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What it felt like to "know" at a Young Age

| HRT
Natalie Aspen Trinket

I'm so tired of seeing discussions about how children can't know that they're transgender or whatever before X age while I know for a fact that I did. I don't expect to sway anyone who has a hard-line stance on that idea, but I want to explain how that felt for me and the situation I was in. I have another post that covers why I came out so late despite knowing so far back, but I just want to cover how it felt to have always known.

My earliest memory​

The earliest memory that I associate with the idea of being transgender or at least being uncomfortable with the role that I had, was when I was around 3 or 4. I remember my mom getting my siblings and I dressed and getting upset that I couldn't wear the same things that my sister got to wear, and that I looked so "plain", I remember specifically using that word. I of course was convinced that I was supposed to wear my clothes and that my sister, who is a little over a year younger than me, had much smaller clothes than I did.

Context​

I think from here it's important to set the scene a little bit because the rest of the memories and feelings are dependent on it. My father is very religious, he's Christian but I don't know the denomination other than it's some level of fundamental. My mom left him when I was 5 because he was abusive and started to put me and my 2 younger siblings in danger, from there we had visitation every weekend where he'd pick us up after school on Friday and drop us off at School on Monday (Or pre-school at the start).
My mom did everything she could to make sure the 3 of us had a relationship with him, but he and I never got along very well, some of the memories I'll share will show why, but I essentially stopped visiting with him after the age of 14 when he said some very (Personally) dangerous religious based rhetoric while I was the mental hospital that broke any ties I felt for him.
I'll probably make another post at some point going over why I was in the hospital, but the gist of it was that I was in and out of the hospital from age 14 to 17 because I was constantly angry. Only over the past year did I start admitting and working through the fact that I'd been angry at myself for never coming out.

After my mom left my father, she started seeing a woman who I'd call neenee, and she would become my second mom. They'd be together until I turned 18 or so when circumstances and a head injury would tear them apart. During the early years that they were together, my mom was a local advocate for LGBTQ rights in our area, and while I couldn't go to the protests or meetings myself because of their fear of being hurt or followed during one, I knew what she was doing and I met her friends all the time. I was in the LGBTQ space and I wasn't ignorant of what it was, or who I was.

As a final bit of context, I didn't have access to the internet until age 13 or so. Before that I used the technology we got from yard sales and roadside auctions, resulting in me using cassette players, radios, walkmans, and typewriters. The reason this is relevant is that my community consisted entirely of my family, family friends, a couple of friends at school, and my father's family until I started homeschooling at 13. Even after that, I didn't find a niche online until I turned 17, I was just wandering and lurking online, so I never got any feedback on how I was treating myself.
I've always been very secretive about who I am and what I'm doing, especially online. This blog is the first place, other than to my best friend that I found online, where I've almost any of this information. But I've learned that this can help people and that if I'd come across it when I was 13, I'd have been the better for it.

Memories​

Now for the actual memories. I'm going to do my best to keep them in chronological order and keep them as concise as I can while referring to the context above.

Dress Up​

I'm not sure when this started, or when it stopped, but I have a distinct memory of doing this when my father was asleep downstairs and doing it after my mom left him. My sister and I would have rooms close together, and after we moved away from our father our rooms were connected. So we'd wake up, or stay up, at night and play dress up while our parents slept. We'd tear my sister's closet apart and she'd pick the clothes out that we'd both wear over and over again for what felt like hours. Since we're only a year apart, we were much closer in size by the time we were doing this compared to before and she always had tons of costumes and random clothes that she rarely wore, so there was always something to try on that we hadn't before.
It's honestly one of my favorite memories I have with her and our mom recalls walking in on us a couple of times when we got too loud after she left our father, so I at least have some amount of confirmation in that.

Jealousy​

I've always tried not to hold it against my sister, it's no more her fault how she was born or treated than it is mine, but it's hard. Especially with how many items she has been given and she mistreats. It's hard to describe without telling her story instead of mine, but in a similar vein to how many clothes she had, there are a lot of little items and trinkets that she's been given that are normally given to girls. Things like nail polish, different kinds of toys, of course clothing, jewelry, and just cheap stuff that accumulates over time, that is all over the place. It's mostly destroyed by the other stuff around it, or by age, or because it's been left out for too long.
She and my mom both have a small hoarding problem, and they're working on it, but seeing all of the things that I longed for as a kid destroyed and burried is painful. I remember watching her get it as presents, or on a trip to the store, or just being brought home, and just not having the will to ask to get the same things. I know getting anything like that now won't change anything, I won't get those years back and it's my fault for never speaking up.

Learning the word Transgender​

Despite being wrapped up in the LGBTQ space with my mom, I'd just kind of assumed a lot about what was going on without asking questions about it. When I was 8 or 9, someone explained in detail what it meant to be Transgender. I don't remember how it came up, who it was, or even the way they explained it, but I remember it contextualizing what I'd been feeling at the time. I'd thought about it for days, and it was the first time I started journaling because I couldn't keep it all in my head.
I don't have that journal anymore. I don't remember if it was thrown away or just lost, but I remember some of what I would have written about. I was getting what felt like jealous of my sister for what she got to do with her clothes and hair, and every time I had to cut my hair short it made me angry and sad beyond almost anything I'd felt. But no one knew. Even back then I was starting to hide it.
I knew that my father's family didn't agree with what my mom was doing, or even who she was by being with a woman, but it was so early in the movement by comparison to now that I'd never even heard them mention the word, Transgender. Even if they hadn't spoken out against it in front of me, any time I expressed any interest in what my sister was doing, or my hair would get too long, or even if I picked up a "feminine habit" they'd call it out. My mom would do similar things, but always in a joking sense instead of a malicious one, but it just reinforced what my father's family said and the idea that coming out would just be a joke.
But it did feel better to have a word for how I felt, and even though I already knew that other people felt the same way, to know who they were and have a label for that group was better. This time period is one of the reasons that I hold on to the idea that labels matter, even if they get cumbersome to people on the outside.

Going Online​

I mentioned that I wasn't online until I was 13, but once I was online I of course explored everything that I could. I found that there were a lot more words that described who I was, and a lot of them were said in disgust or a twisted kind of lust. Those words, and the people I saw using them, contextualized what my mom was fighting for when I was growing up and just made me tired.
I was just hitting puberty at the time, and I didn't get any of the normal sex drive that comes with it, I later learned that was because I'm asexual, but that didn't keep me from worrying about it. Everyone I saw online was so focused on it, it never seemed to stop between ads, clickbait, and jokes that I felt like I was just broken and that it might be part of why I was Trans. I started down a rabbit hole of why that would be and came across the idea of autogynephilia. Yes, instead of finding actual Transgender resources, I found something that would actively harm my self-image, and it did, I hated it. It didn't make any sense to me, but like many other trans people I got "excited" on the rare occasions that I was euphoric and I wanted to be female, so it seemed like it fit. But I wasn't "attracted" to the idea, I didn't get any lust from it and I still don't, so I should have realized that wasn't what it was. But I was alone, and I didn't know any better. So I dug myself further into my anger and set myself up for a trap later down the road.

Puberty​

Around the same time, I started online school and went online, I started puberty. I know, gross. But I think it's an important topic in the context of being Trans, at least in my case, because it's when my dysphoria started to hit the hardest. Before this time it was just jealousy and mental confusion about where I fit in, but now I didn't physically fit the image I had of myself. Knowing what was coming, yet still having that weight of not wanting to come out for the same reasons I always had just wore on me.
I felt like there was nothing I could do. I didn't know that there was a way to get more time, and I didn't know that it would get harder as I aged. All I knew was that I was tired and angry. That everyone around me either laughed at me or scolded me and that I was changing in ways I didn't understand or couldn't control. The standard "your body is going through changes, but it'll be ok, you'll come out the other side a better man" speech didn't help me, it just confused me more.

Picking​

I have, or had, very thick body and facial hair. It came in around puberty, of course, and I hated it. I never told my mom how much I hated it until I came out, but my dislike for it manifested in picking at my skin when anxious or angry. I'd end up with little welts from body acne or a bug bite and then open them by picking at it, then it'd bleed and I'd keep it open for weeks. I'd even wake up in the morning finding that I'd scratched long marks on my arms by scratching at my hair or had pulled on it enough that the follicles would be agitated and red. It never helped with the body hair problem, other than to cause tons of ingrown hairs and that I have a ton of circle shaped scars on my arms that thankfully blend in with my freckles to most people.

The Hospital​

It's at this point that I start going in and out of the hospital and my timeline gets even fuzzier. I have issues remembering exactly what happened and in what order, nothing mattered enough for me to hold on to the memories, so it's just a mess of anger, pain, and short bursts of happy moments. I'm working on collecting my medical records, journals, and memories from my mom to get the timeline together for myself, but I'll go over some of what I remember and what I've pieced together.
I first went into the hospital because I was getting too aggressive and reactive toward my family. I was threatening (even hurting) my siblings, scratching at my arms till I bled, going off the handle at anything without warning, and spending days manic. I needed to be there, I was acting out and needed the help, but I was lying to them. It was a stopgap until I couldn't handle the anger anymore, so I kept going back, getting worse and worse.
Each time I went it was mostly the same situation, either I was starting to get too far into suicidal ideation that I was finally reaching out for help or my mom couldn't handle my outbursts/mania. Then when I was in there, I'd calm down and fall into the routine. I'd get to answer their questions, get my med update, and be out in a week or two. But there were a few visits that had a hiccup or two, and I've mentioned a couple already.

My father's phone call​

I don't think this was the one that came up first, but one of the times I was in there he called me to check in. I still wasn't doing great, I hadn't fallen into the routine yet and I was explaining what had put me in there that time. The frustration that I'd felt at my siblings or something, it was misplaced anger but it was coming through that route at them, and his response was, and I swear this is burned into my head "Well I understand that it's hard, but I think if you pray on it you'll find the answer and get better. I'll add you to the prayer list at church and pray for you tonight. I hope they can work on getting you off those medications soon." I just started crying so much harder, dropped the phone and ran back to my room.
After everything, he and my grandfather had said to me about the diagnosis I have, and the fear I felt about coming out at any point, I was done with him. I didn't want to visit and I didn't want to keep pretending that I wanted a connection. He showed me that everything that I was going through was contextualized through his religion and that he still believed what he told my mom when I was born, that navy men don't have sick babies.

The confrontation​

I did something that I regret to this day, on so many fronts but particularly two. I stole my mom's clothing, and I didn't tell her why when confronted. I'm fuzzy on the ordering still, but my moms raided my room one of the times I was in the hospital and found the clothing I had stolen and talked to the hospital staff about it. They then set up a meeting between me, my mom, and a counselor where they told me they found it and asked why. I wouldn't tell them. I spent so long denying it to myself, and everyone around me that I wasn't ready to say it in one confrontation like that, especially not in front of a stranger. My mom felt violated, and she made an accusation that kept me from coming out after the confrontation was done because it was one that I had feared myself when I was younger, she asked if it was a sexual thing for me. It just broke me to hear her ask that, but I understood why she did, and it just made it worse.
I still don't think she understands why it bothered me so much, to have that be the first accusation. I've talked to her about it a couple of times, and she never quite gets that it was the idea that who I am is just a fetish. I don't know if she just hasn't been exposed to that like I had been, or if what she was thinking at the time is pushing that idea out of the way. In either case, that was my fear. I still wasn't clear on what it meant to be Transgender, even if I knew what it was, I didn't understand what the source of the feelings were. For my first confrontation to be about sexual motivation just brought back that self-hatred I had, and dug me further into my hole.

A friend​

A slight bit more context. Before you can be fully admitted into the hospital I was at, there's a waiting period in a suite with a few other kids. My mom would stay with me there, sleeping on the floor for 2-3 days while we waited for me to get a bed. I could interact with the other kids who were waiting in a small common room, and we were all going to the same in-patient hospital so we were likely to see each other again once there were beds for us.
One of the last times I went and my mom and I were waiting, a kid came in that I clicked with. I couldn't tell if they were a boy or a girl, so I asked and they started crying and ran off to their room. My mom (Who I assume had already clocked them as trans) told me that I just needed to wait for them to calm down and see if they were ok after that. A few hours later they came out while I was reading and told me that they were transmasc and that it was a lot for me to not be able to tell either way. They didn't have a very accepting family, but they were there trying to get help and we stayed in each other's sphere while we were there. To the point that my mom was able to sneak their contact information out of the hospital before they left and keep everyone in contact all these years later.
They were in the first group of people I came out to, and while I wasn't out to them in the hospital, they were part of my inspiration when I started to get my head on straight. Knowing both sides of the coin, and having met someone who was working through a worse family situation than I had was a big push in the right direction.

Long term in-patient​

There came a point where it was obvious that going to the hospital wasn't helping me and I was just going in cycles. Not only that, I was running out of time. I was 15 and it would be hard for me to get help when I became an adult at 18, especially if I kept hurting people. So my mom decided to put me into a long term in-patient facility that the state would pay for under the condition that she grant them temporary custody.
This was my big turning point. I was put into a facility that was split into a few houses filled with boys of a similar age, 14-17, with daily doctor appointments and checkups from nurses and on-site staff. There was constant supervision and kids with far worse anger outbursts than I had ever had.
During the first week, they took me off of all of my medication, including the medication that regulated my sleep. I have no sleep cycle at all, especially back then. So I didn't sleep for 3 days and then only a couple of hours per day after that. The only thing I could do was meditate and think while my mind wheeled from exhaustion and I tried to keep myself from lashing out. I got so lost in my thoughts that all of the anger and dysphoria hit me but felt like a fantasy at the same time. I didn't know how to feel about it, or what I should do, so I wrote what I wanted and dreamed beyond all hope that it would just happen. Of course, it never did, things don't work that way, and it killed me.
All of my anger evaporated with that hope that I spent, and I started planning what I wanted to do with everything I'd learned about myself. I still felt like I couldn't come out. Despite not being angry anymore, I felt like there wasn't any way I could do it with how much of a mess my family's lives were. I'd taken up so much of it over the past four years and there was still so much going on, everything was always a fight to do, and I was still just tired. So I made my goal to move out, explore myself, and then come out. That way I could transition on my own, and not worry about starting more messes around me.
That all worked out in my head in the first two weeks or so, after that I fell into step, just like I did at the hospital. I knew what I needed to do after that and just followed the motions. There were hiccups, of course, I'm surrounded by teenage boys as a closeted trans girl, some of the interesting ones are listed below.

The showers​

I didn't shower for 3 weeks. The showers in the last house I was in didn't have doors. It was an open doorway to the room itself with 2 stalls and curtains. Of course, anyone going in an occupied stall would be punished, and the second stall was rarely used while the first one was in use, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Eventually, I got bad enough that I started to get a rash, so I broke down and took a shower. I only ended up taking 6 more showers while I was there over 3 months.

Hairy legs​

I've always been big, tall, and hairy. I have my dad to thank for the 4-inch hairs that used to grow on my arms and legs. For whatever reason, everyone was comparing leg hair when I woke up one morning. I started getting heckled about mine because despite it being early autumn, and very hot, I always wore pants. Not wanting to deal with it I lifted my pants leg to show leg hair at least twice as thick as anyone who was comparing at the time. #IwinNowLeaveMeAlone

Fake Food​

Unrelated to being trans I had a case of actual paranoia, I somehow convinced myself that the food they served was somehow "fake" and would make me sick. This was at the cafeteria at the last house I was moved to. So it wasn't the entire time I was there, but it was still a significate amount of time. I know it was real food now, I remember seeing them bring it in on carts. It was canned, or in frozen bags, or even the actual chunk of meat, but something tasted off to me the first time I ate it and was convinced from then on. So my mom brought me trail mix, and for 3 months that's all I ate.