I feel that I should preface this by warning questioning people that looking for signs is generally not a good way to find out if you’re trans. Different people experience being trans in different ways.
Thank you lady_scarecrow for the above disclaimer. Very good advice ❤️
I could never explain why I always wore long sleeves and pants when I went to school. I don’t think there was a single day where I went to school in shorts, and not a single day I went to school without long-sleeves (some days I would wear short-sleeve shirts but I would bring a long sleeve shirt to put over it). I felt exposed and uncomfortable otherwise. I was a good student, but the only class I did poorly in was gym because they graded you based on whether you dressed according to dress-code, and I refused because it required changing into shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt in a locker room full of boys. I tried it a couple times but just couldn’t keep doing it. I think the teachers thought I was just defiant or something, but I was meek and just uncomfortable.
I remember being in third grade and wearing a literal winter coat to school every day in the heat of summer (this being in the south). I remember being extremely sweaty and uncomfortable on the bus rides especially where it was crowded and there wasn’t AC, but I never took that coat off.
I never understood why I always felt ashamed of my body and wanted to cover every part of it. Before realizing I am trans I thought maybe I had a repressed memory of sexual abuse or something, but now it makes more sense to me why I had that kind of relationship to my body.
This was me. Oh my god I always needed my clothing to cover as much as possible. Always hated shorts because I thought my legs were disgustingly hairy (not really) and I needed to wear a hoodie everywhere. No matter how hot it was.
Strangely I hid my legs before the hair started coming in, but I do think it got more intense after that.
I guess that’s another memory / thought that didn’t make sense until after transition. When hair started to come in on my legs when I was a teenager, I really didn’t like it and started shaving it, despite also feeling insecure about my masculinity and wishing I were like the other boys in my puberty (which was coming too late and too weak to keep up). I wanted to be normal and that was more important, but I still hated the changes that came with male puberty (though I didn’t think of it that way, I didn’t really contextualize it, I just instinctively shaved it until I felt I couldn’t keep getting away with it).
I did the same thing basically. Also started shaving my arms for a while because they got to a point where they seemed “too” hairy. Stopped and had to play boy when I got made fun of for it. 😓