Too young, too old.

Someone wrote…

It seems that half of the people who I talk to tell me that I’m too young to know that I’m trans and the other half tell me that I’m too old to just now be figuring it out.

What’s your experience?

And what are you thinking about gender right now?


Posted by on October 7th, 2010 at 08:00 am

Category: your voice 18 comments »

18 Responses to “Too young, too old.”

  1. Jenn

    Agreed, but my issue is with being genderqueer. Still, everyone expects something..

    [Reply]

  2. Sam

    This is exactly what happens to me!

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  3. Tamworth

    oh my god being trans and teenage is HORRIBLE. (I’m kind of assuming you’re a teenager here because this is definitely the stupid kind of in-between age that’s so often used both as a “you’re too old” and a “you’re too young” argument.) D:<

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  4. Dazza

    I have this as well. Everybody says I’m “too young” to make such a big decision, and that I never showed any signs anyways. It’s ridiculous, especially if you went about it considerately as most of us have, reached out, asked questions.

    People’ll argue anything to prove you wrong – and why? Why can’t they just listen and respect your opinion? It is you. You know yourself best mate.

    [Reply]

  5. James

    Reading this actually makes me feel a bit better…lately I’ve come to identify as trans (in my own head anyway) but I’m afraid of telling people (mostly my parents) in part because it wasn’t obvious in my childhood…I mean sure, I played with Barbies (although my favorite game was “Barbie suicide), but what my parents don’t get is that I also longed to be a boyscout with all my heart. Even coming out as gay, my mom had trouble believing it because “I was so girly as a kid”. I mean, I pretty much figured out my sexual preference and gender identity at puberty, which as I understand it isn’t uncommon. And although I haven’t had the “too young” comment (I’m 15), I can only imagine the frequency with which that must occur for those of you who are under 18 (or perhaps even in your 20s) and out as trans…sorry for the long comment and I know it’s a wee bit of a different topic, but I really identify with the whole “too old to just now be figuring it out” thing, so thank you for saying it!

    [Reply]

    Trevor replied:

    I KILLED MY BARBIES, TOO!

    On a more serious note, I get the too girly as a kid argument ALL the time. So I played with dolls. So did my cousin Gus. So I wore dresses. My brother had a purple tutu that he wore on more than one occasion. They weren’t even pressured into doing these things like I was and yet it doesn’t undermine their identity as straight boys because they’re cisgendered. The men in my family aren’t super masculine. Why should I have to be to be considered male? It’s not fair.

    And deep down I also longed to be a boy scout. (I tried to sign up for cub scouts.)

    [Reply]

    James replied:

    An excellent point…my brother wore dresses and barrettes in his hair while playing dress up, hated getting his hands dirty, and slept in mom’s bed until he was about 10…yet is totally accepted as a hetero cis-gendered male. I wonder if my parents would believe him if he came out as trans? Meanwhile, I rode around on my stick-horse brandishing swords, loved playing Indians, cowboys, Batman! True I did things like watch princess movies, but my favorites were Nightmare Before Christmas and Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. I just remember having a fairly balanced childhood gender-role wise…but apparently my mom remembers differently…

    And by the way, how unfair is it that girls can’t join boy scouts??? Girl scouts don’t get to shoot BB guns or anything!!!

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    Trevor replied:

    My parents like to remember a false childhood for me, too. I had all guy friends, I got dirty, played rough, picked boys toys when I had a choice, got in fights and caught bugs and frogs, but all my mom seems to recall is that I did it wearing pink. And about girl scouts: I know, right? I think I dropped out when they tried to make me make the shiny pink scrap book on the third meeting or so. Boy scouts even kick out kids for being gay, though, so it seems that I’ll never be one.

  6. James

    One of the guys in my cabin at summer camp was trying to convince me to join his boy scout den and I kept telling him it doesn’t work that way hehe. I was never a boy or girl scout, never played any sports…electing instead to stay inside playing video games!

    The main problem I have with getting people to believe I’m trans (I hate to even type that sentence! Why can’t people just believe that you know your own body and mind???) is the fact that I’m not a tough guy, I’m more of the gentlemanly stay-inside-and-read-a-book type, usually. The childhood thing is so complicated, especially because although I was rather un-feminine up until about 5th grade (albeit kind of a crybaby) once I hit middle school I started dressing MEGA fem, which as far as I can tell was some sort of over-compensation thing. I developed pretty severe depression over those few years…there’s really no comparison between the quality of my life then and now.

    (Whoops, meant for this to be a reply to Trevor, oh well…)

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    Anonymous replied:

    “The main problem I have with getting people to believe I’m trans (I hate to even type that sentence! Why can’t people just believe that you know your own body and mind???) is the fact that I’m not a tough guy, I’m more of the gentlemanly stay-inside-and-read-a-book type, usually.”

    Damn I feel the same :( some people don’t believe me because they think I’m “girly” just because I don’t like the male rodel that society seems to offer today.

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  7. Trevor

    It’s freaky how much everything you just said applies to me, too. I tried dressing really femme-y sometime in middle school and I was so bad at it. I had no idea what I was doing. My outfits were always super ugly and never matched or fit right. Despite the whole female body thing I somehow managed to always look like I was in drag, though not as much as I felt like I should.

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    James replied:

    We have a lot in common…

    Yeah the feminine thing didn’t come naturally to me either…I did get a pretty good hold on what was considered attractive, how to do my makeup, etc. by 8th grade but…like I said, very unhappy. Oh, and I was REALLY, overly sensitive about comments that implied I was boyish, gay-looking, or anything less than the feminine ideal. I suppose I was so sensitive because I knew they were right.

    Do you get the whole “frustrating how I am far too masculine as a girl, and yet feel too feminine as a guy” thing? Cause that’s a big one for me…

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    Anonymous replied:

    Me too :( I dressed and put make up on like a man in drag XDDDD and was scared but secretly happy when someone thought I was boyish

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    Trevor replied:

    Yes! They even recognize that my levels of femininity and masculinity are just who I am, but I’m much too feminine to be a boy and much to masculine to be a girl and, yet, when I mention the term genderqueer they balk. Not that I really identify as genderqueer.

    [Reply]

  8. anta

    I feel that when people are saying that you’re too young or too old they’re mostly saying they can’t deal with it. They never saw it? Can’t be there!

    When I first came out as trans to my mother, her reply was: “Are you sure? You could be wrong!” Yeah, it’s not like I’d given the thing too much thought. Just popped into my head and proceeded right out of my mouth.

    My mother’s second argument was that I had had it way too easy in my life to be trans. Because trans people all have terrible problems in their personal life, get depressed and attempt suicide way before they ever leave comprehensive school, y’know? I had great grades, and I even graduated upper secondary (with honours)!

    Never mind the fact that I was bullied all through adolescence and was plotting to kill my self at least through ages 14-17. I just didn’t tell her (because I didn’t want her to worry), so it didn’t happen and it can be used to invalidate my identity. It’s like magic.

    I can’t be bothered by this anymore. It’s just too absurd.

    [Reply]

  9. Ariel Silvera

    I was worried about this when I was first coming out, at 26. What I learned?

    No matter your age, it’s the right age if it feels right for you.

    [Reply]

  10. Anonymous

    I remember barbies…My aunt got me a giant, pink, glittery Barbie suitcase full of them. I took off their clothes and chopped off their hair and hid them away…using the suitcase instead to tote around plants and dirt and bark and things to play “alchemist.”

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  11. Jessica

    You’re never too young to be right and never too old to be wrong. Lots of people will tell you all kinds of things about yourself – they’re full of shit, but they may sincerely care about you and think they’re doing things for your benefit.

    Sometimes you just have to go under cover and let them have some convenient fantasy about you. You can be yourself more and more as you get older and have more possibility of independence. Relax, be understanding.

    [Reply]


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