How did you know if you were trans (or if you were cis)?

I'm cis. I've been pretty indifferent to norms of masculinity since I was young. I used to wear corsets and makeup and skirts to goth clubs back when I was cool. As a perk of being well over six feet and a man no one ever gave me shit about it, and on the very rare occaisions they did I wasn't impressed. Maybe it's a neurodivergence thing or a bipolar thing, idk, but I never really considered my masculinity, such as it is, something society was worthy to challenge.

I guess some of it was a very bad experience with Texas' unique brand of toxic masculinity and violence when I was a kid. It put me off of a lot of traditional toxic masculinity bonding stuff - football, beer, cops.

And I had probably the weirdest frat experience in college - very supporting, very loving, all for one and one for all, no hazing. Most of the old guard was thrown out for being frat bros the year before I joined so we mostly built the culture from the ground up and it was pretty good. Like this was the bush adminstration and the gay straight alliance would all come to our dry mocktails parties. We barely knew trans people existed but we decided that if someone wanted to join, and asserted they were a man, we could only induct men under the national rules but the rules didn't tell us we needed to check people's genitals so we'd take anyone who said they were a man.

And then, like, hanging out with sex workers and strippers, gave me a lot of perspective on shit women put up with. I got firmly in to feminisms early on, did a lot of reading, hung out with some real cool feminists. Dated a whole lot of queer women who didn't expect normative traditional masculinity from me.

I ended up having mostly queer friends, including a bunch of trans people. Learned a lot, read a lot, talked a lot.

So, i got lucky in a lot of ways. I got turned off to toxic masculinity early. I'm a huge man and that gave me safety to play with gender, have fun. I met a lot of cool weirdos and good people. I had the opportunity to learn a lot. In college i studied anthro, which is studying culture, which is all about breaking down what you think is normal. Had some cool queer professors and cool marxist professors.

Oh, and i guess i was introduced to transhumanism early from reading tons of sci-fi, and radical bodily autonomy, being able to make your body and mind whatever you want whenever you want, once i started to learn about transgender people it was just a natural fit. Like of course people should be able to express whatever gender or no gender, change their body to suit their needs, what feels good and correct. It was completely consistent with transhuman ideals.

So, put it all together, i've had a lot of advantages for exploring, critiquing, and playing with gender, and with all those advantages i ended up cis+

Don't get hung up on labels. Just do what you want, try out new things and see if you like them or not. I found out I am cis purely through trial and error- being perceived as a woman feels incorrect to me. I hate wearing women's clothes, whoever designed them is a bastard. I like having a beard. I don't like the way makeup feels, and even my man boobs are too much for me. You cannot know yourself without putting yourself in new contexts and reflecting on how you relate to those contexts

I didn't know what trans was when I was 4 or 5, but I heard about reincarnation, and I thought "that explains it! I must have been a woman in a past life!" I couldn't specifically say what it was, but I just never felt like a typical man, and fantasised about being a woman as early as I could remember. I later learned I could be a feminine man, I consider myself non-binary and present mostly male, I'm not big on labels.

Trans, phantom penis and generally not feeling right with my body, once I found out about the terms that was nice since it gave a detailed definition to a generalized dysmorphia and always wishing to be a guy even from my earliest memories.

Like a lot of cis folks, I never even really had to think about it. Privilege of being born in a body that matched what I thought of myself, for the most part. Once my hormones starting rocking in my teenage years, I hit the gym pretty hard, really wanting to embrace my masculinity. Probably helped I had positive masculine role-models in my life, especially my dad, who was a farmer for most of my childhood. Big man, rough hands, dependable, always made time for his family and community, informed a lot of what a "man" is to me without me really realizing it until I reflected on it in adulthood.

I really didn't give it much thought until the 00s when a friend of mine came out as trans. She was incredibly brave, this was long before even cis gay people had a lot of purchase in culture, especially the rural area I grew up in. Her announcement of it on social media post (sorry for vagueness, trying not to dox), was of the effect "I'm Trans. This is Not a Joke" because that's kind of how trans issues were seen, even among us relatively left leaning folks (I remember John Stewart making fun of Kucinich during the 2008 primaries for saying he would put a trans person on the Supreme Court). Crazy she had to frame it that way.

When she came out, I did have a bit of self-reflection about it. She actually was already talking a lot about gender in blog posts and stuff like that leading up to that point, she was who taught me about the concept of privilege, for example. And I realized pretty fast that I had a lot of that privilege stuff for being born male and feeling comfortable in not just being a man, but even a lot of traditionally masculine things like being big & strong, watching sports, being attracted to women, etc.

It was cool to have that influence in my life kind of early on, helped me not be a chud about gender stuff, I think. Or at least not struggle with it, like I did for a while with say, abortion. My only early life influence on that issue was being raised in the church, I never knew anyone that, publicly known anyway, had an abortion. Even if I left the church at 17, it took me into my 20s to get right about it through reading and getting more in touch with feminism and what not.

Anytime i feel cognitive dissonance about masculinity i look at how much work transitioning is. I can't be bothered

I'm agender, meaning I don't really associate myself with gender at all. I'm amab, but never cared to be a boy when I was growing up. I had two older sisters who would rope me into playing "girls games" when I was young. I was never really happy with my appearance when I was a teenager, but I never thought I wasn't enough of a man. I wanted to be skinnier and more attractive and have cooler hair, I didn't want to be masculine. I didn't want to be feminine either - gender literally just never played a part in how I wanted to look. I never felt like I had to fit in with boys by acting masculine, or that girls worked differently from boys. I didn't think about gender.

I was 19 before I started to question my gender. I knew I didn't want to be a girl - some feminine things give me a lot of gender dysphoria, even today. I played Deltarune, which has a canonically non-binary main character, and became really hooked on every aspect of the game, including the main character's gender presentation. At first I thought "oh, awesome, non-binary representation", but then I realised that playing as and relating to a character with they/them pronouns was appealing to me.

I don't consider myself androgynous, because I don't try to steer away from a clear gender presentation. I'm masc presenting for the most part. I guess I fall under the umbrella term of non-binary, but I feel like that's too vague to describe my identity. When I say I'm agender, I mean that I am completely ambivalent to gender. I would happily wear a dress or a corset if I thought it looked good on me. I don't think about whether I will look feminine or masculine when I wear clothes. I have some clothes that I really like, that look like cool cloaks - and they provide absolutely nothing to my gender presentation. Gender exists, as a concept, but its not for me.

Ive questioned my cisness before, and came the conclusion that bein a dude just fits. i do think itd be cool to be a woman for like a few days but outside of general curiosity bout what itd be like to inhabit a body that isnt my own, im comfortable with what i am and how i am

had a bunch of dreams about being a girl and used to pray to wake up as one. this starting hitting right before puberty, before that i was fine

later there's shameful crossdressing to feel some gender euphoria, supportive partners (but most fetishized this stuff and i was already a kinkster so that added more self-doubt for years)

in the 90s and early 00s there was a lack of organized information and my friends were mostly clueless and i hung out with the queer goth/punk kids!

bounced back and forth between whether it was wish fulfillment or not. i've settled on non-binary transfemme or MtF butch but labels suck besides as a way to identify yourself online or to a community

the questioning phase can last months, years, decades even but despite all the horrible political reaction there has never been a better time (except in the future perhaps!) to explore transness and find support.

I was a teenager when I found out about trans people existing, and I genuinely asked myself if that is something that applies to me. Now I am amab, and could never really identify with the machismo view of masculinity that I at least feel defined the culture around me. But of course there are other forms, other ways to express yourself. Identifying and being seen as a man has never felt wrong to me and while I can imagine what other situations feel like, I can't attest that it would be in any way accurate. I don't really know what it means when someone tells me they feel like a woman, or non-binary or honestly even like a man. That's fine though, I trust others when they tell me these things are very important to them and when it comes to trans people (who sadly have to fight to get the basic acceptance that they deserve) honestly am glad that I never had the same struggle.

I identify as cis. I talked about this topic with my partner (who is trans) and he told me he wasn't sure if I wasn't agender or something, but that just doesn't feel like a label I can identify myself with either. I think I just don't identify with my societies narrow view of masculinity and just do things the way I like them and the way they feel right to me.

I personally was stuck for years on trying to find a label because I used it as an excuse to not try anything. I really think gender exploration is in the doing. Every new thing you try, you now have more data on how it makes you feel and you can put in some time to figure out the question of “why?”

You also reach a point where there really is nothing that can prove you’re trans or prove you’re cis. Cis people do not get asked to prove their gender identity, generally, and tend to be very bad at it. Meanwhile, there’s no objective measure of transness where you can determine you’re trans and then act accordingly. That’s backwards. At some point, it is an assertion you make about yourself to guide your actions and state an intent. It’s your identity. It’s personal. It’s something to be taken hold of.

I started being comfortable calling myself trans by referring to myself as trans in my head and with safe people. Eventually, it stopped feeling like I was taking up space where I didn’t belong or like I was lying to myself. And it took way longer than most people would probably deem necessary from the outside. I know because I have plenty of friends I’ve watched transition and they will be living full time with new name and pronouns, looking at HRT and still be like, “what if I’m actually cis though?”

I'm cis, and I'm confident I'm cis - expressing my masculinity has always felt right to me, like it's The Thing I Should Be Doing. But it did take some reflection to realize that, and I did question whether I was trans at one point. A lot of people in the communities I was in had come out as trans at the time, and they were talking about how right it felt, how good they felt, and I realized that's what I wanted, that sense of purpose and belonging, to not feel like shit anymore, like they did. But the truth is that I feel like shit for reasons unrelated to my gender.

i wanted to be a boy when i was younger, in fact i was certain that i was. i was offended at the idea that i should be on the girls' football team, because obviously i couldn't hit a girl. i wanted to be a cowboy or a wizard or a scientist. i wanted a wife. i wanted to have a beard when i grew up (so that i could be a wizard). i remember my mother losing her mind when i referred to "the other boys" in my school, and i didn't really understand why adults kept saying i was a girl or wanting me to dress like one. in my 5th grade class we came up with the (probably transphobic now tbh) idea that i was a spy going undercover as a girl to find out what they got up to on their group bathroom trips. etc etc

but then i read Stone Butch Blues and realised that people like me exist and always have; i'm allowed to be a woman and love women, i'm allowed to be a woman and be as masculine as i like, i'm allowed to be a woman and not dress/act/talk/etc "like a woman" because there is no such thing. i'm allowed to be a woman and a scientist (and now i am!!). women like me have a history and it is proud and long and badass - and no matter what the world says there is fucking nothing wrong with being a part of it.

plus i realised that as long as i am clockably afab (which, for me, will likely be forever), i will experience sexism and be oppressed in the same way and by the same mechanisms as all other women. medically and legally, i will always be oppressed the same as women. there is no reason for me to distance myself from people who experience the same injustices as me.

(i still want my beard and superhero muscles but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ its not worth me figuring out how to get on T and spending the money and stuff. i'm just gonna go to the gym and try to learn how to love my body the way it is (which i'm certainly getting better at; nothing about the way i am makes me lesser or less masc or more deserving of objectification etc etc - society is just sexist))

i'm cis. i didn't want to be a man, i wanted to be a fucking person, we just live in a society where women are often denied that and i was too young to understand and reject sexism.

I essentially folded the moment my assertion in my "cis-ness" was challenged (got asked what pronouns I preferred for the first time, had a thought that "maybe they/them would be fun" come into my head, and went from there.) Over the years since having that first realization, my perception of my own gender has shifted and changed as I've tried different labels and pronouns, accepted some, and rejected others. Right now I'm in a pretty comfortable position with my gender (firmly trans, wanting androgenic HRT, not identifying with being transmasc/a trans man) but who knows, things are subject to change in the future as I gain new experiences and discover more about myself.

I think what helped me was gaining the realization that wanting to be whatever gender you want to be is all the proof you need. I used to be stuck in the idea that there is some "essence" of transness that I was missing, therefore I wasn't trans. But there isn't. You don't need to experience dysphoria to be trans (though it's pretty common for trans people to realize that they were, in fact, experiencing dysphoria and just didn't know that's what it was.) Cis people don't find themselves wanting to be other genders. I know, it's weird.

Good luck on your gender journey

I agree with the sentiment in here of don't worry about labels too much. Just try out different stuff and play with it until you find what fits for you.

Personally, I'm a 35 year old trans woman. When I was growing up trans women were only the butt of jokes in shows and movies. I didn't think people actually were trans so I wrote off a lot of my obvious feelings as "everyone feels this." I had a tough time identifying it because as I aged, masculinity didn't feel right but I'm autistic so nothing ever really felt right.

It didn't all click for me until I was watching a trans youtuber's coming out video. I can't find the transcript for it, but the line that just SHOOK me was something along the lines of "I looked in the mirror and I saw myself aging into an old man and I was terrified". I had those feelings before and then the rest of her experience really clicked into place for me and all the egg-y shit I had felt and thought really came into focus. It took a while to actually publicly transition, but in the meantime I would dress in feminine clothes at home to try and find my style. And expressing my gender more just resonated deeply with me and I ended up having to publicly transition.

As an aside, I think the book Whipping Girl really helped me understand my gender better, but that might just be because the author's experiences lined up with mine really well, my cis wife says it really helped with understanding her gender too.

When I was 16 or so, my first exposure to discussions about trans people were sadly generally transmedicalist in nature. I'd hear people like Blaire White, who I despise with a burning passion nowadays, say things like she knew she was trans since she was a kid and how she goes through a harsh medical condition that makes her feel this way and if your mind feels or approaches the subject of gender identity any differently, then you can't be "actually" trans. I internalized this, and I thought that because I couldn't recall too many obvious signs of me being trans as a kid and that I hadn't seen a psychologist for this matter at the time (nor did I have access to see one because I was in a very bigoted, Catholic family), then I couldn’t be trans at all.

Despite this, I noticed that, as puberty progressed more and more, I started hating my body and the association I had with masculinity and/or maleness a lot more. I lied in bed one depressing school night while my grandparents whom I lived with at the time thought I was asleep, and I asked myself “Could I be going through gender dysphoria?” I kept trying to deny it and deny it because I had truscum brainworms that told me that I can’t affirm that belief because it just wasn’t “obvious” enough. Today, I’ve come to realize that I actually have exhibited a lot of feminine tendencies as a kid, and I got bullied for a lot of them by both my family and other kids, so I think one of the reasons why my supposed signs seemed less obvious is that I tried to obscure them to be safer.

Around summer, June/July of 2017, I broke down coming out to a friend as a binary trans woman. I ended up crying because he actually affirmed me, and he was a classmate I went to school with at the time. However, I was horrified because I knew that my devout Catholic grandparents were definitely not gonna approve of this, so I went through a lot of turmoil in the process, especially when they found out in autumn of 2017.

I won’t make this too much about my struggles with my family as much as I’ll make it about me discovering myself, but basically, I went through a lot of hell with my grandparents and other people I knew in my family, and in 2020, I felt like I was gonna be even more misunderstood because even though I knew that I was trans, I realized I wasn’t quite as binary as I thought.

Even though I was living with my father and stepmother who are only slightly less transphobic than my grandparents, they didn’t necessarily mind me seeing a gender-affirming therapist through telehealth visits. On my visits with this therapist, she noticed that I went back and forth with my gender identity, but only between being a cis man and a trans woman. One moment, I’d tell her “Today, I feel like a trans woman and go by she/her pronouns,” and the next I’d tell her “I feel like a cis man today, but I might just be a little effeminate! He/him pronouns are okay, though.” She noticed this sequence to a degree where she asked me “Have you ever heard of non-binary and genderfluid identities?”

At first, I was reluctant to entertain that kind of questioning because I still had the truscum brainworms and didn’t truly see non-binary identities as valid at the time, but she kept poking the subject with every session and every bit of confusion she noticed within me, so it got me to look into it one day, and once I learned a lot more about enbies, especially the fact that they can experience dysphoria and medically transition, I started identifying as non-binary and never looked back at the thought of being a binary trans woman.

I initially made an attempt to pinpoint “what kind” of non-binary I am, questioning if I’m agender, bigender, demigender, androgyne, neutrois, etc, but I ultimately came to the realization that the broad term “non-binary” worked best for me as about as specific as I will get in labeling my gender. However, I started using the term “transfeminine” to indicate the direction of my transition, in that I take estrogen and I’m seeking out feminizing surgeries like orchiectomy and FFS.

I now go by any and all pronouns, have been on HRT for nearly 8 months, and all of my transphobic family members have been cut out of my life completely, and I feel absolute security in who I am as a non-binary transfeminine Angel. I also feel extremely validated by the fact that my partner, who is a cis woman but a very good ally, says that she truly accepts me as non-binary and senses me as being very distinct from any man or woman she’s ever known in her life, especially since I have an androgynous gender presentation (but it’s definitely far more than just looks that makes her say this.)

Ultimately, I knew I was non-binary over binary because I never saw my gender transition as striving for an assimilationist goal of this binary role of “woman” that society had set out. It just was a process I wanted to undergo for the sake of loving myself in my body, regardless of what gender labels you will apply to it. In simple terms, I see estrogen as good not because it makes me feel more “female,” but simply because my sense of gender likes it more, regardless of whether you consider estrogen to be "for women" or "for men." This is not surprising because I have dysphoria over both certain masculine and feminine characteristics, but overall, HRT is doing a good job taking care of me because I never was too masculine to begin with, especially being only 5’5” (165 cm) and very low on body hair and facial hair at that.

I wouldn't say I KNOW I'm cis, just that I've always felt pretty comfortable with the gender I was assigned at birth and haven't really had much cause to seriously question it as of yet.

I’m a trans woman in her mid-30s. My path to self discovery was a long one. My egg cracked at 32. I considered myself non-binary for about three years prior to it. That is the first time in my entire life that I actually put any thought into my gender. It honestly just boiled down to then that I didn’t fit any masculine gender roles. I really only fit feminine ones. Because I have terrible introspection, I simply left it at that and removed myself from any semblance of the gender binary. About a year after this, COVID dropped and I stayed in the house all the time, not leaving for a couple years aside from minor errands. During this time, I started to experiment with my gender expression. I started shaving my beard and I let my hair grow out. The clothes I wore around the house were far more colorful and I started to really lean into feminine aspects of life. I started to turn my online name into more feminine versions of what it was. Started to play female only characters in MMOs. After a while, dysphoria (as I now know it) ramped up hard. I always thought it was just body dysmorphia, but I later started to understand it was just classic dysphoria. I couldn’t stand having an unshaven face anymore. I became distraught at the idea of cutting my now long hair. And…then I would start screaming at myself in the mirror. I would always yell, “Who are you?” After a long time of this, I started to understand that I was trans, but simply refused to accept it because I didn’t want to be a “special snowflake” and have my family and friends scrutinize everything about my life and my past.

Then at Anthrocon one year, I had commissioned an artist for a badge. At first, I requested a feminine version of my already created fursona, but I returned shortly thereafter and requested just a female version instead. The next day, I waited until near closing time of the Dealer’s Den to pick up the badge. I was terrified. I knew it would change my life, but it was still a scary notion. After working up the courage, I picked it up. I took one look at it and it shattered my world. I just sat there in the middle of a crowd and started bawling. And since that very moment in my life, I realized that I was a trans woman. (Also, if you want to see the badge, j posted it like three days ago or something)

And you know what? Ever since I started on my journey to become the real me, I truly have experienced happiness in my life for the first time. Everything feels correct. I don’t feel like I have this chaotic background noise in my thoughts or my actions anymore. I recently had bottom surgery and it really magnified both of those by probably 100x. Truly truly has all of it saved my life. I genuinely don’t think I’d be here today if I didn’t do all of it.

This is just my journey. There’s a lot more to it (such as seeing all the obvious eggy shit I did my entire life) but it would make this already wall of text into too much. Everyone’s journey is different. You have to decide for yourself if being a woman is something that you desire, something that feels truly right for yourself. Your best bet is to do some heavy introspection and mull it over for some time. You will know if it is correct for you or not. Just remember that regardless of what you decide is right for yourself that you are valid, no matter what. That is something you should never ever forget.

strangely, a few days after receiving the COVID vaccine….

but seriously, i never really thought of gender at all until about 12-13, when those around you start really pushing it. of course cis people are always pushing gender from a young age, but i feel like they really ramp it up when you’re around that age where you start puberty. as i was forced more and more into the social role of a man, i realized that i deep down hated it and there just felt like an incongruence between me on the inside and who i am expected to be. only a few years later did i realize this was actually gender dysphoria. i came out as trans years later but only really just used a different name and pronouns and didn’t really know what exactly i wanted to do with my transition. i existed in trans spaces, had trans friends, the whole deal, but i never really changed anything about myself. it was only up until january of this year did i decide that i want to really live as a woman, whatever that means. for the last few months i’ve been on estrogen, i dress as femininely as i can, i wear makeup pretty regularly, i do my best to just be perceived as a woman. i am very clocky and never get gendered correctly, but at least i like how i present and doing the whole feminine gender performance has been giving me tons of euphoria thus far.

i don't really know what's going on with me, the best way i can describe it is i don't feel like the labels "man" or "woman" really apply to me, but i feel comfortable with my name and my body and he/him pronouns, so it doesn't really affect me. i might feel more comfortable with they/them pronouns, but it doesn't make me feel dysphoric to use he/him so i don't see an advantage to changing my name or pronouns. i might do it on hexbear though!

I knew for a while I would have rather had been a woman. Honwstl,y I'm 6 months into transition and I still don't know if I am a woman or whatever. I am transfemme. I guess I knew I was trans a few years ago when I read the button question and knew in my soul that I would press it in a heartbeat. It was years after that though that I would actually transition

Thank you for making this post. I'm commenting here to save this fountain of experience.

After I discovered trans people exist I realized I never really identified with being a “boy.” I was a pretty gender non-conforming child. I liked certain things about myself “cis” and in trying “fem” things I liked them too. By default I tend to use they/them pronouns for others regardless. I feel gay for people regardless of gender (pan, leaning “fem”). IMO none of this matters because gender is a social construct and I support its abolition. I’ve encountered many specific gender terms online, but honestly, labels are silly; “a rose smells sweet regardless of what you call it.” My advice would be just experiment with expression and don’t care about labels bc fuck gender. Y’all binists are valid and all, but it doesn’t do much to undermine the patriarchal gender system.