I tried to compensate without much success especially as I was aware that being macho was wrong for me. About two and a half years ago I came to the conclusion that I am maybe not cis and I started to explore my femme side. I first identified as agender but soon started to question if I am not trans feminine in denial as changing my expression to more feminine is what makes me feel better. The more I understand my dysphoria the more I am start to question if the asexuality is just a manifestation of my dysphoria.

[Sarah-Sylvia]

11 hours ago, Bloc said:

For me it was a feeling of not being "manly enough" starting with late puberty which I tried to compensate without much success especially as I was aware that being macho was wrong for me. About two and a half years ago I came to the conclusion that I am maybe not cis and I started to explore my femme side. I first identified as agender but soon started to question if I am not trans feminine in denial as changing my expression to more feminine is what makes me feel better. The more I understand my dysphoria the more I am start to question if the asexuality is just a manifestation of my dysphoria.

I can only speak from me, but I would say sexuality can be affected. As a guy, it's expected to be more direct and.. not necessarily rougher, but there are things that aren't as compatible with being feminine. Since I started my hormone therapy, and accepting myself more as female, I connect to sex differently and it's not very important, it almost has to go through love and affection. Romance is very important to me as a woman, and not feeling the testosterone driving or wanting sexual energy makes it easier for me to relax about it kind of.
It's also possible that my depressions affected my sex drive and that's why i felt i was asexual.

[Starbogen]

I started seriously questioning my gender when I was 18/almost 19, but before that I had already casually wondered several times about my gender while I was a teenager. I guess what really made me start thinking about it more was not being allowed to wear a tux to prom and realizing that I didn't want to be a "girl wearing a suit" or "a person wearing a suit who happens to be a girl" like everyone kept saying, I just wanted to be like any other guy wearing a suit.

 

So I sort of had those feelings floating around for a year and I kept thinking about trans people and watching videos and learning about stuff, and eventually started seriously questioning my gender, but it took me about five or six months after that before I officially came out to myself as trans. There wasn't one singular moment when I just realized that was the answer. It was more like I knew I wanted that to be the answer, and I knew that I had been feeling that way gradually more and more through the years, I knew I prefered being seen as male, and that I wanted to just physically and socially live as male, so at some point I just told myself that that had to be enough and started saying and accepting that I was trans.

[Grey-Ace Ventura]

On 11/10/2019 at 2:07 AM, Syrus said:

Dysphoria sometimes hits so bad, that I can't even look at myself.

I feel that so much even though it tends to be the opposite for me. I'm pretty much constantly dysphoric, yet I look at myself in any reflective surface, like I hate how I look but I can't stop looking and wishing I could start transitioning (or be at the end of it really).

 

For me, I hadn't thought about my gender in childhood because I grew up around mostly boys and I was treated like one of them, I did everything they did, my gender was never really pointed out, etc.. However, when I moved to a more gendered society (this was in middle school) where the distinction between boys and girls was more prominent, I started to feel unhappy with myself, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was, despite consciously wishing I had been born a boy and hating when people referred to me as a girl. It pretty much got to the point where I stopped putting any kind of effort into my appearance because I always found myself ugly no matter what I wore. I did like dressing up (in suits) and that was about the only clothing I felt happy in, but I hadn't put much thought into that. At some point, I figured out that I had gender dysphoria, but it wasn't until recently that I connected my unhappiness with myself with my gender dysphoria. I did research and discovered that the trans label matched how I was feeling. I'm kinda irritated by the fact that I hadn't discovered transness (is that even a word?) earlier because I had all these strange feelings but didn't know there was a word for them, but I guess that's what self-discovery is like.

 

I'm waiting until I move to start transitioning medically and get a male haircut, and I'm getting my binder soon, but for now, I'm not really sure how to deal with the dysphoria. I hate my appearance but there's not much I can do at this point.

[Zebrafinch]

On 11/24/2019 at 11:55 PM, Hui said:

 To this day I hate wearing bras but I currently see no alternative that doesn't feel completely restrictive and uncomfortable, otherwise I would probably bind by now. 

Have you tried a binder? My binder is more comfortable than any bra I've ever had. I bought the first one because I wanted a flatter chest. I've ordered another two because they're comfortable. (Mine's GC2B)

[Hui]

On 12/2/2019 at 10:11 PM, Zebrafinch said:

Have you tried a binder? My binder is more comfortable than any bra I've ever had. I bought the first one because I wanted a flatter chest. I've ordered another two because they're comfortable. (Mine's GC2B)

I thought about buying a binder, but I imagine them being similarly uncomfortable to a sports bra, that's why I never really got around actually buying one.

[Zebrafinch]

Just now, Hui said:

I thought about buying a binder, but I imagine them being similarly uncomfortable to a sports bra, that's why I never really got around actually buying one.

Nope. Binders are better. It doesn't dig in or leave marks. My sports bras tend to dig at the shoulders and band by the end of the day. And better bounce reduction than sports bras. Under boob sweat is worse in a binder, though.

I'm a 36f in bra size, in case it matters.

[Hui]

Just now, Zebrafinch said:

Nope. Binders are better. It doesn't dig in or leave marks. My sports bras tend to dig at the shoulders and band by the end of the day. And better bounce reduction than sports bras. Under boob sweat is worse in a binder, though.

I'm a 36f in bra size, in case it matters.

Ah, good to know! Maybe I will get around to buying one, I mean, I can try atleast.

[DuranDuranfan]

Yeah make sure you wipe under your breasts daily after wearing a binder. Underboob sweat is 😖😖😖

[Andrea KF]

I always been trans, I guess. Defenitely since puberty.

 

Many of You have already expressed feelings similar to mine. Thank You! It's very reassuring to read.

 

I remember as a kid, not wanting to hit puberty.

A distinct memory is reading about a proto-columbian civilization in America that made agender statues, and I thought that sounded cool.

 

When puberty came knocking, I was hit by some kind of depression which has been with me ever since. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Didn't really understand why back then.

I also began fantasise of being a woman.

Other than that, I guess I was a quite normal little nerd. I didn't realise gender-bending fantasies may not have been normal.

 

Terms like Asexual, Non-Binary and Dysphoria didn't exist in my world. It's barely a couple of years ago when I first red about these terms and other peoples experiences that things have started to click.

When I was a kid, transsexuals equalled flamboyant extroverts. That may not be me, but nowadays I've come out at least to myself as trans.