I really appreciate seeing everyone's stories about realization. I realized I wasn't straight and cis when I was a child... but only after reading about people with similar experiences and feelings. Like others here, I certainly didn't "always know."

Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
Yeah. One of my friends’ brother medically transitioned and is now his sister. But my friend still insists that she isn’t “really trans” because she didn’t realize she was trans until almost thirty and their family friend, who is a child psychologist, corroborates this because je never exhibited any of the signs of gender dysphoria growing up.

And I hear him talk like this, and am just like so what do you think about me who is almost forty and still hasn’t medically transitioned. What do I have to do to be “really” trans in your eyes?
Echoing everyone else. That really sucks, and it really sucks that their friend is getting support from another. I feel for you and for his sister.


Quote Originally Posted by Mr.Silver View Post
My working hypothesis is that it's related to the 'born this way' conception of sexuality, in that its function as a rebuttal to the common "you're just confused/it's just a phase" denials and dismissals might play a bit of a roll in it.

Admittedly my perspective might be a little unusual on this, since I didn't know it was even possible to be what I am until my mid-twenties and so just chalked-up my (fairly severe) dysphoria as 'atypical depression symptoms' for years. With hindsight, yes it's pretty obvious my brain knew something was off about my assigned gender but I don't think I can honestly say I 'always knew I was non-binary' without adopting a rather creative definiton of 'knew'.
Yeah, that might be right. But it only really works for a portion of trans people, so I think we're in agreement that it's a shoddy defense.